Paul & John
[from A Terrible Misunderstanding]
CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLER: Sorry, but I have an appointment to dine at the Mega Church with some wealthy hypocrites. I’ll be done around five o’clock. Let us meet at the Mega Church Bookstore after that.
(The Christian Bookseller runs away.)
PAUL: It seems that I am left onstage alone.
(John enters.)
PAUL: John, I told you to go to my church. Why are you not in my church?
JOHN: Your church? I have been slaving away at the Church of Patmos with the Elect Woman and her children. We fired a pig while the clock was ticking, and then the elect woman smote me. She was as angry as an apostolic epistle. We fired the pig because you were absent so long – you must have been born without a stomach! Dear master, all day I have been praying for you to repent and join my church.
PAUL: You, John, praying? Wait a minute. Where is the money that I told you to hold?
JOHN: The nickel that you gave me last Wednesday I spent on cruppers. I needed them for the sidesaddle prayer chain.
PAUL: John, I am not joking. I am never joking. Please tell me what you did with the money. Money is very important. It is the root, John, the root. I hope you didn’t give my money to the Church of Patmos.
JOHN: I am still praying that you join my church, dear Paul. The Elect Woman charged me to snatch you. If you don’t come to the Church of Patmos, the Elect Woman will mail me to the sea. I wish you still wore that clock around your neck, so that at least I could see your face.
PAUL: Listen, John, your jokes are like bad figs. Wait till no lord’s looking, and then I’ll eat them. Please tell me: where is the money I gave you to hold?
JOHN: You never gave me any money.
PAUL: Please stop acting like a Jesuit. Tell me what you did with my money.
JOHN: I was called by God to bring you to the Church of Patmos, where the Elect Woman and her children wait for you.
PAUL: John. As I am a Christian, answer me: where did you put my money? I shall persecute you if you insist on yanking my chain. Where are my ten thousand caesars?
JOHN: Your ten thousand caesars are in your head. If you don’t believe me, just ask the Elect Woman.
PAUL: The Elect Woman? Who is this Elect Woman? This is the first time I have ever heard of her.
JOHN: The Elect Woman is your Gentile wife. She is in Patmos right now, praying that you repent and join the church.
PAUL: What? Are you preaching a new and foreign gospel? How dare you try to proselytize a proselytizer!
(Paul persecutes John.)
JOHN: O God help me! The apostle has gone mad!
(John escapes offstage.)
PAUL: That infidel John is surely possessed by a devil, for he has stolen my money. Ten thousand caesars! O God! This isle of Patmos is haunted with every kind of evil. Acrobats and jugglers. Mind-readers, sorcerers, witches. Immoral scientists. Cheaters disguised as mountaineers. All of these, and many more sinful beings. And I can prove it. Look. Centaurs with she-asses. I sure hope I can get my money back from John.