(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; TK: Tom Keith)
(GUY NOIR THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but high above the busy streets, on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions --- Guy Noir, Private Eye ---
(MUSIC)
GK: It was a cold dark Friday in October and I was in my office on the 12th floor when I heard the news about the plane crash on the radio and like a lot of people I sat there in the dark for awhile, stunned, as the voices went on --- a ceiling of 700 feet, some light snow, the plane down in a bog near Eveleth which the announcer pronounced "Eave-a-leth" and then there was this girl who called in on the radio, a Republican, she'd been out working against him when she heard about it, and she was crying and saying how terrible she felt, and that did it for me. I sat there at my desk and quietly went to pieces for a few minutes. The phone rang (PHONE RINGS) but I didn't try to answer it. I don't mind crying but I don't care to do it in duet. Women cry together because they're more musical, but guys don't get the practice so we sound like some old muskrat caught in a leg trap.
I had my Wellstone sign in the window. Twelfth floor. Going for the Canadian goose vote. I draped a black sweater around it. And I headed over to the Five Spot. (CITY TRAFFIC AMBIENCE) You could tell by people's faces that they'd heard about it too. (DOOR OPEN, JINGLE, CLOSE, FOOTSTEPS)
GK: Hey Jimmy---- (FOOTSTEPS)
TR: Hey Guy. How you doin' there?
GK: Terrible.
TR: Yeah. Same here.
GK: So you heard about it---
TR: Yeah.
GK: Well, I'm glad not to be the one to tell you.
TR: Yeah. Terrible day.
GK: What can you say?
TR: It's heart-breaking. Want the TV on?
GK: Naw. I don't care for eulogies. Never did. People who didn't even know the guy talking about the legacy and how great he was. That's what's wrong with politics in the first place, all the yakking just for effect. All the slick guys trying to figure out what you want to hear. He was different. He was the most honest person in American politics. He won that one going away. Everything he said, from the heart. And then he goes down in a plane.
TR: You care for a beer?
GK: Naw. If I had one beer, I'd probably finish up the whole keg
and go blowing out of here like a scrap of waste paper. Gimme a coffee,
Jimmy.
TR: One coffee coming up. (OFF, GETTING CUP AND SAUCER, POURING)
GK: What a day.
TR: He sure was a hero to a lot of people.
GK: Yeah. For good reason.
TR: The guy worked his tail off for a lot of people who never gave him a dime in campaign money.
GK: Yeah. Poor people tend not to throw fundraisers.
TR: He was a champion of the little guy.
GK: He was a little guy himself. You know, they say the taller candidate almost always wins, it's an incredible percentage, but I guess Paul made up for it with good eye contact. I ran into him once at the airport. Couple years ago. Waiting for the plane to go back to Washington. We got to talking about something, I forget what---- he got excited when he talked, you remember ---- and he'd start bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and then his arms'd get going.
TR: Not a candidate made for television.
GK: Nope. He was for real, that's for sure. (DOOR OPEN, JINGLE, DOOR CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS) Hi there. Come in.
SS: Hi. Mind if I sit down?
GK: Not at all. We're just sitting here----
SS: I just heard it on the radio.
GK: Yeah.
SS: It's just heart-breaking.
TR: It sure is.
GK: If you want to turn on the television, go right ahead. We're just sitting here in the dark cause we don't know any better.
SS: I don't know what to say.
GK: No need to say anything.
TR: If you want a beer, help yourself. On the house.
GK: Just don't cry, or you'll get me going-----
TR: I remember he said once, "If you're flat broke, nobody wants to help you, but if you've got everything you could possibly want, they can't do enough for you."
GK: He was sure right about that.
SS: It's like that blues song, "Nobody knows you when you're down and out."
GK: "In your pocket, not one penny, and your true friends you haven't any."
SS: "But as soon as you get back on your feet again, everybody wants to be your long-lost friend."
GK: That's American politics in a nutshell. You got that on your jukebox, Jimmy? "Nobody knows you when you're down and out"?
TR: Nope. All we got are songs people want to hear when they're drunk.
SS: How about Bob Dylan?
TR: Naw. All your Dylan fans are getting too old to stay out late.
GK: (OFF) You got "Helsa dem Der Hjemme" here.
SS: I don't think Wellstone was Swedish.
GK: No. He liked to talk. That's how you can tell.
TR: I tell you, it sure is a great country when a guy like Wellstone ---- Jewish, college professor, liberal ---- can be elected from a state full of Swedes and Germans.
SS: People voted for him who didn't agree with him at all. They just liked him.
GK: Norwegians voted for him because he wasn't Swedish.
TR: Did you see, the King and Queen of Sweden were in Minneapolis on Thursday?
GK: Yeah, I heard about that.
TR: They had a ceremony where the state issued a formal apology for the lousy performance of the Vikings.
GK: Is that right?
TR: I don't know if it's right, but they did it anyway.
GK: The King and Queen come over here, you know, because they're curious about the Swedish dance tunes and the Swedish dishes like rommegrot and lutefisk. In Sweden they don't dance the polka, they all dance to Bruce Springsteen, or they do the tango, and they eat poached salmon on a bed of basmati rice drizzled with a balsamic coriander reduction. Lutefisk is a complete mystery to them. They don't know what lefse is. Potato pancakes? They'd rather have creme brulee.
SS: Hey, wait---- there is a Bob Dylan song on the jukebox. B-18. "Forever Young".
GK: Izzat right?
TR: Play it, Guy.
GK: But it's not a recording by Dylan. It says--- "Ron and Luanne Swanson and the Eveleth Lutheran Youth Choir" ---- who's that?
TR: A cousin of mine.
GK: You want to hear a Lutheran youth choir sing Bob Dylan?
SS: Go ahead. Play it.
GK: I don't have any quarters.
TR: Don't need any, just press the button as you hit the front of it with the heel of your hand, right under the Wurlitzer. Not too hard.
GK: Okay. (BUTTONS. HIT PLEXI TOP.) (NEEDLE ON RECORD, FOR A FEW MOMENTS, THEN PIANOff)
FOREVER YOUNG
(SONG FADES)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets,
and there on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building one man is still trying
to find the answers to life's questions.....Guy Noir, private eye.
(INTO TISHOMINGO)
© Garrison Keillor 2002