ACT ONE:

On the pier, at the first.

Dad: “Nora, Nora, Nooooooooooorahhhhhh.” In a sing-song method.

Nora, screaming: “WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW, OLD MAN?”

She rinses off her hands in the briny and treks up from the boat house.

Dad: “Come here, Nora, my son’s CO has come to visit.”

Nora: To herself. “Thank Christ, I thought he needed another diaper change.”

She arrives.

Dad: “Nora, this is Frank. He was your husband’s Conscientious Objector during the war.”

Nora: “No, no he’s not, dad, he’s Humphrey Bogart and he’s a robber. He robbed my cradle.”

Dad: “Oh, Nora, don’t say such things. It’s wrong. You’re just mad because I had that onion sandwich late last night when we were watching Noir Alley and you had to tend me with a Depends.”

Nora rolls her eyes as her flat as a washboard stomach roils.

“Yes, Dad, I remember, distinkly.”

She glares at Hump.

“You’re awfully short and yet you let my sister sit in your lap standing up. Do you know who Chris Hansen is, uh, Frank?”

She smiles for the first time since arriving at Key Largo some fifty years earlier. Her Max Factor application cracks under the pressure.

Frank: “Does the cook who made you that onion sandwich own that combination gas station and greasy spoon up the road a piece? I stopped there and had an onion sandwich just an hour ago. He can’t cook, but, his wife is a blonde bombshell even though I detest war.”