Dean Stockwell, left: “Dad, what’s up with that huge book on your desk?”
Ralph Richardson, center: “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I give this bottle of hooch to your brother.”
Jason Robards, right: “Thanks, Dad! You’re pretty swell, even if your existence torments me.”
Dean: “But Dad, Jason is an alcoholic. The last thing you should be giving him is high-octane lubrication.”
Ralph: “Don’t sass me, young man. This is a Eugene O’Neill play. There’s always at least one alcoholic, there are always family members who are enablers for the alcoholic, and there’s always a morphine addict who enables herself. Speaking of, where’s your mother?”
Dean: “I have no idea. She’s probably up on the roof again and trying to fly. But you’re avoiding the issue. Don’t give the hooch to Jason.”
Jason: “You need to stand down, little brother. I’m the first born and I get the first crack at everything. That’s how we do it in the South. If you didn’t come out of the vagina first, you get second billing for the rest of your life.”
Katharine Hepburn, coming down the stairs: “Is somebody talking about my cooter?”
Dean: “Well, I guess she didn’t get flight clearance.”
Ralph: “Damn it, she’s gonna make a fuss about the hooch. Jason, shove this bottle in the big book. It’s hollow inside.”
Jason: “I already know that, Dad. How do you think I became an alcoholic? I was just trying to look up the word ‘dysfunctional’ in what I thought was a dictionary and out popped a bottle of bourbon. I took it as a sign from Jesus and started swigging.”
Katharine, clattering closer to the room: “So now it’s cooter and Jesus? I can’t wait to join in this conversation.”
Dean: “Thank God I will eventually star in a series called ‘Quantum Leap’ so I can come back and erase everything that is happening right now.”
Originally published in “Crusty Pie” on 10/07/16 and “Bonnywood Manor” on 12/09/16. No changes made, other than a last-second decision to add the surnames of the actors in this scene just to make this more surreal than it already is. (Especially since Kate Hepburn is not actually IN the scene, but she is in the movie.) I suppose I could have added more embellishments, but we’ve just returned from vacation and I’m a bit surly about that fact.
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Bonnywood Manor 
I have a hollow book and only ever thought to hide jewellery in it. Silly me.
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We all treasure different things…
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My hollow book (which is wee in comparison to that monstrous tome pictured) contains my passport (I finally found the %$@# thing at the extreme back of a desk drawer, flung there after the Canadian experience of ’16 and lost ever since, the number to my life insurance company and instructions for my siblings to follow in the event of my demise. IF they can figure out that’s what it’s for and don’t give the damned thing (book) to a child. I guess they don’t make anything like they used to. *sigh*. And THAT’S Dean Stockwell?? Uh, well butter my biscuit. I’d never have guessed. Jason Robards looks pretty much like he always has – bolstering up my long held belief that he is pickled and preserved – one way or another – in real life as well as on celluloid or tape or whatever medium they used in the day to make ‘pitchurs’. And I’m mighty surprised Ms. Kate allowed herself to be part of such a film…but one must fly I suppose. Morphine only ever made me want to throw up..I guess we each find our own buzz factors..
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As usual, you remind me of one of my own stories, wherein my passport went AWOL at a very critical time. It’s one of the many subplots in my work-in-progress “Cruise Control” book, but I might be convinced to share a snippet here at Bonnywood. (Especially if it’s one of the days, which seem to be increasing, where I am not all that invested in coming up with a fresh piece.)
Yep, that’s Dean. And Katharine did take part in the mess, although it’s actually a very good movie, albeit one that is considerably depressing at times. (It’s a Eugene O’Neill story. He’s certainly not known for happy larks in the countryside.)
Interestingly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced morphine, at least not knowingly. Then again, with my whacked-out family, they may have slipped it in my breakfast cereal a time or two…
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Jason Robards looks like Richard Nixon. They both kind of looked like sick wasps.
I have a hollow plastic rock. You’re supposed to hide keys in it, but if I was a robber that’s the first place I’d look.
For me, morphine does exactly its name; I just fall asleep. But it leaves me with a wicked hangover. I hate it.
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Ah, I see the Nixon resemblance now, and it’s not a flattering discovery. I also just now noticed that something seems very odd about Dean’s right hand. Perhaps he was practicing for his later time-travelling gig in “Quantum Leap”.
Unlike just about everyone else in the comments, I don’t have a hollow book OR a hollow rock. I feel like I might be missing out on an important part of life…
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If you’d ever had morphine – mickey finned or not, you’d have known. Immediately. The spectrum (apparently) ranges from my experience (more like what hubby described his LSD trips to be like) to Lynette’s as she describes it below. It’s nasty stuff IMHO and I can’t begin to imagine why some folks get hooked on it. Some folks just nod off. It IS a sort of cousin (and I could be mistaken in this) to heroin. Which I never have and never will experience. I can nod off without artificial aid thanks. Eugene O’Neill did tell tales that were more noir than lightness and song. Probably why I’ve seen one of his efforts and didn’t go to the well for more.
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Gotta be a medical or law book. Or possibly a grimoire. If it’s Hepburn then it’s probably the grimoire. I would feel that I had violated an unwritten moral law if I hollowed out a book. Haha
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Oh, a grimoire. Yes, let’s make it one of those, seems much more exciting. But yes, I’m uncomfortable doing anything unsavory to a book. I still have guilt flashbacks to my childhood when I used to (gasp) fold down the corner of a page to mark my place…
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Haha yep the dastardly dog earer. Shiverzzz
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Thank you for the surnames, as it caused me to look up Dean and learn that he was the cutest child actor EVER!
Sorry you had to return from vacation. I was in a funk for two weeks after we got back from New York. Probably didn’t help matters we arrived home just in time for a Phoenix summer. 🙄
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Yes, Urchin Dean was pretty darn cute, eager to please and ready to burst into song, should the script advise so.
There was a time when I would usually lose interest in a vacation before it was over, yearning to get back home. That’s no longer the case. Sure, there’s a certain appeal to sleeping in your own bed, but if it wasn’t for our fur babies, I could easily stay away for months…
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