(Sound Up and then Fades Out as newscaster #1 speaks: News Signature.)

Newscaster #1: And here once again are tonight’s top stories. The Hubbardites, a group of women terrorists, have just captured Sacramento, California. The Governor has fled. They are demanding sovereignty for the state and that it be renamed Califia, after the ancient Amazon Queen. Mother Hubbard has given all men exactly sixty days to leave the state. Those found in the state after that will be sent to what were described as recreational retreats. As you know, Mother Hubbard came to national attention when she, having had her Social Security, food stamps, and rent subsidy terminated, went to the bank to obtain an equity loan on her little cottage in order to feed her dog a bone. Denied by the bank, Ms. Hubbard’s dog perished from malnutrition. Angered by this incident, Mother Hubbard began knocking off banks left and right, and soon rallied many women to her cause. The Governor tried to enlist the aid of the federal government, but due to the states’ rights trend of the 1990s, California hasn’t heard from Washington in more than a decade. Most people here don’t know who the president is and don’t care. And now we turn to sports: Olympia Greene, women’s lightweight champion of the world, in a unification bout with the men’s division, has knocked out Luis Rodriguez and is the new undisputed lightweight champion of the world.

(Sound Up: Station Break.)

(Rudolph rises from his sewing and turns the radio off. Sound Out with gesture.)

(Disgustedly, Olympia and her trainer, Koko, enter. They ignore him. He continues to sew.)

Koko: I thought we’d never get out of there. The crowds trying to get into the dressing room. The press. We’re lucky that they had an underground exit.

(Koko flops down in a chair.)

Olympia: (To Rudolph) Hey, you. Make yourself busy. Go and fetch my trainer a root beer.

(Rudolph puts down the sewing and goes to the refrigerator.)

Koko: Olympia, must you be so hard on him?

Olympia: I’m tired of carrying him, Koko. Everything he’s done has been a failure. First it was real estate, then computer school, and now sewing classes. His mother said that he kept his paper route until he was twenty-six. He’s never going to get it right. He’ll never grow up. He’s either at the park feeding birds or at the movies or the beach. He lives in a dream world.

Koko: But he does the housework, he cooks. I wish I had a man like that.

Olympia: I’d be better off hiring help. Now that I’ve won the lightweight championship of the world, I can afford all of the help I need. I don’t need him. He’s not as exciting as my new friends.

Koko: Are you sure about them, Olympia? I mean, I don’t want to get into your business, but they’re charging everything to you. One of them insisted that he have a three hundred dollar ringside seat for tonight’s fight and another jerk rented a Lincoln Town Car for every member of his family and charged it to you. The sports writers and the bookies didn’t give you a chance. But then, a knockout in the second round. You’ve shocked the sports world.

Olympia: I just followed your instructions, Koko. Kept hitting them with the Mexican liver punches. That weakened him. And then when he dropped his hands in order to protect his body, he left his head unguarded and I knocked him out. Good idea of yours, having me watch those César Chávez tapes.

Koko: They’re already making excuses. They say that Rodriguez deliberately threw the fight. That his wife and mother told him not to return home if he beat up a woman. I’m telling you, Olympia. These men will never give you credit.

Olympia: You can’t expect a fair decision from men. The referee, the judges, the sports writers, the trainers, the commentators, even the hotdog salesmen.

Olympia and Koko: All men!

(Rudolph enters carrying a bottle of root beer.)

Olympia: (Hostile) What took you so long?

Rudolph: One of my plants looked a little droopy. I had to coax it a little. Fuss with it.

Olympia: Oh, you think that playing with those plants is more important than serving my guests? I’m the one who brings money into this household. You and your self-righteous disdain for money. You’re always recycling things. Joining those nutty people who are trying to save the redwood forests. Protesting nuclear energy. If it weren’t for my fight purses, you’d be recycling your stomach growls.

Koko: It’s alright, Olympia. I wasn’t really thirsty.

Rudolph: I wish you’d get off my case, Olympia. Awwww, baby.

(Tenderly. He approaches Olympia and tries to embrace her. Folding her arms, she wriggles from his grip.)

Don’t you see what your career is doing to us? Why don’t you quit this violent sport? Go back and teach physical education.

Olympia: A lot of good that did me. Not only did they have me teach gym, but I had to fill in as a history teacher. Shows you the little regard they have for history.

Rudolph: You didn’t set out to be a boxer, anyway. You wanted to lose some weight, and took up noncompetitive boxing for exercise. But now look at you. A pug. Your nose has been broken twice. And who knows what else.

Olympia: You’re just jealous. Jealous because I’m famous, but nobody’s ever heard of Rudolph Greene.

Rudolph: You know that kind of thing doesn’t impress me, Olympia. I just don’t want to see you get your brains scrambled or for you to get cauliflower ears. You’ve been lucky so far, but one of these days your luck is going to run out. Won’t it Koko?

Koko: Look, I’d better go.

Olympia: You can stay. He can go.

(Softens)

I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Rudolph. I mean we had some good times since that day we met in graduate school. But things have changed. I have new interests. New friends.

Rudolph: (Angry) Gangsters, players, and party girls. I wish they’d stop dropping ashes on my rug. All they do is make bets and talk about money. They seem obsessed with money. Money this, money that. You’d think that money were alive or something. They have no cultural interests whatsoever. I’ll bet that not one of them has read Proust, or meditated over Beethoven’s last quartets. One of them came over here and made a long distance call to Tokyo on our bill.

Olympia: Look Rudolph. I won’t be needing you anymore. In fact, I’m giving up this apartment and buying a training camp up in Mendocino County.

(Distant)

A place where the air smells like champagne and where I can ride horses and chop wood and prepare for the first defense of the title.

Rudolph: Throw me out, huh.

Olympia: Don’t be angry, Rudolph. We’ve had our fun. But all you seem to want to do is go roller-skating and fly your kite in Venice with all of the other losers. Grown men like you, flying kites.

(Both Olympia and Koko laugh.)

How about me writing you a check? That’ll get you by until my lawyer contacts you.

(She begins to write a check.)

Rudolph: I don’t want your money. Just give me a loan, until I get a job.

Olympia: (Vicious laughter) A job? What do you know how to do?

Rudolph: I don’t have to take these insults. I have my pride.

(Rudolph exits.)

Koko: Look. Olympia. We’d better get going. You have to get over to Burbank for the Tonight Show.

Olympia: Oh my god. I forgot.

(They exit.)

(Sound Up: Arthur Prysock: “Bring It On Home to Me.”)