dammit mammit: October 2008

My second short screenwriting exercise for my screenwriting class.
Obviously, it is based on people I know. They are just acting even more freakishly than usual.
Youth culture fascinates me.

EXT. NIGHT
The sound of gravel crunching. The camera follows a pair of wobbling, one-size-too-small red high heels encasing a pair of pudgy ankles as they teeter-totter their way up a gravel path. The sound of thumping music fades in from off-screen. The heels wobble up the steps of a wooden wraparound porch. They stop on the doormat which reads “BEWARE.” With the camera still on the feet only, we see a chubby hand with fire-engine red fingernails reach down and scratch the back of the right ankle. The figure straightens up and rings the doorbell.

Cut to INT. NIGHT
Loud dance music thumping through a spacious two-story house full of people. The camera lingers in the dimly-lit front room. Furniture has been pushed aside to create a makeshift dance floor. Shadowy figures are dancing, undulating, illuminated only by the glow sticks around their arms and necks and one girl’s shimmering disco-ball earrings.

The sound of the doorbell ringing is barely audible over the music.

GIRL(off-screen, screeching): J.P.! The door!

(doorbell rings again)

GIRL: J.P.! Get the damn door!

A tall, glow-sticked seventeen-year-old boy with shaggy hair and a beer in one hand breaks away from the dancing and moves towards the front door.

Cut to a flash of the red high heels on the door mat. The door opens.

J.P.’s face illuminated by the porch light, somewhat confused.

J.P.: Um, can I help you?

The high-heeled figure is finally revealed to be a short, chubby girl dressed as a devilled-egg. White trash bag with a yellow construction paper yolk pinned to her stomach, the red heels, red devil horns perched on top of her head, red lipstick and drawn on exaggerated black brows, and clutching a red plastic pitchfork in one hand. In the other hand she holds a white rat.

DEVILLED-EGG GIRL (meekly): I heard this was the costume party?

J.P.: Why do you have a . . . rodent?

DEVILLED-EGG GIRL: His name’s Al. He’s hungry.

J.P.: Come one.

J.P. and the Devilled-Egg girl step back inside. The camera follows them across the dance floor, weaving in and our of the crowd, through a pair of double doors, and into a brightly lit kitchen. Hannah, the girl with the disco-ball earrings, follows them. The camera scans the counters which are littered with empty liquor bottles, beer cans, half-guzzled hard lemonades, empty cereal bowls, dented pizza boxes, other party remnants. At the kitchen table four people sit playing scrabble. Hannah moves to stand over the table, looking down at the board.

HANNAH: I don’t think “goatwife” is a word.

Caroline, wearing a black slip and a coonskin cap, doesn’t turn away from the game.

CAROLINE: Shut the fuck up, Hannah.

J.P.: Are there any Apple Jacks left?

Caroline, still not turning away from the board, shoves the box of Apple Jacks into Hannah’s hands.

HANNAH: Um, thanks. (She hands the Apple Jacks to J.P. who proceeds to attempt to feed them to the rat.)

CAROLINE (muttering): Whore.

Camera glides away from the kitchen, through a hallway full of various couples in various stages of mating, through a screen door, and then outside onto the back porch where handsome, dark-haired boy, Dean, stands on a patio chair reciting Emily Dickinson before a small crowd of drunk party-goers. He wears a cardboard Burger King crown on his head.

DEAN (oratorically): We never know how high we are/ Till we are called to rise;/And then if we are true to plan/Our statures touch the skies!

Cut to close up shot of a boy (around nineteen)- Oli- gazing imperiously up at Dean, smoking a cigarette, eyebrows raised.

Cut back to Dean.

DEAN: The heroism we recite/Would be a daily thing . . .

Dean’s recitation overlaps a shot of Oli exhaling a trail of smoke rings.

back to . . .
DEAN:...Did not ourselves the cubits warp/ For fear to be a king. . . . Thank you.

A few people applause and holler. Dean sweeps off his Burger King crown and bows majestically.

Cut back to close up of. . .

OLI (with a slight drawl and a throaty smoker’s growl): My ma used to read me Emily Dickinson. Read it a helluva lot better than you.

Oli puff-puffs on his cigarette.
Dean sits down across from him.

DEAN: Your ma makes gingerbread houses for a living, right?

OLI: Yep.

DEAN: Couldn’t make it as a poet, eh? Was reduced to reciting her son bedtime poetry?

Oli, his face perfectly serene, puts his cigarette out on Dean’s forearm.

DEAN (high-pitched, jerking his arm back and massaging it): Jesus!

OLI: Oops.

Oli tosses the cigarette butt over his shoulder. The camera follows its arc. It lands in a girl’s lap. She picks it up, studies it, then turns away from her group of giggly friends to look over at Dean and Oli. She turns around to face them, straddling her chair.

GIRL: Got another one?

Dean saunters over to her. Pulls a pack from his back pocket. Grins as he hands her a cigarette and lights it for her.

DEAN: What’s your name?

GIRL: Gretchen.

DEAN: I want you.

Gretchen’s gaze moves over to a group of people standing on the corner of the patio, passing around a joint. Close up of Gretchen’s face as she exhales a stream of smoke.

GRETCHEN: My boyfriend’s that goofy-lookin’ one over there. The little one next to the tiki torch.

Their conversation fades out as the camera glides over to Gretchen’s boyfriend, Casey. He is short -- shorter than the tiki torch-- and wears tight cut-off shorts, a camouflage baseball cap, and no shirt. He is showing off his tattoos: the anarchy symbol on one hip and the outline of the state of Louisiana on the other. He speaks to the group in general.

CASEY: I’m gonna go train-hopping in about two weeks. Need to break it off with that bitch over there. (He slugs the boy next to him in the shoulder and chuckles) Wanna buy her off me?

There are hearty laughs all around that are suddenly disrupted by a blood-curdling scream. Everyone stops talking mid-sentence. The music thumps for a few more measures but then is abruptly shut off. Utter silence.

The camera begins to wind it’s way back through the house. Passing over Oli, frozen with a cigarette half-way to his mouth. Past the kissing couples in the hallway, through the kitchen where the scrabble players have finally been jerked away from their game. Through the double doors and onto the dance floor, where the confused dancers have stopped mid cha-cha. We see Hannah and J.P., frozen mid-slow dance, arms around each other. Close up on their petrified faces. The camera follows their gaze down to the floor. A trail of blood on the hardwood. The white rat’s dead, twitching body. Pan out to reveal Caroline, holding a bloody Swiss army knife.

CAROLINE: Sorry. I just can’t stand rodents.

She wipes the knife on her skirt. The girl dressed as a devilled-egg let’s out a pathetic moan (“Al!”) and faints.

Music resumes.

Fade to black.