DEAN
This country is going to hell.

POPS
I hear that.

DEAN
Mexicans everywhere. 

POPS
Ain't been the same since John Wayne died.

DEAN
To the Duke!

They toast to John Wayne.

DEAN (CONTD)
You hear about that buck Junior McCoy picked off?

POPS
Hear it was a fifteen point.

DEAN
I heard sixteen.

POPS
Did he use a crossbow or a compound bow?

DEAN
Shotgun.

 

Pause.

DEAN
Boy I love killin'.

POPS
Uh-huh.  I feel so alive when I kill something.

DEAN
You know who I'd like to kill?  Batman.

POPS
Yeah.  I'd like to pick off that pointy-eared queer myself.

DEAN
Too damn bad he's a comic book.

POPS
Yup.  You know, I killed my daddy once.

DEAN
Yeah?

POPS
Yeah.  He kept insisting Shakespeare wouldnt have been nothing if Christopher Marlow hadnt been stabbed in the eye. 

DEAN
Give me a break.  Marlow couldnt find a decent sonnet if it were shoved in his ass. 

POPS
I can only stand so much ripping on the Bard, so I threw Daddy into a hatchet. 

DEAN
Sounds Oedipal.  No hey, sounds like you answered Nietzsches call for the higher man to kill God and assume his place above the populace.  You're preaching the basic tenets of fascism there. 

POPS
I aint no Nazi.  Im just saying a man ain't no kind of man what don't like to kill.  

DEAN
I hear that.

Deans eyes are diverted as he watches an unseen girl go by.  Pops whistles a cat call.

POPS
Boy look at that ass jiggle!

DEAN
Shit yeah.

POPS
Boy I tell you if I was ten years younger I'd get up off this stool and give that little kooter what for.

DEAN
Look at her.  Firm thighs, ample bosoms.  I'd take her for a ride in the country.

POPS
Where abouts?

DEAN
(still staring at the woman)
Old Frog Holler, in Amish country.

POPS
Oh, that's a nice spot.

DEAN
I'd take her down where Brush Creek glides along the passion grass and the wildflowers gleam beneath the moon.  We'd lay beneath Gods creation, and, and--

He starts to sob, Pops consoles him.

POPS
Hush there, Dean, your time will come along.  Be patient.

DEAN
Why cant a I meet a nice girl?  Just a nice girl that I can adore and be faithful to.  Someone to snuggle with.  I'd make a good husband.

POPS
You know whod I marry? 

DEAN
Who's that?

POPS
Emily Dickinson.

DEAN
Yeah?

POPS
Yeah.  Shy, tender words that whisper softly to me, "Awake ye muses mine/Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my valentine!"

DEAN
I reckon.  But she's no Sylvia Plath.

POPS
Oh please...

DEAN
Such a lovely woman, yet her words revealed a sadness, a longing like my own.  Plus she had big tits.

POPS
But Emily's conspicuous vulnerability sets rights to her smaller titties. 

DEAN
I find that women with larger juggies remind me of my mother.  Oh how I miss my mother.  You ever had a woman, Pops? 

A drinking beat.

POPS
I once loved.  I long for the kiss of my sweet Eleanor.  Our nights were soaked in love making, exploring one soul to the other.  Oh Eleanor.  Tread softly for you tread upon my dreams.

DEAN
She left us too soon, poor Eleanor. 

POPS
Now I see myself in T.S. Eliots J. Alfred Prufrock, old and lonely.  "We have lingered in chambers of the sea/By sea-girls with seaweed red and brown/Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

DEAN
Oh Pops.  I never knew. 

POPS
Were this but a matriarchal society, ruled by the sound judgment and tenderness of our female superiors.  

DEAN
The world may yet lay down its arms and sing songs of harmony and love.

POPS
Such a wicked world.  Such a wicked, wicked world.
The two suddenly embrace and weep.  Tears streaming.

DEAN
I need a good cry, Pops.

POPS
I love you, Dean.

Their eyes suddenly flash open.  They break from each other and drink their beers for a beat.

POPS (CONTD)
But I ain't queer or nothing.

DEAN
Yeah, me neither.  I hate queers.

POPS
Me too.

DEAN
I'm just gonna go sit over there.  Maybe beat up a hippy.

POPS
Do that.  I'm gonna sit here and think about football.

Dean gets up to leave, then the bartender approaches. 

BARTENDER
Hey!  Which one of you boys did I just hear quoting the last three lines of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?

POPS
That'd be me, Sammy.

BARTENDER
Can't you read, you old fart?

He points to an emphatic sign that reads, No T.S. Eliot Allowed!

POPS
Hell, I didn't mean nothing by it, Barkeep.

He grabs Pops and leads him to the door.

BARTENDER
All right Old Timer, out you go!

He throws Pops out, then dusts off his hands.