©Ben Greenman
Originally Composed November 1999
[PETE, a poor boy from Georgia, is preparing for the local dance contest, in which he hopes to impress the judges with his Peach Picker’s Shuffle, a lively folk dance of his own invention.]
PETE:
I’m not good at making speeches.
That’s not my cup of tea.
And I blush when I buckle up my breeches;
I need my privacy.
But when it comes to picking peaches
You just wait and see.
I’m a peach picker, peach picker, peach picker, peach picker
Yeah!
Peach picker!
That’s me.
[PETE goes to the barbershop to get a haircut. While there, he sees a picture of IVANKA TRUMP in a magazine. He is instantly smitten.]
PETE:
I’ve never heard of Thierry Mugler.
Dolce and Gabbana are all Greek to me.
Even though they sound Italian,
Those fashion names just don’t speak to me.
But I saw her face
In a magazine;
It’s the prettiest face
That I’ve ever seen.
Ee-vahn-ka? Ee-vain-kah?
I wonder. I hanker
For her touch.
It’s all too much.
[PETE leaves the barbershop with his hair only half-cut and boards a bus to New York City.]
PETE:
Does this bus go east?
Sir, I need to know.
Take me north, at least.
Toward the ice and snow.
Does this bus go fast?
Sir, I hope it can.
I’ll meet her at last.
She’ll make me a man.
[PETE gets off the bus in New York City. He is immediately approached by LILY, a young policewoman working undercover as a prostitute. She advises PETE to go to the Trump residence and wait outside for Ivanka. He should be reading the newspaper, she says: it’s a good conversation piece.]
LILY:
While I faked turning tricks
I invented that tactic.
This little song
Is anticlimactic
[While PETE waits outside the Trump residence, he strikes up a conversation with an old doorman named WALLY. PETE tells Wally of his plans to win Ivanka’s heart.]
PETE:
She’s from the set that jet
I haven’t met her yet
But I have a strong suspicion
That she’ll understand my mission.
The rich, you see, are not like you and me.
They have everything but still they feel lonely.
When she finally meets my gaze it will put her in a daze.
I swear that I will be her one and only.
[PETE waits for hours but Ivanka doesn’t appear. He waits the next day, and the next. Each day, he entertains Wally with stories about Georgia. The fourth day, Wally is not there, and Pete learns that the old man has died of a heart attack. He also discovers that Wally’s real name was really Peter Edmond Fredricks, and that when he was a young man he had an obsessive love for Abby Rockefeller, the eldest daughter of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. At the time, Peter Fredricks was a promising young businessman, but after six months of dogged pursuit, including a sleepless week spent outside the Rockefeller residence at No. 10 W. 54th Street, he was fired from his job and was forced to become a beggar. This news fills PETE with horror. He becomes convinced that he is doomed to repeat the older Pete’s fate. He takes to drink, has a brief fling with Lily, and begins talking to SPORT, a mutt he meets outside of Macy’s.]
PETE:
Those shoes wouldn’t fit you, old Sport.
Neither would that jacket
Or that black cotton shirt
Why won’t you speak to me, Sport?
My legs feel shaky
My heart is hurt
[By blind luck, PETE meets IVANKA, who is coming out of her modeling agency. He falls to his knees in front of her.]
PETE:
In Georgia we were taught to do our duty
To country and to family and to God
But no one ever taught me about beauty
When I look at you I feel kind of odd
[Desperate to win Ivanka’s love, PETE hurls himself between her and her limousine and does the Peach Picker’s Shuffle. In his haste to impress her, he falls and hurts himself. From the ground, he makes one last appeal.]
PETE:
I feel like a moron
I am sore from head to rump
Give me your hand
So I can stand
And show you what I’m made of, good Miss Trump
I feel like a donkey
Or a monkey on a stump.
I want one more chance.
May I have this dance
And show you what I’m made of, good Miss Trump?
[IVANKA drives away. PETE lowers his head to the ground slowly and weeps. The ghost of WALLY/PETER FREDRICKS emerges from the clouds above, opens his mouth, but then realizes he has nothing to say.]
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