HYACINTH. No, no, she and her lover are getting along wonderfully. But I'm sure she'd appreciate knowing how concerned you are.
(Long silence.)
HYACINTH (slinging one arm around Casimir's waist, feeding Oreo into his mouth with other hand). Hey, it feels terrible, doesn't it? Look, Casimir, she likes you a hell of a lot. I mean it. And she hates to put you through this kind of pain-- or she wishes you wouldn't put yourself through it. She thinks you're terrific.
CASIMIR (blubbering).Well what the hell does it take? All she does is say I'm wonderful. Am I unattractive? Oh, I forgot. Sorry, I've never talked to a, ah… HYACINTH. You can say it.
CASIMIR. Lesbian. Thanks.
HYACINTH. You're welcome.
CASIMIR. Why can she look at one guy and say, "He's a friend," and look at this other guy and say, "He's a lover?"
HYACINTH. Instinct. There's no way you can go against her instincts, Casimir, don't even think about it. As for you, I think you're kind of attractive, but then, I'm a dyke.
CASIMIR. Great. The only woman in the world, besides my mother, who thinks I'm good looking is a lesbian.
HYACINTH. Don't think about it. You're hurting yourself.
CASIMIR. God, I'm sorry to dump this on you. I don't even know you.
HYACINTH. It's a lot easier to talk when you don't have to worry about the sexual thing, isn't it?
CASIMIR. That's for sure. Good thing I've got my sunglasses, no one can tell I've been crying.
HYACINTH. Let's talk more later. We've abandoned Sarah with Fred Fine, you know.
CASIMIR. Shit.
Casimir pulled himself together and they went back to the living room. Shortly, Ephraim and I returned from the hallway with our announcement.
BUD. Isn't it interesting how the alcohol goes to your head when you get up and start moving around?
EPHRAIM. The hallway on each side of each wing is a hundred twenty-eight feet and a few inches long. But the fire doors in the middle cut it exactly in half-- sixty-four feet! BUD. And three inches.
EPHRAIM. So they resonate at low C.
FRED FINE. Very interesting.
VIRGIL. Casimir, when are you going to stop playing mum about Project Spike? CASIMIR. What? Don't talk about that!
SARAH. What's Project Spike?
CASIMIR. Nothing much. I was playing with rats.
FRED FINE. What does this one hear about rats?
VIRGIL. Casimir was trying to prove the existence of rat parts or droppings in the Cafeteria food through a radioactive tracer system. He came up with some very interesting results. But he's naturally shy, so he hasn't mentioned them to anyone.
CASIMIR. The results were screwed up! Anyone can see that.
VIRGIL. No way. They weren't random enough to be considered as errors. Your results indicated a far higher level of Carbon-14 in the food than could be possible, because they could never eat that much poison. Right?
CASIMIR. Right. And they had other isotopes that couldn't possibly be in the rat poison, such as Cesium-137. The entire thing was screwed up.
FRED FINE. How large are the rats in question?
CASIMIR. Oh, pretty much your average rats, I guess.
FRED FINE. But they are not-- they were normal? Like this?
CASIMIR. About like that, yeah. What did you expect?
VIRGIL. Have you analyzed any other rats since Christmas?
CASIMIR. Yeah. Damn it.
VIRGIL. And they were just as contaminated.
CASIMIR. More so. Because of what! did,
SARAH. What's wrong, Casimir?
CASIMIR. Well, I sort of lost some plutonium down an elevator shaft in the Big Flush.
(Ephraim gives a strange hysterical laugh.)
FRED FINE. God. You've created a race of giant rats, Casimir. Giant rats the size of Dobermans.
BUD. Giant rats?
HYACINTH. Giant rats?
BUD. Virgil, explain everything to us, okay?