Scene 8.09 - While The Cat's Away
EST: EXT. Ziggarat/Marketplace Plaza - Sunset - Roxanopolis - July 2nd, 1815
LS: The lamp merchants, weavers, potters, artists, jugglers, musicians, bead hawkers, fortune tellers and food vendors close shop and are replaced by gamblers, drinkers, potheads, tattoo artists, muggers, cons, perverts and prostitutes of all three genders
(The pick-pockets don't go anywhere; they just keep acting like they're shopping.)
ZOOM IN
INT. Ziggarat, Throne Room
(SADIE and EMERALD are winning a game of strip poker. EMERALD is down to a shirt and diaper. SADIE is down to a bra and blue jeans. CHONGI is nude. POKE has briefs and tube socks, TERFER and OLAF are down to boxer briefs.)
SADIE
(Deals, confidently tokes from her holder:) Dumb luck -- you got my blouse, but that's the last you'll get.
TERFER
What happens when we lose all of our clothes? What if Chongi can't beat your hand?
POKE
Terfer, be patient, your luck shall change-
SADIE
You wanted to know how this game is played, Terfer... If Chongi loses this hand, then she's gotta do whatever I want her to do.
(CHONGI reacts.)
CHONGI
(Closed captioned.) Look, chick, I think you're pretty, but-
SADIE
The first thing I will want her to do is put her loincloth back on. That granite's gotta be so cold on your butt, girl- Wanna pillow?
CHONGI
(Captioned:) You know it. (Catches pillow.) I'll take two. Cards, not pillows. Thanks.
POKE
Three cards for me.
OLAF
("Secretly" shows SADIE:) I want five?
SADIE
No Olaf, you wanna stand. That's a full house. That's good.
TERFER
Emerald's got two aces, a four, an eight and a jack.
SADIE
Keep the aces and the jack. You, Terfer?
TERFER
Gimme one.
SADIE
Okay. I got a pair of fours.
(CHONGI wins and puts on her loincloth. POKE loses and places two new, white tube socks on the table's pile. Everyone is impressed concerning the lack of the expected unpleasant odor, absence of excessive stains and the fact that there are no discernible holes detected in the old-man socks which typically would reek of stereotype, otherwise. OLAF wins and puts his skullcap-shaped, Jughead-lookin' hat on. TERFER loses his boxers, and feels the cold, ball-shrinking kiss of Grandma Granite.)
TERFER
This is as silly as that rock-paper-blade game you taught me. This game will result in either oppression, rebellion, or boredom.
SADIE
You just don't like losing. You win some, you lose some. (Dealing new hand.) It's all or nothing for you, Terfer. You in or not?
TERFER
Hmmm. (Passes blunt to SADIE after camping on it a little.) I suppose learning this game has its merits...
SADIE
Okay, boy-king and double-hittin' Shower-Lynn Master: Just how old are you?
TERFER
I was born in the 75th year of the wolf in the third dawn of the dragon's dance.
SADIE
That don't tell me jack. Your bells dropped yet?
TERFER
Bells?
POKE
I'd say sixteen at best, closer to fourteen.
TERFER
(Uncomfortable; voice cracks a bit.) Deal me in.
SADIE
I was thinking of eleven. When did your voice change, boy?
TERFER
(Voice cracking a little more, trying to sound deeper.) Deal me in!
(She does, amused.)
SADIE
(Looking at small pile of undergarments on the table.) What does everyone want to bet? (Silence.) Okay, if Emerald wins, she gets to be burped, and the lowest hand burps her. If she loses her hand, Mama burps her and we finish this game later.
CHONGI.
Four.
POKE
One.
OLAF
How many?
SADIE
You want two. Gimme the nine and the three. Here. Emerald's got another two aces and two jacks? Lose the deuce. Here.
TERFER
I'll stand.
SADIE
You sure you in? (Pause.) If you lose... you gotta lose your mask.
TERFER
Nobody takes off their mask. Not in my presence.
POKE
Chongi didn't bet her mask -- Sadie, it is a sacred custom we all agreed would not be a part of this game. Let's not offend him...
(Points her blunt and cigarette holder to POKE and uses it to illustrate. Then she hits it.)
SADIE
I've watched a half-drunk eleven-year-old kid who apparently has heard way-too many sordid, pornographic late-night stories from two former lovers of mine completely badger you, who is fully drunk and who knows what else, into badgering me to teach him how to play strip poker so he can understand our customs or some crap like that when you and I know it's really so this boy can see a woman's private parts up close and you think I give a damn about his moral sensitivities?
TERFER
It is a sacred custom from the beginning of our history. My tribe holds it dear. If- if you see my face, you will become my wife.
SADIE
Wife? Really? You mean I'd get to be queen of everything around here?
TERFER
Most assuredly. No woman other than the nursemaid who birthed me has ever fully seen my face.
SADIE
Never?
TERFER
If I lost this hand, you would be the first. No one in our three tribes will violate this, not even our young.
(He regards EMERALD who is walking on the table, wearing a bumble bee mask with no difficulty. She teeters to OLAF'S lap.)
SADIE
(Adjusts her own hawk mask.) All right... all right. You at least forty-four seasons old or something?
TERFER
I have seen fourteen winters after the crawling year.
SADIE
After the... so that makes you practically sixteen, right?
TERFER
Fifteen harvest moons, does it matter?
SADIE
Not really. You'd be legal in most Southern states and we certainly are Southerners. Also, I'm sure being a king of a continent gives you some sort of legal emancipation. Okay. You win the hand, Master Terfer, you and I are gonna go down and explore that secret chamber you've been wanting to show me and maybe I'll show you one too. You lose, I get to see your face.
POKE
(Wearing an owl mask:) Mistress, a king does not bargain his-
SADIE
Stay out of this, Old Man.
TERFER
Very well. What do you have?
SADIE
Read 'em and weep. Three queens, one six, one nine.
CHONGI
(Loses loincloth again. Keeps jaguar mask. Written:) Two hearts, three clubs. Nine high.
POKE
Six high. (Return of the ball-shrink. Like all sequels, not as dramatic.) I'd say I'm am naked as a baby, but your baby ain't naked.
OLAF
I win!
SADIE
Yes, Olaf, you gotta five. Good job. Hey Olaf, you think you can take the baby to her playpen? She needs to be burped and she'll need a nap or she'll get cranky later.
OLAF
(Wearing rabbit mask.) Yes, yes.
SADIE
Holler if she cries.
OLAF
I will. She don' never cry 'round me. (She climbs all over OLAF as if he is a jungle gym. He doesn't mind.) She's my best friend.
SADIE
She likes you too. Keep an eye on her, she's my number one inmate on every day that ends with a Y.
(The two depart to a nearby area, happily, EMERALD riding on OLAF'S shoulders. OLAF holds her there, walking away.)
POKE
Hoarse-Whisperer, perhaps this is our cue.
(They kiss and slowly walk away, hand in hand, butts in view, and climb a ladder to a recently-built, private loft, high above.)
SADIE
It's just us. It's okay. You can back out, no one needs to know.
TERFER
I was about to offer you the same. Three Kings and two aces.
(Long pause.)
SADIE
(Gets up.) Is the room... comfortable?
TERFER
I decorated it only when thinking of loving a women, my lady. The room is perfect; everything you would find to be beautiful in this world.
(TERFER picks up a lamp and takes her hand and leads her to the basement stair.)
TERFER (Cont'd.)
(Stops.) It's just us. It's okay. You can back out now, no one needs to know.
(She bends over and kisses the young man. They descend the stairway, hand in hand. Somehow, in a Harold-And-Maude way, it doesn't seem weird at all.)
FTB