SCUMBAGUETTE (fit 9)
SCUMBAGUETTE (fit 9)
(Morning in Andrew's flat. The defeated hero has stumbled groggily into his big sofa, his eyes shielded from the light by an issue of New Jersey. GILLIGAN has fallen asleep with the magazine on his face. The chessboard still sits in the center of the room, but there are no pieces on its surface.)
(Outside Andrew's window, the rain roars down in ceaseless grey sheets.)
(Andrew has left the television set on in the bedroom. The popular Sunday Morning with Gena Fae program is rattling away; today, Gena Fae and her goofy sideman Shanto are interviewing nutrtion expert and health obsessor Hans Vainamoinen.)
VAINAMOINEN
...wight about this pawt in da flex. And hold it. You'll begin to feel da impuwities sweating out in da, um, you'll be sweating a lot.
GENA FAE
(Basically ignoring him.) Look at the biceps on this guy! Look at the, tri-delts.
VAINAMOINEN
I wike to do fowty weps, at weast. Othewise, you don't wegenewate any stwength.
GENA FAE
I'd like to get those big arms wrapped around my you-know-what.
SHANTO
How do you ever get your chest so smooth? Shaving, waxing, I know I've tried everything...
VAINAMOINEN
I never had to wowwy about that. I been natuwally haiwless since da day I was bown. All da Vainamoinens have.
GENA FAE
Oh, I wish that was true for me. Every day, scraping my legs and arm-pits in the shower.
VAINAMOINEN
(Dropping science.) It's impowtant, if you want to be at your most aewodynamic, to be as haiwless as possible. If you wift, you'd be amazed at how much da haiw on your bow-dy weighs. So, it's thiwty to fowty pounds of extwa weight you cawwy. Plus haiw fowms bawwiews where aiw gets twapped. Fifty, sixty pounds of extra aiw gets twapped in youw haiw. Widding youwself of haiw makew you stwongew.
SHANTO
Sort of like Samson in reverse.
VAINAMOINEN
Pawdon?
GENA FAE
Well, you know, Hans, our audience doesn't want to look like you. All covered in grease. They just want to pick your brains.
VAINAMOINEN
I tell them, evewy day, wise up at dawn, and wowk out da poisons and impuwities dat come in da night. All night, da bowdy is festewing in poisons dat filtew in, fwom the aiw, wotten foods. Swet dose poisons out ya powes. (Grunting.) Wight now, I'm wapping my awms awound my lower back, and pulling my ankles thwough da holes. I can feel dat buwning.
GENA FAE
Okay, Good. Show us a good exercise to do to flatten that tummy line.
SHANTO
Summer's a comin'!
VAINAMOINEN
(Continuing.) Gwabbing my wists, I'm going to slowly lower my neck down in between my thighs, puwwing my wight foot up above my fowehead. (Banging hard on something or other.) If you got a wistwatch, now, you maybe oughta take it off.
SHANTO
Mmmm. The bow-dy is a temple.
GENA FAE
Alright! So, Hans, what are you cooking for us today?
VAINAMOINEN
Cweamy zest of tomato puwee, with a wed wine weduction, cawamelized over wisotto.
GENA FAE
Oh, god. My mouth is watering.
VAINAMOINEN
I use only da fweshest impowted tomatoes.
SHANTO
Imported from where?
VAINAMOINEN
Dis monkey spatula, is a tool used in only da finest westawants.
GENA FAE
At home, you can use a turkey baster, or a long slotted spoon.
VAINAMOINEN
We'we going to weave dis to simmew at thwee hundwed ovew te back bewnew. Dis, is how it will look aftew dat wed wind has weally stawted to cook off. It has dat meaty textuwe.
SHANTO
(Playing to the audience.) How about garlic? You guys want some garlic?
GENA FAE
Yeah!
VAINAMOINEN
(Upset.) Not in dis dish, you don't. Get dat outta hewe, that's gwoss!
SHANTO
But I was only going to --
VAINAMOINEN
Cook youw own thing. Shtink up ya own dish.
GENA FAE
Hey, hey, boys. If you're going to do any fighting, it had better be over me.
(GILLIGAN isn't sleeping comfortably. He's tossing and twitching, with the magazine sitting roughly on his face. As he exhales, pages of the magazine flutter.)
(There's a dull, but loud, knock on the apartment door. Andrew shakes himself awake. He cracks the door open. Standing in the apartment foyer are two of the boys in blue, INSPECTOR PUNE, and his partner HUMMINGBIRD. INSPECTOR PUNE is large and intimidating, and HUMMINGBIRD is twice his size. Both of them wear their police caps down past their eyebrows. Must be some weird Journal Square fashion statement.)
INSPECTOR PUNE
You Andrew Gilligan?
GILLIGAN
Yes, what, why --
INSPECTOR PUNE
Good, good. No sense in lyin to us right off the bat.
HUMMINGBIRD
Only come back to haunt you later.
GILLIGAN
Okay, what's going on, what --
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Showing GILLIGAN a picture of BROCCOLI ROB.) You know this guy?
GILLIGAN
Yes, why, what did he do?
HUMMINGBIRD
He got himself a massive contusion of the upper lumbar vertebrae.
GILLIGAN
Huh?
INSPECTOR PUNE
Somebody beat him over the head. Hit him from behind.
GILLIGAN
What?!? Who, how is he?
INSPECTOR PUNE
He's at St. Mizell's. He's in stable condition.
HUMMINGBIRD
That means they stuck him in the stables, with the horses.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Laughing at HUMMINGBIRD'S joke.) No, we really don't know how he is.
HUMMINGBIRD
Who cares?
INSPECTOR PUNE
Maybe his gramma.
HUMMINGBIRD
That ain't what we're here for.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Reading a note ripped out of a day planner.) Chess match with Andrew Gilligan.
HUMMINGBIRD
You play this match?
GILLIGAN
Yes, yes, we did, but I didn't --
HUMMINGBIRD
Who won?
GILLIGAN
What?
HUMMINGBIRD
Who won?
GILLIGAN
(Gulping.) He won.
(The officers pause. HUMMINGBIRD jots this down in a notebook.)
INSPECTOR PUNE
You recognize this?
(INSPECTOR PUNE produces a bloodstained, partially broken baguette. It's horrific.)GILLIGAN
Oh, my god.
(Pause.)
HUMMINGBIRD
Show him the note.
INSPECTOR PUNE
Oh, yeah. We found this note.
(INSPECTOR PUNE pulls a note out of his shirt pocket, and hands it to Andrew. Written on a piece of looseleaf paper, it says: "Vengeance is ours, Gilligan!")
GILLIGAN
What, where, where did you --
HUMMINGBIRD
(Pointing at the T.V.) Is that the Gena Fae show? My wife loves that show.
INSPECTOR PUNE
Hans Vainamoinen on today.
HUMMINGBIRD
(Going over to the T.V.) This is what my wife does. While I'm out, risking my life, to proteck her and the kids, she's at home watching this Gena Fae.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Looking too.) Women.
GILLIGAN
I, uh, look, I swear, I had nothing to do with this, I...
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Straining around GILLIGAN, watching the T.V.) Of course not, of course not.
HUMMINGBIRD
Relax, Gilligan. You ain't a suspeck.
GILLIGAN
I'm, I'm not?
INSPECTOR PUNE
Boy is he ripped.
HUMMINGBIRD
(Turning away from the T.V. to explain.) Naah. In that neighborhood? Aah, it was probably another black guy.
INSPECTOR PUNE
We call it, black on black crime.
HUMMINGBIRD
There's a lot of it.
INSPECTOR PUNE
They wipe each other out. Anyway, -- Hey, what are you doing wit that note?
GILLIGAN
You, you gave it to me, what?
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Snatching the note back.) That's police evidence.
HUMMINGBIRD
You tampering with police evidence?
GILLIGAN
No, No, I wasn't --
INSPECTOR PUNE
That's a good way to get popped in the jaw.
HUMMINGBIRD
Tampering, that's a serious crime. You want a bullet?
(HUMMINGBIRD glowers over Andres, who, wide eyed, backs away cautiously. INSPECTOR PUNE begins to laugh.)
GILLIGAN
What, what's funny, what --
HUMMINGBIRD
Nothing. Police humor.
INSPECTOR PUNE
We don't expect the layman to get it.
(Pause.)
HUMMINGBIRD
So he won, huh?
GILLIGAN
Yes, no, um, no, he, he won.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(As HUMMINGBIRD begins to laugh again, inexplicably.) Musta been some match.
HUMMINGBIRD
I always been interested in chest. You wanna give me some chest lessons sometimes?
GILLIGAN
What, you're, you're kidding, why...
HUMMINGBIRD
No kidding. Come round the station and teach us all chest. Be a pal.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Slapping GILLIGAN in the chest with the back of his hand.) And don't be so afraid of the cops, willya? The cops are your friend.
HUMMINGBIRD
Be nice to us and we'll be nice to you.
INSPECTOR PUNE
You ain't too polite.
(Pause.)
HUMMINGBIRD
You could use some politeness tips.
INSPECTOR PUNE
(Fingering his nightstick.) I get so sick of these little wimps afraid of the cops. It makes me feel like a real pariah.
HUMMINGBIRD
We're on your side, Gilligan.
(They exit, without closing the door. A horrified GILLIGAN stares after them. There's no motion in the room for a beat or two.)
(The phone rings. GILLIGAN stands perfectly still. It rings again. Andrew jumps for it.)
(Who screams through the reciever. Boy is it ever audible in GILLIGAN's living room.) You a dead man, motha fucka! Do you understand me?
GILLIGAN
Who is this, what, I didn't do --
THE TOILET BOWL
Oh, you got balls to pretend you don't know who this is. You pretty clever. You got hours, maybe minutes to live, motha fucka! You hear me!
GILLIGAN
I'm totally, I'm not responsible, I...
THE TOILET BOWL
Ima kill you, Ima beat the shit out of you. You better run. Ima get you, motha fucka!, you and your whole crew!
GILLIGAN
My crew?!? I don't have any, what crew?
(A click. GILLIGAN has been hung up on. He hangs on to the reciever for a beat, thinking.)
GILLIGAN
(With horror.) Bhopal!
(GILLIGAN races through the pouring rain, running as fast as he can, without an umbrella. Passing the Dixon Ticonderoga pencil factory that marks the western border of the pricy Van Vorst Park area, Andrew cuts under the Turnpike extension overpass. Racing out of the other side, past convenience stores and diners, GILLIGAN rushes into a complex of brightly-colored, one floor public housing units. No trees grow in the complex, and despite a spiffy paint job on most of the new units, there's no concealing the fact that these homes belong to familites in extreme poverty.)
(GILLIGAN rushesup the steps of one such unit. Soaked, sweating, and desperate, he knocks on the door. A young girl, barely older than four, and wearing a sari, cracks the door open, takes one look at Andrew, and then slams it shut. Andrew bangs again.)
GILLIGAN
Bhopal, open up! It's Andrew, it's important!
(The door swings open. Andrew tumbles inside.)
(The interior of BHOPAL'S house is smoky and filthy. A cockroach crawls on the wall, and the floors and ceiling are sticky with powders of indeterminate origin. Water trickles in from several leaks, and drops onto rickety, third-hand furniture. Despite all this, BHOPAL and his four younger siblings are acquitting themselves with little trouble. The two young brothers, aged seven adn five, play a spirited game of chess on a magnetic travel set. And the two little sisters sit dutifully, hands folded in their laps, in front of an ancient-looking record player. The record -- Mozart's Jupiter Symphony -- is warped, and hence, the symphony speeds up and slows down in maddening fashion.)
GILLIGAN
(Breathless.) Bhopal, you have to, come with me, I have to take you someplace, safe.
BHOPAL
What on earth are you talking about, Andrew, you are soiling the whole house.
PREETI
(Aged four.) Mother will be furious.
GILLIGAN
No, listen, you gotta, c'mon, cut it out --
BHOPAL
(To his two little sisters.) Preeti, Neeti, fetch Andrew a towel. (They obey.) Is this about yesterday's shameful set of fabrications? If so, I assure you --
GILLIGAN
No, no!, it's, it's gone way beyond that, just, grab your jacket --
BHOPAL
I was immensely dismayed with the manner in which you comported yourself at the conclusion of the match.
GILLIGAN
I know, look c'mon, let's go someplace where, could you at least take that record off?
BHOPAL
What? Why would I do that?
GILLIGAN
Because it's driving me, can't you hear, it's warped? It's warped!
BHOPAL
But Andrew. It's Mozart.
(GILLIGAN looks back at him, speechless. Rainwater is dripping from his nose.)
(GILLIGAN and BHOPAL charge through the rain to Andrew's flat. They barrel up the steps. The door to GILLIGAN's apartment has been flung wide open. To Andrew's astonishment, his entire flat has, in his absence, been ransacked. The chess-tables have been upended, the books scattered around the room, the bookcases have been knocked over. The refrigerator hangs open. Even Andrew's easy chair has been turned upside-down.)
(GILLIGAN gasps, and freezes in his tracks.)
GILLIGAN
(Patting the air with his hands.) Okay, we've, we've got to get someplace safe.
(While Andrew stands stunned, BHOPAL creeps into the room, and shuts the refrigerator door.)
BHOPAL
It had to be done.
