Four Cycle : pt4, The Pungent Trucker by Drake Iowa

[LIGHTS UP. YOUNG MAN and YOUNG WOMAN are seated at table, drinking coffee, enjoying the respite of the evening after a hard day's work.]

YOUNG WOMAN

Did you hear something? Is there someone at the door?

[YOUNG MAN gets up from table and walks to the curtain, stage right. OLD WOMAN enters, facing him.]

OLD WOMAN

Hi there. Sorry to interrupt you. I'm not selling anything.

YOUNG MAN

Oh. Are you hunting?

OLD WOMAN

No. Sorry. See, I was... About fifteen years ago, I lived in that old white farmhouse down the road.

YOUNG MAN

You don't say. Come in, come in. Meet my wife. [to YOUNGWOMAN] Honey, this woman lived in the farmhouse down the road. The one where the fire was.

YOUNG WOMAN

You don't say!

YOUNG MAN

[to OLD WOMAN] Been a lot of excitement over there lately.

OLD WOMAN

Excitement?

YOUNG WOMAN

[getting up, offering OLD WOMAN a seat] You know that telephone operator that spoke Spanish? The one from the tapes?

YOUNG MAN

Start at the beginning.

YOUNG WOMAN

Well, I think it was two months ago - would you like coffee?

[OLD WOAMAN shakes head no.]

A Mexican came in here...

YOUNG MAN

He spoke Spanish, anyhow.

YOUNG WOMAN

He came in here screaming in Spanish, and he was pointing at that old house. Your old house. He said something that sounded like emergency and telephone, so I dialed for him and asked if they had any operators who spoke Spanish, and they put on the sweetest girl. Turns out she was the girl from the news, with the tapes. The man chattered away with that girl for hours, even though the fire trucks were here and gone in less than sixty minutes.

YOUNG MAN

Those firemen came over here.

YOUNG WOMAN

The firemen came over not long after they got to that house. All seven of them. They tromped onto the porch there, and the chief told us the fire was all burned out when they got there already.

OLD WOMAN

Burned out?

YOUNG WOMAN

They said there was just some metal, some springs I guess. He thought it must have been a la-z-boy burned down.

OLD WOMAN

There's a black place on the wood in the living room floor. We never had any carpet on account of the old man's allergies.

YOUNG WOMAN

Well, so that Mexican chatted with the girl all night. I stayed up with him at first, but he just kept on going. He finally was drinking my coffee by then. Though he might've done better not to.

YOUNG MAN

I went to bed early.

YOUNG WOMAN

But it got so late. I think it was three when I finally just took faith and went to bed with him still chattering. And when we got up and went to work, there he was, still talking to her.

YOUNG MAN

We both went to work and just left him here.

YOUNG WOMAN

So who knows how long they talked. But when we got back in the evening, he was finally asleep.

YOUNG MAN

With the phone off the hook. She carried him upstairs.

YOUNG WOMAN

He was just a little guy. Light as a baby. So I put him in the guest bed.

YOUNG MAN

Tell her about the pickup truck.

YOUNG WOMAN

When we got up in the morning, the top of the Mexican guy's pickup truck was sheared off like it'd gone under a low bridge. It was really weird since we were pretty sure he slept the whole night

YOUNG MAN

We were scared he'd think we did it.

YOUNG WOMAN

Well who else would you think. But when he saw it, he looked really excited. He said something about hospitality. And he gave us a gold watch and a good stereo.

YOUNG MAN

The watch is real gold, but it's a fake Rolex. It's a good stereo.

YOUNG WOMAN

Now where are you staying, ma'am?

OLD WOMAN

Well, I spent last night at the house. My ex just dropped me off there. It's a little tough cause there's no electric or phones.

YOUNG WOMAN

If you spent the night there you must have heard the noise, right?

OLD WOMAN

The harvester?

YOUNG WOMAN

It's harvesting the fields over there. Nobody owns 'em now. So who knows who's driving that thing. Thing is, it started pretty soon after the Mexican left in that sheared off pickup of his.

OLD WOMAN

You think the Mexican's harvesting my old fields?

YOUNG WOMAN

I wouldn't blame him. Be a shame to let fields like that go to waste. Thing is, I never saw that pickup again. Or any other strange cars either. Hunters, but that's it.

OLD WOMAN

Do you suppose I could use your phone? There's some other things, but I wondered - maybe I'd call the sheriff and see if I can ask that girl what the Mexican said.

[awkward pause]

I mean, I don't want to be a bother. Just that the phone's out at the house.

YOUNG WOMAN

It's no bother, really. But the girl... You must remember the girl from the tapes? The one in the news?

[OLD WOMAN shakes head.]

Oh! Well, where to start.

YOUNG MAN

She's missing.

YOUNG WOMAN

She disappeared. They think it's a kidnapping because her tapes are missing too.

OLD WOMAN

What tapes?

[LIGHTS DOWN]