Peter

pt 34: PHILOSOPHAURUS REX

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Peter: Is the radio bothering you?

Scampi: I couldn’t care less.  It can’t be any worse than the static in my head.

Peter: This is not the fault of my radio.

Scampi: Nope.  I am reading about the constructivist approach to education.

Peter: [FOLDING SHEETS.] I much prefer the destructivist approach.

PETER LIFTS HIS ARMS LIKE A TYRANNOSAUR.

Peter: ARGH.  Children, today we will SMASH THINGS!

Scampi: Tee-hee.

Peter: We’ll start with THE STATE!

Scampi: That’s good.

Peter: [REFOLDING HIS SHEET.]  Thank you.

Scampi: Do it again.

Peter: No, no.

Scampi: [SIGHS.]

Peter: Pum-tum-pum-ta-tum.

Scampi: What do you call it when someone looks at you all funny?  Funny and mean?

Peter: Tum-pum-ta-tum-pum.

Scampi: Fish-eyes?  No, stinkeye.

Peter: Ha.

Scampi: Someone gave me the stinkeye.

Peter: Oh?  Who was it?

Scampi: Don’t you know?

Peter: No.

Scampi: I’m not telling.

Peter: You know what would be even more secretive than asking questions in this manner and then not answering them?

Scampi: What?

Peter: Not asking in the first place!

Scampi: Well, that’s not very nice.  Anyway, I did answer.

Peter: I disagree.

Scampi: Maybe you were just too busy humming to yourself to notice.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Should we talk about the Frankfurt school?

Peter: Should we what?

Scampi: Well, should we?

Peter: Why would we do that?

Scampi: I dunno.  It could make you appear more cultured.

Peter: I am highly cultured.

Scampi: Of course you are.

Peter: I am a highly cultured individual.

Scampi: Naturally.  I just thought we could expose that some more.

PETER CONSIDERS THIS.

Scampi: (aside) While Peter isn’t listening, I would like to point out that he knows a lot less than some about the Frankfurt school.  I bet he doesn’t even know where Frankfurt is.  Ha.  Haha.

Peter: What are you laughing about?

Scampi: Hee hee.

Peter: You’re nuts.

Scampi: Haw haw haw haw.  I bet you don’t even know where Frankfurt is!

PETER STOPS MIDWAY RUNNING HIS HAND THROUGH HIS HAIR.

Scampi: Hahahahaha.  Your hair!  You look like Einstein in the bath!

Peter: You sure have ants in your pants today.

Scampi: [respiratory difficulties] Oh, Peter.  You make philosophy accessible to us all.

Peter: [flustered.)  Well.

Scampi: Here.  Let me help you out with those sheets.

pt 111: FUITE EN AVANT

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Scampi: Forfooth!

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: Forfooth!  Haw haw.

Peter: I am not following.

Scampi: Get it?

Peter: Fourth hoof?

Scampi: On a tri-legged horse.  Ha.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: No, no.  “My fweete lady!”

Peter: Tweet?

Scampi: FWEET.

PETER STARES BLANKLY.

Scampi: See, the effs are esses.  Get it?

Peter: No.

Scampi: In an old-fashioned song. I am being a classical text.

Peter: Oh, of course.  A classical text.

Scampi: Look.

SCAMPI SPELLS IT OUT FOR POOR, SLOW PETER.

Peter: What are you saying about me?

Scampi: Nothing.  I haven’t said a thing.

Peter: I suspect this is untrue.

Scampi: Suspect?  Did you hear me say anything?

Peter: Not quite.

Scampi: Well then.

PAUSE.

Scampi: In the classical days, all the effs were esses.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: I mean, the other way around.  Are you even listening to me?

Peter: Yes.  My attention is currently centred on your fascinating discourse.

Scampi: Thank you.

Peter: YAWNS.

Scampi: How rude.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Did you know, it’s polite to cover your gigantic maw when you yawrp like that?

Peter: Oh, do excuse me.  You are, as usual, a beacon of social grace in the wild darkness of my neverending font of sloth.

Scampi: I certainly am.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Yes.  Today I feel like a hundred pieces of myself.  Like each of the leaves on the trees.  Which are falling.  The leaves are, I mean.  The trees are not.

Peter: What trees?

Scampi: The trees in the park, of course.

Peter: Ah yes.  They are not falling.

Scampi: No, they are not.  Unless you’re planning to chop them down.  I wouldn’t put it past you.

Peter: That was not a part of my plans.

Scampi: Really?

Peter: Really.

Scampi: So, you have plans?

Peter: What do you mean?

Scampi: You just said you did.

Peter: Did I?

Scampi: You said, “This was not part of my plans, to cut them parky trees down”.

Peter: Ahem.  I do not believe those were my exact words.

Scampi: That was the meat of it.

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: So, you have plans.  As you said yourself.

Peter: In an unspecific fashion, I suppose.

Scampi: What are you planning?

Peter: Uh.

Scampi: A coup d’état?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Oh, can I be in it?

Peter: I am not planning a coup.

Scampi: I would be great in it.

Peter: Doubtless.

Scampi: I could make all the posters.  I am very competent in bubble and three-dimensional lettering techniques.

Peter: Competent in bubble?

Scampi: Bubble letters.  They look like balloons.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: As you well know.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Sometimes I have a great urge to stare up at the night sky.

Peter: Well, don’t let me stop you.

Scampi: From what?

Peter: Observing the dome of heaven.

Scampi: At night.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: But it’s not night.

Peter: You are correct: it is not night.

Scampi: This makes it hard to see the stars.

Peter: You are chock-full of keen observations today.

Scampi: Who made you the big expert?

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Oh, nothing.  What are you doing tonight?

Peter: I’m busy.

Scampi: Want to observe the stars through the fractal trees?

Peter: I believe this is a misuse of the word “fractal”.

Scampi: You would.

PAUSE.

Scampi: It’s kaleidoscopic, how I feel.

Peter: Perhaps you should sit down.

Scampi: Perhaps I can feel your heartbeat.

Peter: This is highly unlikely, from across the room.

Scampi: We aren’t in a room.

Peter: I thought we were.

Scampi: I don’t think we are.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: We are in a field.

Peter: This is implausible.

Scampi: A field of stones.

Peter: A quarry?

Scampi: How dark.

Peter: You have something against quarries?

Scampi: Don’t you?  With a name like Peter.

Peter: No.

Scampi: What do you think the difference is, do you think?

Peter: I do.

Scampi: I mean the difference between the rocks being made and the rocks being broken.

Peter: [boomingly] Perhaps they are one and the same.

Scampi: There’s no need to narrate like that.  Perhaps they are one and the same.

Peter: I was not disagreeing.

Scampi: Sure, sure.  Like a broken plate.

Peter: I am like a broken plate?

Scampi: No, the mess is the same.  The mess of the pieces on the kitchen floor, and the mess of the plate when it was whole.

Peter: Pottery is a messy business.

Scampi: Ceramics.

Peter: A skilled trade.

Scampi: This whole thing.  It’s a messy business.

PAUSE.

Scampi: It’s a mess, Peter.

Peter: You seem agitated.

PAUSE.

Peter: Is it really necessary to stare like that?

Scampi: In fact, it is.

pt 97: FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW

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Scampi: Your nose is shimmering in the heat.

Peter: Hardly.

Scampi: It is.

Peter: I feel rather sluggish.

Scampi: Like a slug!  Ha.

Peter: Not slug-like.

Scampi: A briny, spotted sluggy.

Peter: As you wish.

Scampi: I wish.

Peter: Do you think my face looks different?

Scampi: No.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: If we are apprehended, will you stick up for me?

Peter: Why would we be apprehended?

Scampi: On our grand adventure.  Anything is possible.

Peter: I do not believe you need to worry.

Scampi: Famous last words.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Would you?

Peter: Be apprehended?

Scampi: Stick up for me.  You know, take my side.

Peter: I suppose that would depend on what you had done.

Scampi: What I had done?  What’s that supposed to mean?

Peter: Well, I don’t know what you’ve been apprehended for.  How do I determine whether or not I will take your part in the debate?

Scampi: Ridiculous.

Peter: Excuse me?

Scampi: You’re supposed to be my partner in crime.

Peter: I am not a criminal.

Scampi: Of course not.  Neither am I.

Peter: [SIGHS.]

Scampi: Maybe we should be more careful.

Peter: In what respect?

Scampi: You know, cover our tracks.  That sort of thing.

Peter: We have nothing to hide.

Scampi: Do you think so?

Peter: This is a transparent operation.

Scampi: Oh, so it’s an operation, is it?

Peter: Uh.

Scampi: Well, that’s a comfort.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Maybe we could drag leaves behind us when we walk.  To cover our footprints in the snow.

Peter: It isn’t snowing.

Scampi: I know.  Don’t you think I know that?

Peter: I am unsure.

Scampi: Oh ye of little faith.

Peter: Are you addressing me?

Scampi: Apparently.

Peter: I cannot recall when last it snowed.

Scampi: So what?

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: I can.

Peter: Oh?  And when was it?

Scampi: I’m sure we’d all like to know that.  Ho.  Ha ha.

Peter: And?

Scampi: It snowed in the wintertime.  Winter is for snowing.

Peter: Thank you.  That was terribly informative.

Scampi: Big, fat flakes.  All over your face, and the windows.

Peter: Hm.

Scampi: We wandered into the woods, and were not found.

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: We hid the evidence as we went.

Peter: I do not remember this occasion.

Scampi: It was a secret.

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.