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Lesson Six
TEXT A
The Monsters Are Due On Maple
Street (Act I) Rod Serling
Pre-class Work I
Read the text once for the main idea. Do not refer to the notes dictionaries or the glossary yet.
CHARACTERS
Les Goodman Sally
Mrs. Goodman Man
Don Martin Second Man
Steve Brand Woman
Mrs. Brand Five Different
Voices
Pete Van Horn First Figure
Charlie Second Figure
Tommy
It is Maple Street, a quiet, tree-lined, residential street in a typical American town. The houses have front porches where people sit and talk to each other across their lawns. STEVE BRAND polishes his car parked in front of his house. His neighbor, DON MARTIN, leans against the fender, watching him. A Good Humor man rides a bicycle and is just stopping to sell some ice cream to a couple of kids. Two women gossip on the front lawn. Another man waters his lawn.
At this moment one of the boys, TOMMY, looks up and listens to the sound of a tremendous roar from overhead. A flash of light plays on his face, then moves down the street past lawns and porches and rooftops, and then disappears. STEVE BRAND, the man who has been polishing his car, stands there speechless, staring upwards. He looks at DON MARTIN, his neighbor from across the street.
Steve: What was that? A meteor?
Don: That's what it looked like. I didn't hear any crash, though, did you?
Steve: Nope, I didn't hear anything except a roar.
Mrs. Brand (from her porch): Steve? What was that?
Steve: Guess it was a meteor, honey. Came awful close, didn't it?
Mrs. Brand: Much too close!
(People stand on their porches, watching and talking in low tones. We see a MAN screwing in a light bulb on a front porch, then getting down off the stool to turn on the switch and finding that nothing happens. A MAN working on an electric power mower plugs in the plug. He turns on the switch, on and off, but nothing happens. Through the window of a front porch a WOMAN is seen dialing her phone.)
Woman: Operator, operator, something's wrong with the phone, operator!
(MRS. BRAND comes out on the porch.)
Mrs. Brand (calling): Steve, the power's off. I had the soup on the stove, and the stove just stopped working.
Woman: Same thing over here. I can't get anybody on the phone, either. The phone seems to be dead.
First Voice: Electricity's off.
Second Voice: Phone won't work.
Third Voice: Can't get a thing on the radio.
Fourth Voice: My power mower won't move, won't work at all.
(PETE VAN HORN, a tall, thin man, is seen standing in front of his house.)
Van Horn: I'11 cut through the back yard . . . see if the power' s still on on Cherry Street. I'll be right back!
Steve: Doesn't make sense. Why should the power and the phone line go off all of a sudden?
Don: Maybe it's an electrical storm or something.
Charlie: That doesn't seem likely. Sky's just as blue as anything. Not a cloud. No lightning. No thunder. No nothing. How could it be a storm?
Woman: I can't get a thing on the radio. Not even the portable.
Charlie: Well, why don't you go downtown and check with the police, though they'll probably think we're crazy or something. A little power failure and right away we get all excited.
Steve: It isn't just the power failure, Charlie. If it was, we'd still be able to get a broadcast on the portable.
(There's a murmur of reaction to this. STEVE walks over to his car.)
Steve: I'll run downtown. We'll get this all straightened out. (STEVE gets into his car, turns the key. The engine is dead. He then gets out of the car.)
Steve: I don't understand it. It was working fine before—
Don: Out of gas?
Steve (shakes his head): I just had it filled up.
Woman: What does it mean?
Charlie: It's just as if. . . as if everything had stopped. ( Then he turns toward STEVE.) We'd better walk downtown.
Steve: OK, Charlie. ( He turns to look back at the car.) It couldn't be the meteor. A meteor couldn't do this.
(He and CHARLIE exchange a look. Then they start to walk away from the group. TOMMY, a serious-faced young boy tries to stop them.)
Tommy: Mr. Brand...you'd better not!
Steve: Why not?
Tommy: They don't want you to.
(STEVE and CHARLIE exchange a grin. STEVE looks back toward the boy.)
Steve: Who doesn't want us to?
Tommy (jerks his head in the general direction of the distant horizon): Them!
Steve: Them?
Charlie: Who are them?
Tommy (very intently): Whoever was in that thing that came by overhead. I don't think they want us to leave here.
(STEVE walks over to the boy. He kneels down in front of him. He forces his voice to remain gentle. He reaches out and holds the boy.)
Steve: What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Tommy: They don't want us to leave. That's why they shut everything off.
Steve: What makes you say that? Whatever gave you that idea?
Woman (from the crowd): Now isn't that the craziest thing you ever heard?
Tommy (persistently): It's always that way, in every story I ever read about a ship landing from outer space.
Woman (to the boy's mother, SALLY,): From outer space yet! Sally, you'd better get that boy of yours up to bed. He's been reading too many comic books or seeing too many movies or something!
Salty: Tommy, come over here and stop that kind of talk.
Steve: Go ahead, Tommy. We 'll be right back. And you 'll see. That wasn't any ship or anything like it. That was just a... a meteor or something. (He turns to the group, now trying to sound optimistic although he obviously doesn't feel that way himself.) Meteors can do some crazy things. Like sun spots.
Don: Sure. They raise Cain with radio reception all over the world. And this thing, being so close-why, there's no telling the sort of stuff it can do. (He wets his lips, smiles nervously.) Go ahead, Charlie. You and Steve go into town and see if that isn't what's causing it all.
(STEVE and CHARLIE again continue to walk away down the sidewalk. The people watch silently. TOMMY stares at them, biting his lips and finally calling out again.)
Tommy: Mr. Brand!
(The two men stop again.)
Tommy: Mr. Brand. . .please don't leave here.
(STEVE and CHARLIE stop once again and turn toward the boy. There's a murmur in the crowd, a murmur of irritation and concern.)
Tommy: You might not even be able to get to town. It was that way in the story. Nobody could leave, except—
Steve: Except who?
Tommy: Except the people they'd sent down ahead of them. They looked just like humans. And it wasn't until the ship landed that—(The boy suddenly stops again, conscious of his parents staring at him and of the sudden quietness of the crowd.)
Sally: Tommy, please, son, don't talk that way—
Man: The kid shouldn't talk that way... and we shouldn't stand here listening to him. Why, this is the craziest thing I ever heard of.
(STEVE walks toward the boy.)
Steve: Go ahead, Tommy. What about the people that they sent out ahead?
Tommy: That was the way they prepared things for the landing. They sent people who looked just like humans... but they weren't.
(There's laughter at this, but it's a laughter that comes from a desperate attempt to lighten the atmosphere.)
Charlie (rubs his jaw nervously): I wonder if Cherry Street's got the same deal we got. (He looks past the houses.) Where is Pete Van Horn, anyway? Didn't he get back yet?
(Suddenly there's the sound of a car's engine starting to turn over. LES GOODMAN is at the wheel of his car.)
Sally: Can you get it started, Les?
(GOODMAN gets out of the car, shaking his head.)
Goodman: No.
(As he walks toward the group, he stops suddenly. Behind him, the car engine starts up all by itself. GOODMAN whirls around and stares at it. His eyes go wide, and he runs over to his car. The people stare toward the car.)
Man: He got the car started somehow. He got his car started!
Woman: How come his car just started like that?
Sally: All by itself. He wasn't anywhere near it. It started all by itself.
(DON approaches the group: He stops a few feet away to look toward GOODMAN's car and then back toward the group.)
Don: And he never did come out to look at that thing that flew overhead. He wasn't even interested. (He turns to the faces in the group.) Why? Why didn't he come out with the rest of us to look?
Charlie: He was always an oddball. Him and his whole family.
Don: What do you say we ask him?
(The group suddenly starts toward the house.)
Steve: Wait a minute... wait a minute! Let's not be a mob!
(The people seem to pause for a moment. Then, much more quietly and slowly, they start to walk across the street. GOODMAN stands there alone, facing the people.)
Goodman: I just don't understand it. I tried to start it, and it wouldn't start. You saw me. (And now, just as suddenly as the engine started, it stops. There's a frightened murmuring of the people.)
Don: Maybe you can tell us. Nothing's working on this street. Nothing. No lights, no power, no radio. Nothing except one car—yours!
(The people pick this up, and their murmuring becomes a loud chant filling the air with demands for action.)
Goodman: Wait a minute now. You keep your distance—all of you. So I've got a car that starts by itself—well, that's weird—I admit it. But does that make me a criminal or something? I don't know why the car works—it just does!
(This stops the crowd, and GOODMAN, still backing away, goes up the steps and then stops to face the mob.)
Goodman: What's it all about, Steve?
Steve (quietly): Seems that the general impression holds that maybe the people in one family aren't what we think they are. Monsters from outer space or something. Different from us. You know anybody that might fit that description around here on Maple Street?
Goodman: What is this, a practical joke or something?
(Suddenly the engine of the car starts all by itself again, runs for a moment, and stops. The people once again react.)
Goodman: Now that's supposed to make me a criminal, huh? The car engine goes on and off? (He looks around at the faces of the people.) I just don't understand it... any more than any of you do! (He wets his lips, looking from face to face.) Look, you all know me. We've lived here five years. Right in this house. We're no different from any of you!
Woman: Well, if that's the case, Les Goodman, explain why—(She stops suddenly.)
Goodman (softly): Explain what?
Steve: (cutting in): Look, let's forget this—
Charlie: Go ahead; let her talk. What about it? Explain what?
Woman (a little reluctantly): Well... sometimes I go to bed late at night. A couple of times... I'd come out here on the porch and I'd see Mr. Goodman here standing out in front of his house... looking up at the sky. (She looks around at the circle of faces.) That's right, looking up at the sky as if... as if he were waiting for something.
Goodman: She's crazy. Look, I can explain that. Please... I can really explain that. She's making it up anyway.
(He takes a step toward the crowd, and they back away. He walks down the steps after them, and they continue to back away. He's suddenly and completely left alone. He looks like a man caught in the middle of a menacing circle.)
Read the text a second time. Learn the new words and expressions listed below.
