Scene: The River (Styx) Cafe



NELLY: Oh excuse me, haven't we met somewhere before?

MAN: I'm Ken Lay.

NELLY: Well of course you are.  And I suppose you've heard that after nineteen years Exxon has finally had its sorry ass dragged into court to pay for what they did to the poor native people of Alaska, ruining their fishing and livelihood.  Of course I think it was you who said you'd see them all dead before you paid anyone a dime.  And look around -- I guess you got what you wanted.

KEN LAY: That, uh, wasn't me.  I'm ... I'm Enron. 

PIPPA: (joining them)  Nelly, dear, this is Mr. Lay who killed himself when the Vice President --

NELLY: Ohmygod, I am so sorry, you were in that hunting accident, I always said no person in their right mind would let that madman hold a gun --

PIPPA: No, dear.  No, Mr. Lay was one of those "friends of the family" that got stuck with the bill.  Dropped.  Paid the Price.  End of the Line.  "They" told him they couldn't possibly give him a presidential pardon and suggested there simply wasn't any other way to get closure on the Enron mess, was there, Mr. Lay, except to end it all. 

KEN LAY:  But I thought everybody bought the sudden-death-in-a-remote-location-no-autopsy-private-funeral thing.

PIPPA: They did.  Once they realized you hadn't scooted off to South America for radical plastic surgery, they did.  But really, a man with your means doesn't have anything happen suddenly and by accident, now do they? 

KEN: You make it sound like I was a willing participant.

PIPPA: You poor thing.  In the middle of the night?  In your sleep?  You'll meet a few people here who've had the same fate.  And they say "assisted suicide" in America is illegal.  Not if it interferes with the interests of the Regime, it isn't.  Oh look, Nelly, it's Ned Doheny.

NED: Ned Junior.

NELLY: Yes, of course, Young Ned, lovely to see you.  And you must be Hugh.  You were Ned's valet, weren't you?

HUGH: Chauffeur. (sotto voce, coughing) Lover.

PIPPA: (cautioning) Nelly, darling.

NELLY: Oh, we're all friends here, aren't we?  You see, Mr. Lay, Ned's daddy was involved in an awful scandal at the time and it just so happened that Doheny Senior's sole heir, Ned Jr., along with Hugh here, shot themselves in the house his father had given Ned and his wife. [aside -- Do tell Lucy we send our best]. Of course, the Teapot Dome mess can't compare to Enron in its scope and the amount of ruiin it caused, but I suppose, adjusting for inflation, that it came close.  

NED JR.: True, but the President didn't call to tell me to kill myself.  I came up with that on my own.  Well, Hugh and I did.  

HUGH: I still love you, man.

The two young handsome men embrace.

NELLY: But the president -- Harding wasn't it? -- the president was in on the money.  Your father was a huge contributor.  Just like Enron and Exxon were to Bush.  Really, I think it's the same thing, don't you agree?

KEN LAY: People don't want to hear the truth.  Greed blinds them and makes them deaf.  Pass it on, blame the next guy, think of your wife.  [sobbing] What choice did I have?  They were hanging me out to dry! 

PIPPA: Oh goodness, listen to us!  Such gloom and doom.   Aren't we lucky we're all dead?  Otherwise they'd have to kill us.

NELLY: For telling the truth.  

PIPPA: That depends, dear. The truth depends on who writes the history.  And the history gets written by the ones who live to tell the tale.

NELLY: And like I said, we're dead.  I rest my case.