DONNA: And Ben wrote me a poem. Could one ever give anything nicer?

TONI: I bet I could. That’s why I dragged Grover in. I wanted to give him.

PHILIP: Give him what?

TONI: Don’t play dense, Philip. Doesn’t anyone get it? I’m giving him. I’ve kept him to myself all these years through no fault of my own, and now I’m sharing him —

GROVER (auctioneering): ...going twice, going three times, sold; the left arm goes to the lady in the back row. Now the head; do I hear a nickel...?

TONI: Stop clowning, Grover. Why is this so obscure? It’s gift giving day, so I’m giving Grover. I mean, he’s the gift — I’m giving him to — to everyone — to the commune —

PHILIP — But why? Or what for? What does it do? Sing? Lay eggs?

TONI: I’ve never in my life —

BEN: You’re keeping something from us, Toni. Are you asking us to reintroduce cannibalism?

TONI: I’ll be damned if I’m not on the verge of tears. I’ve been raving to Grover about the only bunch of genuine radicals in the world, the only ones who didn’t treat a person as some kind of thing, and all you want to know is what the thing is for and how it tastes! I’m not reintroducing cannibalism! You are cannibals.

BEN: Worse, Toni. Ten thousand years of progress worse —

TONI: Grover is my best outside friend and my resource person and it’s thanks to him that I always have free pot and —

PHILIP: Say, what kind of farm did you take the kids to?

GROVER: We’ve been to a cabbage farm. That’s what it says on the sign. Head cabbage. And that’s all you see growing when you drive up to it either way. But that cabbage is for the pigs. The cabbage for the heads is Michoacan and Acapulco gold and Colombian —

PHILIP: Are those the brands of marijuana you had Alec sample?

GROVER: Man, that’s the only kind of farm I’d ever want to get close to —

BEN: Why haven’t you brought him around before, Toni?

GROVER: That, my man, was executed at my request. Why would you want to weld a U-haul to your car when you were pulling it all right with a hitch and chain?

BEN: I don’t get it.

GROVER: Look, my man, the connection, to be on the safe side —

BEN: Why did you want to be on the safe side?

GROVER: Now we’re getting to the historical nitty gritty, as my business associates call it. The fact is, it’s not just the pot that’s being watched nowadays. Anyone that even looks like someone from a commune has five investigators assigned to him at every airport in the country. Remember the French revolution of 1968? Well me and this other dude ran M-38’s across the border and our companeros on the loyalist side shot the bodies of priests full of holes and burned Noter Dame to the ground. Now if the pigs ever added two plus two together, they’d get the connection. Dig?

DAN: I’d thought not a single shot was fired in France in 68.

GROVER: That’s what everyone thought, but that was the most successful media blitz in history. The news was kept under such tight control that even the companeros themselves didn’t know that those large bricks they kept passing each other were actually crates loaded with machine guns —

TONI: The first thing you should all know about Grover is that he’s a terrific storyteller. But he’s got contacts all over this city who can make his stories come true. When I told him what Steve had done with our phone and electricity —

GROVER: I figured, why stop with the corporations, my man? The State’s the biggest corporation of them all and Agnew is up there in the vanguard, raising our consciousness about some of the possibilities.

BEN: Don’t you mean Nixon?

PHILIP: Didn’t you know, Ben? The vise-president was found guilty of defrauding the government of several thousand dollars. I thought you followed these things.

BEN: I do, but not up close.

GROVER: You know what’s even better than free phone and electricity? Listen to this. I know this lawyer who could rig up papers and they’d look like the cabbages on this farm, everything legal from the road but don’t invite your neighbors for lunch. I’m not talking about paying no tax on this building; I’m talking about negative tax, about getting huge checks from the government, refunds, like when you run your gas meter backwards with a vacuum cleaner —

DONNA: I think your friend is hilarious —

TONI: He’s hardly gotten started yet. Grover could help that typesetting co-op get off the ground.

DAN: Really? In what way?

GROVER: Without exaggerating I’d estimate that every radical in this town goes through me for one thing or another, and they’re the wordiest people you’d hope to find —

DAN: But how could we make contact?

GROVER: Easiest thing in the world, my man. Next time a dude starts telling me about his newest theory, I’ll just ask if I can borrow it so as to get an estimate. That way you can decide if it’s up your alley before taking it on. Dig? I could keep a whole room full of you at your machines round the clock —

MATTIE: Oh, wow, from rags to riches!

STEVE (near Sharon’s easel): It’s very moving. Did you do it?

SHARON: I intended it as my gift to the commune.

BEN: When did you bring this in, Sharon? I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s fantastic!

GROVER: I understand some of you are into the business of repairing the four-wheeled life preservers marketed by Ford and General Motors. Say, do you have something to soothe a parched throat, something a little stronger than beer?

BARRY: Come with me and pick out what you want, Grover. Yes, we’re into fixing cars —

(GROVER & BARRY exit right)