Dreamwalk (2)
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. He's wearing beaded dread
locks and a djellaba. He's also carrying a
samurai sword.
The ghetto blaster is playing BECAUSE THE
NIGHT BELONGS TO LOVERS by Patti Smith.
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.
1ST
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.
INT. CORRIDOR IN THE HALL OF JUSTICE
The 3 of them striding along determinedly.
they're at least a foot taller than the
perps who swarm around them.
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)
It's a subdivided mansion populated by
ballet girls eating yogurt.
There's a crystal chandelier hanging down the middle
of a gigantic circular staircase, but the corridors
are painfully narrow.
Paco comes up the stairs onto the landing. Jesse and
CHULO come out in front of him. He looks around for
escape, but MACHITO is coming silently up the stairs
behind him.
PACO
Now what?
JESSE
We have to talk.
PACO
You mean, I have to listen.
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 except
that transplants from a live donor have
a better chance of success.
PACO
But if you killed me you could take both.
JESSE
You trying to work yourself up to do
something desperate? I'll take one
for now.
PACO
Right here?
JESSE
In three days.
He raise a forefinger and Chulo grabs his own lapels,
throwing his coat open wide, and comes galloping over.
Inside his coat:
on one side is a long barrelled pistol with a silencer,
on the other are business cards. Jesse extracts a
doctor's appointment slip and hands it to Paco.
JESSE
You got an appointment tomorrow.
They got to run some tests,
make sure you dont have AIDS.
PACO
I'm not gay.
JESSE
You would be if you had any integrity.
CUT TO:
INT. HOSPITAL (BRIGHT AND SCARY)
We’re back in Paco’s world: schiz and overlit
and it is a trip.
A DOCTOR is drawing Paco's blood and doing some
routine tests.
2 NURSES WITH THEIR UNIFORMS HALF UNBUTTONED are
clutching each other in a mop closet and staring
fixedly off screen through a line of half open
doors that go on for ever.
POV pans around to show A MAN IN A BUSINESS SUIT
HANGING UPSIDE DOWN IN THE CORNER. His arms are
at his sides and a water tap has been stuck into
his neck. It oozes a slow drop of blood.
He has a calm but puzzled expression. He blinks
twice then POV spins by.
Paco and the doctor appear to be in the center of
a merry-go-round. Things spin by around them.
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.
PACO
How about, I bring in another kidney
and you use it instead, but you say
it was mine?
DOC
There hasn't been a trial for witchcraft
in this state for 300 years, but I think
that might qualify. No, thanks.
PACO
I've been doing some reading. You held
a symposium on organ traffic last year.
In Bellagio, Italy, but the proceedings
were never published.
DOC
It would only fuel public paranoia
on the subject. Stories of waking
up in a bathtub full of ice with
your kidneys hijacked, that's the
most popular urban folktale.
PACO
And the names of the participants
were never made public.
DOC
Same reason, cant have them badgered
by cranks with conspiracy theories.
PACO
There's another explanation:
You were afraid that one of
them might talk. Say, from
a country without anything
equivalent to the AMA.
DOC
Believe what you like.
PACO
But it would be easy to get their
names, just send a PI to Bellagio
and have him check the hotels for
the time of the conference to see
which doctors were registered.
And the results weren't to be
published so, one of them must
have made a tape recording of
the proceedings.
DOC
Whose kidney were you thinking of using?
TWO INTERNS gallop past rolling a gurney at
high speed. THE PATIENT on the gurney is
strapped down and making muffled grunts
through a leather strap gag.
PACO
How much do you really want to know?
DOC
Just get yourself a pair of poultry
shears, the kind you use to cut up
a turkey.
And the kidneys are easy to miss,
they're under a flap of fat at
the back.
PACO
Gotcha.
CUT TO:
INT. SHRINK’S OFFICE (BLACK AND WHITE)
The room is Art Deco like a 30's Fred Astaire
movie. The scene is shot in perfume-ad-romantic:
Moonlight streaming in through the French windows
while the wind flutters the draperies and swirling
violins on the sound track. Paco is on the couch.
THE SHRINK is a mannishly good-looking woman in
her 40's. She's wearing a 1950's bra and girdle
and admiring herself in a hand mirror. Her hair
is blown back like she was riding in a convertible
at high speed.
SHRINK
I dont believe it.
PACO
You said that.
SHRINK
That was a horrible disgusting story.
PACO
Yes, it was so, you're right not to
believe it.
SHRINK
No wonder you dont have any friends.
You give up a kidney to save your
brothers life. I really dont see
what's so terrible about that.
PACO
While I'm at, why dont you get a
boob job?
SHRINK
Look at what happened to
Mariel Hemingway.
PACO
Dont you mean Margaux?
SHRINK
Mariel. She was very flat chested,
but that only made her seem vul-
nerable and in a way even more
feminine.
She got a boob job for Star 80 and
suddenly she was just one more bimbo
and she never worked again.
PACO
Are you trying to say, you
think you look vulnerable?
SHRINK
I think I look feminine.
She snaps a garter on her girdle.
PACO
And you think you'd look less
feminine with bigger breasts.
SHRINK
It's depersonalizing, like any
other type of uniform.
PACO
Its depersonalizing that he wants
to use me for spare parts.
SHRINK
It's not your balls, it isn't your right
arm. What if it were a fingernail would
that bother you?
PACO
It feels like he's trying to steal my soul.
SHRINK
You dont have a soul. I keep trying to
build you one, but it keeps coming apart
in my hands.
PACO
I was wondering if I could undo those
garters with my teeth.
SHRINK
Hmmm.
CUT TO:
EXT. FUNERAL HOME (NIGHT)
Paco parks. The 1st murderer runs by with
A TEENAGE STARLET slung over his shoulder.
He's being chased by VILLAGERS carrying
torches and pitchforks.
Paco jumps out with a legal brief in each
hand. He gets between the 1st murderer
and the villagers.
PACO
Well, now that you're all here,
we're going to have a reading
of a one act play I wrote and
it's very nice and I know you'll
like it.
The villagers throw down their torches
and pitchforks and run for their lives.
PACO
That always works.
But when he turns around,
the 1st murderer is gone.
CUT TO:
INT. MEDICAL SUPPLY STORE (MORNING)
Paco is buying a doctor's whites and a
stethoscope to hang around his neck.
INT. HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOM
An operation is in progress. Paco slithers
in wearing rubber gloves and face mask.
SURGEON.
That's it, sew him up.
Paco waves everyone out. He's alone with
the patient. Paco pulls out a pair of
poultry shears and starts rummaging around
in the patients torso. He's finding the
kidneys by a process of elimination.
He keeps chopping out pieces and throwing
them away. He tucks the kidneys in a doggie
bag and runs for it.
He finds AN OLD LADY IN A WHEEL CHAIR
and starts rolling her away as a cover
story. She doesn't want to go.
He clubs her unconscious with a fire
extinguisher and heads for the back
elevators.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET (DAY)
Paco is galloping along with the old lady
hanging half way out of the wheel chair.
By this time, THE HOSPITAL STAFF is in
full pursuit.
He rolls her in front of a bus to create
a distraction and takes off running.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE BLACK MUSLIM TEMPLE AT 125TH (DAY)
Paco is chased inside. THE POLICE, are afraid
to follow. Inside, it's THE DOME OF THE ROCK
IN JERUSALEM.
There are 40 vacuum cleaners in a corner, looking
like a re-make of THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE. Paco
runs past the desk at the entrance and THE FLOWER
OF ISLAM BOYS close in. Obviously, they intend to
kill him.
1ST FLOWER
You dis-respected our desk!
Paco hands him the kidney container.
KAREEM opens it and stares inside.
After several moments of study, He
hands it to MAHMOUD. They both have
very serious expressions. Mahmoud
hands it back.
MAHMOUD
I ordered 2 double cheeseburgers and
a rootbeer malt.
KAREEM
Hush. So that's the way it goes down.
You and me, we blood brothers just
like it say in Koran.
PACO
Sure, Baby, but I've got to get out of
here fast. They'll be here any minute
now.
KAREEM
The Great Satan?
PACO
Yeah. YEAH. That's right, THE GREAT SATAN.
KAREEM
You know, I'm not surprised.
No, I'm not surprised at all.
PACO
You're not?
KAREEM
I'm surprised it took them so long.
They're here to cut up our children,
and sell them for spare parts. Just
like in Guatemala.
PACO
You got that part right.
KAREEM
And this heart proves it.
PACO
It's a kidney.
KAREEM
It's a baby's heart
PACO
Right, A baby's heart. We'll get it
straightened out later. Right now you
understand how important it is to escape
with the evidence and alert the media.
But that's Satan kicking the door in
right now.
KAREEM
This way.
He leads him up to the roof. Background noise:
the Balinese Monkey Chant, heavy gunfire and
the finale of the 1812 Overture.
CUT TO:
EXT. ROOF OF THE TEMPLE (DAY)
On the roof there's A WHITE HORSE WITH A
PEACOCK TAIL AND THE FACE OF A WOMAN.
Kareem picks up Paco and places him
in the saddle. Paco looks shocked.
KAREEM
It's rented for the movie. You
know, Industrial light and Magic.
And the white horse flies paco away.
CUT TO:
INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE PACO’S APARTMENT
Paco is exhausted. Jesse and cohorts are
waiting for him. There's barely room to move.
JESSE
That was real cute. You knew an
unmatched kidney would kill me.
PACO
That was the idea.
JESSE
And you thought the Doc would be
more afraid of you than of me.
Not smart.
PACO
That part sounds true.
JESSE
So, Chulo and Machito will keep
you company until it's time to
get cut up.
PACO
Thanks.
Paco walks in to his apartment and
feeds the kidney to his cat.
CAT
(sounding like Glenda Jackson)
What now?
PACO
How many times do I have to tell you,
cats do not actually say Meoow.
CAT
I didn't say Meoow, I said "What now?"
PACO
Good question.
CUT TO:
INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE PACO’S APT.
He walks out. Chulo and Machito close in
PACO
Feel like taking a walk.
CHULO
We come with you.
PACO
Sure, why not?
And he takes off running.
EXT. STREET (DAY)
Paco is being chased by Chulo and Machito.
He runs into a supermarket drugstore and
plays peek-a-boo around the aisles.
He runs through the toy department and grabs
a bag of marbles with Machito right behind him.
He changes aisles and runs straight into Chulo.
He tears the electronic label off the marbles
and slaps it on Chulo's back then takes off out
the door with Chulo and Machito right behind him.
The electronic label sets off the alarm as they
charge through the gate and THE SECURITY GUARDS
leap on Chulo.
Paco is running down the middle of the sidewalk
with Machito closing in. He rips open the bag
of marbles and throws them behind him. Machito
staggers, but doesn’t even slow down. Paco pulls
up short. He pulls out a flip-top can of cat
food and rips it open.
PACO
1st let me feed my cat.
MACHITO
I don’t see a cat.
PACO
He’s very shy.
As any one with a cat would know, those can tops
are sharper than a razor. He slashes Machito’s face
with it. Machito does a lawn sprinkler pirouette
spraying blood in all directions and Paco recedes
into the distance.
CUT TO:
EXT. IRT EL (NIGHT)
Paco is running along the rails. It's at
this point we lose Machito. He falls off
and down to the street.
But Chulo is an Indian, He runs putting one
foot in front of another and he's gaining.
Paco has to shinny down the pillars to get
away from him.
Chulo goes down with one foot between the
railroad ties and lands with a badly sprained
ankle.
Paco keeps going. He staggers out to the street.
It looks awful and it looks deserted. Huge
apartment blocks being used as movie screens.
Enormous close-ups of a nose, or lips or an
eye are projected on their sides in murky
blue light.
The only lights on are the street lamps and
some fuzzy green neon in the distance. Outside
of that, absolute blackness. Paco keeps walking,
the neon gets closer. It's a bar called numbers.
Something's a little wrong, but it doesn't get
obvious until he gets inside. It's a gay bar.
Paco staggers in.
INT. TRANSVESTITE BAR (NIGHT)
VOICE 1
All great writers are Irish homosexuals.
VOICE 2
What about Faulkner? What about Hemingway?
VOICE 1
Who said they were any good?
VOICE 2
What about Dante?
VOICE 1
Well, he's not quite in the
same class as James Joyce.
VOICE 2
Joyce was gay?
VOICE 1
Obviously, he was a great writer.
PACO
Grappa.
BARTENDER
Granpa? Old Grandad.
Paco looks around. THE WOMEN are cute, but they all
have 4 o'clock shadow. He starts to leave then sits
back down, exhausted. His reflection is pointing the
same way he is. He’s looking at the back of HIS head.
On the wall is Belmer's "Peppermint Stick For Greedy
Little Girls".
PACO
Forget it. How about a frozen
daiquiri with a diet coke chaser?
BAR
Sure, Honey.
PACO
I thought they only had places
like this on 12th Avenue.
BAR
Doesn't matter where it is,
people will travel for it.
PACO
I'm here sort of by accident.
BAR
You dont have to explain anything
to me, but I thought you half and
halfs were too worried about AIDS.
PACO
AIDS?
BAR
Well, dont worry. You cant catch
it by getting your thingee slurped.
There's something in the saliva
that kills the virus.
PACO
Saliva.
BAR
Is that a gun?
PACO
No, bitch, I’m just happy to see you.
BAR
Except for HIV 5, the one that's
wiping out Thailand, that thrives
in saliva.
PACO
Yeah, saliva.
BAR
Like the one on the end on the
end with the ulcers on her face
covered up with cake batter.
PACO
Type 5? Saliva, right?
BAR
Miss Phyllis LoveBoot, the skeleton
at the feast. People dont come to a
bar like this to be reminded of that.
If she gets on your nerves...
PACO
No, she's perfect.
BAR
But she's got type 5. You can get
it from a kiss, you can get from
looking at her. Otherwise, you
cant catch it unless you take it
from behind without a raincoat.
PACO
Only from my brother.
BAR
That's a joke, right?
PACO
Yeah, a joke.
He moves toward Miss Phyllis. She smiles at him.
BAR
She's got hepatitis too.
PACO
I think I'm in love.
He sits down next to it. They start talking.
He/she starts off flirtatious then horrified.
PHYLLIS
That's insane.
PACO
I thought you girls liked to spread
it around. Trying to take as many
people with you as you can.
PHYLLIS
Get him away, he's a basher,
he's going to kill me.
PACO
No, Baby, I just want to catch AIDS.
PHYLLIS
That's a lousy way to commit suicide.
PACO
No, it's murder.
He whispers something to he/she. They kiss.
The bartender crosses himself and makes the
sign against the evil eye.
INT. BOUTIQUE FITTING ROOM (NIGHT)
It's a boot and corset boutique called SPANK. Phyllis
and Paco are somewhat in shock. She’s wearing one of
those shiny Pearl harbor egg cup girdles so stiff and
shiny and armor-like it makes you think of Joan of Arc.
PHYLLIS
Any regrets?
PACO
Oh, no, after everything,
I will love you always.
PHYLLIS
Bitch.
PACO
You murdered me, I murdered my
brother. For a moment, I forgot
that I exist and that's beautiful.
PHYLLIS
All we did was kiss like teenagers on
a 1st date. It was so sweet. That’s
something I’ve never had. I’ll always
remember you. Always.
But in her case ‘always’ is only going to be a week
or 2. It’s so obvious that even Paco is embarrassed.
PHYLLIS (continuing)
I’m going to die soon.
PACO
That could be a problem.
PHYLLIS
They're all so feminine, no matter
how butch they are. There's always
this whiny, bitchy subtext.
Little girls dressing up in their
mother's clothes. I like men.
PACO
Bon appetite, I'm out of here.
CUT TO:
EXT. STREET (DAWN)
Paco is having trouble walking, exhaustion and
accumulated injuries He sits down on a park
bench and staggers upright.
He's trying to go home. Chulo and Machito
close in on him. Chulo is on crutches and
Machito is in a motorized wheel chair. They
dont carry automatic weapons that might
damage internal organs. Chulo has a machete
and Machito has a medieval halberd. It looks
like a can opener on a long pole.
PACO
Well, now that you're all here,
we're going to have a reading
of a one act play I wrote...
They club him semi-conscious. Paco lets
himself be led away and into a black van.
Chulo throws down a ramp. Machito rolls up,
pulls it in after him and closes the door.
The van roars away.
CUT TO:
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