TWO OVER EASY: A One-Act video Play by John Bolinger

Setting: Molly’s bedroom and then a 1950’s style diner, where she works
Characters:
Molly Dowland - waitress
Bert Lasko - trucker
Phil Bennet - college student
Uncle Bucko - Children’s radio show host 
Frizzo the Clown - actor on the same show
Tommy - eight-year-old contestant on the show
Radio announcer for commercial
angry man who misses the bus
final customer at the diner

Camera close-up of an alarm clock.  A girl’s hand is seen reaching over to turn it off.  Music begins (Gershwin’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay”).  While the music plays, the camera moves slowly about the room to focus on various objects that help define who this girl might be:
1. a print of Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World.”
2. bronzed baby shoes
3. ceramic woman’s face from the 1950’s with dangling pearl earrings
4. JFK wall hanging
5. framed family photos and one of Charlie Chaplin
6. Pierrot doll on the pillow next to Molly’s

The top sheet is tossed over the doll, and the camera pulls back to include Molly for the first time.  She is seated on the edge of the bed and stretches before standing up.  Then camera focuses on a note written in large letters and pinned to a bulletin board near Molly’s bed:
CALL FANNY ABOUT DISCOUNT WHITE SHOES
BUY TOOTHPASTE (STRIPED KIND)
BALANCE CHECK BOOK

Camera pulls back to reveal Molly now at her ironing board pressing a uniform.  She is wearing her housecoat and smoking a cigarette.  She reaches over to the table to turn on the radio and hears:

ANNOUNCER:  Yes, ladies, now you too can have dazzling eyes for that special evening on the town.  Be the ravishing seductress you’ve always wanted to be with “Sparkle Lids,” the florescent eye shadow for evening wear.  This remarkable make-up is guaranteed non-skid, non-smudge, and non-flammable, and comes in a galaxy of day-glow colors.  Remember to buy Sparkle Lids at selected pharmacies everywhere.  Batteries not included

(Camera then focuses on the eyes of a Garfield doll)  Molly changes the station, and the following dialogue on a children’s show is in progress:)

Uncle Bucko: Hey!  That was a good one, Frizzo (circus music in background)  I think we should give Tommy another chance to pin the tail on the clown.  What d’ya say, boys and girls?  (screams and applause by kids)

Frizzo:  Wait just a minute, Uncle Bucko!.  Tommy’s had six chances already, and my posterior is getting very sore.

Uncle Bucko:  Oh, now Frizzo, don’t be such a bad sport.  Put back your blindfold, or I’ll have to report to to Mr. Producer (more applause).

Tommy:  No, I want my prize!  I want my prize.  Give me a prize!

Frizzo:  (in muffled voice)  Give him the goddamn prize, Bucko.

Uncle Bucko:  All right, Tommy.  Since you’ve been such a good little bast...boy, we’re going to give you a big box of Sea Bits, the only lobster flavored breakfast cereal with Kung Fu grip for that stick -to-your-ribs meal that Mom will love serving.

Tommy:  (Yelling) No, No, No!  I want a bicycle!  Give me a bicycle!  A ten-speed with leather saddle bags!

Bucko:  I’m sorry, Tommy, but...ooouuuuuuucchh!  You’re supposed to stick Frizzo with that thing, not me!  I’m the zoo master, you little degenerate.  I’ll just have to teach you some manners!

Tommy:  No!  Get away from me, you big jerk!  I wanna go home!  Mom! Mom! (His voice trails off in the distance)

Bucko: (voice trailing off in pursuit of Tommy)  Come back here, you!
(The B52’s begin singing”Rock Lobster,” and Molly turns off the radio in disgust.)

(During the next scene, the Gershwin song “Mine” plays.

Close-up of a cigarette being extinguished in a large ceramic ash tray.  Camera draws back to see Molly at her dressing table.  She is applying make-up with one hand while she consults a picture in a fashion magazine she holds in the other hand.  On the table are a small mirror, some cosmetics, and a large book revealing a portrait of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.  The book is propped up against the mirror.  She finally shrugs her shoulders, makes a face in the mirror and flings the magazine to the floor.  She takes a puff of the cigarette, trying to look alluring in the mirror, but then whimsically puts the cigarette sideways under her nose like some kind of mustache.

The same song plays as we see Molly catching a bus for work.  She is wearing her uniform and white shoes.  As the bus pulls away, a dignified man in a suit runs up to the bus shaking a fist, throwing his briefcase to the ground. He has obviously missed his bus.

The diner where Molly works is seen at first from across the street.  There is the sound of traffic, as the camera moves slowly toward the diner and then into it, where some country music is playing, Loretta Lynn singing “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.  At one end of the counter is a trucker about forty years old, having coffee.  At the middle of the counter is a university student about twenty years old, who has been hitching his way south to New Orleans.  He has shoulder-length hair tied back and has a beard.  He is having coffee while reading a comic book.)

Molly:  That’ll be one dollar even, kid.

Phil:  A dollar?

Molly:  Yeah, forty cents for the coffee and sixty cents for the comic book.

Phil:  Oh, sure thing.  (He puts a dollar bill on the counter)

Molly: What’s a kid your age reading’ stuff like that for anyhow?

Phil:  Why not?  I guess we all have our little escapes.

Molly:  You’re college student, ain't ya?  I can always tell.

Phil:  Yeah, but...

Molly:  I thought college kids read stuff like, ALGEBRA FOR FUN AND PROFIT, or REVOLUTION FOR THE HELL OF IT.  What’s the matter?  Can’t face reality?

Phil: I like comic books.  Characters like The Hulk haven’t got hang-ups the way the rest of us do, because they’re simple creatures.  Cartoons are simple.  In fact, sometimes I wish I were a cartoon.

Molly: (shrugging as she wipes the counter). You’re on your way, honey.  Ya gotta be simple to read that junk.

Phil:  Well, what do you read?  What’s your favorite book?

Molly:  I don’t read a lot of books, but I love VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL.  My copy of GONE WITH THE WIND was ruined when Clara Potts spilled Pesi all over it.  I carried that copy around with me all through high school.  Hey, what is this, some kind of survey or somethin’?

Phil:  I just wondered.

Molly:  Hey, Bert, what kinda stuff do you read?

Bert:  (facing Molly but not getting up yet and not looking in her direction)  Nothin’.  Who wants to know?

Molly:  I was just thinkin’.  Don’t you like to read about the beautiful people?

Bert:  (now picking up his coffee cup and carrying it to the middle of the counter.  He sees the length of the boy’s hair and sits ceremoniously two seats away from him)  The what?

Molly:  You know, Bert, the beautiful people, the ones with lots of money, servants, and vacations of the Riviera.

Bert:  Hell, I don’t have to read about the beautiful people, Moll, ‘cause you’re beautiful.

Molly:  Oh, don’t be silly, Bert.  I want you to be honest with me now. (pause)  Do you rally think I’m pretty?

Bert:  ‘course I do.  Don’t ya think she’s pretty, kid?

Phil:  Sure I do, man.  I think everybody’s beautiful.

Bert:  You sound like some damned song, ya know that?  Talk about shrinkin’ a compliment.  I bet you’re crazy about smile buttons, ain’t ya?

Phil:  No, but I like real smiles.  I guess I was trapped in a 1968 time-warp and became a psych major.  In fact, you can hlep me with a little survey I’ve been taking. (Phil takes out a small notebook and a pen, touches it lightly with his tounge and continues speaking).  If you could have anything in the world, what would it be? I mean with no strings attached.

Bert:  Are you crazy, kid?  Should I rub my coffee cup first? (laughing at his own joke)

Molly: (now arranging little boxes of cereal on a shelf)  Come on, Bert.  Be serious.  This might be more fun than the Oprah Show.  Come on, what would ya wish for?

Bert:  Ok, Ok.  My own truck.

Phil:  It doesn’t have to be realistic.

Bert: (belligerently) My own truck. I could start my own hauling service and build up my own company.  Then there would be trucks with my name on ‘em rollin' down highways all over the country, and my name would be on TV, ‘cause my company would sponsor shows like Monday Night Football and the WWF.  Then everybody’d know who Bert Lasko was.

Molly:  Why don’t you wish for a company instead of just one truck?

Bert:  I’d have to build it up, Moll, or it wouldn’t mean nothin’.  There’d have to be some of my sweat in it for it to be my battle and my success, ya know what I mean? (Molly nods yes).  Hey, kid, you started this.  What would YOU wish for? (aside) A haircut, I hope.

Phil:  A home for my aunt, a real home.

Molly:  What d’ ya mean?

Phil:  If you could only see my Aunt Helen.  She’s eighty-seven!  She sits in St. Andrew’s Home for the bewildered and waits for guests to come to tea...guests that never come.  Sometimes she becomes a little girl and asks for her dolls and Blue Willow dishes.  Then she sings or rages and tells us to stop spying on her, and we leave her in that room again, her against that fading wallpaper with vines that climb all over the room trying to find something to hang onto...

Molly:  (staring blankly at nothing) I remember a snapshot of my aunt two years after Uncle Henry died.  She went to this old people’s dance, which was really a winter carnival for anybody over the age of sixty-five, and she met this seventy-year-old guy , who wore white shoes in December (She looks up and smiles.)  He and my aunt were crowned king and queen of the dance.  In the snapshot they wore paper crowns and carried aluminum foil scepters.  Their robes were white fake fur that was dirty along the hems. The robes came from some high school drama club.  Aunt Vie never saw the guy again after that, and after she died, Mom kept that stupid picture on our TV next to a French clown doll Uncle Henry had brought back after the war. (camera gives glance of Pierrot doll seen earlier on Molly’s bed)...I want to cry when I think about it.  It makes me feel like...

Bert:  Hey!  We forgot to ask what you’d wish for, punkin.  What’s your order?

Phil: Think about it if you have to.

Molly: (shaking her head with her eyes closed) I don’t have to think about it.  I’ve know since I was fifteen.  I want a baby. (zoom of Bert, who looks startled)

Phil:  Are you married?

Molly:  (Debussy’s piano piece, “Reverie” is heard as Molly speaks) No, I’m still waiting, but when he comes, I’ll love him, and we’ll have a child, a part of us both, something good that will last, even after this cash register closes for the last time...but sometimes I worry, ‘cause I’m already twenty-five, and I ain’t got much time before nobody’ll even want me.

Bert:  God, is that corny, or what?

Molly:  Yeah, I know.

Bert:  I didn’t know you wanted a kid, Moll.

Molly: More than anything else.  How about some breakfast?  It’s almost eight o’clock.

Phil:  Two over easy with wheat toast and orange juice.

Bert:  Just a donut with some more coffee, sweetheart.

Molly:  (while fixing the eggs and toast, Molly looks at Phil)  What’s your name?

Phil:  Phil Bennet.

Molly:  Where ya goin’?

Phil: New Orleans.

Molly: (with intense interest) To Mardi Gras? 

Phil:  Mardi Gras was last Tuesday.  I’m just meeting friends in the French Quarter before they go on to Florida.

Molly:  New Orleans.  God how I’d love to go there someday.  How romantic it would be.

Phil:  Come with me. (Bert looks up quickly and waits for Molly’s answer)

Molly: What? (looking away, embarrassed) I could never do that.  I don’t even know you. There are still rules about that stuff, ya know.  (She fusses nervously with her apron).

Phil:  Oh, Molly dear, where have you been?

Molly:  Nowhere.  Maybe that’s my problem. but that still doesn’t make me a breakfast pick-up.

Phil: But I wasn’t thinking of you as a pick-up.  That’s not why I asked you to go with me.  Honest.

Molly:  Baloney!  I’ve heard that one before.  (Bert laughs)  Anyhow, I can’t leave this hole.  I was kicked out of my Dairy Queen job last summer, and now I ain’t really got good references.  It might be kinda tough to land another job as plush as this one, ya know?

Phil:  I guess so (pause)...Why were you kicked out of Dairy Queen?

Molly: (tilting her head to one side and looking directly at Phil, both hands on her hips) For dropping a hair brush into the custard machine.

Phil: (chuckling)  On purpose?

Molly” (drying a coffee cup)  Of course not, dummy.  The manager goosed me when his wife wasn’t looking.  (then liltingly, like a song)  Harvey John and Ruby Jean, workin’ at the Dairy Queen.  What a couple o’ losers.  Anyhow I got canned.  Any more questions?

Bert: Yeah.  Got any gooseberry jam? (chuckling again at himself)

Molly:  Cut it out, Bert.  That ain’t funny.

Bert:  Well, baby, it’s time for me to cut out anyway.  I’ve already lost an hour (He leaves money on the counter and exits)  So long, sugar.  Take it easy, kid.  Give my regards to the French Quarter.

Phil: Hey, does that popcorn machine take quarters?

Molly:  Sure. (Phil walks out of camera range to the machine)  Just be sure to open the bag wide to get all you can without spilling.

Phil: (We hear his voice without actually seeing him)  Yeah, I may be real hungry later.  (He returns to set the bag of popcorn on the counter and then  goes to the door to look outside.)

(Molly suddenly changes facial expression, crosses her arms over her heart, and seems to have a look of ecstasy.  She is looking at the ceiling and does not notice what Phil is saying or doing.)

Phil: (with excitement)  Hey! There’s a van parked across the street.  It’s facing south.  They’re freaks too, and I bet I’ve got a ride.  My money’s on the counter.  Keep the popcorn.  So long, Molly (running out the door)

Molly: (deliberately)  I think I’ve changed my mind, Phil.  I’ll just leave a little note.  It's really so simple.  Phil?  Phil? Phil!  (She runs to the door, looking out the window, uttering his name once more, this time very softly)  Phil...

(Debussy’s “Reverie” plays again softly.  Molly stands at the door for a moment.  Then with her head down, she walks back to the counter, assuming the earlier pose of crossed arms over her heart.  Her arms gradually change position and form the shape of a cradle that she rocks gently as if holding a baby.  After a moment, she picks up the comic book, which Phil has left behind.  She holds it to her heart briefly, then tosses it aside, taking out a compact and some eye make-up.  The camera moves slowly out the door as the music continues.  A customer enters the diner, and through the window, we see Molly greeting him with happy gestures and a big smile.  She pours herself him some coffee, and they clink cups in a mock toast as they laugh, though we can no longer hear their voices, only the music, which fades away as the camera pulls back across the street and the sounds of traffic return.)

During credits at the end, Gershwin’s “Not for Me” plays.

Suggestion:  Credits can be on ceral boxes, menus, and plates.  The “o’s” in the title may be fried eggs.