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The Fall of Western Civilization a short film by Nicholas Washburn Black screen. Operation Ivy's "Sound System" plays. When the bass part segues into the guitar part, go from the opening logos to cutting into a bright shiny blue convertable speeding down the Miracle Mile of Belmont, California. It is driven by a yuppie with expensive sunglasses, bleached hair, and is very clean shaven. CU of the interior of the car, the driver is screaming onto his Nokia. Speed dolly backwards to the car behind him, a minivan with a soccer mom driver and a teenage punk rocker. The mom is yelling in the ear of the punk. Speed dolly to the next car, a beat up piece of shit with two whiterappers inside bobbing their heads to what would be a horrid rap song, but instead is still the Operation Ivy skapunk. Cut to a teenager with long hair and plain looking clothes sitting next to a girl in vaguely punkish clothes on a brick wall next to a sidewalk, just staring blankly. Cut to an evening street race through the suburban San Carlos streets, as a green Jetta, a black Accord, and a red Camry fly down Cedar St. As they burnout to turn onto Park Ave, the Camry turns too much and goes flying into a recently built white picket fence. Cut to a police cruiser at the Pilgrim Kitchen, noon. The two cops in it get in, one carrying two boxes of donuts, then turn on their siren and begin chasing the first car they see. A class of high school students is subjected to a screaming at by the baldass principal, while the teacher sits at her desk smoking a cigarette. Speed lapse of a car driving from Edgewood and Alameda to downtown San Carlos. As the music wraps up, we focus, steady, on STEVE ANDERSON, a long haired guy sleeping in his grey room on his grey bed. Grey light streams into it, and his grey cat sleeps on his face. He wakes up, yelling. STEVE Oh my God! I'm fucking blind! He sits up quickly, hurling the cat across the room, causing intense meowing. He then rubs his eyes, then, realizing he can see, goes back to sleep. When he sits down, it reveals a cracked LCD clock on his nightstand, which reveals the time, 8:42. Fade to the same scene, only with the clock saying 11:29. At this point, STEVE gets up, and gets out of bed. Dressed in some green plaid pajama bottoms and an XL Humboldt t- shirt, he waddles into the living room, and collapses on the couch. He flips on the TV. STEVE takes a swig of Coke and Coffee and bites a piece off of a Cinammon Pop Tart, then shakes his head in annoyance, and turns off the TV. Cut to STEVE, dressed in employee regalia, working behind the counter at a nearby 7-11. It is about noon, and overcast and sprinkling outside. The doors open up, and the two whiterappers from the start of the film walk in. The big one, BRAD, a tall guy with a simple white t-shirt and sweatpants with cargo pockets and an Eminem type haircut pulls a 9 milimeter and points it at STEVE in the sideways gangsta style. The other is COLIN, who has a hooded Ecko sweatshirt, the hood pulled over his hair, and some ultra baggy black jeans. He opens up a black JanSport backpack. BRAD Yo, put da g's in the backpack, word. COLIN Real, yo. STEVE Dude... okay. But, like, can you do me a favor and not talk like you just got off the fuckin' bus out of the ghetto? I know you guys. I go to high school with you. (points to BRAD) Brian, right? BRAD Yo, Brad, representin'. STEVE And you're Colin? COLIN Shit yeah, bitch. Yo, Brad, maybe we should be leavin', if this dog knows us's names, he could fuckin' tell the cops, yo. BRAD Fuck dat shit. Bust out the g's, biatch. STEVE Yeah, okay... CU as the register springs open. Another CU as the $40 are dropped into the pack. Original angle as BRAD and COLIN leave the store. OC we can hear some bad bass-ridden rap blast out of the shitty speakers of BRAD and COLIN's car. Another customer walks in soon after they leave. STEVE watches as they take their time selecting a candy bar, then bring their choice, Skittles, up to the counter. The CUSTOMER hands him a twenty. STEVE Aw, sorry, man. We don't have any change. CUSTOMER What? STEVE Yeah... I just got held at gunpoint and robbed. Sorry. A beat. CUSTOMER You don't have any change? The shiny blue convertable pulls up in front of a shiny glass office complex, and selects a parking space. The driver, GARY WRIGHT, gets out, still on his cell phone. He starts walking, and we dolly in front of him as he does. He talks without any break to allow the person on the other end speak. GARY Yeah, but you know that I do that kind of thing. I'm known to do whatever it takes to accomplish my goal, right? You know that about me? Yeah. Of course you do. But when Mitchowski was standing there with the business reports, he was just astonished. He just kept saying that he had never seen anyone do anything like that. Yeah. I'm just unbelievable. 20% increase in one quarter. I am just on fire, I am the man, I am the man. You know? You heard that. 20 per-fucking-cent. So, cause of that kind of thing, I make a lot of money. I don't want to say how much, but, I make $350,000. A year. I'm a very, very good person. Yeah. (finally, a break in the conversation) Mm-hmm, I love you too, honey. I hope you have a good first day of kindergarten. Bye. Pan across a jam packed 101, rush hour. Cut to the interior of a minivan. The soccer mom and the punk from the earlier scenes are there, as well as a little kid in back, who wears a soccer uniform, and is playing a Game Boy Advance. SNES-level GBA sounds come from it, as opposed to the bleeping heard coming from one in most movies. The soccer mom is JANICE ARCHER-STONE, the punk is ZEKE STONE, and the kid is MATTY STONE. JANICE Look, Zeke, I don't even want to hear it, okay? I don't want to hear your excuse, gosh knows I've heard enough of them, okay? ZEKE (exasparated) There was no way... Look, the bus leaves at 3:45, it doesn't get home till 4:15... and you wanted me to get home at 3:00. I'm not even out of school- JANICE (mocking) Oh, poor Zeke. ZEKE (giving up, and pretending to give in) Allright... you're right. I'm sorry. He looks away from JANICE out at the road. JANICE (self satisfied) Well. I'm glad to hear that. Cut to ZEKE's house. Him and STEVE are in STEVE's room. STEVE is playing GTA3 while ZEKE lays on his half of the couch and stares into space. STEVE I got robbed today. ZEKE (zoned out) What? STEVE At the store. I got robbed at gunpoint. ZEKE (not listening) Huh. A beat. STEVE I anally violated a magical tree elf today. ZEKE (not listening) Really? STEVE Yeah. He gave me three wishes. ZEKE Yeah... that happened to my friend one time... STEVE shakes his head. Cut to the STONE household. JANICE is walking down the sidewalk in front of the house. She passes the neighbor, CHARLIE, a 75-year-old, pleasant looking man standing by the trunk of his car. She fakesmiles and waves at him. JANICE Hi, Charlie! CHARLIE Howdy, ma'am. He watches her as she goes by, and when she does, he opens the trunk of the car and produces a bloody man, tied and gagged, in a man in black type suit. He grins, and carries the man into his garage. Cut to CHARLIE's basement. The pleasant man looks much less pleasant. He is holding a baseball bat in his left hand, and pacing around the man, TONY, who is now tied to a chair in the center of the room. A flourescent light flickers over TONY, making a spotlight in the otherwise dark room. His mouth gag is off, but his eyes are still taped closed. CHARLIE Tell me about the Salvatore hit. TONY I ain't gonna tell you nothin'. CHARLIE swings the bat with suprising strength, causing TONY to look at the floor. TONY Fuck! CHARLIE I'm not going to ask you again, Tony. What do you know about the Salvatore hit? TONY Nothin'! CHARLIE hits him again. CHARLIE (more forcefully) What...do...you...know...about...the Salvatore...hit? TONY (scared) I can't... CHARLIE You can. TONY They'll kill me. CHARLIE What, you think I won't? TONY I know....nothing. Cut to STEVE's bedroom. He is in the exact same place, and ZEKE is now on his bed, reading an EGM with a smoking glass pipe in his mouth. A scream comes from OC. ZEKE and STEVE just ignore it. Cut to the halls of STEVE's school. He is sitting with ZEKE on a brick wall next to his girlfriend, ALICIA WRIGHT. STEVE Oh my god. First day of fucking school. ZEKE It's like we're some country that gets liberated every June for three months, then taken over by the Nazis again in fall. ALICIA You know, those people who do those school shootings... they have a point, there, y'know. STEVE So, can you do anything this weekend? ALICIA Aw, no, sorry Steve... I got to go to my dad's house. ZEKE (sneezes) Yup-pie. ALICIA (laughs) I know. I know... But he does buy me a lot of free shit. He thinks he's still got to keep me from liking mom more than him. STEVE That's sad. ALICIA I guess. (looks at something OC) Hey, that's him. Uh, I got to go. STEVE Bye. ZEKE Tell him that's he's a capitalist bastard who should be thrown against the wall and shot, okay? ALICIA (sarca-serious) Yeah. I'm definately gonna tell him that. She runs OC, grabbing her backpack. Cut to GARY WHITE, the capitalist bastard who we saw earlier, with ALICIA's little sister, AMY, in the back of the convertable. GARY Hey, Ali. ALICIA Uh, hi, dad. GARY I got something for you. He takes something out of the glove compartment as she gets in. He produces a $2800 laptop, and she smiles. AMY What'd you get? ALICIA Thanks, dad. (to AMY) A computer... GARY (laughs) Dude. You're getting a Dell. (laughs again) As STEVE and ZEKE chill on the wall there, BRAD and COLIN, the homies from the 7-11, walk into the frame. BRAD Yo, this is the fool we jacked $40 from. STEVE Hi. ZEKE What up, yo, homie g dog? COLIN We jus' be chillin'. ZEKE Maybe you could go and do your black stereotype impression somewhere else, word. (does some kind of hand gesture) BRAD Aw! COLIN He did not jus' say dat shit. BRAD Aw! COLIN He did not jus' say dat shit. STEVE They deaf, or something? ZEKE I think they're just stupid. BRAD Aw! COLIN He did not jus' say dat shit. STEVE and ZEKE are riding in STEVE's shitty little Honda. Goldfinger's "Superman" is coming out of the tinny speakers. STEVE That was fun. ZEKE People like that... It's like, the fall of western civilization. STEVE I agree %100. ZEKE Thank you for agreeing. STEVE Thank you for making fun of them. ZEKE No problem. Let's go get baked. Cut to GARY WHITE's office, a modern IKEA furnished 15x15 with one all glass wall looking out into a fountain courtyard. It is dark out. He is typing something into his flatscreen, when his boss, TJ MOREEN, a man in very expensive business casual clothing, bursts in. TJ Hey, Gary. GARY (looks up, with fake enthusiasm) Hey, Mr. Moreen! (does a double fingered point and click) TJ (nods) Call me, TJ, Gary. GARY (worried) Uh... okay, TJ. TJ We've been going over your recent performance, and... well... you haven't been preforming up to expectations, Gary. GARY What? No! What about the Mitchowski File? TJ I'm sorry, Gary. Um, have your desk cleaned out be the end of the day. Cut to GARY, walking into his modern house, into the living room, where ALICIA is still up, watching Conan O'Brien. ALICIA Man, dad, what kinda job is that that you gotta go in at midnight? GARY Where's your sister? ALICIA Upstairs. GARY Um... there's something I have to tell you... ALICIA (suprised) What could you possibly have to tell me? It can't be that your getting a divorce... that already happened, I'm pretty sure you're not gay... (comes to realization) Oh. You lost your job? GARY (nods) Yeah. ALICIA Hm. She switches off the TV and nonchalantly walks upstairs. GARY takes her place on the couch and begins weeping uncontrollably. It is the next morning. The two cops from the opening sequence are sitting in their cruiser by the side of El Camino, eating donuts. The fat bald one is McCARTHY, and the thin one is RYBCZYNSKI. They speak with their mouths full of chocolate and glaze. McCARTHY I can't believe this crap. I get called out on a mornin' 'ssignment. RYBCZYNSKI Bullshit. McCARTHY eats while RYBCZYNSKI loudly slurps a Big Gulp. McCARTHY points to something OC. McCARTHY Look at that piece a shit wit the green party bumper sticker. RYBCZYNSKI Fuggin' dirty hippies. McCARTHY Let's bust 'em. He flips on the siren, and they take off after someone. Cut to a black Honda Civic with STEVE and ZEKE sitting in it, worried, while McCARTHY and RYBCZYNSKI walk up to the car. McCARTHY Ya crossed over da double line. STEVE What... really? I'm really sorry... We got to get to school though, man... RYBCZYNSKI Man? Oh, I'm sorry, dude, are we making you late to your drug taking session? ZEKE Dude, we're not on drugs, we just need to get to school. McCARTHY Step out of the car. STEVE What?! McCARTHY Ya heard me, step outta da fuggin' car! STEVE and ZEKE are on the street getting handcuffed. RYBCZYNSKI has his gun pointed at STEVE. Cut to the police station. STEVE and ZEKE are waiting in some very small closet-like room, backpacks by their feet, when SGT. RANCHERO, a kind looking, mustached, guidance-type cop walks in. RANCHERO Hi, my name's Sgt. Ranchero, you can call me Mr. Ranchero, or Jose- ZEKE Yeah, that's great, man, but what's gonna happen? I mean are you gonna bust those two cops for draggin' us outta our car without any fuckin' just cause? RANCHERO Our drug tests are in, you both tested positive for marajuana use. STEVE Fuck. RANCHERO Look, I'm going to put the two of you on probation, and I'm going to sign you up for three months of narcotics anonymous. ZEKE Why are you doing this to us? RANCHERO I'm offering you a second chance. Cut to STEVE and ZEKE walking out of a nondescript community center. STEVE You know what the most fucked up thing about that was? ZEKE What? STEVE We had to be high just to enjoy it. ZEKE laughs. Cut to the roof of GARY's office building. He stands at the side, contemplating whether to jump or not. Zoom out slightly, showing four other men near him. SUICIDAL MAN 1 God damn layoffs. SUICIDAL MAN 2 What'd you lose? SUICIDAL MAN 1 Um, we had two cars and a 3 bedroom house. Now we live in a broken down school bus in a trailer park. SUICIDAL MAN 3 That's nothing. My wife and four kids and me are living out of a drainage pipe near the creek. SUICIDAL MAN 4 I'd kill to have a fucking drainage pipe. My wife, seven kids, and parents, we have to live in the graveyard, live in graves that have been dug and not occupied yet. SUICIDAL MAN 2 Shit, my wife, 9 kids, parents, grandparents, and a group of adopted kids from Swahili, we gotta steal bodies from the mourge, hollow out the guts, and live in the skin for warmth. GARY I'm living in a 2 bedroom apartment. The other men look at each other in confusion. GARY But I had to sell my PDA. SUICIDAL MAN 4 Oh my god! SUICIDAL MAN 3 I still have my Palm! SUICIDAL MAN 2 I had to appear in low budget porn films with my pet hampster to make the money for it, but I still was able to keep mine... STEVE, ALICIA, and ZEKE sit by the side of the creek, passing a glass pipe around. ALICIA He's so weird, now... It's like, he thinks he's somehow not qualified to be a parent any more cause he can't take us to fucking Disneyland anymore. ZEKE Disneyland's too commercial now. STEVE (takes hit) You ever go on that thing with the pirates? ZEKE The Pirates of the... STEVE Yeah. ZEKE Someone had to be trippin' when they made that shit... STEVE Dude! I know! They laugh. ALICIA Pithy. STEVE Shut up. ZEKE (takes hit) Anyway, to adress your concern, Alicia, I think the main problem is that he thinks you liked him because he gave you shit, and you liked your mom cause she loved you and whatever. ALICIA I hate both of them, though. STEVE You hate everyone. ALICIA (takes hit) I don't hate you. STEVE Do you hate Zeke? ALICIA (thinks...) No. STEVE So you don't hate everyone. ALICIA Yeah, but it sounds better than "I hate everyone except my boyfriend and his communist friend." Suddenly there is a rustling from OC. The group panicks. BRAD and COLIN enter. BRAD Yo wazzup. You all be hittin' the bomb, yo? ZEKE Actually, Brad, we're smoking marajuana. ALICIA There's a difference. COLIN Word. We go back here to to g up, yo. BRAD Shizzat. Nargs. STEVE You just have your own language now, don't you. Cut to CHARLIE's front door. JANICE is knocking. There is the slam of a metal gate, the sound of a shotgun cocking, and a sigh of relief. CHARLIE opens the door. CHARLIE Oh, hey there, Mrs. Stone. JANICE Oh, call me Janice, Charlie. CHARLIE Okay. JANICE I brought you some lasagna. CHARLIE I'm sorry... I don't eat food I don't cook myself. JANICE (taken aback) Really? CHARLIE I'm sorry, ma'am. Just worried that one of these days, someone's gonna try and poison me. JANICE When did you start feeling like this? CHARLIE It's just... an' aftereffect of... the war. JANICE What war were you in? CHARLIE The (inaudable word). JANICE What? CHARLIE Look... um... I better be going. He slams the door. OC, we can hear a shotgun blasting. JANICE shakes her head. JANICE Weird guy. She walks back to her house. When she walks in, she sees ZEKE, STEVE, and ALICIA sitting on the couch, eating various muchie foods. ALICIA has a footlong Subway sandwhich, STEVE has an Entemen's chocolate cake, and ZEKE has a sandwhich made from two cinammon poptarts, cheese, mayonaise, ketchup, and lettuce, microwaved, with an olive on top. ZEKE ...Hey mom. JANICE Hi. Hi, Steve, Alicia. STEVE nods, ALICIA salutes. JANICE looks at the show that they are watching, a large battle scene of a dubbed movie where nuns are fighting superheros and Fedralis. Cut to MATT, the popular guy, walking down a down sloped hallway, his posse behind him. One of the posse members carries a small CD player with the sound at 10, playing "Dopeman" by Less Than Jake. MATT and the others walk and bob their heads to the music. SAM, a wannabe popular person walks by MATT, heading up. He points and clicks at MATT. SAM Hey man! MATT returns the point click. MATT Fuck you! Cut to STEVE's English class. MRS. ANDREESON is talking, OC, while STEVE pencils a sketch of a scene of total destruction in a suburban community. ANDREESON ...and the 4th essay for this unit will be as important, if not more important as the 3rd through 1st essays. The 1st essay will be the first one that is due. It will be due to class on Tuesday. Today is Tuesday, so I don't want that to confuse you. The 1st essay is due on Tuesday... of next week. "Dopeman" is fast impeding like a bullet from the outside halls. ANDREESON The 2nd essay... for that one we will be doing something different BRAD and co. enter. ANDREESON What? Oh, hello, Matt. Take a seat. MATT smiles, and the teacher blushes. The posse sits in a circular formation around MATT, eyeing suspicious onlookers like Secret Service agents. The teacher pivots back to her center spot in the class, and continues. ANDREESON Still, although the 2nd essay is after the first one, it still has to be of the same quality as the first essay! Lunch. MATT and two of his most jockish friends, SHAWN and MADISON, lean against a metal railing. ALICIA walks by. MATT (to SHAWN) Who's she? SHAWN Alicia White. She's going out with that stoner... Steve Anderson. MATT Does she smoke? SHAWN I dunno. MADISON Oh my god! You want to go out with her? All my friends keep telling me she's a weird punk stoner that wants to come to school and kill everyone. MATT Whatever. She's hot. Cut to ALICIA's POV, walking through the quad. STEVE and ZEKE are sitting by themselves. STEVE sees her and gestures her over. Then she looks to the other direction where she sees BRAD, looking like a commander, his minions all around him. BRAD looks directly at her, and tilts his head back and forward. She looks back at ZEKE and STEVE, ZEKE is writing something on a piece of paper, and STEVE is looking confused as to what she's doing. She begins walking over to BRAD. Cut to ZEKE and STEVE. ZEKE looks up at the fiasco that STEVE is witnessing OC. ZEKE What the fuck's Alic doin' with Nike over there? STEVE I dunno. Green Day's "Take Back" comes on, and the camera dollys back while an angry STEVE walks across the quad, with ZEKE trying to stop him. ZEKE No Steve! It's not worth it! Without saying a word, STEVE swings a punch at BRAD so fierce that it knocks him back, and all his friends back away. BRAD tries to swing again, and STEVE expertly grabs his hand and crushes all the bones in it, leaving it like a limp dishwashing glove. He kicks BRAD in the stomach, knocking BRAD to the ground, then drives the point home by sending a black hightop All-Star into BRAD's bloody face. Pop. Cut back to STEVE, sitting in the quad, hands over his face. ZEKE Dude. You gonna do anything? STEVE ...No. I'll talk to her later. Cut to STEVE's house, morning. STEVE and his cat watch TV. PRESIDENT MANN is on. He is speaking to a high school graduating class. MANN As you embark... on this journey... you will see... STEVE shuts off the TV. He picks up a nearby phone and dials a number. Cut to ALICIA's bedroom. MATT is on top of her, their lips locked, making quiet muffled screams. The phone near her bed explodes. She looks at it, then looks up at MATT, then looks at the phone, then shakes her head and concentrates on MATT. The answering machine comes on. RECORDING OF ALICIA Hi, this is Alicia White... I can't come to the phone right now, so just leave a message, and if I feel like it, I'll call you back. STEVE hangs up, then stares at the cat for a beat, then throws the phone out the window. Cut to a street corner. GARY WHITE walks up, ready to begin his first day of begging. He wears an expensive looking suit, and carries his expensive briefcase, which he opens up, and takes out a folded cardboard sign. He unfolds it, displaying the text: i lost my job i have 2 kids i will do anything for food please help you god bless you JANICE STONE walks by, carrying a bag of groceries. She sees him, and squints, confused. JANICE You must be new at this. GARY (beaten) Yeah. JANICE Don't I recognize you from the... PTA meetings? GARY Uh, yeah. Janice... Stone. Right? JANICE Yeah. Gary White. GARY Yeah... JANICE Um... you need a ride or anything? GARY No, my car's parked a block away. JANICE Oh. Um... you know, if you want to get together or anything... um... She takes out a folded piece of paper and a pen, and begins writing. JANICE Here's my number... GARY Oh, that's not... JANICE Don't worry about it. Okay? GARY Okay... Grabs the paper. GARY Um... so... JANICE So... GARY I'll see you later. JANICE Yeah. Good luck with the begging. GARY Thanks. Thanks. Um... yeah. JANICE Bye. Cut to the school. MATT and ALICIA are sitting up on the brick wall. ZEKE and STEVE and ALICIA's brick wall. MATT has his steroid pumped arm around her. His posse is gathered around him in a semicircle. Slowly zoom out, to show ZEKE and STEVE on a nearby wall, looking at the scene. ZEKE This is bad. STEVE Fuck. You think this is bad? ZEKE Mm-hmm. STEVE What are we gonna do? ZEKE Not much we can do. We're too intelligent to resort to violence, and they won't understand anything but violence. STEVE Yeah. ZEKE Yeah. So... STEVE We fight 'em? ZEKE Well, of course. Cut to the quad. STEVE and ZEKE stand at the opening to the expanse of conformity. Slow zoom on MATT. Cut to view from right in front of MATT. ALICIA is on his side, as is SHAWN. STEVE and ZEKE step into frame. MATT Hey, look at these fools. ALICIA (annoyed) Get out of here Steve. Come on. Zeke, you too. STEVE Why... Alicia? ALICIA Cause I didn't want to spend the rest of my fucking life hanging around with a group of friends that consists of two anti-American stoners. ZEKE You're an anti-American stoner. ALICIA (unsure) ...Was. MATT Why don't you get your asses out of here. SHAWN You heard the man. ALICIA Um.. Matt... MATT We are gonna so kick your ass. ALICIA Matt! MATT punches STEVE in the face. ALICIA grabs him and tries to pull him away, MATT slaps her back, and grins. Rancid's "Rattlesnake" suddenly begins. STEVE grabs MATT by the shirt and brings his head down below STEVE's. ZEKE chops him in the neck, causing MATT to roll over forward. SHAWN starts to react, and ZEKE backkicks him, knocking him over. ZEKE and STEVE start taking turns kicking the falled MATT in the stomach. The whole quad is watching and yelling now. They just keep kicking him, a seething mass of students all around, chanting, like Romans at the colleseum. Arial view CU, zooming out to show the entire quad, the violent scene in the center. Cut to the fighting circle. MATT W...what are you... doing? The campus security officers push their way into the circle. Before sense can be made out of the situation, the rest of the crowd pushes ALICIA out of the way, and STEVE and ZEKE follow as she crowd sufs her way out of there. The crowd converses on MATT's corpse like vultures. Screams, chants, bloodlust can be heard. Fade to the same scene, with the quad emptied out. MATT is lying in a pool of blood. Dead. The auditorium, next day. PRINCIPAL WENNOF is speaking, she is a stretched out looking 50 year old woman with bleached hair, wearing a school polo shirt. She speaks in a nasally yet loud voice. A blown up photo of MATT's school picture is up behind her, with the caption "We will always remember" WENOFF ...Matt McMasters was an excellent athlete, and an accomplished student. Everybody liked him. I myself met him on numerous occasions. I... The noise level gets just a little bit to high for her to take. She sits for a couple seconds, a superior frown on her face, her eyebrows raised. WENOFF ...I would like to take this time to have a moment of silence of Matt. Nobody cares. WENOFF Now, to speak, Matt's girlfriend, Alicia White. ALICIA takes the stage. ALICIA Yeah. Um... I have had two good friends in my life. WENOFF smiles and nods. ALICIA Steven Anderson and Ezekiel Stone. WENOFF's eyes bug. ALICIA I guess I thought I liked Matt, but it turned out her was just forcing me to think that, just like he forced me to start wearing Abercrombie and whatever clothes, forced me to have sex with him, and forced me to lose those two aforementioned friends. WENOFF is tapping her on the shoulder. ALICIA What happened yesterday was a scene of anarchy, sparked not by envy of Matt's popularity, but by everyone standing up as one and denying his power. Death wasn't the best solution, but it worked. I think this is the first step in a revolution, to make this the first school in America to get rid of the class system, denying the rejects and punks and stoners and anime freaks what they deserve as much as the jocks and the skaters and whoever else decided that they are better than us. The crowd cheers. WENOFF throws her aside. WENOFF Okay, I think that's about enough. Everybody return to your fourth period classes. Cut to GARY WHITE on his street corner. He's starting to look more like a bum, his suit is ripped and dirty, he's lost the briefcase. ALICIA enters the frame. ALICIA Hey, dad. GARY (hangover) Ahh... hey... What time is it? ALICIA Are you drunk? GARY Huh? ALICIA Are you drunk, dad? GARY Geddouddaere! I don't need you tellin' me what to do wit my life. ALICIA Allright, I'm out of here. Cut to the STONE household. MATTY is running around the house making laser sounds and so forth. The phone rings, and JANICE answers. JANICE Hell-o-o! Cut to GARY in a phone booth on some seedy street. It is raining. GARY Hey... Mrs. Stone? JANICE Who's this? GARY Uh... Gary White... we met on the street... JANICE Oh, hi! GARY Hey... um... I wondered if you wanted to go get coffee or sum'n. JANICE I'd love to, Gary! GARY Allright... I'll meet you at the Denny's in twenty minutes... JANICE Great! Cut to the basement of CHARLIE's place. He sits behind a desk, and BRAD and COLIN sit across from him. CHARLIE ...so I asked you here cause my people tell me that you're makin' some money, right? BRAD Aw, fuck, yo, my dog an' me be makin' da fat g's, yo. CHARLIE What? ... Anyway, how'd you like to come on board for my organization? 50-50 profits, and we set you up with guns and good locations. COLIN Aw, dat be the shizzit, yo. CHARLIE Allright. Cut to a nondescript diner. The suburbanite homemaker JANICE and the homeless bum GARY sit across from eachother, drinking coffee. GARY Good coffee here. JANICE (like she never thought of that) Mmm! A long beat. Cut to STEVE sitting on his couch, staring straight ahead. Cut to ZEKE sitting on his bed staring straight ahead. Cut to ALICIA lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. CU on STEVE's fingers dialing a number. CU on ZEKE picking up the phone. CU on STEVE's mouth moving, inaudibly. CU on ALICIA's hand holding a pen, writing down a place and a time on a piece of paper: Steve's @ 8:00 Montage: Beck's "Where It's At" begins. STEVE's car is rolling up to the 101 exit on Ralston, past a glowing convience store. It is dark out. Arial view of the car driving down an empty freeway, fast. CU on the sunroof opening. CU on ALICIA's hands sticking up into the air. Interior of the car. STEVE driving, ALICIA in front, and ZEKE spread out in back, they bob to the music. The car passes by some empty marshland next to a housing development and the Oracle complex. CU on the volume knob turning way up. A jet takes off from SFO. We are running down 101 closing up on the Industrial City sign. View from freeway looking west, at the glowing yet bland wasteland of South San Francisco. Slow zoom on Oakland from near 3 Com Park. We drive past 3 Com and get another glimpse of South City, CU of large smokestack. We see our first shot of the San Francisco skyline. Cut to a swirling floodlight. The car goes past Pac Bell Park. A bum walks under an overpass, past some inspirational grafitti. Down in the Mission and Market zone, we see the music store, the Metreon, SFMOMA, and we enter the well planned 5th and Mission garage. The car parks, and in slow motion, ZEKE, ALICIA, and STEVE get out and walk to the elevator. They break out onto the street corner, still in slowmotion, then everything speeds back up. They enter the front door of a nondescript apartment building, and walk through the lobby. They get in the elevator, and the door shuts. Int. of elevator. The music is paused at this point. ZEKE We know anyone who's gonna be there? STEVE No. ZEKE But we know who's playing there, right? STEVE Oh, hell yeah. ZEKE (smiles) Yeeahhhhh. ALICIA Here we are. The elevator dings. The music starts up again, as they slowmotion across the apartment hall to a front door. STEVE knocks, almost pushing a door open. End music. The door opens, sending Rancid's "Black & Blue" out into the halls. A punk lets them in, saying something inaudible over the loud music. We enter the apartment, seeing the music is live, being covered by a local punk band called Liberation. The aparment is one giant fucking mosh pit. The song ends. The lead singer looks at the crowd. LEAD SINGER Allright, that was Rancid's "Black and Blue." Our next song is one of our favorites... anyway, here it is... He launches into "Unity" by Operation Ivy. This drives the crowd insane. A loud banging is coming from the door. Soon it bursts open, sending cops into the frenzy. The crowd disperses, trying to come out the same door as the cops came in. They walk into a wall of nightsticks and clubs. Blood is flying everywhere. STEVE, ZEKE, and ALICIA are at the empty part of the room, the side near the windows. They look out. POV shot as they look down at the mess of cop cars down there. The room starts filling with tear gas. STEVE Think we can make it? ZEKE That's maybe 10 fucking stories, Steve! ALICIA Just slide yourself against the wall. ZEKE What? ALICIA Slide against the wall. Someone survived jumping of the Sears Tower doing that. STEVE What are we, fucking Mega Man? That ain't gonna work. Gunfire begins. ZEKE She's right, we got to try it. ALICIA I'll go first. STEVE No! ALICIA It was my idea... ZEKE She's got a point there... She boxes herself into the window, and prepares to slide. But before she can, a red circle fades into her stomach. She's been shot. She drops out the window without making a sound. Exterior shot. Slowmotion dolly down with ALICIA as her near dead body falls. It hits the dark pavement, as cops and peds rush to stare at it. The next morning. STEVE and ZEKE are at STEVE's house, sitting at the couch just staring foreward. None of them got any sleep. A paper lays on the table with the headline "11 Dead in Violent San Francisco Shootout" and a picture of the apartment full of dead bodies. ZEKE Those motherfuckers. STEVE Zeke, man... Yeah, okay... ZEKE We gotta do something. STEVE What? They're the cops. They'll fucking send us to the chair. ZEKE I don't even... care. Okay? STEVE Look, I loved her too, Zeke, but it is not worth adding to the fucking death toll. ZEKE It is if we can put some PD numbers on the other side of that fuckin' toll. STEVE (to himself) You what, at this rate, we're all gonna be extinct soon. ZEKE Who? STEVE Who? Us. This generation. The class of fucking 2004. This civilization's been going downhill since Columbus and the Malaria brigade set foot on it, and we're stuck at the fucking end of it. Forcing us to deal with a world that hates us for adapting to something they created. Hating the punks for knowing the truth, hating the stoners for trying to escape it, hating the future for an inevitablity that no one is ever gonna be able to pull out of. ZEKE Shit. STEVE What? ZEKE Even with all this shit... I'm not that fucking cynical. Cut to a seedy liquor store. COLIN and BRAD's POS pulls up, a bass thump coming from the inside, which shuts off when the car stops. COLIN and BRAD walk in, carrying the duffel bag and the 9mm that they use. We follow them. Inside, it looks just like a regular liquor store, except, as soon as the VIETNAMESE STORE OWNER sees them, he reaches under the counter and pulls out a shotgun. VIETNAMESE STORE OWNER I am not letting you rob again! Get out of store! COLIN Put down da fuggin' gun, bizzitch. BRAD (scared, going out of his psuedo-black dialect) Um, Colin... maybe we should go... COLIN Shut up. VIETNAMESE STORE OWNER Drop you gun! I am calling police! BRAD We'll get out of here... I'm sorry! BRAD drops the duffel bag and starts running. VIETNAMESE STORE OWNER fires his gun, blowing BRAD out of the store. COLIN fires the 9mm and hits the VIETNAMESE STORE OWNER in the forehead, making a neat red circle, and the STORE OWNER fires one last shot, snapping COLIN's head back. Static frame on the scene of destruction. Cut to a wide shot of a busy freeway. Cut to the same freeway emptied. Cut to a cubicle hall, full of office types, cut to the same empty. Cut to CHARLIE's "office." He sits at his desk, a flourescent light overhead like a spotlight. The phone rings. CHARLIE What? (beat) Colin and Brad are dead? (beat) Yeah... (beat) Shit! He hangs up the phone. He reaches into the desk and pulls a Magnum out. CHARLIE This is the last fucking straw. He fires it. GARY is lying on the side of a warehouse, a bottle of unlabled liquor at his side, crying. A cop enters the frame. RYBCZYNSKI Hey, you drug addict fuck, geddouddaere! GARY (whisper) ...Make me... RYBCZYNSKI What? GARY Make me. You know about those killings in San Francisco? RYBCZYNSKI Yeah. Fuckin' punks got what they deserved. GARY ...My daughter was there... RYBCZYNSKI (into radio) This is Rybczynski, I'm gonna need some backup 'ere. GARY goes into a rage. He breaks his bottle on the sidewalk, and lunges onto the cop. XCU on the two faces, GARY's full of animal rage, RYBCZYNSKI's full of criminal indifference. RYBCZYNSKI Get off me, you dirty piece of shit. GARY (sobbing) Fuck you! Fuck you... Cut to JANICE, sitting on the couch. ZEKE and STEVE walk into the house. JANICE Hi, Zeke... Oh, hi Steve! Cut to to close up of RYBCZYNSKI's neck. GARY pushes the bottle through RYBCZYNSKI's neck. Cut to the Oval Office. A closeup on the RED BUTTON throughout the entire scene. MAN 1 (oc) Mr. President? PRESIDENT What? Come in... MAN 2 We just found from my source at the Times, they're gonna print the corruption story. A white finger hovers above the button. PRESIDENT Oh... shit. MAN 1 What do you propose? MAN 2 Well, impeachment is gonna happen... No matter what we do, right now we got to avoid criminal charges. MAN 1 Right. PRESIDENT Hmm... MAN 2 This is gonna be some tough shit, though... MAN 1 Oh, yeah. No sleep until we're in our houses, writing our fucking memoirs. MAN 2 So, Mr. President- He jabs the button with his finger. Cut to black. Text fades onto the black screen: "All so different, yeah, I say we're all the same All caught, you know, in the division game Self-destruction fast impeding like a bullet No one can stop it when it's fired no one can control it" Operation Ivy, "Unity" After a while, the text fades away. Credits with "Black and Blue" by Rancid playing. 2002 Nicholas J. Washburn |