EXT. BACK DOOR. DAY
BEN knocks on a back door three times, and waits about eight
seconds then knocks again five times.
Beat.
KEITH answers the door about shoulder width, not meeting the
eyes of Ben.
BEN
Hey.
Keith looks down.
KEITH
Hey man.
Beat.
KEITH
Yeah. Come on in.
INT. BACK DOOR. DAY
Keith opens the door and Ben walks in.
BEN
Happy International Labor Day.
KEITH
Sure, sure.
BEN
I woke up too late to go to the
demonstration downtown. Every year
I tell myself I'm gonna go, and the
one May Day I don't have a job, I
sleep in instead.
KEITH
Well... figures.
BEN
Yeah, guys get hanged fighting for
the eight hour day and a hundred
years later, in the same city,
everybody's either working or
sleeping in. You know every other
country in the world celebrates
Labor Day on May 1st?
KEITH
Yeah, you tell me the same story
every year, Ben. Its like
clockwork.
Ben puts his hands in his pockets and stretches back,
bouncing on the balls of his feet.
KEITH
Don't worry about it Ben. I look
forward to our little chats.
Keith and Ben walk off through the laundry room to the
kitchen.
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
Keith and Ben enter the kitchen. Keith picks up a paper
carton of fried rice off the table and takes a few bites.
Ben stands near the fridge and eyes Keith's food.
BEN
You see Rochambeau last night?
They had Oscar Vortanz directing an
episode.
KEITH
No I missed it.
BEN
(sitting down)
Yeah, there was a giant railway
accident. Then it segwayed into
some documentary on the history of
Antarctic exploration. Theories on
continental counterbalance and
intuitive cartography. Terra
Australis Incognita.
Beat.
It didn't make any sense at all.
It was awesome.
KEITH
Yeah, that's really weird.
Beat.
Here, I got Liz on the phone over
there in the other room.
Keith sets the food on the table and walks in the living
room.
Ben folds his hands with his forearms meeting in front of him
at the elbows, and leans in, adjusting his posture nervously.
He stares blankly at the food on the other end of the table.
KEITH (O.C.)
Hey. Sorry Babe.
The paper carton sits.
KEITH (O.C.)
Yeah, he just stepped in.
Ben turns his face a little, looking into a neutral
direction. He leans into his arms, obviously not hungry.
KEITH
Ben, Liz wants to talk to you.
Keith stands in the doorway facing the lamp stand on the left
and bends his arm back to hand off the phone.
Ben gets up and walks though the door frame, taking the phone
while Keith walks into the kitchen.
INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY
BEN
Hey Liz, so whats new?
INT. BED ROOM. DAY
LIZ sits on a bed, sun streaming in through a window. She
sits with a box of tissues, with several used laying all
around her. Her face is wet with tears, her mascara running.
LIZ
We have to tell him now. We have to
tell him the truth.
BEN
(Un-phased)
No, I don't know about that.
LIZ
We have to be honest. Your his
friend. Its what we have to do.
Keith sits in a chair at the kitchen table, scooping out a
little bit of rice with his fork and putting it in his mouth.
BEN
No, I'm not sure any of that really
matters.
There is a wide shot of the living room where Ben is standing
from the far end of the room, near the hallway to the bed
room. His arms are crossed, one hand supporting the other at
the elbow which is holding the phone just away from his ear
as he looks just into the camera, as if it were a frightening
object sudden sharing the room with him. It slowly, then
quickly, gathers momentum as it dollies into a close up of
his face look off out above the camera.
BEN
I'll talk to you later Liz.
Goodbye.
Ben hangs up the phone.
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
Ben enters the kitchen, walks to sit at the table near the
fridge.
KEITH
(carefully eating)
So what did Liz want?
Ben looks confident and a little amused. He rolls his chair
back a little with one leg crossed over the other, taps his
finger on the table.
BEN
She wanted me to tell you that I
was fucking her. Basically.
Keith cracks up laughing, Ben joins in. Keith's laughter
comes down slowly, as he thinks.
Ben watches Keith.
Keith blows some air from his nose and looks abstractly
forward.
CUT TO:
INT. CAR. DAY
The loud sound of a broken car horn fills the air. Ben lifts his face from the steering wheel, blood along his hairline. He instinctive finds the button on the seat belt and pulls it off of him. Ben opens the door and bolts from the car.
As Ben runs across the screen, two characters stand in a driveway discussing. One is a young boy in thick glasses, the other is a large red puppet, or possibly a man in a suit.
MHARMAR: (low mharmar language.)
THE DIRECTOR: Its not that I necessarily disagree with you, nor am I calling you stupid, Mharmar. I just think youre better than that. Its a matter of taste.
MHARMAR: (mharmar-mar-mar-mh-mar)
THE DIRECTOR: Listen, I just dont think Dali is very good. Oh, hello there.
The spokes of two bicycle wheels come into frame. The boy on the bike looks at them suspiciously. He then takes off down the street as fast as he can.
The boy rides through the chirping suburban streets around a wide turn coming up to a house with an open garage. He drops his bike off in the driveway and we follow him to the open garage where an older gentleman in a cowboy hat sits in a lawn chair with his feet up on the table. A younger boy sits on the table, lifting the earpiece of a pair of headphones to see what is happening. A large map of the United States hangs behind him.
The boy drops a quarter into an empty gasoline tank.
"Rochambeau, I think we might have a case."
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