....we'll be back after this message from American Lock & Latch.
(MUSIC)
GK: One winter, out of a clear blue sky, your daughter says to you.....
AMY: I want to go to arts camp next summer and play the cello and dance and do watercolors, okay?
GK: Sure. Fine. Whatever you like.
AMY: It's only for eight weeks, okay?
GK: Sure. Sounds good.
AMY: It's in a beautiful place in the pine woods alongside a lake and there's concerts every night and wonderful people and -- I just want to go, okay?
GK: That's great. (MUSIC BRIDGE) And then suddenly the day arrives when you put her on the bus and you think: Eight Weeks??!! (CHORD) I'm letting her go off to some remote place I've never seen and be there for eight weeks???!!! (CHORD) Among artists???? (BIG WEIRD CHORD) You think of artists, you think of weird painters (TR HURLING GOBS OF PAINT, EACH GOB SPLATS ON CANVAS) hurling paint at canvasses fifteen feet long -- or you think of composers with coke-bottle glasses writing music nobody wants to hear (VIOLIN & PIANO & BASS, BRIEF ATONAL SCRITCHY TRIO, LONG ASCENDING RUN) -- these are people you'd look to for child care? (DARK MUSIC)
All afternoon, as her bus wends its way toward Fern Lake, you imagine the various terrible things that could happen to her there --
AMY (ECHO): What are these plants with the dark green shiny leaves in clumps of three? I wonder if they're edible. Probably. What the heck.
GK: You imagine her meeting a boy....
JOE (ECHO): Hi, babes. (DARK CHORD)
AMY (ECHO): Hi. I'm Jennifer.
JOE (ECHO): My name is Darth. I'm in film.
AMY (ECHO): I really like your earrings.
JOE (ECHO): Thanks.
AMY (ECHO): How many do you have?
JOE (ECHO): Thirty.
AMY (ECHO): Like your nose rings too. And your liprings and neck rings.
JOE (ECHO): Got a couple chest rings too. Want to see em?
AMY (ECHO): Sure. (DARK MUSIC)
GK: And while this guy exerts his powers over her --- are the artists who run this arts camp paying attention? Are you kidding? (TR HURLING PAINT AT CANVAS, VIOLIN/BASS/PIANO TRIO SCRITCHY DESCENDING RUN) Now, thanks to American Lock & Latch, you can send a child to camp and have complete peace of mind. (TRANQUIL PIANO CHORD, LONG SUSTAIN) Simply by attaching this Cellular Phone to her wrist with this steel cable. (RATCHET) So that any time of day or night -(DIALING CELLULAR PHONE) you never need to wonder. Just call and ask.
(PHONE PICKUP)
AMY (ON PHONE): Hello?
GK: Jennifer?
AMY (ON PHONE): Dad?
GK: How are you, honey?
AMY (ON PHONE): Tired. It's midnight, Dad.
GK: That's okay. Where are you?
AMY (ON PHONE): Just sitting on the steps of my cabin, talking to some friends.....
GK: Let me talk to him, Jennifer.
AMY (ON PHONE): Talk to who?
GK: The guy with his arm around you.
AMY (ON PHONE): Oh. (OFF) It's for you, Darth.
(PAUSE TWO BEATS)
JOE (ON PHONE): Yeah?
GK: Darth?
JOE (ON PHONE): Yeah?
GK: Darth, take your arm off my daughter's shoulder.
JOE (ON PHONE): Oh. Okay.
GK: Darth, I suppose you're an artist, and I suppose that you're filled with a lot of kind of turbulent feelings and everything and I suppose that you feel like a kind of a rebel and so on, but let me tell you something: not with my daughter, okay? You got that?
JOE (ON PHONE): Listen, Mr. Benson --
GK: Darth, do you see the horizon? I want you to walk toward it and keep walking until you get there, you understand?
JOE (ON PHONE): Why are you treating us like this?
GK: Darth, I'd like you to talk to Red.
TR (GANGSTER): Yeah, Darth -- you ever have a real bad sore throat from somebody sticking their hand down it and pulling your heart out?
JOE (ON PHONE): No.
TR (GANGSTER): Good. Let's keep it that way.
GK: Darth, Red here is not from a small-town Midwestern background in case you were wondering. He's not in the arts, Darth. Red is sort of Gothic, Darth.
AMY (ON PHONE): Daddy, what did you say to Darth? He just walked away....
GK: The Cellular Phone with steel cable and wrist attachment.....only from American Lock & Latch.
© 1996, by Garrison Keillor