Judas Is A Good Kisser (1) FADE IN: 2 HEAVIES are carrying PACO out the door and into the street. HE's drugged, but THEY're acting like HE was drunk in case anyone is watching. EACH OF THEM has one of HIS arms over THEIR shoulders, gripping it by the wrist. PACO is vaguely aware of what's happening, but unable to do anything about it. Film Noir lighting. 1ST HEAVY Come on Paco, dont act that way, people are watching. MURRAY AND JOEL come out from behind a car. If THEY entered an Ernest Borgine look a like contest, Ernest Borgine would place 3rd. THEY both have shotguns. MURRAY points with HIS shotgun and the 2 HEAVIES put PACO in the car. More gestures and THE HEAVIES produce HIS watch, HIS wallet, HIS gun and HIS money. Then THEIR own guns, watches and money. More gestures and grunting conversation and they take off THEIR shoes and throw them in the car. MURRAY Drop the knife! THE 2 HEAVIES look at EACHOTHER. Neither has a knife. Then, somewhat belatedly, THEY realize that MURRAY is preparing to shoot THEM. THEY run wildly. MURRAY laughs then HE AND JOEL get into the car and drive off. CUT TO: INT> ELEVATOR (DIM YELLOW LIGHT) It's an old cage elevator. JOEL has PACO over HIS shoulder, holding HIM around the knees. THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR is a very crazy, very old man. HE giggles and nods approval, giving JOEL a Black Power salute. 2 JOEL Having a good time in there? CUT TO: INT> JOEL"S OFFICE (NIGHT) The office has the raw look of an industrial loading dock. The walls are painted concrete, the floor is steel and the ceiling is 20 ft. high. A set of heavy institutional looking stairs leads straight into a blank wall. High up on each wall is a large screen TV showing soft core bondage porn: GIRLS in black patent leather straitjackets and looking smug about it. The usual. HE dumps PACO on the couch then sits down at the desk and begins to deal a game of solitaire. But it's a Tarot pack and the set of institutional looking stairs leads 1st card is the 10 of Cups inverted. CUT TO: INT> HOSPITAL WARD (BRIGHT) The dialysis machines look like bondage contraptions designed to keep your date strapped into a sexually convenient position. Descriptions are difficult so, I'll include some visual aides. It's New Year's eve. PATIENTS ON DIALYSIS are watching a TV ANNOUNCER give accident statistics and cheering like it was a football game. TV ANNOUNCER ...a tractor-trailer jack-knifed off a highway overpass and fell through the top of a school bus. Three additional cars were also crushed and the death toll may reach 150. THE PATIENTS are cheering and high 5-ing eachother. 3 PATIENT 1 What's that? 680? PATIENT 2 730 dead and it's only 7 PM. PATIENT 1 If it's 1 in 20 is an organ donor... PATIENT 3 On the average. PATIENT 1 That's 15 1/2 kidneys. We might get out of here yet. JESSE If that's the way you feel, why dont you shoot your own? A DOCTOR is unhooking JESSE from the dialysis machine. PATIENT That's cheating. DOCTOR Jesus, we have to talk. JESSE (to PATIENT) Alright, run him over, say you'll drive him to the hospital, take him to a chop shop and steal his kidneys. (to Doctor) Call me Jesse, it makes me happy. Capt. Jesus sounds like a rock group. DOCTOR I can tell you're under a strain. JESSE By the time you sell his heart, lungs, liver, corneas and hip joints, you'll pay for your own operation and make a tidy profit besides. 4 DOCTOR Skip the hymn to the food chain, I have to talk to you. THE DOCTOR drags JESSE out through a maze of Alphaville corridors. Strange things are seen through half opened doors or in the edge of vision. You're not sure of what you've seen until it's already gone: About 3 ft. tall, A HEADLESS CHILD IN A COWBOY SUIT GOES BY ON SHORT STILTS. About 7 ft. tall, A NAKED PRE-PUBESCENT GIRL STANDING IN THE ANGLE OF 2 CORRIDORS WITH A CATATONIC STARE. A WOMAN IN BED CUDDLING A CRASH TEST DUMMY. (Sounds trite, but it works visually. I'm ripping off a painting by Dorothea Tanning called "The Guest Room") A BALLET GIRL IN A SILVER JUMP SUIT AND SILVERY MAKE UP IS EMBRACING A SHINY CHROME MACHINE. The shadows make HER look like part of it until a second after SHE's gone. DOCTOR (continuing) I got the tests back. You've been on dialysis for 6 years with the usual result: septic arthritis and cardiac arrhythmia. You need a transplant, it will buy you maybe 5 years before you start dying of something else. JESSE So, I fly to Rio, kidneys are the major export after coffee: Give us back our internal organs, Gringo exploiters of the Poor. DOCTOR You need a 7 point tissue match to have any chance at all. 5 JESSE No, I read... DOCTOR Cops shouldn't read, you'll only get confused. I'm trying to save your life. CUT TO: INT> JOEL"S OFFICE (DAY) JOEL is completing a bailbond contract with an ELEGANTLY DRESSED BLACK COUPLE. JOEL AND THE BLACK MAN are smiling at eachother like 2 old faggots in love. BLACK MAN Yes, well, I like to do business with one bondsman. BLACK WOMAN What?, did you say you were going to need a bondsman again? THEY exit arguing. JOEL looks around slyly. HE PULLS a .25 automatic from a watch pocket. JOEL Now, you little bastard, I've been after you for weeks. HE fires. PACO opens HIS eyes. JOEL fires again. PACO sits up, but JOEL is across the room leaping around and blazing away in the opposite direction. HE bends over and comes up with the .25 in HIS teeth and holding a dead rat by the neck. HE sees that PACO is awake then JOEL tucks the dead rat under HIS arm, the tail hanging down HIS sleeve. HE pours a cup of coffee from a silex and holds it out to PACO. PACO looks at the rat tail peeping out of JOEL's armpit. 6 PACO You're beautiful. JOEL You're supposed to be saying: Where am I? What happened? PACO I know what happened. What I dont know is how I keep tripping over you. JOEL Have some coffee. PACO takes it and sips. HE spits it out. PACO Decaffeinated! JOEL Yeah, that's your problem, not enough drugs! Hey, old buddy, why dont you tough it out? Pull out your gun, wave it around: "Let's see who's got the stronger magic." I guess you found out. PACO I didn't expect it because there was no reason for it. JOEL Whadya do? screw her and take a liking to her? PACO That's half your conversation. If I'm not trying to kill some one, you figure I must be sexually involved. JOEL What's your question? PACO I cant take this early in the morning. 7 JOEL It's afternoon. PACO I cant take this right after I wake up. She was just trying to scare me. JOEL I dont believe this. I even got to tell him when he's being murdered. PACO You think like I fuck. JOEL Tell me another way. PACO The man gets on top. JOEL Let's get out of here. PACO Yeah. CUT TO: INT> HOSPITAL (BRIGHT AND SCARY) THEY're in an examination room but the door is half open and THE PATIENTS going by have the kind of faces you see in a cancer hospital: impossibly malformed in inhuman shades of orange and purple and red. Unlike a horror movie, these PEOPLE are trying to maintain their dignity and act as though nothing were wrong and that makes it much worse. JESSE With drugs like cyclosporine to prevent organ rejection, you dont need a tissue match. 8 DOCTOR It prevents organ rejection by suppressing the immune system. It gives you an artificial case of AIDS and the worse the tissue match the more of it you have to take. Besides which, it does catastrophic kidney damage. It prevents the body from rejecting it, then kills it itself. JESSE There are other drugs. DOCTOR Cyclosporine is used because it's the least destructive of the immuno-suppressants JESSE The statistics I read.. DOCTOR You believe that shit? JESSE Well, no. DOCTOR You fly to China for a kidney, it's going to kill you. You might as well stay here and save the air fare. CUT TO: INT> COFFEE BAR (CHEERY) JOEl has a large smoked fish. He's holding it 2 handed and eating it like it was corn on the cob. It's a New Age place with lots of hanging vines. A HUGE SPIDER, 2-eyed like a crab, scrambles down a vine, looks back and forth between JOEL and HIS fish then scuttles back up. TYPICAL NEW YORKERS go by: A LESBIAN DWARF IN A CRASH HELMET, A 48-D CUP WOMAN WITH A BLOND CREW CUT AND MAKE UP OUT OF A RICHARD LINDNER PAINTING and so on. JOEL is watching the parade. 9 PACO Whatever you do, dont make eye contact. It might be taken as an attempt at communication and therefore grounds for murder. JOEL scowls. You're still pissed. JOEL Of course, I'm pissed. You got two women in love with you, why shouldn't I be pissed? PACO I'm almost impotent. JOEL Almost! PACO How much grief do you want to wish on me? JOEL You're supposed to kill yourself cause you're afraid you're going gay. PACO That would be shrewd. JOEL Sure. PACO I think you're supposed to do more than hate yourself, I think you're actually supposed to be attracted to men and I'm not. JOEL Nobody's perfect. CUT TO: 10 INT> HOSPITAL (FLOODLIT) THEY"RE talking across a gurney, the kind used in executions by injection. Leather manacles hang from the walls. JESSE You're telling me I got to die?, I'm telling you I'm going to take you with me! DOCTOR I'm telling you that you need a 7 point HLA match. You have a brother, right? JESSE We hate each other. DOCTOR He's still your brother. JESSE What are you?, an only child? That brother thing isn't like you think it is. DOCTOR Fine, you hate each other. But, if you die, how is he ever going to get even? JESSE That part makes sense. DOCTOR Well, he's going to give up a kidney or you're going to die. JESSE Yeah. CUT TO: INT> CORRIDOR IN THE HALL OF JUSTICE (MURKY) PACO AND JOEL are striding along determinedly. PACO is talking on a cell phone. 11 PACO Yeah...I understand that...No, thanks...I'm not going to do it. ...No...The harm is, if I say we'll talk about it, you think it means I cant change my mind all at once because it would undermine my authority but, I dont want to talk about it because I'm not going to change my mind because I'm not going to do it...alright, we'll talk about it. HE hangs up. PACO (continuing) He wants my kidneys. JOEL That's true love. CUT TO: INT> THE GENTLEMAN LOSER (BRIGHT) The store sells guns, motorcycles, fashion magazines and sex toys with a collection of pinball machines to play while you wait. JOEL is playing an antique and complicated pinball machine. PACO is reading the British edition of VOGUE. White and red neon scribbles across the floor and up the walls looking like a time exposure shot of night time traffic. JOEL I can understand looking at the pictures, but you're actually reading that thing. That's sick. PACO There's a thing in here on Antonia Frazer. I wanted to see what Pinter's lady looked like. 12 JOEL She looks alright. He looks like her pet poodle. PACO He is, but she says something interesting about fashion, that fashion should always have some element that's self-mocking, something that says: Dont take this too seriously, it's all an act but it's fun, that's what role playing is for. JOEL You act like that's important, like I'm supposed to thank you for it. PACO You dont like fashion. JOEL I liked it better when I thought God designed it and it just descended. A COP walks by. COP How's the sporting life? JOEL You dont want to know, you'd have to make out the forms in triplicate. COP Whadya do? Guys And Dolls in summer stock? PACO See, that's what I mean, everyone's auditioning. No one believes any of this is really real, like ironic detachment is your only claim to exist. 13 JOEL Shut up and read your picture book. PACO Let's get out of here. JOEL Yeah. INT> MEN"S ROOM OF THE CRIMINAL COURT (DIM) PACO AND JOEL AND THE 1ST MURDERER. There is a sign on the wall: LOADING OR UNLOADING GUNS ON THESE PREMISES IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN And the graffiti: PROSECUTORS WILL BE VIOLATED PACO is shucking the wadcutters out of an S&W combat magnum and reloading with Glazer Blue Dot. JOEL is listening to the 1ST MURDERER. SOUND FADES IN. 1ST The genitals are always the first to go. They ask me what sex it was, I have to look at the knees or the Adam's apple because all that's down there is maggot pie. PACO Stop it. 1ST Big sturdy maggots like the Michelin Tire Man. PACO Stop. JOEL He means, why are you here? This is the Hall of Justice. I am a bondsman. That's why I am here. This, he's a lawyer. He's trying to get disbarred, that's why he is here. Now, we told you why we are here, why wont you tell us why you are here? 14 A COP enters wearing a gigantic .44 magnum stainless in a strap down holster. COP (pointing to the .357) When are you going to get yourself a real gun? PACO (pointing to the .44) That's not to shoot with, it's a symbol of authority. COP Your mother is a symbol of authority. PACO You bet your sweet ass. THE COP finishes at the urinal. COP (pointing to the Blue Dots) Those explosive bullets are illegal under federal law. PACO Thank you for pointing that out, sometimes it is the obvious that is being overlooked. THE COP snarls and leaves. 1ST Look, I'm going to have to start over from the beginning. PACO No. JOEL No, no, skip ahead, now try to remember: why are you here. What happened that brought you here. And it's something you wanted to tell us about, that's why you're here, to tell us. Now, tell us what it is. 15 1ST Did I tell you about the baby? JOEL Baby?, no you didn't tell us about the baby. 1ST Okay, I can start there, but I might have to go back. PACO Start there. 2 COPS walk in dragging A VERY CONVINCING TRANSVESTITE. COP You still got a schvance, you use the men's room. TRANSVESTITE Pervert! But THEY let HER piss sitting down. THE 1ST MURDERER looks hopelessly confused. PACO The baby: start there. 1ST Yeah, well, I am embalming this baby, maybe 2 months old, when the telephone rings. So, I turn the compressor on real low, 2 1/2 pounds per sq. inch. That's low for an adult, but low for a baby would be about 1/2 pound per sq. inch and, ah, it's my girl friend. PACO The baby? 16 1ST No, on the telephone. And by the time she gets through telling me all the things her sister said about me, I get back to the table and the baby is 4 feet tall. So, I take it out to the parking lot where it's real dark. I get the hearse out of the garage and run over the baby with it. Yeah, keep backing up over the baby with the hearse. Embalming fluid is flying everywhere, but after backing up over the baby for an hour, the transmission falls out. A BLACK MAN walks in with a ghetto blaster turned up loud. It's playing Because The Night Belongs To Lovers by Patti Smith. 16 PACO and JOEL square dance to it with frantic enthusiasm. THE 1ST MURDERER hesitates for a second then joins in. THE BLACK MAN is at a urinal, staring at THEM transfixed and appalled. Then HE runs for it. And this 2 month old baby still looks 9 years old. Kind of a puffy 9 years old with a squint. At this point, the night manager walks in wanting to know why the transmissions on the floor and there's blood all over the wheels. But just then there's an appeal for a kidney donor over BAI and, rather than risk an argument, I killed him. PACO I think I've got the beginnings of an idea. 17 INT> CORRIDOR IN THE HALL OF JUSTICE THE 3 OF THEM striding along determinedly. JOEL Alright, but I wait outside for you. At night. The funeral home. Outside. I'll be waiting for you. While you go in and get the money. I'll be in a white VolksWeasel. Outside. That way, I blink the parking lights, you come over and give me the money. Which you can do because I'm right there. Waiting for you. You understand what I'm saying? 1ST Yeah, I give you the money. JOEL Beautiful. Richelieu, you wait outside the funeral home for him. PACO That's what friends are for. CUT TO: INT> HALLWAY (DIM) PACO comes down the stairs onto the landing. JESSE AND CHULO come out in front of HIM. HE looks around for escape, but MACHITO is coming silently down the stairs behind HIM. PACO Now what? JESSE We have to talk. PACO You mean, I have to listen. 18 JESSE You're going to give up a kidney or we're going to kill you and take it from your dead body. We would have done that already
Copyright © 1999 Victoria King |