Setting: The gazebo in Center Street Park in Milford MI. Daytime.
Cast:
Uncle Charlie, Bonita, Joan, Lou, Huntz,…
Uncle Charlie: Imagine running into you two like this. You don’t suppose Joan and Huntz are around here somewhere, catching Pokémon?
Bonita: I don’t think they’re catching Pokémon right now, but they should be along any minute.
Uncle Charlie: Well then, the gang’s all here. I have a few moments to spare, what shall we do? You know it’s already been two months since the corn roast, and I don’t think I’ve spent five minutes with any of you since that night.
Bonita: We’ve all been pretty busy with schoolwork, and after school activities.
Uncle Charlie: Oh, and what are you doing after school these days?
Bonita: Joan and Huntz and I are helping out with the middle school play.
Lou: Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie: Yes Lou?
Lou: What are you doing with that?
Uncle Charlie: This? The vacuum cleaner?
Lou: Yes. Why are you carrying a vacuum cleaner around downtown Milford?
Uncle Charlie: Well I have to take it to Max to have it serviced. Your Aunt Elizabeth can’t stand the terrible noise.
Lou: This fellow Max, he makes a terrible noise?
Uncle Charlie: No Lou! The vacuum cleaner makes a terrible noise. I’m taking it, the vacuum cleaner, to him, Max, so he can find out why it’s making the noise and fix it.
Lou: Okay. I get it. The vacuum cleaner is making a terrible noise and you are taking it to get it fixed.
Uncle Charlie: That’s right.
Lou: Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie: Yes Lou?
Lou: What’s that hanging out of your pocket?
Uncle Charlie: What, this? This is a locket. Your Aunt Elizabeth asked me to take it to Charlie to have it repaired.
Lou: Now let me get this straight: you’re taking that locket in your pocket to have it repaired by Charlie, Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie: Yes, that’s right.
Lou: Bonita, I think something has upset Uncle Charlie, he’s talking about himself in the third person.
Uncle Charlie: No, I’m all right Lou. I’m not Charlie. Charlie is the jeweler to whom I’m taking the locket.
Lou: You’re not Charlie, Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie: That’s right Lou.
Lou: Bonita, I think you better stay with Uncle Charlie while I go for help.
Uncle Charlie: No Lou, Charlie is not me. I’m you’re Uncle Charlie. Charlie is an entirely different person.
Lou: Now he thinks he’s two different people. Oh, poor Uncle Charlie. Wait till Aunt Elizabeth hears about this.
Bonita: Lou, I think what Uncle Charlie is trying to say is that there is another man, also named Charlie, and that man is the jeweler to whom our Uncle Charlie is going to take Aunt Elizabeth’s locket to be repaired. Isn’t that right Uncle Charlie?
Uncle Charlie: Exactly, my dear.
Lou: Oh, is that it? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?
Uncle Charlie: Now, if we’re all together on the vacuum cleaner and the locket, let me make sure I understood what Bonita said a few moments ago. Lou aren’t you helping out with the play too? I thought you liked the theatre.
Lou: I like it okay as long as I’m onstage or in the booth, but I don’t like being backstage at the Little Theatre during rehearsal. It’s too dark.
Uncle Charlie: Oh, come on Lou, with all those kids around ? You aren’t seriously frightened in the dark at the Little Theatre.
Bonita: Don’t’ get him started Uncle Charlie.
Uncle Charlie: As you say dear.
Lou: It’s not just the dark you know. It’s getting pretty close to Halloween and I can’t help thinking about monsters and things whenever I’m alone in the dark.
Uncle Charlie: Monsters, Lou? Which ones?
Lou: Usually the Frankenstien monster, or the Wolfman, or Dracula.
Uncle Charlie: Hmm, the classics. Do the kids still dress up as those characters at Halloween?
Lou: Oh sure, every year I see a lot of vampires, a Frankenstein monster or two, plus the occasional werewolf. There are some new ones though, that aren’t based on monsters. I know this one guy who’s dressing up as Harambe the gorilla this year.
Uncle Charlie: You’ve just reminded me of a friend of mine. When we were both about your age, he dressed up as a gorilla. Are either of you familiar with the motion picture Mighty Joe Young?
Bonita: Isn’t that the one about the girl with a gorilla who gets talked into bringing it with her to the states by a promoter or something?
Uncle Charlie: That’s the one. Well, Mortimer, that’s my friends name, though he usually went by Mort, Mortimer had a real affinity for that gorilla Joe, practically hero worship, so I suppose it’s no surprise that he dressed up as a gorilla for Halloween that year. His costume was all homemade and most convincing. Mortimer was already adept at making things out of old discarded items, and doing all kinds of special effects with stage make up and such. He put together the fur covering of the gorilla from worn out women’s coats, and in the dark on Halloween night, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between my friend Mort and a real gorilla.
Lou: Really, it was that good?
Uncle Charlie: Well, so I was told. You see, I never actually witnessed Mortimer in character as Mighty Joe Young on Halloween night. I was bobbing for apples and drinking cider at your Aunt Elizabeth’s parents house that night, so all of my information is purely second hand. But I did see him try it out in the daytime on the thirtieth. Yes, he was very convincing.
Lou: It sounds like you friend Mortimer must have had a great time trick or treating that year.
Uncle Charlie: I suppose he would have, if that circus hadn’t been passing through the area.
Lou: Circus? There was a circus here in Milford?
Uncle Charlie: In Highland to be precise. Their caravan had stopped in front of Highland Junior High School due to mechanical trouble with one of the trucks. During the stop, their gorilla escaped. The circus people notified the authorities, who sent out trained veterinary specialists, accompanied by the State Police. Together they set out a dragnet for the escaped gorilla, starting at Highland Junior High, and going out in a radius in all directions. It was on the radio and everything, very big news for our little community. I remember hearing the broadcast announcement just as I came up soaking wet with an apple in my mouth.
Bonita: Oh, this sounds awful. Poor Mortimer.
Uncle Charlie: Yes, poor Mortimer. It seems the southern search sector of the dragnet reached the village of Milford just as trick or treating was in full swing. Mortimer, I understand, had climbed a tree in order to re enact the scene in which Mighty Joe Young rescues a child from a burning building. Afterwards Mort told me he thought the child he had selected was willingly helping him with the re enactment by climbing up the tree in front of him so he could be rescued.
Bonita: Was he trying to help, the child that is?
Uncle Charlie: No, the poor thing was frightened out of his wits. Apparently he had never seen Mighty Joe Young, and had no idea the thing he thought was a real gorilla was trying to rescue him. He was climbing the tree to try to escape.
Bonita: Oh no.
Uncle Charlie: Oh no is right, for that is the moment when the search party arrived.
Bonita: Oh no. Did they –did they–?
Uncle Charlie: I’m afraid they did. The trooper, I am told was an expert marksman. Mortimer was hit on the first shot, and fell almost immediately.
Bonita: Oh, how terrible. Where did they shoot him?
Uncle Charlie: Just over there, on Hickory Street.
Bonita: No, I mean where, where did the shot hit him?
Uncle Charlie: Well, as I said, the Trooper was an expert marksman. He got Mortimer right in the fleshy part.
Bonita: The fleshy part? You mean the–the behind.
Uncle Charlie: Exactly, and thank you for keeping it polite. Young people are so prone to vulgar language these days, although of course I imagine everyone slips once in a while.
Bonita: But Uncle Charlie, I don’t understand, how did one shot in the fleshy part bring Mortimer down?
Uncle Charlie: Because of course they had dosed the tranquilizer dart for a four hundred pound gorilla, when actually they were firing at a one hundred and thirty pound teen-aged boy.
Bonita: Oh, a dart! Uncle Charlie, I wished you would have made that clear from the beginning.
Uncle Charlie: Didn’t I child? My dear, I am sorry. Of course it was just a dart, and dear old Mortimer was right as rain again in a few days.
Lou: I bet he gave up on making such real looking costumes after that.
Uncle Charlie: To the contrary Lou, when Mortimer thought about how so many people had been convinced he was a real gorilla, even trained veterinary professionals and the State Troopers, he realized he had a special gift. Mortimer turned his gift into a trade, and started his very own wax museum.
Bonita: A wax museum? You mean with life- sized figures of famous people?
Uncle Charlie: That’s the kind.
Lou: With people like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?
Bonita: And Julius Caesar and Cleopatra?
Lou: And Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington?
Uncle Charlie: That’s it, exactly.
Lou: Oh boy, I would love to see that. It’s too bad your friend Mort moved away.
Uncle Charlie: Who said anything about Mortimer moving away?
Lou: Didn’t you just tell us he started his own wax museum with all those live-sized replicas of famous people?
Uncle Charlie: Yes I did.
Lou: Well then he must have moved away, because there was never anything like that around here.
Uncle Charlie: Of course there was, Lou. Haven’t you ever heard of the Milford Wax Museum?
Bonita and Lou: The Milford Wax Museum?
Enter Joan and Huntz
Huntz: Did I just hear somebody say something about a wax museum? Count me in.
