Found People To Love

ACT III

Uh. This was supposed to be published last week.

Scene 1: Sam's Delicatessen

[OLIVER and JAMES stand in back from a deli case, allowing a couple locals to line up and order as they survey the options. The yellow-papered walls are plastered with newspaper clippings about fishing and small mentions of Sam's Delicatessen over the years, and pictures of smiling men who appear to all be related—Sam's descendents. In the case are different pastas and salads—spinach-mozzarella-tomatoes, Caesar with no dressing, campanelle pasta tossed in pesto with chopped vegetables and olives, spaghetti with chicken meatballs.]

OLIVER: I should be a cannibal.

JAMES: [sudden, surprised laugh] Oh, fuck, I missed you.

OLIVER: Olives are so good.

JAMES: Spoken with true passion, Marks, well-pronounced.

OLIVER: There were some in the fridge when I got home, and I must have eaten at least half of them.

JAMES: How tastes the flesh of your kin?

OLIVER: Heavenly.

JAMES: What are you actually getting? The campanelle?

OLIVER: Probably a sandwich. We had Italian pasta yesterday for lunch.

JAMES: We did, but it wasn't this Italian pasta.

OLIVER: I thought we were going to eat something different every day? It was your idea. We can't have two out of five for Italian pasta.

JAMES: I thought cannibalism might make the dish a new venture.

OLIVER: Ah... maybe I'll get a sandwich with olives.

JAMES: What, on the side?

OLIVER: Why not?

JAMES: Alright. Are you ready? Want a drink?

OLIVER: Sprite? Yes, are you?

[JAMES steps up to the counter, slipping one hand into his pocket and pulling out his wallet as he orders off the menu on the wall behind the counter.]

JAMES: Sprite, water, chicken sandwich with—uh—swiss—hot, please—and—

[JAMES turns expectantly to OLIVER]

OLIVER: Prosciutto on sourdough baguette?

JAMES: Can we get an—uh. Side of olives?

[OLIVER suppresses a laugh and JAMES' mouth twitches. The cashier, punching numbers into the register as the man behind the counter begins assembling these sandwiches, points them first to a glass-door drink refrigerator behind them, and then a squat one beside it that opens from the top.]

CASHIER: Sodas in the back, olives in the fridge.

JAMES: [to OLIVER] Grab some, will you?

[OLIVER takes first the Sprite and bottled water from the fridge and then peers down into the glass top of the short fridge containing the olives. His eyes trace the labels, but he doesn't open the fridge.]

OLIVER: Do we care what kind?

JAMES: They're for you.

OLIVER: Alright.

[OLIVER selects a plastic container of olives the size of a new roll of duct tape and returns to the counter with it. The CASHIER takes this an approving nod and scans it deftly. JAMES hands over his credit card.]