Episodes

pt 17: CANYONS

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Scampi: Today I would like to speak about Natural History.

 

Peter: I can hardly contain my anticipation.

 

Scampi: Natural History is all about birds, fish, the tips of trees that you cannot see because you are on the ground, and the human heart, that maudlin manic fist.

 

Peter: It does not take a top-notch prepschool education to disprove such nonsense.

 

Scampi: Peter, why don’t you open up your ribcage and breathe in some possibilities? You are behaving like a sucking chest wound.

 

Peter: I often have difficulty with the imagery you employ.

 

Scampi: We are all eminently employable, at heart.

 

Peter: Can I mention something about science fiction classics here?

 

Scampi (graciously): Yes. Now, on to brighter climes. Existence, like being a waitress, is a dance. It is a waltz, it is a foxtrot. It is a moshpit, and a bathroom overdose on the side, and it is a prayer, a softshoe jazz routine and a humble request to not fall over, please. It is a pickup truck, for god’s sake. It’s all a dance. Give me your hand.

 

Peter: You may look at it, but you can’t keep it.

 

Scampi: Peter’s fingers are surprisingly slender. I have known men with longer, thinner fingers than this, but those fingers were attached to longer, thinner men.

 

Peter: Are you insinuating something about my appearance?

 

Scampi: I insinuate nothing. I am toxic with infatuation.

 

Peter: Oh?

 

Scampi: From the solar system right on down to the paint scraper in my pocket, I am idiotically infatuated with this world. You have no idea. It even hurts. It hurts like your stomach hurts when you’re laughing so hard you can’t breathe, but you still can’t stop. That’s how I feel about this world.

 

Peter: Hurt?

 

Scampi: Don’t mind if I do.

pt 12 ½: SUMMER STORMS (OR, HOW SCAMPI AND PETER ARE TRANSPARENT, LIKE ACETATE)

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Scampi: What do you call it when the air snaps and cracks – is that electricity, or dust?

 

Peter: Uh.

 

Scampi: You know what I mean. Don’t you? You do. You know – when the air makes that sort of crackling noise, like static on a carpet.

 

Peter: When dust particles suspended in the air have sunlight passing through them they look kinda crackly. Or, um, fireflies? Is that what you mean?

 

Scampi: No.

 

Peter: I have only ever experienced what you’re describing subjectively, before a thunderstorm.

 

Scampi: Oh.

 

 

Scampi: Are you asleep?

 

Peter: No. Reading.

 

Scampi: I am watching the spectacles on your nose. They are sitting like, right at the end. And your hair on your forehead, like a young man.

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: When your hair is on your forehead like that, it makes you look more like a younger man, or maybe someone from a hundred years ago.

 

Peter: That would make me an older man.

 

Scampi: Shut up. That’s not what I meant.

 

Peter: Did you just tell me to shut up?

 

Scampi: No. Cross that out.

 

Peter: [Scampi: Shut up.]

 

Scampi: You know what’s really stupid? Feminist organisations that are stuck in some stupid thing like the second wave, or maybe the third. Wait, what wave are we on now?

 

Peter: Well—

 

Scampi: Like some dumb feminist organisation in 1997. I hate that shit.

 

Peter: Why did you decide you hate 1997 feminist organisations today?

 

Scampi: That’s not what I said. That was three weeks ago, in the morning. This is three weeks later, and it’s dark out.

 

PETER, QUIETLY READING, LETS IT GO.

 

Scampi: Do you want some potatoes? Or beets?

 

Peter: No.

 

Scampi: Because there are some.

 

Peter: Really?

 

Scampi: Yeah.

 

Peter: Are they delicious?

 

Scampi: Pretty much.

 

PETER GLOWS IN SCAMPI’S DIRECTION

 

Scampi: Are you pregnant?

 

Peter: (stares at his stomach, and makes it pop out more) Yes. I’m carrying our love child.

 

Scampi: Because you’re glowing.

 

Peter: I’m glowing? I shaved today.

 

Scampi: No, that’s not it.

 

PETER LEAVES THE ROOM.

 

PETER RETURNS.

 

Peter: Your potatoes and beets are internationally renowned for their deliciousness.

 

Scampi: (blush).

pt 45: PILOTS

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Scampi: Peter, did you know that Annie Oakley could split a playing card edge-on at a distance of ninety feet?

 

Peter: Who?

 

Scampi: With a twenty-two. You know, like a gun.

 

Peter: I would like to submit that I abhor violence.

 

Scampi: Yes yes. But she was a sharpshooter, like a marksman. Markswoman. In Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. No violence.

 

Peter: Hm.

 

Scampi: So, this playing card. Apparently Annie Oakley could put five or six more holes in it before it hit the ground.

 

Peter: So she didn’t like cards.

 

Scampi: This is a disingenuous response to what is in fact an extraordinary feat of hand-eye coordination. You know, what you use to play video games.

 

Peter: I do not.

 

Scampi: Sure.

 

SCAMPI SCOWLS AT PETER, MENACINGLY.

 

Peter: Did you just give me the finger?

 

Scampi: No. Jeez, go back to what you were doing.

 

PAUSE.

 

Scampi: What were you doing, anyway?

 

Peter (sighs): I am currently using my laptop to hack the mainframe.

 

Scampi: What?

 

Peter: Look, I’ll explain later.

 

Scampi: Fine. Be that way.

 

Peter (patiently): You will like it. I promise.

 

Scampi: Fine fine. Ok.

 

PAUSE.

 

Scampi: You know what else about Annie Oakley?

 

Peter: No. What else about Annie Oakley?

 

Scampi: She was married to a man.

 

Peter: Call the papers!

 

Scampi: I wasn’t finished. When she died, of pernicious anaemia, her husband stopped eating. Frank Butler. Which was his name. He just stopped eating, and he died eighteen days later.

 

Peter: Can you source any of these statements?

 

Scampi: Maybe you should go use your laptop to hack the mainframe of the Tree of Knowledge.

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: Nothing. Death is pernicious, isn’t it?

 

Peter (yawning): It certainly seems that way.

 

Scampi: I want a twenty-two.

 

Peter: I feel that this would likely cause great damage to yourself. Not to mention me.

 

Scampi: Says you.

 

Peter: Yes. This is what I say.

 

Scampi: Many years ago, when airplanes were new, what do you think they looked like?

 

Peter: I know what they looked like. One does not require, ahem, excellent research skills to procure images of the Wright Brothers in action, for example.

 

Scampi: No, I mean what do you think they looked like? To the people?

 

Peter: Like airplanes.

 

Scampi: But there weren’t any airplanes before.

 

Peter: Before?

 

Scampi: Before that. So they wouldn’t of looked like airplanes at all. They would’ve looked like something completely new.

 

Peter: Perhaps.

 

Scampi: I know what I know, Peter.

 

Peter: Wittgenstein—

 

Scampi: Stop! No philosophy!

 

Peter: SIGHS.

 

Scampi: I hate philosophy.

 

Peter: No comment.

 

Scampi (sotto voce): And I hate you.

 

Peter: What did you say?

 

Scampi: Nothing!

 

Peter: You know—

 

Scampi: No, really. Nothing at all. I was just, ah, thinking out loud.

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: Nothing.

 

Peter: I think you should get some sleep.

 

Scampi: Yeah ok. Goodnight, Peter.

 

Peter: Goodnight.

 

Scampi: Peter?

 

Peter: Yes?

 

Scampi: Do you think we’ll make it over the border?

 

Peter: Presumably.

 

Scampi: Ok.

 

Peter: Why?

 

Scampi: Just curious.

 

Peter: Ah.

 

Scampi: Peter?

 

Peter: Yes?

 

Scampi: What if we don’t?

 

Peter: Go to sleep.

 

Scampi: I am. But what if?

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: Nothing.

 

Peter: Sorry?

 

Scampi: Sorry. Nothing.

 

 

Scampi: Peter?

 

Peter: Uh-huh.

 

Scampi: Annie Oakley didn’t have anything against playing cards.

 

Peter: Ok.

 

Scampi: She was just being accurate.

 

pt 44: EL BATALLÓN DE SAN PATRICIO

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Scampi: You know what that is?

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: It’s Orion’s belt.

 

Peter: Yes. I did know that.

 

Scampi: I bet you haven’t seen the stars this clear in a million years.

 

Peter: Well,

 

Scampi: Oh, don’t start tabulating. I’m just saying it’s pretty.

 

Peter: Yes.

 

Scampi: Have you ever heard of St. Patrick’s Battalion?

 

Peter: I have not.

 

Scampi: A bunch of them were Irish defectors from the U.S. Army.

 

Peter: When?

 

Scampi: A hundred and fifty years ago. There were African-American slaves, and Germans and other Roman Catholic types, too. They fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Yup. They were all granted Mexican citizenship, too.

 

Peter: Mm.

 

Scampi: Their flag was ultra-Irish. Green and gold with “Erin Go Bragh” on it.

 

Peter: Meaning?

 

Scampi: “Ireland forever.” You knew that.

 

Peter: Slightly.

 

Scampi: Americans said they were traitors. But the Mexicans said they were heroes.

 

Peter: That tends to be the way of things.

 

SCAMPI HUMS A SONG ABOUT HEROES.

 

Peter: Why are we doing this again?

 

Scampi: Because we can.