Time(jumps around...have you noticed?): Becky Loves David, David Bites Harvey, Becky's Water Breaks
Anna is glad her son has found a "little girlfriend." She talks about it with Jonathan.
"Jonathan, do you know this Becky What's-her-name? 'Cause I don't."
"Hmmmm...." Jonathan is preoccupied.
"I'll bet she's a tramp. Why else would she be interested in David?"
"Hmmmm...."
Anna isn't suggesting that only a tramp could love her son, even though that's exactly what she's said. She's suggesting that all women who show the remotest interest in men are tramps...except herself and her mother and her other female ancestors, and all her women friends, and, of course, all the First Ladies we've ever had. Anna isn't even attempting to make sense; she's being The-Mother-Of-The-Boy.
"Maybe I should have a talk with her mother. Probably a tramp, herself. Probably wouldn't understand the word, 'virtue.' What do you think?"
"Hmmmm...yeah, I suppose so."
"On the other hand, if I get the tramp mother mad at me, she's liable to encourage her tramp daughter to trap my son. He can only be expected to resist so much. What do you think?"
"Hmmmm...yeah, I suppose that's right...." (Jonathan's dialogue is easy to write.)
"I'd better wait. Maybe the little tramp will lose interest after David tells her 'no' a couple of times. You think so?"
"Hmmmm...."
"Me, too. You talk with him. Make sure he tells her."
"Hmmmm...?"
And naturally, a similar scene is being played out in the janitor's mansion.
"...he's only after one thing," Harvey admonishes Becky. "A girl has to be on the look-out all the time. Someday you'll meet a nice boy...."
"Shut-up, Harvey."
"...who'll sweep you off your feet and treat you like a lady."
"Shut-up, Harvey."
"Now, I know," Harvey says in his best Jane Wyman voice. "that it's new and exciting...."
"...and, it's about time," Becky says emphatically. "Now, give it a rest. You're not my father."
"Liz, er--Becky! What a thing to say!"
What indeed! Because Becky isn't really sure whether he is or not. She's never been real clear just how she got here. She vaguely remembers a wide plain, distant mountains, popping sounds...that's what she recalls of her birth (which is a lot more than most people!) but, she doesn't know the details. God took care of the details. Don't pursue it, Becky.
"If you're really my father, then who was my mother?"
Harvey's brain cell sputters like an overloaded resistor. You can almost smell it burning. He's never thought of that. It was a detail God took care of. She's pursuing something best left alone, Harvey. Hit her or something. Knock her out!
Harvey draws back his fist, prepared to drop Becky with his best right jab -- the one usually reserved for punching roaches that climb the walls. Rising onto his toes, he launches the punch that will knock some sense out of this daughter of his. Whoops! His fist doesn't fly forwards towards Becky. Instead, his body flies backwards, nearly separating it from his metaphysical self which is still nose-to-beligerent-nose with Becky. Harvey's metaphysical self scuttles for the safety of his hard head, then helps him look around for the cause of this sudden change of plans...and direction.
Tinker Bell!
It's true. David Bell stands beside Harvey, holding his (Harvey's) elbow as casually as he might have held a hotdog at last week's baseball game. He might even take a bite out of it! (Just kidding, Tink--like I was kidding Harvey about hitting his daughter. Thanks for stopping him.)
"Don't hit her," David says.
"Tinker!" Becky cries using a term of endearment shared between David Bell and herself. "Thank God! He was going to hit me!"
"I know," David says with quiet aplomb. "But, he won't hurt you anymore." He glances at the frazzled Harvey. "Will you?"
Harvey has a mad, faraway look in his eyes. He shakes his head, bouncing his brain cell from cranial wall to cranial wall. Now, he has a vague, disconnected look. He's back to normal.
"How did you get here?" Becky asks David.
Now, it's David who has the vague look. "I don't know," he says, taking a bite of Harvey's elbow.
"Owww!"
Harvey yanks his elbow from David's mouth. David jumps in surprise -- like you do when you're caught biting someone's elbow. He looks around, astonished. Here he is in a mansion! Here's Harvey! Here's Becky!
"This is where Lizzie lives!" he cries. He glances around in terror as his mind plays back a picture of Lizzie lumbering toward him on the day he saved her from suicide. "Is she here? She's not, is she?"
"Lizzie?" Harvey says. "Nah, she's dead. Filthy dyke!"
"Dead, huh?" Thank God, he thinks. "Oh. That's too bad," he says. "What'd she die of, by the way? Do dykes just...die of it?"
"...eating lettuce," Harvey says, glowering at Becky. "Goddamn rabbit food killed her."
Becky feels an obligation to clarify things for her boyfriend. "I'm Lizzie," she says.
(Yeah, that really clears things up, Becky.)
What we need here is a bite out of the old apple--the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Of course, that tree dealt with a knowledge of good and evil, and we're just interested in who's who in this damn book. What we really need is a computer. We'd put all the characters in this book into the computer so the author could keep track of them. (He's not been doing that at all.) Then, we'd need a good programmer, someone who knows his pterodactyls and neon. He'd write a nursery rhyme that kept track of the characters, a whole family tree for each one; how they relate to each other, the peculiarities of each; the funny ways they talk and the clothes they wear, what they eat on holidays, what they're doing here...all that stuff. And, when it was done, the computer would print out a story about the characters. And, people could read the printout and they'd know all about everybody in the book, and it'd make perfect sense what everyone was doing....
...until some wild-eyed harpy, pregnant as a tick, calm as a treed cat, and as welcome as dirty feet, barges through the front door of the mansion and bellows, "Where's my little girl? Where's my Becky? Lizzie, Mommy's here! My water just broke! Get me a doctor!"
Becky's arrived from Palm Springs.