HUt.4ANITIS
337
WINltL'EMAN:
He acts exactly like you. He walks like you, shrugs like
you, holds his hands the way you do.
BUMMIDGE:
In the ribs, you say? I must have been carried away. You
know, that's therapeutically interesting for me. I must make a note
of it. It's going to open things up. In the ribs. ... But Wink. They're
going to pile on me and ruin me. Ruin? I won't
be
able to function. I
won't be able to earn. . . .
WINKLEMAN:
Clever fellow. Oh cousin, you're smart all right. You
always keep a stick of dynamite under the privy, and threaten to
blow it all up. But there's another danger. You're losing your touch
as a comic because you've become so serious. You've gone from low
comedy to low seriousness.
BUMMIDGE:
You don't understand. . . . A man finally has to
try
to
raise the level of his life.
WINKLEMAN:
If
you dicfu't fracture Bella's skull, you'd raise it im–
mediately.
BUMMIDGE:
No, no, Winkie, don't have such low ideas.
WINKLEMAN:
Why, cousin. You're a proud guy. You were a tremendous
buffoon. Now you want to be a great scientific intellectual therapeutic
something.
BUMMIDGE:
The human condition is a disgrace. Don't you try to get
out of it. You know as well as I do. Something must be done.
Of
course I've fouled my nest. And this shame. A vulgar life. But I have
fine impulses, too. And they won't let me do anything about it but
keep me in my low character. Are you afraid I'll leave you behind,
Winkie?
WINKLEMAN:
Are you actually going to act your crazy shtick on the
closed circuit TV? You'll make a godawful fool of yourself before all
those psychiatrists.
IlUMMIDGE:
(Angry)
I'll stun 'em.
WINKLEMAN:
Sure.
BUMMIDGE:
I'll kill 'em, you watch. I have genuine ideas about therapy.
Just because I didn't go to college, you think I have no mental capa–
city.
(Calmer)
Well, these are things you can't understand. But Wink,
this divorce isn't a good idea.
WINKLEMAN:
That's right. As long as Bella is your wife, you're safe
from Joyce.
BUMMIDGE: (
Moody)
That's right.
WINKLEMAN:
Oh, how you'd love to get rid of her!
BUMMIDGE:
(Unconvincingly)
What are you talking about? Whom
have I got? I'm alone. And she's loyal.
