Dot Ayers: The Shipley business, yes. Where to begin, really.

Helen Alton: Well, not that it’s my place to say, but —

Louise Wallace: Helen, please.

Mrs. Alton: You know, I just don’t know why I bother. I don’t know why I bother talking at all. Dot, can you tell me why I bother?

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, it’s all right, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: No, please — you two go ahead and talk. I’ll just sit here like a bump on a log.

Mrs. Wallace: Helen, that isn’t what I meant.

Mrs. Alton: A nice, quiet little bump.

Mrs. Wallace: Helen.

Mrs. Alton: Once upon a time, there lived a little bump, on a little log.

Mrs. Wallace: Helen?

Mrs. Alton: The little bump thought it had something interesting to say from time to time, but every time the little bump opened its mouth, the little bump’s so-called friend Louise —

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, for heaven’s sake.

Mrs. Alton: — interrupted the little bump.

Mrs. Wallace: Dot, say something to her.

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, you can leave me out of it.

Mrs. Alton: You see, the little bump’s so-called friend Louise was a very big and important bump who knew all about how the little bump ought to tell a story, and no matter how many times the little bump asked Louise, “Please, let me finish just one measly sentence,” Louise the very important bump never listened, and even after the little bump had died —

Mrs. Wallace: Helen!

Mrs. Alton: — could it have a conversation in peace? No. Because barely two months later, the very big, important, bossy bump broke a hip and died and started interrupting the little bump again, and continued to do so until the end of time.

Mrs. Ayers: Ohhhh, my.

Mrs. Alton: The end.

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, all right. Helen, I apologize for interrupting you. Dot, stop…tittering.

Mrs. Alton: Apology accepted, and she can titter if she likes.

Mrs. Ayers: And I’m chuckling, not tittering.

Mrs. Wallace: I thought you wanted to stay out of it.

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, I do.

Mrs. Wallace: Then don’t pick a side by tittering!

Mrs. Ayers: I am chuckling, Louise, and I am not picking a side!

Mrs. Wallace: Chuckling is picking a side!

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, lighten up. So she told a fairy tale on you, who cares?

Mrs. Alton: Careful, Dot. You don’t want to make the big bump angry.

Mrs. Wallace: Don’t call me “the big bump.”

Mrs. Alton: See?

Mrs. Wallace: I’ll “see” you over the head with something, Helen.

Mrs. Ayers: Ohhhh, vengeance is mine, saith the big bump.

Mrs. Alton: Look upon my works, ye little bump, and despair.

Mrs. Ayers: Quoth the big bump, “Nevermore.”

Mrs. Alton: Good one, Chuckles.

Mrs. Ayers: Thank you, little bump.

Mrs. Wallace: All right, all right, I am a big bump, ha ha ha. Helen, please continue.

Mrs. Alton: All right. The Shipleys…you know, I hesitate to say it, because you can’t know everything that goes on behind closed do–

Mrs. Wallace: Helen.

Mrs. Alton: All right, Louise! The girl is strange! Are you happy now? She’s an odd bird, always was. There, I said it.

Mrs. Wallace: And we applaud you.

Mrs. Alton: You hush.

Mrs. Ayers: Which girl, now — Stevie or the other one?

Mrs. Alton: Stevie. You thought the other one was strange?

Mrs. Ayers: I thought the other one needed a whipping. Strange, not so much.

Mrs. Wallace: The other one needed glasses, is what she needed. Carrying on with the chemistry teacher is one thing, but the man had the worst underbite in the state of New Jersey.

Mrs. Alton: And a family.

Mrs. Wallace: In Ohio, and he might have moved them out here with him if he gave any size of fig about it.

Mrs. Ayers: I don’t remember him being ugly or from Ohio.

Mrs. Wallace: “Ugly” is beside the point. He looked like a staple remover.

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, him. I thought she had the affair with the little round one.

Mrs. Alton: I thought that same thing, Dot. What was the round one’s name? “Lemper”? “Klemper”?

Mrs. Wallace: “Clavell.”

Mrs. Alton: Not the Clavells with the Siamese twins?

Mrs. Ayers: Aren’t we supposed to call them “conjoined twins” now?

Mrs. Wallace: I don’t know, and anyway, that was his brother with the twins.

Mrs. Alton: So what was Staple Remover’s name?

Mrs. Wallace: “Swingline”? I don’t know.

Mrs. Ayers: Ha! Oh, my.

Mrs. Alton: How old was he, anyway?

Mrs. Ayers: Old enough to look up an orthodontist in the phone book.

Mrs. Wallace: Darn it, I was going to say that.

Mrs. Ayers: I know you were.

Mrs. Wallace: Early thirties, I think, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: And she was sixteen?

Mrs. Wallace: Probably. She didn’t repeat that grade, did she?

Mrs. Alton: No, she was a smart one. Smart enough to raise Cain and still make Bs, anyway.

Mrs. Ayers: Not smart enough to go to the eye doctor.

Mrs. Wallace: Darn you, Dot Ayers.

Mrs. Ayers: Once in a while, I get on a roll.

Mrs. Wallace: Well, get off my roll.

Mrs. Alton: Do you two want to talk about the Shipleys, or is there a nine-thirty show?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, all right, Helen, but there’s not all that much to say, really, is there? Nothing we haven’t all said a thousand times before. The girl is strange, the girl is dead, that’s it.

Mrs. Ayers: What is wrong with you now?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, there’s nothing wrong with me.

Mrs. Ayers: We talk about this all the time, suddenly it’s boring?

Mrs. Wallace: I just don’t think I see the point anymore.

Mrs. Ayers: Well, we’ve got the rest of anymore to get through, last time I looked, so if Helen wants to talk about it to pass the time, don’t have a kitten.

Mrs. Alton: We don’t have to talk about it.

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, talk about it if you want to, I don’t care.

Mrs. Alton: If you’re going to get upset —

Mrs. Wallace: I’m not up-set!

Mrs. Ayers: Louise?

Mrs. Wallace: I have something in my eye.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, boy.

Mrs. Wallace: Helen, you hush.

Mrs. Alton: Both eyes at once?

Mrs. Ayers: Helen, leave her —

Mrs. Wallace: It’s just so stupid! The whole — damn thing is just so stupid! And we talk about it all the time, and we talk and we talk and we try to figure out what is wrong with her, why does she walk down that road, why is she like that, what made her so weird, and she’s all alone out there night after night with just that stupid hat for company, and — she’s sad! She’s weird because she’s sad, she walks along the shoulder every night because she’s sad, and tell me one of you has a tissue.

Mrs. Alton: Here.

Mrs. Wallace: Thank you, Helen.

Mrs. Ayers: You know what I don’t understand — not to take away from what you were saying, Louise.

Mrs. Wallace: [honk]

Mrs. Ayers: But I don’t understand why she can’t just tell someone why she’s…so sad. Because she is sad.

Mrs. Alton: Isn’t that against the rules?

Mrs. Ayers: What, to ask someone a question?

Mrs. Alton: For her to tell us.

Mrs. Wallace: I think the only rule is that the living have to speak to us first.

Mrs. Ayers: That’s what I always thought.

Mrs. Alton: Huh. Did anyone ever ask her?

Mrs. Wallace: Mr. Bruck did.

Mrs. Alton: Now you tell us.

Mrs. Wallace: He didn’t ask her why she was sad. He asked her why she follows the same route every night.

Mrs. Alton: And?

Mrs. Wallace: “I have to.”

Mrs. Ayers: That’s what she said.

Mrs. Wallace: That’s what she said. “I have to.”

Mrs. Alton: But, you know, she was always like that — that’s what I meant by “strange.” The girl just didn’t talk. When she was alive, I mean.

Mrs. Ayers: Well, she talks. She just doesn’t talk much.

Mrs. Alton: But she doesn’t talk much so that you notice it, is my point. Do you remember the Westricks?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, Lord.

Mrs. Ayers: I never thought I’d hear that name again.

Mrs. Wallace: And you liked thinking so, too.

Mrs. Ayers: Ugh. Horrible people.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, she wasn’t so bad, when she was sober.

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, of course. That one time.

Mrs. Ayers: I must have missed that.

Mrs. Wallace: Join the club.

Mrs. Alton: Well, never mind then.

Mrs. Ayers: Helen, when I got here, what is the very first thing I said to you?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, I love this story.

Mrs. Alton: The very first thing you said to me was, “Helen! Hello!”

Mrs. Ayers: No, Helen, after that.

Mrs. Wallace: Heh.

Mrs. Alton: The very first thing you said to me after that? About the — ohhhhh. Do you know I forgot all about that?

Mrs. Ayers: The very first thing I said to you was —

Mrs. Alton: “Please tell me the Westricks aren’t here.” Oh, my goodness, that’s right.

Mrs. Wallace: And then she said…what did she say?

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, you know what I said.

Mrs. Wallace: Humor me.

Mrs. Alton: She said, “So this isn’t hell, then.”

Mrs. Wallace: Yes. Yes, she did.

Mrs. Ayers: Horrible people.

Mrs. Alton: I was getting to that. Stevie went over to the Westricks’ selling Girl Scout cookies one time, cute as a button in her little uniform —

Mrs. Wallace: Now, did she have the cowboy hat on over the beret?

Mrs. Alton: Louise, do not think I won’t hit you with my shoe.

Mrs. Wallace: I’m asking!

Mrs. Alton: I don’t think she was wearing the hat yet, Big Bump.

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, all right, then.

Mrs. Alton: So Ted Westrick wants to know if the cat’s got her tongue, and Stevie just stares at him and doesn’t say anything.

Mrs. Wallace: Good for Stevie.

Mrs. Alton: Then Ted gets angry and tells her a grown-up just asked her a question —

Mrs. Ayers: Hmph. Some “grown-up.” Sorry, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: — and she’d better answer him, and Stevie just stares at him and doesn’t say anything, so he slams the door right in her face, but he’s got her cookie sign-up sheet thingamabob still in his hand. So Stevie rings the doorbell, and when he answers it, she still doesn’t say anything, just holds out her hand for the sheet thingamabob as cool as you please.

Mrs. Wallace: And?

Mrs. Alton: And he gave it to her.

Mrs. Ayers: Probably slammed the door on her again.

Mrs. Wallace: He was good at that.

Mrs. Alton: But after that, he’d always cross the street when he saw her coming, said she gave him the creeps.

Mrs. Wallace: That’s ironic.

Mrs. Alton: Isn’t it, though.

Mrs. Ayers: She should have hired herself out around town.

Mrs. Wallace: I’d have paid her.

Mrs. Ayers: I’d have paid her twice.

Mrs. Wallace: I’ll pay her now if it’ll work on that Rixon boy.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, not this again.

Mrs. Ayers: Now he is a strange one. Did you know he’s changed his story again?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, no. Now what, he was running into a burning building and tripped over his shoelace?

Mrs. Ayers: Even better. Pushed off a bridge by street toughs.

Mrs. Alton: “Street toughs”?

Mrs. Wallace: “Bridge”?

Mrs. Ayers: I don’t make the news, ladies. I only report it.

Mrs. Alton: Well, it’s creative, at least.

Mrs. Wallace: But that’s the whole trouble — we all know he fell down a flight of stairs while he was high on drugs. Why can’t he just say so?

Mrs. Alton: He’s probably embarrassed, Louise.

Mrs. Wallace: That Bugsy fellow isn’t embarrassed.

Mrs. Ayers: “Booly.”

Mrs. Wallace: Bugsy, Booly, you know who I mean.

Mrs. Ayers: What’s he got to be embarrassed about?

Mrs. Alton: He’s a Mob bookie.

Mrs. Wallace: You don’t have to whisper, Helen. I think he already knows he’s a Mob bookie.

Mrs. Ayers: I don’t understand. He had cancer?

Mrs. Alton: Oh, never mind.

Mrs. Ayers: I thought he got shot.

Mrs. Wallace: He did get shot, Dot, never mind.

Mrs. Ayers: Maybe he knows something about Stevie. From when he was alive.

Mrs. Alton: But she died before we did — what would he know that we don’t?

Mrs. Ayers: Maybe he saw her.

Mrs. Alton: People see her? Living people?

Mrs. Wallace: That’s the scuttlebutt.

Mrs. Alton: Like who?

Mrs. Ayers: “Like who” — like living people, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: Thank you for that, Dot, but I would like a specific example.

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, look who doesn’t believe in ghosts now.

Mrs. Wallace: Heh.

Mrs. Alton: I am talking to Louise. Louise?

Mrs. Wallace: A specific example? The girl with the hair. I know she saw Stevie when she was alive.

Mrs. Ayers: The little girl with the hoop? She died ages ago.

Mrs. Wallace: No, not her, but it is worth noting that I continue to detest the hoop girl.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, who doesn’t. How many times have I asked her to roll the hoop on the grass so it doesn’t make that screeching sound on the gravel…but no, she likes to roll it on the path.

Mrs. Wallace: Someone told her it was cute one too many times, I’ll bet, and then she didn’t have time to grow out of it before she died.

Mrs. Alton: Who would have told her that? It’s rolling a hoop, for gosh sakes.

Mrs. Wallace: They didn’t have television, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: Good point. Dot? Oh my Lord, Dot is having a seizure!

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, she is not, she’s…laughing?

Mrs. Ayers: [splutter]

Mrs. Alton: What on earth?

Mrs. Wallace: Oh, no, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it!

Mrs. Alton: What, what?

Mrs. Wallace: It was you!

Mrs. Alton: You who what?

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, oh, I can’t breathe.

Mrs. Wallace: Dot Ayers, you are a hero for our times.

Mrs. Alton: What, what?

Mrs. Wallace: Remember two years ago when quote unquote someone hid the hoop behind the Selvey vault?

Mrs. Alton: Oh, of course I do. Little Miss Hoop Dee Hoop whined and cried for a week, it was almost as bad as the hoop in the first pl– Dot hid it?

Mrs. Ayers: I admit nothing.

Mrs. Wallace: Your secret is safe with us. Swear, Helen.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, I swear! But I thought it was Josiah Prager who hid the hoop.

Mrs. Wallace: Chuckles fooled us all.

Mrs. Ayers: Well, it was his idea, and he did the actual stealing.

Mrs. Alton: So, then…

Mrs. Ayers: I may have advised Corporal Prager to hide the hoop in a large pile of wet leaves.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, well done, Dot!

Mrs. Ayers: Then again, I may not have.

Mrs. Wallace: Next time, have him hide it under a train. In Georgia.

Mrs. Ayers: Heh.

Mrs. Wallace: So, no, not the hoop girl. The blonde.

Mrs. Ayers: The leukemia girl?

Mrs. Wallace: The leukemia girl is a strawberry blonde.

Mrs. Ayers: No, the other leukemia girl.

Mrs. Alton: She had leukemia.

Mrs. Ayers: Yes, Helen, I understand that.

Mrs. Alton: No, you don’t, Dot, because she actually died of a snake-bite.

Mrs. Wallace: There are poisonous snakes in New Jersey?

Mrs. Alton: Apparently.

Mrs. Wallace: I did not know that.

Mrs. Alton: Neither did Dot.

Mrs. Ayers: Excuse me, Helen, but now I am talking to Louise. Louise?

Mrs. Wallace: Yes?

Mrs. Ayers: Which blonde girl? The snakebite girl?

Mrs. Wallace: Wouldn’t you say the snakebite girl’s hair is more of a light brown?

Mrs. Alton: Louise. She saw Stevie, yes or no.

Mrs. Wallace: No, not the snakebite girl, the murdered girl.

Mrs. Alton: Louise!

Mrs. Wallace: What?

Mrs. Alton: It’s just so harsh, said that way.

Mrs. Wallace: Well, I could have said “the raped and murdered girl,” couldn’t I?

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, Louise…

Mrs. Wallace: But I didn’t.

Mrs. Alton: You don’t call Stevie “the went through the windshield girl.”

Mrs. Wallace: I used to, before I knew her.

Mrs. Alton: Yes, I guess you did. Good Lord.

Mrs. Wallace: I’m not proud of it, but I did call her that. And I do know this girl’s name. Jessica…Jessica…Garner?

Mrs. Ayers: Gardner?

Mrs. Wallace: Garnett!

Mrs. Ayers: Oh, her. I heard on the radio, they still haven’t caught the guy who — you know.

Mrs. Alton: Oh, dear.

Mrs. Ayers: Louise, carry on.

Mrs. Wallace: Well, she says she was driving home from a party one night and she saw Stevie on the shoulder, so she stopped and asked if Stevie needed a ride, and Stevie said no, it wasn’t far.

Mrs. Ayers: Where was that?

Mrs. Alton: Hilltop Road.

Mrs. Ayers: What part of Hilltop?

Mrs. Wallace: Near the high school, I think.

Mrs. Ayers: Huh. And Stevie spoke to her.

Mrs. Wallace: That’s what she says. She also says that when she pulled out, she didn’t see Stevie in the mirrors.

Mrs. Ayers: Well, that fits.

Mrs. Wallace: It does.

Mrs. Alton: So was Stevie going back to the high school?

Mrs. Ayers: Doesn’t she go all the way down, to where it meets Evergreen Avenue?

Mrs. Wallace: I think so. And then she comes back up again.

Mrs. Alton: She goes down to Evergreen, and then she comes back up.

Mrs. Wallace: Every night.

Mrs. Alton: I don’t get it.

Mrs. Ayers: Neither do I.

Mrs. Wallace: I don’t think there’s anything to get. I think she’s just sad. Sad and quiet.

Mrs. Ayers: Sad and quiet.

Mrs. Alton: And in motion.

Mrs. Wallace: And in motion.

Mrs. Alton: I still think there’s an explanation. There has to be.

Mrs. Wallace: Maybe. But sometimes, there just isn’t a reason. Sometimes, thinking there’s a reason is just a way to…oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Mrs. Ayers: I know just what you mean, Louise.

Mrs. Alton: So do I.

My name is Helen Alton. I died of kidney failure April 21, 1996.
My name is Louise Wallace. I died in my sleep June 30, 1996.
My name is Dot Ayers. I died of colon cancer April 4, 1997.

October 6, 2003

Tags:   Famous Ghost Monologues