SCENE ONE
At rise: The moon casts a cool light
on a backyard ringed by an anemic
looking garden, some rusted lawn
chairs, a trash can and empty
clothesline. PAULETTE slips out of the
back door of the trailer wearing a
nightgown. She playfully bounces her
flashlight around as she inspects the
painted glow-in-the dark rocks by the
door and around her garden.
PAULETTE
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells...
(pauses, flashes the light into the garden and
picks up a beer bottle)
And one BEER bottle right in the middle! Denny?
(Tosses the beer can noisily into the trash can)
DENNY
(Denny yells from inside the trailer)
Who's that?
PAULETTE
Peter Peter Pumpkin eater
had a wife but couldn't keep her!
(stumbles into a trash can)
DENNY
(turning on a light in the trailer)
Paulette?
PAULETTE
Put her in a pumpkin shell...
DENNY
Why don't you just wake up the whole damn neighborhood and
we'll have a party!
PAULETTE
Oh, Denny please come out here and see our beautiful garden.
DENNY
It's the middle of the night.
PAULETTE
Pretty please with a cherry on top!
DENNY
Let me put my damn pants on, thank you. Which reminds me --
PAULETTE
That you love me?
DENNY
You are wearing some clothes out there aren't you?
PAULETTE
Of course, silly.
DENNY
Decent clothes?
(PAULETTE runs to put on a big volunteer
fireman's jacket hanging up)
PAULETTE
Lots of them.
DENNY
Well that's something.
PAULETTE
Now hurry before you miss the moon.
DENNY
Miss the moon! Jesus, I married one crazy woman. Miss the
moon.
PAULETTE
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a Spider and
Sat down beside her and frightened Miss (overlapping)
DENNY
DAMN! Ouch! Owww. Just who put these damn rocks right in the
middle of my feet?.
PAULETTE
Are you hurt?
DENNY
I'm just fine, except for a few broken toes, thank you.
PAULETTE
I am so sorry.
DENNY
So it was you.
PAULETTE
Just hold on to me and sit down here.
DENNY
Could you tell me why you put all those rocks out here?
PAULETTE
I thought we could paint them with that glow paint and put
them all along the garden path. I tried some already and I
put them by the door to dry.
(DENNY hobbles over to where PAULETTE is shining
the light on the shining rocks)
DENNY
And I walked right into them, thank you.
PAULETTE
But look at them. Aren't they wonderful?
DENNY
They sure are different?
PAULETTE
You'll see how nice they'll look when I'm finished. It will
look just like a ring of fire!
DENNY
And you want to put more of these out here?
PAULETTE
Oh yes. I want them the whole length of my garden.
DENNY
Paint them all different colors, huh.
PAULETTE
As many as they have. I just used what my parents had left in
their garage.
DENNY
And put them along this...wonderful... garden.
PAULETTE
Exactly!
DENNY
Why honey?
PAULETTE
So they would be pretty. And we could see them from the road
when we walked home at night -- or look down at them from
our window when we can't sleep. It would be special. A ring
of fire.
DENNY
It would be different.
PAULETTE
So what do you think?
DENNY
To be honest?
PAULETTE
Yes?
DENNY
They just look like painted rocks.
PAULETTE
Well they are rocks on the inside. They will always be rocks
on the inside. But we can make them into something special on
the outside and -- I would do it all myself. It wouldn't cost
anything much, I promise.
DENNY
I know you would do it Paulette, I just don't know why.
PAULETTE
If you love me, love me true.
Send me a ribbon, and let it be blue.
If you hate me, let it be seen,
Send me a ribbon, a ribbon of green.
DENNY
God knows I love you honey.
PAULETTE
Then you have to try to understand.
DENNY
Like why you're wearing my fireman's coat ...with not much on
underneath I see when I have told you over and over that it's
not safe around here.
PAULETTE
There's no one living near us. No one for miles. To see us,
or hear us...or visit.
DENNY
It wasn't two weeks ago Carter Brown's sister was taken right
from her front yard -- in the middle of the afternoon.
Paulette, it was daylight. And you know what they did to her.
PAULETTE
Everyone knows I belong to you. You told me that the very
first time you kissed me. You took my breath away when you
kissed me. You're mine forever, you said.
DENNY
Jesus, Paulette, you don't forget anything.
PAULETTE
I'm Denny's girl. That means something.
DENNY
Not as much as it used to.
PAULETTE
No one would dare hurt me.
DENNY
Some things a man can't stop.
PAULETTE
Those dressed in red and blue have lovers so true,
DENNY
Things change.
PAULETTE
Those dressed in green and white --- are forsaken in the
night.
(DENNY comes and holds her tightly)
DENNY
There's animals out there. Animals with no names.
PAULETTE
Shhhhhh!
(DENNY pushes PAULETTE to the ground and pulls
out a small gun from his pocket)
DENNY
Who's there?
PAULETTE
It's just an old owl. I hear him all the time.
(DENNY gets up and goes to put the gun back in
his pants as PAULETTE takes off the Fireman's
coat and hangs it back up)
DENNY
Hell, just took five years off me. Can you beat that? Ready
to shoot the shit out of an old owl.
PAULETTE
I thought you got rid of that.
DENNY
What honey?
PAULETTE
I thought we decided you were going to get rid of that gun.
DENNY
I'll get rid of mine when they get rid of theirs.
PAULETTE
That's not what you said.
DENNY
Soon as I get back to work and we get a decent place to live,
then I'll get rid of it. Hell, I'll even let you throw it
away. But right now I got to have one.
PAULETTE
Cross my heart and hope to die,
Cut my throat if I tell a lie.
(PAULETTE holds up the flashlight on her face)
DENNY
Hey, baby, you're going cut yourself on that old rusted
thing. Get yourself some of that lockjaw and the next thing I
know I'll be all alone. I couldn't stand being that. So tell
me, just what are you growing in this beautiful garden.
PAULETTE
Spices.
DENNY
Spices.
PAULETTE
Here's some for tea.
DENNY
Which I don't ever drink, thank you.
PAULETTE
And some for cooking.
DENNY
Macaroni cheese and beans, thank you twice and they don't
need spice.
PAULETTE
Shhhhhhh.
DENNY
Buying food with those damn coupons makes me sick. They look
at you like shit under their shoes when they can see they're
not going to be getting any real money. I hate it.
PAULETTE
It's just temporary, honey.
DENNY
You having a job is temporary -- like this garden. When we
move I'll get you a big yard and you can plant what you want.
PAULETTE
I thought it might be nice to grow something right from the
beginning. You know -- where you can watch the seeds grow
from scratch and nobody can take it away from you. I thought
it would be nice to do together. I thought you would like it.
DENNY
Nice is having a job, or a wife waiting for you ... nice is
not having some damn dried up old plants in front of an old
dump of a sardine can.
PAULETTE
Specks on the fingers, Fortune lingers; Specks on the thumbs,
Fortune comes.
DENNY
There's still a fortune to be made working those mills,
Paulette! I know I can outwork five of those Japs or Germans.
I got three generations of steel men in my blood.
PAULETTE
The plant's closed, Denny.
DENNY
That's just temporary, baby.
PAULETTE
That's not what they're saying in the newspapers.
DENNY
Aw, hell, Paulette, I told you not to read those lies. Those
newspaper people don't give a damn about me or John Senior or
you or Bertie. They just talk us down -- make us out to be
stupid and lazy fools or worse. We need those jobs and they
know it. It's not us that doesn't want to work. Without those
jobs we're nothing and they know that too. They want to break
us, right back down to our hands and knees, but that's not
the way we're going.
We can't let them win and they know that too. But you're not
going to hear the truth from them -- and you're NOT going to
read it in their newspapers cause those people are not on our
side. Never were and never will be.
PAULETTE
I hate when you talk that way Denny. It scares me.
DENNY
I talk the way it is.
PAULETTE
You make it sound like war.
DENNY
It is war. The one who wins -- wins everything. (overlap)
PAULETTE
But it can't --
DENNY
And the one who loses --
PAULETTE
Denny...
DENNY
Loses.
PAULETTE
Maybe we could just pick up and move away from here.
DENNY
Why?
PAULETTE
Maybe we could start all over again some place new.
DENNY
Where?
PAULETTE
Maybe I could go to college.
DENNY
(Pause) Oh. That again.
PAULETTE
Just for two years.
DENNY
I'm still the steel man around here, aren't I?
PAULETTE
I read about getting a degree and I would promise to work
really fast.
DENNY
You do believe in your steel man, don't you?.
PAULETTE
Of course I do, yes, always, but I really don't mind working.
DENNY
No, "buts" about it cause either you trust me or you don't. I
either no what's happening or I don't. And I know, believe
me, I go to the meetings. They're gonna take care of us. Both
of us. All of us. Where are you going?
PAULETTE
I'm going in now.
DENNY
I'm telling you they have to take care of us.
PAULETTE
Cock-a-doodle dooo!
DENNY
Paulette!
PAULETTE
My dame has lost her shoe.
DENNY
Why don't you believe me?
PAULETTE
My master's lost his fiddle stick and knows not what to do.
(DENNY swings her around and stops excitedly)
DENNY
Honey we invented steel and rubber, radio, TV and every other
fucking thing the world has that's any good. We are the
center of the universe. We have to be.
PAULETTE
I'm cold.
DENNY
No wonder. You're not wearing enough to keep a fly warm and
don't start telling me about how flies don't need to keep
warm, thank you.
(DENNY holds her very close)
Now that's a whole lot better than any fly will ever knew.
PAULETTE
(pulling away) I gotta go in now and finish reading my books.
They're overdue tomorrow.
DENNY
I thought you might stay up and watch a little TV with me.
PAULETTE
We can't afford any more fines, Denny.
DENNY
Don't you think I know what we can't afford.
PAULETTE
Oh, Denny, I'm sorry.
DENNY
(overlapping) No, I'm sorry, Paulette.
PAULETTE
Forgive me.
DENNY
No, it's always me, losing my head, shooting my mouth off.
PAULETTE
---Shhhhhh----
DENNY
I love you, baby. I'll always love you.
PAULETTE
I know. (Pause) I'm just feeling so scared.
DENNY
I'm scared too. Scared you and me are never gonna be close
again like we need to be. Like I want to be. Like you use to
want to be.
PAULETTE
I just need a little more time, Denny. (pulling away)
DENNY
Don't you see me growing' old right before your eyes? Am I so
bad to look at now you can't even stand being close to me?
PAULETTE
Please, you promised.
DENNY
'Cause I remember it was different. I remember that and I
know you can remember it too. If you wanted you could
remember too, Paulette.
Script created with Final Draft
© 1998 Halem Studios
Last updated September 1998
perl@sperlman.com