(( It was a sunny day, everything was A-OK, but by noon the clouds had pushed up out of the west rolling a little sultry air before them. ERNIE, wearing his best shirt, green and yellow with wide black stripes, didn't know what time BERT would get there and so had taken the day off, paced back and forth, looking down into a Sesame Street pale with dust. MISS PIGGY was saying something about taking his friend to Mister Hooper's General Store for supper instead of cooking it was so hot, if they could get a piglet-sitter, but ERNIE said more likely he'd just go out with BERT and drink chocolate milk. BERT was not a restaurant type, he said, thinking of the dirty spoons sticking out of the cans of cold beans balanced on the countertop.
Late in the afternoon, MISS PIGGY growling, that same old green pickup rolled in and he saw BERT get out of the truck, beat-up Resistol tilted back. A hot jolt scalded ERNIE because he was not careful with the hot water like his mother told him to be but he did pull the door closed behind him like his mother told him to do when he went out on the landing. Always listen to your parents. BERT took the stairs two and two equals four. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the foam out of each other, saying... ))
BERT and ERNIE:
Son of a Henson, son of a Henson.
(( Then, and as easily as the right wand turns the marionette's arm, their mouths came together, and hard,
BERT's non-existent teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, foam rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and MISS PIGGY looking out
for a few seconds at ERNIE's straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other's toes until they pulled apart to breathe and ERNIE, not big on endearments, said what he said to his grouches and piglets. ))
ERNIE:
Little Muppet.
(( The door opened again a few inches and MISS PIGGY stood in the narrow light. What could ERNIE say? ))
ERNIE:
MISS PIGGY, this is BERT.
BERT, my wife MISS PIGGY.
(( ERNIE's chest was heaving. He could smell BERT -- the intensely familiar odor of crayons, rubber duckies and a faint sweetness like cookies, and with it the rumbling warmth of their basement apartment that summer. ))
ERNIE:
MISS PIGGY, BERT and me ain't seen each other in four episodes.
** As if it were a season. **
MISS PIGGY (in a low voice):
ERNIE, it's "BERT and I have not seen each other."
(( MISS PIGGY had seen what she had seen. ))
ERNIE:
MISS PIGGY, BERT and me is goin out and get a drink of chocolate milk. Might not get back tonight, we get drinkin and sayin the alphabet.
MISS PIGGY:
ERNIE, it's "BERT and I are going out."
(( MISS PIGGY takes a dollar bill from her purse.
ERNIE guessed she was going to ask him to get her a pack of cigarettes, bring him back sooner. BERT is trembling like a run-out horse. ))
BERT:
Please to meet you.
MISS PIGGY (in her misery voice):
It's "pleased to meet you." ERNIE --
(( But that did not slow him down on the stairs and he called back. ))
ERNIE:
MISS PIGGY, you know cigarettes are bad for you. Please don't smoke. There's some a COOKIE MONSTER's cookies in the pocket a my other green and yellow and black striped shirt in the bedroom.
(( They went off in BERT's truck, bought a bottle of chocolate milk and within twenty minutes were in the Motel Sesame-esta saying the alphabet and jouncing. ))
Topic: ~~THE PERFORMANCE THREAD~~ **aside** ((action)) %%thought%% (Read 1704701 times)