Kewpie Act I Flashcards
Clara: Besides, darling, if you go bankrupt, who’ll pay my poker debts?
(Enter) Where’s my pal, Ben?
Clara: Your pal Ben is around the corner in the barber shop.
O.K. Do me a favor, Gussie
Don’t call me Gussie.
I left my cab in the front of the house {italics- Mr Michaels}. Don’t let the kids jump on. (Exit)
Gus: I love when the night comes, for then I can wind my watch… and I love to wind my watch
(Enter angrily following Libby and Ben)
That Romanian phony!
Ben: Forget it.
I’ll take his head of his shoulders! You heard him call you a nance!
Ben: Because I was getting a manicure. Forget it.
Looka the kids hopping on the cab. (Knocks at window and yells Hey!”
Ben: Hear that? Pal o’ my cradle days calling me a lunatic! Can’t do it Clara. Got to keep the hair comb in place. Max worked an hour on it. But don’t I make a bum out of a hat! (Puts hat on again) Got the tickets, Kewpie?
Two on the north side.
Ben: Swell. Say, Leo, give my man Friday five dollars, will you?
It’s on the house.
Ben: Why wait mom? The world’s at our doorstep! (To Kewpie) Did you phone Post?
He’s coming up with a cameraman.
The news-reel man oughta be along any minute with his sound truck! (Doorbell rings)
Kewpie exists
Clara: Fun’s in the dictionary!
(Silently sullen until now): The cab’s waiting
Leo: Ben’s a good boy
Libby: I oughta know
Leo: Yes…(he exists with newspaper)
Kewpie (alone with Libby at last): He’s no money man
Libby: I married a man with a big future.
Good in the receiving department, but lousy in the shipping
Libby: Don’t pick on me!
You and that soft juicy body, like a mush melon.
You’re a hundred miles away!
Suppose I tell him what happened when he went to Europe?
Libby: He don’t believe such things about me. He’d throw you around for saying it.
Don’t you know he’s yellow in his heart? Get wise to that skyrocket: starts with a bang!
Libby: he’s the most handsome man I know.
A burnt out spark plug?
Libby: Stop picking on me!
You’re a little squab, and you laid right down in the sand with me, under the boardwalk.
Libby: So what?
Purely horizontal.
Libby: Did I say I was ice, with Ben running races the whole summer in Europe? It happened like that— down “the island,” the summer, the night and all the. I’m not sorry for a thing I done! Telling me— a cheap cab driver with a frozen phony side lines. You don’t drive no gold chariot, Kewpie.
I do, only you don’t see it, Mabel!
Libby: Don’t call me Mabel. You’re sore because he tells me **. You act like his best friend, but you’re the worst enemy—
Who said—?
Libby: You’ll knife him in the back!
Who said—?
Libby: well I’m telling you so you won’t start up again. For me Ben’s got a home tin with the bases full.
He got everything I ever laid my hands on.
Libby: Don’t tell me!
(Holding her): a sleeping clam at the bottom of the ocean, but I’ll wake you up. I’m through with the little wars: no more hacking, making a pound in a good day. Like old man Pike says, every man for himself nowadays, and when you’re in a jungle you look out for the wild life. I put on my Chinese good luck ring and I’m out to get mine. You’re the first stop!
