| Title | The Bix Box (Episode 15) |
| Message Text | Quiet Please Wyllis Cooper No. 14 – The Big Box WOR -10:00-10:30 PM EDST MONDAY SEPT. 15, 1947 Network – 8:30-9:00 PM EDST Wednesday SEPT. 17, 1947 REHERSALS: 2:00-5:00 PM Monday, September 15 8:00-10:00 PM Monday, September 15 CHAPPELL: The Mutual Broadcasting Sstem presents Quiet, please. (SEVEN SECOND’S SILENCE) CHAPPELL: Quiet, Please (MUSIC …. THEME..FADE FOR) ANNCR: Quiet, Please for tonight, written and directed by Wyllis Cooper, and featuring Ernest Chappell, is called “The Big Box” (MUSIC…THEME…FADE) --- GEORGE: No, I wouldn’t have taken the rig out if it hadn’t been for Cavanagh. That’s what gets me down, see; I only took it out on account of Cavanagh and now look. POLICEMAN: You knew Cavanagh before, hey? GEORGE: Sure I knew him. Cavanagh was one of my best friends? POLICEMAN: Where’d you know him? GEORGE: Well, I met him when I was pushin’ a rig for Jack Strubing between San Francisco and Salt Lake, back in ’37, ’38. The for four-five years we both of us was on a transcontinental run – New York to LA, one of those big Diesel jobs, and we got pretty well acquainted. POLICEMAN: I s’pose. GEORGE: Matter of fact, one of the reasons we was such good pals, I guess, was I pulled him out of a thing once. You know. POLICEMAN: What kind of a thing? GEORGE: Well, I turned this fourteen-wheeler over about six miles south of Dwight, Illinois, on 66. Cavanagh was asleep in the box. POLICEMAN: What box? I don’t know anything about trucks, bud. GEORGE: Oh. Well, you know; there’s a box up behind the cab, with a bunk in it. One guy sleeps while the other drives. See? POLICEMAN: I get it. GEORGE: Well, so I turn this job over, and Cavanagh, he’s pinned in the box. So I pull him out. He was pretty glad. POLICEMAN: Guess a guy would be. GEORGE: Always said he’d save my life some time. POLICEMAN: Yeah. GEORGE: Even if he had to come back from the dead, he said. Great guy, Cavanagh. You sure you haven’t heard anything new? POLICEMAN: All we got on the wire was this smashed car and three fellas dead. GEORGE: Well, what could’ve become of Cavanagh? POLICEMAN: You go back to the start of your story now, fella. We’ll find Cavanagh all right. GEORGE: If I could do something to help … I mean I could get me a car and go back there – POLICEMAN: The rangers are out, son. Besides, you’re kind of under arrest, see? GEORGE: I didn’t kill those people. POLICEMAN: You’re a material witness, son. And this here is a mighty funny story. I want to hear the rest of it. GEORGE: Do you know Cavanagh? POLICEMAN: Pretty everybody in Big Spring knew Cavanagh, son. This is his home town. GEORGE: I know it. Wel – POLICEMAN: You don’t mind if I make a note or two. GEORGE: I don’t care. Well, so like I told you, I’m on this run Chicago to Dallas, see. I have me a one-day layover in Dallas, and then I pick up another big box – POLICEMAN: Big box of what? GEORGE: Trailer. That’s what they call a trailer. POLICEMAN: Oh. GEORGE: So I’m down at the dispatcher’s office yesterday afternoon, batting the breeze with a couple guys I know, and wishing I had a beer, even if I had to drink Texas beer, and I hear the dispatcher hollerin’ at me. DISPATCHER: (OFF) George! Why, George. GEORGE: And I say yeah, what you want? And he says DISPATCHER: (OFF) Come here a minute. GEORGE: So I walk over to the window – fella named Archie. What you want, Archie, I said. DISPATCHER: George, you want to take a rig west? GEORGE: I’m goin’ back to Chicago. DISPATCHER: As a personal favour to me, George? GEORGE: I don’t owe you anything, Archie. DISPATCHER: Okay, be a jerk. Look, for a bonus? GEORGE: I want to go to Chicago. I got a girl – DISPATCHER: This is only an overnight hop, George. GEORGE: No. DISPATCHER: Down to Big Spring. GEORGE: You got a lot of other jockeys around here. Why pick on me? DISPATCHER: We haven’t got a man to take this one, George, I thought maybe you would, and pull me out of a jam. GEORGE: I’ll do pretty near anything for dough, Archie But I – DISPATCHER: Just overnight. You can come back on the bus tomorrow. GEORGE: Tomorrow I’ll be on my way to Chi. DISPATCHER: Listen, George – GEORGE: Naw. DISPATCHER: Fifty bucks in it for you. GEORGE: Naw. DISPATCHER: George, listen, I got to get this rig to Big Spring – GEORGE: Whyn’t you drive it? Who’s the regular driver? DISPATCHER: Cavanagh. GEORGE: What Cavanagh? DISPATCHER: BertCavanagh. You know him? GEORGE: Tall, heavy=set, red hair, got a scar on his forehead? DISPATCHER: Yeah. GEORGE: What’s the matter with Cavanagh? He sick? DISPATCHER: You want to take his rig out? GEORGE: Where is he? DISPATCHER: Big Spring’s his home town. GEORGE: Well! You Cavanagh’s one of my best pals. Why, when we was pushin’ a Deisel rig out o’ San Francisco for Jack Strubing in the old days – will he be in Big Spring? DISPATCHER: Cavanagh? GEORGE: Yeah. DISPATCHER: Why – why, sure, he’ll be there. Sure, George. GEORGE: It’s a deal. Where’s the rig? DISPATCHER: The big red one there by the pumps. See? GEORGE: I get a helper? DISPATCHER: You don’t need a helper. GEORGE: Well … I don’t know the road any too well. Haven’t been over it in years; not since Cavanagh and I used ot – DISPATCHER: Al l you got to do is stay right on 80, all the way in. Stay on the left fork at Weatherford – GEORGE: I know, I know. The other one goes through Mineral Wells and all over Texas till it comes back at Abilene. DISPATCHER: You remember all right. GEORGE: Good old Cavanagh. I haven’t seen him since before the war. DISPATCHER: Yeah. Well – here’s your manifest. GEORGE: What you got it sealed up for? DISPATCHER: Don’t open it. GEORGE: What’m I hauling? DISPATCHER: Never mind. GEORGE: Listen DISPATCHER: Look, George, you agreed to take the load. Now go on and don’t give me an argument. You want the fifty bucks now? GEORGE: Keep the fifty bucks, Archie. I’m doin’ this for Cavanagh. DISPATCHER: (DOUBTFULLY) Well … GEORGE: Seein’ that ugly mug of his’ll be bonus enough, kid? Where do I put the box when I get there? DISPATCHER: Out place is right off the main drag, George, where you see the Oldsmobile sign. GEORGE: Okay, I think I know. DISPATCHER: To the left. GEORGE: Yeah. Where’ll I find Cavanagh when I get there? DISPATCHER: What? Why – why, Cavanagh’ll be there at the place – when you get there. GEORGE: You sure, Archie? DISPATCHER: I can make you a promise, George. You get there, Cavanagh’ll be there. GEORGE: And so I said okay, and as I started to walk away I thought I heard Archie say something. DISPATCHER: (OFF) ‘Cuase that’s the way Cavanagh’s gonna get there. GEORGE: And I said what’d you say, Archie? DISPATCHER: (OFF) I didn’t say anything, George. GEORGE: I thought you said something about Cavanagh getting there. DISPATCHER: (OFF) I didn’t say a word. GEORGE: Well, so I think to myself I’m hearing things, and I walk out to the yard and over to the big red box. There’s a grease-monkey there and I say sign me out, buster and he gives me the eye. MAN: You gonna push Cavanagh’s rig, George? GEORGE: And I said you got any objection? He just hands me the book to sign. MAN: You can have it, George? GEORGE: And I said, look Fatty, you trying to tell me something? And he just stood there and shook his head, and I said well, then, get out of my road and I climb into the cab and wound her up. SOUND: (AND THE MOTOR OF THE TRUCK ROARS INTO LIFE) MUSIC…TOPS AND TAKES AWAY THE SOUND, FADING FOR) POLICEMAN: Well? GEORGE: Huh? POLICEMAN: Go on. GEORGE: Well, so I head west. It’s about six, six-thirty when I leave Dallas; and I make the thirty-three miles to the Fort Worth city limits in about an hour. Then I go on towards Weatherford, and I make Weatherford about nine o’clock, and I think I can stand a cup of java and maybe a big slice of one of them Weatherford watermelons, so I pull up at a place just this side of the square where I see a couple Diesel jobs standing, and I go in and I have me a slab of watermelon and two-three cups of coffee and it’s pretty dark when I come out. The Diesel guys tells me about a wreck up ahead there at Brad where a couple of boys missed the turn off Sixteen coming down from Mineral Wells and laid themselves and their jalopy out like a blueprint all over the road, so I says thanks and I’m off again. SOUND: (THE SOUND OF THE TURCK FADES IN AS A GENTLE BACKGROUND) GEORGE: So I’m off again, and I will say that Cavanagh sure had a way with grease-monkeys. This big old box is rolling like a Katy Flier, and the moon’s just coming up, and I feel pretty good, figuring I’m going to see my boy Cavanagh in the morning and it’s gonna be a thing after not seeing the boy for six-seven years, and I’m whistlin’ away happy as a peanut-roaster, and doing a very pretty fifty MUSIC…IN BG…THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU) GEORGE: And it’s no time at all when I see the flares on the road where the wreck was. So I slow down and crawl along, and them Diesel guys wasn’t kidded. There was pieces of that jalopy spread out over half an acre. Some officious jerk – oh, excuse me – waved me down, so I pulled up and hopped out. They was single-laning the traffic, see, so I had to wait a few minutes, and finally the guy give me the highball, and I climb back in and eased her over into the bottom corner and kind of squidged along. You know, it’s dark in the cab, and I was watching out pretty careful so’s I wouldn’t side-swipe somebody’s Model T, and it wasn’t till I was past the last pair of headlights that I came to. POLICEMAN: What you mean, come to? GEORGE: There was somebody in the cab with me. (MUSIC…AN ACCENT) POLICEMAN: There was, huh? GEORGE: Sure. It was Cavanagh. (MUSIC…AN ACCENT) POLICEMAN: You recognized him. GEORGE: Sure. I switched the cab lights on. POLICEMAN: Couldn’t have been mistaken. GEORGE: Listen, officer. I know Cavanagh better’n anybody does. Sure it was Cavanagh. POLICEMAN: What’d you do? GEORGE: I wasn’t gonna let him lave a laugh on me. I turned the lights back off, Iand I said I knew that’s what he said. POLICEMAN: What who said? GEORGE: What Archie said when I left the office. I thought he said that’s the way Cavanagh’s gonna get there. DISPATCHER: (OFF) That’s the way Cavanagh’s gonna get there. POLICEMAN: And what’d Cavanagh say? GEORGE: He just laughed. CAVANAGH: (LAUGHS) Still pretty hard to fool you, isn’t it, George? GEORGE: You old son of a gun! CAVANAGH: How are you, George? GEORGE: I’m swell. How’re you? CAVANAGH: Well, I’m here. GEORGE: You know, it’s been a long time since I heard from you. I never knew what became of you when I went in the army. CAVANAGH: I’ve been here quite a while now. GEORGE: Well, that was pretty slick. CAVANAGH: What? GEORGE: Puttin’ Archie up to talkin’ me into pushin’ your rig back down to Big Spring. And you coming along with me. I owe you a drink. CAVANAGH: Yeah. GEORGE: Where was you? CAVANAGH: In the box. GEORGE: Well, you old son of a gun! (HE LAUGHS) That sure is one on me! That sure is! Say, tomorrow we’ll – say what kind of town is Big Spring, Cavanagh? CAVANAGH: Nice place. GEORGE: You been making the run down there for quite a while? CAVANAGH: Yeah. Yeah, quite a while, George. GEORGE: Good fun, huh? Coming back to the old home town. CAVANAGH: Sure is. (A PAUSE) This time I’m going to stay. GEORGE: Y’are? How come? CAVANAGH: I’m done turckin’. GEORGE: No kidding? Well, that’s swell. This really your last trip? CAVANAGH: Yep. Yep; last time town the big road, boy. GEORGE: That’s swell. You glad? CAVANAGH: Well… GEORGE: Yeah, I know. I think about getting out of it, sometimes, too. But I don’t know. Say, have you got married? CAVANAGH: No. No, I was going to, but – GEORGE: (LAUGHS) Sure. I know. I got a girl in Chicago, and she wants to get married, but – I don’t know. CAVANAGH: I guess I’ll never get married, George. GEORGE: Ah, you can’t tell, boy. (A PAUSE) Say, you know this is swell, seeing you. Even it it does have to be your last trip. CAVANAGH: I don’t know anybody I’d rather take it with, George. GEORGE: ME, too. CAVANAGH: I’ll never forget how you pulled me out of that thing up there in Illinois that time. GEORGE: Huh! Least I could do after I turned us over. CAVANAGH: I always wanted a chance to save you life, kid. GEORGE: Well, if I get in a jam tonight, there’s your chance. I haven’t been along this road in a long time, you know. CAVANAGH: Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking of that George. (MUSIC…ECHOES HIM, HOLDS AND FADES) POLICEMAN: You couldn’t be mistaken, George. GEORGE: Listen, how could I be? I told you about that thing when I pulled him out of the box there on 66! He talked about it! How would anybody else know? POLICEMAN: Yeah. You sure got something there. But... GEORGE: But what? POLICEMAN: Go on. (GEORGE STARTS TO SPEAK BUT THE POLICEMAN INTERRUPTS HIM) Did you keep on talking to him? |
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| Ownership | Astro |
| Views | 934 views. Averaging 0 views per day. |
| Submission Date | Aug 14, 2003 |