Tales from the Darkside

[opening narration]

Narrator:
Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But... there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit... a Darkside.

[closing narration]

Narrator:
The Darkside is always there waiting for us to enter; waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.

Mr. Tabbitt:
[Tabbitt is a dinner guest, a potential campaign manager for Mr Cantrell's political aspirations; he addresses the Cantrell's early-teenage daughter] What about you, little missie? What will the votin' populace of Huntsville want to know about you?

Charlotte Rose Cantrell:
I love America!

Mrs. Valeria Cantrell:
Of course you do, darlin'.

Charlotte Rose Cantrell:
A-a-and I really want to be a baton twirler for the Dallas Cowboys as soon as I get a figure worthy of national television.

Charlotte Rose Cantrell:
[trying to get her mother to let her wear unconventional clothes] Mary Ann Whipple's mother wears aqua stretch pants, and an orange satin blouse that shows her cleavage.

Mrs. Valeria Cantrell:
Everyone has their own path to walk on, honey, and God gives people questionable taste in clothing sometimes, as a penance for buying polyester in a previous life.

Connie Squires:
Danny, are you asleep?

Danny Squires:
Yes.

Connie Squires:
Then how come you're answering me?

Danny Squires:
I was raised polite.

Greta Rollins:
[Greta is doing her homework at the dining room table] Mom, when was Richard Nixon president?

May Rollins:
When I was pregnant with you. That's why you're so weird.

Bo Gumbs:
[talking to the bellboy in an eerie hotel, before making a speech in his campaign for governor] Hey, you wanna know what politics is really all about?

Peter:
Oh, yes sir!

Bo Gumbs:
Well, you better sit down for this. Son, politics is a game. Ain't nothin' to do with the issues. It's a show! That's right. People wanna have a good time. You make them laugh, and they'll love ya for it!

Jeanette Simpson:
Hi Mrs. Cooper, this is Jeanette at Sentinel. Well it looks like you let another month slip by without sending in your payment, shame shame. Oh of course I know you're home on disability, of course I know you've got doctor bills, but you've also got very good medical insurance. Oh come on, hon, now why don't you do a little bit to carry your own weight? This is America, we've got all these opportunities, all this freedom, we also have certain obligations and this is one of your obligations as a good citizen. I'll call you back tomorrow at 4.

Jeanette Simpson:
I'll call at five, and please don't let this go to litigation... well if you don't send in your payment, you'll be forcing me to get the courts involved, that can be very ugly. Try and have your money for me by tomorrow.

Jeanette Simpson:
Listen, Bill, I need more of those litigation form letters. I know we never sue but we can threaten, those letters work wonders on some of these clients. Guess what, I got that old hick Mr. Clark on post dated checks. Oh I just know he's so forgetful the first check of his I deposit is going to bounce right to Canada. Then I'm going to go after him for check fraud, it always works.

Jeanette Simpson:
Yes, hello?

Telephone:
Hello? Hello?

Jeanette Simpson:
Who is this?

Telephone:
My payment overdue.

Jeanette Simpson:
What payment?

Telephone:
Is Rita Valdez, Miss Simpson.

Jeanette Simpson:
[on the phone about Rita Valdez] Yes Bill, deceased, as in dead! I don't like pranks, Bill, some goon in your office is giving out my private number. Maybe this dead woman knows someone in your office who's a cleaning lady. What if this prankster knows where I live? This is New York, people get killed over a subway token in this town.

Jeanette Simpson:
[after finding out Rita Valdez is deceased, answering phone] Yes?

Telephone:
It's so lonely and cold here, so dark and alone, payment overdue. I must make my payment.

Michael Nelson:
[stepping into Jeanette's apartment] Oh boy would you feel that? Must be central air conditioning, you don't get this kind of cooling from window units.

Jeanette Simpson:
It's a studio but it has luxuries.

Michael Nelson:
Oh and a view!

Jeanette Simpson:
Every unit at the Suffolk has a view.

Michael Nelson:
Is that the park? And the museum!

Michael Nelson:
Miss Valdez was one of my cases, my welfare cases, and it has fallen to me to settle her affairs, oh she died. You knew that didn't you?

Jeanette Simpson:
It's in the computer.

Michael Nelson:
Yeah, fell or jumped perhaps, from her 6th floor apartment. Tragic, made it all the way from El Salvador just to die on a sidewalk in the Bronx.

Jeanette Simpson:
Illegal alien?

Michael Nelson:
No, political refugee. Her husband was sentenced to death down there by a high judge and she remained terrified of judges or courts or even the law right up to the very end.

Jeanette Simpson:
Why did she jump?

Michael Nelson:
Despair, or pain, she had a brain tumor. She had hallucinations. All we found in her little tenement was that new washer and dryer she bought to take in laundry, a table, a chair, and the phone, off the hook.

Michael Nelson:
If someone had harmed Rita terribly, this angel's supposed to come back and even the score.

Jeanette Simpson:
Oh please, I don't take things from dead people.

Michael Nelson:
But I promised, as sure as she lay crumpled on the sidewalk I promised.

Michael Nelson:
Those poor people, if only you knew.

Jeanette Simpson:
Maybe I know better than you think.

Michael Nelson:
Know what better?

Jeanette Simpson:
Well I wasn't born with central air conditioning and a view of the park, no. I had to pull myself up, climb up brick by brick, and on my way I learned there are no real sad stories only leeches pretending. And I learned not to get involved with any of them.

Michael Nelson:
How did you learn that?

Jeanette Simpson:
By marrying a real bum. Only for a year, oh he would've been thrilled to see you. Nothing he loved more than his welfare check, a fifth of whiskey, and me to kick around for the night.

Michael Nelson:
I'm so sorry.

Jeanette Simpson:
I had it coming. Daddy told me 'There are 2 kinds of people in this world, doers and takers, and it's the job of the doers not to be taken in by the takers'.

Michael Nelson:
Not everybody's a taker. These people I work with are in such pitiable conditions.

Jeanette Simpson:
A condition you could get yourself out of if you were in it because you are a doer. Don't be suckered in so easily. I know these types, I hear their tales of woe. I swear to God, you put me in any one of their places, and I could work my way out in no time. I would get help and I would get out.

Michael Nelson:
You would?

Jeanette Simpson:
Yes, I would.

Jeanette Simpson:
[answering phone] Hello?... Now you stop this, this is nuts, don't you ever call this number again. I know the law and I know how to get the police involved! [slams phone down]

Michael Nelson:
Goodness!

Jeanette Simpson:
Some crank, some awful person is trying to scare me.

Michael Nelson:
But why? How?

Jeanette Simpson:
Out there in that jumble of buildings in some cement cubicle, someone is calling and pretending to be someone who's dead. Who wants to hurt me?

Jeanette Simpson:
[on tape] Miss Valdez, it has been 3 months.

Telephone:
Please, I so sick.

Jeanette Simpson:
Your payment is overdue, you must make your payment.

Telephone:
My head, it hurts so bad.

Jeanette Simpson:
I'm afraid I have to put your case up for litigation.

Telephone:
Please, the word is too big.

Jeanette Simpson:
[to Michael] We never actually sue.

Jeanette Simpson:
[on tape] It means you have to go to court, see the judge.

Telephone:
No no no, judge kills!

Jeanette Simpson:
Someone from a court of law will call you soon.

Telephone:
The courts they kill him, my head... [ringtone]

Jeanette Simpson:
Call to Valdez, July 10, 4:15.

Jeanette Simpson:
[to Michael] Now how was I supposed to know she was really sick? Or what a judge meant to her? How?

Telephone:
You could've asked. At 4:15 she dropped the receiver and jumped.

Jeanette Simpson:
Are you saying that I...

Michael Nelson:
No, you just didn't listen. Not a great sin, not normally.

Jeanette Simpson:
Now wait a minute, you are not my judge or jury.

Michael Nelson:
I'm sorry, but I am. Things must be balanced so the dead can rest, Rita must rest.

Jeanette Simpson:
I don't believe that the dead can talk, but I do believe that there are some among the living who can be very cruel.

Michael Nelson:
Why would anyone want to be cruel to you?

Jeanette Simpson:
Well if they thought I had something to do with someone's bad luck, like this Rita's dying or something, I don't know.

Michael Nelson:
But you didn't, right?

Jeanette Simpson:
I didn't bring that Rita anymore problems than she had created on her own.

Michael Nelson:
Good. Then let's get this settled once and for all. Your last call to Rita, when was it?

Jeanette Simpson:
I don't know.

Michael Nelson:
Won't your computer have it?

Jeanette Simpson:
No.

Michael Nelson:
Sure it will, come on, let's get the information, come on. You'll rest much easier when you see you're not responsible. Ah, Rita Valdez, last call, July 10th.

Jeanette Simpson:
I sometimes record my calls.

Michael Nelson:
And you recorded you last call to Rita, perfect, where's the tape?

Jeanette Simpson:
I'm not sure.

Michael Nelson:
[takes a tape out of the drawer] Is this the one?

Jeanette Simpson:
I cut the wires.

Michael Nelson:
Well, I'm pretty handy with these things. [reconnects the wires]

Telephone:
[on tape] Hello?

Jeanette Simpson:
It's Jeanette at Sentinel. Do you have a payment for me yet?

Telephone:
No tiendo, uh, sorry, my English.

Jeanette Simpson:
[to Michael] They sometimes say they don't speak English, but they all do, really.

Michael Nelson:
Really?

Michael Nelson:
You know, Rita never had air conditioning. It got so hot in there, especially in the daytime. [the apartment changes] Oh and the lovely view, no, she had a six floor view of the back of a sewage plant. [pulls down the curtains] All day all night, such ugly street business. [Jeanette hears traffic roaring by] Oh no, no nice furniture. [furniture disappears] No, nothing at all. But she did have that [a table, chair and phone] , and she had that new washer/dryer. Took in neighbors' laundry for a living. You're behind on your payments, and you said you could catch up.

Jeanette Simpson:
This is a trick, some kind of hallucination. You've hypnotized me, haven't you?

Michael Nelson:
No wait, I remember her hair, it wasn't like that. And that nice robe, no, it was more like that. [Jeanette transforms into a simple house dress with her hair tied back]

Jeanette Simpson:
No, it's impossible, you've drugged me. You've made me see things that aren't there, stop that.

Michael Nelson:
Oh, no, Rita couldn't speak like that, here, let me show you. [puts his hands on her throat]

Jeanette Simpson:
Wha' happen? I no under-tand. I, I Jeanette, I no talk like this, I not a Spanish. Umbody 'elp!

Michael Nelson:
Of course, I'll help you. I've been assigned to your case after all.

Jeanette Simpson:
You tricked me. I no can be like this. This a trick, ju tricked me.

Michael Nelson:
And this. [kisses Jeanette on the head and gives her a tumor]

Jeanette Simpson:
Ahh! Ah! Hurt! Oh it beating inside.

Michael Nelson:
I know, I'm so sorry. [phone rings] Go ahead, answer it, I'm right here.

Jeanette Simpson:
Hello?

Jeanette Simpson:
Miss Valdez, this is Jeanette and Sentinel Collection. Your payments on that washer and dryer are way overdue and I need to know just what you intend to do about that. Miss Valdez? Answer me. Answer me right now or I'll have to take drastic measures. I'll have to get the courts involved. Answer me. Answer me.

Uncle Michael:
[last lines]

Uncle Michael:
God in Heaven, what was that?

Stefa:
It was the...

Jimbo:
NO, DON'T SAY HIS NAME!

Stefa:
It wasn't Santa Claus.

Chia Fung:
[points to recliner] Does this throne vibrate joyously upon the insertion of a quarter?

Chia Fung:
Allow me to introduce myself, I am Chi-Fun, ambassador without portfolio from the ancient kingdom of Lo-Pu. This is my associate, our minister of the interior, Madame Woo.

Madame Woo:
Woo.

Chia Fung:
She's overwrought. We spent last night at the Holiday Inn. It was so hot we had to open the windows, but the windows don't open. There was glass everywhere.

Henry Strand:
Why does he have to knit?

Seymour Strand:
Why do you collect pictures of people in dumb uniforms holding bats?

Seymour Strand:
I need a quiet house to concentrate, Dad.

Henry Strand:
Remind me to check his birth certificate, those aren't MY genes talking.

Ellen Strand:
What a nasty thing to say about your only son, and didn't he knit you that lovely sweater?

Henry Strand:
It's WARM, I'm COLD!

Seymour Strand:
If you ask me, I think it committed suicide.

Henry Strand:
That DOG led a marvelous life!

Ellen Strand:
Oh of course it did, Seymour is only joking.

Seymour Strand:
I'm surprised it didn't leave a note.

Seymour Strand:
Seymour's hungry, Seymourlama demands a hamburger, fries, onion rings, ketchup, now! Get me my food! Bring me my bowl, get me my...

Ellen Strand:
[crowding in on him] Is his insurance paid up?

Henry Strand:
He's got 2, 3, weeks, of intensive care.