Very early morning, between night and day, no crickets, coyotes yapping feverishly in distance before light comes up. A small fire blazes in the dark from alcove area, sound of LEE smashing typewriter with a golf club, light coming up, LEE seen smashing typewrite methodically then dropping pages of his script into a burning bowl set on the floor of alcove, flames leap up. AUSTIN has a whole bunch of stolen toasters lined up on the sink counter along with LEE’s stolenTV. The toasters are of a wide variety of models, mostly chrome, AUSTIN goes up and down the line of toasters, breathing on them and polishing them with a dish towel. Both men are drunk, empty whiskey bottles and beer cans litter floor of kitchen, they share a half-empty bottle on one of the chairs of the alcove,LEE keeps periodically taking deliberate ax-chops at the typewriter, using a nine-iron as AUSTIN speaks, all of their mother’s house plants are dead and drooping
AUSTIN: (Polishing toasters) There’s gonna’ be a general lack of toast in the neighborhood this morning. Many, many unhappy, bewildered breakfast faces. I guess it’s best not to even think of the victims. Not to even entertain it. Is that the right psychology?
LEE: (Pauses) What?
AUSTIN: Is that the correct criminal psychology? Not to think of the victims?
LEE: What victims (He takes another swipe at typewriter with nine-iron, adds pages to the fire)
AUSTIN: The victims of crime. Of breaking and entering. I mean is a prerequisite for a criminal not to have a conscience?
LEE: Ask a criminal. (Pause. LEE stares at AUSTIN.) What’re you gonna’ do with all those toasters? That’s the dumbest thing I ever saw in my life.
AUSTIN: I’ve got hundreds of dollars’ worth of household appliances here. You may not realize that.
LEE: Yeah, and how many hundreds of dollars did you walk right past?
AUSTIN: It was toasters you challenged me to. Only toasters. I ignored every other temptation.
LEE: I never challenged you! That’s no challenge. Anybody can steal a toaster (He smashes typewriter again)
AUSTIN: You don’t have to take it out on the typewriter ya’ know. It’s not the machine’s fault that you can’t write. It’s a sin to do that to a good machine.
LEE: A sin?
AUSTIN: When you consider all the writers who never had a machine. Who would have given an eyeball for a good typewriter. Any typewriter. (LEE smashes typewriter again.) (Polishing toasters) All the ones who wrote on matchbook covers. Paper bags. Toilet paper. Who had their writing destroyed by their jailers. Who persisted beyond all odds. Those writers would find it hard to understand your actions. (LEE comes down on typewriter with one final crushing blow on the nine-iron then collapses in one of the chairs, takes a drink from the bottle. Pause.) (After pause.) Not to mention demolishing a perfectly good golf club. What about all the struggling golfers? What about Lee Trevino? What do you think he would’ve said when he was batting balls around with broom sticks at the age of nine. Impoverished. (Pause)
LEE: What time is it anyway?
AUSTIN: No idea. Time stands still when you’re havin’ fun.
LEE: Is it too late to call a woman? You know any women?
AUSTIN: I’m a married man.
LEE: I mean a local woman. (AUSTIN looks out at light through window above sink)
AUSTIN: It’s either too late or too early. You’re the nature enthusiast. Can’t you tell the time by the light in the sky? Orient yourself around the North Star or something?
LEE: I can’t tell you anything.
AUSTIN: Maybe you need a little breakfast. Some toast! How ‘bout some toast?
(the scene continues in the same vein for several more minutes)
Copyright 1981 Sam Shepard