(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions, Guy Noir, Private Eye ---
(MUSIC UNDER)
GK: It was spring and then it was not spring. Got up awfully close to 70 and just as we were reaching for our shorts it slid back down to freezing. Sort of like a woman might invite you up for a drink and then say, Oh ---- sorry, I thought you were somebody else. ---- I was in Appleton, Wisconsin, working on the case of a college kid who was straight A until recently and now was taking a nose dive. Kristin was her name. Blonde, athletic, high achiever, drop-dead beautiful, you know the type. Student at Lawrence ----- biology major ---- I found her in a coffeeshop.
SS: I just can't concentrate, Mr. Noir.
GK: Of course you can.
SS: I can't. I sit at a computer trying to write a term paper and then I Twitter and I text and I update Facebook and I talk on the phone----
GK: Kristin, you got two months before you graduate. Summa cum laude Phi Beta Kappa Rama Lama Ding Dong. Go to medical school ---- become a research opthamlalogist ----- save people's eyesight ----- two months to go-----
SS: I know but I'm taking this James Joyce course-----
GK: James Joyce????
SS: It's an elective.
GK: Why?
SS: It's fascinating but it's done something to my ability to concentrate.
GK: What?
SS: I'm reading Finnegans Wake.
GK: Kristin, reading Finnegans Wake---- why not just take LSD. It's a book that's driven thousands of people right over the edge. Makes your eyeballs spin. I'll go find your English professor. I'll talk him into letting you drop the Joyce. (BRIDGE) It was the old story ---- a kid is in the sciences, they're moving forward and they get a taste of the humanities and they go to pieces---- Her English professor was a guy named Irving Judah.
TR: I can't let her drop the course.
GK: Why not?
TR: Because I let the other ones drop it and now she's the only one.
GK: Look. Pal----- she has a brilliant future as an opthalmalogist. And James Joyce has unhinged something in her mind.
TR: It's called a liberal arts education!
GK: Mister---- if you don't let her drop the course, I'm going to tell everybody about this----- (STING)
TR: Where'd you get that?
GK: Wouldn't you like to know?
TR: Give me that. (THEY STRUGGLE) I want it!
GK: It's your novel, Professor. "The Heart Has Its Reasons".
TR: It's only a first draft.
GK: Your first sentence. "I was helpless as a moth in a raging stream in her arms made powerful by years of swimming the butterfly competitively."
TR: It's only a rough draft.
GK: "She leaned so close, he could count her eyelashes. Her cigarette was held loosely between her long tapering fingers with the crimson nail polish that for some reason brought to mind someone he'd met in Atlantic City or could it have been Baltimore."
TR: Okay, okay---- it's rough.
GK: When your colleagues in the Dept of English look at this, sir, you're not even going to be allowed to teach freshman composition.
TR: Okay. I'll let her drop the Joyce course. Give me back my novel. (HE SOBS) You're so cruel. (BRIDGE)
GK: I headed for Kristin's coffeeshop and on the way I met a man with a polka dot jacket----- I'd been told to avoid him. He was the architect who'd decided to replace all the intersections of Appleton with roundabouts----- people were up in arms----
FN (SINGS):
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and dawn
We're captive on the carousel of time----
GK: SIR----
FN (SINGS):
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game. ---- Yes?
GK: I hope you know that people in Appleton don't want to exchange right-angles for roundabouts.
FN (HAHVAD): They'll get over it. Soon as it's built, they'll fall in love with it.
GK: I doubt it.
FN: Well, it's going to get built.
GK: Why not just give it up. They don't want it.
FN (SINGS):
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
(BONK, FN SINGING SLOWS AND GETS DEEP AND STOPS)
SS: Why did you hit that man?
GK: Kristin-----
SS: This is a free country, he has a right to sing whatever he wants to sing.
GK: Not in my face. What are you? The ACLU?--- listen, Kristin, I got you out of the James Joyce class.
SS: It doesn't matter. I'm dropping out of school. Period.
GK: Two months before you graduate Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude shing shang wallawalla bing bang?
SS: I'm in love, Mr. Noir. Have you ever been in love?
GK: Often, and I've also had the stomach flu, and I got over it as soon as possible. And so will you.
SS: He's a guitarist. His name is Dillon.
GK: Oh gosh. hy throw all that away, Kristin?
SS: I love him.
TR (STONER): Hi babes. Can I borrow ten bucks until tomorrow?
GK: Kristin, are you on drugs?
SS: No!
GK: Are you on some sort of IQ suppressant?
SS: No!
TR (STONER): Hey, like who are you?
GK: This guy is a pair of concrete shoes.
TR (STONER): I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. What did you say?
SS: He writes beautiful songs. He has a wonderful CD, called "Songs In The Key of Being". And he needs me.
GK: Of course he needs you, Kristin. But need isn't the same as love. You don't love somebody just because he's homeless.
TR (STONER, SINGS): You came into my life just like a freight train
In my brain
SS: You don't understand, Mr. Noir. (BRIDGE)
GK: She was right. I didn't understand. And wasn't sure I wanted to. (CHURCH ORGAN) I headed downtown past St. Joseph's and (SLOW FOOTSTEPS) a woman came down the steps. She was gorgeous and I looked at her and felt this dampness coming out of the corner of my mouth. (FOOTSTEPS) . A generous slice of her abdomen was exposed and her tank top revealed the beautiful bone structure of her shoulders. Whatever religion she was part of, I wanted to be there too. Excuse me, Ma'am----
SS: I beg your pardon?
GK: No need to beg my pardon. You didn't trespass against me. Unfortunately.
SS: I have no idea what you're talking about.
GK: Neither do I and I'm hoping to find out.
SS: Find out what?
GK: If I knew, then I wouldn't be talking like this, would I. Listen, I'm in love. What can I say? I've been looking all my life for someone like you. Someone exactly like you. And now here you are. I found the apple of my eye in Appleton.
FN (SINGS):
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry.
SS: Who is this?
GK: The jerk who designed the roundabout.
SS: What a beautiful voice.
GK: Him? He's a public nuisance and I have to keep hitting him and my arm is getting tired.
SS: What does he do for a living?
GK: Architect. Hey---Where are you going? (FOOTSTEPS) (BRIDGE)
GK: She left and my heart left with her. She walked him toward her car and he didn't resist.
FN (SINGS):
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and dawn
We're captive on the carousel of time----
GK: And then Kristen was there----
SS: I dumped him, Mr. Noir. He's gone.
GK: Good.
SS: And I feel better. All it took was a nasal spray. One squirt up each nostril and And I was over him in fifteen minutes.
GK: Oh. Got any more, Kristin?
SS: Sure. Why?
GK: Here. Thanks. (TWO STRONG SQUORTS)
SS: It tastes bad but it works.
GK: Maybe for some of us it takes longer.
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but 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 ---
(THEME)