Flamingo Chili

______________________

a short thing

Werner Trieschmann

by Werner Trieschmann7116 Marguerite Lane

Little Rock, AR 72205

h) 501-664-3974

w) 501-378-3514

e-mail:werner_trieschmann@adg.ardemgaz.com

CAST

Trace

Carol

TIME

Now or sometime near to it

PLACE

A car riding through the American dessert; the sea

SETTING

Something fabulous or trashy or some magical combination of the two

CAROL and TRACE are racing down a hot desert highway in a

car. The engine roars. CAROL is driving and TRACE is sleeping.

CAROL

Trace. Trace. Trace!

TRACE

(Waking up)

You asleep?

CAROL

Not a soul in the mirror.

TRACE

We're in the desert.

CAROL

Trace, you know why pink flamingos are pink? You know

that? You ever heard that?

TRACE

What are we doin' in the desert?

CAROL

Not a soul in the mirror. We're in the clear. How much

longer? C'mon, Trace. The map. The map.

TRACE

(Looking at a map)

Five pages.

CAROL

Pages? Wake up, Trace. Miles. How many miles?

TRACE

I don't know. When did we get here?

CAROL

Listen to that engine, Trace. It loves the heat. Eats it

for breakfast. This ocean heat.

TRACE

What?

CAROL

The heat. Makes me hungry. I need a snack to cool off. A big steamin' bowl of chili.

TRACE

(Looking out a window)

Things go to die in the desert.

-2-

CAROL

Chili that sets every wrong right. Chili to make Jesus

jump back on the cross!

TRACE

The desert is dead. Not like the ocean.

CAROL

It only looks like it's dead. Like a bowl of chili. The

surface looks like nothing but what's under the surface?

Huh? Who knows?! Besides, we're safe.

TRACE

I'm gonna get out.

CAROL

Trace. You're not gonna get out. Hear me now. We're

hitting 90 miles an hour. You'll be hamburger chili

if you get out. You'll go splat on the pavement and

be a bloody spot with hair and I'm goin' on and won't come

back to scrape you up. (Pause) Whatever we did, he deserved. He did twenty times worse.

TRACE

When we get there, we gotta get to a laundromat.

CAROL

You know where he got all that money, right? I told you

that story. His father was a pearl diver. Went to the bottom

of the ocean with a knife and picked up oysters. He

came from one of those places. An island with the banana

trees. Whatever. So he got the pearls and became rich as . . . as King Muffler. You know. King Muffler.

TRACE

Midas.

CAROL

Right. Little slant-eyed enterprise made a slant-eyed fortune. Gave it all to his shrimpy kids. One of which was our man, the man in question.

TRACE

King Midas.

CAROL

Yeah, anyway, our man had this money, piles of pearl money

and so he being a greedy bastard like everybody started

to acquire things in a rapid pace. Of course-

TRACE

I smell like him.

-3-

CAROL

Of course he buys diamonds and cars and dishwashers and

full length furs and whores and every thing he can get

his hands on. He starts to have parties at his palatial

mansion because wants to be seen, he wants to be known. There's women - towering, exotic plant-like women - and they are all cold as Arctic ice.

TRACE

I know, I was there.

CAROL

When you have that much, you go mental, you go off your nut

and that's what happened there. Our man decided his mansion need pink flamingos, live pink flamingos as ornaments for his fabulous way of life. So he got them-

TRACE

Pink flamingos? No. You're making it up.

CAROL

Hold on, Trace.

The sound of a swimmer

swimming at a frantic pace - the rhythmic heavy breaths and the

sound of the arms hitting the water - come up.

CAROL

I'm telling you the story. What I heard. Now listen. The

flamingos were shipped in for our man and these were gorgeous, bright-as-a baby's ass pink flamingos. So they roam around King Midas' garden and stand like statues by his pool.

TRACE

(Now hearing the noise)

What's that?

CAROL

In no time they are domesticated and are fed popcorn by the

Arctic cold models.

TRACE

Something's wrong with the engine.

CAROL

Then our man starts to notice that his flamingos aren't as

bright as they were.

-4-

TRACE

Carol. I can't die in the dessert.

CAROL

You need to listen, Trace. You need to shut your chili

hole and listen to me for once. The flamingos are still

standing and eating and shitting but they're fading. His

pink flamingos are going white. You can take the birds

out of their habitat. The pink flamingo has to eat shrimp.

The shrimp give the bird its color. Only King Midas doesn't know that and one night when looking out at his flock of

white pink flamingos and he is ashamed, deeply shamed. So our little King grabs a shotgun and starts shooting the birds. The models find this hilarious and suddenly the party has a new game. Everybody is shouting and laughing as the host blasts a flamingo and it falls into the pool. They are drinking and laughing and blowing the legs off the birds. It's a game.

TRACE

Goodbye.

CAROL

You'll die. Trace! NOOOO!!!

TRACE opens the door and gets out of the car. The car engine cuts off and the only sound is the sound of the swimmer.

TRACE

What did we do, Carol?

CAROL

Trace. It's hot. Jesus, I'm hot.

TRACE is now standing by the car.

TRACE

How did we get here?

CAROL now gets out the car.

CAROL

You got greedy.

TRACE

I'm drowning.

-5-

CAROL

That right?

TRACE

In the ocean. Yeah. You are too.

CAROL

I knew we couldn't make it.

Lights down.

THE END