Act III



SCENE FIFTEEN

HE USED TO CUT THE GRASS



JOE: (to himself as he walks out of prison)

I'm out at last

Boy, the world sure looks different

Wow... there's hardly anything fun to do

Since they made music illegal

But I'm hooked I got the habit

I got to have it

I need to play

But theres no musicians anymore

They're all gone

Wait!

I've got it!

I'll be sullen and withdrawn

I'll dwindle off into the twilight realm

Of my own secret thoughts

I'll walk through the parking lot

In a semi-catatonic state

And dream of guitar notes

To go with the loading-zone announcements.



JOE wanders through the world which by then has been totally epoxied over,

carefully organized, with everyone reporting daily to his or her appointed place in

a line somewhere in front of a window somewhere in a building somewhere in order

to collect his or her welfare check, which, when cashed, made it possible for the young

ones to continue the payments for the obsolete and irreparable appliances their

parents had purchased on the installment plan years ago, providing as security

the future incomes of their children. The rest of these checks were used by the young

recipients to buy fun things of their own on credit, most of which broke down or failed

within moments of purchase and seemed to be stacking up everywhere.



CENTRAL SCRUTINEER:

The White Zone is for loading or unloading only.

If you gotta load or unload, go to the White Zone.

You'll love it.

Its a way of life.



As JOE stumbles over mounds of dead consumer goods formed into abstract statues

ded-icated to the Quality of American Craftsmanship, dreaming his stupid little guitar

notes, he hears, so