(THEME)
TR: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by Cowboys Drugstore Dot Com.....when you're out on the trail and need to get your prescription filled pronto, Cowboys Drugstore Dot Com can have your pain pills or tranquilizers on their way to you in just hours. And now here's today's adventure.
(TRAFFIC PASSING, HORNS)
GK: Well, here we are back in New York. Long way from Wyoming.
TR: Sort of wish we could get ourselves a hotel room instead of camping out here in Central Park.
GK: Well, when you have no credit card and no cash, you don't have a lot of choice in the matter.
TR: What we planning to do for money now that we're here?
GK: Well, I could always get a job singing in a club, I guess.
TR: The sort of clubs that would want you to sing in them I don't think you'll find in New York, mister. More likely in isolated parts of Idaho and Wyoming where there's no WiFi so they don't know what music sounds like nowadays.
GK: No, New Yorkers love songs about New York. So I've been working on one....
(STRUMMING)
GK (SINGS):
Moonlight shines tonight along Columbus.....
Jump into a cab and take a ride....
Ladies dancing cha cha chas and rhumbas
With their caballeros by their side....
We were to meet at 87th Street----- la la la la la la (HE STOPS)
TR: You forget the rest?
GK: Yeah, it was something about missing old Manhattan and that carriage that we sat in......something something.....
TR: These big rock outcroppings in Central Park make me a little nostalgic for Yellow Gulch.
GK: The words "Yellow Gulch" and "nostalgic" are very seldom found in the same sentence, Dusty.
TR: Well, abstinence make the heart grow fonder, like they say. Speaking of which, I'm thinking I might find me a cocktail lounge where mature women might go to practice poor judgment.
(STRUMMING)
GK: (SINGS)
Each night I go from Times Square up to Harlem
Along that famed Columbus Avenue.
And as I see the lights around me, darlin,
It always brings back memories of you....
Moonlight shines tonight along the Hudson.
Jump into a cab and take a ride...
TR: Hey! Wait a minute! (STRUMMING STOPS)
GK: What's wrong?
TR: Shhhhh.
GK: What?
TR: Listen.
GK: I don't hear anything.
TR: I know. That's what worries me. Something's out there, otherwise it wouldn't be quiet like that.
GK: What do you mean, "something"?
TR: Could be somebody lurking out there in the darkness---
GK: Nobody comes in Central Park after dark. There's nothing there, pardner. (STRUMMING)
GK (SINGS):
Moonlight shines tonight along the Hudson.....
Jump into a cab and take a ride.
Just another lonesome cowboy and his Stetson
Roaming round the old Upper West Side.
We were to meet and get a bite to eat----
At a sweet little joint down on Eighty-seventh street----(HE HUMS)
TR: How long we planning to stay in New York?
GK: I don't know. Just looking for an alternative to the cowboy life, Dusty. We're getting too old for that.
TR: Ain't that the truth.
GK: The life on horseback, the dust storms, the ornery longhorns, the bad coffee.
TR: The bad hombres.
GK: The compulsive fist fighting and rolling down stairs punching and kicking and throwing men over the bar in the saloon and being thrown yourself.
TR: The fly-by-night romances with women who suffer from low self-esteem.
GK: The attempts to bond with pardners who are never going to open up and talk, so why even try?
TR: Who you talking about? (STRUMMING)
GK (SINGS):
Moonlight shines tonight in old Manhattan.....
Riding in a cab on West End Avenue.
How I love the smell of silk and satin
Makes me think that someday I'll be havin' you....
We were to meet and get a bite to eat----
TR: Shhhhhh. ---- Listen.
GK: What?
TR: Thought I heard a twig snap or something.
SS: (SLIGHTLY OFF) No, that wasn't a twig ---- that was me slipping this tear gas cartridge off safety so I can fire it at a moment's notice. So ease that sixgun back into your holster, mister.
GK: Don't worry about him, ma'am. He couldn't hit you with that gun if you were six feet in front of his face.
SS: That's about where I am.
GK: How come we can't see you, ma'am?
SS: I'm a New York woman. I'm about sixteen inches in circumference and I'm wearing all-black.
GK: Oh.
SS: My sister-in-law and I came out here to get away from my children and my husband and you keep starting and stopping that song and I'd like you to finish the song and then not sing it again or anything else. Okay?
GK: I thought nobody came out to Central Park at night.
SS: That's why I'm here. For privacy.
GK: You're not afraid of being accosted?
SS: Mister, I know three ways to render a man helpless with my bare hands and I'm working on a fourth. I'm looking at you right now with a facial expression that if it were daylight you would fall over and not get back up. Okay? Sing.
(HE STRUMS)
GK:
Moonlight shines tonight on Riverside
Shining down on West End Avenue.
The air is sweet with smells of chicken Pad Thai
And miso soup and curried scallops too.
Youthful and trim
From visits to the gym,
Why did you leave me and run away with him?
Moonlight shines tonight on old Manhattan,
I wonder if you're thinking of me too.
(HE YODELS)
SS: Wow. You're making me hungry. You ever have the pad Thai from that little cafe over on Amsterdam---- just straight west from here---- that is the best. You wouldn't happen to have a bicycle, would you?
TR: We got horses.
SS: Even better. Here's a twenty. I'd like it with shrimp and extra spicy. And an order of Chinese spareribs.
TR: Okay. I'm on my way. (WHINNY) Giddup. (HE GALLOPS AWAY)
SS: You two cowboys could go into the delivery business.
GK: You think so?
SS: Delivery is the life blood of New York City.
GK: So there might be a future for us here?
SS: More than there would be with singing, yes.
GK: I was afraid that might be true.
SS: It's one reason people come to New York ---- to find out what they were afraid is true, which is better than living your life under a big illusion in Omaha.
GK: I'm rather fond of illusions.
SS: Most men are.
GK: You're glaring at me right now, aren't you.
SS: I am. It's my standard defensive glare for use on the street. Every New York woman has one.
GK: I'm grateful for darkness then.
SS: Sooner or later the sun comes up.
GK: I can wait. I can wait.
(THEME)
TR: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by Cowboy Drugstore Dot Com.
(MUSIC OUT)