The Ballad
Of Dead-Eye Doc
Act I
The onstage band has been playing fifteen minutes prior to the opening curtain. At the conclusion of their performance, the lights go out and a voice is heard in the darkness.
HICKYMAN: (offstage) Good evening. This Don Hickyman with Channel Twenty News. We now take you live to Goose Gordon in Jacksonville, Illinois.
GORDON: (appearing in a spotlight between the curtain, Goose Gordon, a smiling, tuxedoed, happy-to-the-point-of-nausea weather man) Hello! I’m Goose Gordon!
HICKYMAN: (offstage) I just said that, Goose.
GORDON: Oh. (smiles his famous smile) I’m here in Jacksonville, Illinois, that little town west of us that we really don’t care very much about. I’m here to interview what we think is the area’s oldest living cowboy. He’s over 160 years old and still walking the streets of Jacksonville. (still smiling, his eyes dart nervous around) Where is he? Where’s the cowboy? (a pause, still smiling) What should I do?
HICKYMAN: (offstage) What’s the problem, Goose?
GORDON: I’ve lost my cowboy.
HICKYMAN: I told you it was a stupid idea for a story. Do the weather or something.
GORDON: I don’t have the weather report.
HICKYMAN: Then do what you always do. Guess.
MAURY: (offstage, Jacksonville’s oldest Yiddish cowboy) Oi! Help somebody!
GORDON: He’s here!
MAURY: (flailing at the curtains, trying to make his way through) Holy cow!! Could I get a hand here! I’m trapped! Trapped! (and Gordon moves the curtain out of the way, allowing Maury to come through. He enters: Maury is in a wheelchair with a horse’s head at the front of the contraption. The entire chair resembles a horse with tail in the rear and buckskin here and there. The old cowboy has long grey hair pulled back into a ponytail under a weathered and beaten cowboy hat. He wears boots, jeans, and other cowboy-type stuff.) (coming through) Look out! Look out! (to his chair) Whoa boy! Easy big fella! Oi!
GORDON: Are you Jacksonville’s oldest living cowboy?
MAURY: Oi, partner! Who are you? The tooth fairy?
GORDON: I’m Goose Gordon, Channel Twenty News!
MAURY: Congratulations. I’m impressed. (his chair seems to jerk) Whoa! Whoa, Bruce!
GORDON: Your chair is named Bruce?
MAURY: Stop smiling. You’re scaring my horse. He thinks he’s in Disney Voild.
GORDON: That’s quite a horse you have there.
MAURY: And dat’s vy your da veatherman. You make money saying da obvious.