people you love/will turn their backs on you

[kleenexwoman]

My first script for my scriptwriting class.

Smashing Windows

Characters:
A cop, trying to arrest a lowlife, in a deserted industrial street at night.

COP
Drop the baseball bat and keep your hands where I can see them.

LOWLIFE
You finally showed up.

COP
Someone’s smashing windows on my beat, yeah, I show up. I thought you were done pulling this kind of crap.

LOWLIFE
Two weeks ago, yeah, I was done. Looks like I started up again. (Lowlife smashes another window.) Gonna slap those handcuffs on me now?

COP
Forget it. It’s not worth it.

LOWLIFE
Not worth it? This is vandalism! Destruction of property! I’m probably destroying someone’s livelihood here! This could be part of a gang war. You don’t know.

COP
You’re not in a gang, and you’re busting the windows of a factory that shut down ten years ago. I know why you’re doing this, and I’m not gonna bite. (Cop begins to walk away.)

LOWLIFE
(begins to follow Cop) I knew it. You don’t even care enough to arrest me. You’re going to let a criminal run around breaking windows just because—

COP
Look, it’s a Saturday night, and I’ve got better things to do than stand around arguing with some shithead smashing windows.

LOWLIFE
Yeah, right. You just couldn’t stand being in a squad car with me for fifteen minutes.

COP
I’m doing you a favor. With your record, if I took you in for busting windows, you’d just land in jail again. I don’t wanna be the cop that puts you there.

LOWLIFE
I don’t care. What the hell else do I have to stay out for anymore?

COP
(stops) I wanted to see you again. I really did. I was hoping, God, that it wouldn’t be like this.

LOWLIFE
Yeah? I thought you said I was nothing but a no-good scumbag. That you didn’t know why you’d wasted your time on me. The kind of person who’d smash in windows for no good reason.

COP
Guess I was wrong.

LOWLIFE
Yeah?


AND THERE IT ENDS. I revised it a bit from the original; the prof suggested I end it with an action, but I'm still trying to figure out which action to end it with. It drove the class nuts, because they couldn't agree on whether Cop or Lowlife were male or female, and I wouldn't tell them. (Most of them sussed out that they'd used to be lovers, a few of them thought they were related and had had a falling-out.) Some of them got really invested in it. I like writing things that are ambiguous.

Comments

[epicycles.livejournal.com]

Ooh, neat! I really like it! I got the lovers vibe too. They also both read male to me, solely because of the insults -- shithead and scumbag both seem like guy-to-guy insults. :D Very cool little scene!

(I'd agree to end on an action, but I don't know what either! :D Maybe a dramatic, deliberate smash of another window while looking at Cop?)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I did originally imagine two guys, but I really wanted to keep it androgynous in the actual script. And then when we were workshopping it, the teacher got two girls to act it out, and that worked really well.

a dramatic, deliberate smash of another window while looking at Cop
oooh I like that.

[pianolessdevil.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I love it. I wanna act this out with another lady. Maybe we could get into a brawl and end up kissing (like most girl fights end up.) LOL