curio shop sketch

Fade in.

[The Orson Welle’s 360 Zoom Deluxe Model camera crane sweeps down the street from on high, scanning the fronts of three building - The Grand Theater, darkened with an ancient Greta Garbo movie poster peeled away from the brick wall, The Egg Mustard Deli with a man sitting on a bench below the front window furiously chewing tobacco working on a crossword puzzle, a little girl with a strawberry ice cream cone amused at the toothless chewing, the town Cocker Spaniel, Muffin, smiling as she licks the low level ice cream cone of the oblivious little girl, and the small blue stone front of The Curio Shop, a frowning wooden Indian beside the door.
Camera stops on the neon sign out front.

Scene inside.
The proprietor curiously scanning an item with a magnifying glass, owner of curio watching him.]

‘There’s a hairline fracture.’
‘I know. Nephew hit it with a slingshot playing indoors.’
‘That’s no problem. What else?’
‘I want something different on the face.’
‘Why?’
‘I hate that scene of the white man gypping the Indian.’
‘I don’t see any white man. Unless the bird…fleeing.’
‘I hate it. I see it there, and in Marlon Brando’s eyes in every movie. The mistrust, the disgust.’
‘Even Guys And Dolls?’
‘Well, no, I guess not Guys And Dolls.’

[Shop owner sets it down gently. Man looks over proprietor’s shoulder at crooked bird calendar pinned to wall with a high heeled shoe. June with a magpie. Shakes his head in disgust.]

‘I hate magpies.’
‘What do you want on the face?’

[Man takes old sepia photo of woman’s face from his wallet. Close up - she’s laughing.]

‘My dead wife.’ [Pausing] ‘I can’t remember why she was laughing.’
‘She’s lovely. I bet she never gypped anyone.’
‘I can’t remember why she was laughing. You know, I met her at a party. I was wearing a lamp shade the shape of a weeping willow and lost my balance, spilling my beer bottle down her white blouse. She slugged me with a mean left hook. We got married two weeks later.’
‘What a smile she had. And she reminds me of Zasu Pitts!’
‘That’s what I want.’
‘Sepia?’
‘Yes, and laughing.’