1. style and fashion
2. underwear

(the) Fish: The animated series
darren bader 2002/2004
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT
LLL sits on her bed. The walls are plastered with tattered
posters, and festooned with craftsy curios. A picture of Bill
Clinton here, a picture of George Clinton there; and flowers
of paper, silk, yarn.
The lower-end Aiwa stereo inundates the room with mediumvolume repeat-performance by The Hives. LLL is a late teen,
maybe 19. She is an indiscernable nonwhite mixed race. She is
crying, almost imperceptibly.
Her face furies to fight back the unwanted tears. She sits
knockkneed, jaw clenched as the last bastion of composure.
She vises her face with her palms.
2.
The music continues, absolutely ignorant of her emotional
irruption. A tear runs hard down her cheek. She bursts into a
wail. And fights it away.
She leans over to her night-table to retrieve an exactoknife, bringing it to the tank-top exposed flesh of her
shoulder; and, keeping a loose hold on the handle, lets the
blade drop lightly on the pillow of her skin. Her jaw is
clenched. And then it slackens, her mouth agape in a silent
cry, her eyes drowning in secret hells.
She drags the knife diagonally, right through the thin
shoulder strap of the shirt, to the top edge of her breast.
She chokes up a tic of a sound, as tears pile down her face.
Blood rises to mark the wound. She repeats the act a few
inches to the left. Tears, more mucous-coated throat-gasps.
She watches the bloodtrickle permeate the cotton fibers of
her light-green shirt.
When the bleeding seems to have tailed off, she cuts a
shorter, deeper line into the top of her shoulder.
EXT. TALLADEGA SPEEDWAY - DAY
The sound is enormous. Stockcars entwine themselves in
propulsive packs on the speedway asphalt.
The stadium is packed. The crowd would eat this spectacle
like raw meat if it was palatable. A group of four cars
swarms ahead of the competition.
EXT. UNION SQUARE PARK, NEW YORK - DAY
A meeting ground for after-school youth. Kids from across the
city nosedive their skateboards down the staircases. Others
grind down the railings. Mostly young guys —prepubescent
teens to moxie-rich twentysomethings —some girls too. Skateculture and punk-revival wardrobes, and mixes of both.
These kids can skate. Teenage couples suck face. Skateboards
quit on their cargo and bodies bite it. Wheels weave between
downtown yups traversing the sidewalks.
Among the kids are PRINCE - late teens, could be Puerto
Rican, and JANINE -17, East Asian (probably Chinese)
features.
EXT. TALLADEGA SPEEDWAY - DAY
The crowd is on their feet. The sound...the sound....
There are three cars in a close web. The checkered flag
begins to wave. 1 mile to go. The cars are hot.
3.
The sound is awesome. The flag billows violently. 1/2 mile to
go. The crowd appears to have plenty to say, but we can't
hear it. 1/4 mile to go. The asphalt is scorching. We see the
cars coming at us —at eye-level— moving maddeningly, almost
predatory.
The flag stops waving. The race is over (who could've known
from down here?). Car number 24 takes the victory lap.
INT. FRATERNITY HOUSE - NIGHT
It's a party night. Dozens of people can be seen lingering in
the background. Crappy House music is the sound du soir.
SUBTITLE: (the) Fish
Five Pakistani-American frat guys are standing in a row,
chests against the wall, hands raised above them —palms to
the wall, as if for a patdown. Their shirts are off.
The guy on the far left —SHIRTLESS GUY #1— has a big black
horizontal line that extends from the back of his left arm,
across his back, and terminates at the back of his right arm.
A sixth guy with a tattoo gun, grips the shoulder of the
shirtless guy second to the left —SHIRTLESS GUY #2— digging
the vibrating inkneedle deep enough into the latter's back to
make things really uncomfortable. Shirtless Guy #2 sucks in
the pain between clenched teeth.
Down the line, the tattooees-to-be steal a look at their fate
in action.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
I'm dead when Nasreen sees this.
SHIRTLESS GUY #4
Just tell her we got the idea from
this art magazine.
SHIRTLESS GUY #5
Just wear a shirt all the time.
It's not like you guys fuck or
anything.
Shirtless Guy #5 looks at Shirtless Guy #4 and laughs, and
gives him the palm slap to start a ten-step handshake.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
(to Shirtless Guy #5)
You're lucky I can't move nigga...
(to Shirtless Guy #4)
And give me a break, dude.
(MORE)
4.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2 (cont'd)
That art shit's about the worst
thing I could say to her. Shit,
like this doesn't fit into her lifeplans.
SHIRTLESS GUY #5
It's just a black line.
The tattoo gun reminds Shirtless Guy #2 of his many nerve
endings.
SHIRTLESS GUY #1
Yo, she’s an art history student,
right?
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
She’s a rich girl, all rich girls
are art history students. She's
gonna bitch me out for days...she's
gonna threaten to leave me...I hate
when that shit happens. I hate the
silent treatment shit. Why am I
getting a fucking tattoo?!
SHIRTLESS GUY #5
Why you building this up? Like-Shirtless Guy #2 looks over his shoulder and says something
to the tattoo artist.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
Is it cool if I smoke a cigarette?
TATTOO ARTIST
Yeah. Just don't move too much.
Shirtless Guy #2 makes a head gesture to Shirtless Guy
#4.Shirtless Guy #4 pulls a pack from his ass pocket,
extracts a butt, passes it over, and gives the lighter to
Shirtless Guy #3, who strikes a lighter for the immobilized
Shirtless Guy #2, who takes a drag.
SHIRTLESS GUY #5
She's not going to leave you. You
know that.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
I don't like having to worry like
this. It's good being comfortable.
I like getting my dick sucked...
And how do I know she won't leave
me?
5.
SHIRTLESS GUY #1
Art's an investment.
Shut up.
SHIRTLESS GUY #2
The tattoo-gun continues to hum. Everybody keeps eyes on
Shirtless Guy # 2's back.
EXT. TALLADEGA SPEEDWAY - DAY
The winners are on the platform. Baseball caps on head.
Sponsor patches sewn all up and down their coveralls.
JOHN SLONE —a dark, black man— stands with trophy cradled
underarm, waving to the crowd, a broad smile on his face. The
runners up —both from American WASP stock— go through the
same motions. Camera flash from everywhere coughs rapid
sheets of white light on the late-afternoon shade.
The monotonous crowd-din shrouds the burst of gunfire. Three
bullets. John Slone falls, two holes in his chest. He hits
the grass.
His wife comes running. His team’s faces are full of horror.
He is choking up blood. He is dying. His wife is bawling
above him, squeezing his hand. He is dying. He is dead.
The whole place clears out in a matter of seconds. Nobody is
left. Just Slone's wife and his team, who are turning their
backs in disbelief and pain. The place is empty.
EXT. INDIAN OCEAN - DAY
The U.S.S. Papagayo —an aircraft carrier plowing through the
Bay of Bengal. Nearing sunset.
A smoking area, where Navy personnel —mostly men under 25—
stand around, shooting the shit. A NAVY WOMAN —white,
slightly freckled, light brown hair— smokes by herself,
staring at the horizon line. She ruminates uncontemplatively.
INT. CAR, SAN FERNANDO VALLEY - DAY
A well-worn, late 80's Toyota Camry. RICKY URIBE —man of 42,
on the stocky side, of indigenous Mexican blood, hair cut
short except for a thick ponytail pulled behind his head—
drives past the endless strip malls of Ventura Blvd.
His hand fumbles with the radio stations. The airconditioning can be heard. Every station seems to be playing
news briefs —this annoys him. The President's voice can be
heard cutting in and out of the rapid switch from station to
station, almost creating a fluid speech.
6.
PRESIDENT
Congress was happy to leave...
The battle to find music seems to prove hopeless. Ricky
rummages through the pockets behind the driver's and
passenger's seats with his right hand, keeping an eye on the
road. He pulls out caseless CDs and tosses them on the empty
passenger seat.
Stopping the search after retrieving three, he picks each
disc up separately for consideration. He chooses a Schumann
piano concerto. And Schumann drowns out the gentle fan of the
air conditioning as Ventura Blvd takes us further towards
ostensible nowhere.
EXT. 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. - DAY
The president is holding a gardenside press conference:
PRESIDENT
I don't know what to do. America
doesn't make sense anymore. It
defies sense.
RANDOM REPORTER
And you're just going to abandon
the White House?
PRESIDENT
My staff and I intend to leave
tomorrow morning. This
administration will be suspended
until John Slone's body reanimates
itself.
RANDOM REPORTER
This is mumbo-jumbo.
PRESIDENT
What's that supposed to mean you
idiot. You're all fucking idiots.
This press conference is over,
thank god.
The frenzied drone of journalists vying for supreme
audibility resumes. One question can be faintly made out over
the muddled voices.
JOURNALIST
Are you a religious man Mr.
President?
7.
EXT. CAR - DAY
Ricky cruises through the L.A. Urb-burbs. He pulls into a
driveway on his right. Turns off the car: goodbye Schumann.
Gets out. Pulls a toolbox out of the backseat. Walks to the
front door of a one-story house -quaint 1920's architecture.
Rings the doorbell. A woman opens the door.
WOMAN
Oh, my god. I can't believe you're
here.
Why?
RICKY
WOMAN
Why?...because...
What?
RICKY
WOMAN
What, what?!
RICKY
I'm sorry, did you leave me a
message or something?
WOMAN
Where have you been for the last
five hours?
RICKY
I don't know. In my car, maybe.
WOMAN
Come in, come in...
She opens the door and grabs his hand and pulls him into the
living room. She points at the TV.
WOMAN (CONT'D)
Look, look...
Ricky stares at the TV set. The president is giving a speech.
NEWS ANCHOR (V.O.)
This is a segment of the
president's press conference, held
at 10:25 Eastern Standard Time...
(MORE)
8.
NEWS ANCHOR (V.O.) (cont'd)
...The president's words were
difficult to digest, to put it
lightly...
JOURNALIST
Are you a sponsor of anarchy Mr.
President?
PRESIDENT
I'm a distinguished member of the
GOP, and a purebred plutocrat. Do
you think I sponsor anarchy you
nincompoop?
The news program makes a lazy attempt at trying to censor out
“nincompoop”.
The woman, who remains standing behind the couch, motions for
Ricky to take a seat. Ricky dumbly accepts, sitting in an
armchair.
JOURNALIST
We have sources that say you wrote
a term paper on Bakunin at
Princeton, and that the GOP
actually financed extreme left
activity against the Democrats
during the last election.
PRESIDENT
You, sir, are the reason this
country's in such rapid decline.
Next question... I want the
American populace to know that they
are being watched and that law and
order will reign. America is in a
moribund state, and Washington will
be on indefinite leave until this
country can figure out what it’s.
supposed to be. You can have orgies
and stick your peckers...
The censor beep misses its cue by at least half a second.
PRESIDENT (CONT'D)
...into alligators and burn
buildings and unlock the
metaphysics of murder, or just sit
on your lazy asses and eat
Tostitos, but do assume there will
be consequences. Because there will
be.
9.
The President is silent for a moment, seemingly lost in
thought. His oratorical eyes suddenly rekindle some flame.
PRESIDENT (CONT'D)
And if they want Green men in the
Oval Office, I don't care because
I'm ready to stay home and take
care of my grandkids.
Ricky gets up, as the anchor's voice rises to the fore.
RICKY
Okay, I'm going to take care of the
piano now.
He picks his toolbox up, and walks across a vestibule into
another room.
WOMAN
Do you want any water?
RICKY
No, no thank you.
INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
Ricky is sitting at a grand piano, rummaging through his
tools. He finds the gadget he's looking for and lays the
toolbox down on the pianobench as he gets up.
He leans into the chorded belly of the grand piano, and
begins cranking something with his right hand, as he pounds a
low A key with his left. He does this for a half-minute, and
then moves on to the Asharp/ B-flat key. And then to the B
key.
He emerges from under the piano awning. He sits down again,
looking through his tools. He stops for a second, and his
right hand whips out a quick melody on the keyboard. And then
his body jolts. His eyes jog chaotically in their sockets.
His mouth is agape to the strained point of choking. Some
drool drips down from the side of his mouth. Then all of a
sudden his face returns to normal.
He glances at the keyboard, repeats the little melody, and
then goes into a furious rendition of a Bartok concerto.
He then gets up and leaves, forgetting his tools. And then
turns around to gather his tools. And then he leaves again.
10.
INT. KITCHEN - MORNING
A woman, PRINCE’S MOM, picks up the Spanish language daily.
It reads (in Spanish): “The Pope leaves his new Dallas
residence for France. 'I won't be back,' he says.”
She throws the paper down, aghast, and runs into Prince's
room. He’s sleeping.
Get up.
PRINCE'S MOM
Prince starts. His eyes are squinched. His face says a
wordless “Huh?”
PRINCE'S MOM (CONT'D)
Get packed, baby.
She is already going through his closet.
What?
PRINCE
INT. JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - DAY
People scrambling this way and that, an uncanny agitation is
in the air. On the loud speaker, a soothing woman's voice:
WOMAN'S VOICE
A reminder. There will be no
flights re-entering the United
States until further notice...
Warning: U.S. Embassies abroad have
no power to negotiate emergency
flights home. You are leaving the
United States at your own risk.
Please be safe.
Prince's Mom is in a panicky state. She is rushing to Gate
#whatever, Prince trying to keep up. Behind him are LLL and
Janine, and two other women —the girls' mothers— trying to
keep pace:
PRINCE'S MOM
Here. Here's the gate. Let's go
guys.
PRINCE
Yo, chill out mom. It's gonna be
okay. We got, like, 45 minutes
left.
11.
PRINCE'S MOM
No, I won't chill out. You want to
end up on the last available plane
to Cairo or someplace, to St.
Petersburg? Huh? You're already
stuck flying to Sicily in that
janky plane over there.
She points blindly behind her; her face is concentrated on
making Prince know she means business.
She charges to the ticket desk and starts talking up a storm
of nerves. The desk attendant is not smiling; and starts to
bicker back. Prince, the girls, and their moms watch from a
distance.
Sorry.
PRINCE
Prince's Mom hurries back.
PRINCE'S MOM
You guys get on that plane now.
Prince, LLL, and Janine pick up their bags, ready to head
toward the line. Their mothers move in for hugs. Farewells
overlap:
JANINE'S MOM
Call me when you land, okay?
There's gonna be no way to know if
this plane made it. So you call me.
Promise.
JANINE
Yeah, okay.
She gives Janine a kiss that Janine is not entirely
comfortable with.
PRINCE'S MOM
You get to Avignon. You go there as
fast as you can. Tell El Papa that
your grand-uncle Billy is the
Bishop in San Juan, okay.
PRINCE
Yeah Mom, definitely.
PRINCE'S MOM
I love you so much baby.
12.
She plunges onto him with a thick hug and a series of
suctioncup kisses. He kisses her back.
PRINCE
I love you too Mom.
LLL's mom puts her hand on LLL's head and looks her in the
eyes.
LLL'S MOM
You be brave sweetheart, you'll be
home soon enough.
LLL
Yeah mom, I know. Don't worry about
me. I'll be fine. We'll take care
of each other.
LLL'S MOM
Take your picture for me when you
see-- if you go to Napoleon's
grave, okay?
LLL
We'll see mom, we'll see.
LLL'S MOM
It's where Dad and I met. It's
important to me.
LLL gives her a kiss on the cheek. Her mom gets teary-eyed
and blinks, embarrassed.
The kids get in line, their moms looking on with concern +
affection.
JANINE'S MOM
Don't forget to take pictures.
Be Safe!
LLL'S MOM
INT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER WOMEN'S DORMITORY - NIGHT
Parallel rows of bunks weld together as visual clatter in an
oblique camera angle. Approximating footfall, the camera
patter-glides along to one lower bunk, where the Navy Woman's
eyes flit about in the dark, unable to find sleep.
The camera does a digital dive under her blankets, and
digitally speeds towards her knees to reveal what's going on
between her legs.
13.
Her black underwear is impressed upon by the middle two
digits of her hand. Pre-masturbation. The hand moves away,
and then we are left motionless under the covers.
INT. AIRPLANE - DAY
LLL is sitting between a corpulent turban-wearing man and a 7year old girl, whose parents sit together on the other side
of the aisle. Prince is across the aisle on opposite side the
turbaned man.
LLL's eyes startle forth with an anxious thought. Her head
darts out above the man's belly to be in Prince's line of
vision.
Prince.
LLL
Prince looks up.
Yeah?
PRINCE
LLL
(loud whisper)
What about Tommy!?
PRINCE
Don't worry, he's cool.
Prince picks up his bag, places it on his lap, and opens it.
He sticks his mouth into it. We can hear him saying a muffled
something and another voice responding. He puts the bag down.
Janine sits two rows behind Prince. She has the earbuds to
her iPod in. The captain's address begins. Both Prince and
LLL put on their discman headphones. Each one's music
fills...
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
14.
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level III
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
EXT. NEW MEXICO/MEXICO BORDER - DAY
Hundreds of Mexicans trudge a way through the desert,
emigrating toward immigrancy.
Border Patrol trucks tear across the sand, resolved on
beating back the mob by any means necessary.
With pure brute duty, the patrolmen set their sights on the
supernumerary illegals. Triggers are pulled, and gunfire
sounds, bodies go down, reddening the sand. And tears are
shed; and howls of scattered babies and small children
—unseen in the thick of the exodus— flay the air.
And the gunfire persists, and still the people press forward,
running on towards something insanely true. Bodies fall by
the dozens, as the rat-a-tat-tats and bang-bangs keep
breaking out from twelve or fifteen trucks (all nearly closed
in on now).
15.
The immigrants are there: the grossly outnumbered gunmen are
rapidly overtaken, as a gangs of Mexican men rush them and coopt their weapons and vehicles. The border guards are beaten
into submission or executed without ceremony —whatever means
is quickest.
INT. RETIREMENT COMMUNITY DINING HALL, FLORIDA - EVENING
A large banquet hall of a particular decor —the sensibilities
of very dubious good taste. 100 or so tables, being swarmed
around by a youthful waitstaff trying to make ends meet with
retiree tips.
An OLD WOMAN —one head in a party of four couples—
interrogates a young waitress about the chef's intentions:
OLD WOMAN
Tell him, no butter or oil or
anything. I need the meat to be
dry, dry.
She redirects her remarks to her friends.
OLD WOMAN (CONT'D)
Doctor Higuera said the
cholesterol's becoming a concern.
(back to the waitress)
And tell him last night's salmon
was delicious. Wonderful. So much
better than last week.
Her dinner buddies are quick to ratify that opinion. An OLD
MAN has some final request.
OLD MAN
And I want another Diet Coke. But
put the ice in a separate glass.
And Murray wants something too, I
think.
MURRAY
Another one of these beers...
He lifts up the bottle, and reads it aloud.
MURRAY (CONT'D)
...Newcastle...
(he looks at his
dinnermates )
It's good!
16.
OLD MAN
And some more bread, but no butter,
bring margarine.
OLD WOMAN 2
Margarine's even worse!
HER HUSBAND
What do you know?!
There are three terraces of tables, connected by staircases
on opposite sides of the room. A SOON-TO-BE-AN-OLD-WOMAN
slaps her husband's arm as he tries to clean up a spill that
has victimized her pants.
SOON-TO-BE-AN-OLD-WOMAN
(in a raspy Brooklyn
drawl)
Just get me anotha napkin!!!
A table on the middle terrace is host to LOU and CYNTHIA, and
their friends, VITO and CHARLENE.
LOU
I'm feeling all wonky. This steak's
putting me into a food coma. It's
floating around in my head.
VITO
If only steak were an option. I
can't stand this
(lowers his voice)
fucking diet.
(raises his voice again)
If I didn't have grandkids , I'd
eat steak everyday. I'd die happy.
LOU
I'm really wonky. What the hell.
It's like my head's the top of a
geyser -jet bubble pressure. Kind
of queer.
CHARLENE
I feel it too.
Lou wipes his brow.
Whoooh!
LOU
17.
CYNTHIA
(to Charlene)
You barely ate.
CHARLENE
Well I'm feeling it, and it keeps
intensifying.
VITO
Maybe it's the Vicodin. You gotta
be more careful with that junk.
CHARLENE
I ran out of Vicodin on Tuesday!
Vito shrugs off the retort. Lou stands up and leans his palms
on the table.
Whoa!
LOU
VITO
Jeez. So you're all dopey. Take a
seat Lou.
There is a crash from the tier below. Vito gets up, followed
by the two wives.
They all look over the balcony: A woman is lying on a halfcollapsed table, kicking her legs and laughing unstoppably.
Her party, super-embarrassed, tries to calm her down.
Holy shit!
LOU
He falls over the railing and lands on a table.
Ow!!!!!
LOU (CONT'D)
In horror, he looks up at the dinner party he's just landed
in the middle of.
LOU (CONT'D)
Who the hell are you? Stop looking
at me like that!!!
In another sector of the dining room, an elderly woman is
being walked slowly exitwards by her FRIEND.
FRIEND
Just stay calm, stay calm. We'll
get you to bed.
18.
Meanwhile....
CHARLENE
What the fuck is going on?!!!!
Vito, what the fuck is going on?!!!
VITO
I don't know...I don't know.
CHARLENE
Why is everything so big?
VITO
What are you talking about?
Vito!!!
CHARLENE
Across the room, as a panicking man slams into a waiter,
throwing food everywhere.
MAN #A is muttering to himself in fear:
MAN #A
It's mad cow disease. It's mad cow
disease.
A few tables down MAN #E stands up and screams at the top of
his lungs, in utter elation:
MAN #E
It's acid!!!! It's LSD!!!
Charlene starts screaming. A grandfather grabs the water
glass out of his little granddaughter's hand and slams it
down. People get up and start running. Smashing into each
other.
A teenage grandson, starts gulping down all the water he can.
His mother grabs him by the shoulders and slaps him hard in
the face.
My hip!
A VOICE AMIDST THE MELEE
A retired doctor tries to locate the people who are being
trampled in the mob scene. He stops to rub his eyes, and rub
his eyes again, and again, and again.
MAN #E
(still elated)
Acid, I can't believe this.
19.
His wife looks at him and frowns in disbelief.
A man at a table grabs his arm —heart attack. He just sits
there shaking. And then drops to the floor, dead.
EXT. RETIREMENT COMMUNITY - LATER
An old man is tripping out in the poolside hot tub. He has a
shit-eating grin as he watches the magic of the bubbles and
ripples.
EXT. SICILY-NAPLES FERRY - DAY
The sun sheets down on LLL's sleep-slacked head. She jolts
up, apparently having had a bad dream. The Mediterranean
stretches out toward a comfortable forever, as the ferry's
wake capitulates into the light waves.
EXT. RETIREMENT COMMUNITY, FLORIDA - NIGHT
A couple of cars are wrapped around trees. 911 lights carom
off everything. Firemen pull a body out of a golf-course
water hazard.
A deafening sound is heard —supersonic. A 727 flies only a
thousand feet overhead (alighting toward a nearby runway?). A
grandfather, grandmother, and their mid 20s grandson watch it
fly overhead, mesmerized.
GRANDMOTHER
Holy shit!!!
A minute later.
GRANDMOTHER (CONT'D)
I want to go somewhere, see the
world with this stuff in my system.
Grandfather and grandson walk ahead, not knowing that
Grandma's not budging, busy tripping out several yards back.
GRANDFATHER
Where are those places with all
those electric lights, where they
dance? Isn't there some special
name for those clubs, the ones with
the technological music?
Raves?
GRANDSON
GRANDFATHER
Yeah, raves.
20.
The grandson turns around to look for his grandma. He can't
see her.
The grandson's face is naked with an escalating terror. Where
the hell did Grandma go? Grandpa seems too euphorically
preoccupied to realize that she's disappeared.
Grandma's form begins to bleed out of the thick darkness. Her
grandson's face blanches.
GRANDSON
Grandma. If you don't come right
now you'll turn into a pillar of
salt. Don't turn around.
A moment passes. We barely leave the grandson's pale face.
Grandma!!!
GRANDSON (CONT'D)
INT. TELEVISION STUDIO - NIGHT
J.T. Leroy, wearing a Napoleon hat and those Groucho Marx-y
glasses (the ones with the nose and mustache), sits in a
really big armchair that makes him appear to be an aspiring
Edith Ann. He is a talk show host, as the TV studio noise
implies.
We hear a jingle and then some exaggerated archaic computer
voice saying “J. T. Sho”
J.T.
Yeah, so, uh, we're back. With our
impromptu Star Wars episode. We
just had a really special chat with
Mark Hamill. I hope there are some
great agents and producers and
directors out there who want to
give him some work. He’s really
great.
Mark Hamill sits two regular-sized armchairs away (the chair
next to J.T. is empty). Gore Vidal, co-host, sits on the
other side of Mark, and nods in good humor as the crowd
applauds and whoops like a good, healthy crowd.
J.T. (CONT'D)
Yeah, so, uh, we kind of lucked out
today. Because Natalie Portman's in
town, taking a break from her
Proust shoot in France. Smart girl.
And she called me out of the blue,
asking to come on the show tonight.
(MORE)
21.
J.T. (CONT'D)
And my producer said sure. And Gore
said sure too. So great. Natalie
Portman!...
Ricky walks out on the stage and, as is the show's tradition,
goes over to the big armchair to bestow a three-cheek kiss on
J.T.'s shrouded visage. The studio goes silent, and murmurs
of appalled confusion begin.
One audiencer lets loose the Valley Girl “Ewww.” Ricky faces
the audience as he backs towards the empty armchair, and
gives the audience some placating gestures. He speaks with
Natalie's voice.
RICKY/NATALIE
Listen guys. It's me Natalie. I was
kind of in a bind, so I had to
possess this piano tuner named
Ricky in order to be here with
everybody in America, because I was
bound to my contract in France. I
know this is difficult to lend
credence to but, please... You're
my compats and I needed to let
America know that I cared. I know
it's a little bit selfish, but...
Ricky/Natalie is now seated.
J.T.
Whoa, so Natalie. You just
metempsychosed and possessed some
random guy.
RICKY/NATALIE
Well, J.T. metempsychosis and
possession aren't the same thing.
J.T.
Right, so...
RICKY/NATALIE
I possessed the body of Ricky. He
seems like a pretty agreeable host.
I mean he barely put up a fight...
We're kind of at a symbiosis right
now.
J.T.
Yeah, so, uh, Wow!... How's France?
RICKY/NATALIE
It's really gorgeous. We're
shooting in Brittany right now.
(MORE)
22.
RICKY/NATALIE (cont'd)
And it's summer. And Proust is just
so romantic.
J.T.
Have you read the entire thing?
RICKY/NATALIE
I'm working on it. I read Swann's
Way and Les Jeunes Filles en Fleurs
before the shoot and I'm working on
The Guermantes Way right now...
Proust, wow!
J.T.
Yeah, wow! So which character do
you play?
RICKY/NATALIE
I play the Duchess of Guermantes.
For everyone who's read the book, I
know I'm much younger than the
character, but Ming, the director,
is taking a lot of poetic license,
which is really amazing.
J.T.
Who's Ming?
RICKY/NATALIE
Tsai Ming-Liang. He's an incredible
director from Taiwan. This is his
first English language film. But
it's an international coproduction.
GORE VIDAL
A brilliant director. Incredible
stuff.
Yeah.
RICKY/NATALIE
J.T.
So, uh, Mark. Here's your Mom. Do
you wanna say anything to her. You
guys meeting for the first time?
Mark Hamill laughs, and the audience follows cue —still
pretty offput by Ricky/Natalie. ‘Luke’ leans over and gives
‘Amidala’ a hug.
23.
J.T. (CONT'D)
That's some geeky stuff. But it's
really cute, no?... So, uh,
Natalie, how's life after college?
RICKY/NATALIE
That's a tough one J.T... But then
again, life's not as hard for me as
it could be... But, I know we're
pressed for time and I really
wanted to say something to
everybody who's out there watching.
How much time do I have left?
J.T. yells offstage:
J.T.
How much time?
OFFSTAGE VOICE
Two minutes.
J.T.
You've got two minutes.
RICKY/NATALIE
Nice... So, it's a really difficult
time right now in America. And I
was thinking that it's a golden
opportunity to do something for the
global community, now that our
foreign policy protocols are shot
to shit. And I was thinking, what
better way to bring humans together
than to congregate at the Great
Rift Valley in East Africa, where
all the oldest prehistoric hominid
bones are found... I know that's an
offensive idea to many people of
religious convictions. But for
everyone who's agnostic or
atheistic and humanistic, I think
we should plan a worldwide
gathering in Ethiopia to work out
some of our shit. I'm no
utopianist, but I think
experimenting with the most
outlandish designs for human
community could be surprisingly
fruitful. I was thinking about
doing it by the middle of next
month. So call if you wanna help
make this work.
(MORE)
24.
RICKY/NATALIE (cont'd)
It may sound a bit ridiculous at
first, I know. But, think about it
for a day or two. Call 1-888OLDUVAI... ASAP, we don't have much
time... Who knows when John Slone
returns from the dead.... That's
really creepy.
J.T.
R-eally Bizarre. How're you gonna
get money for all this?
RICKY/NATALIE
Who knows. Act now, think too much
later.
Cool.
J.T.
GORE VIDAL
Natalie, just to let you know...
there have been discoveries in West
Africa of late that point to the
rise of man occurring on that side
of the continent. I know this
knowledge shouldn't effect you in
principle. But it's food for
thought. If you are going to work
in mob poetics, you might as well
consider perfecting your poetry.
Ricky/Natalie's face loses a little bit of its zeal. The
credit music begins to roll.
J.T.
We'll see you in two weeks with our
Eve Ensler, and our favorite
favorite, Michael!
GORE VIDAL
I’m off to Cape Verde for a couple
weeks, but when I’m back, I'm going
to find out more about sculptures
giving birth to babies.
J.T.
So, uh, bye! He does a goofy twohand wave.
EXT. STREETS - DAY
Three Hasidic boys ride their bikes along a sidewalk,
attempting to outrace one another.
25.
Each wears a colorful helmet that strikes a sharp contrast
with their uniform garments.
CUT TO:
GLASS
The carbonated fizz of soda fills the vast majority of the
screen.
CUT TO:
EXT. ANONYMOUS ITALIAN BEACH - DAY
On almost-white sands flotillas of sunbathers radiating out
from dozens colored-umbrellas.
By the water: several
whatever sort of game
terrapin march toward
enthusiasts; dried up
pockets of rambunctious kids inventing
they can to eradicate the clock's
“time to go”; some speedo-d Kadima
seaweed; strolling whoevs...
Janine lets her floating, prone body lurk through the weewaves closest to the shore. Her hands dig into the submarine
earth as a fulcrum. She looks up for a second at the tableau
of beachers.
A few meters away, a 5-year-old sandcastlemaker begins to
scream as his older sister tugs on the back of his little
speedos, his butt exposed as he tries to get loose. She holds
tight, and with her other hand reaches down into the supershallow surf, scooping mud, smearing it in her brother's
face, dropping it into his swimsuit.
He begins to cry. Anxiously trying to break free from his
sister's grip, he loses footing, falling into the water,
exacerbating the crying. He lies there, hands planted to keep
him above water, bawling. His sister gives off a quick,
malicious, “oh shit, my parents are gonna kill me” laugh, and
scampers away.
A faint sound of horse hooves rolls across the sand. The boy
cries in emotional devastation. His mother (nude) comes
dashing down to rescue him. Janine continues to navigate
around in the shallows. The horse hooves are heard again, as
the mother carries her son back to the family sand plot.
Prince, lying on his stomach —his pet sparrow Tommy
spastically preening himself on Prince's boardshort-clad
buttock— lifts his head up from his towel to make sense of
the horse hoof reverbs. LLL lies on her back next to him,
forearm screening her eyes from the sun.
26.
Tommy flies off. Prince brings his head back down, chin
resting on the back of his hands. He’s looking at a nudesunbather couple, bellies up on low-lying beach chairs, both
in their forties —the man close to fifty, the woman closer to
thirty-nine. Prince stares at the woman's shaved pubic area,
and tries to scrutinize the folds of her labia from a
distance.
LLL rolls over and catches Prince peeping. She gives him a
light slap him on his arm. He turns his head to her,
simpering.
PRINCE
(whispering)
It's so clean, all shaved like
that. And so tan. It's almost
pretty.
LLL
You like those tan nuts too?
PRINCE
No, but they're fun to look at.
LLL
Your dick that small?
No way.
PRINCE
LLL
Then it must be pretty big.
Sure.
Sure.
PRINCE
LLL
(BEAT)
PRINCE
Do you shave down under?
LLL
No way. That's gotta be a hard
thing to do. I'm scared I'd shave
my clit off.
Prince stares, dumb and enchanted, at the woman's crotch.
PRINCE
It's really sexy.
27.
LLL laughs silent, mischievous glee.
Roll over.
What?
Roll over.
LLL
PRINCE
LLL
PRINCE
(trying to keep his cool)
What?!
CUT TO:
INT. MOVIE THEATER - MOVIE THEATER TIME
A Sandra Bullock movie pours through the DTS soundsystem. The
theater is mainly empty. Some woman begins to laugh
uncontrollably. She is met with an array of staccato shushes
rising from the obscured heads.
She gets out of her seat and walks out into the theater
lobby. Tears are streaming down her face. She stares at the
popcorn, still laughing.
CUT TO:
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level V
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
28.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
EXT. DIRT ROAD, ROSEBUD RESERVATION - DAY
LUTHER, a strapping, mid-thirties Native American man, kicks
up the dirt in his “driveway,” hands in his pockets. The sky
is a wan summer haze. Behind him is a pre-fab house that’s in
some disrepair. A beaten-upon boombox is on the dirt not too
far away from him. Music can be discerned out of the spent
speakers, though it's not clear what kind.
Luther soon switches it over to the AM frequency, and turns
the tuning knob until a crackly voice of a pissed-off pundit
can be heard commenting on....
A prairie dog darts across the road.
PUNDIT
...they're so d-d-arn good with
codes...Information regulation is
being rendered useless. A real
mess. It's truly maddening,
maddening for a man like me!...
Ten yards away, on a dirt road, a beat-up Chevy Van kicks up
dirt as it creaks by at 25 mph. Luther nods to the driver.
Luther stops for a moment, then hurries toward the house,
fingers still stiffly forced into the front pockets of his
denim. He tries to leap over some thick puddles of mud from
recent rainwater, but leaping isn’t quite enough.
29.
He opens a screen door and moves over to a room on his left:
there are three beds, but no one is in the room. He moves
over to the adjacent room and its two threadbare couches,
occupied by five children and two women. They huddle around
the TV, which is showing reruns of Murphy Brown.
He walks into the kitchen, where he passes a woman washing
dishes. He moves up a short, carpeted stairwell and turns a
corner when he reaches the top.
He raps on a slightly-ajar door as he pushes it open. There
are two beds in the room: on one is an elderly woman,
knitting a shawl, mechanically breaking potato chips on the
roof of her toothless mouth with a listless but adroit
tongue; on the other is a middle-aged man, asleep.
Luther shakes him firmly on the shoulder. The man wakes up.
LUTHER
Dad, come on get up.
LUTHER'S DAD
I'm resting.
LUTHER
Come on Dad, we're going somewhere.
LUTHER'S DAD
I'm resting.
Let's go.
LUTHER
Luther grabs his father by the arms and yanks him out of bed.
LUTHER'S DAD
Jesus Christ Luther. What are you
trying to pull on me?
LUTHER
Let's go. I'll tell you in the car.
Bring a change of clothes. Where's
your medication box?
LUTHER'S DAD
What do you mean where's my
medication box? Where are you
taking me?
LUTHER
Don't worry... I'm going out back
to get Jonas. Meet me downstairs by
the truck in three minutes.
30.
Luther!
LUTHER'S DAD
LUTHER
Just do it, please... And don't
forget your medication.
Luther walks downstairs and into the kitchen and out through
a screen door into a backyard. There are four men sitting at
a picnic bench. They are all drinking from a Black Velvet
whiskey bottle that they pass around. One of them is peeling
paint off the table —which seems to be a common pastime
Jonas.
LUTHER
Jonas slowly excuses himself from the drinking table and, in
a bit of a drunken stumble, goes over to Luther.
LUTHER (CONT'D)
You'll come with me to D.C.?
JONAS
What's that for?
LUTHER
We have something we have to do. So
you need to come... Me and Dad are
going. We need you there with us.
What for?
JONAS
LUTHER
Just trust me. Get some extra
clothes and a blanket, and meet me
at the truck... And bring some
water.
JONAS
What do you mean just trust you?
Luther walks away, and Jonas stands there feebly infuriated,
and non-plussed.
EXT. ROSEBUD RESERVATION - CONTINUOUS
Luther drives down the road. His father sits on the passenger
side. Jonas is in the pick-up bed. He knocks on the little
slide-window that accesses the cab. Luther opens it.
JONAS
I feel sick.
31.
LUTHER
Hang in there Jonas.
JONAS
(irritated)
What's going on here Luther?
Luther pulls into the lot of a building that looks like it
might be some administrative HQ. He walks through the front
doors, disappearing into the two-story structure.
His father and Jonas languish in the truck. Jonas can't bear
the heat or the sun, covers his eyes with his arm, occluding
our on-screen vistas with it. He starts to drift off into
alcohol-facilitated slumber.
CUT TO:
JONAS'S DREAM EYES
Visions of imagined incidents populated with dreamland extras
and animistic objects dissolve one after another in whirs too
insistent and indistinct for us to visually decipher. And
then the pacing erratically shifts to a serene continuity: a
firetruck, Jonas walking toward it. Then repeat: a firetruck,
Jonas walking toward it.
A car door slam is heard.
CUT TO:
EXT. ROSEBUD RESERVATION - CONTINUOUS
Jonas's eyes flitter open in the too-much-sun. He hears
Luther starting up the ignition and saying something:
LUTHER
I just broke Owen James’ arm.
Their father turns his head to look at Luther, but doesn't
respond.
Luther backs out.
JONAS
What do you mean you broke Owen
James’ arm? Are you going mad
Luther?
LUTHER
Mad isn't used that way anymore,
Jonas.
32.
EXT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER - DAY
The navy woman walks among the jets in pilot's gear, helmet
under arm. Some guy runs up to her and relays some words of
importance, all of which are drowned out by the din of
technology that engulfs the carrier deck.
She strolls along, clicking her tongue. She goes between a
pair of fighter planes, and walks on, to the edge of the
carrier. She looks out to sea. And coughs. And coughs again.
She looks blankly at nothing. And suddenly her body clones
itself in a matter of a quarter-second. Perfect asexual
reproduction.
One she walks away from the other and back into the thick of
the planes. Two she stares blankly out to sea and begins to
walk down the perimeter of the carrier, towards the stern.
One she moves towards a ladder that leads up to the cockpit
of a reconnaissance plane. She gets there, spits out her gum
into her gloved hand and signals for some Navy lackey to come
retrieve it, which he does.
She climbs the ladder and scoots into the cockpit, puts on
her helmet, adjusts it.
EXT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER - CONTINUOUS
Two she is reaching the stern with the gait of a
somnambulist. Her eyes catch sight of the enormous drop from
the carrier's edge to the waves far beneath.
She walks on, to the terminus of the seacraft, looks down,
and with barely any hesitation dives off, cutting through the
air, like a pebble, going down, down, until she breaches the
ocean surface and disappears.
EXT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER - CONTINUOUS
The cockpit window comes down over One she's head and is
secured. The communications for takeoff gurgle in her helmethidden earpiece. Her hands make the proper adjustments on the
computer interface, and she rolls onto the airstrip.
She gets the okay to take off, and the plane bursts down the
runway, takes flight, piercing the breeze with strident
compound thrust.
33.
INT. UFFIZI GALLERY - DAY
Janine, LLL, and Prince are in front of Parmigianino's
Madonna of the Long Neck. LLL looks away down the hall for a
few seconds.
JANINE
Yeah, she does have a long neck.
EXT. TALLADEGA - NIGHT
The clear sky leaves room for the unfettered bright of a
sizeable three-quarter moon. John Slone's still unchanged,
unrotting body in moonlight.
EXT. FIELD, TEXAS PANHANDLE - DAY
The grass is brown, and the trees don't exist. The cattle
graze. The breeze tells its own boring tale. The cows are
smart enough not to lend an ear. Smart cows indeed. In fact,
one cow begins to talk.
TALKING COW
I feel we have to leave. It's
unavoidable. Fuck this field. Fuck
the ignominy of this lifetime. We
need to go somewhere. It might not
better a bloody thing. But in going
we have the illusion of potential.
The talking cow begins to move thataway, and the rest of the
herd follow her lead.
EXT. INTERSTATE HIGHWAY - DAY
Jonas knocks on the window. He looks ill, feverish. Nobody in
the cab acknowledges the knock. So he knocks again. Luther
slides the window open, not taking his eyes off the road as
he barrels down the highway at 65 mph. What sounds like a
news report trickles through to Jonas' ears...
JONAS
I can't do this. I need a drink.
Luther ignores. Their father just stares out the passenger
side window.
LUTHER
Well, I'm not stopping for a drink.
JONAS
Is that the big idea behind all
this shit?
34.
No.
LUTHER
Jonas moans in frustration and physical anguish, but has
nothing to say —the sick is too intense for any impassioned
retort. A few seconds go by.
JONAS
I'm really sick.
LUTHER
Yuh...maybe Dad will keep you
company back there.
Dad is staring out the window. The news is on the radio.
NEWS VOICE
...San Antonio's Sea World suffered
a tragic loss last night, as animal
rights activists marauded the
premises, taking two sea-lions...
JONAS
I need to crap.
NEWS VOICE
...three dolphins, and the beloved
orca, Namu, captive...Three
security guards were killed during
the raid....Singer-songwriter Rufus
Wainwright died of an apparent drug
overdose in Bridgehampton, New
York. Perhaps the busy spirit of
Natalie Portman will bring him back
to life...
INT. BEST BUY - DAY
The cover of Master P's Gameface CD.
SOME GUY: white, with a receding hairline, a fading tattoo on
his burly, flaxen-haired forearm. He puffs on a cigarette as
he browses the “Rap” section, pausing on the cheap, neoBabylonian covers of sub-platinum hip-hop mystics and
decadents.
A Best Buy employee comes up to him. It seems like a
managerial type.
MANAGERIAL TYPE
(sternly)
What's the deal, man? Why are you
smoking in here?
35.
I'm sorry.
SOME GUY
He walks toward the exit, cigarette still lit —the managerial
type in pursuit— and out the door.
MANAGERIAL TYPE
What the fuck?!
SOME GUY
Yeah, I'm sorry.
CUT TO:
EXT. UNDER THE SEA - DAY
It's probably day, because there's enough light to make out a
swimming form: the Navy Woman, swimming from side-to-side,
somehow able to breathe underwater. A coelacanth swims by.
She looks at it for a second, but seems more interested in
the nothing at hand, moving along through the great liquid
belly.
INT. NATALIE'S HOUSE - NIGHT
A 21” LCD computer screen in an otherwise barely lit room.
The electric illumination bathes Ricky/Natalie's face. S/he
shoves a spoonful of soggy raisin bran into her/his mouth.
On the screen is a hi-res detail of a reconstructed
paleohominid skull, with the name 'Toumai' in big letters as
a header for some dense text, too small for us to read.
Eyes pasted to the screen, Ricky/Natalie scoops up another
mound of cereal —destination: mouth. There is a red plastic
pod on the spoon, not much else: one of those special cereal
box secret treats.
Ricky/Natalie's mouth isn't quite open enough to accommodate
the red gift-pod. And it bounces off his/her teeth. S/he
looks down at the pod hitting her desk. Puts down the spoon,
opens the pod: holy shit! it's a teeny-tiny figurine of an
ape-man, that's just like a living Toumai! It speaks in a
Sean Connery voice.
APE-MAN FIGURINE
Hope of Life.
EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY
Dry blood encrusts a blowhole. The sun shines on desiccated
skin. A killer whale lies in the middle of the highway. There
is traffic jammed for miles, as only one lane remains
unobstructed by the dead animal.
36.
A crew of firemen, policemen, crane operators try to remove
Namu from the asphalt.
EXT. SIX FLAGS MAGIC MOUNTAIN - DAY
A fortune cookie is opened with two hands. And the Toumai apeman falls out...
FEMALE VOICE
Shit, shit.
...into a sewer grate and two bodies fall to their hands and
knees, hoping to save him. We look up through the holes of
the grating, and see the faces above us: Ricky/Natalie and
Gwen Stefani.
GWEN
(to Ricky/Natalie)
Oh my god. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so
sorry.
RICKY/NATALIE
Oh god. I wonder where he went. I
can't see a bottom.
They lift themselves up and dust off their palms and knees.
Ricky/Natalie has a distressed look on his/her face. Gwen is
mortified and dumbstruck. They are standing on a paved path
traversing one of those prefab theme park hillocks.
RICKY/NATALIE (CONT'D)
I don't know what to do. I don't
think I'm gonna be able to pull
this pilgrimage thing off...
There's virtually no one writing to
me except for people giving me hell
for doing this with Ricky.
Gwen tries to think of something encouraging, but she's still
too shaken by the loss of the ape-man.
RICKY/NATALIE (CONT'D)
But I swear he doesn't mind. He
lets me know. He's okay...
At least the perverts aren't
writing me. That's like a huge
burden off my back.
GWEN
Men are all kind of perverts.
37.
They join a five-hundred headed queue outside the Goliath
rollercoaster, just beyond the sign that reads: “45 minute
wait from here”.
RICKY/NATALIE
No, I mean they're pervert
perverts. Like, they write me about
things they do with their cock. I
got all these fucked up emails at
Harvard that start off talking
about Shelley and Keats, or Israeli
politics, and all of a sudden I see
the words “your soaking wet pussy”,
and I'm... oh my god, it's just so
gross. It really makes me sick.
A group of four 16-year-old boys walks by, all bare-chested,
pounding forties. One slaps the runt of the bunch on the back
of the head. Another one looks over at the Goliath line.
Hey.
ANOTHER ONE
He runs over to Ricky/Natalie and Gwen.
ANOTHER ONE (CONT'D)
Hey, aren't you that Natalie
Portman guy?
No.
RICKY/NATHALIE
ANOTHER ONE
No? Man, I must be drunk. I never
been really drunk like this before.
Sorry, dude... Your girlfriend's
fly though. Kinda like that chick
in No Doubt, huh?
He rejoins his friends.
GWEN
I'm going to go find one of those
booze guys.
RICKY/NATALIE
There's that security girl over
there selling jello shots.
GWEN
No, I saw another guy with little
Bombay Sapphire bottles before.
I'll be back in, like... 8 minutes.
38.
Gwen jumps out of line.
Okay.
RICKY/NATALIE
GWEN
You want anything?
Ricky/Natalie gives the silent “I'm thinking, hold on a sec”
head crook. S/he shakes his/her head “no” after that sec
stops being held.
Gwen runs up a hill and finds herself on a theme park
“crossroads.” She looks around for her booze vender.
Ludacris' “Stand Up” is heard in the distance, and quickly
wends its presence closer and closer: some boombox carrying
queen (a vivid gender-mixed face) —clothed in hip-hop styles—
is walking ahead of a gaggle of shirtless and braless guys
and girls (but mostly girls): a random, crew of 10 or 20,
dancing around wantonly as they move along.
A crowd of onlookers commingle their sexual tension,
bewilderment, awe, fetishism, and sheer disgust. A couple of
little boys aim their squirt guns at the dancing girls'
boobies.
Somewhere on the outskirts of the rumpus, Gwen finds her
ginmonger, who passes her the fifth of liquor for a $20 bill.
A girl and guy in the dance procession start dancing all
freaky —tongues slapping each other; sinuous body-grind.
A pair of girls, run out of the group, and attack a
grandfather with a sextease —grinding up and down his
golfcourse-ready wardrobe and paunch, while his wife and two
grandchildren (ages 11 and 9) look on.
The grandpa is stunned. He just stands there, his wife
staring up at him, entreating him to react. But he can't. The
grandson notices his grandfather's erection, moving in pant;
and then stares at the breasts. The grandmother can't take it
anymore:
GRANDMA
Charlie!....Charlie!
The old man won't respond. The girls keep dancing and
laughing uncontrollably. The granddaughter runs away. The
grandson keeps looking at the tits. He sees that Grandpa's
dick is still hard.
GRANDMA (CONT'D)
Charlie!...
39.
Gwen doesn't want to be a witness to this anymore and she
jogs back down to the Goliath line, and forces her way
through the line until she finds Ricky/Natalie.
EXT. MAGIC MOUNTAIN - CONTINUOUS
Gwen and Ricky/Natalie are in the rollercoaster seats. They
pull the safety bars down over them. Gwen offers
Ricky/Natalie the gin.
GWEN
Want a hit?
RICKY /NATALIE
No...It's kind of a weird thing to
say, but I think I'm pregnant.
Gwen spits up the gin on the kid who's locked into the seat
in front of her.
KID
What the hell, you stupid bitch!
Gwen tries to smack him on the head, but the safety bar
impairs her reach.
They begin to move down the tracks. Gwen's trying to dry the
booze off her shirt. She suddenly remembers the “pregnant”
statement and looks at Ricky/Natalie.
RICKY/NATALIE
I'm serious.
Gwen's imploring eyes ooze with confusion.
RICKY/NATALIE (CONT'D)
Ricky's not a sociopath, don't
worry. It's me, Gwen. Natalie...
(she laughs, then
jokingly)
It's me Gwen, Natalie... I can't
believe I just said that.
The rollercoastermobile is inching up the steep incline. It’s
about half-way to the top.
RICKY/NATALIE (CONT'D)
No, but really it is me, Natalie.
Ricky/Natalie gropes for Gwen's hand to try to assure her.
40.
RICKY/NATALIE (CONT'D)
We kind of made love in a way and
now I get a sense that there's
something growing inside us.
They're nearing the rollercoaster summit.
GWEN
How's Ricky going to deliver?
RICKY/NATALIE
Miracles happen?
Wonderful.
GWEN
RICKY/NATALIE
I didn't realize how unstable life
was until last week. You've got to
live life...radically or else you
get swallowed up, you know what I
mean?
GWEN
(a little irked)
You're being vague.
RICKY /NATALIE
Yeah...Oh shit.
The Goliath's 255 foot drop becomes a neck-paralyzing
reality. Everybody screams as adrenaline does its thing.
Screams and more screams, as the rollercoastermobile mows its
way over the arcs and dips of rollercoaster topography...
...The ride comes to an end a half-minute later —the
rollercoastermobile inching toward the loading bay. Safety
bars unlock.
Up and out of the seats. The kid who cussed Gwen out tries to
give her a nasty look, but can only come up with the “Oh
shit, I just called Gwen Stefani a bitch!” expression. Pure
star struck enthusiasm effaces his embarrassment.
KID
Oh shit. Gwen Stefani. I'm sorry,
yo.
She gives him a sour look.
KID (CONT'D)
You don't wear that earring in your
fingernail no more?
41.
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level VIII
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
INT. KARAOKE LOUNGE - ONE OF THE 24 HOURS
A 40-ish man, dark skin, chin-beard with little other facial
hair capability, skinny-type guy, sings with a so faraway,
but way-too-close-to-home look in his eye. Not so dimmish
lighting. He's singing The Doors' “Not to Touch the Earth.”
42.
EXT. TUSCAN GULCH - DAY
P,J,& L skating over some sand-speckled flatland. Some
scattered trees -none too big, none too leafy. LLL is singing
the chorus to Terry Jacks' “Seasons in the Sun” over and
over. It’s sunny out, very.
They skate past a flockless sheep. Neither party scrutinizes
the other.
JANINE
What's that thing up there?
On a tract of grass, stanchioned by the trunks of three
larger trees stand two statues: Nanni di Banco's Four Crowned
Saints and the Barberini Faun, both being watered by the
intermingling showers of 4 sprinklers. A paperback copy of
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is getting drenched
in the grass near the four saints’ feet. Prince shrugs (Tommy
on his shoulder) in delayed response to Janine's question.
LLL
“...the only stars that we reached,
were the starfish on the beach...”
Skateboards approach a center of minor activity. A 10m diving
platform can be seen. In its vicinity are four or five (hard
to tell) people, silhouetted by the sun. Two of these people
walk towards a vintage yellow BMW, and get in: a dolefullooking bella donna, and her older hairslick-and-tan man.
They drive past P,J,& L, who are kicking their boards up into
hand. There's a guy sporting some track-and-field nutcutter
shorts and a sleeveless jersey. He is stretching and singing
some song in some Slavic tongue. A woman of about forty-five
is lying down on a beach towel. Soaking up the rays around
her bikini. On her back. Sunglasses.
PRINCE
(softly to LLL & Co.)
Bikini.
Another man (around 30, looks Italian), with unruly curly
hair, sits in one of those beach/pool chairs with all those
thin-ribbons-of-plastic ribbing the seat-and-back. This
center of activity seems center around a gulch.
Tommy flies off. Prince, Janine, and LLL walk toward the
gulch. (The diving platform is off to their left.) There is
one of those “feed me a quarter, I'll show you magnified
distances for a minute” binoculars-on-a-pole contraptions.
Prince looks into it. He then looks up from it, trying to spy
what was seen through the lens –but no luck.
43.
LLL sticks her eyes to the viewfinder: we see what she sees:
four oriental rugs hanging from a wall, unmoving no matter
how many degrees LLL swivels the contraption's neck.
LLL abandons the binoculars and catches up to the other two,
who are looking over the precipice. The gulch is about 30 or
40 feet wide. There is water 30-or-so ft. below: opaque,
dark, like liquid graphite with hairs of diluted turquoise;
airbrushed with rainbow sprinkles: tacky-Photoshop water. A
grand piano is propped up on a rocky ledge just above the
water. Janine, LLL, and Prince turn back. Prince goes over to
the beach chair to start conversation.
PRINCE
Hey. Do you speak English?
MAN
(with an Italian accent)
Yeah.
He gets up out of the chair. Prince just stands there and
faintly nods in quasi-speak. The camera drifts back and
watches the kids interact with the guy. Some bird sounds,
some wind sounds, some running water sounds, a sneeze. They
seem to be introducing themselves (handshakes).
Track and field guy starts pole-vaulting, running with with
pole in hand, sand crackling beneath track and field shoes.
Everybody turns to look. The pole is planted into the ground
and flight ensues. Seconds. . . . He lands on the other side
of the gulch, dropping hard. He writhes around, cusping his
knee with his hands. Everybody keeps staring with bated
breath. But, no worries! The athlete rises triumphant,
shaking off his limp, arms akimbo.
Conversation continues [still too distant to discern] for
some minutes. During which time Tommy swiftly glides across
the frame. Janine breaks away from the conversation huddle in
what seems to be a burst of agitation. We can sub-faintly
hear her say:
JANINE
This is bullshit!
Tommy reappears, trying to get a green and yellow grub into
his stomach.
The Italian-accented guy goes back to his beach chair,
carefully dropping himself into it, so the legs don't go
beach-chair-crazy. P,J,& L deliberate over something.
Its hard to tell, but it looks like Tommy flies in and lands
on Prince's hat. About a minute later Prince breaks from the
pack, drops his board and begins skating toward the gulch.
44.
The camera moves a bit to follow his progress. It looks like
Tommy probably flies off. Prince’s keeps up a furious pump,
as the skate-ramp nears. 8 yards to go.... ...His leg gives
him a couple last chugs of momentum, and up the ramp he
goes......................................................
.........................And the other side is reached and
Prince lands, sand clouding up beneath his wheels.
Another camera suddenly takes over from the other side of the
gulch: Prince is taking deep breaths, doesn't say a word,
rather effected by the jump. He kicks up his board from under
him, and leans on it with one hand, the other arm akimbo. He
looks back across the gulch. The camera does too. Janine and
LLL are talking with the Italian-accented guy again. He’s
back up out of his beach chair. Janine seems to still be very
unsettled. She semi-sub-audibly:
Shut up!
JANINE
She starts pacing. Prince starts shouting for them to get
their asses moving:
PRINCE
Come on! What the fuck!
Janine suddenly jumps onto her board and skates vigorously.
LLL riles her on with some adrenaline whoops. Janine
approaches the ramp. And sails.
New camera: Looking down, she sees a 1975-vintage Elton John
at the grand piano. He’s pounding the opening chords of
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” She lands. And skids her
board to a stop. She jumps off and runs and gives Prince a
hug. LLL is jumping up, whooping, and applauding on the other
side.
JANINE
Will you marry me?
PRINCE
Yeah, sure...
Janine takes a breather and starts laughing relievedly, a
little uncontrollably.
JANINE
Hey Tommy, can you go get me some
gum from LLL?
Tommy flies off. Over the gulch and onto LLL's forearm. She’s
still busy talking with the guy with the Italian accent. It
looks like LLL’s getting some gum out.
45.
Tommy flies back. With gum. Elton John’s working through the
song.
LLL breaks away from conversation, drops her board, and
rides. She starts skating and screams and lets loose an
adrenaline shout, pumping her leg toward the gulch. Prince
and Janine watch her from the other side. Approaching...up
the ramp...in the air. And lands.
Whoa.
LLL
Elton John's voice rises...”Someone saved my life tonight,
sugar bear (sugar bear)...” Tommy flies into the sky and
poops. Elton continues into the refrains as we fade out...the
song continues over the next three scenes...
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. BEDROOM - DAY
It is a gloriously sunny 2 PM and the windows are open and
the breeze is coming through and two 30-something women are
making brilliant love to each other.
INT. BEDROOM - DAY
It is a gloriously sunny 3 PM and the windows are open and
there's not so much of a breeze, and plenty of sweat as a
pair of early-40somethings make brilliant hetero love
together.
EXT. BACKYARD - DAY
The sky is such a lovely afternoon blue. A girl, about age 8,
lifts a bifurcating twig up to the sky, which leaves it
silhouetted before her eye. She slurps on the quiet beauty.
INT. KOREAN CHURCH - DAY
An aseptic ambience, white, a little less white, and then a
little more white. Chintzy furnishings, and a Caucasian
Christ, while all the congregants are quite Korean. Services
are conducted in Korean, as the reverend reads with a hint of
zeal.
A door at the rear of the sanctuary is forced ajar, and a
wild boar is pushed in. The door is closed. The boar has no
interest in hanging out with Jesus. Oinking and grunting and
trying to dig itself under the door.
The gospel-recite from the podium is suspended, as the
congregation begins to exude an unease that could heighten
into minor mayhem.
46.
Sure enough, the battle with the door proving futile, the
boar starts to trot down the center aisle, casually grunting,
and sniffing at people's seated legs. Not surprisingly, these
same legs bring their host brains to a quick stand.
Male and female pips of terror sound forth. An eleven-yearold girl who was sneaking some fluorescent M& Ms from her
dress pocket, drops them on the floor, as everyone is trying
to get to their feet.
There is a stampede to the door. The boar is duly freaked
out, its tiny tusks tearing into leg flesh as it tries to
breach the torrent of human traffic.
EXT. OUTDOOR DINING AREA - DAY
SUBTITLE: (the) Fish
Some Guy is sitting across from a man who's got a severe
congenital obesity problem. The man sits in one of those
motorized carts for the walking-challenged. A helicopter
drowns out all other sound, as it hovers above. Some Guy
gives it a squinty skyward leer of annoyance. The lunch
companion invests no emotion into the helicopter's air-rape,
his sunglassed gaze focused on taco salad, and plasticforking its plenty into his mouth.
Some Guy can't seem to ignore the helicopter's “rudeness.”
EXT. UNDER THE SEA - DAY
The light quality is brighter than it was last encounter. The
Navy Woman is swimming a few knots off the coast of West
Africa. Myriad schools of fish move about amidst corals and
underwater plants. Two sharks swim close by, but seem not to
consider her prey. She floats motionless, dark eyes a mere
stitch of the maritime tapestry.
All of a sudden she darts and catches a 9-inch fish in her
mouth. Blood begins to diffuse through the thick of the
water. She grabs the fish's tail and tears a big bite off its
back.
INT. TRAIN - DAY
LLL, Prince, and Janine sit in a row in a coach car, waiting
for the train to leave the Florence station. Across from them
are a young Polish couple with a daughter no older than five.
The train starts to move and Prince —windowside— watches the
world go into motion. Bored by the rapidly deurbanizing view,
he puts on his headphones. Presses 'play'. He looks over at
the family, grows uncomfortable with the eye contact, and
closes his eyes.
47.
He opens his eyes a moment later, and looks over at his
friends. They are sitting motionless, eyes downcast (Janine
flipping through an Italian comic book), headphones on.
INT. LIVING ROOM - SOMETIME AFTER DARK
A four-year-old boy puppeteers the BATTLE OF THE ACTION
FIGURES! The combatants are Spiderman ...and Spiderman. Who
will win? (Tough call.)
The white wall, almost entirely undecorated, dinges under the
60-watt lighting. The mucosal drill of a low snore vibrates
about the room. Grandpa, a husky Armenian man, is dozing in
an armchair.
The television is talking....Really fuzzy, fuzzy image/CBSeye
on the 'you're watching C-B-fucking-S' bar at the bottom of
the screen/crackly voice that belongs to the man in the
fuzzy, fuzzy image. We watch.
CRACKLY VOICE
I forget things, and, and Pluto is
cold. I forget so much. And
remembering's getting more
difficult; I think it'll disappear
completely soon. No more
remembering... I’m almost no longer
human. I'm alone. Why can I still
talk?...
The fighting sounds of duelling Spidermans persist off
camera. The snoring furtively referees.
CRACKLY VOICE (CONT'D)
Tell everybody I love them, I
guess...
Spiderman!
SPIDERMAN BOY (O.C.)
CRACKLY VOICE
...yeah everybody, everybody,
everybody...
Grandpa has awoken himself with a particularly lively snore,
his face addled by sudden split from sleep. He looks over his
shoulder, out the front window just behind him, as if her
hears something, and squints.
EXT. INTERSTATE - DAY
Jonas is sleeping in the flatbed, a scintilla of drool at the
corner of his mouth. Luther drives. Their father is staring
out the window. The highway is conspicuously empty.
48.
Luther checks the clock: 3:00 PM. Cars about a half-mile
ahead keep switching over to the fast lane, but he doesn't
seem to notice. A quarter-minute later he sees something
lying in the road up ahead. He signals left to steer around
it. But as he approaches, he recognizes the inert mass as a
dead body.
Off on the shoulder of the road, two more people sit: one
rocking in place, sitting Indian style; the other one has one
leg laid out in front of her/him and is grabbing at his/her
knee.
Luther checks the rear view mirror: no-one within fifteen
seconds of him. He swings off the highway into the brown
weedy grass beyond the shoulder.
He jumps out of the car and runs towards the dead body,
dragging it away as a car comes within perilous range. The
driver slams on the horn, and her eyes meet Luther's. She
looks scared.
Luther gets the body off the road. His Dad has gotten out of
the car.
LUTHER'S DAD
Looks like a couple of retards.
Yeah.
LUTHER
The two people sitting on the shoulder are in fact middleaged men with severe mental handicaps (the one who rocks
could very well be older than fifty, a warrior of Down
Syndrome). Luther tries talking to them.
LUTHER (CONT'D)
Hey guys, do you understand what
I'm saying?
The rocker looks up at Luther and keeps on rocking. The other
man intensifies the finger-attack on his own knee. The dead
body, judging by faces structure, was victim of significant
mental-handicap as well.
LUTHER (CONT'D)
I don't know Dad. Jesus Christ.
What's this all about?
LUTHER'S DAD
Somebody stopped caring, I guess.
LUTHER
Well, we can't leave them here.
49.
LUTHER'S DAD
Let's just call the cops.
LUTHER
No way Dad, they're gonna bring us
in for questioning. We're gonna be
discriminated against. We're gonna
be thrown in fucking jail. No way!
Jonas wakes and pops his sleepy head into view.
LUTHER'S DAD
Jonas. We have a situation.
Somebody ran over this retarded
man. And these other guys were just
sitting there like that. We're
gonna have to take them somewhere.
JONAS
Why don't we just call the police.
No.
Why not?
LUTHER
JONAS
Their Dad interjects.
LUTHER'S DAD
(to Luther)
Listen. We just need to find a
large public place. We can find a
lost-and-found booth.
JONAS
What's going on?
LUTHER
Let's get these guys in the car and
get ourselves out of this hot spot.
JONAS
I'm not riding with no dead body.
LUTHER
We're not taking the body.
JONAS
You better let me have a drink. I
can't ride with these two clowns
without some whiskey.
(MORE)
50.
JONAS (cont'd)
I can't be all sick with these guys
all autistic-ing right next to me.
What if they grab on to me?
LUTHER'S DAD
Let's get them up there.
Luther and his Dad move over to the rocker and hoist him up.
He looks in horror, and tries to fight them off.
LUTHER'S DAD (CONT'D)
Christ this bastard's strong...
Jonas, we need your help.
JONAS
They're gonna shit their pants in
the back of the truck.
LUTHER'S DAD
So what. These are diaper-wearing
guys. You won't be able to smell
nothing anyways with the wind.
EXT. HIGH ALTITUDES - DAY
The Navy Woman is flying. But we don't really see her. It's
just her plane. Which suddenly loses one of its wings (from
what could be assumed to be enemy fire --from the terrestrial
below?). The plane begins to fall. And it falls hard. Smoke
and flames are coming out of the cockpit. She ejects from her
plane, and the parachute soon catches, sailing her down from
the airy heights...and down...and down...flames trickling out
of her as she falls.
INT/EXT. NATALIE'S HOUSE - NIGHT
A piano can be heard faintly: Chopin. The swimming pool
whispers its nocturne, as Gwen manages to extract some
spiritualized intimacy from the dry science of the
chlorinated basin. She stares at the still surface, submerged
to her chin. The air is quiet, but there are tiny breezes
that make the pool surface quiver. Gwen is mesmerized, tender
awe.
On one of the deck chairs is Natalie's friend, Anderson.
Anderson is sprawled out on his stomach, passed out, puke
remnants painted across his earthward cheek. A bottle of
Sauza is lying on its side, right next to Anderson's
sleeplimp hand.
Inside the house Ricky/Natalie romances the ivories, giving a
great deal of thought and care to the Chopin.
51.
Having come to the end of a concerto movement, s/he leaves
the bench and opens the sliding door to the patio, casting a
wistful gaze out into the limited light of the backyard.
Seeing Anderson and Gwen brings a tinge of happiness to
her/his otherwise depressed mug.
Gwen shivers a little, but remains fixed to her trancelike
fascinations.
INT. HOUSE - MORNING
A boy of about 14 in an adult’s bedroom: big bed, bunched up
comforte at the bed's foot, and onto the floor. The exposed
white sheet has the fresh stains of menstruation.
Boy briskly removes white sheet from mattress, bunches it up
into his backpack, runs down the stairs (because boys like to
run down stairs) and out the front door. He grabs his dirt
bike and rides off.
EXT. FRONT OF SCHOOL - CONTINUOUS
He rides his bike up to the flagpole, where he is met by a
friend/acquaintance. He drops his bike and pulls out the
sheet. They cut a couple of holes near its edge, rope it, and
raise it up the flagpole, until bloody sheet is flying at
full mast.
EXT. INTERSTATE - DAY
Luther's truck moves along. George Harrison's “What is Life”
sweeps through its last minute of choral recapitulations as
Jonas —still showing some withdrawal signs— scrutinizes the
fidgety actions of his new flatbed-mates with discomfort.
Up front, his dad stares out the window. Luther just drives.
INT. TRAIN CAR - NIGHT
Prince jolts up. The car is lightless, the moonlight-traced
silhouettes of the trackside wilderness hoard the window
views. He looks over at Janine -sleeping. LLL is up, staring
out the window.
PRINCE
I just had that dream you were
talking about.
LLL
I woke up from it too, like, five
minutes before you did. Weird.
PRINCE
Real weird.
52.
EXT. NO ALTITUDES - DAY
A tiger face. Actually, a paper plate that has been designed
as a tiger face: eyes, snout, and mouth are the main course,
ears are the side dishes. It has been made into a mask with
the help of a little bit of twine. Below it is a child's
body.
The tiger face is joined by an elephant face and a squid
face, also crowning children's bodies. The three manimals
trudge through ankle-deep water that floats through low
grasses, the runoff of a rapidly melting pile of snow.
They reach the edge of the snow pile, and step into it. They
approach the wet body of the downed Navy Woman and the
chromatic allure of her parachute (why the Navy gave her a
yellow red and white parachute is a top secret matter).
Reaching her, they look down on her shivering, unconscious
form.
INT. MALL PARKING STRUCTURE - DAY
Luther steers the pick-up up and around, up and around the
levels and rows of shopper-owned vehicles. He finds parking
on the sixth level.
He and his father get out, and go to assist their passengers
from the truck bed. Having dragged the two men down with some
degree of difficulty, Luther's dad starts to bang his palm
against the truck bed in order to rouse Jonas from sleep.
Jonas responds to the disturbance after four bangs. Forcing
himself up and slothing out of the truck, he begins to trail
the rest of the party, who are moving toward some mall
entrance doors.
INT. MALL - CONTINUOUS
Jonas stares at a poster for the Dog's Breath Bar and
Restaurant, “just off Exit 38 on Highway 12,” “featuring the
world famous Booz Hound” (depicted: a 15 foot tall dog with
beer taps coming out of its underside –taps being cranked
down by mug-toting waitstaffpersons wearing happymotherfucker
beer smiles). Jonas' mouth gapes lethargically.
He looks up to find his brother and father, but they're
nowhere in sight. He picks up his pace.
INT. MALL - CONTINUOUS
Luther's Dad drifts off from Luther and the two foundlings.
He enters X-Press.
53.
He looks around for a minute and then starts to run his
fingers over the women's clothes. He starts checking out the
young flesh of the shoppers too.
INT. MALL - CONTINUOUS
Jonas seems distracted yet again. He is staring through the
glass of a Supercuts —three male patrons get two unique bad
haircuts, and a buzzcut— with his patent slackjawed mug. A
hairstylist starts to dish out unfriendly looks.
INT. MALL - CONTINUOUS
Luther is on one knee, tying his shoe. He ties it
imperfectly, and then unties it, and then ties it imperfectly
again, and then unties it again. He tries to sneak a peak
behind him and then covertly lifts his head to see what's
going on in front of him. He returns to tying his shoe.
Then gets up and walks away. Leaving the mentally handicapped
guys behind, standing around: hopeless, nervous, hapless in
small tides of shoppers -they might never move.
Luther tries to look inconspicuous, but continues to glance
over his shoulder as he's walking. He ducks into a homeware
store, and immediately decides to leave.
He continues moving and turns around a corner, laying eyes on
one of those temporary merchant stands, which is busy with
colorful CD covers. He goes over to it and takes note of the
music he hears - cheap progressive house.
He seems to like it and picks up a CD cover to look at it.
The girl-who-is-the-clerk looks at Luther uncomfortably, when
he’s not looking. He turns around to her.
LUTHER
I like this music.
INT. MALL - CONTINUOUS
An X-Press salesperson approaches Luther's dad and forces out
a bullshit smile.
X-PRESS SALESPERSON
Can I help you with anything today,
sir?
No.
LUTHER'S DAD
54.
INT. METAL BATHROOM STALL - JERK OFF TIME
A doubly erect man violently stroking his cock bursts all
over the metal wall of the bathroom stall. Cum C–Cum Cum,
CUM!
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level IX
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
55.
INT. JEWISH MUSEUM, NEW YORK - NIGHT
Super-grainy, single-channel-video security-cam: It is after
museum hours, and Minimalist art fills the gallery with big
geometrics.
Gore Vidal begins to narrate...and the camera begins to step
on the Carl Andres, float among the skeletal Sol Lewitts and
colorful Judy Chicagos ...And, oh don't the Dan Flavin's look
so lovely with the lights dimmed?...
GORE VIDAL
1966, and there's this important
show at the Jewish Museum. “Primary
Structures.” Minimal art is
arguably canonized here.
Everybody's creative real estate
soars in value.
...And then some static front-on shots of Frank Stellas ...
GORE VIDAL (CONT'D)
And one night, while everybody's at
home, trying not to think so hard
about art, or rather the vast
majority of everybody doesn’t even
have to try not to think about
art...a Donald Judd sculpture pops
out a rapid series of 14 babies.
...And we are faced with a four-piece wallstack of Donald
Judd shelf-things, the second to the bottom of which begins
to shoot umbilical-corded babies out into the air. We don’t
see what happens to the babies, but we hear them all begin to
cry after the sculpture somehow severs the umbilical cords.
GORE VIDAL (CONT'D)
No one’s really sure what happened
to these babies. It was all
captured on video, which is weird,
because there were no security
cameras in museums then of course.
EXT. MALL PARKING COMPLEX - CONTINUOUS
Jonas and his dad move towards the car. They can make out
Luther standing a couple feet away from it.
As they get closer they see a troika of ring-tailed lemurs
sitting on top of the cab roof.
LUTHER'S DAD
What are those, monkeys?
56.
LUTHER
I think they're called ocelots or
something.
LUTHER'S DAD
We should move them.
LUTHER
What if they bite us?
LUTHER'S DAD
Animals usually just run away if
you get close enough.
He takes a couple intent steps toward the lemurs. They
scamper away, leaping from car to ceiling pipe to car to exit
signs to car... Luther, Jonas, and their Dad get back into
the truck. Luther starts the engine.
LUTHER
No, they're called lemurs. Ocelots
are some kinda cat, I think.
CUT TO:
A Tall Glass of Milk Being Poured.
CUT TO:
EXT. OUTDOOR CONCERT VENUE - NIGHT
The String Cheese Incident plays. Everybody's dancing to the
groovy improvisational riffs of their favorite String Cheese
songs...
A zebra's walking on the field grass, near the back of the
crowd. (nevermind the Zebra: we won't see it again.)
Everybody's dancing their own little dervish dance, even
though they all kind of dance the same way: baseball hats,
dreadlocks, ponytails....frat girls from liberal arts
colleges, neohippie vagabonds, local stoners: the folks who
know that jambands are the medium between the human soul and
incalculable eternity.
Hey, who's this clown on the stage with String Cheese? That
guy, who looks like an indie-rock deadbeat. The one with that
small cubical machine in hand. The one who's walking over to
the amp... ...that guy who just unplugged the guitarist. And
plugged in his small, cubical machine instead. What the fuck?
That guy who's fucking with the controls of that small
cubical machine and paying no attention to the indignation
he's provoking.
57.
Oh, it's that guy with that small, cubical machine that makes
us all shit our pants with the wave frequency it channels
through the amplifier.
Oh... Shit. Everybody's being victimized by the implacable
sound waves that loose the bowels instantly. Feces plops out
of shorts-legs and dresses, on shoes and the grass. Crawls
out of pant legs. There's shit on the stage. This is really
awful...Oh shit...
EXT. RUSTIC YARD - DAY
Under the generous shade of a tree. The Navy Woman's naked
body is covered in burns. A goat is trying to get a taste of
her charred-and-soaked pilot's gear, piled in a heap. She is
still unconscious.
A young woman applies gobs of animal fat to the burn wounds
and ties it down with white, yellow-striped athletic socks,
which come out of a transparent, Cyrillic-scrawled,
industrial plastic sack, containing a whole lot of identical
socks.
EXT. CATHEDRAL SQUARE, AVIGNON - DAY
Janine, Prince, LLL, and Tommy move around a thick crowd
that's streaming out into the enormous quadrangle that sits
below the Cathedral and Papal Palace of Avignon.
PRINCE
I guess my Mom's not that original.
Tommy takes flight above the crowd and flies into the church.
A little kid, 4 years old, gleefully chases a dog. His legs
can't keep up with his will, and he stumbles and falls hard
on the pavement, his palms catching him. He looks up with
that devastated look of horror before bawling begins. And
then bawling begins... His mother, chatting it up on a public
bench with another woman, turns her head and jumps up to
coddle her fallen boy.
Tommy lands on Janine's nose.
JANINE
Jesus Christ, Tommy!
Somebody in the Church crowd gives her a look of disapproval.
She doesn't notice.
TOMMY
It's packed.
58.
JANINE
What do you wanna do?
PRINCE
I don't know. Let's go somewhere
else and get food and wait until
mass is over.
LLL
I'm not hungry. I want to stay here
and people-watch. I'll be here when
you come back.
She goes and takes a seat against the flagstoned wall of a
centuries-old building. Prince and Janine skate away. LLL
sees them in the distance as they are stopped by an Avignon
policeman, and reprimanded for skating in the square.
EXT. ATLANTIC OCEAN - DAY
A fishing boat. Choppy sea. Fishermen speaking Portuguese.
The fishermen start to bring up a huge fishing net from a submarine sweep. There is something writhing around in it,
alive, that ain't a fish. Alarming.
A harpooning gun is shot into it. A horrible “ahhh!” of pain
is heard. They bring in the net completely. And are quick to
recognize that they have shot a woman: some naked, living,
woman who was in the middle of the Atlantic (the Navy Woman,
naturally).
They drag her out from the plethora of drowning fish. She
flaps about in pain. They wrench the harpoon from her thigh.
Blood is copiously pouring out. She screams an ungodly
scream.
EXT. TALLADEGA - DAY
The arena is empty. The grass has gone unmown. John Slone's
body rests. It has not decomposed. There are no birds or
insects ravaging it.
EXT. AVIGNON CATHEDRAL - DAY
LLL's busy looking down the inside of her T-shirt. Prince,
Janine, and Tommy walk up to her.
JANINE
What ya looking for?
LLL
Leprechauns.
59.
TOMMY
The line's gone. Mass must have
been adjourned.
PRINCE
I don't think you adjourn Mass,
Tommy.
TOMMY
I don't think you adjourn Mass,
asshole.
JANINE
Are we going in?
PRINCE
I guess. I mean, you guys can wait
here. But I promised my Ma.
LLL
I'm coming. I want to meet the
fucking Pope.
JANINE
They're not gonna let us see him.
PRINCE
I don't care, I gotta try.
They walk up the stone stairs and walk towards the enormous
door. There are statues of saints sculpted into the wall,
mouths agape in harrowing piousness. Tommy flies onto one of
them, and perches on its lip.
TOMMY
Maybe I can get a blowjob.
PRINCE
Quit it Tommy.
LLL
You don't even have a dick.
TOMMY
I have a pecker.
PRINCE
Tommy, man. That joke is so stale!
They enter the church and gawk at the immense vaulting.
Prince starts filing past rows upon rows upon rows of mostly
empty pews, walking toward the emptier altar.
60.
He shuffles down the front aisle, trying to determine where
the Pope might hide out. His crew is still way back there,
reveling in the enormity of the architectural process.
Prince looks down the arcades for some sort of sign in the
dim lighting. He sees an “exit” sign, but no “Pope” sign. He
backtracks and searches the opposite arcade.
There he sees four secretservicelike men standing in front of
a door. He shuffles over to them.
PRINCE (CONT'D)
Parlez-vous Anglais?
Yes.
GUARD 1
PRINCE
Hey, I need to see the Pope.
GUARD 1
Well that's not possible.
PRINCE
He's my cousin though. I haven't
seen him in, like, three years. He
took care of me and my mom when I
was a baby.
Guard 1 looks at Guard 3 who looks at Guard 4. Guard 4 nods
and Guard 3 clears his throat. Guard 1 speaks.
GUARD 1
What is your cousin's name?
PRINCE
You mean the Pope?
Right.
GUARD 1
PRINCE
I call him Nathan.
GUARD 2
Well, Nathan's not available right
now.
Prince drops his backpack off one arm, unzips it, and begins
rummaging through it. The Guards get tense and press their
palms to their hidden firearms. Prince pulls out a baseball.
61.
PRINCE
Here, show him this. See, he
dedicated it to me.
Guard 2 takes it and passes it to Guard 3, who opens the door
and disappears behind its close.
Prince moves away from the guards, and sticks his head out
into the nave. He whistles and Tommy comes flying. Prince
mumbles something, and Tommy flies off. Prince stares at a
17th century altarpiece for a few seconds, and then seems to
be counting the number of votive candles beneath it. He seems
to be boring himself, but who knows?
He returns to the guards. Guard 3 isn't back.
PRINCE
So are you guys from the States?
Janine and LLL (with Tommy on her backpack) arrive on this
waiting scene.
PRINCE (CONT'D)
These are my friends. They know
Nathan too.
Guard 3 returns. And whispers something into Guard 2's ear.
Guard 2 taps Guard 1 on the shoulder.
GUARD 1
Open your bags.
PRINCE
Are we cool?
GUARD 1
Yeah, open your bags.
They opens their bags.
Follow me.
GUARD 4
Guard 4 opens the door and holds it for the 3 kids. A long
corridor looms before them, lit only by a flittering two-tube
fluorescent fixture (somehow wired into the old stone) and
some illumination from a faintly visible portal on the other
side.
GUARD 2
What's with the bird?
62.
JANINE
That's Tommy. He's really smart. He
talks just like you and me.
TOMMY
I don't enjoy pooping on people.
PRINCE
God, you’re so annoying today
Tommy.
They all disappear behind the closing door.
INT. PAPAL PALACE - CONTINUOUS
P,J,&L + Tommy are shown into a room of lavish decor, where
the Pope, five of his assistants, some prelate, and some
mealtime attendants are all engaged in their engagements.
Guard 4 leaves.
The pope and his cleric pal are sitting on a cushy couch,
eyes fixed on a state of the art wide widescreen TV. They are
watching Jeopardy. Without turning his head, the Holy See about 55, swarthy- summons his guests.
THE POPE
Come over here kids.
Prince and the Gang make their way over to the couch with
some trepidation.
Hi.
THE POPE (CONT'D)
He still hasn't moved his head from the couch potato
position.
PRELATE
What is Gondwanaland.
THE POPE
What is Pangaea.
(to kids)
I hate this stupid game... Ernesto
and I are addicts.
(to the prelate)
Do you mind if we press pause for a
little while, Ernesto?
No, no.
OTHER CLERIC
The Pope presses the remote “pause” button.
63.
THE POPE
So what's going on little cousin?
PRINCE
I'm sorry about that your Holiness.
I made a promise to my Mom that I'd
see you.
THE POPE
Of course, of course....Do you want
any water, or juice, or something?
The Three all give a timid “no” shake of their heads.
THE POPE (CONT'D)
So did you come all the way across
the big pond to follow me?
They all look to Prince to be spokesperson.
Yeah.
PRINCE
THE POPE
I like this present...it's
beautiful. Who's Nathan?
PRINCE
Nathan Lane, the Broadway actor.
He's my uncle's ex-boyfriend. This
is the ball he threw out during
game 3 of the Subway Series. It's
signed by all the pitchers on both
teams.
The Pope takes some sips from a water glass.
THE POPE
You know who Ernesto is?
TOMMY
Your ex-boyfriend.
Janine, LLL, and Prince are aghast.
THE POPE
What's that, a talking bird?
TOMMY
My name's Tommy. This is Prince,
and Janine, and LLL, spelled with
three Ls and no Es.
64.
THE POPE
Tommy's doing just fine kids, you
don't have to be so stiff around
me. I'm no use when you're all
shaking in your boots.
Okay.
PRINCE
JANINE
So then, who's Ernesto?
THE POPE
He's also the Pope.
Oh.
JANINE
ERNESTO
(In a thick Sp/rench
accent)
I too am the pope.
He laughs.
THE POPE
Have you ever studied the
Babylonian Captivity?
Prince and Janine shake their heads “no”.
LLL
Who's it by?
Both popes share a hearty laugh.
PRINCE
So, can you bless me with holy
water or something, so that I could
tell my Mom that you looked after
me.
THE POPE
Holy water for what? Have a little
more faith in Christ my son. What
was your name again?
Prince.
PRINCE
65.
THE POPE
So cousin Prince... Just let your
Mother know that her boy has the
strength of Christ in him. He knew
his faith was more important than
trivial deception, he understands
his filial bonds.
Okay.
PRINCE
LLL
Can we take a picture with you?
The popes look at one another.
THE POPE
Sure, alright.
LLL hands an assistant her point and shoot. A pose. And
Voila!
THE POPE (CONT'D)
So cousin Prince... Where do you
guys go next?
PRINCE
I don’t know actually.
Prince looks back at LLL and Janine for an answer.
LLL
Maybe Paris... Is Avignon nice?
THE POPE
Avignon's no fun for kids... And
you can't catch a plane home,
right?... Well, I think you should
rest here for a little while. I'm
going to take a nap. You should
talk to Ernesto about travel plans.
He's very good with these things,
very insightful. Talk to him. Have
some food —we have a full kitchen.
He points out an assistant with a head-gesture.
THE POPE (CONT'D)
Theresa can help you with that?...
If you're hungry...
(MORE)
66.
THE POPE (CONT'D)
When I'm through napping, we'll
drive you to the train station.
Sound good?
Janine gawk nods.
Good.
THE POPE (CONT'D)
EXT. INTERSTATE - SUNDOWN
The pick-up truck is approaching a Dog's Breath Bar &
Restaurant billboard (featuring the same beer-happy staff and
the world famous Booz Hound). Jonas starts to knock furiously
on the window. His father opens the portal.
JONAS
Can we please stop there!
No.
LUTHER
JONAS
What the fuck, man?
No response.
JONAS (CONT'D)
Fuck you Luther!
LUTHER
You're not sick anymore. Doesn't it
feel nice.
JONAS
No, I like to drink!
(PAUSE)
JONAS(CONT'D)
And that's that dog with the beer
nipples!
The camera soars up to a panoramic bird's eye of intersecting
highways below. It then makes a swift, lush pan to an
imaginary, naked countryside to the southwest.
The dome of the early night blankets thin and large, spangled
with nascent star-twinkle. On the bed of the naked
countryside, a giant (like huge!) adolescent boy in boxer
shorts is lying on his back under the breastplate of the
night sky, his legs bent up at the knees. A much much smaller
bison comes charging across the naked countryside and runs
into the boy's vagina.
67.
Just then, from the boy's head sprout the Eleven Books of
Moses (white, with dark blue scrawl), which look like a
crown, of calamari, kind of.
And right about just then, a wizard descends from the sky,
looking like that cliched Merlin-type: white beard, robes,
conical hat (are his vestments star-patterned like the
sky?)...And this wizard who comes from the sky says:
WIZARD
Now you die!
Abracadabra, a wave of the wand (because the wizard has a
wand). Poof: the boy multiplies himself infinitely
westnorthwestward , until his line multiples trickle into the
mossy primordial sea. :)
INT. CADILLAC ESCALADE - NIGHT
The pope drives along. Ernesto is in the passenger seat.
Prince and Janine are in the back; LLL and Tommy in the back
back. Personal TV screens are featured with every seat.
They drive through a dark and forested area. A light of
civilization freckles the window-view every now and then.
LLL's eyes are transfixed by the “cock, pussy, saliva, and
friends” channel that the direct satellite service has
thoughtfully included in the Pope's comprehensive package.
She looks up every several seconds, her body being felt up by
the insidious specter of guilt. Prince flips absentmindedly
through the channels.
PRINCE
So what do you usually do at night?
THE POPE
Take drives like this.
PRINCE
Yeah, drives are nice.
ERNESTO
Yes, they are.
There is a long silence. Janine's eyes make a weak effort to
fend off drowsiness.
ERNESTO (CONT'D)
So, I think you should just forget
about the book while you're there.
Forget about reading the book until
you've long departed. Spend time
with reflection and spirituality...
(MORE)
68.
ERNESTO (CONT'D)
...You can create your own world
there. Everything is so true. It is
a place where everything is so
fundamentally beautiful. You can
just sit, and it all seeps in. You
just laze on world's periphery and
beauty engulfs you as if time
couldn't exist.
Okay.
PRINCE
A close-up of shaved vulva being pumped by a red, swollen
penis. Tommy is perched on LLL's left shoulder.
TOMMY
So fucking gross.
Totally.
LLL
The lights of the train station come into view.
THE POPE
This isn't the station you came by.
But it takes you where you want to
go.
(to Ernesto )
What time did you say their train
came past?
ERNESTO
In maybe twenty-five minutes.
They pull into the station and the brakes pat to a halt.
THE POPE
You guys will be okay waiting out
here alone for twenty-five minutes,
right?
PRINCE
Yeah, definitely.
THE POPE
I mean, I don’t mean to offend you,
of course. It's just that we've
still got some driving to do.
PRINCE
No, yeah, yeah, sure. Uh-huh.
LLL turns off the monitor.
69.
LLL
Thank you so very much.
PRINCE
Yeah, thanks. You've been really
generous.
THE POPE
Yes, yes, of course.
LLL taps Janine on the shoulder to wake her.
What?
JANINE
She looks around.
JANINE (CONT'D)
Oh shit. We're he-A sudden horror sweeps all the torpor from her face.
JANINE (CONT'D)
Oh, I'm, I'm, so sorry, your
holiness. It's just, you kn-THE POPE
Yes, yes, I know. You are forgiven,
my child.
LLL and Prince start prodding Janine to get out of the car.
She opens the door...
LLL
Where are you off to now?
Us?
ERNESTO
(turning around)
LLL nods...
ERNESTO (CONT'D)
A little drive into the wilderness,
perhaps.
...and gets out. Prince, LLL, and Tommy do the same.
The Pope pops the trunk; backpacks and skateboards are
collected. Janine comes back around to close her backseat
door.
70.
JANINE
Yeah, so, thank you so, so much.
You've been really wonderful.
ERNESTO
Of course, of course.
PRINCE
Thanks again.
Thank you.
Thanks.
LLL
JANINE
They shut the door. The Escalade drives off.
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level XIII
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
71.
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
EXT. NEW YORK CITY STREETS, SOHO - DAY
Catholic school kids, dressed in their navy & light-blue
uniforms, crowd into a bakery, each buying a baguette. There
aren't enough baguettes to accommodate the ludicrous demand there must be 60 or 70 students.
BAKERY CLERK
No more. No more. We sold out.
The mass of kids who haven't made it to the counter yet lets
out a collective moan of discontent. They talk among
themselves. One voice rises above the group din.
Hey!
STUDENT A
Nobody pays attention.
Hey...hey!
STUDENT A (CONT'D)
The clamor begins to dissipate.
STUDENT A (CONT'D)
Let's go to that Italian bakery
around the corner.
A boom of assent rises up and all the kids rumble out of the
bakery and down the street. Around a corner and into a
bakery.
The kids who’ve already acquired baguettes follow behind and
linger around a street corner, some getting in the way of
traffic.
EXT. NEW YORK CITY STREETS - CONTINUOUS
The mob of baguette/Italianbread-bearers fly down the street.
They cross Houston, and head up MacDougal.
As they reach the Bleecker intersection, they begin to attack
the sidewalk cafe diners with baguette-blows to the head.
72.
The victims are horrified, some enraged. One particularly
adult looking schoolkid gets punched in the face by a big
Texan tourist; blood streams down from his nose.
Other diners start retaliating with their own food. The
legion of school rogues has managed to extend itself in
pocketed groups over the entire block from Bleecker to 3rd.
Food is flying everywhere, and people are indiscriminately
getting pegged with burritos, falafel balls... somebody gets
a bowl of pasta dumped on her head -the pasta's still really
hot.
Ahhhh!
PASTA VICTIM
Seconds later, people are pouring out into the streets. This
food fight is gonna be epic.
People are breaking behind the counters of the restaurants
and raiding the kitchens. For the schoolkids, half-baguettes,
even quarterbaguettes, work as great clubs too. It’s
pandemonium.
Four unlucky drivers have to stop their cars in the middle of
the road. Windshield wipers try to degrime the windshields,
which are bombarded with new food every 15 seconds or so.
A violent man, whose second-rate suit is covered in a red
sauce of some kind, is bashing his assailant's head into a
tree.
A kid is being pulled by the hair down the street by a
particularly furious restaurant worker. Some school mates
come to the rescue, hucking handfuls of rice and refried
beans from buckets they’ve co-opted.
Cop sirens are heard, but no police car's gonna get through.
And when the foot-cops finally make it into the thick of
everything, they get nailed too: a meatball in the eye...One
schoolkid baguettes a cop in the nuts; the cop's partner
throws the kid hard against the side of a building. In the
middle of it all, a college-aged couple is making out
intensely, hands latched on to each other's heads, as if
intent on crushing melons between the grip of their palms.
As a camera cranes (or something), the mob scene has expanded
into the distance, up towards Washington Square. On 3rd
Street, halfway between 6th Ave. and MacDougal, a BMW SUV
—tinted windows, propped up on big big tires— gets smacked
with one calzone, then another, then another. The tinted
passenger side window creeps down. But the irate face ready
to bitch out the calzone-chuckers almost immediately breaks
into laughter -it’s Raekwon.
73.
RAEKWON
(to his BMW companion)
Yo, nigga , this is out of control,
dude.
He can't stop laughing.
A third-story trio begins to piss off their fire escape, down
onto the crowd. We lose track of the incidents as the street
keeps up the teeming chaos. People are walking on the cars,
which won't be moving anytime soon. Footsteps resound on the
BMW roof. Raekwon is on the phone, trying to translate the
scene in words.
RAPID ZOOM UP:
We are high above the Northeast U.S., looking down at the map
of New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern Connecticut, Long
Island, and New Jersey. A shoddy animated rendering of an
“electronic cell phone signal” makes a chintzy “electronic
cell phone signal sound”...
QUICK CUT TO:
INT. TRAIN - DAY
Coach carriage. Three pairs of headphones. Nobody else in the
cabin. Bodies sprawled out. Janine's looking out at the
pastoral passings by.
CUT BACK TO:
...the map: cell-phone pulses trace and re-trace the
conversation that's going on between Raekwon's car and
someplace in Western Jersey. Words scroll across the high
altitude map: “Meanwhile, at the Wu Mansion...”
RAPID ZOOM DOWN:
INT. WU LIBRARY - DAY
We camera-dive into a stained-glass window of the Wu-library.
The stained glass is custom made: designs of Fanged Zebras in
a centuries-old Persian style, with Arabic writings scrawled
in between the images.
The walls are covered in books. One wall is made up entirely
of large leather-bound tomes. Another is made of children's
picture books. A third is a mess of paperbacks, piled every
which way. The fourth we don't see.
There’s a long wooden table with enormous, varied, exotic
armchairs at its sides.
74.
Sitting on the edge of one of these is Ricky/Natalie, making
her/his way through a volume about ancient wars. S/he goes to
the illustration index of another book and flips her way to a
page of Hannibal crossing the Alps on elephants, and then
returns to the first book which appears to be strictly text.
Some faint rumble seeps through the room. Ricky/Natalie looks
up for a moment, and then returns to his/her reading. The
door opens and a ten year old girl barges in.
GIRL
My Dad's just made some crazy
dragon thing. You gotta come and
see.
Okay.
RICKY/NATALIE
Ricky/Natalie follows the girl out of the library and down a
wide, barely lit hallway, lined in mahogany furniture and
Persian rugs. They pass the pet wallaby... ...and enter a
living room which features a 81” plasma TV screen, on which a
Gran Turismo is being played. The 4 players -three boys, ages
6-11, and a woman (early twenties) sit or lie on a red supershag carpet.
GIRL
Come out and see my Dad's dragon!
VIDEO GAME BOY #1
Yo, this race is tight, we'll be
there in a minute.
Ricky/Natalie and the girl move out onto the adjacent
balcony, where stand a couple of 20-something women, U-God
and a 9 year-old boy who's wearing a light-weight, flowing
dress and a panama hat, a beebie rifle strapped around his
back.
GIRL
Why you wearing those girl clothes
again?
(to Ricky/Natalie)
He says he's going to be a new
Shakespeare.
BOY IN THE DRESS
These are God's gift to me. My soul
is a part of these clothes. They
make the poet's word divine!
A strange squawk ripples through the air, and a lizard about
the size of a cocker spaniel comes flying through the air. It
flaps its wings and flies over the roof and out of sight.
75.
The women have a good laugh at something, and U-God looks off
silently, puffing at a tobacco pipe.
GIRL
(to Ricky/Natalie)
My dad says he made it without
sharp teeth. It eats iguana food.
The video game contingent comes out.
VIDEO GAME BOY #3
Where is it?
U-GOD
(making an upward motion
with his chin)
It flew that way.
VIDEO GAME BOY #3
How big was it?
The boy in the dress pulls Ricky/Natalie's ponytail.
Ricky/Natalie turns around.
BOY IN THE DRESS
When are you gonna introduce me to
Gwen? I want to make love to her.
RICKY/NATALIE
She's spending some time with her
boyfriend.
BOY IN THE DRESS
I'll kill him.
The balcony has a diving board that springs over its edge; a
huge W-logoed trampoline-type inflatable thing lies twenty
feet below. The woman who was playing the video game before
takes the plunge. She lands on her back and soars 12 feet in
the air, turning a somersault as she goes up.
About half a mile away looms the beginnings of a colossal
cylindrical tower. Cranes peek over the pockets of wooded
area that separate the construction site from the Wu Mansion.
A group of deer dart across the lawn, sending the dozen or so
bright red, gold, baby blue, mint green, and other colored
rabbits that speckle the lawn, scurrying every which way. We
follow the deer as they bolt along under the canopies of nottoo-concentrated trees, and veer offscreen.
76.
We encounter the mindblowing tower-to-be, the camera swooping
up and passing through an elevated portal -some 50 feet off
the ground- and swooping down to meet The RZA, who is
speaking with three “suits.”
RZA
So this Tower
bring us back
harmonies, or
the Tower was
of Babel will either
to prelapsarian
it will prove that
the beginning.
Above him, are crossbeams and bricks, and many holes, where
bursts of daylight punch through. A small army of workers
busies itself amid the clangs of construction.
EXT. MÉSÉGLISE WAY - DAY
A dirt road. The sun is hot, there are flowers and weeds
everywhere. Janine's eyes are overflowing with allergies.
JANINE
It's like having needles in your
face.
J/L/P sloth through the heat.
PRINCE
Yo, J, can we sit down for just a
minute. I need a couple minute
break, that's all.
JANINE
(distracted by her
histamine hell)
Yeah, yeah.
Diurnal cicadas can pump out their robust drone. Prince drops
his ass on the side of the road. LLL joins him. Janine paces
around, agitated.
PRINCE
Yo J, go climb that tree over there
so you can get higher than the
pollen.
JANINE
That’s a stupid idea... Why'd we
listen to that jerk in the first
place. There's nothing here. It's
hot and empty.
77.
LLL
You ever notice how these insects
play whatever song you want them
to?
PRINCE
Whaddya mean?
LLL
Like you get a song in your head,
and they're always going to be
playing that song in your head.
PRINCE
What song's in your head?
JANINE
I want to scratch my fucking face
off!
PRINCE
Chill out dude, please! We're
going, we're going.
LLL
Nelly songs.
She laughs.
PRINCE
See Janine, all that Nelly you've
been playing out of your headphones
is infiltrating our psychology.
That's not right.
JANINE
Why do you always have to rag on
Nelly? Just cuz he does his own hiphop thing, doesn't mean he sucks.
Prince gets up and offers a hand to LLL, who accepts. They
get going.
LLL
He sucks. I mean he's hot, but his
songs are mad dumb.
JANINE
(allergy frazzled, almost
mumbling)
Yo, there's somebody walking
towards us... Maybe it's some
French psycho. Buries bodies in
these fields... Where's Tommy?
78.
PRINCE
He's off looking for worms and
shit... It's just some chick with a
parasol.
They keep on walking...
LLL
(in a sort of whisper)
Oh shit!
...and soon run into Natalie Portman, the chick with the
parasol. Prince nods a cool-but-nervous hello.
Hey.
Hi.
LLL
NATALIE
JANINE
Do you have any Claritin or
something?
NATALIE
No. I don't have allergies...
There's a film set like a mile down
the way. They might have
medication?
Janine lets out rapid series of five furious sneezes. “Bless
yous” here and there and here again.
NATALIE (CONT'D)
What are you guys doing here? Are
you Proust fanatics or something?
PRINCE
No, some gay pope told us that we
'just had to come here!' But I
can't say I'm happy with his
advice.
JANINE
What are you doing here? Left the
country too?
NATALIE
No, I'm on a shoot here. Just
taking a walk. 'Trying to get into
character,' as they say.
LLL
Which character?
79.
Tommy flies in and drops a slug on LLL's shoulder.
Ewww! What the fuck Tommy!
TOMMY
It's just some...what do the French
call it...snails?
LLL
Es car fucking go. Now get your
gross food off of me.
TOMMY
I don't want it to get all parched
on the road there.
Too bad.
LLL
She knocks Tommy and his lunch off.
Bitch.
TOMMY
LLL
Its goo is all over me.
TOMMY
Ask Proust about snail trails.
NATALIE
Wow. That's a smart bird.
TOMMY
(too busy pecking away to
look up)
I'm Tommy.
NATALIE
Hi, I'm Natalie.
Amicable handshakes are administered: “Prince” “Janine” “LLL”
say what's in the quotes.
EXT. CRAFT SERVICES TABLE - LATER
The film crew is nowhere to be found. The craft services crew
is cleaning up. Prince, LLL, and Janine sit at a table with
once-fooded paper plates.
80.
LLL
No, I am allowed to hate her!
That's what makes the world go
round!
INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE WAITING ROOM - DAY
Two seated women fill the frame. Fluorescent lighting
particles hit the drab wallpaper.
On our left is a plump squat Salvadorean women of about 60,
speaking in Spanish to some offscreen companion: she is
wearing a skirt and unfashionable “comfort sandals,” which
leave room for her home-pedicured burgundy toenails to
exhibit themselves through the constricting flaps of
“designer?” elastic.
SUBTITLE: (the) Fish
On our right is a plump Ukrainian lady, of about 60, speaking
Ukrainian to some offscreen companion, wearing a skirt and
“comfort sandals,” which do the same thing to her fattened
feet, the only difference being, her home pedicure choice was
magenta nail polish.
INT. QUAKER MEETING HOUSE - NIGHT
It's getting toward the end of the Seventeenth Century, and
life in the American colonies is Protestant. People are
talking among themselves —probably with British accents.
The door bolts open, as if a fierce wind attacked it. But
there is no sound of wind. Everybody stares at the open door,
and a series of awful expressions rises to their faces, as a
series of subtle defecation sounds makes its way around the
room.
CUT TO:
The screaming angels from Giotto's Lamentation
CUT TO:
INT. FISHING BOAT - DAY
The Navy Woman —in a motley mix of oversize, rag-tag
fisherman's scrubs, leg in a heavily bandaged state— is
piggybacked along by one of the Brazilian fishermen, who
crooks his head up to smile at her. She meets his enthusiasm
with an infatuational peck on the lips.
81.
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level XVI
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
EXT. CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY CELEBRITY CENTER, L.A. - DAY
Four or five or six shaved-headed Chicano gangbangers are
busy on their knees, cutting into about 10 watermelons with
large knives.
82.
They slice sloppy geometries and tear out chunks of red fruitmeat with their hands, trying to make as much of a mess as
they can under the rules and techniques of this cryptic
operation.
INT. TRAIN - DAY
LLL is in the corridor, her head out the window. Janine is in
the cabin behind her, all alone, her pinky finger working at
the barricade of boogers encrusting her nostrils.
EXT. RUSTIC YARD - DAY
The Navy Woman's eyes flit about in their orbits, a shroud of
socks and fly-attracting animal lard surrounding them.
Bzzbzzbzz /the putrefaction of adipose matter under direct
sun.
In the background, the incessant metallic shree of a table
saw. Where the fuck is she? A goat bleat can be sorta
discerned below the industrial-strength decibels.
The Navy Woman shoots two hopeful stars from her eyes. They
climb, arching toward the zenith of the sky... The French
horns of the Tri-Star theme are heard...
CUT TO:
The Tri-Star intro, as the Pegasus comes charging through the
clouds...And as the music rises to its cutting orchestral
climax...
CUT TO:
EXT. WU-GROUNDS - DAY
...Ricky/Natalie’s eyes have a glimmer of something. Beyond
his/her eyes, his/hers body is aswim in layers and layers of
chain mail, to the point of almost looking like a blob. S/he
is sitting reading a big book on the Khans.
The ten year-old girl from before —sitting indian style next
to Ricky /Natalie— is volleying a small piece of quartz
between two ping pong paddles. Another girl (maybe a year or
two older) is busy digging up rocks next to her (must be
where the quartz came from).
A squad of three ATVs rolls across the frame. Everybody on
them is in some form of antique armor.
A gunshot is heard and...a musketball rolls off of Ricky
/Natalie’s mail. S/he looks up and gives a quizzical, kindof-melancholic, tacit response.
83.
EXT. GAS STATION - DAY
Luther's Dad is shooting insulin into his arm. Luther is
somewhere around (bathroom, cashier counter, we're not sure).
Jonas is sitting with his head between his knees. He squints
up at the sky for a moment, and then drops his head again,
his face torn with displeasure. Dad busies himself, putting
diabetic paraphernalia back into its little carrying kit.
INT. ANONYMOUS ROOM, AMSTERDAM - NIGHT (ALTHOUGH THE SUN’S
STILL NOT DOWN)
The room is smoky. Prince, Janine, and LLL pass around a
glass pipe filled with dank Amsterdam weed. The thick-packed
bud crackles in sweet ticks of a good-high-to-come as the
lighter's flames are swallowed into pulmonary pull.
Dumb, puffy-eyed expressions, still infatuated by the notion
that here they are doing legal drugs! Prince finishes a hit
and hands off the pipe to LLL, before he starts coughing
uncontrollably. LLL takes a hit....and so on.
INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT (THE SUN IS NOW DOWN, I THINK)
The white tile is washed with the murk of 40-watts,
contrasted against the night outside the sizeable window.
LLL stares off, a look of horror on her face. Her eyes are
all puffy and stoned. Her body rocks a little here, and
fidgets a little there, in impulsive fits of big discomfort.
She starts to blink rapidly. She squeaks out a little noise
of frustration, but bites it away.
She has a razor blade in hand and brings it to the flesh on
the left side of her torso, just beneath the bra she's
wearing. She begins to drag open incisions. Blood starts to
pour down her side, seeping into her white underpants. Her
eyes haven't lost that look of horror. No tears.
She pants, trying to catch some breath of ease —to no avail.
She squeaks out another noise. And looks down to get a view
of the blood mess smearing her skin. The razor rests in the
open palm of her limp hand. She looks at the camera:
LLL
Why are you watching me?! Turn the
fucking camera off, retards!
EXT. ANTARCTICA - DAY
Dozens of male emperor penguins, tending to the eggs of their
absent mates, gather in a heat-generating unit of concentric
circles.
84.
EXT. 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE - NIGHT
The White House looms in the dark. There are many yardlengths
of artless graffiti peeking through a weak buff applied to
the face of the West Wing. A second floor window has been
broken. But all in all, little damage has been done.
There is a fair amount of litter on the grounds, and the
grass is a tad unruly; there is no sign of a resident
homeless population.
Luther, Jonas, and their dad are sitting pretty close to one
another, not saying much. Their dad gets himself to his feet
and looks up at the abandoned building.
Okay.
LUTHER'S DAD
Luther and Jonas get on their feet. Their dad begins a Lakota
chant, and they soon begin to dance, and chant along. Their
feet softly thump the ground, invoking a special resonant
rhythm.
They pick up pace, and then slacken pace once more. They move
in and out of a circle, chanting. This goes on for some time.
INT. HOUSE - MORNING
The Navy Woman who used to swim under the sea is sitting up
in bed. She pulls the t-shirt she wears, up, up, up over her
head, and drops it on the floor (PG-13: she's wearing a bra).
She stares at her belly, soft-lit by the daylight that
illumines the electricity-off room. Her belly is a pregnant
belly —7 months or so. It sits in the light: protuberant,
round, large, softly aglow in the light.
EXT. AMSTERDAM STREET - DAY
Prince is in heavy snooze on a public bench, head flopped
down just above his shoulder, mouth open, snoring a little.
People walk by infrequently.
Above on some telephone wires, Tommy is busy having sex with
a local sparrow. Prince wakes up, and wipes some spittle from
his sleep-dopey cheek. He mumbles something to himself in
mumble-speak.
INT. HOSTEL ROOM, AMSTERDAM - DAY
Prince walks through the door. LLL and Janine are on the bed
putting on dark red nail polish.
85.
PRINCE
It stinks in here.
The girls don't respond.
PRINCE (CONT'D)
I hate that smell.
LLL
So go outside for five minutes.
Prince seats himself on the other bed in the room.
PRINCE
Yo, I had that dream again.
LLL
What's that, 5 now?
Prince pinches his nostrils shut, shrugs, and talks all
nasally.
PRINCE
What are you guys getting all
cosmetic for?
JANINE
We're going to some flapper night
at a some club tonight. So we're
getting all flappery.
PRINCE
What am I gonna do then?
JANINE
You can paint your nails too.
Hell no!
PRINCE
JANINE
No, you just have to go find
yourself a nice suit, look all
1920's, you know.
PRINCE
I don't know, we'll see...That's
gotta be some money.
Tommy flies in through the window.
PRINCE (CONT'D)
How are the Dutch birds?
86.
Good time.
TOMMY
LLL
Is bird sex fun?
TOMMY
It's fun for birds.
LLL
Do you ever have sexual feelings
for people?
TOMMY
Even if I did, what could I do?
...Hey Janine, open up your legs so
I can fly in and out of you.
JANINE
You're a fucking pig Tommy.
CUT TO:
VOID. VOID - VOID
The plastic hominid figurine falls through a black void. It
looks kinda like the sewers under Six Flags Magic Mountain
lead to infinity.
CUT TO:
INT. AMSTERDAM CLUB - NIGHT
LLL —Tommy's little talons digging into the bare skin of her
left breast— Prince, and Janine follow a dimlit hallway up to
some metal doors, which lead into a massive dance floor area.
Electroclashy music is pumping, Le Tigre vocals ping through
the air. The room is filled to about half capacity and is
speckled with flapperish girls.
LLL and Janine are wearing snoods, and sexy dresses that
somehow mean to echo the 1920s style, and are somehowish
effective. Prince —still in his big jeans and t-shirt— fits
in pretty well: few guys in the room seem to be up to the
theme anyway.
Prince looks a little wary. He tries to say something to
Janine, but she can't hear him over the sound. He tries
again, moving right up to her ear.
PRINCE
Yo, I didn't know it was gonna be
this kind of music!
87.
JANINE
Do you mean why the fuck did you
bitches drag me here?
What?
PRINCE
LLL hurries out onto the dance floor and begins to go wild.
Tommy hasn't yet left her breast, but the momentum of her
dancing body soon flings him off. He frantically tries to
gain flight, his flapping carrying him right into some other
girl's face. She screams and he gets himself to some nook by
the ceiling.
Janine joins LLL in heavy dance mode. Prince slouches on a
balustrade that overlooks the dance floor, a half-flight
below.
New Order's “Age of Consent” ambles its way into the dancemembrane. Janine and LLL are getting really into things.
Prince tries to move his head to the beat a little bit. The
song almost intoxicates the room...
EXT. NATURE - DAY
The snakefish crawls out of a river.
INT. AMSTERDAM CLUB - NIGHT
Prince tries to push his way through the dance crowd,
attempting to reach Janine and LLL. He stops in his tracks to
watch a group of five guys who dance as if they're DanceDance-Revolution addicts. He finally makes it.
PRINCE
Yo, this pill isn't working.
What?!
LLL
PRINCE
This pill isn't working!
LLL
Give it some time.
PRINCE
Where's Tommy?
What?!
LLL
JANINE
He's probably up there somewhere.
88.
Prince can't seem to rid a certain scowl from his face.
JANINE (CONT'D)
Why don't you just try dancing.
Prince gives her a fractious, dismissive look.
JANINE (CONT'D)
Just try you asshole. The movement
helps the drugs kick in.
Prince's face changes hue to apologetic embarrassment. He
tries to get into the groove of things.
LLL is going wild and some guy is trying to work her. Some
future dance anthem starts spinning. LLL gets super into it,
and her 'some guy' gets all diffident because he can't keep
up with her. He disappears.
Prince is throwing his body around, starting to understand
the music. His eyes suddenly fixate on Janine.
What?!
Huh?!
JANINE (CONT'D)
PRINCE
JANINE
What are you staring at?
PRINCE
I don't know...
Janine tries to laugh away some of her unexpected pudency.
Prince's eyes are coated in a concoction of lasciviousness
and real pure affection.
PRINCE (CONT'D)
I didn't know girls in dresses
could be so sexy.
EXT. 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE - DAY
The White House is gone. There’s just grass now: no sign of
foundation even; healthy grass only. There’s still some
litter though.
EXT. URBAN STREET - DAY
A yellow Lamborghini at a stoplight. Two lanes of eight or
nine cars waiting for the green.
89.
The man inside and his six year old daughter: she keeps
shifting the gear shift into second; dad admonishes three
times for three separate shift attempts. Matchbox 20 over the
stereo.
The daughter casts a furtive glance at lip-synching Dad;
shifts again.
DAD
Cupcake, you’ve really got to stop
doing that.
The girl grins wide. She reaches out her hand.
Cupcake!
DAD
Her smile disappears. For a second or three. She looks back
into Dad’s eyes for the daddy’s little girl treatment. A
piece of a soft pretzel hits the girl’s head. Her eyes lose
all their coquetry.
Ow!
GIRL
Her Dad locates the pretzel provenance on the sidewalk: a
group of three 11/12 yr-old boys. One boy slaps another boy
on the side of the head. There is a big boom on the car roof.
DAD
What the fuck?!!
The sidewalk boys look up flabbergasted at the Lamborghini
roof. Some horns start to honk. [We still have no idea what
is going on.]
Dad and girl watch three golf clubs fly through the air, each
one knocking one of the boys in the skull, splitting the
skulls open.
A couple of seconds later, the boys lie dead on the sidewalk.
We can see this, although it is partly obscured by a post
office dropbox.
The cameras switch: We are now on the top of the roof. The
camera soon reveals that the golfclub-hucking-roofpersonthing is Aaliyah, doing some reincarnation vigilante bit.
She’s in fashionable three-quarter-length grey sweat pants,
and a wife beater; she’s wearing a really nice Nike running
shoe on her left foot. She has no sign of an aura around her
even though she does. She watches the dead kids with
consummate calm.
90.
AALIYAH
No, I’m just kidding.
The kids get up (their heads no longer wounded and bloodied).
Cool.
Yeh.
BOY 1
BOY 3
Aaliyah laughs a kind laugh.
INT. AMSTERDAM SUBWAY - NIGHT
The car is mostly empty. Janine and Prince are super into
making out. LLL and Tommy try to ignore this encroachment of
lust by watching a four-year-old boy (why's he still awake?)
stare out the window at the black that is the underground.
The boy's mother is snoozing a couple of seats away.
Turning their attention back to the passion on their left,
they can't help laughing, and quickly try to swallow it.
LLL
(in one of those Kate
Hepburn-type voices)
Thomas, dahling , be so kind and
tell me one of your mahvellous
stories.
LLL holds Tommy in her hand and begins to stroke his feathers
softly.
TOMMY
The Wine of the Ancient Submariner.
Hymn Six, Stanzas 3 thru 7...The
lesion on her neck was little more
than a weeze sent by the snow god
thing to court her restless spirit.
She turned blush —the color of
captive rain too listless to
remember its torrents and
raingenitals.
(MORE)
91.
TOMMY (cont'd)
But the over-clock had done to seed
the moment infinitely, and her
crest, her crown —of purchase, of
defiance— held her tensely,
splendidly, as she smelled the film
of the oncoming perfect lover,
who'd be immobile in this
peremptorily cheap eternity, this
tenuous gout that permitted the
chance only to be a teardrop bereft
of love, unable to grasp the ardor
that wears on entrails while they
sustain life within. Do you
remember the way we were? This new,
awful eternity evinced the
beautiful assurance of No. Ah,
yes...
LLL
Now we kiss.
LLL leans into the kiss, Tommy flapping and flapping at her
cheeks, his little beak resting on the friendly romance of
her loosely puckered lips.
This stops and LLL smiles. We don't know if Tommy smiles
because he's a bird. 20 seconds pass. LLL begins singing “My
Rifle, My Pony, and Me” (the Dean Martin part, not the Ricky
Nelson part).
INT. ROOM WITH TABLE - NIGHT
Rupert Murdoch sits at a table, dining on a bowl of sesamesauced vermicelli. He has a magazine in hand. His tie's
undone, and his top two shirt buttons are undone as well. His
shoes and socks are off. On the table, to his left, is a
potted aloe plant in 10-inch tall plant pot.
On the table, to his right, is the sheet music to Bach's
French Suites —an etching of the big J.S. himself adorning
the cover. The sheet music is propped up against an obscured
something that might be a peppermill (judging by the way the
paper bends).
Rupert coughs and forks a noodleload into his mouth. He chews
and reads the magazine. He forks up some more noodles and
tosses them to his right. Bach's mouth opens up and eats the
noodles.
Rupert then tosses a forkfull to the plant pot. The plant pot
has some alimentary orifice on its surface and it opens it to
mange on some noodle.
92.
EXT. STREETS OF AMSTERDAM - NIGHT
The Italian-accented guy from the gulch is vigilantly
watching rats scurry about for spoils. It’s the wee morning
hours. No one's around. A light rain must have fallen,
because the ground's kinda wet.
Tommy flies around the corner, looking back the way he came,
trying to hover, singing some Khia.
TOMMY
My neck, my back...
LLL follows him into view.
LLL
...My pussy and my crack.
They laugh together and start walking toward the Italianaccented guy and his rats, unaware that their laughter now
has an audience.
The rats rapidly flee in fright from the rambunctious hiphop
renditioning. LLL and Tommy pause to share some hysterical
laughter (the keeling over kind). LLL has to stop and catch
her breath.
She looks up, hands on her knees, with tear-stained face and
sees il signore. She tries to compose herself.
Oh shit...
LLL (CONT'D)
She tries to catch her breath. She does, and darts upright in
a military salute.
LLL (CONT'D)
How you been, soldier?
He tries to take in the scene with nonchalance, but you can
tell he's not entirely socially comfortable. He makes some
“not-too-bad” response with his face.
You?
ITALIANDUDE
LLL
Allright, sir, allright.
There is a pause. A bit drawn out. LLL gets uncomfortable.
LLL (CONT'D)
You remember Tommy, right?
93.
ITALIANDUDE
Yeah, sure.
(to Tommy)
Hi.
Tommy chirps.
LLL
What are you doing up here, away
from that beach chair?
ITALIANDUDE
I’m waiting for an airplane to
Scotland. I have an 8-hour what is
it called...when the you are in
between planes?
Layover.
Yes.
TOMMY
ITALIANDUDE
Tommy serenades LLL's ear with some more Khia:
TOMMY
(softly)
Make sure you keep bustin' nuts
nigga, all over my face and stuff.
She breaks out in laughter.
Italain dude forces a smile.
ITALIANDUDE
Are you on something?
LLL
No...it's...
She breaks out laughing again.
LLL (CONT'D)
...Our friends, remember them, that
guy and girl...it's just that
they're hooking up all of a sudden,
right now in our hostel room...
...You know how you get all grossed
out when you actually see your
friends doing their sex thing?
...We've gotta make jokes, you
know, so we don't get pissed off
about losing sleep.
94.
She wipes the tears from her eyes. Tommy takes flight,
announces his departure:
TOMMY
I'll be back.
LLL
Where are you going?
TOMMY
Off into the breast of the night.
But with the “r” in parentheses.
LLL
Yeah, okay dude. Come back soon.
Don’t fly up Khia's crack.
TOMMY
I'm going to find that “Whoops,
there goes my head up over my head
girl.”
Tommy flies off.
ITALIANDUDE
You look like this girl.
LLL starts laughing hysterically.
He becomes a bit uneasy, and LLL recognizes this, and a bit
of turmoil swipes over her face. She jumps toward him and
puts her hand out to his chest to stop his subtle retreatmotion. She stares into his eyes, and smiles, and quickly
unsmiles, and stares into his eyes again. He tries to match
her gaze.
She leans in to kiss him. He is quick to acquiesce to this.
They start to make out. They get more into it —the carnal
umph is doing its umph. LLL pulls him in for intenser lip
mashing. He presses his hands against her breasts and then
slides his hands down to her sides. She recoils. And looses
her lips from his, pain on her face.
He exudes the horror of some unclarified guilt. LLL sees this
in his expression.
LLL
No, no. It's not you, dude. I'm
just...Be careful, when you touch
me there...
She smiles and jumps back into kissing him. And backs up into
a wall to facilitate their suctionability. Her hand rubs his
pantsed-over package.
95.
LLL (CONT'D)
(in a hackneyed British
accent)
Well done, old man.
He laughs a close-mouthed laugh and moves in to liplock
again. The heat rises. He touches her sides again and she
recoils.
ITALIANDUDE
Oh, shit...I’m very, very sorry...
LLL
No, don't be... Look...
She timidly hikes up her dress and shows him the cut wounds.
See?
Oh.
LLL (CONT'D)
ITALIANDUDE
LLL
Don't be weirded out. These are
what I do to myself sometimes...
It's like me proving to myself that
I'm alive, you know?
Yeah.
ITALIANDUDE
LLL
Look, don't be weirded out. Um, the
deeper the pain, the more I know I
live... Okay, I smoked too much pot
the other night, and it made me all
malaisey ...I'm not a pot person.
She laughs.
ITALIANDUDE
This doesn't seem to be about selfpower. Maybe you just have selfesteem problems.
LLL
Oh give me a break! What's the
fucking difference... Listen, it's
kind of like an eating disorder,
maybe. You know, being in control
of your body and your life. No
variables. I don't want to die
miserable, right?
96.
ITALIANDUDE
It's not healthy so much.
LLL
Yeah, but it’s better than being
stuck...Ask me something else?
ITALIANDUDE
Umm...I don’t know. Do I remind you
of anyone you know in New York?
LLL plays around with the wounds, and stops to laugh. She
lets her dress fall back down and moves in to make out some
more.
EXT. AMSTERDAM, NORTH SEA CANAL - NIGHT
LLL jumps into the water...resurfaces...then starts to float
downstream...on her back...doing the side stroke...back on
her back...just treading water...she moves on down...
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. NORTH SEA INLET - NIGHT
...LLL moves past boats at dock and boats moving. The sky
begins to break out in the first hints of day. Tommy comes
flying down and lands on her head.
TOMMY
What's going on?
LLL
(casually)
I'm just drifting out to sea.
Well....
TOMMY
LLL
Just take my bags whereever you go.
I'll call Prince on his cellphone,
okay.
Alright.
TOMMY
EXT. THE OPEN SEA - JUST BEFORE DAWN
LLL makes her way through the sea waves adeptly, kind of like
an otter.
97.
INT. HOSTEL ROOM - MORNING
Prince sits up after a sudden wrest from sleep, face in
shadow. The morning light obliquely cuts across the room,
buttering his disheveled hair as he scratches his head with a
quick rigor.
He looks next to him a second later, and sees Janine asleep,
the sheets leaving one breast uncovered. His face seems like
it could be nerve-panged. He looks away from her.
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
TITLE CARD
(the) Fish: Level XIX/XX
TITLE CARD
Sometime between 2002 and early 2004 A.D.
BLACK
It is black. It is silent. And then after a trickle of
seconds...the meringue of piano keys that begins the Rolling
Stones' “She's Like a Rainbow”.
Keys chime along, then bassoon flutters, then tambourine
tambourines. And then the cheery boister of horns, and a
still image of the Old Etruscan statue of the She-wolf, with
the infant Romulus and Remus beneath her teats. “...She combs
her hair/She's like a Raaayynnbowhh ...”
The She-wolf strobes in and out of black as the song songs...
“...Have you seen her dressed in Blue?...” The strobe
rollicks on. And then stops.
98.
A quote appears over the newly restored black, as the song
continues: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the
evolution of the vegetarian diet.” -Einstein
CUT TO:
EXT. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - DAY
It’s raining. At the mouth of a river, a huge 1940s yacht
motors into a lake that stretches far beyond human sight. The
rainy-weather waves give the modest-sized boat a rough and
tumble greeting.
On board, an unusually large amount of passengers come
flocking out of the boat’s inner chambers, fighting for prime
spectator real estate by the railing's edge.
Some of the people are carrying umbrellas. Others wear
waterproofish coats. But at least half are just out there
fighting off the damp cold, sort-of-eager to be participating
in something, sort-of-not.
Onboarders are wearing all types of 'very interesting'
outfits that somehow mix high fashion motifs with a bit of
bad taste —there are exceptions to that rule; and a great
many further exceptions who wear 'normal, everyday,
streetclothes.' The decks are mobbed. Somebody goes
overboard.
MR. OVERBOARD
Shit! I can't swim!
MS. STILL ONBOARD
What are you talking about?
MR. OVERBOARD
I can't swim. I'm scared shitless.
Ms. Still Onboard laughs.
MR. OVERBOARD (CONT'D)
...Do you know how fucking deep it
is down there?!!!
A life ring is thrown out over the crowd, and Mr. Overboard
manages to float his petrified body over to it. He is pulled
back in. He is shivering uncontrollably.
MR. OVERBOARD (CONT'D)
...It's like 900 feet deep down
there!!
Ms. Still Onboard seems a little ashamed of her behavior.
99.
At the prow of the boat stands Ricky/Natalie, looking out
over the vast body of water. Stella McCartney is a few heads
away. Anderson stands next to Ricky/Natalie.
Well.
Mmmhmm.
RICKY/NATHALIE
ANDERSON
There is a thick rope attached to a pulley system that
extends out over the front of the boat. The rope's end is
somewhere underwater...
Moving down the starboard deck: Gwen can be seen and Eve too,
and Lukas Haas, some anonymous Italian aristocratic youths;
and then as we make our way back up port, Anthony Kiedis, a
couple of guys from Franz Ferdinand, etc.
UNDERWATER - CONTINUOUS
...where the cord ends: as a huge lasso of sorts, floating
through the barely visible murk of the unsunned, unchoppy
water.
EXT. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - CONTINUOUS
Back on the surface the water is still very choppy, and the
boat rocks and rocks. And the rain's not very heavy. And
everybody seems antsy and crabby. Some beautiful fashion
industry woman is in tears. Her boyfriend is trying to
comfort her.
FASHION INDUSTRY WOMAN
Leave me alone! It's just my
period!
The boyfriend seems wounded and quite embarrassed.
Ten feet away, some guy casually plunges a dagger into the
shoulder of the guy in front of him. The guy who's been
stabbed keeps looking out at the water, and then slowly turns
around.
STABBED GUY
What the fuck, Santiago?
The stabber —guess his name's Santiago— lets out a little
laugh, and pulls the knife out. The stabbed guy rubs the
wound.
Owww.
STABBED GUY (CONT'D)
100.
LLL’s Italian kiss-partner is portside, and we move there.
He's playing some game on his cellphone, not too far from
some hipster Germans who are very into discussing something:
GERMAN GUY 1
(in German)
No, I don't think the monster's
going to like your panties.
GERMAN GUY 3
(in German)
I've seen a bear eat a football.
GERMAN CHICK 2
(in German)
So what? Do you have a football?
GERMAN GUY 3
(in German)
So what? Do you wear panties?
GERMAN CHICK 2
(in German)
I do when I'm bleeding... Janos,
throw your coat in. Maybe the
silver will get its attention.
GERMAN GUY 2
(in German)
I’m not throwing my fucking Commes
des Garçons coat in. I don't feed
it to animals that won't eat it!
GERMAN CHICK 1
(in German)
Maybe it eats fur. Go steal that
Swiss bitch's vest...
(in English)
...I hate that bitch.
German Guy 1 and German Guy 4 rip the coat off of German Guy
2 and throw it into the water. German Guy 2 tries to take a
swing at German Guy 4's face, but German Guy 4 catches German
Guy 2's fist in mid-air.
GERMAN GUY 2
(in English)
Cunts.
Standing a few feet away, Claire Danes takes offense to the
word.
Hey!
CLAIRE DANES
101.
GERMAN CHICK 2
(in English)
Oh, get over yourself missy.
Naomi Campbell, who seems in a particularly glum mood,
concurs.
NAOMI CAMPBELL
Yeah, don't be such a wanky Yankee.
Some Mr. Buzzcut, who walks a fine line between Chris Martin
and Bildende Kunst is trying his damndest to roll a hash
cigarette.
UNDERWATER - CONTINUOUS
The Commes des Garçons jacket is floating down into the
depths of Loch Ness. As luck would have it, the Loch Ness
Monster, Nessie, has taken a liking to its silver dazzle and
s/he swims right into the lasso.
But well before her/his mouth can come near the yummy coat,
the lasso constricts around her/his abdomen, pulling her/him
up and up and up and out of the water...
The sudden weight shift rocks the boat quite a lot, and the
hash cigarette effort is ruined -Mr. Buzzcut falling into the
water.
...Nessie is helpless in midair, and although she can breathe
out of water, she does not seem at home in the least.
Ricky/Natalie just stares at what’s transpiring, a slackjawed
bewilderment tinged with a healthy dose of remorse.
Nessie lets
unbearably.
the shriek,
contortions
loose a cry that pierces everybody's ears
Hands squoosh against heads in order to fend off
but to no real avail, as evidenced by the facial
of extreme discomfort: it’s hella strident!
EXT. TALLADEGA SPEEDWAY - DAY
John Slone wakes up. His supine body is hidden by the heights
of the overgrown grasses and weeds of the destitute speedway.
He breathes arrestedly. A white cow/bull is grazing on shoots
and grasses nearby. It wends a slow graze toward John, who
becomes alarmed by the auditory impressions of not-yetperceived heavy-hooves in dry- grasses.
He struggles to hoist his stiffened body up, eventually
managing to do so. He struggles to a sit, neck peeking just
above the grassline, and sees the bull/cow not more than a
few yards away.
102.
The bull/cow snortles, and looks at John with intent(?). John
brings himself to his feet, and then falls on his face. He
pushes himself up, taking pains not to repeat his blunders of
coordination.
He moves over to the cow/bull and mounts it. And they trot
out of the arena.
EXT. STREETS OF RECIFE - DAY
The Navy Woman is strolling along, in what appears to be
super-hot&humid weather, holding the hand of her 8-year-old
daughter.
She wears civilian clothes (and her once-wounded leg hasn't
left her with a limp). Her daughter is straw-drinking from a
bottle of orange soda.
An old yarmulked man with a pigeon-toed gait that wobbles
with the ravages of aging, carrying a purple and gold tallith
case, slowly ambles by as the mother and daughter stop to
look at posters of Brazilian pop stars in a record store
window. The girl looks up at her mother.
DAUGHTER
(in Portuguese)
I love you Mommy.
NAVY WOMAN
(in Portuguese)
I love you more than you will ever
know, sweetness.
The Navy Woman bends down to bestow a wonderful kiss on her
daughter's loving lips. The girl is suddenly distracted by an
ugly dog that trots down the street.
DAUGHTER
(in Portuguese)
That's a really ugly dog.
EXT. ALABAMA HIGHWAY - DAY
John Slone and the white cow/bull trot along the side of the
Interstate asphalt.
TIME CUT:
EXT. ALABAMA HIGHWAY - DAY
John Slone and the cow/bull stampede down the highway, being
trailed by a swarm of sirening police cars.
103.
The police cars suddenly explode, joining in a huge sheet of
fire. Slone and his bovine delivery-van keep up their
frenzied pace, bat out of hell style, oblivious of the fact
that they were being followed or that they are now running
ahead of an inferno.
CUT TO:
TITLE CARD (in “Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...”
writing): “No one was hurt...”
CUT TO:
INT. AIRPLANE - DAY
Prince puts on his headphones. Janine puts on her headphones.
Tommy preens himself inside his jet-travel jar.
CUT TO:
SCROLLING WORDS
(Star Wars theme resounds)
Episode IV: A New Pope
John Slone having returned from the dead, the United States
of America opens the next chapter of its evolving history...
Tired of callous powermongers and the vestigial traces of
manifest destinism, the American public votes in the
Situationist party, which foreswears residence in the now
White House-less District of Columbia, opting instead for 8
primary Situationist councils which will assume a practice of
nomadic mobility, circulating throughout the towns and cities
of the 50 states, and Puerto Rico.
The Situationist leaders, who include representatives from
each of the seven continents, hold the great “Gender
Referendum,” the outcome of which is the conversion of the
binary pronouns 'he' and 'she' to the neuter/ transgender
'ee,' and the replacement of the species specific 'man' and
'mankind' with the neuter/ transgender 'the team.'
Meanwhile, back in Avignon, the centuries-neglected papacy
has declared its assumption of the Holy See, following the
American Pope's unfortunate auto wreck in Malta, which left
him cloven in two. Though both parts managed to regenerate
their missing halves, the two new American popes were the
victims of irreparable brain damage. Secret Christian
societies are suspected to have been involved in the car
crash. Clint Eastwood’s untimely passing has also been blamed
on these societies.
104.
INT. WU MANSION - NIGHT
A clavichord. Ricky is sitting next to the little girl from
before (you know, the one whose daddy made the dragon). She
is demonstrating her interpretation of a Mozart Minuet.
Ricky watches her fingers. His face has lost the fire of the
Natalie possession; his pregnant belly is prominent. The
girl's fingers hesitate from time to time with sudden
uncertainties about the correctness of the notes on deck.
The boy with the dress comes into the room (not wearing a
dress this time: shirtless, in some leather britches),
holding a large dagger on which are impaled three fish. He
approaches the clavichord and boasts of his spoils:
BOY IN THE DRESS
'Tis I with the fish!
Ricky looks up —that sadness in his eye. The girl pays no
attention. The boy [not] in the dress runs out of the room.
Ricky's eyes gaze out the window. The girl brings the
finishing touches to the piece.
Ricky then begins to throw down some Bach. In the background,
a loud noise is heard, precipitating every several seconds.
Ricky's face is soothed by Bach, but soon loses tranquility
as the noise moves closer.
The boy [not] in the dress comes barrelling down the hall,
wearing a wimple and carrying a megaphone. He is chased by
Method Man, who's not wearing a shred of clothing. They
disappear. The megaphone (which we now recognize as the
source of the previous racket) is heard again. The girl looks
up at Ricky.
GIRL
Why don't you become some famous
pianist?
He lets out a saddened laugh-puff.
RICKY
(in his unNatalie voice)
I don't think I can.
The megaphone sounds afresh as the boy runs by their balconyside window.
BOY IN THE DRESS
(through megaphone)
Let's fuck and make babies...Let's
fuck and make babies.
105.
This call bleeds out into the night. It provokes the response
of a Wu-tower beacon, slicing the night in the distance.
On the grounds below, bizarre aura can be seen here and
there: the bluish glow of the glow-in-the-dark bunny, the
greenish glow of the five-legged, feathered lamb, the bluish
glow of the flying horse-faced lynx, with enormous human ears
for wings. Somewhere off screen, but jarring as ever:
BOY IN THE DRESS (CONT'D)
Let's fuck and make babies.
INT. CLASSROOM - NIGHT
A night school classroom, littered with student desks, only
eight of which are occupied. Everyone is adult, so who knows
who the teacher might be. A student —Vietnamese-American with
a greying Wayne Newton hairdo and a meticulously groomed, jet
black mustache— is at a lectern, speaking colorlessly, with a
hint of mumble, reading from some assignment:
STUDENT
And therein lies the axiom that
informs us: we the demos shall
inherit the past.
EXT. PARK - DAY
A girl in a park, hoisting a large rock over her head,
prepared to drop it on a pigeon:
GIRL
shall live in freedom.
INT. HOUSE - DAY
A pallid middle-aged lady —some pock-marks along her cheeks—
is writing on tacky floral stationery: “We the Demos
impoverish the future.”
EXT. LAWN - DAY
A Dominican-American drag queen, very tall and beautiful, on
a vast lawn, playing croquet (five or six fellow croqueters):
DRAG QUEEN
(to herself)
wander the Earth, wander the
Earth...
She concentrates on hitting the ball.
106.
DRAG QUEEN (CONT’D)
(to herself)
...I’m here, I’m here.
INT. HOTEL BANQUET HALL - HOUR (X)
A wedding, Eiffel 65's “Blue” electrifies the dancefloor.
Starched shirts soak through with sweat.
But not everyone's getting boogie right now: people sit
around and ha-ha, and sip-pause-sip.
Back on the dance floor: O (white guy with dark gelled hair,
looks like Irish descent) is smiling and gettin’ down; his
friend OO (of maybe-Japanese ethnicity ) smiling and dancing
hard too.
OO
Gonna kick some ass on the dance
floor.
EXT. 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. - DAY
An 8 year-old boy is lying face down, in quasi push-up
position, slowly humping the grass where the White House used
to be.
EXT. WOODLAND - DAY
An anonymous group of 65 heads or so, wearing a gaggle of
rain parkas, and colorful ponchos, stand in the midst of justrained-upon tree country. Two women stand on one of nature's
makeshift rostrums, which is obscured from view by the crowd.
One woman holds a megaphone:
ONE WOMAN
“We the demos are the truth!”
There is an instantaneous cheer from the group. They are
fucking thrilled!
INT. HAMPTONS PARTY - NIGHT
Joan Chen is a little drunk, she's leaning into some guy who
probably edits Surface Magazine.
JOAN CHEN
Let's fuck and make babies.
Donna Karan is twirling her finger around in her cocktail
glass, singing a duet of Wings' “Jet” with Liv Tyler. Not a
bad rendition at all.
107.
Matt Dillon is discussing video art with painters Donald
Baechler and Julian Schnabel:
MATT DILLON
...It basically doesn't concern us,
because if we prefer the textures
and optical qualities of painting
and film to video, we still have
the remainder of our own lives to
continue to patronize painting and
film. So in like 30 or 40 years, by
the time video totally wins out,
we'll be old, or dead -no big deal.
Or we'll still own enough paintings
or copies of film films to not care
about the future. Because, you
know, progress is only good for
when you're young. Or if you're
immortal.
JULIAN SCHNABEL
I'd like to be immortal. Then I
could get off this fucking blood
pressure medication.
EXT. HAMPTONS PARTY - CONTINUOUS
Moby is flirting with one of the latest “super”models.
NEW SUPERMODEL
You're friends with Natalie
Portman, right?
MOBY
Yeah, we're friends, I think,
still. I mean, we talk when she's
in the country. But, actually, we
haven't talked for awhile. Like, we
weren't talking when she was in
that guy's body.
NEW SUPERMODEL
So, she's not here.
MOBY
Here here, or here in the country?
NEW SUPERMODEL
No, here here.
MOBY
No, I don't think so. I think she's
shooting a movie in Antarctica, or
something.
(MORE)
108.
MOBY (cont'd)
Some big Finnish director, or
something, I can never remember his
name. It rhymes I think...
INT. HAMPTONS PARTY - CONTINUOUS
Around the kitchen table stand two anonymous New York pretty
boy/model types, talking to Edward Norton, who's sitting
down, pointing at words in the newspaper he's holding, bags
under his eyes.
EDWARD NORTON
See, I don't get what this means.
It's so vague. I fucking hate...
He stops to gesture quotation marks.
EDWARD NORTON (CONT'D)
...“political thought” because it's
so vague. Marxists are vague and
these cunts are vague. Michael
Stipe walks by.
MICHAEL STIPE
I kind of like the vagueness,
that's what makes it political.
EDWARD NORTON
(laughing)
No, like, try to tell me how this
quote is of any practical use to us
as a country: “In the absence of,”
—in parentheses 'perpetual'—
“revisions, man will become
callused to his happinesses and
pine for alterities”... Now don't
you think the newspaper should
refrain from printing that. Like
how's that going to help a country?
MICHAEL STIPE
Yeah, well...have you seen Felix?
No.
No.
EDWARD NORTON
PRETTY BOY/MODEL TYPES
(almost synchronized)
Michael walks away. Edward gets back into his diatribe.
109.
EDWARD NORTON
Or this shit. It sounds like one of
those Anthony Robbins guys.
“Satisfaction is relative to the
empowerment of the organism.” What
is that? We aren't organisms. We're
fucking people. I mean, we're
organisms, sure. But we're fucking
people.
PRETTY BOY/MODEL TYPE A
I don't know, I kind of like that.
He turns away for a second, and looks around.
PRETTY BOY/MODEL TYPE A (CONT'D)
Emilia, hey Emilia.
He motions for a beautiful fake-baked blonde to come over to
the table.
PRETTY BOY/MODEL TYPE A (CONT'D)
Hey baby, is this the quote you
wanted to get tattooed on your
back?
EMILIA
What quote?
PRETTY BOY/MODEL TYPE A
Hey Ed, can you read it again...
EXT. HAMPTONS PARTY - CONTINUOUS
Some guest on a pool chair is fidgeting around with one of
those small, cubical machines... He looks up at the
partygoers around him, and looks down again. A hilarious
thought must have popped into his head, because he lets out
an uncontrollable laugh for a split second, but is quick to
self-censor.
Somewhere, not too far away, Jimmy Fallon has his tongue
between his “v”'d-fingers (you know, the pussy-licker
gesture) and is wagging it at some big guy and the woman the
big guy has his arm around (Jimmy Fallon is reputed to be a
funny man).
In the pool, two girls are face-suck swapping with two guys.
INT. HAMPTONS PARTY - CONTINUOUS
At the open fridge door, Zach Posen is on his haunches
rummaging around, some fashionista girl hovering over him.
110.
ZACH POSEN
I just want a pickle. Why aren't
there any pickles?
And then, it strikes. It's that time again. When shit just
happens to need to drop. It's really embarrassing. We'd
better
CUT TO:
Velazquez's equestrian portrait of Infante Baltazar Carlos
CUT TO:
Grunewald's Resurrection from Isenheim
CUT TO:
EXT. ROSEBUD RESERVATION - DAY
Jonas is drunked-out in a lawn chair, listening to an out-of
range radio station hiss and crackle Eiffel 65's “Blue.” His
dad sits at the picnic table a few feet away, cutting into a
“stack” of two generic eggyellow-and-square waffles with his
fork. A pair of little girls are coloring in Disney's Brother
Bear coloring books with markers and crayons.
EXT. VENICE BOARDWALK AREA - DAY
That Some Guy is taking a slow drag off his fag. He's sitting
on a concrete, amphitheater-style bench. A slightly derelict
old man at his left is passed out. Another guy, who sits to
Some Guy's above right, is busy examining his own
fingernails.
A man, with a Chaplinesque gait is walking toward their area.
He is covered head to toe in white paint, and looks like he's
having a great time making a public statement. Some Guy's
face betrays a immediate repugnance for this. And he rises
from his seat, hands in his pockets, feigning a certain
obliviousness to his surroundings, walks towards “white man”
and trips him.
The “white man” falls to the pavement. And momentarily tries
to get up, affecting a pleasant, imperturbable smile. Some
Guy kicks him lightly in the side.
The “white man” is resilient with good humor, and continues
to bring himself to his feet. Some Guy pushes him down again;
and just looks at his victim, with a haughty remove...
111.
...which is soon eradicated when he is half-nelsoned by an
African-American man on roller skates (hair in a long braid,
sunglasses, walkman, nothing on but skates, gym socks, and
short biking shorts).
MAN ON SKATES
You wanna stop that?
Fuck off.
SOME GUY
The man on skates holds the half-nelson. The “white man” gets
up and smiles at Some Guy. And continues on his merry way. A
skywriting plane flies out some letters overhead: “Shiraz.” A
herd of cows enters the frame.
SOME GUY
Look at those cows.
MAN ON SKATES
What was that, fucker ?!
Cows.
SOME GUY
They watch the cows, as a few stop to graze on the beachside
lawns. Some others make their way onto the sand.
INT. SUNLIT DEPOT - DAY
LLL wakes up somewhere. Where is she?...the space is huge,
it's a depot of some sort. Maybe it used to be a train
station... She can't make out much.
She sits herself up and finds that she is among countless
people, lounging about on the floor and makeshift seats. So
many different types of people: think as melting pot as
fucking possible (vermillion and cobalt blue, IV units and
breastfeeding, Miller High Life and basketweaving, hackneyed
lists and hackneyed lists). Nobody seems to be doing
anything, going anywhere. Congested. Sweet-and-sour sweaty.
Arguably the “worst loft party ever!”
People talk in little groups and some warring boomboxes (or
other sound systems) mutually ruin any chance at discerning
what tunage each offers. Two little, little dogs —each
arrested by the maximum reach of its leash— yelp at one
another in what would be battle.
LLL looks over the scene and soon recognizes that the dogs
belong to two skinny girls, model-types: one reading a book,
puffing at a ciggie; the other listening to an I-Pod. And in
their midst, a gang of other female model-types: some of who
are healthy —trim and mildly voluptuous;
112.
other's who look terminally ill —breastbones jutting through
their ricepaper- thin skin. They number about twelve in
total, almost every one puffing away at a ciggie.
LLL doesn't like this scene, not in the least. And she pushes
herself up to her feet. She looks up and miraculates a glock,
which hovers in the air, like a phantasm (like Moreau's
ghostly head of John the Baptist). It floats down into her
hand, and she brashly aims it at one of the little dogs, and
pulls the trigger, which clicks, but resists discharge, with
a sort of invisible centripetal quake.
Everybody weeps for a second and a half, and then all weeping
is erased. A little song trickles out of the gun: the opening
chords to Otis Redding’s “Chained and Bound.” (The song
continues on) LLL kind of reels in horror, but it is more
like confusion, and she starts to dart out of there, pushing
her way through the crowd that may never end (we don't know
if it does, because the camera can’t handle this volume of
information).
The lush slowdance of horns from “Chained and Bound” moves
with her. And before she's found a way out of this knot of
rabble, Otis has begun to sing the second verse.
LLL finally makes it out the door, Otis is still singing. She
finds herself on some sort of veranda. Some soccer ball rolls
by, followed by a skateboard with a boy on it, and then two
boys without skateboards.
The veranda has many thresholds,
trees (a minor wooded area), and
closer, which she walks towards.
1/2’ ft. cubed) prune is resting
beyond which she sees some
some pavement a little
A giant (we’re talkin’ 5
on the asphalt.
Some seconds later, a rabbit hops up to the summit of the
prune. Some seconds after that, a gi-normous sandwich
toothpick (with that bunched colored tinsel on its top)
sticks itself through the rabbit (not a dead rabbit, nor a
pained rabbit) and through the prune.
LLL has a look on her face, but before we can inspect it, she
runs to a public phone (a few meters away), and frantically
dials a number. She looks disturbed. Her voice is slightly
audible.
LLL
Prince, Prince, pick up the fucking
phone. (frustrated) ahhh. I’m
calling back.
She hangs up the phone. Picks it right back up and dials and
fidgets desperately.
113.
LLL
Pick up the phone Prince. I don’t
care if it’s voicemail. PICK UP THE
PHONE! It’s the dream and it’s
real.... Goddammit !!!
INT. CARL'S JUNIOR - DAY
The restaurant's at about half-capacity. Ricky's sitting
alone at a two-chair table, chewing on some hot wings. He
still has that forlorn, faraway look in his eye.
In the process of sucking a chicken wing clean to the bone,
his mouth suddenly loses its tenacity-of-feeding and goes
limp. He removes the wing from his mouth and looks down. He
puts the chicken wing down, and puts his hands on his belly.
His expression becomes nerv-y and, wiping his face with a
napkin, he slowly gets to his feet, looks around as if
everybody was scrutinizing him, and moves slowly toward the
door, holding his stomach.
INT. HOSPITAL DELIVERY ROOM - DAY
Those fucking awful fluorescent lights above, and a lamp-onwheels, shining down on Ricky's stomach. His legs would be
spread apart, but he's a guy, and that's not how guys give
birth, right?
The doctor starts cutting into Ricky's belly. Ricky's eyes
are all dopey, as his sweat-basted face languishes in the
lights. Blood is flowing and the doctor's rubber-gloved paws
are buried in the abdominal beneath. A baby is extracted,
followed by umbilical cord, which is cut; and the baby cries
to be reattached to that dear cord. Too late baby.
CUT TO:
TITLE: 'Ricky bled to death, or shot himself a little while
later.'
CUT TO:
EXT. CONDO COMPLEX PARKING - DAY
It is early afternoon. The parking area is almost empty. One
car's left: a Honda Civic(?) in a carport. The carport
canopies cast short shadows down onto the wan concrete
driveway. Nobody's there, except for an empty car.
114.
EXT. ASPHALT & GREENERY - DAY
Sunny and bright. Four youths genuflect with open mouths as
the Virgin Mary throws green grapes into their mouths from on
high. She is the eclipse of the sun, even as the sun radiates
out from behind her. The green grapes are dainty meteor
showers. They taste good.
CREDITS ROLL
Basketball footage, courtside cameras, studying the game,
editing not too hyper-kinetic ....Professional, Junior
College, street ball, five year olds getting knocked in the
head as the ball bounces off a five-foot plastic children's
hoop...basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball...
END
“Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe
as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing
but 'us,' the jerks of infinity.” - Louis-Ferdinand Celine