EXT. GAS STATION - DAY
Lawrence, bearded and filthy checks his voice-mail on a
pay phone. It's Robin.
ROBIN (V.O.)
(filtered)
Hey Cross. Psshhh, I don't know. Just
wondering what’s up, why you haven’t called
in...a while. It's um. Fuck what time is it?
I don't have..a..watch. It's NOW! And I
have a few allegories for you.
EXT. BACK PORCH - AFTERNOON
Robin sits in a rocking chair on a baby blue painted porch
overlooking an Arizona back yard.
There's that patchy craby grass, a bright blooming orange
tree with it's rotten droppings and various small over
manicured shrubs partially covering a wooden fence.
The sun is overpowering. The the scene is enough for the
people in the movie theatre to warm their hands by.
Robin rolls a cigarette. She's able to do this with one
hand. With her other she scratches a cat that's runs
behind the rocking chair.
ROBIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
My cat's fond of stalking in the
mornings. He's too slow for the birds
but the lizards are slow and everywhere.
Lites her cigarette.
ROBIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
He's taken to bringing dead lizards to my
doorstep. Sometimes right into the
house. And lucky me, I get to sweep it
up.
Something moves in the bushes. She notices and gets up.
Walks into the yard.
ROBIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
When I look at those dead things, I don't
feel sad. I feel angry. It's natural
selection. The big stuff kills the little
stuff. But I'm not a big fan of nature,
survival of the fittest, yada yada.
In the bushes, Robin finds a tiny lizard. Popping it's
head up and down in the shade. It breathes hard.
Terrified.
ROBIN (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Maybe cats kill lizards. But the little
animal we seemed to have created doesn't.
Maybe it's cunning. Maybe it knows how
to run away or blend into it's
environment.
JAMES (27), Robin's roommate, enters via the back door.
JAMES
Hey, phone call doof.
ROBIN
(cigarette in teeth)
Who is it?
JAMES
I don't know.
Robin looks back. Back to the lizard. Cigarette burning
away in the center of her mouth.
ROBIN (V.O.)
So, I sit here. Staring at our lizard
and knowing I can kill it. I don't.
What the fuck is that? Darwin's a crock.
I think we're rooting for the little
guys.
INT. HOUSE - AFTERNOON
Robin takes the phone.
ROBIN
Hello?
(hope escapes her face)
Oh hi Mom.
Robin glares at her roommate.
ROBIN (CONT'D)
Good ... School's good ... I know ...
Cross walks up behind Robin all out of focus. He takes
the phone from Robin's ear that's being talked off.
He hangs up the phone. Robin turns around. Sees Cross
standing there. He's tan, he looks good.
CROSS
I'm thirsty.
ROBIN
(stunned)
I've got tea.
INT. KITCHEN - AFTERNOON
Cross sits at the table.
While they talk: Robin opens every cabinet looking for a
glass. Finally she just washes one that looks like a
used jelly jar and pours Cross some tea.
CROSS
You know I'm not really here.
ROBIN
It would seem silly to believe otherwise.
I can never find a glass when I have
imaginary company.
CROSS
You said you had allegories. Meaning
more than one. You only left one on my
machine.
ROBIN
Well, I didn't want to take up all the
space on the tape. Or whatever they
use... You want ice?
Cross looks at her.
ROBIN (CONT'D)
You're imaginary. I'll get you ice.
Opens the freezer. Fishes around.
CROSS
What's the other one? Come on, I want to
hear it.
Slams the freezer door. Slaps down the drink like it's a
saloon. It slides from one side of the table to the
other and crashes on the floor, spilling everywhere.
ROBIN
Fuck! I'm sorry. I don't have any idea
what I'm doing.
Grabs a towel. Kneels down. The cat runs over and
starts to lap the tea.
ROBIN (CONT'D)
(lifts him out of the way)
No, Patch, you don't want to get cut.
This is for people.
Cleans the glass. Sopping the liquid, sweeping the
shards and dust-panning them into the trash while she
says the following.
ROBIN (CONT'D)
I love books that make me sad. Somehow
(I don't think I'm a masochist) they feel
more true. So lets say I have this book
in my hands. It's a book only insofar as
I can read it. And when I do read it, the
words are words. I see them: 'she looked
like a' and 'then it rained' and 'I saw
her pick violets' Fucking words, right?
Just fucking words. Right. But let's say
I read the introduction in a coffee shop
and decided to keep reading it when I
went home. Let's say I got to the love
scene in the middle of the night, when I
was scared, but I kept reading. Let's say
I stayed up until I finished. By the end
of the book I'm as tired as if I had just
been through what the characters had been
through. I wasn't lonely when I picked
up the book, but I'm lonely now because
I'm not IN the book, because the book
conjured up people around me and now it's
done conjuring. Now most people would
say: Just pick up another book and start
over again. Right? That's what normally
happens. But what if you had a book that
kept going? What if the book was half
real, half unreal? And better still, what
if the book was a sad story? We're both a
sucker for those. A beautiful story, a
character so similar to yourself that
sometimes you don't know the difference.
And another character, a half-pretended
person that is just real enough to make
you laugh when you need to. It's perfect
and tragic and just your kind of story.
People would tell you it's dangerous to
read like that. People would tell you to
get your head back in the 'real' world.
But you know what I say? Fuck the real
world--it's such a boring story. Fuck it
every time.
Robin looks up. Cross, of course, is gone. Her face
pinches up like she's holding in a wave of tears.
She settles without a drop. Walks out of the kitchen.
INT. HOUSE - AFTERNOON
Grabs the phone off the cradle and her mom is magically
still talking on the other end. She listens. Eyes
closed.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
INT. SPUTNIK BAR - NIGHT
Antonio and Lawrence sit at the bar. They each sip a Red
Stripe.
TITLE: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 2004.
ANTONIO
That message you left me was really
inspiring man. It's been a while dude.
How ya been?
LAWRENCE
Good man... I've been. I've been in a
tunnel of shit for a long fucking time.
And I just pulled my way through it.
ANTONIO
Dude, I'm still in it.
LAWRENCE
You really thought I was inspiring.
Shit, I thought I sounded fucking.
ANTONIO
Don't matter man, you inspired me. I was
waiting for something.
LAWRENCE
I woke up. I'd been sleeping so hard for
so many years. I've been working my ass
off for three years now man. I don't
know how the hell I did it.
ANTONIO
You not working right now?
LAWRENCE
Nah, the Dol. Taking six months to sort
my shit out. See if I can't writie
something that may need to be written.
See if I can't, I donno, start this life
up.
ANTONIO
I remember I was. Fuck, I don't even
remember how my own story starts. Okay,
the moment I knew. This is a fact! I
was sitting eatting a muffin and I
decided above all other things that I was
going to be a filmmaker. And it was a
banana-nut muffin. Right there. I said,
yes!
LAWRENCE
Film.
ANTONIO
Film. I've always wanted to start a
company and name it, banana-nut
productions or banana nut muffin
productions. Something.
LAWRENCE
Dude that's a quality idea. Company.
See but I'm a man of particular ideals.
And to me, we are a company. To keep
someone such is not to say they are
incorporated into one another's lives.
ANTONIO
To incorporate two into one would be
backwards math. But everyone needs a
little company.
LAWRENCE
Agreed. We will produce and organize.
But I've got the perfect name for such an
artifice.
ANTONIO
What's that?
LAWRENCE
Cinema.
Set.
Free.
ANTONIO
Cinema.
Set.
Free.
LAWRENCE
Can we?
ANTONIO
I hope so.
The sit quietly and drink their beers. Thinking of such
an idea.
LAWRENCE
Dude, I gotta tell you this ridiculous
shit that happened to me last year. So
there was this blonde girl.
ANTONIO
No shit...
INT. BEDROOM, HARLEM - NIGHT
Bath wakes up. He walks to his giant computer and sits.
His face inches from bright greasy screen.
It blinks to life. Some typing. Bath walks out the
door, scratching his ass under his boxers.
The computer logs by itself. Familiar hissing and
pinging of the modem connection.
After a few moments. BLING! An instant message pops up.
ROBIN (V.O.)
It's gotta be late there.
Bath returns to his chair, with a giant bowl of Capt'n
Crunch.
Types with one hand.
BATH (V.O.)
I just woke up.
DAWN (V.O.)
Christ. Really? Does that mean things
aren't going so well?
BATH (V.O.)
It means I'm really tired. I can't
really tell night from day in this
apartment anyway.
EXT. MOVIE THEATRE - NIGHT
Cross walks up to Robin, hands in his pockets. They
couldn't be more than 15.
ROBIN
The craziest shit is on the internet.
CROSS
What's the internet?
ROBIN
I don't know. But there's really scary
sex on there, between like black dudes
and white chicks.
CROSS
Shhh. It's supposed to be when we were
younger. The net was just a couple of
bulletin boards and some D and D fan
fiction.
ROBIN
They've always had interracial porn man.
CROSS
Fine. So which do you want to see?
ROBIN
Can we see any of them?
CROSS
I don't even know which would be up here.
It's like ninty-five now so, I guess,
ooooo! Seven came out in nintey-five.
ROBIN
I don't want to see a movie about serial
killers, Cross!
CROSS
Well fuck, help me think.
ROBIN
No, I bet there's something you've always
wanted to see and wished you could.
CROSS
Yeah, Jacque Tati's Playtime. It's
french.
ROBIN
I've heard of him. I saw Mon Uncle. He
was alright.
CROSS
Yeah but you haven't seen Playtime. When
you visited Sean in San Francisco it was
playing at the theatre in the Castro.
Whatever the name. They got a seventy
two millimeter print. Must've been a
fucking beautiful thing.
ROBIN
It was.
CROSS
Well, I want to see that. Just like how
I missed it.
ROBIN
Eh, nah. I've already seen that.
INT. LOBBY - NIGHT
Cross hands the tickets to the THEATRE EMPLOYEE (15). He
checks Robin out.
ROBIN
I remember being this age. I was
awkward, God I was awkward. Seventeen
was a better year. That was my more
attractive year.
They stand in line at the concessions.
CROSS
I want to explain to you, what I do for a
living, because it's important and you
really don't have a concept.
ROBIN
Okay Duder, fill me in.
CROSS
See that popcorn over there. My job is
to essentially tell an employee to pop
and serve that popcorn. But there's one
caveat. That employee will do only
exactly what I tell him to do. And often
times he doesn't have any idea how to do
anything, including life his arm, open a
bag, ring up an order.
ROBIN
This is so boring already.
CROSS
Wait, I'm almost done. This would be
kinda hard, if the employee say, spoke
english, but he doesn't. He speaks a new
language that I have to learn and I can
only communicate with him by writing it
down and having him read it. Reading his
own language is the one thing he can do
well. But he's a grammar freak and he
hates it when I don't use the right
punctuation. So I tell him, here's how
you pop popcorn.
First you open your hand, then you extend
your arm, then you close your hand over
the bag, then you rotate your body
towards the popper, then you extend your
other arm towards the door. Get me?
ROBIN
Yes fine, your job is hard. You
translate to an 8 month old with
incredible OCD al lday long. What's your
point?
CROSS
I just wanted to share. You know...
ROBIN
No you didn't. You were just happy to
find a clever new analogy. But the thing
about analogy is...
A whistle from the kid behind the counter.
ROBIN (CONT'D)
Hold on. Is...it's gotta be more
interesting that the subject it's
analogizing.
INT. MOVIE THEATRE - NIGHT
Cross and Robin sit together, eating Mike and Ikes.
CROSS
What are we seeing. Any movie in the
whole world, you said, which would you
choose to see on the big screen.
ROBIN
Gone with the fucking Wind.
FADE TO BLACK:
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