(WORKING TITLE:)
TAKING POINT
formerly
GIRL'S NIGHT OUT
Written by
Tom McKenna
and
JoAnna Carle
November 5, 2002
SCENE ONE- THE CLASS
FADE IN ON:
A COLLEGE CAMPUS
Midday. A forest of semi-modern brick buildings surrounded
by a ring of stunted trees. Students walk with a purpose
between buildings while others lounge on the lawn.
The camera does a slow-pan between buildings and seems to
settle on one particular figure, an older, scruffy man who
doesn't seem to be in as much of a hurry as the rest. He
half-carries/ half-drags an O.D. green soft-sided briefcase.
He walks with a visible limp and the aid of an oversized cedar
cane. As he makes his way toward a series of glass doors he
stops, takes out a cigarette from a crushed pack in his pants
pocket and lights it from the one he currently has dangling out
of his mouth.
DOC (Thinking- V.O.)
How the fuck does the shit happen...and why
does it always happen to me?.....
Around him a steady stream of students pass as
they mutter ,"'Morning, Professor...", "Hey, Doc.." and
similar short greetings. He crumples the pack, looks around,
spies a convenient trashcan, and tosses the pack towards
it. It misses.
CUT TO 15 frames of public-domain chaotic Vietnam War
footage that includes a bomb landing near a group of American
soldiers. As it detonates, CUT BACK TO DOC at the trashcan.
He walks toward the pack and bends to
pick it up, dropping the briefcase as he does. It opens,
spilling a 5-inch thick stack of papers onto the ground.
DOC (V.O.)
A lifetime ago I had a lieutenant tell me I was a
'shit-magnet'. I told him in that case, he should stick with me.
CUT TO an INSERT of 15 Frames of chaotic aftermath.
CUT BACK TO DOC at the trashcan.
On the visible papers aren't conventional grades but in Red
sharpie-marker we see abbreviations like "W.T.F.I.T.S.?"
and "S.L.B.S.T.M.". He looks at the pack, then the pile, and
then the pack. He picks up the papers (leaving the cigarette
pack),and tosses them in the trashcan.
DOC (V.O.)
He did. He's dead now. Probably dead, anyway.
As an afterthought, he throws his cigarette butt in after them,
and enters the building. The lobby is filled to bursting with
students. About half of them are trying to catch his attention.
If he notices, he doesn't show it.
DOC (V.O.)
Last time I saw him he was in a hole in the ground
somewhere in Laos. Or maybe Cambodia. Hard to say.
It wasn't always like this. At least I'd like to
think it wasn't. If it was, I didn't notice. I was too
busy staying alive.
He enters another set of double-doors into an enormous lecture
hall. Behind him streams in a seemingly endless line of students
vying for the still-occupied seats. There is a class of 400
seated in semi-darkness. 4 projector screens are overhead with
diagrams of a flow-chart. An elderly man is standing at a
lectern discussing the diagram. It's as if the class wasn't
there. He walks up to the console and pushes a button; Harsh
fluorescent light fills the rooms. Students uniformly groan as
the elderly professor is startled out of lecture-mode.
PROFESSOR WIENER
Do You MIND? I'm trying to teach here...
DOC
As a matter of fact, I do. Your class ended 30
seconds ago. Get out.
PROFESSOR...
We're nearly through here...
DOC
You're not nearly anything. You ARE through here.
You've been through here for nearly a minute. This is
MY time. This is my classroom. And if you aren't out of
it in 30 seconds, that little girl over there in the
first row is going to run straight over to Admin and
tell everybody that'll listen that you touched her
‘inappropriately'. In fact, I expect she'll say
something like, "That dirty old Doctor Wiener grabbed my
ass and tried to stick his tongue down my throat...."
Won't ya', sweetheart?
The girl looks up from her notes. She nods affirmatively, disinterested, and goes back to her notebook without really paying much attention. She is small, bookish, young for college, and is surrounded by two backpacks full of books and notes. She has headphones on with the cord trailing out of a pocket of her backpack. We know her only as MOUSE.
PROFESSOR WIENER
My name is pronounced "Viner".
DOC
Not any more, baby. Congratulations. You're a
legend now. By the end of the day, those four hundred
students of yours will be tellin' their frat buddies you
were boinkin' a freshman in the john. And it MIGHT even
be a girl… [indicates the still-seated students]
Leave. Now.
The students don’t need to be told twice. They stream from the room like ants and are replaced with a different group who has been waiting outside.
PROFESSOR WIENER
You're an evil bastard, Masters...
DOC
Not evil, effective. And you're still in my
classroom. Now run along unless you want that legend of
yours to grow a bit.
PROFESSOR WIENER hastily gathers up his things and starts to exit.
PROFESSOR WIENER
The Dean's Office is going to hear of this!
DOC
I don’t think so. I can’t see you wanting to
explain to Her Majesty that the viscious rumor that you
like girls just isn’t so….Why are you still here?
DOC (V.O.)
After Nam I needed answers. Most of us did. What the
hell was all that about? Bad men live and good men die,
all so we can tell our children how brave and noble we
were back in the day…And some, well…officially, they
never existed at all…
WIENER EXITS. The students are laughing and talking amongst themselves excitedly, as if they were getting ready to watch a long-awaited movie
instead of sitting through a Contemporary American History class. The girl in the front row hasn't moved, merely changed notebooks. JACK MASTERS glances up from the podium and surveys the sea of expectant faces. The glance is enough to silence the room.
DOC
Tenure is a wonderful thing. Back when Lyndon
Johnson was running for a state office in Texas, he
spread a rumor that his opponent had a habit of
sleeping with one of his barnyard sows. One of his
aides got very indignant about this and told LBJ that
he couldn’t go around calling his opponent a pig-fucker
in public. “Your damn right I can’t…”, he said. “But I
can sure as hell make the sonofabitch deny it!” And
that, in a nutshell, is the Contemporary History of the
United States.
The students chuckle, murmur, and make various noises of approval.
DOC
All right, settle down. I have Doctor Caine’s notes
here. He won’t be joining us for the rest of the
semester. I’ve graded your midterms and filed them in
the appropriate place. My name is Masters. Don’t tell
me yours because I won’t remember it anyway.
If you want to talk to me, my office hours are from 6AM
to 7AM Fridays. Come talk to me if you must.
I’m fairly sure you won’t, and I’m equally sure that
I have nothing I’m inclined to say to you, but I’m
required to offer. Since we’re stuck with each other
for the remainder of the semester, let’s try to make a
little progress, shall we?
There is a murmur from the students.
DOC
There’s an ancient Chinese curse….”May you live in
interesting times…”. Well, we do live in interesting
times. This is supposed to be Contemporary American
History. What exactly does that mean?
DOC (V.O.)
Somehow we always leave out the part about losing….
(A very thin, pale girl w/ jet-black hair dressed in a black miniskirt w/ a fire-red half-shirt that says "BOYS LIE" interrupts DOC)
CASSANDRA
Where’s Professor Caine?
DOC
Irrelevant. Now you answer MY question. What
exactly do we mean by ‘Contemporary American History’?
(CASSANDRA doesn’t give an inch.)
CASSANDRA
When do we get our midterms back?
DOC
I’m feeling particularly benevolent today, so I’ll
ignore the fact that you’ve interrupted me twice.
You’ll get your midterms back when you dig them out of
the trashcan right outside that door. Now somebody
answer MY question.
There is no response from the students other than confused murmurs.
DOC
That was a question. It requires an answer.
A few hands go up, Cassandra’s among them.
` DOC
You. No, not you, YOU— with the green hair.
STUDENT
Me? I didn’t have my hand up!
DOC
The question wasn’t “Who had their hand up?” The
question was, “What does Contemporary American History
refer to?”. Now answer it.
STUDENT
Um…Well...The book says…
DOC
Again, the question wasn’t “What does the book
say?” What do YOU say?
STUDENT
American History since 1945?
DOC
Wrong. I said contemporary. Were you around in
’45? If the answer’s no, then it isn’t contemporary.
Anybody here know what ‘Triage’ means?
A few pre-meds raise their hands.
DOC
In a field hospital, triage is when the doctor
has a look at all the patients, decides who has a
chance to live and who doesn’t, and works on the ones
he can save. There are 500 of you. I can effectively
‘treat’ about a hundred. Thus, we’re going to do a
bit of triage here….
(One of the pre-meds raises their hand.)
DOC
Yes?
STUDENT
That’s not what ‘triage’ means. ‘Triage’ is
the process…
DOC
Wrong. Triage in a shiny white hospital might have a kinder, gentler meaning. In the field and in this class it means what I say it means. Allow me to demonstrate. Used in a sentence, “The process of triage can best be illustrated by the concept of the weakest link, whose ultimate goal is the elimination of said link to keep the rest of the chain intact. In this particular instance, You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
STUDENT
What?
DOC
Good…Bye. Exit. Leave. Go away. Any other
smartasses want to correct me? No? Moving on….Write
this down because it may be the last time anybody
tells you the truth in your college career. The
United State of America hasn’t had a legitimately-
elected Government since November, 1963. Our national
motto should be changed from 'E Pluribus Unum' to
"A lie can run around the world before the truth
can get its boots on…."Everything
you know about your government and its history since
that time is a lie, a polite fiction designed to keep
the power in the hands of the money. Your entire
generation is little more than the cattle on which
your government feeds. And that, in a nutshell, is
this course. Having said that, we can begin to talk
about more important things……
There is now absolute silence in the room.
DOC
A couple of concepts I want to run by you… All of
Human action can be divided into one of these two
camps. The first is the Way of the Samurai. Japanese,
15th century. In essence, the Bushido code says that
the correct path will ALWAYS be the direct path,
despite the obstacles. The second is from a Chinese
philosopher called Sun Tzu. He wrote this book
called "The Art of War", which, by the way, has
nothing to do with the movie buy the same name. He
wrote this book in times very much like our own to
teach survival in a world where the Tao is dying. Now
this particular book says that art of war is the art
of deceit, and that one should only choose the direct
route if one is absolutely sure that the enemy is
looking on the other road. SO you have two schools of
thought that seem to be in opposition to each
other…But they're not. Each has much to recommend it.
Bushido offers an honorable death. Sun Tzu offers
survival.
We all get to make the choice… Which will it be?
DOC (V.O.)
Honor. Survival. Pretty basic stuff. But not for
these kids. They don't know the meaning of either
because their parents couldn't teach what they don't
understand…Hell, I didn't understand it either… Took
sharing a hole in the ground for seven months with the
smartest S.O.B. I ever knew to teach me.
DOC
Now what was I saying? Oh yes…Triage. Let me put an offer on the table. Anybody who leaves this class right now and doesn’t come back passes with a ‘B’. No homework, no final, no strings.
The students stare back with semi-glazed eyes and confused expressions.
DOC
So it is my understanding that all of you would like to stay? You are all Bushido? All Samurai?
(DOC chuckles out loud.)
STUDENT 2
Are you serious? We can actually leave?
DOC
Why not? If you don’t want to be here, you’ll just be wasting my time. Never let your classes interfere with your college education. I’ll say it one last time. If you don’t want, for any reason, to be here in this class right now… LEAVE.
Roughly 300 students get up and walk out the door. This leaves about 100. Cassandra and Mouse are among those that remain.
DOC
That was a practical application of Sun Tzu. Okay
then. Now that the garbage has been taken out, we can
really get started.
There are random comments floating around the classroom creating a refreshing feel to the students. DOC walks over to his briefcase and takes out a few books. They’re very obscure and somewhat strange for this type of class, but all together fitting for the professor and his purpose. Titles like, "Rush to Judgement: The Murder of JFK" and "The Secret History of the VietNam War" stand out…..
DOC
These books will be the required reading. Don’t try
to get them from the bookstore. They’ve been out of
print for 15 years. Through the miracle of modern
technology, you can all make a copy from my originals
which will be on reserve in the library.
CASSANDRA has her hand raised condescendingly in the air.
DOC
You’re not going to tell me about copyright law, are you?
CASSANDRA
This is all really interesting and stuff, but what
happened to Professor Caine? We’re way past all this
bullshit, and we already have our books.
DOC purses his lips in consideration of the girl’s attitude and less so of her question.
DOC
Caine, much like yourself, has become irrelevant.
As for being past all this bullshit, we’ll see, won’t we.
The girl leans back in the chair. She has a dark feeling that is expressed more from her attitude than her dress.
Once more DOC lets the question evaporate into the air and continues. At this response the students begin to murmur again. DOC glances at MOUSE and sighs.
DOC
I am sorry for the disturbance in your worlds, but it
can’t be helped. Let’s just leave it at that. Now, back
to the concept of Contemporary American History. Having
listened and hopefully comprehended in some vague way
what I have just said, who here would like to elaborate on
this?
A boy raises his hand.
DOC
Well? What do you think?
STUDENT 4
I think that America isn’t really America any more.
We are so far out of the ballpark from the concept we
started with…
DOC
What concept would that be? What America?
STUDENT 4
The concept that “All men are..
DOC
Stop right there. We all know about traditional
American history, and we all know that we aren’t anywhere
near where we started, and further still from where we
wanted to go. However, what elaboration can be
made on my statement “Your entire generation is little
more than the cattle on which your government feeds.”?
The room is quiet.
DOC
Okay. Let’s back up a second here. Why did I call
your generation cattle?
STUDENT 5
Public Propaganda controls the media by
controlling the money. The media controls what we see and
hear, and what we see and hear controls what we believe…..
DOC
Congratulations, son, that was almost a complete
thought. Propaganda is a good start, but I didn’t say
public, I said government. Can anyone go a step further?
There is a quiet pause. The students being allowed to think on their own without a text seems to be throwing them for a loop.
DOC
Fine. Here is your homework assignment. I want a 10
page, double-spaced, typed paper on “The Irrelevance of
the Constitution in Modern America”. It is due on
Wednesday at the beginning of class.
STUDENT
That’s in two days!
DOC
It’s nice to know that our math requirement is
working out for ya….
There are audible groans from the class a whole. Someone shouts, “That’s not fair!”. Others complain loudly along the lines of “He can’t do that!” and the like.
DOC
What? Are we unhappy about the assignment? Here, let
me make it easy for you. I’ll give each and every one of