Scene 139

(Scene opens outdoors, sound of traffic, birds, etc.)

BUT: So, I see we’ve got the sound effects thing figured out.

PAZ: So, that’s what the inside of a warehouse is supposed to sound like?

BUT: I was being sarcastic for Christ’s sakes.

MIK: Oh, faith and a lamb, we can’t take the Lord’s name in vain! Sure and I’d rather you cut me legs off at the knee with a nail file and stomp me to death with me own feet.

PAZ: I don’t think that will be necessary, Mike. Maybe we could just apologize…

MIK: Oh, apologizing is it? I’d rather you cut off me head and spun it around quick so’s I could watch me own headless body drop to the ground.

BUT: Doesn’t that seem a bit excessive, Mike?

MIK: Excessive? EXCESSIVE? To please the Lord? Excessive would be to have you take down the crucifix from the wall and have me do this and you ram it…

ALL: WE GET THE IDEA, Mike!

BLI: Why does he have to be so gross all the time?

BUT: He’s just passionate about the way he feels, I guess.

PAZ: Getting back to this warehouse…

(SFX: Cattle, jets, babies crying, typewriters, car racing, bird songs)

BLI: Lookout! That number 43(or whatever is Tony Stuart) car almost hit me.

PAZ: Better luck next time.

BLI: Shut up Pazlo. You wouldn’t want to end up in the bread line.

PAZ: Bread line, soup line, buffet line…as long as it’s food. We haven’t eaten for like 12 or 15 scenes.

BLI: Most of us.

PAZ: Okay, Mike. We need you to lead us to where they were keeping the guy locked up.

MIK: Aye. Right down this corridor to the elevator. Through these doors here…

(SFX: music, sirens, anything but a door opening)

BUT: Great sound effects.

BLI: That’s what you get for hiring Sunbright rejects.

PAZ: I didn’t know Stewart came from Sunbright.

BLI: That’s not all you don’t know, too.

MIK: Now it gets pretty dark down in here, sure as yer born.

PAZ: What does that mean, exactly “Sure as you’re born”? I mean, you wouldn’t be talking to me if I wasn’t born.

MIK: You see the wisdom in it, then. A fine boy.

BUT: All these doors look the same. How do you know where Marsh is being held?

MIK: Well, it’s down here somewhere, sure enough. I’d stake me own name on it. I’d stake me brother’s name on it. But not my father’s. Oh, he was a no-account bastard from the old days. Thought nothin’ of keepin’ us kids squirreled away in that house, isolated.

BUT: Well, you were home-schooled in a mansion. It’s not exactly like it was tough on you.

MIK: Oh, the days on end! Breakfast, lessons, nap, lunch, lessons, supper. Over and over. Torture!

PAZ: That pretty much describes like an idyllic life…

MIK: But if you lived it! Rather I’d have you pull my intestines out through my nose and make me smell ‘em.

PAZ: Oh, God, here we go.

MIK: Rather you sawed off my arms and beat me to death with them.

BUT: Okay, Mike. Maybe you could stop there.

MIK: Better you chop off my leg and sharpen it like a spear and jam it far up…

ALL: THANK YOU, Mike.

PAZ: We, uh, get the idea.

BLI: Get the idea? It’s gross! Why is he so gross?

BUT: It’s a cultural thing, I guess.

(SFX: A ship’s bell, boat whistle, tires screeching)

BLI: Look, the door is opening. Not that you could tell by the SOUND EFFECTS!

PAZ: Alright, everybody freeze!

MORitorium: Stay right where you are or you won’t get hurt!

BUT: You mean “Stay where you are or you WILL get hurt.”

MOR: What? Are you prepared to not die?

PAZ: You mean “Are you not prepared to die?”

BUT: No, I don’t think that’s it.

PAZ: Sure, it’s like a double-negative.

MOR: Silence! Morons!

BLI: Don’t lump me in with them. This is just my day job. I’m not gonna die for it.

PAZ: I’ll kill you for that myself!

MOR: Stop! Shut up! I am the great and powerful…no that’s trite. Wizard of Oz. I AM Professor Moritorium. You shall…

BLI: Wait, wait. The fat guy’s talking, I can’t hear.

PAZ: Probably the bad sound effects.

MOR: How am I supposed to make my big entrance if you guys keep walking all over my lines?

MIK: I guess you shoulda thought about that before you married the Devil, eh?

ALL: What?

MIK: As my dear sainted mother would say: “Close the damned door you stupid kids!”

(SFX: door slamming)

BUT: So, all of a sudden you get the right sound effects?

PAZ: Who turned out the lights?

(SFX: a fight ensues, breaking glass, maybe a gunshot)

BLI: Help! Help! I’m being repressed! (gagged, mumbling: mum mum mum)

PAZ: Alright. Do you really think they had to write out “mum mum mum” for Blinds mumbling.

BUT: Well, he doesn’t do well without stage direction. His ad-lib skills are weak.

PAZ: Yeah, but “mum mum mum”? I mean, how about “Gning mnm mummavum”? Now there’s some creative writing.

MIK: Don’t look now, but I think your sister’s been nabbed by those goons!

PAZ: My sister? Blinds? This isn’t another plot twist, is it?

BUT: Paz, they’re taking Blinds!

MIK: Blinds? But there’s not window one in this place, lad.

BUT: No, Blinds the twittering dingbat who doesn’t know what you’re doing here.

PAZ: Do you think Blinds could really be my sister?

BUT: Well, he was adopted. Anyways…we better get after those goons before Blinds is killed!

PAZ: Wait! You can’t do that to my sister! I’ll kill ‘em.

MIK: Aye! Murder’s a sin, son. You can’t be talking like that! Surely I’d rather have my ears cut off and taped to a fire siren ‘til I was deaf, rather than hear you talk like that.

BUT: Oh, geez.

MIK: Rather you’d pop out my eyes and set my head on fire and blind me with the flames as I watch.

PAZ: Okay, Mike. We get that you’re serious about it.

MIK: I’d rather you took a Bosch Bulldog Hammer drill with an 18-inch mortar bit, about three-quarters inch diameter, and set that thing on hammer and take it and put it right…

ALL: OKAY! OKAY! Thank you, Mike.

PAZ: Blinds was right. He is kinda gross.

BUT: Well I didn’t hire him, so don’t look at me.

PAZ: Wait. How do those two things fit together? What’s the correlary?

BUT: What?

PAZ: You didn’t hire him, and I can’t look at you. Why the two concepts stuck together? What happens if I look at you? (pesty) I’m looking at you. See? Look, look, look, look

BUT: Yup. Real mature.

PAZ: Na-na-na-na-na…I’m still looking at you. Still looking! Still…

(a brief pause followed by the sound of someone falling ten feet onto junk you’d have outside a studio)

BUT: You should have been looking where you were walking. (Shouting) Alright, I’m taking off after Blinds and the goons. Maybe you’ll catch up?

PAZ: (voice distant): Yep. I’m okay! It’s alright. I’m alright! Just a little blood. Or is that taco sauce?

BUT: Oh, boy. Now if I can get this crazy car started. Zuzu? Start the engines.

ZUZ: There is only one engine, Mr.Butto.

BUT: Well, start the engine then. I gotta go!

ZUZ: Do you wish me to wait until after you’ve relieved yourself?

BUT: Not that kinda go. We need to make tracks! Go! After those goons!

ZUZ: Where do you want to make tracks? Or did you mean “record tracks”?

BUT: No, I mean let’s go! After those goons!

ZUZ: Did you mean “loons”?

BUT: Goons! Bad guys! Go! After them!

ZUZ: Bad guys go after goons? Please rephrase your question in the form of a question.

BUT: Can we go now?

ZUZ: Yes.

(silence)

BUT: So… going now? Come on. You can do it!

ZUZ: Do you wish to accelerate toward the loons?

BUT: Toward the GOONS! Yes! Accelerate.

(SFX: rocket engines, screeching tires, noise galore, super-speed Zuzu tearing down the road)

BUT: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

(Zuzu & screaming Butto fade off into the distance)

PAZ: Wow. That only hurt a lot. Say, where is everybody?

STEWART: They went to look at the loons with Mr.Butto.

PAZ: Loons? Like Blinds?

STE: Yes.

MIK: It looks like your friends held onto your friend and took off with your friend.

PAZ: Yes, I…wait a minute…I don’t have any friends! You’re an imposter!

MIK: No impasto, no. I dabble a bit in oils, but mostly it’s watercolors. After me kinsman, Frank Clark.

PAZ: As in Frank Clark’s Paint Box? You know Frank Clark?

MIK: Oh, me and Frank go way back. We were in third grade together. Yes, plenty of afternoons on the hall bench. Plenty of recesses spent being whacked with a ruler.

PAZ: Your teachers hit you with a yardstick?

MIK: No a ruler! Sometimes it would be Queen Elizabeth, sometimes Sheik Ahmad.

PAZ: (narrating:) Now I really needed a plan. Actually, I needed a plan a lot earlier. I mean a plan for the plot. Not a health plan. Pots and pans. A man with a plan. Stan the plan-man…

STE: Mr.Pazlo?

PAZ: Scan the land for a plan man. Making a plan. Planning.

STE: Excuse me, Mr.Pazlo?

PAZ: Yes, Stewart. What is it? You’re interrupting our recording session here, y’know.

STE: Yeah, the session ended about five minutes ago. We need to clear the studio for the jingle people.

PAZ: The Jango People? From the Amazon? My dear old friend Garza?

STE: JINGLE! JINGLE! The people who sing the jingles, from Sunbright.

PAZ: Sunbright? What are they doing here?

STE: Well, they’re remodeling over at Sunbright. New lights, windows, Blinds.

BLI: I’ve been kidnapped, Stewart, not installed at Sunbright.

PAZ: Wait! Why would we let people from Sunbright use our studio? They’re our direct competition! What jingles are they recording?

STE: Billy Fermento’s. And Mom Mocady’s Taco and Small Arms Stand. And Presto.

PAZ: Oh. Um…I gotta go.

STE: Okay. But what about these air ferns?

Mr. Pazlo?

Mr.Pazlo? Hello?

ANNOUNCER: Perhaps you’ll have the grave misfortune of joining us for our next exciting episode of The Adventures of Butto and Pazlo and also Blinds the flittering wheezbag.

STE: That’s a long title. Good thing we’re not on TV.

BLI: Who put in the flittering wheezbag bit? Wait ‘til I get my hands on ‘em. Where are you?

ANNC: We’d like to thank our sponsors for bringing us tonight’s episode. We’d like to, but we don’t have a sponsor since Sulphur-Wonder Polish dropped us like a hot potato.

BLI: Did you say potatoes? I love potatoes.

<SCENE END>