Some Time, Some Station
written by Rupert Holmes
(greenroom: Betty checks if she's been shot)
Pruitt: Victor, no points for a near miss. You have your orders.
Victor: My orders were to shoot. No one said I had to be any good at it.
Pruitt: No, Mr. Sherwood, you mustn't tempt me. As you recall, firing is one of my specialties, and I've always dreamt of doing it with a pistol. Victor, you must execute whomsoever last said the password.
Scott: Hey Victor, listen: buy barley—
Betty: Quiet, Scott. Victor knows what he's doing. Remember what happened when I discovered that you were alive? How I reacted? I almost died.
Pruitt: Get on with it, Victor.
(Victor shoots; Betty falls to the floor.)
Scott: You shot her!
Pruitt: Step away from him, Victor, or I'll have to kill you both.
(Victor's gun fires again.)
Victor: (to Scott) I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shoot you.
Scott: That's all right. You didn't.
Pruitt: This suit is pure Sumatran silk. I'll never get the blood out. Mummy would be furious.
Scott: Betty!
Victor: Is she hurt?
Scott: I'm looking.
Betty: Look no further, Mr. Sherwood.
Scott: You're all right?
Betty: The first time I saw Victor back from the dead, I fainted dead away. I thought if I did the same thing as Victor fired the gun, Pruitt would buy into it. Right, Victor?
Scott: Dead center. Right on line with your head, Betty. Nice shooting, Victor.
Victor: Lousy shooting. I was aiming for the couch. But at least now it's. . .it's finished.
Betty: Victor, sit down here. (To Scott) What are you doing?
Scott: Pruitt here looks fit to be tied. I want to get him knotted up with this wire before he comes to.
Betty: Well, I like your way of thinking, Mr. Sherwood.
Scott: I learned a couple of hitches in Calcutta that a sloop couldn't slip out of. You'd better call the police, Betty.
Betty: Victor, I have to tell him. I trust him.
Scott: Betty Roberts, you trust me?
Betty: Not with the petty cash, not on a second date, but with something this important. . . . Scott, you know that American who broadcasts Nazi propaganda in Germany.
Scott: Jonathan Arnold, sure.
Betty: Well, Jonathan Arnold is. . .was Victor.
Scott: The patron saint of Pittsburgh radio is a two-bit traitor?
Betty: He's not a traitor. He joined forces with the Allies and he infiltrated Nazi radio. Only the Germans must have caught on and infiltrated his mind.
Scott: Well, that story about an odorless gas leak may have worked for clearing the premises. . . one, two, three (Scott and Betty heave Pruitt onto the couch) . . .but what happens when everyone comes marching back in and sees. . . (they look to the chair to find Victor gone). . .Victor.
Betty: Oh, no. We can't let him walk around like this--in the state that he's in.
Mackie: (entering) No, there's no sign of her anywhere. Oh hey, there you are, Betty. (She exits.) Oh hey, there you go, Betty. Who's that, Scotty?
Pruitt: Mr. Bloom, Scott Sherwood has shot me.
Mackie: It had to happen sooner or later. You know, I heard gunshots and I thought it was Mr. Foley's sound effects, and then I remembered, we're not on the air.
Pruitt: Gentlemen, I'm a man of considerable means. If you help me out of this situation, I'll give you twenty dollars.
Scott: Twenty dollars!
Pruitt: All right, thirty.
Scott: I've heard enough out of you, Pruitt.
Mackie: Ooh, Scotty, when you renegotiate, you really are tough. You know, Pruitt, now that Scott's broken the ice and maybe your left clavicle, I'd just like to mention that you are the worst low-life ever to walk the hallways of this station.
Scott: He's a Nazi saboteur, Mackie.
Mackie: Aw, gee, that too?
(Victor's (formerly Betty's, Pruitt's, Scott's, or Victor's) office)
Victor: Ah, good morning, Betty. I can't seem to find our program schedule for today.
Betty: Uh-huh.
Victor: (to Scott) Oh, I'm sorry, I don't believe we've had the pleasure. You are. . . .
Betty: Victor--
Victor: No, Betty, I'm Victor. Yes, that's right. And you, sir, are. . .
Betty: Victor, Rollie Pruitt—
Victor: Rollie Pruitt! Of course. We met briefly in Boston. I must say, you've lost quite a bit of—
Scott: Weight?
Victor: And height. But you've dealt with the loss very well. So now, let me shoot you. . .right into the control room where you can watch WENN begin its broadcasting day with Bedside Manor.
Betty: Victor, maybe you'd like to, um, lie down on the couch for a little while.
Victor: Betty, not in front of Pruitt.
Scott: Victor, could I have a few moments with Betty in private.
Victor: See. He's got the wrong idea about you, now.
(greenroom: Mackie attends Pruitt's wound)
Mackie: That ought to stop the bleeding until we can get the lead out. So, so you're the mastermind behind this ring of saboteurs. Sure you come down here last Christmas and you decided what a sweet little command post this station would make for you and your "boys in the bund." Kurt, uh, Holstrom, he was a trial balloon, wasn't he. Then we popped him and you decided to boot out Sherwood so you could take over for yourself. Thank God I was here to stop you.
(writer's room)
Scott: I reached C.J. at O'Malley's and told him we were shut down for the night. What are you looking for?
Betty: Victor wants me to find the baseball schedules for the Pirates games.
Scott: Well, it's on the wall.
Betty: For 1940! That's what he thinks it is. Apparently he's lost all memory of everything that happened since he left the station.
Scott: Mind control. The Germans were experimenting with it when I ran up against them in Spain. It's like hypnosis.
Betty: Well how do we wake him up
Scott: Very slowly. If the fact that he's lost a year of his life hits him too hard, he could crack We have to ease him back in to reality.
Betty: Reality is everybody in the world thinks that Victor is dead, except us, and Victor's contact.
Scott: And the only one that knows the contact's name is. . . .(Victor enters) Victor!
Victor: Hello Mr. Pruitt. Ready to watch us start our broadcast day?
Scott: As ready as you are.
Victor: Almost eight. That's funny, still dark out.
Betty: Daylight savings.
Victor: In the spring? I thought it was fall back, spring forward.
Scott: No, no, no, fall forward and spring back in surprise that the sun isn't up yet.
Betty: And if the sun were up we wouldn't be saving all that daylight for the fall, now would we.
Victor: Wouldn't that make it brighter sooner?
Scott: Sooner or later.
Victor: Of course. Silly of me. Well, my mind's been occupied. (exits)
Scott: Occupied by the enemy. What happens when the rest of the crew comes filing back in and discovers Victor still alive.
Betty: Well, for their sake as well as Victor's, well have to break it to them as gently as possible.
Scott: That's plan A.
(hallway)
Mackie: (to Victor) Well, officer, I've been expecting you. . . .
Scott: Scratch plan A.
Mackie: Victor! Victor?
Victor: Good morning, Mackie.
Mackie: Oh, Victor, it's wonderful to see you. Let me modify that, it's impossible to see you.
Victor: Ah, I'm sorry. I'll try to make more time out of my schedule for you. Thanks for your patience.
Mackie: You're very welcome. And very dead. But if I can see him, then that must mean. . . .
Betty: It's true!
Mackie: I'm dead, too! We're all dead. Unless, of course, Victor is alive.
Betty: Mackie, I know exactly how you feel. The first time I saw Victor again I fainted dead away.
Mackie: That's a good choice. (He faints.)
(control room: Scott enters)
Victor: I don't know where our engineer has gotten to, Mr. Pruitt, but luckily I have handled the board more than once or twice.
Scott: We're going on the air?
Victor: Mm-hmm. Five seconds. Watch Mackie come racing into the studio right on the money. He's got it down to a science. Two. . .one. . .and WENN is on the air. (silence) Well, necessity being the mother of invention. . . (cut to Studio A) And after a moment of silent meditation, welcome to Bedside Manor, happy home of Jeff Singer and Hilary Booth. I'm. . . the man from the power company down here in the basement reading the meters as we await the arrival of our announcer.
(greenroom)
Mackie: Victor's alive? Thank you.
Betty: Yes, but he doesn't remember anything about the last year, so we can't shock him.
Mackie: We can't shock him?
Betty: You've got to pretend that it's a morning in 1940.
Mackie: I prefer April in Paris or New York in June. How about you?
Betty: Get out there!
Mackie: Okay, fine, fine. Hey, Victor, what's new? Not much, Mackie, I'm not dead! Really, fancy that!
(Mackie exits; Pruitt groans.)
Betty: And you. If you hadn't taken the name of Victor's contact out of that strongbox, I'd know who to call for help. Hey, that's right. You know the name of Victor's contact. Come on, spit it out!
(Studio A)
Victor: So, Mr. Milkman, I hope everybody in Pittsburgh remembered to set their watches ahead this morning.
Scott: Victor, I think we shouldn't—
Victor: Say, there's Mr. Announcer now! Let's turn the show over to him.
Mackie: Yes, it's eight-oh-five p.m. . . . this morning. And a lovely morning it is here in April or June of last year. And it's time for. . . .what?
Scott: Bedside Manor.
Mackie: Thank you, passing stranger.
Scott: No, no, I'm Pruitt. Rollie Pruitt.
Mackie: Whatever you say, pal.
(front hallway: Eugenia enters)
Eugenia: Hello? Betty? Anyone? Does the station still have gas?
(greenroom)
Pruitt: I need medical attention. This wound could become infected.
Betty: There is not a germ on earth could survive in your bloodstream. Tell me the name of Victor's contact.
Pruitt: I will. If you let me walk out of here scot-free.
Betty: You'll let us know by postcard from scenic Berlin.
Eugenia: (enters) Betty? Is everything back to normal?
Betty: Oh, Eugenia, "normal" is such a relative term, don't you think?
Victor: (enters) Betty, what is keeping Hilary and Jeff?
Scott: Victor?
Betty: Victor.
Eugenia: Victor! My, you look nice in that uniform.
Victor: Uh, Eugenia, why aren't you at the organ?
Eugenia: Oh, so the air here is okay to breathe.
Victor: Well, I don't know. It is Pittsburgh, after all. Now let's just scoot into that studio, shall we?
Eugenia: I surely will, Victor. (exits)
Betty: Five-four-three-two-one. . . . That's funny.
(Scott opens the door to reveal Eugenia passed out in hallway)
(Studio A)
Mackie: And now continuing with our special surprise edition of Great Monologues live from Bedside Manor brought to you by. . .default. We now give you "The Missive of Farewell" by D. P. Door. My dear one, when love comes to an end, I can only say. . . What the hell?
(Scott and Victor enter carrying Eugenia)
Victor: Keep going, Mackie, she's fine.
Mackie: The romance is like. . . . That odorless gas. That's why she's unconscious.
Scott: She fainted for the same reason you did, Mackie, and may I remind you, you're still on the air.
(front hallway: Hilary enters followed by Jeff)
Jeff: Hilary, you promised to love, honor, cherish, and obey. Now please honor my request to speak with you.
Hilary: You're a fine one to quote me our vows. Wriggling out of our marriage through a legal loophole so you could have a shotgun wedding with Pavla, the Czechoslovakian chamber pot.
Jeff: It wasn't a shotgun wedding.
Hilary: Well, it would've been if you'd invited me. Both barrels, close range. The minister wouldn't have stood a chance.
Jeff: Please, I've been following you for hours. I feel like your shadow.
Hilary: That would be granting you way too much depth! (Jeff groans) All right! Speak! But keep it as brief as our minuscule marriage.
Jeff: Hilary—
Hilary: Words, words, words! You discard me for another woman, then you compound the injury by. . .by confronting me in the only refuge I have. Here, the place where I work. I seem to have left in such a state this afternoon that I forgot my shawl. Would you be so good as to look in the coat closet while I check the greenroom. It would be the kindest thing you ever did for me. (enters greenroom) Betty, have you seen my shawl.
Betty: It's in the. . .um, in the writer's room.
Hilary: Thank you. Jeffrey, you loathsome lap dog, I-- Oh, Victor, well, I take that back. Actually, since you're a man, I suppose I don't. (exits)
Scott: Three. . .two. . .one. . .
(hallway)
Hilary: Little lecherous literati of a lounge lizard. You small bigamist.
Jeff: I'm no bigamist. Our marriage wasn't legal.
Hilary: Neither is manslaughter, but why stop there?
Jeff: You wouldn't take my phone calls, you returned my letters unopened. . .
(greenroom)
Victor: Who are you?
Pruitt: I'm Rollie Pruitt.
Victor: But I've already. . .say, you are Rollie Pruitt. We met briefly in Boston. But you're not any lighter and shorter than you were.
Pruitt: Thank you.
Victor: (to Scott) Then who. . .are you?
Scott: I'm just an actor here at this station, and sometimes I get these—
Betty: Delusions of grandeur.
Scott: Actually, you know, you and I met once, Victor, very briefly, at the George and Dragon.
Victor: In London. You're Scott. . .Sherman.
Scott: Close enough.
Victor: Sherman, grab some water and bring Eugenia around while I try to round up a cast. Betty, untie Mr. Pruitt. (exits)
Scott: Looks like I'm the waterboy. (Hands Betty a gun.) Don't hesitate to use this on Pruitt if he makes one false move. (exits)
Betty: Not another inch, buster!
(writer's room)
Jeff: Look, my letter explained everything.
Hilary: No, I don't want to hear you. Maybe this will drown you out. (Turns on radio: Mackie is still doing monologues.)
Jeff: Didn't you understand what it said?
Hilary: Every word of that letter is etched into my heart with a straight razor. I quote: (Mackie, on the radio, echoes her words) Life is too short. I have to learn who I really am. I only pray we can remain caring, loving—(She realizes that she and Mackie are saying the same thing.) What have you done?
(front hall)
Victor: Gertie? Mr. Eldridge? Where is everyone?
Maple: (enters) Oh, thank god, a po. . . .liceman. Do you need someone to show you around the place?
Victor: Uh, right now I just need an organist.
Maple: I'm an organist!
Victor: Do you have any experience playing on the radio?
Maple: Experience is my name. The first name's Maple. Some people say Mabel, but I say, no, it's Maple, like the—
Victor: Listen, this might be inordinately impromptu of me, Miss Experience, but would you be willing to go on the air for this radio station right now?
Mrs. Etruscan: All right if I mop up officer?
Victor: Officer? What am I . . . ? Uh, yes, please, of course, go right ahead.
Maple: You look exactly like Victor Comstock.
Victor: Words my mother said just minutes after I was born. Or, so I'm told. By way of saying, I am Victor Comstock.
Maple: Oh.
(writer's room)
Hilary: You gave Mackie Bloom a copy of that letter so he could humiliate me in front of my listeners.
Jeff: No, Hilary.
Hilary: Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned and scoffed at. And hell knows no woman like Hilary Booth. In front of all Pittsburgh. . .I'll kill him! And then I'll kill myself.
Jeff: Hilary.
Hilary: And then. . .I'll kill you.
(Studio A)
Mackie: And so my dear, our journey of love— (Hilary enters) Oh, Hilary, I've been needing you.
Hilary: You'll be needing Dr. Frankenstein to paste you together you unmanly monster. How dare you reveal the document of my degradation to all Pittsburgh?
Mackie: All Pittsburgh's listening, Hilary. I've been reciting "The Missive of Farewell."
Hilary: You'll be missing your legs and saying farewell to your arms when I'm done with you. You'll be a coloratura soprano with the Eunuch Tabernacle Choir!
Mackie: Hilary, simmer down!
Hilary: Simmer down.
Mackie: Cool off.
Hilary: Cool off! (Grabs jug of water.) I'll give you a cool off!
Mackie: No, no, no! Wait, wait, wait! Hilary! Did you know that water and electricity are a lethal combination?
Hilary: Your fears are completely ungrounded, Mackie! Grab the mic!
Mackie: No, Hilary, don't! No, wait!
Maple: (enters) I just had the-- (Water hits her head-on. She runs out and returns with the cooler contents, which she hurls at Hilary.)
Mackie: Yes, you've been listening to "What's wrong with this program?" An extremely new quiz show you play at home. Now, folks, we've been broadcasting a show just chock full of intentional mistakes. Now whatever listener calls in first and identifies them all will win. . .six dollars and. . .change!
(switchboard)
Victor: (on phone) Yes, ma'am. Disconcerting to have a morning show on in the evening. Yes. Evening? (Mr. Foley enters.) Mr. Foley! What do you have to say for yourself? It's a quarter past the hour. (Gertie enters and screams.) And Gertie, shame on you, you're late.
Gertie: No, no, you're late. The late Victor Comstock. Oh, Victor! Oh, this is the happiest day of my life. It's the day of a miracle. Oh, god bless September 1, 1941.
Victor: Nineteen forty-one?
Gertie: Mr. Eldridge is coming down the hall. The shock may be too great for him.
Victor: What shock?
Mr. Eldridge: (enters) Victor! Where the hell have you been?
(Studio A)
Maple: Listen sister, there are bigger fish to fry at the moment than—
Jeff: (enters) I've got it!
Hilary: You've had it!
Jeff: Hilary, the letter Mackie was reciting on the air just now, that's the letter Pavla gave you?
Hilary: You know it is.
Jeff: But it's a stock monologue—"The Missive of Farewell."
Hilary: I saw the letter. It was in your handwriting.
Jeff: I wrote it out for Pavla from memory when I first met her. She told me she wanted to be an actress. It's from a book I kept in the writer's room, "Modern American Monologues."
Hilary: (screams) Victor! He's alive. . .I saw him. . .I. . . (screams and faints)
Jeff: Victor!
Victor: Jeff.
Jeff: Hilary! Don't you see, darling?
Hilary: I don't see any darling. I see you.
Jeff: Pavla doctored the monologue I wrote out for her and made it look like a letter from me to you. You never got my real letter.
Hilary: What letter?
Jeff: The one that explained everything. I wrote it in code—the one we use in our mindreading act.
Scott: Why in code, Jeff?
Jeff: Because of what it revealed. I knew Victor was alive. I'm his contact.
Hilary: Wait a minute. So you're saying all this time you've been some kind of government agent?
Jeff: No, I'm just his contact. Like the buddy system.
Victor: You see, Jeff was the only civilian who knew all the details about. . .things that I can't discuss.
Scott: But why would you entrust a letter like that to Pavla, of all people.
Jeff: Because all mail and phone calls out of London are screened by the military. They'd have broken our simple code in a second. Hilary, the only way I could get an explanation to you was with Pavla. I thought that she would live up to her end of the deal.
Hilary: What deal?
Victor: Hold on. Pavla, the Czech refugee that was working with the Germans?
Hilary: Be careful now, you're talking about the second, or third Mrs. Singer. Depending on how you count, and apparently I don't.
Victor: Jeff, you married her?
Jeff: She'd found out your secret. She said she'd tell the Nazis about you if I didn't help her get out of the spy business and into the movie business, but for that she needed a working permit.
Scott: As the wife of an American. Sure.
Jeff: Victor's life wouldn't have been worth a plug nickel if the Germans found out, so I married her. Hilary, nothing happened between me and Pavla. I've always loved only you, and in front of all these witnesses, will you be my wife again.
Hilary: Jeff, you're already married.
Jeff: Oh, yeah. But other than that.
Hilary: Jeffrey, I'm sure what you did sprang from that hideous idealism you're tainted with and because you were being blackmailed with Victor's life. But couldn't you have done something more loving and humane than marry Pavla, like, oh, murder her?
Jeff: Hilary. . .
Hilary: No, no, no. You can work here. You may even speak to me, if you're feeling maniacally masochistic. But be warned, you'll be standing side by side with someone dedicated to bedeviling, belittling, and begrudging your every breathing moment.
Jeff: Sounds great to me, Hilary.
Victor: Jeff, isn't there someone in Washington you want to contact in this situation?
Jeff: I'll be right back.
Hilary: I'll count the moment.
Victor: Eugenia.
Eugenia: Yes, Victor.
Victor: Perhaps you and Miss Experience could give us a four-handed rendition of "Second-Hand Rose" for our listening public while we regroup?
Eugenia: Yes, Victor.
Maple: Sure thing, Vic.
Victor: Followed by "An Hour With Hilary Booth."
Hilary: That should carry us through to midnight. Thank you, maestro.
Victor: Uh, Mr., uh, Sherman?
Scott: Close enough.
(Victor's (formerly. . .you know by now, let's just say Victor's) office)
Victor: I think it best if we tell the world nothing about Jonathan Arnold for the time being.
Scott: Sure, but there's some things I need to tell you, Victor.
Victor: And Betty, please tell Mr. Eldridge and Gertie that—
Betty: Yes, Victor?
Victor: That I'm back.
transcribed by Janene Casella
the collected works of Betty Roberts