.GK:....brought to you by Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
You're sitting trapped in your tiny office (TYPING) doing meaningless things at the Associated Federation of Organizations (TYPEWRITER, SLOW), wasting your life on this treadmill to nothingness (TR LANGUISHING SIGH), surrounded by brain-dead co-workers (TK MONOTONE GIBBERISH, CF MONOTONE RESPONSE) and suddenly you get up (TR: I'm wasting my life.) and you head for the coffee machine (FOOTSTEPS) but on your way you pass a door and you think (TR: I need some air.) and you don't notice the sign, Emergency Only, so when you open it (BELL) alarms goes off (KLAXONS) all through the building (WHOOPING ALARMS) and you try to sneak back in but (TK OFF: Hey! You! FAST FOOTSTEPS) they've got you so you dash outside (FOOTSTEPS ON STREET, TRAFFIC PASSING) and down the street (VOICES SHOUTING. RUNNING FOOTSTEPS) and through the alley (TK: Hey mister....) and there's a tall man standing by a pickup. (TK: You need a ride to San Antone? TR: Okay!) And off you go. (PICKUP ACCEL) With Clint. (TK WHOOP) Who drives eighty miles per hour as he shoots mailboxes with his Colt single-action (GUNSHOT. TK: That ain't vandalism, that's punctuation.) and you close your eyes and imagine yourself (WIND) out on the Texas plains (COYOTE HOWL) with a Texas woman (CF: You're so strong, Matt. And yet you don't smell that bad. I like that.) and down in San Antonio you buy a pair of jeans (TR PAIN EASING INTO TIGHT PANTS) so tight your legs go numb and you practice spitting (TR MIS-SPIT) and you practice hee-yawing (TR ATTEMPTS TO HEE-YAW) and you head for the dance hall to find that girl (DOOR OPEN. MUSIC IN FULL SWING. TR: Oh my gosh.) and there's a line of cowboys (DANCING FEET APPROACH) in pants even tighter than yours coming straight toward you (DANCING FEET COME CLOSE. TR: Get away! DANCING FEET VEER OFF) and they're all in a straight line and perfectly synchronized (DANCING FEET) and you try to get out (JIGGLE LOCKED DOOR. TR: Oh no.) and now the line of cowboys is coming back again (DANCING FEET SWING BY), fifty men who look exactly like Garth Brooks (DANCING FEET CLOSE AND VEER OFF), the same look of ferocious normality (DANCING FEET) like Square Dance night in Nuremberg (TR PANIC) and you dash across the floor (STEPS) and you go (GLASS BREAKAGE) out the window and (SPLASH) you're in the river (RIVER) and your pants are shrinking (CREAKING) and they split (EXPLOSIVE RIP) and there are lights up ahead (SPLASHING, TR BREATHING) and you're floating under a bridge (TRAFFIC) and there's a boat heading for you (TK PA WITH ECHO: Welcome to River Walk) and there's a group of people in an outdoor cafe (LAUGHING VOICES, CLINK OF GLASSES) and there she is, in a crowd and you climb up the rocks (TR CRAWLING OVER SOME JAGGED SURFACES) and through some shrubs which turn out to be small cactuses (TR PAIN) and there's a man in a tux and you wrestle it off him (TR, TK: Hey!) and (TR SIGH OF RELIEF) you put the tux on and (FOOTSTEPS) you tiptoe through the crowd toward her, and now people are looking at you (FRIENDLY HUBBUB) and a man is motioning you toward a podium (TK: Right up here!) and she's there (CF: Hi. It's so good of you to come.) and there's applause (CLAPPING) and the man whispers (TK: I'd try to keep your speech under an hour, if I were you TR: A speech?) and she's smiling up at you and (TK: I'd like to introduce one of the foremost authorities in the field of child development today, a man who.....) (RHUBARB THEME) Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie. Yes, nothing takes the taste of shame and defeat out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
But one little thing can revive a guy,
And that is home-made rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot.
Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.
DUET:
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
© 1996 Garrison Keillor