Marion Eaton: Mrs. Gert Hammond

Quotes 

• Willene : That filthy man! I'm afraid you've opened your doors as well as your heart to the scum of the planet!

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Here on spaceship Earth, there is no scum. There are just malfunctioning circuits.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : My son... OUR son no longer exists.

  Willene : Oh, Mrs. Hammond, I'm really sorry. I didn't realize that tragedy had struck you twice. Is he dead, then?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : No. He does not exist.

  Willene : Well, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, but I certainly wouldn't be callous enough to dwell on the subject.

• [Willene Cassidy knocks] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Who is it? Who's that knocking at my door? Is that you, Mr. Maple Tree? Is the wind making you bang your branches against my door?

  Willene : Hello in there. Anybody home?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Oh, my God. That was a human voice. That was a woman's voice calling from behind that door! Who is it that speaks to me with the voice of a woman?

• [Sash and Roo are bickering] 

  Willene : Hush, you two. You'll wake the dead.

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : You leave my husband outta this! My husband was a decent man.

• [Toydy rubs up behind Gert as they prepare to have sex in the kitchen] 

  Gert : I should pull away. But I can't.

  Toydy : Why not?

  [Gert laughs] 

  Gert : 'Cause I would fall into the oven like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel." That would leave you alone in this gingerbread house to eat all the cookies and peppermint sticks.

  Toydy : And what's wrong with that?

  Gert : You would get sick!... And no one would be around to give you an enema.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Remind me to go shopping today for some chopped meat, vegetables, milk and honey. And I'll need at least three dozen bananas, and some heads of lettuce.

  [with a laugh] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : And, of course, my cucumbers. I mustn't forget my cucumbers! People come and go, but the cucumbers must stay.

• Toydy : You mean that lion's harmless?

  Bing : As harmless as a toothless old lady.

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Well, I don't know if I agree with that saying, young man. Mrs. Connor has no teeth, yet she blasted her husband with six rounds of buckshot last spring.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : It's been a long time since this house has seen happiness and love! Once, these walls did echo with the gayest of laughter. But that was when my husband was alive and my son existed.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : It's my honor now to be host to a courageous man and the animal he loves, and who also shares his sentiment.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : There's too much talk in this kitchen and not enough action. Start cooking me now, honey, before I go rotten!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : People come and go, but the cucumbers must stay.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : My son was big for his age. He was to be doomed with bigness.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : I pickle things to preserve them. Like onions, cauliflower, peppers...

  Sash : And men?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : That's not just any man, that's my husband!

  Toydy : You're crazier than I thought you were!

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Why? Because I refuse to cover the tangible remains of my husband with a curtain of soil?

• [Willene eats a cucumber, unaware that Gert masturbated with it] 

  Willene : I'm afraid I can't finish it. Would you like to share it?

  Gert : No, I've already had it, thank you.

  Willene : Do you mind if I throw it away?

  Gert : Not at all, my dear. Most things of that nature are disposable. Just throw it in that bag under the sink.

  Willene : Why, Mrs. Hammond, you've got a whole pile of them in here!

  Gert : Call me Gert, Willene. I feel that you've gotten to know me more intimately. Yes, those cucumbers did not age properly enough to suit my hungry lips, so I had to get rid of them.

• Gert : He's quite a man, isn't he?

  Willene : Well, part of him is a man, the other part I'm not too sure about.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : The coin of sexuality always has two faces.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : I'm no dummy. Charlie saw to that. Charlie didn't want no dummy for a wife. And I didn't want no Charlie McCarthy for a husband either. I wanted Charlie Hammond. And I wanted to be Mrs. Gert Hammond. Wife of Charlie. Charlie's woman. Forever. Not just 'til they came!

• Willene : Mr. Hal B. Wallace sent my husband's agent a script for a small singing part in his film "Bazookas for Peace."

  Gert : Oh, I'd give my piece for a bazooka any time!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Shut the hell up, Goddamn puppet! You're nothing but a puppet for the Weather Bureau, and they pull the string that makes your mouth go up and down. I'll bet you don't even know what the hell an isobar is...

  [laughs] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : And don't go telling me it's some kind of a popsicle!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Why couldn't she have telephoned before coming over? It isn't fair after all these years that someone should knock on my door and not even warn me of their visit! Thirty minutes' warning, that's all I ask. One half-hour to bathe and scent my body in preparation for the ensuing visitation.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Oh, my God. I'm seeing double. I'm so drunk, I can't possibly hold an audience with Mrs. Cassidy. Oh, what'll she think of me? She'll pity me! I'll be a disgrace to the memory of my dead husband.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : My name is Mrs. Gert Hammond. Welcome to Prairie Blossom, the name my husband and I chose for the estate you are now standing on.

  Willene : What happened to your head?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Please, let me finish. Our home, built upon a stretch of prairie between the Chickasaw and Thunderbird Rivers, was built by hand with loving care by my husband, Charlie, who now lies buried in the wine cellar beneath our very feet.

• Willene : I'm gonna cleanse you with the waters that are in such a profusion tonight. How many days and nights has your womanly body been deprived of a washcloth?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : What do the widows of the world need with a washcloth?

  Willene : Well, soap, for one thing.

• [while charitably bathing drunken stranger Gert, Willene unknowingly gives the woman an orgasm] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Ohhh, thank you. Thank you.

  Willene : Uh, Willene's my name. And you are, uh, Gert?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Yes. I'm Gert. But I'm a Gert reborn.

  Willene : Every day's a rebirth. Every day is Easter. Just remember to color your eggs happy colors, like yellow and baby blue.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : The storm has no mercy for the telephone company. Anyway, it's dangerous to talk on the phone when there's lightning in the sky.

• [Gert and Willene are startles by a knock at the door] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Oh, you're very good luck for me, Willene! Those doors have not felt human knuckles for a long time!

• Toydy : You like giving enemas?

  Gert : My son Gerald liked them.

  Toydy : I bet it was a nice fire engine red enema bag.

  Gert : I didn't use an enema bag. My son Gerald always requested that I hook up a heavy garden hose to the kitchen faucet.

  Toydy : He was used to bigger things, wasn't he?

  Gert : My son was big for his age. He was to be doomed with bigness.

• [Gert talks to her dead husband, who's pickled in mason jars] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I'm pouring myself a drink, Charley! Only it ain't to forget my loneliness. We have company now! And the house is full of human voices, like it was 15 years ago. There are also the voices of the inhuman and those that suffer. But they suffer no more.

• Toydy : Why don't you go take a walk and find something to pickle?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I almost had me a real nice pickle, if only you hadn't jumped away.

• Bing : She doesn't like other gorillas, they're too hairy. Medusa likes the naked, virile flesh of young men.

  Roo : And how, pray tell, did she get a taste for that?

  Bing : That's unimportant now!

  Toydy : Wait a second. Wait just one minute! You said she got you hard one night! What the hell did you mean by that?

  Bing : Look, I don't like being grilled by the cops or anyone else!

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Speaking of grilled, I'd better check on those pork chops. Excuse me, please.

• Roo : Now, just a minute, Miss Wine Cellar Virgin, don't you go talking back to me, or I'm gonna spill the beans.

  [Gert yells from the kitchen] 

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : We're not having beans tonight! We're having corn on the cob!

  Toydy : You know where you can shove that corn on the cob, Mrs. Hammond?

• Toydy : Has anybody ever told you you have a nice body for a woman so... mature?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Why, yes, young man. My husband Charlie used to compliment me on my torso. He said it reminded him of a classical Greek sculpture.

  Toydy : Well, you do remind me of something Greek, but it ain't sculpture. Sculpture's too cold. You remind me more of a nice juicy piece of of shish kabab meat.

• [Toydy and Gert prepare to have sex] 

  Toydy : Hand me that tin of grease on the stove over there.

  [Gert hands it to him; he lubricates both of them] 

  Toydy : What is it?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Bacon fat.

  Toydy : Ha-ha! I bet when you fart it's gonna sound like a pig! Oink... oink!

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : Have you no respect for me?

  Toydy : No. None at all! That would ruin the whole thing!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : You are a slimy, slippery reptile!

  Toydy : Don't you be calling me slimy and slippery with all that bacon fat oozing down on your thigh.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : You have degraded my sacredness as a woman. You defiled with ugly fat the Grecian classicism of my body!

  Toydy : Your body was nothing but ugly fat to begin with. A little extra never hurt none.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : If thy eyes offend thee, pluck them out. If thy hand offends thee, cut it off. May God give me strength with his terrible swift sword!

• [Bond and Roo try to separate Toydy from Gert, who brandishes a meat cleaver] 

  Bond : Toydy, what the hell are you up to?

  Toydy : I was rubbing up the pubic hair with bacon fat, then she went crazy!

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : If I could get control of this meat cleaver, that's all you'd end up with down there is pubic hair!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Be careful with that! It cost me an arm and a leg to upholster that chair!

  Toydy : Well, if an elephant walks in here, it's gonna be YOU that's gonna be upholstered all over this house!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Who told you to go snooping around behind the shelves? You were just supposed to get the right vintage wine and bring it up for supper!

  Roo : We're gonna be for supper if you don't stop chattering and start blockin' those windows!

• [Chandler and Sash find Gert's husband pickled in mason jars] 

  Chandler : He was all eaten away as if something had been gnawing away at his bones.

  Sash : Didn't your mother ever teach you the proper way to pickle something?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I pickled him right! That was the way he looked when he died. They didn't leave much flesh on him, did they?

  Chandler : Who's "they?" Who are you talking about?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I'm talking about that buzzin' cloud that came down from the Rockies on that awful Friday.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : It was a cheerful morning. Only, there were no birds singing. The birds had all flown away the night before.

• Willene : Are you in the habit of peeling your cucumbers in advance?

  Gert : Yes, it ages the flavor.

  Willene : It certainly does. Boy, does this taste odd.

  Gert : Eat up! You'll soon acquire a taste for it. I'd like you to. It would make for a much closer friendship between us.

• Gert : My son loved cream. He licked it up like a cat!

  Willene : But a cat has nine lives and your son, unfortunately, had only one. So now he joins your husband in death.

  Gert : My *husband* is dead. My son is no more. He no longer exists.

• Chandler : Mrs. Hammond, is there a light down in the basement?

  Gert : No, but there's a large flashlight over by the window.

  Toydy : Well, that's real good. In case you can't get it up, Chandler, you got something to fall back on.

• Willene : Do you know who my husband is?

  Gert : No.

  Willene : Simon Cassidy.

  Gert : Who's he?

  Willene : Do you mean to tell me you don't know who Simon Cassidy is, a country rock singer? You, who are one of the lonely women who's allowed my husband to come into your room via the radio to dispel the gloom of your empty rooms?

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Your zipper's open, young man.

  Toydy : Mmm, sorry. Fresh mouth over there wasn't satisfied with handling her stick shift.

  Roo : It wasn't my fault the goddamned crash happened. Angelpuss over there was to blame.

  Sash : And for good reason, to shut you up!

  Roo : Well, you shut me up this time, baby, but maybe next time you won't be so lucky.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Please forgive my manners. It's been so long since I've entertained!

  Toydy : Well, you're doing pretty good in that shorty-kimono, Miss.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : Everyone is welcome at Prairie Blossom! Come, take off your wet clothes and get into something dry and warm. You are welcome to don the apparel hangin' before ya. To your right, you'll find the clothing that adorned me in my youth. To your left, there hang the garments of my deceased husband. They hang there in the exact condition in which he left them. For your convenience and privacy while changing, may I suggest that you use the far bedroom down that hallway? And now that you have your instructions, may I wish you all a hearty welcome for the duration of your stay!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : No, my friends, you must not, you cannot go into that purgatory out those front doors! Please avail yourself of my hospitality until the good Lord sees fit to turn off his faucet.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : And please be patient with one another. The night is always long on the prairie.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : My God! Back there in the kitchen, it sounded like a tornado had decided to join our little party!

• [Chandler's and Toydy's altercation resulted in the destruction of Gert's lamp] 

  Chandler : Sorry about the lamp. Look, I'll give you six bucks for it. Will that be enough?

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : I don't want your money! You people have lit up my life more brightly than that lamp could ever have done!

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : It was a Friday the 13th. And it was noontime. I was in the kitchen fixing some lunch for Charlie, who was working in the grain bin all morning. It was a cheerful morning. Only, there were no birds singing. The birds had all flown away the night before. Seemed like there was just me and Charlie and that hot noonday sun there on the farm. And then it was just me and Charlie. Cuz the sun had disappeared in a buzzing, screaming shadow! I looked out the window and I saw Charlie running from the grain bin, all white and covered with wheat powder. He froze dead in his tracks as he looked up at the sky. And that's when they swooped down on him, like a black hail of winged devils!

  Toydy : Locusts.

  Mrs. Gert Hammond : They covered my husband with a shroud of hungry mouths, each one chompin' away like there was no tomorrow. They also covered the field where he fell, until the whole earth looked like a pot of boiling caviar! The wind caused by the beating of their wings had slammed the kitchen window shut, and that's what probably saved my life. I lay unconscious on that floor for a day and a night. When I awoke, the morning sun was beginning to bleach the bones of my husband.

  Roo : But locusts aren't supposed to eat people.

  Toydy : You're forgetting something. She said her husband was all covered with wheat powder.

• Mrs. Gert Hammond : I remember praying to God on that night after I awoke, how grateful I was that my son had been spared the death that descended on his father. Little was I to know that God was to have no mercy on my son either, only a hideous, swelling vengeance.