The girl who loved purple flowers
Sam Snoop Episode No. 5
(The full script from which my video was adapted)
mailto:asullivan00@comcast.net
SCENE: Greenwich Village Café
SNOOP: (voice over) The woman insisted I meet her in a Greenwich Village café. Although gray-haired and in her late sixties, she acted younger than she was. She wore a beret and spoke with a French accent, she said she was originally from Jersey,
WOMAN: I was separated from my father and sister when I was still a young girl. My mother took me and my brothers with her. We eventually found our way to Paris.
SNOOP: And your father and sister?
WOMAN: I never heard from either again. I wrote faithfully. My sister never answered.
SNOOP: And what exactly did you want me to do?
WOMAN: Go find her – see if she’s alive and how she is doing, and perhaps, if she is willing, meet with me. I would love to see her again and talk.
SNOOP: Why don’t you go and see her for yourself?
WOMAN: I’m scared, too.
SNOOP: Of your father?
WOMAN: Oh, no. He was a mean man, but he never scared me half as much as he did my sister. I suppose I’m scared of what I might find. Besides, after so many decades, I figure I need a detective like you to find her.
SNOOP: (voice over) All she had was a faded photograph of her sister as a young girl.
WOMAN: And one more thing. I remember she loved purple flowers.
SCENE: (Driving through New Jersey)
SNOOP: (voice over) I had my own reasons for making the trip. Not a lot of people knew I was originally from Jersey, too. I had grown up on a farm not too far from where the woman’s sister was supposed to live. I still felt guilty about plotting my escape at age 16. I always had the feeling that I had left a piece of myself behind. I figured if I helped find the woman’s sister I might find that missing piece of myself as well.
SCENE: The antique shop
SNOOP: (voice over) The nearest town was a haven for Wall Street yuppies who had turned farm houses into McMansions and farmers into store clerks who supplied their exotic taste for authentic America.
STORE KEEPER: Can I help you?
SNOOP: I’m looking for a village named Waterbottom, but I can’t find it on the map
STORE KEEPER: That’s because the place doesn’t exist any more – at least not in any shape to have anyone live in. People put it out of its misery years ago. No use you going up there it’s been deserted for years.
SNOOP: I’d like to check it out for myself.
STORE KEEPER: (giving Snoop a long suspicious stare) You’re wasting your time.
SNOOP: It’s my time to waste. Now are you going to tell me how to get there or do I have to buy something first?
SCENE: The village
SNOOP: (voice over) The village was a ruin and as dismal as a grave yard, but without the comfort of tomb stones – a testament to another time and place. Strolling through its empty wreckage, I knew I had done right leaving there when I had. I was about to leave when I saw something green near the far reaches and as I closed in on it, I realized it was a garden.
SCENE: The garden:
SNOOP: (voice over) I found an older woman, bent over from tending the plants, puttering though the garden. She did not acknowledge me until I stood in front of her. At which point, she stopped, rose and squinted at me.
OLD WOMAN: What do you want?
SNOOP: I’m looking for someone who used to live in the village
OLD WOMAN: They’re all gone.
SNOOP: To where?
OLD WOMAN: (shrugs) Who knows? Nebraska, the moon, or maybe they’re all dead.
SNOOP (voice over) Looking around, I noticed that the garden had an unusually high number of purple flowers.) You’re the one I’m looking for. Your sister said you loved purple flowers
OLD WOMAN: I don’t have a sister.
SNOOP: Of course, you do.
OLD WOMAN: Go away
SNOOP: Didn’t you get her letters?
OLD WOMAN: I got them.
SNOOP: Why didn’t you ever write back
OLD WOMAN: My father made me feel worthless enough. I don’t need my sister making me feel worse.
SNOOP: Your father might have mistreated you. But you’re sister seems to care a lot.
OLD WOMAN: If she cared so much, she wouldn’t have left.
SNOOP: Sometimes, we don’t have as much choice over our lives as we like.
OLD WOMAN: She could have come back to see me instead of sending letters.
SNOOP: She did. That’s why I’m here.
OLD WOMAN: You’re not her.
SNOOP: She sent me.
OLD WOMAN: Just like she sent letters.
SNOOP: Look, lady, I know how you feel getting trapped in this place.
OLD WOMAN: How can you?
SNOOP: I grew up just up the road. I was lucky. I got out. Your sister was lucky. She got out. Now she sent me to get you out.
OLD WOMAN: This is my home.
SNOOP: Lady, this is nobody’s home any more. Now why don’t you get some clothes. We have a long drive back to New York.