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Brian Henry
I Will Order Ice Cream (A Short Play)
A desolate parking lot. Two beat-up American cars are parked next to a Laundromat.TIDI comes out of the Laundromat holding a huge basket of clothes and heads toward thelarger car. She's overweight, wearing hip huggers and a loud print blouse. She drops thebasket on the ground and shouts back toward the Laundromat.TIDIWhites done dryin'?HUPE(off-stage)Not yet.Tidi takes a cigarette from her purse and lights up.TIDI(shouting)You 'member that scrawny little amputee monkey we saw at the zoo? That sure was apathetic specimen! Eloise, she always did have a thing for monkeys. Not that there wasnothin' bizarre about it. She just loved to see 'em, swinging tree to tree. Watched thosemonkey shows on the cable almost every day. You foldin' them undies yet?HUPE(off-stage)Ain't done yet. In the dryer.TIDI(shouting)Jesus and the Lord above, that is the slowest dryer in the whole darn laundrymat. Why d'youalways pick the slowest, Hupe?Tidi takes a long drag on her cigarette.TIDI(shouting)You were never no good at the laundry, that's the Lord's truth. How many times did you ruinHupe Jr.'s track outfit? How many, Hupe?HUPE(off-stage)I don't know, Tidi.TIDI
 
Brian Henry
(shouting)It was a blamed nuisance, and a cost! That boy has enough troubles in this world, what withhis skew-eye and short thumb, and you go and make his shorts pink as the day is long! Whatkind of a dad is that, Hupe?BURNY, a fat, bald Scot, runs up to Tidi with a large butcher knife and stabs her in the rightthigh three times. Blood spurts out. Tidi screams pathetically. Burny runs off.Tidi collapses and rolls into the gutter at the curb.TIDI(screaming)Hupe! Hupe!HUPE(off-stage)No, they ain't done dryin' yet, Tidi! Shut your trap!TIDI(screaming)Help me, Hupe!HUPE(off-stage)I'm doin' what I can!TIDIJesus, Lord almighty in that heaven. What did I ever do to fall in a gutter, bleeding like aheadless chicken?Another geyser of blood spurts out. The lights in the laundry flicker and slowly dim.TIDII washed so many clothes in this laundrymat. Washed 'em til they was bare of thread and dimof color. Lord, how many times did I watch them dryers spinning. Around and around. Thenaround some more. It's like some stupid chimp, chasing his own tail. How much change . . .How much change . . .(screaming)Hupe!HUPE(off-stage)These undies ain't even clean, Tidi. What kinda shit-ass detergent did you buy this time?TIDI(weeping)The undies ain't even clean. Ain't even clean.[BLACKOUT]
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