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Please.
No.
It’s the last one.
Just to get us through, until we’re finished –
No.
(Silence)
(Silence)
Aren’t you gonna ask? Aren’t you even curious?
No.
Why? But oh
please, why not?
Because I’m tired.
My hands ache. My mouth is raw
from grinding. I don’t want to do
anything but finish this, and then sleep. Crawl
into a coma.
Please.
(Chewing sounds)
For me.
(Silence, then a sigh)
So. What’s
this one about?
Thanks –
Don’t. Just
tell the goddamn pitch, don’t fawn like some goddam little girl. And keep working while you’re doing it.
Ok.
(Deep breath of preparation)
Ok. I call
this one Hammerhead. There’s this
poor little deformed kid, an actual kid with a head shaped like a hammer head shark –
Human mouth or shark mouth?
Oh. Human,
definitely.
Hm.
What?
Nothing. Keep
going. And pass that, the left one.
Here. But
what’s wrong with the mouth? Oh it sucks
already, doesn’t it? I’m never gonna
break into the movie biz –
Don’t start, goddamit. Don’t even fuckin think about it. Tell. Your. Idea.
Ok . . ok. So
this poor little deformed boy, with a rectangular head, one eye stuck on each end. His skin is shriveled and hangs from his bones like
drapery. Each eye is shrunk to a pinpoint,
from lack of sunlight –
- cause
his mom doesn’t let him go outside to play.
Right! Of
course not.
Course not. Can
you do your share? Pretty fuckin please?
Ok.
(Becoming muffled. An occasional crunch).
Ok, so he’s not allowed outside because of his
mother. She’s worried they’ll all
make fun of him, all the other kids. So he
just sits in his boarded-up room and watches movies all day, and puts his beady little
eyes, one at a time because of the shape of his head, you know, he alternates each eye, peering through the single
knot-hole in the planks over the window. Straining
to see outside. That’s his days –
movies and the knothole. And checking to see
if she forgot to padlock the door.
And then one morning she does.
Right! And
so he charges out the bedroom triumphantly, running to the front door, his beautiful
spirit shining through his horrible face –
But when he makes it outside all the kids scream and
scatter.
Wrong! Just
as he is opening the front door, his Mom returns home.
And when she catches him, catches him breaking her number-one-rule . . . she
kills Makura.
She kills the kid?
No, not him. Makura.
Who the hell is Makura?
Here, give me that. I can snap
the bone down easier.
Makura’s his pet shark. Didn’t I mention that?
No. Where
the hell does he keep a shark?
In his aquarium, on his dresser. He’s only like two feet long. Hammerheads only grow to the size of their
containers.
I think that’s alligators.
Oh . . . oh shit, you’re right. I’ll have to rework –
(A slurping noise)
-
that. But
yeah, when his mom catches him trying to leave, she throws him back into the bedroom, then
reaches into the aquarium, snags Makura by the tail, and smashes him against the wall!
(Sigh)
The boy beats the Mom to death with the shark’s
lifeless body, right?
Damnit!
(pause)
Damnit! How did you see that coming?
I just know how your mind works. Kinda hard not to.
It sucks, doesn’t it? Just like all the others?
(Silence)
Doesn’t it?
(A pause, then a thick, choking, raging laugh)
Yeah. It
fuckin sucks. But at least it’s not as
bad as the rest. The deformed shark-boy who
makes the team, becomes a football star – yeah, that’ll work –
Shut up.
– or the – oh God – the deformed
shark-boy who falls in love -
(More hacking laughter. Spattering of food bits against a wall.)
Shut up!
– with a fuckin carp . . . oh God . . .
I’m just trying to better our lives, get us out of
here . . .
No, that was my decision! Remember, two days ago? And now I’m stuck listening to these shitty
pipedreams, ever since we –
DON’T!
YES! Because
that’s it. Your blockbuster idea, your
runaway hit. Not inspirational claptrap, not
fuckin romantic comedy. But lurid family
murder – now there’s an idea . . .
. . .
that’s what I told . . .
A hammerheaded boy, yes.
Deformed, a shut-in, with a tyrannical mother? Absofuckinlutely. But –
. . . no . . .
- two mouths.
On the great block of his head, the human one.
And another, hidden in the folds of the skin that cascade around his neck. This one wide and serrated. Like a shark’s.
. . . wrong
. . . this is all wrong . . . I don’t like this pitch, no one would . . .
Well certainly not mothers. Whiny, fearful creatures, berating and beating. Til one day the mouth on that great
block-head just can’t take it anymore, and finally goes along with what the
shark-mouth has been saying, for fuckin years . . .
(Silence)
(Silence)
I . . . I still don’t think it would sell . . .
Don’t you want to find out, though? Once we finish this mess off. REST. Then
leave this miserable room forever. Get an
apartment . . . a typewriter . . .
. . . typewriter . . .
But we gotta finish first. Leave NOTHING behind.
Not a single bit.
I’m trying. Your
. . . your teeth are stronger than mine.
Keep scraping the little bits off the walls. I’ll take care of the pelvis.
Oh god. Oh god, keep it downwind it stinks like –
Shut up. Eat. I know what she smells like.
Copyright 2004 Samuel Minier