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Ghost script
Saturday, November 1, 2008
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SS: Mr. Kyler— Mr. Kyler—
GK: Who's that standing up in the owner's box? The woman in white?
SS: You know who I am.
GK: You're all pale and white. You don't look well.
SS: That's because I'm dead. You wouldn't look well either if you'd been in a coffin this long. It does nothing for your complexion. I came back because I have to talk to you.
GK: About what?
SS: We met at a party. In south Minneapolis. November, 1974. Remember? I was the girl in the long dress and barefoot and the long blonde hair down my back. I was playing dulcimer. You told me you liked it. You said that. You told me, "That's really nice." ( (SHE SINGS, W PD DULCIMER) Well, I'll tell you something, I hope you understand, That I — I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand. (SPOKEN) I could sing better when I was alive. Anyway, I gave you my phone number. And I gave you a tape. And you never called me. I waited for thirty-three years to hear from you. Did you ever listen to it?
GK: I did. Yes. It was great. I was meaning to call you.
SS: And the poems?
GK: They were good, too. I liked them.
(PAUSE)
SS: You know, a dead person can tell when somebody's lying. You never listened to those, did you.
GK: I don't know. I might have.
SS: I listened to your show every week, for thirty-three years. Every Saturday night. I never married. You were my Saturday night date. I'd listen alone and knit shrouds.
GK: I'm sorry.
SS: Men asked me out to dinner, to movies, to long car trips, but I said No. No, no, no. I felt it would be unfaithful to you. Please, they said. I said no. I always wanted to come to a live show. And I had to die to do it. Isn't that ironic.
GK: How did you die?
SS: I died listening to your show. You told a joke. And I had a piece of fruitcake in my mouth and I choked on it. And the irony is, the joke wasn't funny and I never cared for fruitcake.
GK: The penguin joke. The two penguins on the ice floe.
SS: Yes.
GK: Two penguins standing on an ice floe and one looks at the other and says, "You look like you're wearing a tuxedo. And the other one says, "What makes you think I'm not?"
SS: And I choked on the fruitcake and I died. I was sitting in my car in my mother's driveway. She thought I was just having a driveway moment. But I wasn't. My driveway moment was death.
GK: I'm really sorry about all this-
SS: I didn't come here for pity. I came for justice. Years too late, I finally get to sing on your show. Here I am. Hard to enjoy it as much when you're all moldy and dusty, but here I am. (SHE SINGS, W PD DULCIMER) And when I touch you I feel happy, inside — it's such a feeling even though I have died, I have died, I have died—
GK: Thank you.
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