Jealousy

New basement flat. She
has two floors? One gray Siamese
in seven windows.

The Importance of Being Ernest (Hemingway)

(With apologies to E. Hemingway and Oscar Wilde.)

ACT ONE

SCENE: The scene is the sitting room of Algy's flat in Tijuana. The room is tastefully and somewhat artistically furnished. Two elephant guns form an archway UR, leads to the outer hall ... Rugs, several good paintings and the usual bric-a-brac, including a few trophies, leopards' heads, complete the setting.

AT RISE OF CURTAIN: Just before the curtain rises, grunting and the sound of punches into a bag are heard. When the curtain rises, LANE is arranging afternoon tea on the table C. After a few moments, the boxing stops and Algy saunters in.

ALGY (crossing LC) Punch me, Lane.
LANE (not pausing) It's not polite.
ALGY (shrugging) Did you cut the Cuban cigars for Lady Bracknell?
LANE Yes.
ALGY Did you drink eight quarts of my Tequila Wednesday?
LANE A pint, too.
ALGY The help always drink my hooch.
LANE Bachelors have it good.
ALGY Marriage is bad.
LANE I was married once.
ALGY I don't care.
LANE Me neither.

(Castenets click off L, afternoon light casts entire stage in red glow, a flamenco dancer trills his R's.)

(Lane enters UR and passes upstage of entrance.)
LANE (announcing) Mr. Ernest Worthing
ALGY Hello, Ernest.
JACK Hello.
ALGY Where have you been?
JACK Africa.
ALGY Well. Oh, why?
JACK Hunting.
ALGY What?
JACK Oh, tigers, tigers!
ALGY Are there any tigers in Tijuana?
JACK None that I can shoot. Why the whiskey, cigars? Is company coming?
ALGY Aunt Augusta and Gwendoline.
Jack Good.

(Lions roar in distance off L.)

Fragile and Precious Things ...

... need special handling. My Own Mattress aback a Ford pickup through downtown, River and Broad streets, ... naked as Lady Godiva!
Waking up on the sofa in a strange room, headlights bob through new curtains like willow th' wisps. To follow them out would be folly. We signed a year's lease.
The creak of unseen feet. A stranger lives upstairs.
But she has glorious tattoos and a hippie skirt, custody of an old roommate's elderly cat, a garden gnome and an electric organ (we can hear through the floor). She also offered pity for all the Stuff she saw through a window, jammed into the front room. "Yea." Sigh. Hey -- at least it's inside. We're moving it around like one of those sliding-tile games. (But with two empty squares, where our beds are.)
Off we go in search of dusty purple paint for the bathroom. Bachelorettes with a poster of the Raconteurs in the living room.