WELCH
: It cleans things up, Haynes. Everything springs back to life in due time. We’re doing nature a favor, as a matter of fact. We’re provoking rebirth!
HAYNES
: You can’t just walk in here and take over. What are you doing to their house, anyway?
WELCH
: Just a little decorating for our think tank. We have a big meeting coming up on Tuesday.
HAYNES
: Where? Here?
WELCH
: Exactly.
(Throughout all this, WELCH keeps returning to his attaché case, pulling out more strings of American flags and stapling them up all over the house like some mad interior decorator.)
HAYNES
: No—look—you can’t just co-opt their house. These are friends of mine.
WELCH
: (
continues stapling
) We can do whatever we want, buddy-boy. That should be clear by now. We’re in the driver’s seat. Haven’t you noticed? There’s no more of that nonsense of checks and balances. All that red tape. All that hanging around in limbo, waiting for decisions from committees and tired-out lobbies. We’re in absolute command now. We don’t have to answer to a soul, least of all a couple of Wisconsin dairy farmers.
(HAYNES crosses toward windows and porch. He looks out to pastures below. WELCH continues to staple the string of flags.)
HAYNES
: I never should have come here.
WELCH
: We would have found you no matter what.
HAYNES
: What have you done with them? Where’d they go?
WELCH
: (
laughs
) Don’t be such an alarmist.
HAYNES
: Where did they go!?
WELCH
: They’re probably having a little powwow down at the barn. Talking things over.
HAYNES
: What things?
WELCH
: The future, Haynes! The bright, golden American future. You can just imagine what an enormous leap that is for a simple country couple like this—so out of touch. Living completely in the long ago. Stuck in some quaint pioneer morality.
HAYNES
: (
crossing back toward
WELCH
) They were just doing me a favor by letting me stay here. They’re completely innocent!
WELCH
: We’re not interested in punishing them, Haynes. On the contrary, we’re offering them a leg up. You, however, might be a serious candidate for punitive action.
HAYNES
: I don’t care what you do to me.
WELCH
: No heroics, please.
HAYNES
: I don’t!