GALAXY MICHAEL
An Original Screenplay
by
Michael "Lawless" Adams
Second Draft & 1.2
Registered by "Insufferable Industries"
In the year of our Lord, 2009
(God help us all!)
NOTE: VISUALS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO FACILITATE UNDERSTANDING OF JUST WHAT IN KINGDOM COME IS GOING ON HERE. . . . . MAY COME IN HANDY FOR THE CLUELESS AND TIME-PRESSED TURNING THIS WHACKED-OUT THING AROUND, AND THEN HOLDING IT UPSIDE DOWN BEFORE USING IT AS A FOOTSTOOL, PAPERWEIGHT, OR IMPROMPTU SOURCE OF "SNOT-RAGS". BE IDEALISTIC-- AND REALISTIC! "THAT'S MY MOTTO. . . . .".
Stoner's Interlude #2
"Bad
Medicine Waltz:
The REAL Beetlejuice"
FADE IN
BLACK SCREEN WITH TITLE
INT. Questioning Chamber/Interview Room, Present Day, Time Unknown
The shot open to MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS sitting at the table with his hands folded, as if going into a confession.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
You may wonder how I washed up on these here "Shores of Hell" like a convict. Truth is, when you spend most of your time trying to avoid your painful reality as much as possible, acting like "Pac Man" on the run from the monsters of "common sense" while "gorging all you can", that ain't a pretty picture. . . . .
[CUT TO FOOTAGE of PAC MAN running through the maze, eating DOTS like mad as the computer makes all sorts of exciting sound effects. Evidently, "The Monsters of Common Sense" are closing in]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)I didn't want to work, I didn't want to go to school. Instead, I figured that I'd wallow in my own sleaze.
INT. Michael's New Bedroom, 1999, Day
MOTHER is attempting to jimmy open the bedroom door, which is a struggle because of the knee-deep pile of dirty clothes on the floor. HER SON is sleeping peacefully in his underwear, A BOTTLE OF LIQUOR (Wild Turkey) at his side in the festering heat. MOTHER throws a sheet over him in disgust. 18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS stirs, tasting his mouth.
MOTHER Michael, what are we going to do with you? What would
Winona think of all of this?
(Worrying, pleading, nagging)
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS She'd like it, I'd reckon!
(Smirking)
[CUT TO
PICTURE of WINONA RYDER leaning adorably on a bike with a great smile, as if
she's "dropped by the neighborhood"]
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS She'd cook and clean and slave around here and wipe my
ass! Oh yeah, I can just see that "Magical Mystery Limousine" coming
around the corner right now with a big pile of money! Think about it, Mom-- we can all be parasites! And you
can quit nagging me!
(Sniggering obnoxiously)
MOTHER
(Laughing in
spite of herself)
Oh, Michael. You're terrible! No woman like that would ever put up with you and your bullshit! Didn't you used to be civilized? It's like this stranger moved into my house and starting living like a pig. You gave up, and need to quit feeling sorry for yourself and get off your "pity pot".
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS But I like my pity-pot.
(Feigning sincerity in a mocking tone)
MOTHER
(Putting her hands on her hips)
Well, enough already!
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Well. . . . . I just ought to go KILL MYSELF with drink.
(Putting on a southern voice even more
low-down and ignorant than Forrest Gump)
Then OUR HERO starts singing "The Secret of the Bottle" by "Jackyl" in an intentionally cracked voice.
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Oh, the secret of the bottle. . . . . ain't never been
known. So I raise my glass, and propose a toast. . . . . and this one
baby-- is for YEEEEWW!
(Singing)
MOTHER Oh, Michael. Your singing is awful.
(Cringing mirthfully,
half in
frustration)
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS The secret of the bottle. . . . .
(Singing)
Then he unscrews the cap of the whiskey bottle and pours it all over himself.
MOTHER Oh, I can't watch this.
(Upset)
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS One day I'm going to weigh 900 pounds and you and Winona
are going to wash me with a rag and a stick! I'll be a local celebrity!
MOTHER Not in my house, you won't. You can go live with Dad!
(Walking down the hall)
18 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS just lays there on the filthy mattress looking like an alcoholic slug.
ENTER MUSIC: "The Idol" by W.A.S.P. that connotes a strung-out rueful state, like a rock-star laying around in a hotel room, waiting for the telephone to ring, but hesitant to reach out and touch it.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)So this was the rock-bottom of annihilation. As much as I strove to be dead inside, there was still a part of me that remembered back to a better time.
ENTER MUSIC: "The Tangerine Dream ditty" from way back in the beginning that connotes the limitless glamour of potential somewhere off in the night with the stinging '80s guitars; the beginning of tingling contact.
[FLASHBACK: MINDY MOTHER, YOUNG JESSE and 10 YEAR-OLD MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS tramping to the video store and renting "Beetlejuice"]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)The idea that you could be anything you wanted to be if only you worked hard enough and showed courage. The courage to stare down life like a man.
OUR HERO turns his grizzled head on the bed, as if stirred by something.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)The audacity to live life on your own terms, as you wanted to be.
[CUT TO FOOTAGE from original "Beetlejuice" when "The Ghost with The Most" rises from his grave, the little manic scene when he lands in front of a pair of shocked customers]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)And you couldn't forget Winona from "Beetlejuice". . . . .
[CUT TO FOOTAGE of WINONA levitating]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(V.O.)(Off-handedly)
Well, yeah. In a perfect world, I'd write a "Beetlejuice" sequel and make millions of dollars and seduce Winona on the set and save her career and marry her but in a small production outfit like this, we couldn't get the actors, copyrights, or Tim Burton's permission. So we decided to bring you "THE REAL BEETLEGEUSE",
[CUT TO VARIOUS STILL PICTURES OF THIS HAPLESS CREATURE (The screenwriter's buddy, Bobby Hayes) WHO WEARS A ST. LOUIS CARDINALS BALL-CAP WITH UNKEMPT WHISKERS]
A home-grown Missouri specimen of manic-depression, a good 'ole boy whose favorite pastime is sitting down in a rocking chair, smoking cheap "Swisher Sweet" cigars like a big-shot, and repeating vulgar stories and gossip. His platform of subreality keeps building higher and higher like an unholy mixture of "Touched by an Angel", Charles Bronson, and the circus. You got to see it to believe it, folks! He'll make it worth the price of admission. . . . . and more!
[ENTER "BOBBY HAYES LAND" SUITE]
ENTER MUSIC: Scott H. Biram song, "No Way", a scratchy country song that repeats an obsessive guitar line over and over, connoting the chicken-scratched rural wastelands and dementia left to drift, like a crazy hobo pulling out a bad tooth with a pair of rusted pliers and holding it out like a buck-toothed braggart finding "poor man's relief".
EXT. Brandy Station Apartments, 1999, Late Morning.
This is a marginal housing complex of high-turnover apartments where a thin veneer of placidity covers roiling social dysfunction and low-down living.
For instance, there are the lunk-headed folk living outside their means with brand new trucks supported by unwise financing schemes that sit in the parking places. These people are confined to brutal existences once "the well runs dry", scratching their heads like paupers living on opulence or on next to nothing with equal ease when the bills come due. Life is either extremely boring and tedious or full of extreme "off-the-cuff" excitement like crawling through a window for sex or dancing in the street with an explosion of firecrackers.
A rattling car pulls into a parking space, revealing THE FOIL of this interlude, MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS behind the windshield where hangs a pair of fuzzy dice. He opens the car door and struggles his bulk out, with his hat on as always.
As he does so, there is the handyman in a brown uniform walking across the parking lot and dragging a bucket and mop with a skittering sound.
EXT. Bobby Hayes' Porch, Present Day, Late Morning
A flimsy wire-mesh table sits next to a giant rocking chair and a green plastic variety by a set of sliding glass doors, the entrance blocked by a colonnade one has to walk around to get into the apartment on a brown sidewalk. On this table is a giant red ashtray that's overflowing with Swisher Sweet cigar butts. "The Poor Man's Hang-Out". Simplicity-- it takes nothing, it gives nothing.
There's anticipation in this stark scene, like this is the hang-out of leopards off somewhere hiding beneath a piss-stinking tree-trunk.
OUR HERO walks up to the door and knocks.
NO ANSWER.
He knocks again.
Looking around, OUR HERO begins to feel pretty absurd and conspicuous.
Finally, he grips THE DOORKNOB and turns it gently-- opening THE DOOR.
INT. Bobby Hayes' Apartment, Present Day, Late Morning
THE CAMERA follows MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS as he steps inside, revealing a filthy apartment covered over with clutter. Stacks of video tapes, newspapers, coupon circulars, and cigar ashes all over the floor. And soda cans-- piled everywhere like a cyclone had hit. There is a dingy STICKINESS to everything that makes a person ITCHY just standing in there, the feeling of entropy and decay that just makes a man acquiescent and sleepy in the dimness.
BOBBY HAYES sits in a plush easy chair asleep, his red nose dipped down with a vague, dreamy smile on his face through his scraggly beard. He's snoring softly.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS wakes him up and he slowly rises to consciousness like a fat carp from the depths of a greasy lake.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Gently)
Hey, Bobby. How ya doin?
BOBBY HAYES
(Half-asleep)
Wh-- wh-- what?"
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Gingerly)
The door was unlocked Bobby, I just stepped in.
BOBBY HAYES
(His eyes still closed,
announcing
the fact as if under hypnosis)
I've been sleeping.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Kindly)
Well, I can tell that, Bobby. But if we don't get moving, the pizza buffet is going to close.
BOBBY HAYES
(Speaking in a snuffy
voice,
half-laughing
Hmmmmm. Give me some time to wake up. . . . . I'll be ready.
EXT. Bobby Hayes' Porch, Present Day
Now the two friends sitting outside.
BOBBY HAYES is sitting in the rocking chair and is smoking those cherry-flavored Swisher-Sweet cigars, tapping the end on occasion like a big-shot. Work is hard, leisure is majestic, talk is cheap. His hair is unwashed and is whipped upward almost as if it was moussed, and he is wearing a gray St. Louis Rams sweatshirt, and a loose pair of sweatpants that his bulging belly hangs out over. He is drinking from a giant 54 ounce jug of hot coffee, offering praise up to the drink of the living in his slurring, nasal voice that splatters across the screen like squirting mustard.
BOBBY HAYES
! I've been fighting depression real bad lately. . . . . . and the voices.Let's see, let's see. . . . . it's like this, you see
[This, as he rocks in the rocking chair with manic energy-- pleased for the company, for someone to listen-- on the verge of tittering with the sheer absurdity of life that exists like a giant screwball cartoon]
BOBBY HAYES One time, I slept for 36
hours. Boy did I
have to pee when I woke up!
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
I know, Bobby. I was there. Didn't I wake you up?
FLASHBACK:
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS stands in the hallway as BOBBY HAYES lays on the mattress, rolls out of bed, and lumbers past me into the bathroom like an old bear covered with moss after a long winter's hibernation That, or the wild man of the woods, or even John the Baptist reincarnated.
[SOUND FX] Padding Footsteps.
[SOUND FX] Comically-long urination going on for two minutes for more.
This, as OUR HERO stands there in amazement, snickering in the filthy living room listening to this Olympic feat of dishevelment. BOBBY HAYES is merrily singing the castration song about cutting off niggers' balls and putting them in a jar, handing back to the criminally-minded ghetto folk looking down at this screwball version of frontier justice and reacting in aghast, open-mouthed horror, working their pink lips like Ghannian tribesman picking up a VooDoo doll with their name on it.
BOBBY HAYES calls from the bathroom, caught up in the goofy glee of the moment:
BOBBY HAYES Don't you think that would keep down the crime rate? Cut
off the balls then throw 'em down the elevator shaft! Just like in
'Marked for Death'!
[CUT TO FOOTAGE of 1990 movie "Marked for Death" in
climatic scene when Steven Segal and a maniacal-looking VooDoo cocaine lord in dreadlocks
are having a long, drawn-out fight to the living end. Steven Segal impales his
scrotum with a sharp Caribbean ninja blade, they fight for a while longer, then he throws the psychopath down the elevator shaft
where the villain is impaled with cheesy, low-rent special effects. It's such a moment of hilarious screwball incongruity that
the only thing the audience can do is laugh. That's the magic of Bobby-- how
can you take his antics with a straight face?]
DOUBLE FLASHBLACK
BOBBY HAYES is in the bathroom chuckling with a wild "HEE, HEE, HEE!" like a mad-man.
EXT. Bobby Hayes' Porch, Present Day, Late Morning.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS is trying to wave down this insanity-- perhaps it is a little bit "ripe" for even his extreme tastes.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
I didn't know that the human bladder could hold so much.
BOBBY HAYES
When I was on the run from the drug dealers in U-City, and they cut my power and my phone line, I went without eating for seven days-- laying low in the house with pans full of kerosene in case they came through the window-- go and torch the fuckers. But they were out on the sidewalk hollering for my white hide.
[Bobby gets caught up in his routine, counting on his fingers]
They poisoned my water, they broke into the house and did VooDoo rituals, and they blared their rap music. But I had a plan for 'em!
FLASHBACK: Two black women a mother and daughter, wrap up the sale of a nice new car, a fire-apple red Camaro. They drive it home, park across the street, and BOBBY HAYES bursts out the door of his house looking all crazy and busts out the windshield with a baseball bat, hollering like Jim Belushi in some late '80s movie seeking "everyman justice"
(His mother quietly paid for the damages)
[CUT TO PICTURE of BOBBY's pathetically aged mother with a "dinging" Sound Effect with a caption that reads "His mother quietly pad for the damages".
EXT. Bobby Hayes' Apartment, Present Day, Late Morning
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
You're lucky you didn't get killed.
BOBBY
HAYES(Raising his voice in biblical defiance,
like the armies of Israel destroying Caanan)
The Lord was with me that day, and I stood up against the drug dealers and the crooked police. No one would believe me!
SCENE ABRUPTLY CHANGES
Bobby's Sister's House, Present Day, Night.
OUR HERO is interviewing CATHY, BOBBY HAYES' FAT OLD SISTER with the aim of getting to the bottom of things like an off-screen Walter Conkrite. The house is insanely cluttered and covered with clothes and women's magazines. She is a rotund woman who reminds you of "Cathy" from the mid 1970's comic strip of a woman overwhelmed by life that though has somewhat matured, never lost that flakiness as she stands around her filthy living room with her hand on her hip, frowning at the mess.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS holds up a microphone and interviews her.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Bobby's
stories can
get pretty wild sometimes
CATHY
(Shrugging)
That's just part of his illness, talking about the drug dealers and the police.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Asking the question
with innocent absurdity)
There wasn't really a drug house right across the street from Bobby's, was there?
CATHY
(Rolling her eyes like it's no big
deal)
Yes there was,
FLASHBACK:
Gang-bangers walking in and out of a drug house on BOBBY HAYES' old street, exchanging money and drugs out in the open while gangsta rap booms.
CATHY
He just should have stayed in the house and minded his own business.
FLASHBACK:
BOBBY HAYES' view from inside of his home, a shaky-came view through the drapes when a black drug dealer walks up to the window and goes "RAAAHHHH!" with his arms extended like a vampire bat.
EXT. Bobby's Apartment, Present Day, Late Morning.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS is checking HIS WATCH and is looking at the pizza buffet ad while BOBBY HAYES "is just getting warmed up" and keeps talking and talking, now on a manic-depressive roll that's impossible to stop.
BOBBY
HAYES(Getting indignant and
excited at the same time)
Cathy my sister is really liberal in a fucked-up way. The only thing she cares about is her unions and voting Democrat. Everybody who's for legalizing drugs has a relative who's either ON drugs or is SELLING drugs and they don't want them to get boo-fooed in prison. My nephew, David used to have a "high-maintenance" girlfriend he supported by selling crack cocaine and carrying a gun around U-City. Boy, did he think he was somebody! When he saw some friends get killed that damn scared him straight!
"When I was struck with my illness after that whole mess at Church's Chicken and was wandering around the streets hungry, YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID? He wouldn't even give me food. He told me to--
[Coarsening his voice like a cross between a growling dog and a goblin]
'Go away, come back at meal time'. He wouldn't even give me a package of saltine crackers that were sitting there on the kitchen counter.
FLASHBACK:
A short-statured, snuff-voiced, cloud-eyed young man in the kitchen with an orange cap backwards miming "go away!" with a waving hand like a sour lobster.
BOBBY HAYES
I had to eat out of dumpsters and everything that winter.
THE CAMERA focuses on OUR HERO'S FACE as he's absorbing this, and asks a question, genuinely stumped.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS What's the deal with "Church's Chicken"? BOBBY HAYES splays his fingers out, like a man driving away bats
with fluttering fingers.
BOBBY
HAYESI don't want to get into that. It's too crazy.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Respecting his space)
Oh. Okay.
[OUR HERO is the perfect foil to BOBBY'S soliloquy as our garrulous manic-depressive continues]
BOBBY pauses, as if to catch his breath, then takes off on a different track
BOBBY
HAYESYeah. . . . . you ought to find yourself a nice Christian girl and go to school and get an education while you can. When I first moved in here there was this girl who. . .
[voice fades out and the image shimmers into a hazy memory]
FLASHBACK:
In this memory, BOBBY HAYES sitting out on the porch rocking and smoking when this SLEAZY 19 YEAR-OLD SLUT comes sauntering down the street and starts up a friendly conversation with BOBBY. He is pleased to have someone listen to his conversation, bashful, so they get to talking. She asks if he has any liquor, and he has some in the apartment. They're drinking outside and laughing.
He dares to flirt the notion that she looks like "Princess Di". She puts her hair up and says "now I look like Princess Di!". They go into his apartment, he lays flat on his back on the mattress, and she gives him a blow-job.
Everything's going fine, but then the next day she comes back looking for more money and liquor and mentions her five boyfriends and BOBBY figures he doesn't need any more of this. She leaves in a huff and that's the last he sees of her.
[Back to present day on Brandy Station Porch, BOBBY'S VOICE fading back in]
BOBBY HAYES
. . . . . so there she was with about four or five different boyfriends. GOD! That's the surest way to catch AIDS. You're better off 'beating the meat on a toilet seat'
The two break out laughing--
[CUT TO FOOTAGE of
the United Nations General Assembly, where there are serious people grappling with global pan-humanistic awareness and deliberating over how to combat AIDS, preventing it from spreading over the world-- humanity's momentous plague. BOBBY is dressed up in a respectable suit with his hair combed, leans over the microphone, and in his slurring voice advises the world body to go ahead and "beat the meat on a toilet seat"]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Laughing)
You certainly know how to elevate a conversation, Bobby.
BOBBY HAYES
If you think that's elevated, you should have met my cousin, "Uncle Perv". When we were 12 and 13 years old he'd tell jokes about violating dead bodies. One time, when we were walking down by the railroad tracks, we saw a yellow labador retriever cut in half and stinking. BOY, WAS THAT DOG DEAD. Uncle Perv ran home and got an ax and cut the dog's head off and brought it home in a burlap sack. He boiled the head so all the meat would come off and had a skull that he hung up in his room. "Boy's Life" Magazine would walk in there and their head would creak around in circles like in "The Exorcist"! Uncle Perv used to show that he had a crush on a girl by wiping his ass with a pair of socks and leaving it on her doorstep.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
And where did you fit into this, Bobby?
BOBBY HAYES
I was with him, we were a bunch of kids drunk on homemade wine. One time I got up on the roof--
FLASHBACK:
A rotund 13 year-old kid kicking around up on a roof
BOBBY HAYES
And dropped my pants to go take a shit down the girl's chimney--
FLASHBACK:
The 13 year-old drops his britches and sits on the chimney
BOBBY HAYES
But Uncle Perv stopped me. It could potentially stop up the chimney and suffocate them!
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
Yeah, that would be a horrible way to go. . . . .
BOBBY HAYES takes a breath before continuing--
BOBBY HAYES
Yeah. . . . . we were a bunch of juvenile delinquents. But I was always the one holding Uncle Perv back. He got his name from a trucker's comedy tape when trucking was all the rage back in the '70s. You'd go in and buy a tape at the truck stop. Everyone was buying it.
[Counting on his fingers, pulling respected professionals down to his level]
Doctors, lawyers. . . . . . The humor was real crude, but it was funny. We'd listen to the tape for hours!"
"What Uncle Perv liked to do was go up to a girl with a big butt and act like he was humping her and holler "Oh, Bohemia!". That's the words he used for butt-fucking"
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS tries to explain to BOBBY HAYES the nature of the Bohemians, independent thinkers and unconventional coffee shop folk and the poets Byron and Shelley in the 19th century. BOBBY HAYES really doesn't "get it". But he explodes with laughter when OUR HERO mention the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen]
[ENTER "Bohemian Rhapsody" suite]
A little 30 second clip of the most famous part of the song overlaid with large-butted women wandering around and UNCLE PERV yelling "Oh, Bohemia!" and running them off like a perverted farm kid chasing a fat sheep. What was that other Queen song, "Fat-Bottomed Girls"? There he is spanking them and chasing them with toilet plungers. A fat bare bottom sits on a bed and bounces up and down.
EXT. Bobby's Porch, Present Day, Late Morning
OUR HERO is laughing in spite of himself and BOBBY HAYES is too, a maniacal "HEE, HEE, HEE".
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
And to think I thought I was a bad-ass when I sent a note from "The Aryan Brotherhood" to my old school when they wouldn't take my father's name off their mailing list, not even ten years later. Incompetent bastards. They really thought a 6' 8" half-black Aryan terrorist who belonged to "The Order of Thule" was going to pay them a visit. Maybe it was the box of tampons I sent, to show the administration I thought they were pussies.
[CUT TO PICTURE of LEO FELTON]
I mean, I may be half-Jewish, but I was never that skinny. The very idea. . . . . What's this world coming to, you know?
BOBBY HAYES
Yeah. . . . . you're lucky you didn't fall in with this crazy bunch who were talking about stealing bicycles from the WASH-U campus. One time, my friend Victor and his buddies got it in their head that they were going to pick up rich girls. So he shows up with his arm around two pregnant 13 year-old's, thinking he's somebody.
[CUT TO SHOT of: Long-haired '70s stoner in a KISS t-shirt with his arm around two pregnant 13 year-old's, sticking out his tongue like Gene Simmons of KISS]
Those Wash-U girls were going to graduate and marry a doctor or a lawyer and maybe become a doctor or lawyer themselves, so what would they want to do with us? One time Victor followed one of 'em back to her sorority while the rest of us were hiding in the bushes when she screamed and they called the police. Well, we ran and grabbed some unlocked bikes and went off pedaling with 'em.
[CUT TO TRACKING SHOT of racing bicycles under the orange street-lights as the juvenile delinquents snicker and make their get-away]
Then Victor figured we could come with my van and steal them with bolt-cutters. I figured "Nawww, I don't want anything to do with that". I'm gonna leave that alone. They were all begging me and calling me "a pussy", but YOU KNOW THE ROLE WOULD BE REVERSED when they
found themselves on all fours in prison, a line of twenty hardened convicts de-virginalizing their assholes.[CUT TO SHOT of howling cell block and boys made to line up on their hands and knees in their underwear]
One of them figured he'd just stuff his rectum full of quick-drying cement so they couldn't get at him and his ass would be as safe as the buried gold at Fort Knox. That's what drugs'll do to your mind, Mike. Don't get involved! HEE, HEE, HEE!
But that's not the worst of it! One time, Victor and his buddies got it in their mind that they were gonna go and molest "The Gaylords" in Forest Park.
Now, "The Gaylords" were a biker and leather gang of homosexuals that liked to hang out "and do their thing" in the public park. The police figured it was just easier "to leave 'em alone". Teenagers would always drive by in cars and yell at 'em, and try to start up shit.
[CUT TO SHOT of teenagers hurling insults, and the bikers just standing there like "tough guys" or grazing bulls, who then go back down to what they're doing]
But Victor and Ted wanted to shoot a potato gun out in the middle of their orgy. I KNEW that I didn't want anything to do with this, but they ran off with my keys and took the van.
We waited on the other side of Highway 40 in the park and waited and waited. . . . UNTIL THEY CAME BACK. Like, torn and bleeding and the seat torn out of their pants. It's was like, "what the fuck happened to you?"
[FLASHBACK: Victor and Ted snicker, and keep snickering as they shoot the potato gun into the orgy and explode with laugher as the leather conclave rises from its knees and roars in rage
They get to the van and start driving away-- but then they come to A CHAIN looped between TWO HUGE CONCRETE DIVIDERS. They debate what they're going to do, but before they can debate much, "THE GAYLORDS" are swarming the van like hornets, yanking on the doors and banging on the windows. It looks like a prison riot at Attica.
Alternately, there's a biker, a construction worker, a sailor, a cowboy, even an Indian waving A TOMAHAWK in the air and yelling with all the centuries of his people's oppression. . . . . "THE VILLAGE PEOPLE"!
The band of raging gays rips THE DOOR off the handle in one vengeful, grasping, homo-hump of retribution and "have their way" with the boys]
Didn't you know that they were weeping and crying and wanted me to drive home and get my shotgun so they could shoot those "Gaylords"? But they were long gone, off on their bikes, and if we came back next week and killed them we'd be locked up with such plug-uglies for the rest of our lives.
At that point, everything seemed to fucked-up and hopeless that we all vowed a suicide pact and jumped off "The Eads Bridge" into the Mississippi that night. Though we go soaked and embarrassed, most of us moved on. . . . .
One of 'em's in a nursing home. He thinks he thinks he's a LSD tab.
[MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS looks down at his watch]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
AWW,
SHIT BOBBY! We're going to miss the pizza buffet!
EXT. Brandy Station Parking Lot, Present Day, Early Afternoon.
[MUSIC ON: Banjo/Yodeling music from "Raising Arizona"]
The car backs up with screeching tires-- in fact, the car nearly runs THE CAMERA over-- and focuses on OUR HERO'S zany bumper stickers: "NUKE THE WHALES" & "PROTEST-- AND WIN-- WITH NIXON" and then the car speeds off.
EXT./INT. MICHAEL'S CAR
OUR HERO and BOBBY HAYES are riding down the highway, but are getting lost in the blather of things. BOBBY HAYES is not quite sure which way to turn. They miss the exit, and all is downcast.
BOBBY HAYES I fucked up. OUR HERO doesn't belabor the obvious but is obviously somewhat
upset.
(Downcast, slurring nasally)
EXT. Pizza Hut Parking Lot, Present Day, Early Afternoon.
Even "the lunch crowd" has mostly cleared-out.
INT. Pizza Hut, Present Day, Early Afternoon.
Out on the buffet is the last offering of food, and here are two big guys butting the little kids out of the way to get at the good pizza but mostly
filling up on bread sticks instead.Finally they sit down, and BOBBY is obviously embarrassed about their stranded lot and is trying to keep the subject away from the "slim pickings" without much subtlety.
BOBBY HAYES
Did you hear the latest on Bessie and Charles?
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
No, I don't think I remember them, but please go on. . . . . .
BOBBY HAYES
Well, you know they got together out of "a marriage of convenience". They put their social security checks together so they could buy a van and drive all over town, looking for all-you-can restaurants where she eats for ten men. She's so mean and fat, and Charles is so passive and gay that she rules over him like 'Satan's Sow' with a pair of tusks. 'GRRRRRRRR".
I don't even want to speculate about their sex life, but I heard what she did to Charles was take out this 14 inch dildo with two heads and a handle and shove it up his ass when he was sleeping on his stomach. She gripped the handle and was pumping it up and down while he was screaming for mercy.
[BOBBY hoots wildly with his lips pursed]
WHOOO-HOO-HOO-HOO! They had to take him away in an ambulance because he was bleeding out his ass from a busted bowel and he went ahead & claimed that he got been raped by a gang of blacks in the city. The doctors didn't believe him, but now he wears adult diapers. I heard that Bessie took that dildo, all covered in shit, and held it up at a women's therapy group at "The Self-Help Center".
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
laugh but not succeeding)
Hey, I'm trying to eat here!
{CUT TO FOOTAGE of 1960's drive-in movie "reminder" for the concession stand-- dancing soda and popcorn and even a box of Jube-Jubes]
[REALITY-BENDING MOMENT]
The movie stops with a "WHHHORRRP!" and
a mock case file appears over the distortion where this text is slowly typed out
with the official sound of a typewriter:
"The Self-Help Center is a drop-in 'clubhouse' for those caught up in the mental health system that attempts, to the loosest letter of the law, keep them socialized and from "going postal". May your malls, churches, and "Radio Shack's" be safe. . . . ."
BACK TO "NORMAL TIME"
BOBBY HAYES
GAWD. . . . . If that sow came after me, I'd hit her with a couple of good right crosses!
[BOBBY HAYES mimics a boxer with a good couple of solid punches in the air like an Irish-Catholic scrapper to emphasize the point]
While they were together, all they did was sit around and watch T.V. I was over at their apartment and she was sitting on the couch that was busted-- she was so fat-- and there was Charles sitting on the floor leaning on his arm like a little kid. . . . .
[CUT TO SHOT of this depraved scene]
She'd sit there eating fried chicken, and throw him food down there on the floor. . . . . and he'd eat it!
[SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, cut to shot of BESSIE in gluttonous majesty throwing down a drumstick and CHARLES eating it like an obsequious dog as the television plays in the background]
They got so lazy and fat, that they weren't even willing to walk across the room to the kitchen to get their own sodas. They had miniature fridges stocked with soda-- one for Bessie, one for Charles, so they would never have to leave their spots!
[SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, the scene now exists with fridges present as BESSIE slurps a soda in a meaty fist like King Kong]
Next thing you know they'll have a toilet in the living room so they won't have to leave to take a shit!
[SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, now there is a port-a-john standing there-- the kind of thing you would see at construction sites reeking of chemical cleanser and day-old urine]
[CUT TO SHOT of CHARLES gnawing on drum stick, the light of the television shining off his sallow, passive face]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Bobby, you
have taken my faith in a higher, intervening force in the universe and dashed it to pieces.
(Laughing in spite of himself)
BOBBY HAYES
Oh, there is a God all right. Don't get me started on Church's Chicken!
A momentary pause, then "the talk machine" gets revved up once more.
BOBBY HAYES
There are the most fucked-up people in the world who go to that 'Center. It's such a rumor mill. All people ever do is gossip, gossip, gossip--
[SOUND EFFECT: A bell dings, and a sub-header reads "Irony, anyone?"]
"-- about other peoples' problems" I don't even bother with it anymore"
"Especially after the board voted your Dad out and replaced him with Maureen Bullock. The bitch was a con-woman!"
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Shrugging at the fates)
Well, Bobby-- I guess that's what happens when you hand democratic control over to 'The Three Stooges'. Or were there more on that board? It's just that my Dad wasn't organized or all that good with paperwork,
BOBBY HAYES Well, she had her eyes on that job like a
circling hawk. What I heard was that she overheard about "The Center" when Sam Diestler was trying to pick up a woman in a bar. She rubbed her hands together
and figured that she was gonna 'crack open the safe' like a bank robber. She came
to that Center
with her eye on that directorship and was all berating your Dad and calling him
incompetent and saying that she was going to write grants and bring in all this
money.
[BOBBY furrows his brow in sarcasm,
his voice dripping with acid and disbelief like a man swindled afar out of the
little he had]
Yeah. Right. With a two year degree from a community college. . .
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Figuring to himself out-loud)
Well, all you need is the wrong agitator to stir up the rabble,
[CUT TO CLIP of Classic Silent Movie, "Metropolis" when a charismatic woman inside a grotto is stirring up a grubby-faced mass of workers who are getting more and more agitated with snarling, angry expressions. The movie is wild and over-the-top because it was originally filmed without any sound and the actors have to jack it up in extreme levels. The woman is in the ecstasy of destruction, a destroying angel/whore. This is the restored 1984 Giorgio Moroder edition, so there's a nifty '80s soundtrack in the background to heighten the effect. Perhaps a subheader helps the audience make the loopy connection]
BOBBY HAYES continues, like a man regaining his sway
BOBBY HAYES
Wouldn't you know that she loaded up the board with her sympathizers and drove your Dad out. Man, I heard he was MAD that day!
[CUT TO CLIP of "Metropolis", a horde of rioting ecstatic workers charging the central power plant where stands the bearded, portly foreman with a wrench warning them off from destroying the machinery. They rush in, overwhelm him, and destroy the power station to a triumphant Giorgio Moroder score]
BACK TO PIZZA HUT
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Sighing with the somewhat-bitter memory)
Yeah, well-- you know, it was all probably for the better. That ole' 'Center' didn't pay anything and there was no health insurance. A few months later my Dad had his problems with the gallbladder. It all worked out in the end. For us, anyway,
BOBBY HAYES
It didn't work out for ole' Larry George. He was mad because your father called him 'a Nazi' and he voted him off.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Sighing with the somewhat-bitter memory)
Well, he was a Nazi, Bobby. One time I came over to his apartment and there he was sitting in his easy chair, drinking liquor and watching that porno movie, 'She-Wolves of the SS'. That's twisted, man. They had a guy on there with a Hitler mustache and a ten-inch dick.
[FLASHBACK]
OUR HERO'S car pulling up to LARRY GEORGE'S apartment at night, a little corner tucked away in tight obscurity like an inn. Knocking on the door and an ominous man opening it like a character from a Charles Dickens novel. He welcomes MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS in, and sits him down by the computer where has a simulated boxing match going on auto-pilot, a theoretical recreation of Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jefferies, "The Great White Hope". He explains about boxers in their prime, how Jim Jefferies might have won if he hadn't been retired for six years, how blacks have longer arms than white people, and one piece skulls. Yes, the great white hope.
[CUT TO SHOT 1920's FOOTAGE of "Great White Hope", a young man standing on top of a mountain in a cape and a Klansman's hood. It is the lost, the hokey, the defeated, and the discredited!]
BACK TO PIZZA HUT
BOBBY HAYES
Larry George only wanted the paper work more organized and for there to be no ban on smoking. Well, the first thing Maureen did was ban smoking. Then she sold the pool table. And she left no paper trail! She raised her salary to $30,000 a year and only worked 10 hours a week. And she made the members bring in their own vanilla sandwich cookies!
[FLASHBACK]
The mentally-ill noodling around tables at "The Self-Help Center", moping and dissatisfied. What a pathetic lot!
LARRY GEORGE scowls. He removes A PACK OF CIGARETTES, as if to light one.
A WAVING FINGER, perhaps emblematic of the Nanny welfare state that belittles, halts this endeavor.
LARRY GEORGE mopes like a little boy-- as if he has bitten down on something rotten.
BOBBY HAYES Wouldn't you know that Maureen
stole the $4000 the local Lutheran church raised for them. She bought a new car,
paid vacations, meals out, and I heard even a fur coat. By the time "The Center"
caught on to what was going on and changed the locks and figured "Call the
police" if she ever came in here again, Maureen was gone. She even stole the
computer! [FLASHBACK] An empty gap in the office where the computer used to be, a
bunch of wires and cables
BOBBY HAYES Last I heard, she was going around selling vacuum cleaners
door-to-door that didn't work! She can suck me off!
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS is laughing and shaking his head.
BOBBY HAYES
(Mike leans over and
speaks confidentially)
I heard this rumor going around "The Center" that she was in this bestiality video starring a horse. Or at least there was a woman who looked just like her when she might have been younger-lookin'. What they did was put her in this wooden shed so the horse can mount up and fuck her.
[CUT TO SHOT of an R-rated set-up of horse mounting this set-up, and a scuzz-ball farmer explaining how it works]
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Well, Bobby-- in the end I think we'd all like to get
even with that woman.
[CUT TO CLIP of movie "Metropolis" when furious workers turn their wrath on the agitator, now the despised whore, dragging her from the street and burning her at the stake. They're laughing and jeering while she's cackling like a witch, tossing
her head from side to side with the ecstasy of destruction]
BOBBY HAYES
!Ole' Larry don't like to talk about that. He also don't like to talk about the time he walked into porno store, spent $200 on a pile of tapes, and found out that he brought home "Chicks with Dicks
[CUT TO PICTURE of ugly, clawing she-males]
VOICE-OVER: "GAWWWD DAMN-IT!"
[FLASHBACK]
[LARRY GEORGE
storming into the porno shop and demanding a refund. The clerk apologizes, and explains that they can't accept back opened boxes because "it's unhygienic". LARRY GEORGE throws a bellowing hissy-fit, and the clerk threatens to call the police as he picks the box up over his head and slams it down on the floor. Then LARRY GEORGE leaves like a grizzly bear having "lost face" and trying to hide it, right through the swinging doors.THE CAMERA lingers on THE BOX on the grungy floor at an angle.
BACK TO PIZZA HUT, A WHOLE LOT OF LAUGHTER.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
Well, Larry was always literal-minded. It said 'Chicks with Dicks', like they would encounter one or something. I reckon it really blew his mind!
The two are laughing uproariously, practically causing a disturbance. Patrons are looking in their direction quizically, some with pissed-off expressions. Finally, A MANAGER comes over, leans over them, and sternly asks the two malefactors to leave and never come back. They sheepishly exit, as if "caught in the act" and ashamed. So much for boisterous fun
The two cackle madly outside in the parking lot, doubling over with hilarity with BOBBY HAYES' manic-depressive "HEE-HEE-HEE"
EXT. Bobby Hayes' Porch, Present Day, Early Afternoon
BOBBY HAYES
(A bit more reflective and rueful
Yeah, I'd like to get well and go back to work someday. Maybe drive a truck. But it's that damn 'Church's Chicken',
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Not exactly knowing what to say)
.Hmmmm
BOBBY HAYES You see,
Mike-- I used to be well. I used to be close to God. I used to have
money. I used to be happy. But then one day, after I had been pushed &
pushed & pushed, God struck me with this illness. It happened when I was
working in Church's Chicken under this mean boss. It's like I prayed for
a test, like Jonah defying God, and was swallowed by a whale and am
sitting in the belly of the beast with all these god-awful people. I
wanted to go back and talk to that woman, THAT BLACK BITCH but I got
tackled by five employees and put in jail. God wants me to go back there
and confront that boss, leap over the counter and bust out windows
screaming and hollering.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS I know how
that feels. . . . . that one ultimate moment when everything 'went to
hell" and if you could 'just go back', like taking an existential stand.
Yeah,
that's it.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS Tell you
what, Bobby. . . . . .
This, as the two mischief-makers head on down to Church's.
INT. Church's Chicken, Present Day, Mid-Afternoon
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS and BOBBY HAYES run into the restaurant whooping and screaming like Indians, overthrowing tables and chairs. Mike tries to leap over the counter, but is so fat that he kind of rolls over it instead. Here we are, yelling racial epithets and raising hell-- exorcising demons like all the angry white men who have been "left behind" by the system and are down here "taking out their wrath" on the world.
The police show up and the two get hauled off in squad cars.
The two get their mug-shots taken with flash-bulbs.
They're being questioned:
BOBBY HAYES: "God told me to"
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS: "I want to write 'Beetlejuice 2' and meet Winona Ryder"
[CUT TO PICTURE of WINONA RYDER looking aghast with her collar pulled up around her face, as if hiding from an ungodly stench]
INT. ST. Louis City Jail, Present Day, Time Indeterminate
The two are lead through St. Louis city jail in leg-irons, being made to lean up against the wall as they're patted down. A Negro spiritual plays, as if they're "The Lord's Captives".
As they sit with a group of black jail-birds, MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS leans over to BOBBY HAYES.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Muttering through clenched teeth)
Don't sing "the castration song".
As a particularly soulful part of the spiritual, a black prisoner holds out his hands and lip-syncs in front of THE CAMERA like a 1930's Al Jolson in a black church.
INT. Holding Cell, Present Day, Time Indeterminate
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS and BOBBY HAYES are sitting in a jail cell as a black drunk sleeps with an arm over his face, passed out.
MICHAEL "LAWLESS" ADAMS
(Reflectively)
You know, Bobby? Did it ever occur to you that in our lives, it's not exactly 'the exact moment why the South lost the Civil War', but more like those factors were already built in? Men built sailboats, go out to harbor, and wait for the wind to cast them off. Sometimes the wind never blows, but guys like us, they can tell the best stories down at the mariana bar. See what I'm sayin'?
BOBBY
HAYESShit on the dick, you're a good friend.
-------------------
Click here for Part XI:
"Galaxy Jesse"
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© 2009 by Insufferable Industries
Drop "The Bard" a line atmichaeladams_s@yahoo.com