APHC: Saturday, October 26, 2002

Grandeur
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Listen

(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; TK: Tom Keith)

GK: I was married in the fall so when I smell frost in the air, I remember it. Remember every detail. My hands tied behind my back, the blindfold, the smell of the early morning air. (INHALE)

SS (WEEPING): You are so brave, so good----

GK: Don't cry, darling. Be brave. Please. For me. Give me a cigarette. There you go. Thanks. (STRIKE MATCH) Thank you, darling. (HE EXHALES) Oh, that tastes good. Boy. If I'd known I was going to be shot at dawn, I never would've quit smoking twenty years ago. Oh well-----

SS (WEEPING): I just spoke to my father. He's giving you one last chance. He won't have the rifle squad execute you ---- if you marry me.

GK: He won't?

SS: He'll sign the reprieve.

GK: I don't know. I wasn't planning to get married.

SS: Please. I can't bear to lose you.

GK: I don't want to make you unhappy.

SS: Just say yes.

TK (OFF): Rifle squad---- READY! (CLUNK OF RIFLE BUTTS)

GK: We're so different, you and me.

SS: Love can overcome these things.

GK: For example, I'm a hunter. I hunt in the fall. You'd hate that. You'd hate me for it.

SS: We can work it out.

TK (OFF): SHOULDER---- ARMS! HMMHHH!

GK: You could have the baby and I'd send you money and come see you whenever I'm in the area.

SS: Please. Say you'll marry me.

TK (OFF): PREPARE TO LOCK AND LOAD!

GK: Okay.

TK (OFF): COMPANY DISMISSED! (CHEERS)

GK: And that's how I got married. It was in the fall. And every fall, she and I have the exact same conversation.

(SOFT SENSITIVE MUSIC)

SS: I wish you wouldn't go hunting this year.

GK: I go every year.

SS: It's so dangerous.

GK: Don't worry about it.

SS: "Don't worry about it"? Of course I worry about it. I'm worried sick about it. Why do you have to go out there in the woods all weekend to hunt? I don't understand.

GK: I know you don't.

SS: To go out in the cold and the rain and tramp around in the woods with your brothers ---- You don't even like venison or goose or duck. I don't get it.

GK: I know you don't.

SS: Why? Why do you do it? (LONG PAUSE) (THEN DISTANT HUNTING BUGLE, AND DISTANT DOGS)

GK: Because man needs a sense of grandeur. (TR & TK: Grandeur! Grandeur! IN FADING SERIES) You don't get a sense of grandeur (TR & TK FADING SERIES: Grandeur!) from commuting to work or sitting in a cubicle pecking at a computer or in a meeting (DRONE OF VOICES) listening to idiots talk about reorganizing the flow structure. You get it from picking up a rifle and heading for the woods. (FOOTSTEPS, BRUSH)

TR: (CHURCHILL, REVERB) We shall hunt on the beaches and in the fields, we shall hunt in the hills, we shall never surrender.

GK: A man gets tired of caution. And tedium. And regimentation.
A man feels the urge to march to a different drummer, one who wears bright orange and has a case of beer in his car. Down deep, men are not herdsmen. (MOOO) We were not meant to sit and look at sheep. (SHEEP) We are hunters and warriors! We awaken on a cold morning and we hear the pipes (BAGPIPE), the pipes calling, and we go forth to the hunt----

TR (SCOTS): Aye me brave boys, follow me now ---- into the forest to hunt the King's deer and feed our hungry children---- (MALE CRIES OF RESOLVE, THE CLATTER OF ARMS AND SWORDS, HORSES WHINNY) (MUSIC)

GK: Grandeur! It's the alternative to therapy. This is a man in therapy.

TR: Well, I guess I always felt emotionally trapped and, I donno, like my dad wasn't really there for me --- I mean, he was sort of there but he wasn't ALL there, he was kind of emotionally distant, you know what I mean? I mean (HE TRAILS OFF) he just wasn't a really good emotional role model for me.

GK: That's a man in therapy: pitiful, whiny, vague. Here's a man out on the hunt.

TR: (JOHN WAYNE) Let me tell you something, men. When you were little kids, Mama read you stories about animals with big brown eyes and beautiful eyelashes, and today we're going to win our independence from Mama by finding Bambi's mother and bringing her home on the hood of our car. Anybody have a problem with that? (DRUM MARCH CADENCE)

GK: We go hunting for grandeur. And to get away from women and their ceaseless questions.

SS: How come you're so quiet?

GK: Just thinking.

SS: Thinking about what?

GK: Stuff.

SS: What stuff?

GK: Different stuff.

SS: Tell me.

GK: It's nothing.

SS: How can you think about nothing?

GK: I do it all the time.

SS: Why don't we ever talk?

GK: We're talking right now.

SS: Ohhhhh, you're impossible. (SIGH, AND PAUSE) I'm thinking I might get my hair cut. What do you think?

GK: Fine.

SS: You think I should get it cut short?

GK: Sure.

SS: Or should I leave it the way it is?

GK: Great.

SS: Do you like it long?

GK: Uh huh.

SS: Are you listening to me?

GK: Uh huh. -----This is why we go to the woods. So we can put some distance between us and that conversation. And just be men. Be guys. In the woods. (WOODS AMBIENCE)

TK: See the broken twig? The bent grass?

TR: Right.

TK: The pawprint in the sand? See it?

TR: Right. I see it.

TK: See the dark spots on the grass?

TR: Yeah.

TK: That's blood.

TR: Oh.

TK: You wounded the deer and he's crawled into the brush and he's in there waiting for you.

TR: Wow.

TK: He's hiding, maybe up in the branches of a tree, and when you come close, he'll leap on you with his teeth bared, waving his white tail, and kick you around with his sharp hooves and stab you with his antlers.

TR: So what do I do?

TK: You go in there and shoot him, that's what you do. That's what a man does.

TR: Okay.

TK: It's you versus him. Mano a bambi. (MUSIC)

GK: And when we come back from a long day of hunting in the woods and proving our manhood and we walk into the bedroom----

SS: (BREATHY) Hi. I've been waiting. What took you so long?

GK: Had to get my deer.

SS: Did you?

GK: Sure.

SS: Ohhhh. (SHE TREMBLES WITH EXCITEMENT) Even though I'm a vegetarian and never eat anything that has a mother, nonetheless ----- knowing that you've killed ---- it's exciting to me in ways I can't explain.

GK: Yeah. I could tell that.

SS: I'm terribly terribly excited to see you. (GASP) You have blood on your face----

GK: Only a flesh wound. Just let me straighten my nose. It got broken when the deer came after me. (RRRAKK) There. Couple deer had me down on the ground, whacking at me with their antlers.

SS: Glen! You're practically naked.

GK: My clothes were soaked with blood. The dogs ate them.

SS: You're so brave. And so beautiful. Come here.

GK: Okay.

SS: Come to bed.

GK: Sure.

SS: Did you miss me?

GK: Yep.

SS: I'm so glad you're back.

GK: Me too.

SS: Are you?

GK: Sure.