Four Cycle pt3: Prodigal Daughter by Drake Iowa

[LIGHTS UP. MONSTER is seated on the floor to the right of the table with his face in his hand as in the previous scene. He is missing a shoe, but this isn't revealed to the audience until later. OLD MAN is lying down in front of the table. TRUCKER sits in a chair behind the table. He is driving his truck. BUS DRIVER enters.]

BUS DRIVER

It was so dark in the woods he couldn't see. His mind was reeling. Otherwise the reek of the skunk would have kept him awake all night. The odor that lets you know that a skunk has been crushed on the road is unmistakable. Hopeless now, he lay down next to the place where the skunk smell seemed to originate.

[MONSTER moans, wringing his hands. The moan becomes a scream.]

The Monster's fists were finally beginning to register the fragments of gravel stuck in them.

[OLD MAN shakes nervously.]

His day was flashing before him. Finding that his taillight was out of stock, pounding his fists into the gravel, having his sister's biscuits and good coffee for breakfast, running over an old man in a sombrero, [TRUCKER winces, horrified.] noticing his high school sweetheart in the supermarket but not saying anything, putting gas in his truck, screaming, brushing his teeth, searching for the body of the old man, paying for his parking meter, pinching his nose down to a pinhole to follow the skunk smell, calling a friend who had a backhoe, and now lying down by a roadkilled skunk, far from any road.

[OLD MAN sits up a little.]

He ought to shut off the truck. He ought to call the sheriff about the accident. He ought to find the old man who wore a sombrero at night. But he'd never get back to the road in the dark.

[OLD MAN lies back down.]

To say that the Monster fell asleep would not be as accurate as to say that he blacked out from it all, and the Monster did not regain consciousness for several days.

He woke up to the sound of an engine too big to be a pickup. There was a horn tooting and the sound of metal panels rattling.

[MONSTER sits up, opens eyes, squints.]

His vision was blurry, but he found his way to the noisy machine. It was dawn, and he navigated the woods without colliding with any trees. The thing turned out to be a bus.

[BUS DRIVER sits down behind the table.]

[To MONSTER.] What size?

[MONSTER stares blankly at BUS DRIVER for a moment.]

Your shoes. Twelve? I can't letcha on the bus without shoes on your feet. That's the law. Health and safety. You a twelve?

[MONSTER nods.]

[Shouted, to the 'bus passengers'.] Anyone have a spare right shoe? Men's twelve?

[To MONSTER.] We'll getcha taken care of. I hope you're in no hurry. I respect the speed limits.

[MONSTER stares at BUS DRIVER for a moment.]

MONSTER

Thank you.

[BLACKOUT]