Big Rewrite Scene III

FIRST DRAFTSCENE III: AN ORCHARDThe sound of a buzzing bee hive.LIGHTS RISE on Aaron. He is noticeably tanner. Perhaps more wiry. His hair seems longer. A thin moustache and beardgrow on his chin.He stands before a white industrial bee hive. It is a set of wooden boxes, one on top of the other.He smokes a cigarette.He sets some newspaper and some pine needles on fire with hiscigarette and puts them in a smoker. He closes the lid andbegins to spray smoke onto the hive.The buzzing quiets down.AARON(cigarette dangling from his lip)August Twelfth. Orleans, New York.Empire Apples.Dear Mimsy,I’m in New York today. Since it’sstaying warmer, one of the farmersis trying for a second harvest.We’ll see if it happens.He puts the cigarette out. He puts on a bee keeper’s hat andveil. He pries the top off of the hive.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)One of the hives swarmed this week.He pries one of the combs out of the hive and examines itcarefully. It is full of bees and honeycomb.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)The bees left their hive to lookfor a new one. I guess it happensall the time.He looks closely at the comb.

AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)We had to look through all thetrees to find them again andfinally Jimmy spots them up in atree ...He puts the comb back and pries up another comb. He looks atit closely.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)... and I had to climb up the treeand spray all the bees down withsugar water so they couldn’t fly.Then we put a sheet under the swarm and shook the branch until all thebees fell down and then we justpoured them back in the hive.They’ve licked the sugar off eachother and now they’re flying aroundagain. I asked Jimmy if we had todo anything to the hive to preventit from swarming again, like maybeit was too small or something, buthe said, “No.” He said,“Wanderlust. It just happenssometimes.” I guess he would know.So far they’ve stayed put, but, thequeen is gone, so we had to buyanother one.He puts the comb back and pries up another comb. He looks atit closely.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)She came in the mail this morning.He puts the comb back. He puts the lid back on the hive. Hegoes to a small FedEx box and opens it. He takes out a smallcage out of the box.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)We got her in a little cage.He looks closely at the box, turning it to see what’s insideof it.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)If the workers in the hive couldget at her right now, they’d killher. They don’t sting queens, but,they’d gather around her andsmother her to death, that’sinteresting, right?2.(MORE)

So we need to keep her in the cageuntil they get used to her scent.The cage is capped with candy, soby the time she eats her way out,they should be used to her.(Beat.) The worker bees doeverything for her. She even came with a few in the cage because theyhave to feed her. She can’t evenfeed herself. (Beat.) Wouldn’tyou rather be the worker than aqueen? I think I would.He begins to spray smoke on the hive again.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)I stopped back at school last week,just to check out Orientation andsee some people. The house had abig mixer with one of the newsororities. Delta Pi Epsilon.Some of the guys call them Dogs,Pigs and Elephants. We never mixed with them before, but I guess ourSocial is dating their President orsomething now, so we’re “slummingit.” That’s what he says.Really, it was so stupid I had toleave. Supposed to be all smart,right? Ivy League. It’s just abunch of binge drinking and peoplefalling down, making a mess forsomeone else to clean up in the morning. I don’t know why I everjoined that frat and I don’t know why those girls even give us thetime of day.Pause.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)Do you know that my house is knownas the rich kid house? Yeah, we’vegot a lot of rich kids. I’m one ofthem, right? Ha-ha. This summer,the university told all the on-campus houses that they would needto install new sprinkler systemsthat cost a few hundred thousanddollars each. Most of thefraternities couldn’t afford it, sonow the university owns all oftheir houses. Us?3.AARON (cont’d) (CONT’D)(MORE)