..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Saturday, May 08, 2004

BRICKHOUSE


a screenplay


© 2004 David James Keaton





FADE IN:

View from the sky of a huge gray prison isolated in the
middle of a desert. Six roads dead-end into the structure,
creating the impression of an insect squatting in the sand.
The sun is at its highest point. The heavy drums, fuzz and
bass of the instrumental song “Sick To My Pants,” by 90’s
Detroit favorite Big Chief, echoes over the opening scene.
Several police vehicles are on the roads, heading towards
the prison with the flashers on. A bus can been seen
approaching along another road. Slow zoom towards the
prison walls while a man’s voice tells a variation on the
story of the Three Little Pigs.

SUPER: “EELOY PRISON, NEW MEXICO. 12:00 PM, 2005.”

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
(Mexican accent)
Once upon a time...there were
three little pigs and a big
bad wolf...

SERIES OF SHOTS - INT. PRISON - DAY

--A small man in gray prison-issue clothing is moving fast
through a hole in a fence.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...and the first pig built a house
out of hay or straw, or straws, or
toothpicks, or pop cans or whatever
the hell else he found on the ground.
And when the big bad wolf came, he
tore right through that weak shit
and ate that first little pig...

--The small man is crawling through a vent.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...and the second pig, he built his
house out of sticks, or twigs, or
leaves, or toilet paper, or whatever
the hell else he pulled down from the
trees. And the wolf came along and
lit up a cigarette and torched his
pink ass. The wolf smiled cause he
didn’t have to eat that second pig raw...

--The small man is squeezing his body through corners and
pipes and plumbing.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...you know how some versions of
the story have those first two pigs
running to hide with the third little
pig? And they don’t get eaten? Well,
don’t believe that shit. You can’t
have too many pigs living together
like that. They go crazy and sometimes,
if the house is too small, they even
start eatin’ each other...

--Shot of a filthy toilet in an empty cell shaking, then
falling over.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...so then the third pig. He built
his house out of bricks. And some
concrete. And some metal. And some
bars. And he locked his shit up.
Or locked it down. Whatever.
It’s all the same thing...

--The small man is crawling up through the hole where the
toilet was, standing up and wiping his hands on his knees.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...and the wolf came knocking.
Still hungry. And he couldn’t break
through those walls. Couldn’t blow
it down. Couldn’t blow it up. Whatever.
It’s all the same thing. So the wolf,
he just knocked on the door and swore he
was just stopping by to fix the TV...

--The man turns to look out through the bars and sees a row
of guards with shocked, angry and confused expressions on
their faces.

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
...and that’s when the third pig
peeked out through a crack in the
door...and saw the big bad wolf
had a gun.

--The man is being dragged towards the front gate. He’s
ejected through that gate like a drunk from a bar at closing
time. It’s now clear that the man was not breaking out of
prison. For some unknown reason, he was trying to break in.

CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON FRONT GATE - DAY

The small man in gray is being loaded into a waiting police
car. One of the cops pushes him against the car then sniffs
his hand.

FIRST COP
(disgusted)
What the fuck is that? He’s not
going into my car smelling like that.

The second cop steps over and pulls at the small man’s
collar. He sees a clean button-down shirt underneath. He
frowns and calls over another cop.

SECOND COP
Uncuff him.

The first cop pops the cuffs and the second cop quickly
pulls off the small man’s black-streaked prison shirt. Then
his pants. Then the officers stand back to reveal a small,
smiling well-dressed man.

FIRST COP
(confused)
What the hell is going on here?
What were you trying to do?
Trying to break someone out?
Or you just want inside that bad?
Don’t worry, you’ll get there.

FADE OUT

OPENING CREDITS

INT. PRISON BUS - DAY

BILL BISHOP, a 50-something white man is chained to THOMAS
JEFFERSON JONES, a 50-something black man. These men are
the viewer’s entrance point to the prison and to this movie.
Bishop turns to the window beside him to stare outside. He
blinks as something passing by catches his eye.

INSERT - THE SIGN ON THE ROAD

“PRISON AREA
-----------------
DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS”


BACK TO SCENE

BISHOP smiles, then allows himself a small laugh. JONES
looks over at Bishop as if to say “what’s so funny?” then
notices the strange modified handcuff on Bishop’s shaking
soap-white left hand. Bishop tries to curl his fingers to
steady them.

BISHOP
(mutters)
Long story.

Jones looks alarmed, as if he’s just realized that he’s been
chained to a very dangerous man. He stares at their four
hands in the bundle of metal and chains. Two black, two
white, twisting together in their restraints. The metal
rattles as Jones clenches his hands into fists. Bishop
looks down at this then looks up quickly.

BISHOP
(sighing)
They make these special. When your
hands are messed up. Otherwise you’d
just shake off the cuffs like a
broken watch.

Jones looks down and sees that Bishop is missing the thumb
on his left hand. He raises another eyebrow at this and
looks into Bishop’s face for an explanation. Jones doesn’t
ask for one, he just waits to see if one will be offered.

BISHOP
(looking back down
and sighing louder)
Long story.

The black man finally speaks and the men make eye contact
for the first time.

JONES
You got somewhere else to be?

Bishop stares at him a moment then introductions are made.

JONES
(quietly)
The name is Jones. Thomas
Jefferson Jones. Forgive me
if I don’t shake hands.


BISHOP
That’s quite a name. You one of
the founding fathers?

JONES
(very serious)
Yes I am. Longer story.

BISHOP
(forehead thumps the window)
Name’s Bill Bishop. Any idea when
we’ll get there.

JONES
Why, you in a hurry?

Bishop has no answer for this and they bounce along in
silence for a while. Suddenly an excited voice from the
back of the bus calls out.

YOUNG MAN’S VOICE (VO)
Hey! Asshole! I know you!

Bishop glances around then turns back to the window, trying
to ignore this voice. Another sign goes by outside and
Bishop squints to read it.

INSERT - SECOND SIGN

“ANIMALS ON THE ROAD
WHEN FLASHING”

Under this sign, an orange light blinks its warning.

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop rests his head against the window and sighs.

YOUNG MAN’S VOICE (VO)
Yeah you! Wake up! You! The only
other white motherfucker in here!

MAN’S VOICE (VO)
(Mexican/Spanish accent)
Fuck you, I ain’t neither!

YOUNG MAN’S VOICE (VO)
You’re right! My fault. You’re both!
Hey! You! Third seat on the left!

Bishop finally turns around to look. There in a sea of
black faces and orange jumpsuits, is a smiling white boy.
He’s dressed in a lime green jumpsuit, grinning out from the
middle of the black stone glares. His name is STEVIE
CLINES, a young man in his twenties with a crazy lopsided
blonde sweep of hair, like a wave crashing down onto the top
of his head. He starts to rattle his chains to get Bishop’s
attention. His bizarre hairstyle, combined with his green
jumpsuit, earn him an instant nickname from the black man
that he’s chained to. The black man shoves him hard towards
the aisle. This convict has a huge number “7” tattooed on
the side of his neck.

NUMBER SEVEN
Shut the fuck up, Gumby.

GUMBY
(ignoring him)
Bill fucking Bishop! I thought it
was you! Remember me? Your daughter
brought me home!? Junior year?
And you threw me out?!

A look of recognition on Bishop’s face. He turns back
around to watch the desert flashing by his window, trying
hard to ignore him. He studies the horizon, looking for
something else outside to look at. Maybe another sign to
read, or just a glimpse of some of those animals on the road
that the sign had warned him about.

GUMBY
(laughing)
This is some funny shit! I wasn’t
good enough for her?! Now look at
you! Looks like you’re no better
than me after all! How many years
you get, dad! Maybe you got more
than me! You do, don’t you? See,
I take it back! You are better than
me. You win!

Jones watches Bishop’s face glaring out the window, then
turns completely around to get a look at who’s making all
the noise.

GUMBY
(laughing hysterically,
staring at Jones but still
talking to Bishop)
Almost makes this shit worth it dad!
Turns out we’re exactly the same.
Damn! What’s your favorite song?!
Same as mine I bet! What’s your
favorite color?! Me too! Favorite
food? Applesauce I bet, just like me!
Who knew! Exactly the same. Well,
except for the fact that I fucked
your daughter and you didn’t.
Wait...or did you-

Number Seven shoves him again to shut him up and the guard
at the front of the bus stands up and slowly lowers his
shotgun. Gumby pulls himself back into his seat.

GUMBY
(giggling)
Okay. We’ll talk later, dad.
We got plenty of time. We’ll
do lunch. Keep in touch...

Gumby cocks a thumb at the black prisoner who shoved him.
He rattles the chains that tie them together. Then he
points to Jones, who is still staring at Gumby at back of
the bus.

GUMBY
(smiling)
...have your nigger call my nigger.

About twenty black faces turn around and Number Seven grabs
Gumby’s neck through the chains.

NUMBER SEVEN
What the fuck is wrong with you
Gumby? You wanna die before we
even get there?!

GUMBY
(gagging)
My fault...my fault. Sorry.
Didn’t mean nothin’ by that...

The black prisoner loosens his grip. The guard raises the
shotgun again and crosses his arms over it and watches
silently. Jones looks straight ahead and talks angrily
through his teeth.

JONES
It’s like a joke without a punchline
ain’t it? A black man, a white man,
and a Mexican walk into a prison...’cept
this shit ain’t funny.

GUMBY
(eyes wide with an idea
while he rubs his neck)
A joke huh? That what you said
up there?! Tell you what. So there’s
no hard feelings, I’ll think of a good
“white joke.” Just so you can see
I’m no racist. I’ll give you a punch-
line to make you smile!

Jones’ nostrils flare in anger and Number Seven glares out
his window, shaking his head and trying to ignore the man
sharing his seat.

GUMBY
Here it goes: Why do only white
people play hockey? Anyone?
Anyone?

Gumby looks around the bus, searching the backs of the men’s
heads for an answer. Everyone is now successfully ignoring
him, even Jones has turned to the window, and Gumby starts
rattling his chains again for attention.

GUMBY
‘Cause who wants to play hockey
with a bunch of fuckin’ niggers!

A black elbow smashes into his face and the lights go out.

FADE TO WHITE

EXT. PRISON GATES - DAY

The men are being unloaded off the bus. As they are herded
together and marched through the gate, they pass the small
well-dressed man being thrown out. They all have “what the
fuck” looks on their faces as the cops drag the man right
past Bishop and Jones. Bishop and the small man take a long
hard look at each other, then he’s gone. A guard walks
through the line of men and separates the pair with a key.
Jones walks away from Bishop as soon as the new slack in the
chain falls against his leg. Bishop watches him walk up
ahead as the men enter the front door.

INT. PRISON CELL BLOCK - DAY

The men are walking past a row of cells. Things are
strangely quiet as the men stare out of their cages at the
new inmates filing by. They say nothing. Their eyes seems
to look past them, through them. Bishop turns to another
new inmate shuffling along next to him.

BISHOP
Aren’t they supposed to spit on us
or something?

The inmate ignores his question. Then a wad of saliva
suddenly hits Bishop in the back of the neck. He winces and
smacks at it like a mosquito. Then he reaches down and
wipes the spit on the bottom of his shoe. The man behind
him shoves him forward to make him walk faster. A shrill
familiar voices pipes up in his ear.

GUMBY (VO)
How’s that? Feel better now?
Welcome to Eeeee-loy Prison, fuckface.

Bishop turns and sees Gumby smiling on his left, a bit of
spit on his lip and two red streams of blood running from
each nostril and trailing down his neck. Bishop turns away
in disgust and looks around. He notices that he’s now
surrounded by shackled white men he hadn’t seen on his bus
ride coming in. He looks around for Jones and sees all the
black men being separated and steering in another direction
by the guards. It’s a quiet, almost casual segregation,
unnoticed by most of the cons. Bishop looks around and sees
a small group of Mexicans, Hispanic, Chicanos and Latinos
being led in another direction by three more guards.
Obviously there is some kind of color-coding going on at
this prison. Not in the yard, where it usually happens when
men are incarcerated. These men are herded into three
groups right off the bus. Bishop climbs some steps and
stops in front of a row of cells. He looks across the rail
as he’s locked into his second tier cell. As the bars slide
across his face, he makes eye contact with the black man
from the bus with the number “7” tattooed on his neck.
Bishop gives him a nod as if to say thanks for elbowing
Gumby in the nose earlier. The black man stares a moment,
then backs up into his cell until he disappears.

INT. PRISON CELL - NIGHT

GUARD’S VOICE
This is Level One! You men will be
in twenty-four hour lock down for
the first three days! Level TWO
will be half that! Depending on
how you handle Level ONE. Don’t
be in a hurry to get out to Level
Two. Use this time to get your head
screwed on straight.

There is the sound of keys and footsteps echoing. Bishop
stares at the tight bundle of mattress and pillow curled up
in the center of the metal bed frame. He sits on the floor.

GUARD’S VOICE
Okay! Lock it down!

There is a heavy iron BOOM as the last door is shut, and a
low rumble as the gears inside the doors slide the deadbolts
into place. Bishop stares at a stain on the floor outside
the bars until his eyes grow heavy.

FADE OUT

INT. BISHOP’S CELL – LATER THAT NIGHT

Bishop’s eyes snap open to the sounds of heavy footsteps,
metal clanking, and the muffled grunts of men struggling.
He is still sitting on the floor of his cell. His mattress
and pillow are still in a roll, untouched on the bed frame.
He sits up on his elbows and looks across the rail to the
row of cells beyond. He catches a glimpse of Number Seven’s
cell door rolling shut. He listens another moment, then
leans his head against the wall. He sees and hears nothing
more after that.

EXT. DRIVEWAY – DAY & NIGHT

Time lapse image of a parked car, with a police lock on the
front wheel. The sun is racing over the hood of the car as
the sky gets bright, then dark, bright then dark. The car
sits motionless under the passing of time as days fly by and
bird shit appears across the windshield like white gun
shots.

CUT TO:

INT. GARAGE – DAY & NIGHT

Time lapse image of hands building a model airplane. The
hands are a blur of motion as the shape of the airplane
becomes clear. The hands twirl some knobs and push some
buttons on a large remote control and the tiny propeller
starts to spin.

FADE OUT

EXT. DESERT SANDS - DAY

Time lapse image of ants in the sand, and a jar next to
their hill. The ants scramble around, scratching at the
glass, then, a sun glare flashes on the glass, and now the
ants are inside. They scratch at the glass, some in the
last stages of dehydration, dying with their legs above
their heads. Then a large sun-burned hand reaches into the
jar and a pile of new ants are released. The new ants pile
up over the dead and dying ones, they scratch at the glass
in a panic and run around frantically. Sun flashes on the
jar as time passes and these ants die too. Then the huge
red hand drops in more ants. Over and over, this cycle is
repeated until the sand at the bottom of the jar is littered
with tiny dry corpses.

CUT TO:

INT. OUTSIDE BISHOP’S CELL – DAY & NIGHT

Time lapse shot of men moving past a cell door. The song
“Lonesome Day” by Bruce Springsteen is heard echoing off the
walls. Men in gray uniforms, men in blue uniforms, buzzing
around the halls like insects. They appear and disappear.
Running past, stopping to fight or argue at ten times normal
speed. Then the men finally slow down, as the time slows
back to normal. Days have passed since Bishop was locked
inside that cell. His shadow can be seen, just inside the
bars, still sitting on the floor. When the time finally
hits normal speed, a deafening metal BOOM is heard and
Bishop’s cell door slides open with a rumble.

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

SERIES OF SHOTS - THE PRISONERS

-- The camera moves across each of the three gangs in the
prison yard. Each group of men is gathered around a
battered, thumping portable stereo.

--Shot of the black inmates, standing around next to the
fence. They are rocking on their heels, staring down at
their feet while rap music shouts from a stereo half-buried
in the sand.

--Shot of the Mexican/Hispanic/Chicano/Latino inmates. They
are laughing at something one of them is saying. The radio
at their feet is also playing rap music, but the lyrics are
in Spanish.

--Shot of the small circle of white inmates. There are only
about nine or ten of them, leaning against a brick wall.
They are silent, looking over their shoulders, listening to
a rap song sung by a white man with a country accent. Their
stereo is balanced on an old pair of shoes, like a car up on
blocks.

--Close up on Bishop, stepping into the yard and walking
straight towards the black inmates. He finds Jones, the man
he was chained to on the bus, standing up against the fence.
The other three groups of men stop to watch. One of the
black men reaches down to the radio in the sand, puts in a
tape, and lowers the volume. The song, “By The Time I Get
To Arizona” by Public Enemy pulses at his feet. He steps in
front on Bishop. His name is WILKINS, a small black man
with glasses and neat crisp appearance. Bishop nods at the
stereo in the sand.

BISHOP
(to Jones, but looking
eyeballing Wilkins)
I didn’t think they allowed
stereos in prison.

Jones says nothing, just turns his head away from them and
squints into the sun. Wilkins snorts a laugh and speaks up.

WILKINS
This ain’t Footloose motherfucker!
They figure this shit keeps us calm.

BISHOP
Who gave you the music? Who’s they?
The warden? The guards-

WILKINS
(suddenly frowning,
eyes darting around)
You think we built one from
cactus needles and tumbleweeds?
Maybe we smuggled in the parts?
Hell yes they gave it to us.
At first it was just country music
for the white boys, R&B for us,
and that Mariachi shit for the
“beaners”. Now all the music
sounds the same. It’s like the
TV knob stuck between channels.
I don’t even hear it anymore...

BISHOP
(still talking to Jones
over Wilkins’ shoulder)
I’m surprised people don’t fight over
those radios.

WILKINS
Don’t worry, you’ll figure it all
out. Sure, just like all three races
do nothin’ but rap now too, and the
shit sounds the same, it gets hard to
know where to go. But if you squint
your eyes and look around. You’ll see
some people in here that look more like
you. See, it’s all still color-coded.
If you listen and look.

Wilkins backs up and leans down to turn the radio back up.
Then he claps his hands together to get the sand off.

WILKINS
(looking off into
the distance)
Now get the fuck away from
me. You’re over there. We’re
over here. This ain’t the
playground. Your team has
already been picked for ya.

Bishop tries again to make eye-contact with Jones but Jones
keeps looking hard at nothing on the horizon. Finally
Bishop shrugs and walks over to the white men leaning
against the wall. He slowly shakes his head when he sees
Gumby sitting cross-legged on the ground in their circle,
grinning up at him. Gumby opens his mouth to say something,
then his smile drops as he squints past Bishop at a shadow
moving up in the sky. The other white men around him sit
up, stand up and lean forward to look off into the distance
too. Bishop hoods his eyes with his hand and looks into the
sun, trying to see what has their attention. Finally he
sees it. There is an airplane on the horizon. It’s headed
for the prison. And it seems to be flying lower than it
should. Bishop looks around the yard and sees the other
inmates watching it approach. Very few of them seem shocked
or impressed by such a strange sight. Some men even turn
back to whatever conversation they were having.

BISHOP
(to no one in particular)
What’s going on?

The white inmates ignore him. Most are silently watching
the airplane come closer. One of them yawns. One of them
tries to scratch a hard to reach spot on his back. Gumby
jumps to his feet and starts hopping up and down.

GUMBY
Holy fuck! Look at this shit!
Someone flying in to bust someone out?!

A group of Mexican inmates move out of the way to reveal a
huge prison guard walking slowly into the yard. A nearby
radio stops, then starts blaring “March of the Pigs” by Nine
Inch Nails. He’s easily twice as big as the rest of the
guards, a good two feet taller than the two guards flanking
him and trotting to keep up with his long strides. His name
is JIM WAYNE, a man that the prisoners call THE DUKE. A
white man, late 30s, red curly hair, piercing blue eyes, and
a thick scar across his throat. He looks like an inmate
dressed up as a guard as some kind of sick joke. He pumps
the shotgun he’s holding and reveals a large tattoo on his
forearm. A closer look shows it to actually be a tattoo
over another tattoo, and the words or images of both are now
unrecognizable. The Duke watches the sky with a grin,
apparently unconcerned with this apparent breach of prison
air space. He cracks his knuckles, then slowly aims his
shotgun into the air.

GUMBY
Look at that monster. What the
hell does he think he’s doing?
Does he really think he can shoot
down a plane with a fucking
shotgun shell?

BISHOP
Wait, listen to that engine.
It’s sounds all wrong. It’s
gonna crash or...you know, I
think it’s farther away than I...

The airplane comes flying over the prison wall with a shrill
whine. It skims the loops of barbed wire and dips down
towards the yard. The Duke raises his shotgun and fires a
single shot. The airplane explodes and a cloud of plastic
and metal shards flutter to the sand. Bishop laughs and
shakes his head as he realizes that it was just a toy, a
tiny remote control model airplane. The other inmates sit
back down, turn away or lean back against the wall. They
resume whatever they were doing before the shotgun blast.
It’s as if they’ve seen this happen a million times before.

GUMBY
What kind of gun was that?!

BISHOP
It was a friggin’ toy.

GUMBY
A toy gun?

BISHOP
A toy airplane, dummy.

A Mexican inmate walks over and the white men are noticeably
agitated by his presence. His name is SALVADOR RAMIREZ,
forty-something with several faded green homemade tattoos
visible on his neck and hands. He was sitting on the back
of the bus that Bishop came in on.

SAL
(leaning in
towards Bishop)
You notice anything weird about
this place yet.

We recognize SAL’S voice as the narrator who told the fable
in the opening sequence.

BISHOP
Besides that? Hey, you lost?
I thought we had our teams
picked for us.

SAL
(with a shrug)
Well, the rest of the men from
my row haven’t said much to me
so far. They don’t seem to think
there’s anything strange going
on around here. But I do. So I
thought I’d try shaking down some
of the other colors for information.
Just so I know I ain’t crazy.

BISHOP
(extending his hand)
Bill Bishop.

SAL
Salvador. Call me Sal.

They shake hands. Gumby steps up and holds out his hand
between the two men. They just stare at it.

GUMBY
(smiling)
Name’s Stevie Clines. And Bishop
here, he’s my dad. I’m the son
he never approved of.

BISHOP
Just ignore him.

Another white man pushes off from the wall and walks over.
His name is JACK GRAY. Late 40’s, bored looking. He seems
out of place among the prisoners. As if he’s been there his
whole life, but only arrived that morning.

GRAY
(to Bishop, throwing
a nod back at Sal)
What the hell are you two doing?
You don’t want him looking over here.

BISHOP
Who?

GRAY
Who’s who? That what you mean?
That’s what you should be askin’.

BISHOP
How about, “who are you?”

GRAY
Jack Gray, the least of your concerns.

BISHOP
Okay, who am I supposed to be
most scared of? Might as well
get that crap out of the way.

GRAY
(pointing)
That’s easy. Him. Jim Wayne.
They call him, “The Duke.” That
red-haired beast with the shotgun.
C’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t
notice the giant “Heat Miser” looking
motherfucker over there? Bastard
son of motherfucking John Wayne.
The story goes; John Wayne fucked
his mother while they were filming
“Chisum” in New Mexico. When he
woke up and saw that red hair around
such an ugly face, John Wayne spit
on her arm and tried to rub off the
autograph he’d signed on her skin the
night before. But it wouldn’t come
off. True story. He denies the whole
thing, even though he’s the one who
told everyone about it. They say
that one of those fucked up tattoos
on his arm is actually a reproduction
of the signature his dad tried to rub
off of his mom.

BISHOP
Whatever. Everyone without a dad
says it was goddamn John Wayne or
Elvis that knocked up their mother-

GUMBY
Hey! I saw that movie. I didn’t
remember John Wayne in it though.
Lot of ass-fucking and sucking and-

BISHOP
There’s no sex in “Chisum,”
what the hell are you-

GUMBY
Oh, “Chiz-um”, I thought you-
never mind. Hey Gray, are you
talking about that big guard over
there? Aw fuck him. He shoots
toys, so what? I ain’t scared.

BISHOP
Where did that airplane come from?
What was that all about?

GRAY
No one knows. Happens once a week
at least. Those planes come buzzing
in here all the time and they can’t
do anything to stop them. The Duke
just shoots them down and walks away.
I heard that those toys have a range
of five miles these days, and with a
tiny camera to fly it, anyone out there
sitting under a cactus could be flying
them and no one could ever stop ‘em.

BISHOP
Why? What’s the point?

GRAY
(pointing at two guards
kicking around the wreckage)
I said, no one knows. They never
let one of those planes touch
the ground in one piece.

The Duke is watching his two main guards stuff the parts
into some bright orange “biohazard” bags. Suddenly he looks
up and notices the men against the wall and their
conversation.

GRAY
(to Sal)
Go back and stand with the cons
from your row. Don’t fuck us up
over here on your first day out
of Level One.

SAL
(taking a step
back and mumbling)
I’ll talk to whoever I want...

GRAY
No. That’s my whole point.
You can’t.

BISHOP
(to Gray)
How long you been here?

GRAY
Long enough to pick the “three
blind mice,” bet against them,
and make money every time.

SAL
The what?

BISHOP
The who?

GUMBY
(confused)
The when?

GRAY
We find out who the short-timers
are, who’s at the end of a sentence,
who just got transferred here, who’s
getting transferred at the end of
the week, who just won the lottery,
who’s got a sealed envelope of any
kind that they’re “waiting for the
right moment” to open. SAT scores,
Dear John letters, all that shit.
Any of the above means that they’ll
be dead by the weekend.

GUMBY
Why’s that?

GRAY
You raised with your head up your
ass? C’mon man, ya just can’t tempt
fate like that. Any war movie or
prison movie or horror movie will
tell ya. Ahhh, those were the old
days. When we’d pick one man from
each race. One white, one black, one
Mexican. Watch them get off the
bus in those orange jumpsuits. And
we’d bet to see who lasts the longest.
Once, we had a couple of the goons
force them to keep wearing those
orange digs even after they got
processed. You should have seen
that shit, ninety degrees in their
shades, poor bastards sweating
bullets, walking around the yard
all orange. Only if someone could
have found big red targets to hang
on their chests, it would have been
funnier than that shit. Or maybe
make ‘em wear propeller hats...yeah...

GUMBY
(angry)
Is that why that fucking deputy
gave ME the only green one?

GRAY
Don’t know nothin’ about that.
Anyway, can’t pick one of each
anymore. The odds are that the
“three blind mice” will always
be black. Other things have
changed too...

Gray starts looking around the sky like he’s expecting a UFO
or something to come screaming over the wall.

BISHOP
What are you looking at?

Gray locks eyes with Bishop, then looks away with a smirk.

BISHOP
Even his eyes were gray...

GUMBY
Naw, fuck all that hazing bullshit.
I ain’t scared of any of these
slapheads. Let someone fuck
with me in the shower and watch
what happens.

BISHOP
Yeah, just like you handled yourself
on the bus. You sure showed him.
Poor bastard, his elbow probably
has your blood all over it.

GUMBY
Fuck you dad.

GRAY
You still don’t get it. I’m not
talking about the inmates. The
days of betting on “The Three
Blind Mice” are almost over.
Now there’s other things to
worry about around here.

The Duke is walking towards them now. Heavy steps, kicking
up lots of dust. None of the men see the shadow approach,
except for Gray. He gives The Duke a quick glance, then
continues.

GRAY
You guys haven’t noticed
anything weird yet?

BISHOP
(to Gumby)
Hey. There is one thing. What
ever happened to your new friend
anyway? Number seven? Shaved
into his head-

SAL
Tattoo on his neck.

BISHOP
Whatever. Number Seven.
Where’s he at?

GUMBY
Why? I’ll get him back, don’t worry.

BISHOP
No, I mean, he’s not here. Not
out here. Not in there. I know.
I’ve been looking.

SAL
So where’d he go?

GRAY
(eyebrows up)
Who?

BISHOP
Man who rode in with us. Smacked
around this idiot. Had a number on-

GRAY
(very interested)
What color was he?

BISHOP
(rubbing above his ear
with his bad left hand)
Green. What the hell do you think?
He was black. And he has a number
up here, somewhere around his head-

GRAY
(mumbling)
Of course he did...


GUMBY
(leaning in to look
at Bishop’s left hand)
Dude! Where the fuck is your thumb?
They make you leave that at the gates,
dad? Shit, all they took from me was
my lighter! Damn, I got off lucky!

BISHOP
(ignoring him)
I’m telling you, I haven’t seen
that man since the first lock-down.
I watched his cell for three days.
He never left. It’s true, he’s right
in my line of sight. He went in and
he never came out, like a friggin’
roach motel. And, I thought I...
heard something-

Gray interrupts him with a cough and suddenly turns to
leave.

GRAY
(walking away laughing)
Sounds like “Eeloy” all right.
Damn! I just lost ten bucks...

Bishop starts to ask another question, but changes his mind.
He turns around to find himself staring into the chest of
guard Jim Wayne, aka The Duke. He’s standing with his arm
crossed over his shotgun, smiling at the tail end of the
conversation he just overheard. Bishop frowns and looks
around the yard for Gray. Gray has disappeared.

THE DUKE
(leaning in grinning,
voice like a hiss)
You think you’re Sherlock Holmes?
This skinny prick with ears supposed
to be Watson then?

GUMBY
Naw, it’s more like the other way
around...

THE DUKE
(to Gumby, not taking
his eyes off Bishop)
Shut the fuck up. You’re lucky
to be here.

GUMBY
Yeah. Lucky me. I could be
anywhere else. Water-skiing,
putting together a jigsaw puzzle,
eating a chicken leg and drinking
a beer while sitting on a toilet
and watching a football game, all
at the same time. Shit yeah, why
do that when I can be here-

THE DUKE
(to Gumby, blue eyes still
locked with Bishop’s)
Shut the fuck up. You missed my
point, Watson. Listen to the words
close this time. You’re. Lucky.
To. Be. Here.

The Duke finally turns to look at Gumby and moves a step
towards him. Another guard quickly gets between the two of
them. This guard’s name is TOM GARRETT. He is a white man
in his 50’s. Some white hair on his head. His eyes are
tired and almost closed from the glare of the desert sun.
His look and mannerisms make him appear to be more
controlled, less manic than The Duke. The third guard,
SCOTT HANSON, a young white man in his early twenties,
watches them closely.

GARRETT
All the pieces are bagged, sir.

THE DUKE
(to Garrett, but staring
at a still smiling Gumby)
You sure? Every wire? Every goddamn
screw? Don’t leave nothin’ for these
assholes to make into a weapon. Or a toy.

GARRETT
Yes, sir. All cleaned up.

The Duke opens the end of one of the orange bags Garrett is
holding. He shakes the bag and peers into it like a kid who
got vegetables on Halloween instead of candy. He stops,
spins the end of the bag closed and tosses it back into
Garrett’s chest. Then he looks up and down the convicts in
the yard.

THE DUKE
Better be. I don’t want so much
as a wheel left out here in the sand.
I don’t care how many toys Santa
Claus drops over our fence.
I don’t want these sorry bastards
to flick so much as a rubber band
at my shadow and think that they
got away with something.

The Duke paces in front of the group of white men. They
quickly find something else to look at, somewhere around
their shoes. Bishop squeezes his bad hand to stop it from
shaking.

THE DUKE
(still talking to Garrett)
And I don’t want any of these stupid
motherfuckers to be pointing at me
when I’m walking by. A finger can be
fatal in here, so make sure they keep
them curled in their fists. I know
what they thinking they’re doing, I
was a boy once, I remember what it
meant to point a finger. Do you
remember what it meant, Tom?

GARRETT
No, sir.

THE DUKE
(sighing)
I know shit’s a little strange these
days. I know we got this problem
with toys flying in here, and today,
these new guys know that too. That
doesn’t mean things aren’t in control
here. And I still see you pricks
whispering and pointing those fingers
at me. Still haven’t learned, huh?
You point a finger at me and my first
thought is that you might have a gun.
I know it sounds crazy, one of you with
a gun. In here? I can’t help it, I
got an imagination. And I’m telling
y’all right now, I see another finger
pointing at me out of the corner of my
eye, and I’m biting it off at the knuckle.
I know you fucks still like to pretend
you got those imaginary guns, just like
when you were little, and you thought
your fingers could still be a weapon,
if no one was lookin’...

The Duke turns in front of the white men and uncrosses his
arms to thoughtfully tap the shotgun against his leg.
Bishop angles his neck forward and squints at the black
jailhouse tattoos covering the faded green letters on The
Duke’s forearms. A jumble of words and images stacked and
smeared under layer after layer of ink and scar tissue.
Bishop gets a glimpse of an eyeball peeking out by the bone
on his wrist, maybe a letter “T” or a letter “P” under a
screaming skull, a spider web covering a twisted bulldog on
his elbow. Bishops frowns. There isn’t a single image or
word that can be deciphered on the skin of those huge arms.

THE DUKE
And I don’t care which one of these
new faggots you’re trying to impress
by showing them what’s what and who’s
who. Any fucking one of you who
points at me again, thinking I want
to play Cowboys and Indians just
cause we’re stuck in the desert, he
will be chasing his fucking head
across the sand with a surprised
look on the face he’s kicking.

He looks around the yard for another minute, then checks the
sky and claps Garrett hard on the back. The second guard is
walking back towards a tower, two orange bags under his
arms.

THE DUKE
Good work, Tomcat. Follow Hanson
back inside with wreckage and put
it in my locker. The FAA might want
to talk to me later. Then come back
out while we still got some sun, and
find me some more black ants. I think
I saw some near the trash this morning.

The Duke cups his hands over his mouth and shouts to all the
cons.

THE DUKE
Lunch in twenty minutes! No one
plays ball today!

GUMBY
(horrified)
Fucker eats bugs?!

FADE OUT

INT. BISHOP’S CAR - DAY - FLASHBACK

Bishop is driving slowly and scratching at a spot on the
inside of his windshield. Then he realizes that the stain
is a bug smashed on the outside of the glass. He is driving
up the street to his house. He looks past the insect and
sees a car blocking the driveway. He stops his car and
rolls down his window to lean out and study it. Then he
backs up and silently parks his car by driving in the grass
instead of the stones. The tires of his car roll through a
flower bed and flatten a trail through an impossibly green
lawn. Bishop steps out, leaving his car door open, and
walks around the house to the garage. He strains to open
the huge garage door as slowly and quietly as he can. His
sweating hands suddenly slip and the heavy garage door
rumbles and falls back towards the ground, quickly picking
up speed.

MATCH CUT:

INT. PRISON CAFETERIA - PRESENT DAY

A metal door slams behind them as Bishop, Sal and Gumby walk
into the cafeteria. Gumby trails a few steps behind.
Bishop slows for a second as he notices that the guards
actually eat with the inmates. The guards have their own
table away from the prison population, but they are sitting
hunched over as they shovel food into their mouths, arms
protectively wrapped around their plates, just like the
convicts. Bishop sees The Duke at the head of the table.
There is what appears to be a crystal ball on their table,
placed dead-center like a main course. Bishop sees
something moving inside the ball and before he realizes what
he’s doing, he’s squinting and walking towards the guards’
table to get a better look.

INSERT - THE ANTS

Close up of a homemade ant-farm fashioned from a round glass
jar and sitting high on a woven nest of cigarettes. Inside,
tiny red ants run in and out of the sand-filled bottom half
of the crystal ball. Dead crickets and spiders are curled
in separate piles on one side of the killing jar. A moldy
green-bean and some black-eyed peas are lying where they
were dropped in to rot. Several red ants are scratching
madly at the glass to get out.

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop walks a wide circle away from the guards’ table and
finds the white men. He sits down at the empty end of their
table. Gumby runs over and sits with him. Bishop looks at
him in disgust, then shakes his head. He seems to have
adopted him. Sal sits down in front of Bishop. Then Jack
Gray is suddenly there too, dropping his metal tray with a
CLANG and sitting down. Bishop looks up surprised.

BISHOP
(to Gray)
Where you been?

Gray takes a bite of mashed potatoes, smiles around his
chewing and saying nothing.

BISHOP
(to Sal)
So, you still refuse to find the
right corner of the crayon box?

SAL
Guess so. You look like shit
brother. Can’t sleep in here?
You even made your bed yet?

BISHOP
(rubbing his face)
I slept. It was just
the dream I had.

GRAY
(suddenly interested)
Bishop, did you dream that you
were in a cell? Was that your
dream? Did you dream that you
were dreaming inside a prison cell?

BISHOP
(frowning)
Yeah. How did you know?

GRAY
(talking around another
bite of mashed potatoes)
That’s what happens to the mind
when you’re suddenly locked in a
room like that. That’s all the
input and creativity that the
sleeping, incarcerated brain can
come up with. That’s all the
dreaming any prisoner can do...
after a while. Thing is though,
it usually takes a couple years
behind bars before all the typical
dreams of fucking and fighting and
running and swimming and flying are
replaced by dreams of three or four
brick walls. It must have happened to
you faster than usual, maybe because
of that Level One lock-down they just
started. Twenty-four hour solitary,
damn. That’s a rough way to begin
your tour. It’s the equivalent of
putting a man against a wall and
hosing all the dirt off of him.
Except the man is holding his brain
in his hands out in front of him.

BISHOP
(absently stirring the
food on his tray together
into a swirl of colors)
Well, I don’t know about all that.
Maybe I dreamed about the bars and
the brick walls, but I’m talking
about what happened after the dream.
I’m still not sure whether this was
a dream or not. I woke up, I know
I woke up, and I heard music. So I
went to the sink to splash some water
on my face, to make it go away.
And that’s when it happened.

SAL
What?

BISHOP
The music. It got louder. Then, when
I turned the water down, the music
got quiet. I turned that knob five
times and it kept happening. Now I know
there’s just no friggin’ way that I was
controlling the music with the faucet.
So that only leaves one other option.

SAL
What?

BISHOP
I was being watched. I don’t know
why, or how. The music was just
someone’s way of telling me.
I just know I was being watched.

Bishop notices that some of the other prisoners at the other
tables are watching and listening to him. He turns back to
the wide-eyes at his table. Now it’s their turn to absently
push around their food.

BISHOP
It was just two dreams. But still,
I think you’re wrong Gray. I think
that just shows that I still got
some imagination left in my head.

GRAY
(mumbling)
Maybe that was the last of it
to trickle out your ears.
We’ll see.

BISHOP
What?

GRAY
(taking another bite)
Nothing.

Bishop frowns and looks around the lunchroom and sees Thomas
Jefferson Jones watching them from his table of black
inmates.

BISHOP
(to Gray)
So what’s up around here?
You’ve been here the longest,
right? You act like it.
Ain’t you supposed to show
us the ropes.

GUMBY
Fuck that. Fuck him. I don’t
need no help. Especially from
this cryptic motherfucker.
Besides, whatever don’t kill
you makes you stronger, right?

GRAY
(stabbing some peas)
No, that’s not how the saying goes.
People have been misquoting that
shit for years and I’m sick of it.

GUMBY
What is it then?

GRAY
Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you
stranger. And this place is even
stranger that you think.

GUMBY
No shit. First off, everyone I’ve
met left their sense of humor at
the fucking gate, and second-

GRAY
(to Bishop and Sal,
ignoring Gumby)
You ever hear of the Bermuda
Triangle?

BISHOP
What about it?

GRAY
You’re in the Arizona Triangle now.
And it ain’t UFO’s you got to
worry about in here.

GUMBY
(pushing his food away)
What the fuck you talkin’ about?

GRAY
This place. It’s a fucking black hole
in the middle of the desert. There’s
something really wrong here. I been
looking at maps in the library and we’re
dead center in a triangle of three other
prisons. A triangle in the middle of
nowhere.

SAL
So what?

BISHOP
Yeah, so what? You can pick three of
anything and draw a triangle. And there’s
prisons everywhere. Hell, I could take
a map and draw the face of Jesus or
Elvis on it, just by mapping out all
the goddamn prisons. So what’s your
point?

GRAY
(taking his last
bite and laughing)
Could you draw John Wayne’s face?
Seriously though, it’s these three
particular prisons I’m talking about.
They all have something in common.

SAL
What?

GRAY
Him.

BISHOP
Who?

GRAY
Who do you think? Who the fuck was
I telling you about? That red-haired
monster. Wayne. The Duke. I’m on
to him. I’ve tracked him all across
the desert. I’ll tell you one thing;
he’s no guard.

BISHOP
What? This some game you run
on the new people? I don’t know
where it’s going but take a walk
with that X-Files crap.

GRAY
(ignoring him)
All three of those prisons had
the same problem.

BISHOP
Yeah, fighting, murder, sodomy,
lack of proper reading light. All
the same stuff as the rest of the prisons
in the world. That’s some revelation.

GRAY
No. It’s more than just that.
I’ve written down the names of
everyone that’s come through this
gate for the past three years.
Now, I ask you; how full do you
think this prison is?

Bishop looks down and tries to eat. Sal answers for him.

SAL
I don’t know. Two thirds full?
I saw an empty cell here and there.

GRAY
Wrong. This place is at three-hundred
percent capacity.

SAL
Bullshit. If that was true, we’d
be sitting on each other’s shoulders
trying to eat.

BISHOP
(dropping his plastic
spork into his peas)
There’s no way. This ain’t death
row. If that many are coming in,
then where the hell do they go?

GRAY
Exactly.

BISHOP
Where do you think they are?

GRAY
I don’t know. Flushed down the
toilets. Dropped down through
trapdoors into the sand. Bricked
into the walls. Who knows? All I
know is that it’s a motherfucking
Roach Motel. Motherfucking Hotel
California. Busloads of cons keep
comin’ and none are ever goin’.

BISHOP
(sighing)
They couldn’t get away with that.
There is just no way that they-


GRAY
Listen to me. You ever see those
industrial ponds on the side of the
road? Full of oil-slicks and sawdust
‘n shit, always popping up next to some
construction site on the side of the road?

SAL
Yeah. I guess. What about them?

GRAY
Well, they took us out to one of those
holes to do some digging once. And I
had a chance to talk to a civilian while
I was down there on the chain-gang.

BISHOP
And he told you what? That they got
underwater bigfoots swimming in those
ponds that they gotta keep feeding?

GRAY
(leaning forward)
Listen. You ever notice how, after
they build whatever they were building
and the water hole is still there? Or
they mine too deep and suddenly there’s
nothing but a quarry left behind there?
Ever notice that there’s suddenly black
water...where there’s never been water
before?

BISHOP
No.

SAL
Yeah, actually. I worked a construction
crew once, it was about five years back,
and we hit water like that. We were
forced to abandon the crane down in
that pit, cause the hole filled up over
the weekend. We didn’t know it was
going to fill up that fast. We came
to work and found ourselves staring
down at our reflections.

GRAY
(turning to face Sal)
Right, okay, well you ever notice
how, after a couple weeks, you
suddenly see something splashing
around under the surface? Then,
a couple months later, there’s
fucking ducks pulling fish up out
of water?

BISHOP
No.

SAL
I guess.

GRAY
(turning back to Bishop)
Well, where do you think those
fucking fish came from? No one
put them there. That ain’t no
part of no construction crew.
Ain’t nobody bringing live fish
to work in their coolers instead
of beer, brother. I was talking
with that foreman and he has his
own idea. He said that maybe the
earth just changes, faster than
anyone knows. Maybe the ground
starts breathing and bleeding when
too many men are in a hole together,
digging and working. Maybe the
earth itself starts giving you
water to drink and fish to fry.
And for everything that the dirt
gives you to eat, maybe it gives
you something else, too. Something
to balance that shit out. And up
comes a mouth that you have to feed.

BISHOP
(shaking his head)
I knew your story would end up
with a monster. Hell, I could
have bet money on that.

GRAY
(sighing and looking back
into Sal’s eyes instead)
It’s just like this prison. I think
it’s breathing now. I think you put
too many people in one of these places
and you don’t just get riots anymore,
you don’t just get an explosion of
violence. Something else happens.
Something quiet. Something that’s
part of nature. The nature you see
at night on those “animal” channels.
I’m telling you, out here in the
desert, something is happening to
keep things in balance. It’s there
if you look for it. There’s a new
ecosystem that’s been created, and
it needs to feed. Just watch the walls,
watch the skies. You’ll see. Things
keep coming IN. You saw that plane?

BISHOP
Yeah, I saw a toy plane. What’s
that all about anyway? Disgruntled
ex-prisoner? Or the mice in here
attempting an escape?

GRAY
That’s right. All the rats would be
running down the ropes if they knew
what was going on aboard this ship.

GUMBY
(whispering to Gray)
Dude. Tell a joke or something.
You’re freakin’ out the females.

GRAY
(ignoring him)
Those toy planes you saw are just the
tip of the iceberg. That one today
probably got pulled off course six
months ago. Sucked in from some kid’s
backyard in Ohio. There’s other shit
falling from the sky, too. Smaller things.
Bigger things. Every day. You know
there’s actually someone in here with
the black box from a real plane. And
a chunk of toilet waste from it too.
You meet “Zombie” yet? “Zombie Fucker”?
He’s the one that squirreled that snow
ball away in his cell. He actually kept
it from melting for six weeks. Crazy
bastard, you don’t want to know what he’s
in for. Once he swore to me that he was
sure a big blue ice cube would be like
gold out here in the desert. But yeah,
that black box, it just dropped out of
the clouds one day. We’re still trying
to figure out a way to hear what’s on
the fucking thing.

BISHOP
One question: What does the box
look like?

GRAY
(holding his hands about
a half foot apart)
Black...about this big...

BISHOP
Wrong. They’re red and orange.
Not black.

GRAY
So this one got burnt in the crash.
What’s your fucking point? Calling
me a liar?

BISHOP
That’s your theory then? This place
is a black hole in the sand? Is
this a dream you had? After too
many blue toilet-water snow-cones?

SAL
(quietly)
You seriously think this place is alive?

GRAY
I’ve heard stranger shit than that around
here. You remember that scientist who cloned
that sheep? Well, that wasn’t no sheep.
It was a spider. And it happened right here,
ten years ago and he didn’t really clone it.
Just the opposite. He’d make one big spider
out of every three he’d catch. He did it
with a toothbrush, a rotten orange and a
radio. He’d lift up the orange peel and BAM!
Three spiders turned into one...

Gray shrugs and sits back. He stares at them all serious
for a moment until a smile finally cracks his face open.

GRAY (cont’d)
(laughing and rocking
back in his chair)
Naw! I’m just fucking with you.
I think that there is someone killing
inmates though. I do believe that.

Bishop stands to take up his tray. He walks past the
guards’ table and The Duke looks up at Bishop again. Then
The Duke drops his spork and pulls his arm back from around
his plate. Bishop looks down at the huge ink-stained arms
crossed over The Duke’s chest. Bishop squints into what
appears to be a green eyeball drawn over the knob of bone
on The Duke’s wrist.

THE DUKE
(smiling)
Hey! You want me to read your fortune?

Bishop just keep walking and The Duke stands up. The guards
around him stop eating.

THE DUKE (cont’d)
(smile dropping)
Where the fuck you going? First you
want to look in the crystal ball, and
now you don’t? Don’t be scared. It
just tells you what’s going to happen.
C’mon, it’ll only take a second.

Bishop walks faster.

THE DUKE (cont’d)
(shouting)
Hey! I’m talking to you!

All activity in the cafeteria has stopped. Two of the
guards are now standing. One of them is talking into a
radio. Bishop stops and turns to face The Duke. Garrett
is almost standing. He has one foot on his chair and is
hovering between reacting to the situation or trying to
defuse it.

GARRETT
(to The Duke)
C’mon Jim, keep eatin’. No good cold.
(turning to Bishop)
You. Keep walking. Back to your seat,
boy. Right now. Wait for the whistle.

The Duke looks at Garrett for a moment, then both of the
guards start to sit back down. The Duke’s arm starts to
snake back around his food. Things have calmed back down.
Bishop walks on another couple of steps and then stops.

BISHOP
So, what’s the story on those
tattoos?

A look of rage washes over The Duke’s face and he crosses
the distance between the two of them in about three giant
strides. He gets nose-to-nose with Bishop. The Duke’s
ice-blue eyes are crawling all over Bishop’s face like he’s
following a fly.

THE DUKE
(snorting through his nose)
Fuck you say?

BISHOP
Nothing. Just trying to read those
hieroglyphics on your arms. Hard to
make out the message. You get burned or-

THE DUKE
(leans in to rest his chin
on the top of Bishop’s head)
Are you going to be a problem? Is that
it? Tell me now, cause we got too many
big problems here right now and we’ll
just get your little one out of the way...

BISHOP
(looking past The Duke,
trying to avoid his eyes)
No sir. Just here to eat.

THE DUKE
(face relaxing
and whispering)
Tell you what. You don’t worry about
my scars, and I won’t worry about yours.

The Duke reaches down and pulls Bishop’s left hand up into
sight. He twists and bends Bishop’s fingers until his hand
is in the shape of a gun. The Duke rubs the scar tissue
where Bishop’s thumb used to be and pulls the thumbless,
gun-shaped hand up to point at his own head.

THE DUKE
(amazed)
Look at this shit. Damn boy!
I’d rather get my balls chopped off
than my thumb! Just look at this
shit. You’re left handed, too-ain’t
ya? I guess you could hold a gun
but it would be all fucked up, wouldn’t
it? You couldn’t cock it though, could
you? That’s the point, ain’t it.
That’s why this happened to you.

The Duke lets Bishop’s hand drop back down to his side.

THE DUKE
(barely audible)
I know what happened to you.

BISHOP
(looking into his
eyes for a second,
then looking away)
I saw something moving in the jar,
that’s all. I had to look. Sorry.
Won’t happen again.

THE DUKE
(after a moment)
And another thing, I heard you boys
talking about fish appearing in those
industrial ponds? Well, there’s all
sorts of construction and man-made water
holes all across this desert. Even out
here, you’ll hit water every time you
build a new prison. So you tell whoever
asks that I know for a fucking fact that
none of these holes ain’t go no fish in
‘em. Mosquito eggs, yes. Fish, no.
That shit you’re talking is impossible.

BISHOP
(completely confused)
I don’t know what you’re talk-

THE DUKE
(smiling)
Right. Okay. Fair enough. A man’s
eyes are drawn to movement. You’re
right about that. You can’t help that
shit. Human nature. Hey! You notice
that lizards won’t look you in the eyes?
A wolf won’t do it either. Dogs will
though. The wilder the animal, the less
likely it is to look you in the eye.

BISHOP
(muttering)
...don’t know about wolves but
lizards aren’t smart enough to
know where your eyes are. And
a wolf probably looks at your eyes
when you’re looking away. It knows
where your eyes are...

THE DUKE
(bright blue eyes flash
in the harsh lighting)
Wolf knows where the eyes are huh?
Throat too. Maybe you’re right.
Too bad about that hand though.
Can’t pretend to make a gun with
hand without a thumb. That means
you couldn’t play Cops ‘n Robbers,
or Cowboys ‘n Indians with your kids
ever again. Your days as a dad were
over anyway.

The Duke turns back towards his table and sighs.

THE DUKE
I don’t think you’ll be a problem.
I don’t think I’ll have to worry
about you pointing fingers at me
when I look away, will I? It’s okay
if you’re smart enough to know where
the eyes and the throat are. I’ve
been bit in the neck before.

Bishop backs up a couple steps and The Duke just stares.

THE DUKE
(frowning)
Where you going? You didn’t answer
me. What can that hand still do?
You can’t even make a fist, can you?

BISHOP
No. There’s nerve damage. The only
way I can make a fist is if I have
something in my hand.

The Duke’s frown deepens and he stares a moment longer.
Then he turns to walk back to his table. He sits back down
with a crash. The two guards who had gotten up to lean on
their chairs rock back on their back legs and watch Bishop
walking quietly walking away. Bishop seems lost for a
moment and looks around for his table. Then he sees Sal,
Gray and Gumby watching him, eyes wide in shock. He puts
his left hand under his right hand and walks towards them to
sit back down. The Duke suddenly bangs the table and
digging through all of his pockets.

THE DUKE
(yelling)
Almost forgot! Forgot to do my
fortune telling for the day!

The Duke pulls a scorpion from his pants and unscrews the
top of his bug jar to drop it in. It’s long dead and the
ants just ignore it.

THE DUKE
(disappointed)
Buncha bullshit. Remind me again.
Why do I keep these creatures around?

EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

A group of large black men are lifting around a rusted
wobbling weight bench. Thumping from the speakers of a
nearby stereo is Dr. Octagon’s song,
“Halfsharkalligatorhalfman”. Gumby approaches the men,
smiling and stretching his arms behind his back. The black
men glare at him and slow down their workout and
conversations, waiting to see what he’ll do. Gumby picks up
a small five-pound dumbbell and starts to curl it. The men
ignore him and turn back to their bench. Then Gumby steps
into their circle and swings his dumbbell around to make
them move.

GUMBY
(straining with the weight)
Anyone know a man named Jones?
Huh? Anyone? Bishop wants to
talk to him. You? You? How ‘bout
you? You know a Jones?

The men stare at him. Gumby switches arms and keeps
curling.

GUMBY
I guess that’s like asking if
you know a man named Brown eh?

They stop their workout and the man on the bench lets the
weight he was benching crash back down. Gumby jumps back
several feet. Some of the men set their weights. Some of
the men pick some up.

GUMBY
(sighing)
Here we go again. Why are you
niggers so fucking sensitive?

The largest man starts moving towards him. He has a tattoo
of an 8-Ball on his neck and a thirty pound dumbbell in his
fist.

GUMBY
(smiling and walking backwards)
C’mon. I didn’t come here to kick
any black ass. Just passin’ on a
message. Just tell Jones to meet
Bishop in the TV room tonight.

8-BALL
Stupid little racist fuck. What
the fuck is wrong with you?

GUMBY
(still backing up and smiling)
Why am I a racist? ‘Cause of that joke?
(pause)
Wait, were you on the bus too?
Hard to tell you guys apart-

8-BALL, the man with the 30-pound weight, cocks his arm back
and gets ready to swing. Gumby holds up a hand, palm out.

GUMBY
Whoa! Slow down, man! I’m just the
messenger. I don’t need to die over
no joke. You don’t like jokes, huh?
How ‘bout this one, oldie but a goodie:
(pause)
What do you call a black neurosurgeon?

Gumby’s back is against a fence, one of the men turns up the
song to cover any noise. 8-Ball stops about three feet
away, wringing his hands around the shaft of the barbell
like the old childhood “snakebite” torture. He bares his
teeth, waiting for him to finish the joke.

GUMBY
(smiling)
...a nigger! Wait! Hold it!
I got a white version of that
joke too! Don’t you want to
hear it before you kill me?

8-BALL
Tell me something, punk. Why do
you think they sent you? I think
they wanted the message delivered,
but didn’t care whether you ever
came back with the receipt.

The thick black arm is cocked way back now, veins rising as
he squeezes the weight in his hand.

GUMBY
(hand up over his face,
smiling and sweating)
Wait! You haven’t heard the other
joke yet. I can prove I ain’t no
racist! Ready? What do you call
a white neurosurgeon?

8-BALL
(hesitating)
What?

GUMBY
A nigger!

Everyone looks confused at this punchline. Even Gumby.

GUMBY
Uh, I think I told that wrong...

Gumby takes advantage of the moment and drops down under the
30-pound weight that’s now flying towards his head. The
weight rebounds off the fence and 8-Ball almost loses his
balance. Gumby jumps up next to him and delivers four quick
blows with his small five-pound weight to 8-Ball’s head
before he can recover. He drops the 30-pound weight and
falls to his knees. Blood pours from a crack in his head and
washes over the 8-ball tattoo on his neck. Then Gumby drops
his weapon and is up and running from the scene.

CUT TO:


EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

Bishop and Gray are talking quietly. Gumby walks up, nose
bleeding from another fight. Two streams of blood have
dried on his face and he doesn’t seem to know that they’re
there.

GRAY
Stupid fuck, why’d you have to
start some shit?

GUMBY
(confused at first)
Huh? Naw, I didn’t start nothin’.

BISHOP
Did you find Jones?

GUMBY
(mumbling)
I don’t know. They should tattoo
their names on their heads. All
look the same to me...

GRAY
(pointing)
And we all look the same to HIM...

The Duke is walking into the yard, with a shotgun in his
hand and a basketball under his arm. Again, he is flanked
by the two other guards, Garrett and Hanson.

GRAY
Here we go.

GUMBY
(rubbing his nose
and looking around)
Where the hell is the court?
I don’t see no hoop out here.

Gray pushes Gumby back a step and starts chopping his heel
into the sand at their feet. After a second he hits
asphalt. The he kicks away some more sand and the foul-line
for a long buried basketball court is revealed.

GUMBY
But you can’t bounce a ball in
the sand. Why even bother-


GRAY
And under that? Another court where
the Incas used to play ball. Except
with heads. Now shut up and watch.

The Duke holds the basketball high above his head and yells
out to all the prisoners.

THE DUKE
Last man standing! Who’s playing today?

None of the prisoners move and The Duke is instantly angry.

THE DUKE
(quieter, more sinister)
I said, who’s playing?

The prisoners start to move slowly toward the center of the
yard. The Duke lets the ball drop to the sand. It hits
with a thud and doesn’t bounce.

THE DUKE
Let’s go fuckers. Take your sides.
Get in two games before lunch...

Hanson, the guard on his left, runs down the length of the
prison yard, kicking a line into the sand with the heel of
his boot. Several black men start moving reluctantly to one
side of the line. Some white men stare at their feet and
start to gather on the other side.

THE DUKE
(pointing to a small
group of Mexicans)
You know the goddamn drill. Get on
the white side. Make that shit even.

Some Mexicans shuffle over to join the four or five white
men. Gumby blows a wad of blood out his nose onto his
shirt-sleeve. Then he runs over to join in the game. Sal
starts to grab his shoulder and Gumby shrugs him off.

GUMBY
Fuck off, I’m playing.

The Duke points over to Wilkins, who is still standing close
to a radio. He’s nodding along to the song, “Pigs” by
Cypress Hill. He mouths the lyrics at the line, “niggas
want to do him in the ass just to pay his ass back, so
they’re standin’ in line, that fucking pig...”

THE DUKE
Hey! We need more black. You! Over here!

Wilkins takes off his glasses and hands them to Jones.
Jones stands with his arms crossed, glaring at the men who
walked to the line. He says nothing but clearly refuses to
move.

WILKINS
(walking towards
The Duke and the ball)
Bullshit. Fuckin’. Bull. Shit.

One of the black men picks up the basketball and Gray starts
explaining the rules to Bishop out of the corner of his
mouth.
Jones watches the men talk, and Bishop continues to trade
glances with Jones. The Duke smiles and picks up the
basketball. He gets it spinning fast in the palm of his
hand. Then his eyes light up and he tries to twirl the ball
on the end of his shotgun. The basketball spins off the
barrel and thumps back down into the sand.

GRAY
It’s dodge ball. That’s all.
A kid’s game. Just to make the
prisoners look stupid. Used to
make them play “Red Rover Red Rover”
but he got sick of that fast. I guess
he thinks it’s funny, making them look
like friggin’ children.

THE DUKE
(poking the ball
with the shotgun)
All right, let’s do it. We got
enough for a short game. Someone
come get this ball! Entertain my ass.

Gumby snorts some blood out his nose into his palm. He
walks towards the basketball in the sand, trying not to
smile, trying to get his game-face on. He can’t. He laughs
and runs his hand through his wild wave of blonde hair,
leaving a bright red streak high up above his head. He
picks up the ball and then walks to the front of the line.
He smiles at the line of black men facing him.

GUMBY
Who’s first? Any numbers on your
heads so I can keep track?

Gumby throws the ball into the chest of a black man and he
catches it easily. Gumby hops up and down in anticipation
of the game. The Cypress Hill song finishes on the radio
near the black men and someone takes advantage of the pause
between songs to turn up the volume on another radio. The
song “Excitable Boy” by Warren Zevon starts playing. This
is Gumby’s theme song for the scene.

GUMBY
(rocking on his feet)
I forget, haven’t played this since
sixth grade gym. Now, is the object
of the game to hit, or get hit?

SERIES OF SHOTS - THE DODGE BALL GAME

--Quick shots of the basketball smacking several bored and
weary prisoners in their chests and shoulders.

--The Duke yells for the men to try harder.

--Rapid shots of Gumby giggling and ducking the basketball.

--Some black men start getting into the game. They want
badly to nail Gumby with the ball.

--White men getting smacked hard in the face.

--Black men getting smacked hard in the face.

--Mexicans/Chicanos/Hispanics and Latinos hit equally hard.

--Men of all colors turning to watch the game.

--The Duke yells for them to throw harder.

--Wilkins steps up and fires point-blank at Gumby’s grin.

--Gumby dives and avoids the throw.

--Gumby recovers the ball and throws hard, taking out a
black man next to Wilkins. The man rubs his face, walks off
to the side and sits down to light a cigarette.

--Wilkins chases down the ball. He is the last black man
left on that side of the line.

--Gumby chases down the ball. He is the last white man
left.

--Wilkins catches Gumby’s next throw. The game should be
over, according to every playground’s rules. Instead,
Wilkins spits on the ball and launches it back at Gumby.

--Gumby catches Wilkins’ throw and tries a quick side-arm
toss at his head.

--Men in the yard start to move towards the game. Obviously
they’re not used to seeing anyone play to win anymore.

--Gumby and Wilkins stand near the line. The ball is in
Wilkins’ hands.

--Reaction shots of Bishop, Jones, Sal and The Duke.

--High shot of the yard. Gumby and Wilkins walk towards
each other. They stop about ten feet apart.

GUMBY
(grinning)
C’mon motherfucker, you’re too sl-

The basketball smashes into Gumby’s open mouth. He catches
it when it rolls off his face and quickly throws it back.
It connects with Wilkins’ forehead and skips off across the
sand. Wilkins slowly walks behind the ball until it stops.
Then he picks it back up and walks back to the line.

WILKINS
You were out.

GUMBY
Maybe, but I got you anyway.

WILKINS
(punching the ball
in his hands)
Don’t mean shit.

GUMBY
(smiling)
Sure looks like it does.

WILKINS
(smiling back)
That a fly on your nose?

Wilkins fires a quick two-handed shot and hits Gumby in the
chin. Gumby back-peddles and almost loses his balance.
Then he spits into the sand and chases down the ball. He
runs back to get up even closer to Wilkins, his smile even
bigger. The men are now only about five feet apart.

GUMBY
Didn’t even feel it. Try again.

Gumby leans down and puts the ball on the ground. He rolls
it to Wilkins’ feet, then puts his arms out wide, offering
up his face as a gift. Wilkins winds up and throws the ball
as hard as he can. The ball smashes into Gumby’s mouth and
now the blood is flowing freely from his nose and bottom
lip. He chases down the ball laughing and gently rolls it
back to Wilkins’ feet. Gumby walks up within three feet of
Wilkins.

GUMBY
Do over. I wasn’t looking.

Wilkins gives Gumby another quick two-handed shot in the
mouth. Gumby spits, retrieves the ball and rolls it back to
Wilkins feet. Another quick two-handed shot in the teeth.
Again, Gumby gets the ball, spits blood and rolls it back.
Now he’s about two feet away. Wilkins is sweating and
shaking his head. Another quick two-handed shot at Gumby’s
smiling face. Then another. Then another. Then the ball
bounces high off Gumby’s head and explodes like a bomb in
mid-air. Everyone turns to see The Duke and his shotgun,
smoke rolling out the twin barrels.

THE DUKE
Game over. Everyone inside.

Gumby squints through a face-full of blood at the orange
shreds of basketball fluttering to the sand. He’s
punch-drunk and totally unaware of The Duke walking up
behind him. He stares up into the sky, trying to smile
around split lips.

GUMBY
Did I do that? Hell yeah!

EXT. PRISON CELL - NIGHT

Bishop is sitting in his cell, his back against the bars. He
is talking to the man in the cell next to him. Bishop
can’t see this man. The unknown prisoner’s voice sounds
familiar, even though it is muffled and the men are
whispering.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
That was fucked up at lunch the
other day, man. That’s the longest
conversation anyone has ever had
with The Duke. You got a death wish?

BISHOP
Hey. He talked to me. I didn’t
start talking to him.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(crunching into something
wet, then talking around it)
Or are you just one of those guys
who don’t think prison punishes you
enough? Don’t worry. You haven’t
lived through your first Saturday yet.

BISHOP
What happens on Saturday?

There’s no answer as the man takes another wet bite and
loudly chews on it.

BISHOP
What are you eating?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
A rat. Just kidding. Green apple.

BISHOP
So, what happens on Saturday? They
force us to catch butterflies for
The Duke and his killing jar or what?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(another wet crunch)
Don’t joke about his little bugs.
He takes that shit serious. He keeps
trying to keep an ant farm going in
that crystal ball of his but it never
works. They always die. Longest he
ever kept it alive was three weeks.
Shit, he went through six colonies
before he realized he had to pop
some air holes in the lid.

BISHOP
Question. Were you in the yard
yesterday? I know you, right?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
Not me, just got moved to this cell today.

BISHOP
I think I heard you come in.
So what happened to the man that
was in that cell the day before?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(another crunch)
My cell? No one. It was empty.
This shit in here is as clean as
a hospital. Ain’t been anyone
in this cell before me. Not for
a long time.

BISHOP
How is that possible? I heard that
this place was at 300% capacity.
How come there’s only one man in
a cell? And if you just got here,
how come you’re telling me so much
about what’s what?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(voice fading)
You know what? This is the cleanest
goddamn toilet I’ve ever seen...

BISHOP
(louder)
What’s going on around here.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
Shhh. I got a call coming in.

BISHOP
What?
UNKNOWN PRISONER
(voice louder)
You haven’t used your phone yet?
Here’s how you do it. Drain the
water from your toilet. Use your
hands. When you got enough water
out so you can get your face all the
way in the hole, your phone is plugged
in and ready to ring.

BISHOP
What?


UNKNOWN PRISONER
The shitter. That’s your phone.
You can talk to anyone you want.

BISHOP
Like who?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(around another wet crunch)
I don’t know. Whoever. Does it matter?
After about a year, talking into your
toilet will be the one thing you look
forward to. Just don’t pick up a turd
if you imagine that you hear it ringing...

Bishop crawls over to stare into his own brown-stained
toilet.

BISHOP
(gagging from the smell)
It’s just going to the man in the cell
under me, right? That’s the only one
that would hear whatever I said. So
what’s the point of that?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(sighing)
Point is, you don’t know who that it
is you’d be talking to down there.
Now, isn’t that interesting enough
to pass some time? And you know what?
The plumbing is funny around here.
I once talked to a man over in “D”
block. On the Third Tier. That’s
in the next building and I heard his
voice as clear as hell. The point is,
it doesn’t matter who. It just lets
your voice wander free for a little
while. C’mon, didn’t you ever prank
call someone before? Wouldn’t it be
a waste of time if you knew who it was?
I’m telling you, just try it. These
toilets are metal for a reason. A metal
toilet might as well be wired into a
mixing-board with the perfect acoustics
you get out of it. Your own voice will
sound as good as when you used to sing
in the shower. You won’t be able to do
that in here either...


BISHOP
That why you’re inside? Crank calls?

There’s some movement in the other cell. When the voice is
heard again it’s real close, almost a whisper in Bishop’s
ear. Bishop’s thumbless hand starts to vibrate so he steps
on it.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(laughing)
Maybe. What about you? Why are you
in here?

Bishop leans back against the bars and watches an apple core
roll past his cell. He closes his eyes hard, as if he’s
trying to stop himself from thinking about something. It
doesn’t work.

FADE TO BLACK

INT. BISHOP’S GARAGE - FLASHBACK

Bishop is standing inside his garage. He is staring at his
clenched fists. His left hand reaches for the door that
leads inside the house. His right hand grabs his wrist
before he can turn the doorknob. He turns and walks to his
workbench and picks up an ax. He holds it under the like
from the window for a moment and then sets it back down. He
gently sets it down and picks up a hacksaw instead. He
steps over to the vice on the corner of the workbench and
puts his shaking left hand inside the metal jaw. He cranks
the handle to tighten the vice until it bites into his hand
and it finally stops shaking.

FADE OUT

INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM - DAY

Bishop is sitting at a round table by himself. All around
him, inmates are visiting with their families. Bishop
watches them laugh and cry and argue as his visiting hour
ticks away. He sees Sal at one of the tables with his wife
and children. the children are moving too fast to count but
there seems to be at least five. The smallest child is
trying to climb up on Sal’s leg and one of his other
children is crying and trying to climb off of his other leg.
Sal is shaking his head and pushing and pulling on his kids.
He yanks one towards him, and shoves the other one away.
They both start to cry and he turns their head to point them
towards a sign on the wall.


INSERT - THE SIGN

“SANTA CLAUS RULE! JUST ONE CHILD ON
YOUR KNEE AT A TIME! NO EXCEPTIONS!”

On the wall under this sign, someone has added to the
message in thick black marker:

“CHILDREN UNDER FIVE ONLY!!!
DAUGHTERS UNDER THREE!!!”

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop notices that one of Sal’s sons is playing with a
squirt gun. The squirt gun looks remarkably real. Except
for the fact that it is purple and you can see the water
bubbling inside, it is the exact size and shape of a .38
revolver. The boy points the gun towards the guard leaning
against the door. The guard doesn’t even look up. Bishop
looks around to see if anyone else notices what this boy is
doing. The boy turns and sees Bishop watching him. He
pulls the trigger and pretends to shoot the guard. A small
trickle of water dribbles out of the barrel and the boy
smack his toy in frustration.
Bishop looks around at all the other children in the waiting
room. Suddenly he notices the toys that they’ve all brought
inside with them.

SERIES OF SHOTS - THE TOYS

--A little boy with a rubber spider.

--A little girl with a doll.

--A little boy with a toy car

--A little girl with a small plastic horse.

--Then Bishop sees a little girl with a toy hammer. He
blinks and shakes his head.

--Bishop is even more confused as he spots a boy with a
doll.

--Bishop turns to see one of Sal’s sons playing with a large
toy robot. He turns and twists the limbs until the robot
has turned into a toy airplane.

--Bishop turns to stare as Sal’s smallest son brings his
purple toy squirt-gun up to his mouth, blows the water off
the barrel then tucks it into his shorts.

BACK TO SCENE

Sal tells his daughter a strange modern version of the story
of the “Three Little Pigs.”

SAL
...so these three little pigs are
stuck inside the brickhouse and they
can’t get out. The house of bricks
is stronger than they thought it would
be. And now the pigs are going crazy
in there, running out of ideas fast.
They even try paying the wolf to help.
Only he can’t bust ‘em out either...

Whoever Bishop was waiting for in that visiting room never
shows up. Bishop watches the last couple minutes spin
around the clock. Sal says goodbye to his family, then
offers Bishop a sympathetic look when all the men are
ordered to stand up. Bishop’s looks around for Sal’s son
with the toy gun. The boy hides from Bishop’s eyes behind
his mother. The men file out the door and Bishop rubs his
hand where his thumb used to be.

INT. PRISON CELL - NIGHT

Bishop urinates into his toilet then flushes it. He leans
down close and cocks an ear to listen to the water splashing
down the hole. Then he feels foolish and rests his back
against the bars, searching the cells on the other side for
any signs of life. Then a loud voice from the cell next to
Bishop startles him and he thumps his head against the
metal.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
You got any food?

BISHOP
No. Sorry. Any phone calls tonight?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
What? Fuck you talking about, meat?

Bishop turns to stare at the wall between them. The voice
has changed.

BISHOP
(frowning)
Uh, sorry man. Thought you were
someone else. What happened to the
guy who was in there last night?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(agitated)
In where?

BISHOP
Your cell.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
Fuck you talkin’ about? Who the fuck
else would be in my cell. This has
always been my cell.

BISHOP
Were you in there last night?

UNKNOWN PRISONER
I just got back from the infirmary.
But don’t fucking worry about where
I’m at.

Bishop puts his head in his hands and stares at his toilet.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(voice whispering)
I was sick that’s all. They tryin’
to kill me with this fucking food.
You got anything? Your kids send
you any candy bars?

BISHOP
No. Sorry.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(still whispering)
Candy. Bars. Can you imagine that?
Chocolate bars instead of metal?
I’d just chew my ass right out of
here...

The voice starts giggling uncontrollably, then coughs
suddenly to force himself to stop.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(loud again)
Hey! I’m serious. You got kids?
Tell them to send you some candy bars.

Bishop crawls away from the voice. He walks on his hands
and knees over to the wall facing the bars and leans up
against it instead. He looks at his bed. The mattress and
sheets are still in a tight roll and it’s clear that Bishop
has been in this prison for several days without sleeping on
the bed. Up against the wall, he closes his eyes.

FADE TO BLACK

EXT. BISHOP’S FRONT YARD - DAY

Bishop is face down in the grass and being handcuffed by a
police officer.

BISHOP
(rambling)
I tried to stop it...that’s my blood...
not her blood...I tried to stop it...

COP’S VOICE
Shut the fuck up.

Bishop struggles to raise his head. His daughter JENNY is
glaring at him in the driveway. She looks about sixteen
years old. Her face is pinched into a red fist of anger.

BISHOP
I’m sorry, Jenny...tried to stop it...
that’s not her blood...mostly my
blood, I swear...

The hateful look in her eyes melts into dazed confusion as
his words sink in. She looks at her watch to mark the time.
Then she turns away and starts to run towards the house.
Bishop strains harder and veins rise across his forehead as
tries to break loose to stop her from going inside. Another
pair of hands slam down on top of his head to keep him
still.

BISHOP
(to his daughter)
Stop, I want to-
(to the cops on his back)
Don’t let her go inside. Did you see her check
her watch? She does that to remember anything
important. Don’t let it be-hey! Secure
your goddamn crime scene! You going to let
a child
see her own dead mother?! She’ll see her dead
mother every time she sees a clock pointing
at-
(whispering)
Please...don’t let her go in...what time is it?

SECOND COP’S VOICE
Okay, stand him up. One...two...three.

Bishop is lifted up on his feet. He watches his daughter
open the front door of their house and he clenches his teeth
so hard that there’s a splash of red as he bites through his
own tongue.

INSERT - THE ESCAPE

Close shot of Bishop’s bloody left hand with the thumb
missing. The hand slips out of the handcuffs.

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop pulls his left hand around fast and suddenly shoves
the first cop into the second cop. He moves towards his
house, bloody cuffs dangling from his right hand, a thin
stream of red coming from his mouth. His daughter stops at
the door and stares at her father. She starts crying and
starts to reach for her dad’s good hand. They are inches
away from touching when the police tackle him again.

SECOND COP
What the fuck?! Did he break
those cuffs?

FIRST COP
No...lost his thumb. Get the wire.

SECOND COP
(bringing a knee down
hard on Bishop’s ear)
Lost it? Who lost it? Wait, what?
Holy crap, look at that. You’re right.
How can you not notice shit like no
thumb when you’re cuffing someone?

FIRST COP
(panting as they get
Bishop subdued again)
Fuck you. There’s a lot of blood
around here. More in there. I can’t
be taking time to count fucking fingers.

SECOND COP
(sitting up off Bishop’s
back and looking around)
They’re going to need the instructions
before they try to remove those two
bodies in there.

FIRST COP
I’m sorry I ever looked in that bedroom.
They be sorting out those puzzle pieces
for hours.

SECOND COP
(removing his knee
from Bishop’s head to
whisper in his ear)
Yeah, if they find an extra thumb
in there, we’ll save it for you.
Don’t worry.

FIRST COP
(leaning down to whisper
in Bishop’s other ear)
Yeah, we’ll make a lucky keychain
for you, killer.

Bishop strains his head under the pile of forearms and knees
and actually manages to force his head up one last time. He
watches in horror as his daughter disappears inside the
house.

FADE TO BLACK

INT. PRISON CAFETERIA - DAY

Bishop is sitting at a table with Sal, Gumby and Jack Gray.
Gray is shaking his head. They are in the middle of a
heated discussion.

GRAY
...because they move people around
all the time. That’s all it was-

BISHOP
Bullshit. That voice said it had
always been his cell. So who was
in there two nights ago?

GRAY
They move us around. Maybe they
just needed more room on another block.

BISHOP
Bullshit. I never saw him leave.
I never saw him come in. I never
heard him come in. Never saw him
go out. Never heard him go out.

GRAY
Bishop, don’t get caught up in this
shit. We got other things around here
to worry about.

SAL
Like what?

GRAY
(turning to Sal)
Like the fact that we won’t get to
do that “time” they promised us.
Like the fact that there’s a serial
killer in here.

BISHOP
Think there’s a killer creeping around,
do ya? Wow. Good work. I’m thinking
there’s probably about a thousand of
them in here, Sherlock. Rapists, too.
Why don’t you write that down.

SAL
Hell with the murderers. I’m more
worried about the rapists.

GUMBY
(suddenly interested)
Speaking of rapists. I met this
crazy bastard yesterday who raped
fifty people after they were dead.

BISHOP
Nice networking Gumby.

GRAY
(smiling)
Yeah, that’s “Zombie” you’re talking
about. Don’t ever eat anything he
tries to give you.

GUMBY
(eyes wide)
Yep, that’s him! He told me that he
can only get off if they’re already
dead. He told me the urge started
‘cause he’d be kissing his girlfriend
when she was sucking on icecubes and
he’d pretend she was dead for days-

GRAY
(cutting Gumby off
and turning back to
face Sal and Bishop)
I know there’s killers in here.
That’s not what I mean. I mean a
killer that kills killers. There’s
a wolf living in the hen house and
no one knows it. Or maybe there’s a
wolf that eats wolves in with the wolves.
Or a wolf that eats wolves that eats
wolves that...

GUMBY
(still babbling)
...so he said that he soaks his
hands in his toilet at night when
the water is coldest. Then, when
they’re numb, that’s the only time
he can jerk-off...

SAL
(to Gray)
Prisoners kill each other all the
time. What’s so weird about that?
You think it’s the guards? You
think it’s The Duke?

GRAY
Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.
If they ain’t doin’ it, then they’re
letting it happen. That’s even worse.

BISHOP
But that’s not weird enough for you,
is it, Jack?

GRAY
What the fuck is that supposed
to mean?

GUMBY
(still rambling on)
...he offered to pay me to do it
for him, but I ran. He said that
there’s never been ice cubes in this
place. Ever. He said that ice cubes
would be like gold in here and he’d do
anything for one...

BISHOP
(staring at Gray)
It’s gotta be some freaky “locked
room mystery” with you. So you can
imagine you’re solving something.
I don’t blame you. Imagination is
the last thing to go in here, right?
It passes the time.

GRAY
Fuck you. I just know for a fact that
there’s someone in here that doesn’t
fucking belong.
(pause)
Maybe he even comes and goes
whenever he wants and...

GUMBY
(cutting Gray off)
And eats inmates like fucking
popcorn! Dude! I think you’re
onto something!

GRAY
Stay off my side, asshole.

GUMBY
No, seriously. There’s something
wrong here all right. You know
what it is? Whatever your monster is,
it eats fucking niggers for breakfast.
You seen that black guy with the 8-Ball
tattoo on his neck? Me neither. Not
since yesterday. So where the fuck
did he go?

Gumby quickly turns and slaps Bishop’s food off his spork.

GUMBY
Nice try by the way, dad.
Serving me up to those spooks.
Sorry, but I’m still here.

BISHOP
(flicking a rolling
pea off the table
into Gumby’s chest)
Good for you. Did you at least
deliver the message?

GUMBY
Yeah, but you’re not listening to
me. I’m saying, I fucked them up
yesterday and where’s the retaliation?
Why ain’t I face down in a fucking
toilet with a black dick up my ass?
That’s the second time I got in some
nigger’s face and nothing happened.
More than nothing. Those men are gone.

BISHOP
What do you mean “gone?”

GUMBY
(quieter, almost
talking to himself)
That must be why I’ve lasted as long as
I have. There’s ten black men in here
for every white man. They really are
getting eaten. Maybe this prison is built
over an old Mayan temple...where they
were playing basketball with heads...

SAL
What?

GRAY
(shaking his head, trying
to change the subject)
Speaking of, you tell the Mexicans about
tonight?

SAL
Yeah, I guess. Everyone will be
in that room anyway.

GRAY
Good. We’ll go over every-

SAL
You guys keep saying “Mexican.” You should
be saying Hispanic or Chicano or Latino.
Who says anyone not quite black, or not
quite white is from Mexico? I’m not.
My dad was but I ain’t...

GRAY
I didn’t mean anything, I was just
trying to settle on one word for
each of the three groups and-

BISHOP
It’s got to be Mexican. I’ll tell
you why.

SAL
Why?

BISHOP
Because of the joke.

SAL
What joke?

BISHOP
The one I heard on the bus ride in.
It’s got to be that word, just like
Gray said. That way we’re the joke.
The white man, the black man and the
Mexican who walked into a prison.

SAL
The joke is supposed to say, “who
walked into a bar.”

GUMBY
Why?

SAL
That’s just how most jokes start.

GUMBY
Well, twice I walked into the “bars!”

SAL
Anyway, you were sayin’, Jack?

GRAY
Yeah, like I was saying, we’ll go
over everything later. I got some
crazy things I want to show these men.
Short-timers and long-timers both.
Shit’s gonna open some eyes.

BISHOP
Examples.

GRAY
Things I heard.

BISHOP
Examples.

GUMBY
(loud)
Yeah, like what did you hear?

GRAY
(nodding at the
guard’s table)
Not here, shithead.

GUMBY
(smiling and
talking louder)
Like what, Jack!?

The men glare at Gumby and look around to see if anyone is
watching them. Everyone is concentrating on their trays.

GRAY
(frowning and then
leaning in close)
Things like rerouted buses. Things
like forged transfers. Things like
numbers and tattoos branding men like
cattle. Numbers stamped into your skin
that mean you’re marked to be, say, the
8th man to go. Shit like that. Now
sit down and shut the fuck up.

GUMBY
(crossing his arms)
Fuck you, I can say whatever I want,
where ever I want, to any color I want.
‘Cause, chances are, any dark color
won’t even be here tomorrow. Seriously,
think about it. This place is only two
percent white! White man’s got the odds
on his side!

Gumby stands up and raises his arms into the air.

GUMBY (cont’d)
(shouting)
White man’s got motherfucking math
in his corner yo! I’ll bet every
nigger out there wishes he’d stayed
in school, studied his math instead
of the white girls! Then they’d know
that they had a number on their heads.
Hey! Watch this shit...

Gumby stands up and walks past a long table of black men.
He lets out a sputtering engine of slurs as he walks by.
His suicidal impulses are revealed to be something
Tourettic. Gumby seems to have no control over his
compulsion to open his mouth wide while pissing into the
wind:

GUMBY
Niggerniggernigger...

The men don’t even look up. Bishop glances over at The Duke
who looks up from his meal, then stirs his peas
thoughtfully.
Gumby turns and walks the length of the black table again.

GUMBY
Niggerniggernigger...

He sits back down with Sal and Bishop, idiot grin splitting
his face. Bishop puts his head in his hands in disgust and
embarrassment. He squeezes his own skull to keep his bad
hand from shaking his face. Sal notices Bishop’s hand
twitching, then turns back to Gumby to shake his own head in
disbelief.

SAL
(to Bishop)
Motherfucker’s got the life
expectancy of a Mayfly in June.

GUMBY
Fuck that! I’m just making a point.
Anywhere else in the world and I’d be
dead. Especially in fucking jail.
Gray is onto something. What the fuck
is going on in here! How can I say that
shit and there be no effect at all?

SAL
(to Gray)
You know what I think? I think we’re
the “three blind mice.” Only we’re three
blind mice of three different colors.
Like that three flavored ice cream you get.
The kind where your kids always eat the
chocolate up first? Same thing here ain’t it?
You betting on us, Gray? You betting which
new mouse is getting killed first?

GUMBY
There ain’t three flavors. You’re
missing the chocolate.

GRAY
Not for long.

Sal keeps staring threateningly at Gray until Gray looks
away.

GRAY
C’mon Sal, I’m the last person you
need to be worrying about.

SAL
Bullshit. You’re working the odds
ain’t you? By filling our heads with
this shit. Fuckin’ “Three Blind Mice.”
And Bishop, you’re babbling about some
racist joke. You pricks want a joke
about some mice. I’ll give you the
story of the “Three Blind Mice. Only
this here is how the story’s supposed
to go.

Sal sits back and cracks his knuckles, speaking to the men
as if he’s educating some children. They all get
comfortable.

SAL (cont’d)
Three blind mice are sitting
around at the bar doing some drinkin’.
The first mouse downs his beer, slams
his mug on the table and says, “I’m
such a fucking hard-ass, you know why?
‘Cause when I run into a mouse trap,
I stop, lay down under it, spring the
trap with my foot, and when that bar
comes down, I catch it. Then I bench-
press it until I get hungry enough to
eat that fucking cheese.

Gray leans back and crosses his arms looking smug, as if he
knows where the story is going. Bishop rubs his hand and
smiles. Gumby cocks his head to concentrate. Sal goes on.

SAL (cont’d)
And the second blind mouse, he slams
a shot of Tequila, throws the glass
over his shoulder and says, “That ain’t
shit. I’m so bad, when I stumble across
a patch of rat poison in front of my
hole, I pull out the razor blade I keep
hidden in my ass, cut that shit up into
three lines, stick a paw over my nostril
and boom baby! I snort that shit until
I’m high as fuck.”

Gray smiles in spite of himself as Sal finishes the joke.

SAL (cont’d)
And that third blind mouse, he slowly
finishes a little glass of water.
He carefully places his glass down on
the table and stands up. He looks
around, wait, he can’t look around,
the fucker’s blind. He sniffs around,
sighs and then says, while casually
chewing on an ice cube, “Boys, I ain’t
got time for this bullshit. I got to
get home and fuck the cat.”

The men share a laugh and Bishop rubs his face with both his
hands and stretches. He looks across the cafeteria. He
sees that Thomas Jefferson Jones, the black man from
Bishop’s bus ride in, is now looking at them.

SAL (cont’d)
(looking proud)
You like that story? My kids
love that story. I fixed ALL
those fables ‘n shit. Made ‘em
all better. Used to teach my kids
something new every time I tucked
‘em in for the night. There’s a
lesson in my versions that ain’t so
clear cut. In fact, sometimes they
don’t even make sense. Just like
life, that what I tell ‘em...

Bishop and Jones continue to stare at each other across the
room. When Gumby walked by the black men saying “nigger,”
he claimed it had no effect at all. But it clearly has an
effect on Jones. Bishop pushes his tray away and has to
turn away from Jones’ eyes.

GRAY
(standing up)
I’ll see you guys in the rec. room.
Gather under the TV, there’s a good
show on. We’ll talk about everything,
put it all on the table. The word is
out; we’ll see who shows up.

He walks away. Gray glances at the guards’ table. The Duke
looks up and turns to watch him go. Gray leaves the
cafeteria even though the horn hasn’t sounded and the men
haven’t been released from the room. The Duke makes no move
to stop him. None of the guards do either. The Duke looks
down and thoughtfully taps the curved glass walls of his ant
farm.

EXT. PRISON TV ROOM - DAY

Bishop, Sal, and Gumby are staring up at a tiny television,
high up on the wall. They are watching an episode of
Unsolved Mysteries. Bishop keeps checking the door. More
white men walk in with a radio. These men are listening to
“Johnny 99” by Bruce Springsteen and a couple of them are
singing along. Eventually a group of Mexicans walk in with
another radio and the sound of their voices and their song,
“No Entiendes La Onda” by Cypress Hill, blends awkwardly
with the other song. Then more black men fill the rest of
the chairs in the room and the song blasting from their
speaker, “Still I Rise” by Barry Adamson, as well as their
harsh vocals, turn the wall of music into complete chaos.
After a brief volume war, someone turns on the song
“Jailbreak” by Thin Lizzy and all the men in the room smile
and nod along with the lyrics. It’s not clear which radio
is playing that song, but for now everyone lets it win the
music war and dominate the room.

Gumby
You should play that song backwards, yo!
With all the shit comin’ in over the walls!

There’s some nervous laughter. Eventually attention is
drawn back to the TV and the music is turned down. Thomas
Jefferson Jones is two rows back from the white men, along
with Wilkins. Jones is watching Bishop, Sal and Gumby
watching the TV show up on the wall. Every few seconds,
Bishop turns to look at the door. Jack Gray is missing. A
man on the TV is talking about the psychic claims of men and
woman who predicted plane crashes throughout history. This
show is making Sal angry.

SAL
(to the TV)
What’s this shit? What a bunch of
shit. Who’s watching this shit.

BISHOP
Not me. Hey, who’s seen Gray?

GUMBY
Ain’t seen him since lunch. Jones
and his boy are back there behind us.
Ask them. And ask them what they’re
starin’ at while you’re at it.

SAL
(squinting hard at the TV)
Bullshit!

BISHOP
You see him walk out on lunch
yesterday? How the hell does he
get to do that?

GUMBY
I heard he had a pass to build shelves
in the library. I heard they let any
man work there for the week, if they
used time from their lunch hour.

SAL
(still yelling at
the television)
Fucking bullshit!

BISHOP
(to Gumby, but
mostly to himself)
No, he was the only one who left the
room. The guards didn’t even blink.

SAL
What a bunch of shit.

BISHOP
(turning to Sal)
What are you all worked up about?

SAL
(pointing up
at the screen)
These fucking psychics on this
fucking show.

BISHOP
(looking back at
the doorway for Gray)
What about ‘em?

SAL
That asshole who says he saw the
plane tilted on it’s wing? Says it
looked just like a cross? Says he
saw it in his dreams? Wow! What a
fucking coincidence! His dream saw
the plane from the same angle as the
only photo! The picture that was in
the fucking newspaper. It would only
look like a cross to the one man taking
the picture. What a fucking liar.
I could kill a man like that so easy...

BISHOP
I remember that picture on the news.

SAL
(pointing at the
man on the screen)
So does that bullshitter. And
look at that lying bitch. She
says that she wasn’t sure where
or when her plane crash was going
to be...

BISHOP
(not really listening)
So?

SAL
Sooo...she claims that she just
dreamed something about “California.”
That’s like saying, “I’m not sure,
but I think the plane was going LEFT.”
Good guess, bitch. Way to take a
chance. And people watch this shit?

BISHOP
Obviously.

SAL
Shhh!

Bishop shrugs and turns to look at the door again. He sees
Jones watching them and he takes a deep breath and stands
up. He walks towards Jones while Sal still rambles on about
the show to anyone who will listen.


SAL
Notice how neither one of those
liars ever say that they were
worried about being IN a plane
crash when they had these dreams?
That’s the first thing someone
would think! If I dreamed about
a plane crash last night I’d be
like “shit, better not be flyin’!”
But these fucks never thought that,
cause they’re fucking lying fucks...

Wilkins moves his chair forward to listen to Sal’s rants.
He nods in agreement at the things he’s saying. Another
Mexican prisoner sitting behind Sal claps him on the back
and joins in the conversation.

MEXICAN PRISONER
I got a vision too! There’s going
to be a plane crash right here!
Next Thursday! A mid-air collision
with a shotgun shell...

Their voices fade away as Bishop steps up to Jones. Jones
kicks the legs on the chair of the black man sitting next to
him and that man stands up to give his seat to Bishop.
Wilkin’s pulls his chair up to sit by Sal and watch the
show. It’s just Bishop and Jones now. Jones holds out his
hand for a handshake, it’s his left hand. Jones remembers
the hand from the bus ride in. Once he has Bishop’s hand,
he turns it over in his and looks at the scabs and white
scar tissue where the thumb used to be.

JONES
Just making sure it’s you. All you
fuckers look alike.

BISHOP
Isn’t that how the handshake was
invented? Indians checking each
other’s sleeves for weapons?

JONES
(smiling and sitting down)
I heard there was one Indian in
here. Just one.
(pause)
No one knew what the fuck to do
with him.

BISHOP
(smiling and sitting down)
How’s this place treating you? You been
noticing the same crazy shit I have?

JONES
Who wouldn’t. And I’ve noticed
some other shit you may not have.

BISHOP
Examples.

JONES
You ever count black faces in here?

BISHOP
No.

JONES
Well, the faces change, but the numbers
remain the same. That’s the one thing your
cracker-ass sidekick has been right about.

BISHOP
What’s that?

JONES
They’re killing us. Two or three
every week. This isn’t a prison,
it’s a fucking slaughterhouse.

BISHOP
We’re on the same page, Jones. Gray was
talking about a serial killer-

JONES
Serial killer my ass. It’s that
fucking guard. Or worse.

BISHOP
Maybe. Probably. You seen Gray round?

JONES
(after a moment)
Who? No. He ain’t around. Maybe one
of you white boys finally beat the odds.

BISHOP
What do you mean?

JONES
Gray’s gone. His cell is empty.
I walked past it today and his
mattress was rolled and tied.

BISHOP
So’s mine. So what? I haven’t used mine
yet either, maybe he’s just got a bad back.

JONES
No, he’s gone. And if they’re down to the
white boys already, anyone could be next.

Bishop scans the room and recognizes a guard standing in the
corner as TOM GARRETT, one of the guards who helped clean up
the model airplane wreckage. He’s watching the two of them
very carefully.

JONES
Gray was onto something. He talk to you
about “locked room mysteries” at all?

BISHOP
A little.

JONES
You ever read those books? Try to solve
them? Man gets murdered in a room that
was locked? Or a room where there was no
way in? Or a room with no doors at all?
And they try to find the killer? Well,
in those locked room mysteries, there was
always another way into the room. So the
ending was always a cheat. I think that
this place is something like that. It seeps
like a goddamn open wound. There is so much
shit flowing upstream through these gates
and over the fence and up through the toilets
that it’s not even funny.

BISHOP
I’m not following you.

JONES
Neither am I. Forget that. Let me ask you
this though, what would happen if somewhere,
somehow, an alien got arrested? Don’t look
at me like that, I’m saying maybe some alien
got drunk, started fucking a mailbox or some
shit and, just like the rest of these idiots,
got thrown in jail for it. What if there’s
one in here right now? What if he can’t get
out but he can still get around? Or maybe he
can leave when he wants, he just don’t wants?

BISHOP
So now you think that it’s not the guard?
You just said it was a guard. Now you’re
saying it’s a freaking space-alien Houdini
coming in and out whenever he-

JONES
Naw. Maybe. I don’t know. Shit’s freakin’ me
out. Forget that alien shit. I don’t care if
the killer is black, white or green. I’m just
saying that maybe we should take advantage
of
these security breaches and maybe smuggle a
little something in here for ourselves.
For our protection...

Their conversation fades as the camera moves back to Sal and
Gumby. Gumby is arguing with Wilkins who has moved forward
even more to sit right behind them. The channel on the TV
has been changed by a guard. Now there is a football game
on and Wilkins has taken over the conversation. He clears
his throat, adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses and brushes some
dirt off his clean, crisp prison-issue shirt as he explains
the deeper meaning of the instant replay they just watched.

WILKINS
...I’m saying that shit is racist.

GUMBY
(throwing his hands up
over his head in disgust)
No it ain’t! He dropped the ball. He fucked
up. Now they’re making fun of his stupid ass.

The screen shows a slow-motion replay of a football player
trotting towards the endzone alone, spinning his arms, and
the football over his head to celebrate his touchdown early.
He’s hopping and dancing and doesn’t see the other player
gaining ground behind him. This other player knocks the
ball loose in mid-celebration and recovers the fumble.

TV ANNOUNCER
...the message is clear, never give
up, go the distance, focus on the
play until the whistle is blown...

WILKINS
Listen to the bullshit, “The message
is clear”? No shit! Translation:
“We hate niggers!”

GUMBY
(scratching his head)
I don’t hear him saying that at all.

WILKINS
Listen harder. The black man was
doing his funky little endzone dance
and white people hate that. Rather
than just saying they hate that,
they gotta act like fucking Aesop’s
Fables and say, “the moral of this
story is...” Fuck you. Say what you
mean! Hey! You! Turn that shit down!

The black men behind them are blaring the song “Brickhouse”
by The Commodores on their radio. They stare at Wilkins a
moment, then one of them nods at him and turns the song up
louder. The song covers the sound of the commentators on
the TV. The replay is played again and again. Now the
football player on the screen, doing his doomed endzone
dance, seems to be moving to the song.

WILKINS
You see that? He’s probably got headphones
on under his helmet. That’s what his problem
was! Fuck. That’s the thing about the music
in here. We want to nod our head, just the
tiniest bit when we hear a song that reminds
us of something good. Normally we can’t help,
except in here. No fucking endzone dance in
this place, no matter what song they let us
listen to. That’s why they gave us the radios.
It’s just another form of punishment.

SAL
Who gave you the radios?

Wilkins ignores him and looks over at Gumby, who is now
smiling and nodding his head along with The Commodores song.

WILKINS
(disgusted)
Turn that shit off! Before I stab
this cracker with my toothbrush.

GUMBY
Fuck off. You’re just looking for
shit to call racist. You want me
to help you with that?

WILKINS
(sighing)
Let me put it another way. One time
I saw this advertisement in a magazine-
I still got it in my cell and I’ll show
it to you sometime-and it was an ad for
a blow-up doll you can fuck. The only
thing is, it’s supposed to be a midget.
It’s only four feet tall.

SAL
Huh?

GUMBY
So? What’s yer point?

WILKINS
The doll, it’s like a third the size.
It’s supposed to be modeled after some
actual porn midget. Are they saying that
it’s supposed to be for the three people
in the world that fuck midgets?! Bullshit.
That wouldn’t make any money.

GUMBY
What’s it for then?

WILKINS
What did I just say, dumbass?
You think they could make any
coin off that doll, selling
it to the three midget fuckers
in this world? Not a chance.

Wilkins pauses for effect and leans forward.

WILKINS (cont’d)
It was made for child molesters.

Gumby sits back in his chair and ponders this. Sal opens
his mouth, then says nothing. They turn back to the TV.
The replay of the black man fumbling the football is being
shown again.

GUMBY
(muttering)
How many times they gonna
show that nigger drop the ball...

Wilkins’ eyes go wide in anger and he leans back in his
chair, ready to say something. Then he considers it,
adjusts his glasses and leans forward again, looking down
his nose at Gumby.

WILKINS
You know what, I knew a man once
who climbed the fence at the zoo
‘cause he wanted to touch the tigers.
He was with five other guys and no
one tried to stop him. You know why?
‘Cause they wanted to see what would
happen, even more than he did.

GUMBY
What?

SAL
And?

WILKINS
That tiger had a mouthful of
that idiot’s head before anyone
even started screaming. And you
know what? Even though I hated
the asshole, even though he
deserved it, even though it was
some funny shit when a tiger eats
a man’s head, I always thought I
should have tried to stop him.
Even now, I tell that story ‘cause
it’s funny, and I couldn’t tell
that story if I would have stopped
him from climbing that fence, so I
guess I’m glad we let that tiger
eat his head.

GUMBY
(frowning, missing the
point completely)
Did he die?

WILKINS
No, he’s teaching third grade
over in Jersey without a head.

GUMBY
I wish I would have seen
that shit.

WILKINS
You will...

Their conversation fades as the camera pulls away and we’re
back to Jones and Bishop. They are talking about more
personal matters.

JONES
So where the fuck is your thumb?

BISHOP
I cut it off. To stop myself
from strangling my wife. Or
shooting my wife. Or stabbing
my wife. Seemed like a good
idea at the time.

Jones just stares at him.

BISHOP
I’m left-handed. So I figured
I wouldn’t be able to hold a
weapon without my thumb. Or
squeeze her throat. His too.
I’m not sure what I was thinking
that day.

JONES
(arms motioning
around the room)
You being here, I take it that
cutting-off-the-thumb shit didn’t
work, eh? All things moving towards
their end and all that?

BISHOP
You’re right. It just made me try
even harder to hurt ‘em worse.

Garrett, the guard, suddenly clicks off the TV and all the
conversations stop. Then he walks out of the room. Jones
nods at Bishop and they walk to the front of the rec. room.
Jones claps his hands hard over his head. Everyone is
already staring at them in shock.
A black man and a white man standing together is even more
alarming than a black man and a white man sitting together.

JONES
Can we have your attention?
Who works in the kitchen?
Raise your hand.

Hands of all colors are raised in the crowd.

BISHOP
Now, we need everyone with kids
under five to step forward.

FADE OUT

INT. PRISON SHOWER - DAY

Gumby is under a shower nozzle singing to himself. Men
surround him, not acknowledging his presence, or his wailing
out of tune. Gumby gargles and spits water high into the
air and keeps singing around mouthfuls. The men start to
move away from him.

GUMBY
Jimmy cracked corn...

Slowly all the men leave the shower until only Gumby
remains. His singing gets quieter as he wipes his eyes.

GUMBY
...and I don’t care...

Three huge black men enter the room. They’re naked except
for their shoes. Over their shoulders, graffiti can been
seem carved into the concrete walls.

CLOSE UP - THE GRAFFITI

“BETWEEN SHIT AND PISS WE ARE BORN”

Gumby reads the wall, then stares at the approaching men.
He mouths the words, “one, two, three” as he exaggerates
counting the men out on his fingers. Then he spits a large
mouthful of water towards them all.

GUMBY
You guys forget your black rubber ducks?

They lunge forward, arms out. Gumby gets off some punches
as he slips free for a moment under the shower heads. His
blows sound like tiny wet slaps against the huge black
bodies bearing down on him. Something covers his face like
a hood and suddenly he’s smothered into darkness.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON CELL - DAY

Three huge black men wearing wet towels and Air Jordans
enter a cell where a skeletal black man sits high in a chair
fashioned from three smaller chairs. He’s called INK by the
inmates for his tattooing skills. The largest man of the
three has a laundry bag over his shoulder. His entire upper
body is covered with unrecognizable tattoos. Gang
affiliations, girlfriend’s names, skulls and crosses have
been crossed out and covered up by more crude green and
black prison tattoos. The man with the bad tattoos swings
the bag around in front of him easily, then empties the
squirming contents on the floor.

BAD TATTOOS
Santa Claus is here yo.

Gumby rolls out of a fetal position. As soon as he starts
to uncoil, the men start to pummel him.

GUMBY
(spitting out a
piece of a tooth)
Fuck you...don’t give a fuck
what you do...blood comes off...
shit comes off...don’t give a fuck...

Gumby looks up through a split eyelid and watches one of the
men dropping his towel to the floor. He makes a desperate
lunge as is subdued easily. Then he sees Wilkin’s head
peeking around in the doorway. Another man pushes Gumby’s
head down and drops his towel. Wilkins steps forward.
Another kick in the face and things get hazy for Gumby. He
sees Wilkins pulling one of the rapists back by the arm,
then taking an egg (?) out of his pocket to show him. He
cracks it into the palm of his hand. Gumby is confused and
not sure what he’s seeing when of the men notices him
watching them and delivers a final savage punch that sends
Gumby completely back into unconsciousness.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON CELL - NIGHT

Gumby is on the floor of his cell, slowly coming around. He
sits up and his eyes widen in shock as he looks at his legs.
They are streaked with thick, sticky ropes of fluid. He
starts to bang on the cell bars with his head.

GUMBY
Hey! Get me the fuck out of here!
I need medical attention!

He continues to bang his head and a guard eventually shows
up at his cell door. Gumby makes a grab at him through the
bars.

GUMBY
I need a doctor motherfucker.

GUARD
Why?

GUMBY
I need someone to stick a coat-hanger
up my ass. Or, in nine months, I’m
gonna have a black baby.

GUARD
(looking close at the
dripping cuts on his face)
Stand away from the gate.
Open six sixty two!

The bars slide open. The guard has to grab Gumby and steady
him so he doesn’t fall forward. Then the guard starts to
drag him down the hall.

GUMBY
Thanks dude. You know, I never
thought Prom night would be like this.

GUARD
Shut up.

GUMBY
Not a virgin no more. I think
I’ve finally lost my “be-hymen.”
Got fucked in the ass, then, to
add insult to injury, I think
the crazy bastards made an omelet
on me or some shit...

GUARD
(stops dragging him
and starts laughing)
Eggs? Oh, you lucky prick.

GUMBY
Huh?

GUARD
(dragging him again)
On your legs, on your ass, that
ain’t jizz. Those are egg whites.
It’s an old gag. They suckered you.
Sent you a message.

GUMBY
(starting to get loud)
Eggs?! What the fuck? What message?
That supposed to teach me a lesson?
This ain’t 9 1/2 Weeks. Fuck that-
Damn! My back’s killing me. One of
them must need to clip his fingernails...

The guard shakes his head and laughs some more, then stops
when Gumby trips and lurches forward and he catches him
before he does a faceplant on the floor. That’s when the
guard gets a glimpse of what’s on Gumby’s back. The guard
starts to drag him along again. He’s not laughing anymore.

GUARD
Whatever you say, asshole.
You tell ‘em all about it.

They shuffle on down the hall, and, as they go by, the
message is revealed on the back of Gumby’s shivering
blood-streaked body. His skin has been covered in fresh
tattoos. The blood and bruises obscure some of the words,
but several can be deciphered. Things like; a caricature of
the green cartoon Gumby sucking a dick; comments like “Kick
Me!”, “Crackerjack,” “I’m with stupid!” and “Two-way
Traffic” with an arrow pointing down to his ass. He seems
to be unaware that he has been permanently branded with
insults. Gumby continues to ramble on, as if his compulsive
mutterings can distract the men behind the bars and make a
joke of his assault.

GUMBY
I can get fucked or beaten ‘till the end
of time. Shit comes off, blood comes off.
You know why it’s all black in here? That’s
‘cause they reproduce like rabbits.
You think they’re shitting into the toilet?
Wrong. Those are little black miscarriages.
And some of those little black babies survive
to swim up into another toilet and set up shop.
It’s like a black beehive man in here, man.
They don’t have to bring any more in. They
just fuck each other in the ass and POW!
There’s six more tomorrow, depending on what
they ate earlier. And if the baby is premature,
well, we’ve all seen that happen and just
misunderstood. Blamed it on Mexican
food.
The black baby, sometimes it just don’t hold
together. It’s made different. Like those
“shovel-full-of-mud shits” you get after
a night of drinking cheap beer...
(he reaches down to smack
his hand against his groin)

The guard laughs in spite of himself and drags him off into
the dark. Gumby’s babble trails off as a line of red spit
swings from his lip.

GUMBY
Good thing I didn’t really get
fucked. I ain’t ready to be a dad...

Heads creep into the light and black-lined faces turn to
watch them go by. Their eyes stare out, wide and angry from
Gumby’s racist rant, until they can finally see what’s been
carved into his back. Then laughter fills the cell block.

INT. PRISON VISITING ROOM - DAY

Bishop is waiting for someone again. He sits along, looking
around at the kids climbing on the knees of the inmates.
There are knowing glances from them their dads and Bishop’s
eyes (now the camera) focus on all of the colorful toys that
the children have carried in with them. Sal is playing with
his children.

SAL’S VOICE (VO)
Three little kittens who lost their
mittens. They want to eat some pie.
Uhhh, then they began to sigh, ‘cause
they smelled a rat close by...that’s
all I remember, sorry...

Bishop watches as two of Sal’s children try to climb into
his lap at the same time, a boy and a girl. A guard quickly
steps over to firmly guide one of the children down. The
boy starts to cry and the guard nods at the “Santa Claus
Rule” sign on the wall. Sal sighs and continues his nursery
rhymes.
His story doesn’t have the usual twist and attention to
detail. He seems a little distracted.

SAL
...I remember the kittens lost
their mittens, then they find them
again. So they eat the pie, but
they’re fucking stupid, so they
eat the pie with the mittens on
and the mittens get covered in cherry
stains or some such shit...

Sal’s children are making a lot of noise. There’s a lot of
confusion as they run around and pull at their father’s
legs.
The visiting room is extremely loud today. HANSON is the
guard at the door. He shouts at someone else’s children,
then one of Sal’s brood. He tries to keep order. The
prisoners do what their told but the children don’t. Hanson
closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose wearily. He
motions to the guard who handled Sal’s son.

HANSON
One more kid does that and
we’re clearing the room.

The guard nods and walks back to a corner to watch. Sal has
his son’s crying face squeezed and puckered in his hand.

SAL
(eyes darting around)
Quit crying boy. You want me to tell you
the story or not? Okay then. So they get
in trouble for eating the pie with the mittens
on, but it’s okay. ‘Cause there was something
hidden in the pie, and when they pulled it
out,
they never had to worry about those fucking
mittens ever again...

Bishop smiles as a little boy stands up on a chair and spits
at Hanson. Hanson spits back, then blows the whistle to cut
all the visits short. The prisoners voice their protests as
they line up to leave the room. The Ramirez family is still
yelling and carrying on. Sal pulls his wife close and
whispers something in her ear. She answers him while
looking down at her shoes. Bishop notices that the boy
engaged in the spitting contest with Hanson is squeezing his
tiny fists against his stomach in anger to stop his hands
from shaking.

SAL’S WIFE
He won’t come to see you. He says
he’ll break you out before he’ll
come to see you locked in here.

Bishop watches the children, glancing back to the tables at
the toys that they leave behind. The visiting room looks
like Christmas morning. Dolls, rubber spiders and plastic
weapons scattered under the tables and chairs. Then he sees
the boy spit again at the door, tiny fists now rock-solid in
anger.

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON PARKING LOT - DAY

The Ramirez family is walking to their car. The children
have stopped yelling and are now silent and sporting very
serious looks on their faces. Only the smallest boy still
looks upset and restless. A knowing look is exchanged with
another wife and child as she load her son into his car seat
a couple parking spaces over. Sal’s wife turns and lines up
the children to count heads.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON - FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER

The prisoners are lined up in a holding area, waiting to be
searched before they are returned to the prison population.

SAL’S VOICE (VO)
...don’t worry about what was in the pie.
Just listen to the story, boy! Pay attention.
Okay, the last line goes something like
this...

Bishop turns around to find Sal standing in the line. He
still looks a little nervous. His voice finishes telling
the story to his children from the visiting room scene.

SAL’S VOICE (VO)
The mouse said, “shhh, we smell
a rat close by...”

The prisoners stop one at a time in front of a man with a
flashlight as they are stripped and searched thoroughly.

SAL’S VOICE (VO)
...they smelled a rat close by.

MONTAGE - THINGS COMING INTO THE PRISON

--A series of shots, to the tune of “A Sweet Little Bullet
from A Pretty Blue Gun” by Tom Waits.

--A boy setting off a metal detector and being stopped. A
toy airplane is set in a small tray with his mother’s car
keys.

--In the visiting room, guards are throwing the forgotten
toys into an orange biohazard bag with Hanson looking on.

--A prisoner in the kitchen chopping potatoes and coming
across a rotten one. He carefully cuts it in half and
reveals a strange black shape inside.

--A little boy on Sal’s knee, handing his dad a toy car.

--An orange bag getting thrown into a pile of orange bags of
medical waste in the prison infirmary.

--A prisoner in the kitchen separating some rotten apples
from the bunch. The rotten ones have deep holes dug into
them.

--A prisoner rattles two cans of black and silver
spray-paint, then concealing them in his shirt.

--The little boy on Sal’s knee, crying and looking around
for his toy car. Sal tries to distract the child while the
Hanson frowns then spits on the floor.

--A tobacco chewing prisoner is mopping the floor in the
infirmary. He stops to spit a black wad of juice onto one
of the orange bags.

--A prisoner pulling apart some rotten apples to reveal
small black items wrapped in plastic.

--The toy car under the chair as the screaming child is
pulled away by his mother and Sal nervously scratches his
head.

--Another remote airplane buzzing into the yard. The Duke
looks nervous and seems uncertain as to whether he should
shoot it. His curiosity is getting the best of him and he’s
arguing with Hanson and Garrett. This plane almost touches
the ground before The Duke finally decides to blow it apart
with the shotgun.

--The orange bag marked with the black spit is moving
through a trash line. When it comes to its turn to get
thrown into the back of the truck, it’s thrown high onto the
top of the truck instead.

--Sal’s little boy and his mother at the door when they are
stopped by a guard. The guard walks over to the toy car on
the ground and picks it up. Sal is sweating while the guard
turns it over in his hands. He hands it back to the boy and
they walk out.

--Sal’s wife walking through the parking lot, looking upset
and taking the toy car away from her son. She puts it in
her purse, holding it like something dead.

--The garbage truck turns a corner under a scaffolding where
the prisoners are rolling gray paint onto the brick walls.
A prisoner reaches down and snatches the orange bag when it
goes under him and throws it at the bars of a window. A
hand catches it before it falls and the bag is sucked in
between the bars and is gone.

INT. GUARD’S LOCKER ROOM - DAY

The Duke opens his locker and watches a pile of rotten
potatoes and apples tumble out. He starts to get angry
until he reads a note someone has left, and then looks
closer. He sees a shape left behind where something was
buried inside the potato. He takes a pen out of his pocket
and draws the same shape on his forearm. His large fingers
tear into more apples and potatoes as he draws more shapes
on his arm. His eyes widen as he digs into an apple and
pulls out a small piece of something metal. The Duke traces
the outline of this metal piece onto his arm and starts
doodling around the other shapes he’s made. The writing on
his arm covers his tattoos. Eventually he connects the
shapes and a pattern forms. His eyes widen like a child
connecting the dots as the outline of a gun is revealed. He
slams his locker closed but it bounces off his fishing rod
that is sticking out.

EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

The Duke is in the yard with guards, Garrett and Hanson, on
either side of him. They are watching the sky carefully.
Hanson starts to raise his shotgun and The Duke quickly
pushes his arm back down.

THE DUKE
No. Today, you just keep everyone back.

Hanson and Garrett lower their weapons at the crowd as the
inmates realize that they are going to allow one of the
planes to land and start running up to see it. Bishop, Sal,
Jones and Wilkins are in the crowd. Gumby steps into the
exercise yard behind the mob. He squints up at the sun and
walks over to the main characters. Gumby’s shirt is
buttoned up and tight against his neck even though the sun
is beating down. The men watch him approach, stifling
laughter. Jones claps him hard on the back. Sal is using
the old stand-by where he pretends to be finishing a certain
joke:

SAL
...and then he says, “Rectum?
Damn near killed ‘em!”
(the men laugh and Sal
turns to looks at Gumby)
Where you been, boy?

GUMBY
Twenty seven stitches.

BISHOP
Twenty seven! Jesus Christ!
Why didn’t they just give you
an ass-transplant instead?

SAL
(laughing)
No shit. All those stitches,
damn, that’s like a whole tree
they wasted on your ass!

GUMBY
Fuck you. They were for my head.

BISHOP
Whatever. Maybe now you’ll
shut the fuck up.

GUMBY
(not very defiant anymore)
Fuck that shit. I’ll find them,
I know who did that shit. I remember
the numbers written on their-

Gumby stops suddenly as he notices Wilkins in the mob,
staring straight at him. He looks down to his shoes, then
looks back up at Wilkins. Gumby starts to open his mouth to
thank him for stopping the rape, even though Wilkins was
part of the joke that made sure that, for a moment, Gumby
thought he was raped. But Wilkins is having none of that.
He steps back from Gumby, shaking his head. He wants no
gratitude from him.

WILKINS
Do not speak to me.

GUMBY
(head down)
Okay. But I don’t get it. Why stop
one thing and let-

JONES
(quickly stepping forward to
interrupt the conversation)
You heard what the man said. If you had
a choice, what would it be? Those tattoos?
Or your ass? Which one would you pick?

GUMBY
(painfully deep in thought)
Uhhh...

JONES
That’s what I thought. We don’t have the
kind of time it takes for you to think
about it, so keep it down. Hey, you really
want revenge, boy? You want to know who it
was that branded you punk? That was Ink,
Hobbs and Waters. Cell Block X, Second Tier.
There you go. Now go do something about it,
if you can. We’ll watch.

SAL
(speaking up from behind him)
You’re lucky in more ways than one, boy.
Ink eh? That was prison royalty you
were hanging with.

GUMBY
So what, he gives shit tattoos to all the-

JONES
No. That’s not all they do. They cover
them up too. See, The Duke? He likes
men who come in with tattoos. It must
be something that sticks in his head,
like a target on their foreheads, ‘cause
they’re the first ones to disappear.
If you got your high school number written
on your shoulders, or bible quotes on your
arms, or Wilkins mother’s name over your
heart, he remembers all that shit. And
those men fall into the hole first.

BISHOP
How do you know all this shit? You got
here when I did.

JONES
Yeah, this time.

WILKINS
Yeah, they been covering up tats in
here for years. Sure, you’re covered
with bad ink after they brand you, and
you might end up looking like a sorry
grass-stained baseball, but it can’t
be just a coincidence that no one has
ever made it more than a month flashing
their girlfriend’s name on their bicep.

JONES
Remember that clown with the religious
quote or whatever, something like,
“The rain falls on the good and the
bad at the same time” or something like
that? He lasted about a four days.

SAL
(eyes distant, suddenly
remembering something)
“The same rain that falls on our heads,
falls in the middle of the ocean...”

JONES
(very interested)
What was that?

Sal takes a deep breath and all the men turn to look at him.

SAL
I’ve heard that before. Just something
my father used to say. I used to imagine
thunderstorms in the middle of the ocean,
coming and going and no one even knowing
it. The fish wouldn’t feel it if it
was raining you know. Maybe it’s like
that in the desert too...

JONES
Huh?

SAL
Nothing man, just something I used
to think about. Like trees falling in
the forest and no one around...

JONES
(snapping his fingers
in Wilkins’ face)
And the sound of one hand clapping
doesn’t make a sound. Or is it the
sound of one hand masturbating.
Anyway, back here on earth, motherfucker.

SAL
Fuck you. What were we talking
about?

JONES
Men with tattoos, how they end
up on the sides of milk cartons
around here.

BISHOP
Why do you think that happens?

WILKINS
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just
something The Duke has to focus on.
We know he got a bad tattoo once.
Or maybe that’s how he remembers to
kill you later. Or maybe he’s got
something against-

BISHOP
What was he covering up?

JONES
Huh?

BISHOP
The Duke. On his arms. He’s got three
layers of ink on both arms. He get kicked
out of the Marines? He get kicked out of
Auschwitz? A fraternity? Does he got a
serial number? A bar code? What?

Jones and Wilkins stop to think about this for a second.
Then Sal leans in and asks another question.

SAL
So what about Gray? You think
he’s gone.

JONES
What? You think your boy’s dead?

GUMBY
Remember what Gray said about
losing your imagination?

SAL
What about it?

GUMBY
Well, last night I was staring into
my toilet, and I was imagining that
it was full of ice cubes. And it
was like heaven, man. Little ice
cubes bobbing in there, and a cold
breeze coming up off the clear water,
I could sink not just my ass in there,
but my hands or my head or my toes or
anything I want into that water and...

Gumby looks up to see the men staring at him like he’s
insane.

GUMBY
Never mind.

BISHOP
(changing the subject)
Yeah, never mind. I don’t know, maybe
Gray got out. He said something once,
about ways to get out. Or in.

The men turn their attention from Bishop when a buzzing
starts in the sky. Another plane is coming in.

BISHOP
(to himself)
Or maybe he escaped on a plane.

They hood their eyes and look for the approaching toy on the
horizon. It comes in low, wobbling in the desert wind. It
dips its wing and turns, heading for a spot by the Duke,
following a line the Duke is kicking into the ground with
the heel of his boot. They all watch as the plane actually
touches down. It skips on its tiny wheels across the sand
and finally buzzes to a stop at the Duke’s feet.

INSERT - THE PLANE

The propeller on the tiny plane slows down until it stops.
A huge red hand covers the front of the toy like a monster.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON CAFETERIA - DAY

The Duke is at the head of the guards’ table. The toy plane
is parked next to the ant farm. The prisoners are eating
and stealing glances at the plane. The radios are on, but
turned down too low to make out any songs. There’s a black
cloud of tension in the air. Jones and Wilkins are sitting
at a table with Bishop, Sal and Gumby. They are talking
about the plane.

SAL
What the fuck does he think’s gonna happen?

JONES
I don’t know. Maybe he’s showing that
he ain’t scared of it. Maybe he thinks
it’s a bomb. Or thinks we think it’s a bomb.

GUMBY
He knows it won’t blow up in here. There’s
no way the signal can get through these walls.

JONES
(coughing)
Man, you know what I need? Some Robitussin.
Someone got some from the infirmary last
week, I saw it. I gotta find some of that.

SAL
Fuck yeah. “Robo” and orange juice.
Clear up that cold real fast.

JONES
(smiling)
That’s right. “Tussin” and OJ. The
ghetto screwdriver. My only question is,
how the fuck do I get a cold in the desert?

WILKINS
You know what I don’t understand?

The men stop and turn towards Wilkins. Wilkins is pointing
with his spork. Today, he has a dangerous look in his eye.

WILKINS
(whispering)
His friggin’ ants. He tortures those things
like he thinks it’s intimidating. Or maybe
he thinks that he can predict our behavior
with them. Problem is, where’s the black
ants? All he gets are red and brown ants,
and they never last. Out in the desert there
should be billions of ants with black skin,
just like the men in Africa with their solar-
powered shoulders...

SAL
We were talking about the plane-

BISHOP
We were talking about the bullet-

WILKINS
I’m just saying, who does he think he’s
scaring with that jar? He keeps sending
away for ants in the mail and they keep
dying on him. You know, he even makes the
cons in the mailroom pay for his dead fuckin’
ants. And every so often he makes a big show
of dropping in a spider or some gasoline and
we’re supposed to think; “Oooh shit, he kills
bugs, no telling what he’ll do next”. Who
gives a fuck. I killed an ant myself today,
but I didn’t have to brag about it.

GUMBY
You just did.

WILKINS
Fuck you. And I saved one too. So it all
evens out. Got him right here in my pocket.

JONES
(confused)
You got what in your pocket?

SAL
C’mon, we’re talking about the plane.
(turns to the group)
You think Gray got a message out?
Or he got out and got a message in?
You think those are his planes?
You think he got the bullet we
need hidden inside of that thing?

BISHOP
I don’t know. Why hasn’t he taken
it apart? And he brings it to lunch?

JONES
Maybe he hopes we’ll make a grab at it.
Maybe he knows someone wants to get what’s
in that plane and he wants us to try.

GUMBY
(getting loud again)
There ain’t shit in that plane. And we
wouldn’t need a bullet if Sal’s fucking
wetback brat hadn’t started crying and
fucked up the last chance-

Sal reaches across the table and pokes Gumby hard in the
chest with his thumb. Gumby coughs through his swollen lips
to keep from speaking. Sal rolls a fist, then stops. He
realizes that Gumby is censoring himself. It seems that
some of his racist tics may have been fucked right out of
him for now. Sal studies his face, then relaxes his hand
and lets it go.

WILKINS
So, who told moron our plan?

SAL
Not me. Did you?

GUMBY
Gray did.

BISHOP
When does he talk to you? I’ve
never seen him talk to you.

GUMBY
His cell is right next to mine.

SAL
No it’s not. He’s in C Block.

GUMBY
(to Bishop, ignoring Sal)
Why don’t you get your daughter
to sneak a bullet in? Or is there
a better chance of her coming to
see me instead?

Bishop stabs the lump of gray meat on his tray and his
plastic spork slips from his injured hand and snaps in two.
He pushes the tray away and rubs the spot where his thumb
used to be.
Suddenly Wilkins stands and everyone looks up, alarmed.

JONES
(grabbing his arm)
Where you goin’? Sit down, man.

WILKINS
(loud so the whole
cafeteria can hear)
Fuck this shit! I’m going to
drop my black ant in with those
red ones. Let’s see what happens.

Wilkins jerks away from Jones and walks confidently towards
the guards’ table. The only guard who sees him coming is
Garrett. The other guards are turning the plane around
towards each other to study it. Garrett makes no move to
stop Wilkins. He makes it all the way to the table and gets
his hand around the crystal ball before The Duke even looks
up.

THE DUKE
(standing up fast)
You wanna die motherfucker?

Hanson stands up next to The Duke and nods at one of the
other guards. That guard stands up and runs from the table,
fumbling with his keys for the door and leaving the
cafeteria in a hurry.

WILKINS
(smiling)
I got something for your boys.

THE DUKE
You pull an ant on me and your dead.

GUMBY’S VOICE (VO)
Ants at twenty paces, fuck yeah!

WILKINS
(eyes shining)
I got something to stain your crystal
ball. He’s gonna fuck your red ants
and turn them ALL black. Black
ant plus red ant equals black ant.
Do the math. There won’t be nothing
left but black on black crawling
around in there.

THE DUKE
You open my jar and I’ll open your
skull.

Wilkins reaches into his front shirt pocket.

WILKINS
(smiling and looking
back for Jones)
Sorry, I gotta do it.

The guard who left earlier returns with a riot gear helmet
on. He hands The Duke a shotgun. The Duke lowers pumps the
gun once and presses the barrel against Wilkins’ chest.
Wilkins takes his hand from his pocket and holds it out in
front of him with his fingers spread.

WILKINS
Damn. Just fucking with you. I
ain’t got no black ant. The only
thing worse than killing me over a
black ant is killing me over a black
ant I don’t even got.

The Duke’s nostrils flare. His cold blue eyes start
crawling around in their sockets as they study Wilkins’
face.

THE DUKE
(whispering)
Back there we got Sherlock Holmes,
his boy Watson. And now we got
motherfuckin’ Encyclopedia Brown.
Quit trying to figure out shit
that ain’t happening. I told you
I wasn’t going to tell you again.

The Duke and Wilkins stare at each other. A couple seconds
pass between them. Even Gumby is silent.

THE DUKE
(louder)
Drop my ants and you’ll only
spend a year in solitary.
Do anything else, and you’ll get
flushed down the goddamn toilet.

Wilkins lowers the hand with the ant in it.

WILKINS
(still smiling)
Message received. Zero distortion.
Just fuckin’ around. Tryin’ to
pass the time.

The Duke starts to lower his shotgun and takes a step back.
Wilkins reaches to set the crystal ball back on the table.
Suddenly the airplane’s motor begins to buzz and the guards
jump back. Two of them tip back in the chairs they were
rocking and hit the floor on their backs. The Duke is
startled and looks away long enough for Wilkins to run.
Wilkins scrambles back with the crystal ball of ants under
his arm and runs around the table. Again, Wilkins looks
back at the table with Bishop, Sal, Gumby and Jones. He
seems to want them to do something but they’re just staring
at his antics in shock. The Duke watches as some guards
make a grab for him and he slides between their legs. He
gives a perfect pro football stiff-arm to another guard to
sit him down on the floor. Then he walks up to the plane
and trots along with it as the propeller picks up speed and
it starts to roll down the table. Suddenly a huge red fist
crashes down and smashes it like a giant mosquito. The
propeller chops tiny gashes into The Duke’s wrist as he
pounds the plane into silence.
Wilkins runs to the other end of the table with the ant farm
high over his head. The guards are crouched at the sides of
the table, waiting to see which way he’ll run. The inmates
turn off their radios and there is complete silence except
for heavy breathing. Wilkins smiles as The Duke turns his
attention back to the ants in his hand and suddenly Wilkins
seems inspired.

WILKINS
(to The Duke)
Touchdown asshole.

Wilkins spikes the crystal ball onto the floor.

INSERT - THE ENDZONE DANCE

Close-up of The Duke’s round, glass jar shattering across
the tile. Dead ants and sand, dried-out crickets and
spiders, glass shards and rotten vegetables slide across the
cafeteria floor in slow motion. One of the dead ants
uncurls when it hits the ground and it’s antenna wave and
taste the air.

BACK TO SCENE

A guard hits Wilkins in the face his forearm, and another
guard gets his arm under Wilkins’ chin. Wilkins is lifted
off his feet and a third guard brings a riot club slamming
into his stomach. Wilkins vomits and they let him roll
forward onto the tile. The Duke walks over and delivers a
kick to Wilkins’ skull. He stands over him a moment, while
blood drips from the gashes in his arm. Then he starts
kicking him again.

THE DUKE
(kicking harder and
harder with each blow)
I hate it when they stop moving
like that. What’s the fuckin’ point?

As The Duke’s beating progresses, Gumby slowly stands up and
walks towards the riot guards. He seems upset and almost
ready to do something to help Wilkins when suddenly he stops
struggling and The Duke holds up a hand to stop the boots
and batons. Wilkins is quickly dragged from the room.
Gumby’s eyes follow the blood and vomit streak trailing
across the cafeteria floor.

JONES
(staring at the scattered
smashed remains of the plane)
You know what I think?

BISHOP
What?

JONES
I think we just missed our chance to
get our bullet.

INT. PRISON CELL - DAY

INK is sitting high in his hybrid chair, cleaning a needle.
Around him, pins, needles and hollowed out ball-point pens
are soaking in a nasty-looking yellow liquid. Urine?
Alcohol? On the floor reading magazines are HOBBS and
WATERS. They drop everything and jump to their feet when
Bishop walks through the open cell door.

HOBBS
You lost?

BISHOP
(to Ink)
I wanted to ask you a quick question.

HOBBS
You don’t hear me, cracker? You
don’t see me standing over you,
blocking out the sun?

BISHOP
One question, then I’m gone.

INK
You getting branded?

BISHOP
Huh?

INK
I’m itchin’ to do some real
work. I’m sick of ruining
good art. I got the taste
back after giving your little
friend what he wanted. You
know we fucked him, right?
The eggs are so he thinks it
was just a joke. But he got
fucked. He’ll find out when
we send him the pictures on
Valentine’s Day.

BISHOP
I’m not here about that.
I wouldn’t have cared if you
guys had kept his head to hold
your toothbrush. I’m here for
something else.

INK
What you want on your arm?
A heart? A cross? Something
that says, “Mom.”

Bishop just stares.

INK
(talking quieter and
staring down his nose)
You still think I’m joking.
You ain’t getting shit from
me without giving up some skin.

Bishop starts to back out of the cell. Then something seems
to occur to him and he stops and grips one of the bars with
his mutilated left hand. He squeezes until his knuckles
turns white, then he slowly rolls up the sleeve over his
right arm.

INT. PRISON CELL - TEN MINUTES LATER

Ink is hunched over Bishop’s arm. He has the shell of an
empty pen shell with a needle taped to the front. He is
poking and wiping blood from his skin as they talk.

BISHOP
How long you been here?

INK
I don’t keep track.

BISHOP
Were you here before The Duke?

Ink stops for a second, then resumes poking and wiping
blood.
He kicks at a tattered porno mag and Hobbs and Waters look
up.

INK
Go take a walk. Find out where
the guards are sleeping.

The men get up, one of them retrieving the magazine, and
walk out. Ink resumes his work. Bishop flinches with each
prick.

BISHOP
You were, weren’t you? You were
here when he first came in.

INK
I know all those guards. Don’t mean
nothin’. I know all their stories.
You know Garrett, the one they call
Tomcat? He used to be a sheriff’s
deputy in Vegas. Shot an eleven
year-old boy cause he thought the
kid pulled down on him. Turned out
to be a squirtgun. Ended up here.
Hey, you remember those squirtguns?
They were like a capgun, squirtgun,
dartgun all in one. They took like
six “D” cell batteries, all metal, weighed
about ten pounds? What the hell were they
thinking when they made that thing, eh?
Remember, they pulled them off the shelves
that Christmas ‘cause of the nine kids that
got shot by confused cops? Well, Garrett was
one of those cops. And that other guard?
That kid, Hanson? Same kind of shit. He was
in his last week at the Academy when he went
out, got drunk, ran over a dog, stopped and
got out of his car, unzipped his fly and-
wait a minute...that was me...

BISHOP
I just want to know about The Duke. And the
planes. How long have the planes been coming?

INK
I’ve never seen those planes everyone talks
about. Just a UFO once and they shot that
fucker down. Maybe those are just little
UFOs they keep blasting. But the guards?
I’m trying to tell you. The guards here,
they’re serving time too. Just like us.

BISHOP
The Duke too?

INK
Yeah. Well, no. He’s something
altogether different.

BISHOP
Different how?

INK
Why are you asking me?

BISHOP
The tattoos on his arms. Did you cover
them up for him? When he first got here?

Ink suddenly jumps back, throws his pen against the wall and
wipes his hands on his thighs.

INK
You’re done. Goodbye.

Bishop looks down at his arm and frowns. He had managed to
control it for awhile, but now the left hand is shaking
again.

BISHOP
No no no. You ain’t done.
I ain’t done. You can’t leave
it like that. What’s that say?
“Frog”? What the hell is-

INK
That’s it. That’s all you get.
Finish it yourself. It’s easy.
Answer you’re own question while
your at it. That’s even easier.

Ink hands him a stained ball-point pen shell, with a black
needle taped to the end of it. Bishop puts it in his pocket
and starts to leave. Then stops at the door. Hobbs and
Waters appear behind him and stand there with their arms
crossed, looking down at the top of Bishop’s head.

BISHOP
Just tell me. What did those
tattoos on his arm say? You
saw them, didn’t you?

Ink climbs back in his three chair throne and crosses his
skinny arms across his chest.

INK
Okay, you want to know? They’re names,
“Hope,” “Hitchcock” and “Wolverton.”
That mean something to you? Name of
his girl? “Hope Hitchcock Wolverton?”
With a name like that, she must have
been a mutt and a half. Those words
mean something to you? Don’t mean
shit to me.

Bishop walks between the two men and out the door.

BISHOP
(over his shoulder)
They sure meant something to him.

Bishop picks up speed as he rubs the blood away from the
letters on his arm. Just under his wrist is the shape of a
heart. Inside the heart Ink has written one and a half
words.

INSERT - THE TATTOO

“JENNY FORG”

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop walks quickly down the hall, almost running, rubbing
and scratching his arm. Blood seeps through his sleeve as
his bad hand, now solid as a stone, picks and digs at the
stain.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON HALLS - DAY

Bishop walking down the hall slowly. He absently rolls his
sleeve up and down and continues to scratch at his arm until
he turns a corner into the prison library. He walks over to
the wall and pushes aside a dictionary and a thesaurus to
find a large dog-eared Atlas. He opens the huge dusty book
with steady hands and an audible crack.

CUT TO:

INT. BISHOP’S CELL - DAY

Bishop is sitting on his floor with several atlases spread
out around him. He’s got his arms crossed in front of him,
and seems disturbed about what he’s discovered. He looks
down at his arm and sees the black blood stain seeping
through his shirt. He rolls up his sleeve and stares at the
letters. Then he reaches into his rolled-up mattress bundle
and pulls out the pen and needle that Ink gave him. He
shakes some black ink out into a tiny puddle and dips the
needle into it. His bad hand pokes the needle into his arm,
then suddenly stops. He leans his head out his open cell
door and crawls back over to an atlas. He uses the needle
to draw a triangle on the page, then rips the page from the
book. He turns the page over, dips the needle again, and
begins to write.

CLOSE UP - BISHOP’S LETTER:

“DEAR JENNY, I KNOW THIS
IS GOING TO SOUND CRAZY-”

He continues dipping and using the needle until the entire
page is covered with writing. Then he folds the page again
and again, until he can’t fold it anymore. He tucks the
paper square into his shoe and sits back content. He
notices the his arm again, and rolls up his sleeve. Then
Bishop uses his fingernail on his bad hand to finish what
Ink started. He scratches and smears the dots of black and
blood freckling his skin until his arm finally reads what he
wants it to.

CLOSE UP - BISHOP’S ARM

“JENNY FORGIVE ME”

CUT TO:

INT. BISHOP’S CELL - NIGHT

Conversations through toilets. Bishop is on his knees in
front of the metal bowl. At first he seems to be throwing
up, but as we get closer, we realize that he’s talking into
the blue water. His voice echoes around the metal bowl.

BISHOP
...how do you know the gun
would even fire...

TOILET VOICE
(muffled)
...it’s assembled...I know
it’ll fire...I need the bullet
...we have no bullet...

BISHOP
What about the guards? What
kind of guns-

TOILET VOICE
(agitated)
...no guards carries the same gun...

TOILET VOICE #2
...there is one who carries the same...

TOILET VOICE #3
(black accent)
...what you gonna do? Ask him for
a bullet...

TOILET VOICE #2
Why not?

BISHOP
Who’s that?

TOILET VOICE #2
Who me? Joe. They call me Joey Z.
Short for Joey Zamboni. You know
why they call me that?

BISHOP
No. I need you to tell-

TOILET VOICE #2
‘Cause they gave me two years for
slashing. Course it wasn’t with no
hockey stick.

BISHOP
That’s great Joey. I need to know who-

TOILET VOICE #2
Yeah yeah. I know. I got the message.
I’m right above you, one cell over from
Sal Ramirez. I’m talking for him.

BISHOP
Oh. Tell him that-

The conversation is interrupted as a toilet flushes
somewhere in those pipes. Bishop waits for the rush of
water and gurgling noise to stop, then resumes the
discussion.

BISHOP
Tell Sal to meet me in the library
after we eat. I want to show him-

A toilet flushes again deep in the works and Bishop pulls
his head up from the bowl sighing. He waits for silence,
then sticks his head back in.

BISHOP
Tell Sal to-

A loud voice from the next cell echoes through the block.

VOICE
Get off the fucking phone!
I’m trying to sleep!

INT. PRISON CAFETERIA - DAY

The guards are at their table eating. The Duke is shaking
his jar of ants, as if that will make the dead ones start to
crawl again.

THE DUKE
Didn’t someone say once that
you could judge a society by
it’s bugs?

GARRETT
No, I believe the man you’re thinking
of said that you could judge a society
by it’s prisoners.

HANSON
Wait, you sure he didn’t say prisons
instead of prisoners?

GARRETT
(laughing)
What? Suddenly you read?

THE DUKE
No. It was something I read.
An article about where they found
all these fucked up frogs in this
pond next to some factory. Frogs
with six heads, frogs with eyes on
their tongues. One frog...was like
glass. You could see right through
the son of a bitch.

GARRETT
So you’re saying that man can
judge a society by it’s frogs?

THE DUKE
No. The bugs. ‘Cause that’s what
the frogs were eating.

HANSON
(laughing)
Judge a society by Jim’s ants.
Brother, you’re getting as weird
as this fucking place.

THE DUKE
(shaking the jar harder)
Exactly. Hey! Who’s going fishing
with me Friday? Found a new spot.

The guards stare into their food and don’t answer him.

INT. GUMBY’S CELL - NIGHT

Gumby is standing over his toilet urinating. The stream is
blood-streaked and turning the water pink as a result of his
beating. As the urine stream gets thinner, he suddenly
cocks his head, frowns and starts to bend over. He hears
voices and whispering, and he isn’t sure where it’s coming
from. He bends down, confused and shakes out the rest of
the blood.

GUMBY
You say something?

CUT TO:


INT. THE GUARDS’ LOCKERS/DUKE’S OFFICE - NIGHT

The Duke’s workday is over and he is getting ready to go
home. He’s puts his belt and gear into his locker as the
phone rings behind him. He lets it ring while he lowers his
head wearily, he seems to know who it is and is reluctant to
answer it. He pulls another note from the shelf of his
locker and reads it with a frown. He walks to the toilet in
the locker room and stands staring down at it. He looks at
the note, then at the toilet then back again. The phone
stops, then immediately starts ringing again. He shrugs and
walks over and drops his pants. He sits there. His eyes
dart around the room then quickly squeeze closed. He
grunts, defecates, stands up, and ,as he reaches for the
handle to flush, stops cold. He is hearing voices.

TOILET VOICE
...when should we do it...

TOILET VOICE #2
...soon, it’s got to be soon...

The Duke leans down into the bowl, his nose about two inches
from his own waste, and listens to the inmates plotting. He
smiles as he pulls up his pants without wiping his ass. The
phone is still ringing in the background and he finally
stomps over to answer it.

THE DUKE
(nodding at the receiver,
trying to get a word in)
Under control...yes...no...sir...
yes, Warden, I am in control of
this situation. It’ll be over
tomorrow. Yes, sir...I will.
(pause)
I said, the prison is under my
control.


EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

The men are wandering aimlessly around the yard. There’s
nervous energy about them and music is blasting from two
stereos. One stereo is playing the song “La Conecta II” by
The Psycho Realm. The other is playing “Mein Herz Brennt”
by Rammstein. One song in Spanish, the other in German.
Some Mexicans and skinheads are listening but they don’t
know the words. Bishop stands with Sal, Gumby and Jones,
somewhere between those men. He watches the groups glare at
each other with their songs in the sand between them. The
two songs are a jumbled cloud of threat and menace in the
air. Then, a small black man walks out into the yard with a
third radio, playing his own song. However, instead of
turning his music up even louder, and starting the usual
volume wars again, the small black man reaches into his
front shirt pockets and pulls out two cassettes. The small
black man passes around the two tapes and, after the two
players are stopped and started again, the music comes back
loud and strong. All three radios blast in unison. All of
the men nod their heads along with the beat of the music.
For the first time the white men, the black men and the
Mexicans/Chicanos/Hispanics/Latinos are all playing the same
song. Instead of singing along, the men are only listening
to the lyrics, a look of concentration on their faces. The
song is “Looking Through the Eye of a Pig” by Cypress Hill.
It sounds heavy and powerful and the men move to stand
closer together.

BISHOP
Anyone heard anything about Wilkins?

JONES
He’s either dead or in solitary.
That means he’s either dead. . . or dead.

GUMBY
Why’s that?

JONES
In solitary, they weld the door shut.
That means there isn’t a door. You ever
been in a room without a door? In here,
when they take the door away, a man loses
his mind in twenty-four hours. Even if
your cell door is locked, you can still
stay sane ‘cause you know it can still
be opened. Once they take the door away,
it’s over. And if Wilkins is in the hole,
and the door is gone, then he’s gone.
I’ve seen it before.

The men look at their shoes while Bishop stares at Jones,
thinking about what he said. Suddenly The Duke, Hanson and
Garrett walk out into the yard and approach the Mexicans
standing in front of the first stereo. One man stands
defiant in The Duke’s path and The Duke throws a straight
punch to the man’s throat to knock him down without even
breaking stride. Hanson runs up past The Duke to grab the
stereo. He turns towards The Duke with it up on his
shoulder, smiling and trying to sing along.

THE DUKE
(addressing the crowd)
We are now revoking your music
privileges! Please feel free to
protest. Just like he did.

The Mexican in the sand rolls out of the way, choking and
holding his neck, trying to catch his breath.

THE DUKE
I don’t see a plane today, so we’re
going to have a little skeet-shoot
instead. Ready, Hanson? Pull!

Hanson winds up and hurls the stereo up into the sky. Then
The Duke raises his shotgun and blows it to pieces. Garrett
steps forward with an orange biohazard bag and wearily
begins to pick up the parts hitting the ground. The Duke
turns to walk past Bishop, Sal, Gumby and Jones. Hanson
takes the radio from the small group of skinheads, then
backs up three steps with it swinging.

THE DUKE
(after taking a moment
to stare down the group)
Pull!

Hanson hurls it into the air and The Duke blasts it down
too. Garrett collects the pieces in his bags. The Duke
walks over to the last radio at the small black man’s feet.
It’s been turned up to top volume to compensate for the ones
that were destroyed. The Duke smiles at this and doesn’t
even wait for Hanson to throw it. He pumps his shotgun and
blasts it where it stands. The small black man is riddled
with plastic shrapnel and falls back with his hands over his
face.
The Duke quickly walks forward and splits his nose across
cheeks with a boot.


CLOSE UP - THE LAST SONG

A cassette tape spool rises high into the sky, unraveling as
it soars. The prisoners look up to watch the song fly.

FADE OUT

INT. PRISON CAFETERIA - DAY

Bishop and Jones are sitting at a table alone. Gumby is at
a table by himself, arm wrapped around his food, deep in
thought. Jones points at Gumby with a plastic spoon.

JONES
He finally blow a fuse?

BISHOP
(looking back over
his shoulder at Gumby)
I don’t know. Maybe he’s working
some shit out of his head. If he’s
quiet just leave him alone for now.

JONES
Where’s Sal?

BISHOP
Good question. He was supposed
to meet me and he never showed up.

JONES
And then there were three.

BISHOP
You think he’s dead?

JONES
He’s gone. All that matters.
And I don’t want to be the next
one who’s just gone.


BISHOP
He’s got like twenty kids.

JONES
And that’s sad ‘n shit, but we
got to worry about us making
it another day.

BISHOP
I heard we’re all getting shipped
out on Monday. I heard they’re
closing this place down, doing
an investigation.

JONES
Where you hear that shit?

BISHOP
In my toilet.

The men stare at each other for a minute. Jones smiles,
Bishop doesn’t.

JONES
You realize how that sounds out loud?

BISHOP
Yep. Just now.

JONES
No bullshit, if that’s true
about the move, we gotta blow
this thing wide open by Monday.

BISHOP
Why?

JONES
‘Cause that’s what a deadline
like that is for. That’s why we
found out.

BISHOP
You think we’re really doing something
here? Do you think we will actually
make a difference?

JONES
Maybe. I just want to live
through it.

BISHOP
I want more than that. I want it
to be our finest moment.

JONES
What?

BISHOP
Didn’t you ever worry about not
having one of those?

JONES
One of what?

BISHOP
A finest moment. The best thing you
never did. Not going out on top.

JONES
I never think about that shit.
It just reminds me of my worst
moment.

BISHOP
What was that?

JONES
Never mind.

GUMBY’S VOICE (VO)
You know what my worst moment was!?

BISHOP
Don’t look at him.

GUMBY’S VOICE (VO)
When my mom caught me on the Internet,
looking at “Circus Cocks” dot com!

Jones stares at Gumby for a second. He seems to be trying
to figure out what’s wrong with him. Then they all turn
their attention back to their food and eat a couple more
bites. After a while, Jones taps at Bishop’s hand with his
spoon.

JONES
How do you hold your fork
without a thumb?


BISHOP
Like a fist.

JONES
You know, when you first walked in
here, there was a betting pool
all cause of that thumb. Some
said you were punishing yourself
for either: One, choking your wife.
Two, stabbing your wife. Or three,
shooting your wife. But I don’t think
you shot her cause you’d have chopped
off your trigger finger instead. I
think you choked her. Only, no one can
choke someone one-handed. What I want to
know is whether your hand shakes from
fear, or anger. If it’s anger, I say
set it loose, see what it does.

JONES (cont’d)
(after taking another bite)
What did you do? You know, before.

BISHOP
I was a park ranger.

JONES
No shit.

BISHOP
What about you?

JONES
Landscaper. But my boys called me a
“land-scraper.” Shit hours. Seasonal
work. I was always broke-ass broke.

BISHOP
So you think you’re a descendent of
Thomas Jefferson?

JONES
(laughing)
Who told you that?

BISHOP
Didn’t you? On the bus ride in?

JONES
What did I say?

BISHOP
I asked you about your name and
you said that you were a long lost
relative of one of our forefathers.
Son of one of his slaves.

JONES
I don’t remember saying all that.

BISHOP
Something like it.

JONES
And you told me you cut off
your own thumb. To stop yourself
from strangling your wife.

BISHOP
I don’t remember saying all that.

JONES
Something like it. So, are you
going to tell me what happened.

BISHOP
My daughter Jenny...

JONES
(dropping his
spoon in shock)
You killed your daughter?

BISHOP
No. Worse. She saw what I did.

JONES
(after a moment)
Well. That ain’t worse. It’s bad
but it ain’t worse.

The men go on eating. Bishop finishes the piece of gray
meat and pushes his red Jell-O dessert away.

BISHOP
Remember that day, when we came in on
the bus?

JONES
Yeah.

BISHOP
Why did you talk to me?

JONES
I don’t know. Your thumb? I don’t
remember. Why did you talk to me?

BISHOP
I don’t know. Let me tell you a story-

JONES
As long as it ain’t a freaky
nursery rhyme.

BISHOP
Okay. Back when I first met my wife,
we were “college poor” and I used to
drive this little shit car with a
stick shift. And we were big on
holding hands. Well, at least she was.
She always wanted to hold hands, even
if we were sweating through our fingers,
even if it meant taking our gloves off
in the winter. Even if it meant trying
to drive a goddamn stick-shift. Yeah,
it used to make me crazy, trying to
reach over and shift with my left hand,
‘cause she’d always have my right hand
all tangled up in her lap. I hated it
then, but I miss it now. Driving that
shit car, holding hands with her while
I strained to reach across my body like
a one-armed freak, trying to keep that
car from stalling at every red light...
both my hands would shake back then...

JONES
Is that why you cut off-

BISHOP
No. I don’t know. I’m saying,
that’s why I talked to you.

JONES
(tipping his head back
and raising an eyebrow)
Wait a minute. Are you saying you
talked to me ‘cause we were holding
hands on the bus?

BISHOP
(laughing)
Something like that. Not as queer
as you just made it sound, but
something like that.

JONES
(laughing with him)
Oooh fuck. Does that mean I gotta
wear your high school ring now?

BISHOP
(looking around, trying
to change the subject)
So where are they?

JONES
Who?

BISHOP
Everyone. Sal. Gray. Wilkins.
I count forty-six empty seats in
here. They weren’t empty before.
Or were they?

JONES
No. They’re all gone. We’re next.
We been through all that.

BISHOP
Where’s the gun now?

JONES
What’s the point without a bullet?

BISHOP
I know where to get one.

The men stare at each other for a moment, then Jones speaks.

JONES
Forget about the bullet. We got to find
the gun. And it’s going to be hard getting
it back. It’s being passed around. From
gang to gang. It got into the wrong hands
as soon as it was assembled. I forgot about
it with everything else going on. Right now,
I don’t even know if we can get it back.

BISHOP
(blinks his eyes as
if he just woke up)
Gangs? Hell, with all this other shit,
I forgot there even were gangs.

CUT TO:
MONTAGE - THE GUN

--To the tune of the song “The Devil’s Right Hand” by Steve
Earl, playing from an unknown source. The gun is being
passed from hand to hand. It’s a small black .38 revolver.
Different colored hands are running over the cylinder,
handle and trigger. Then cracking it open to see that it’s
empty.

--An argument over someone’s favorite spot to lean against a
wall is getting heated. The gun comes out from behind
someone’s back and the argument is settled.

--A small white man is buying the gun from a another man for
cash, porn and cigarettes.

--The small white man is being brutalized when he suddenly
pulls the gun from his pants. The men back away.

--Bishop is talking to the guard Tom Garrett. The camera
reveals that Tom Garrett is also carrying a .38 revolver.
Bishop keeps glancing at it while they talk.

--The gun in a Mexican man’s hand. He’s backing some black
men into their cells and yanking a small brown bag from
their hands. A stuffed animal falls out of the bag onto the
floor.

--The gun in a white man’s hand. He’s rehearsing suicide.
He’s spinning the cylinder and clicking the gun in his mouth
while his cellmate watches with a bored look on his face.

--The gun in a small black man’s hand. He’s spinning it on
a table in the middle of a poker game. The man it stops to
point at slams his fist on the table, then crawls under to
service him. The small black man lifts up to drop his
pants.

CUT TO:

INT. TELEVISION REC. ROOM - DAY

The small black man from the poker game enters the
recreation room with the gun tucked into his belt. Men move
out of his way as he takes his seat. A documentary on
insects is on the television. The man puts his feet up on a
man’s shoulders in front of him. Bishop and Jones enter the
room and Bishop immediately shoves the human footstool out
from under the small black man’s feet. Then he picks up the
nearest chair and hurls it up at the television nested in
the wall. A metal leg pierces the screen and the time-lapse
butterfly birth footage on the TV explodes in a shower of
glass and sparks. The small black man stumbles back in
shock and then steps up fast with his gun out. He levels it
at Bishop’s head.

BISHOP
What are you gonna do? Do
something. You ain’t armed.
You got the gun but you ain’t
got a bullet. Do you?

SMALL BLACK MAN
What you know?

JONES
(angry)
What the fuck do you mean,
“what you know?” We brought
that gun in here and now it’s-

Bishop holds up a hand and Jones stops talking. Bishop
steps forward towards the small black man until the muzzle
of the gun is pressed against his chest.

BISHOP
I know it’s empty.

Bishop reaches down into his shoe and comes up with
something shiny. He hold up a bullet high for everyone to
see.

BISHOP
Thing is, it doesn’t have to be.

SMALL BLACK MAN
Fuck you. I can get one of
those for this easier than you
can get one of these for that.

BISHOP
Well, let’s just cut out the
goddamn middle man then.

Bishop holds the bullet out to the man, offering it in the
palm of his hand. Gumby runs forward and starts to make a
grab for it and Jones grabs his head to spin him around and
drops him onto the floor.
The small black man cracks open the .38 and there’s a murmur
from the men in the crowd. Some of them obviously didn’t
know that it wasn’t loaded. Then suddenly it is loaded.
And it’s pointed back at Bishop’s head. Bishop stares into
his eyes without flinching. All of the inmates are silent.

BISHOP
Go ahead. You got one shot. Waste
it on me.

SMALL BLACK MAN
I will. Don’t give a fuck ‘bout-

BISHOP
I know you don’t. But what if
I said you could make that bullet
count.

The small black man stares a moment and even though he
doesn’t lower the gun, he angles it slightly so that it is
pointing over Bishop’s shoulder.

BISHOP
You’ve noticed some strange
things around here? You’ve
noticed the empty cells? The
noises in the middle of the
night? You think someone is
killing you?

The small black man lowers the gun a little.

SMALL BLACK MAN
Killing us. This place is mother-
fuckin’ Death Row. Whether you get
ten years or life, you’re on death
row here.

BISHOP
(nodding)
That’s right. And it’s not the
first prison where this happened.

He speaks louder, now addressing the entire day-room. Gumby
is sitting in the floor, listening to Bishop like he’s in
elementary school. Bishop slowly spins around to face them
all as he talks.

BISHOP
This is the third prison where
this has happened. Yes, all those
prisons had murder and rape and
hate, and I know we’re here to be
punished for our sins and all that
shit, but there’s something else
in here with us. A man once told me
that you can’t put too many men together
in the same place, without something
happening to the men, and something
happening to the place. And something
happened at Point Hope in Alaska.
Maximum security, at three hundred fifty
percent capacity. Except for one summer
five years ago. They had a lot of room
back then, just like here, and some people
made the trip to visit and found their sons
and fathers and brothers had disappeared.
Then suddenly it was all forgotten. Escape
attempts they said. Lost in the snow.
Whatever.

Bishop slowly rotates back around to face the small black
man with the gun, now that everyone is listening closely.

BISHOP (cont’d)
Fast forward five more years.
Hitchcock Penitentiary, just off the
Gulf of Mexico. Four hundred percent
capacity and for one strange summer it
was quiet as a tomb. Same bullshit cover
story. Escape attempts. Lost at sea.
UFOs. Fast forward two years. Wolverton
Prison in Nevada. Two hundred percent
capacity but there’s enough room to stretch
your legs every morning. One man a cell?
How does that happen? They had no excuse
in Nevada, if anyone was asking. Only there’s
no snow or ocean to swallow up someone who
jumps the fence. Shit, they’d have to say
they got lost in the sand?! Well, is that
what’s happening here? Men lost in the sand?
No. It’s something else. And it’s here.

ANGRY VOICE
What’s here, motherfucker?

BISHOP
The Duke. He’s killing prisoners and he can
keep doing that shit ‘till the end of time.
It’s the one place where you can kill and kill
and kill and kill and kill and kill and. . .
and even if someone sees it, they won’t care.
Notice how, when you say “kill” too many
times,
it loses all its meaning?

ANGRY VOICE #2
How you know all this?

BISHOP
Those tattoos on the Duke’s arms?
He got them at those two prisons.
And, maybe he wasn’t a guard at
back then. Maybe he still ain’t.
Maybe he’s just a transfer that
they dress up and send out into
the population to curb the herd.

Murmurs of “bullshit” from the crowd. Jones steps forward
and holds up his hands palms out.

JONES
Believe it. He killed Wilkins.
He killed other people. Some you
know. You wanna die? Or you want
to let this man take a shot?

SMALL BLACK MAN
(to Bishop)
You gonna shoot The Duke?

BISHOP
Yes, I am.

The small black man cracks his knuckles and holds the gun
out to Bishop in an open hand. We see Bishop’s new tattoo
on his forearm. It’s different now. He’s scratched new
letters into his arm to change one of the words.

CLOSE UP - BLOOD AND INK ON BISHOP’S ARM

“JENNY FORGET ME”

BACK TO SCENE - SEVERAL MINUTES LATER

SMALL BLACK MAN
I don’t believe most of this,
and I don’t know how the fuck
you think you gonna do it. You got
men in the towers are looking down
mini-14 assault rifles. Point
two-two-three ammunition. That’s
the same bullets they use in an M-16,
and they got all they can carry. You
get one bullet as big as a fingernail
and what do we got? A man with no
thumbs. You’re going to “make it
count?” I doubt it. But I do know
this: I do want to see you try to
shoot that fucker down. That’ll pass
some of my time.

The crowd seems to agree with him. They nod and a couple
low conversations start as Bishop takes the gun with his
steady thumbless hand and tucks it into his belt. Jones and
Bishop share a look as the crowd disperses. Bishop turns
and blinks, for a moment he thinks he sees someone he
recognizes.

INSERT - A MAN IN THE CROWD

A quick glimpse of Jack Gray (?) behind some sunglasses and
wearing a knit cap, staring hard at Bishop through the mob
of prisoners. Then, in a blur of movement, he’s gone.

BACK TO SCENE

Bishop stands and frowns for a moment. He’s not sure who he
saw. He starts to say something, then he sees the prison
guard, Tom Garrett, walking out through a doorway. Garrett
had been listening to everything. He smacks Jones in the
arm and points. Jones turns to watch Garrett go and the men
share a look of concern.

BISHOP
Is he going to be a problem?

JONES
I don’t know.

CUT TO:

INT. GUARD’S LOCKERS - NIGHT

Their shift is over and The Duke, Tom Garrett and Hanson are
stowing their gear and getting ready to leave for the night.
Hanson is reciting a nursery rhyme.

HANSON
Three blind mice, see how they
run. They all ran around with
the farmer’s knife. One lost
his tail and the third lost
his life...

The Duke is searching his locker for more vegetables or
notes. He’s not really paying attention to Hanson but he
answers him anyway.

THE DUKE
That ain’t how that story goes.

HANSON
(ignoring him)
Who ever saw something like a mouse
with a knife, you ever see
something like that in your life...

GARRETT
Hanson, the farmer’s wife cut
off their tales with the carving
knife.

The Duke ignores the men and pulls out a small
radio/cassette player from the red tackle box at the bottom
of his locker. It’s a child’s thing, shaped and colored
like a small football. The Duke pushes the “play” button
where the plastic football’s stitches are and the song
“Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who echoes out of the locker. The
Duke closes his eyes and starts humming along with the song
when it gets to the line, “my dreams aren’t as empty as my
conscience seems to be”.

HANSON
(ignoring The Duke)
The only thing worse than a
knife-wielding mouse is a mouse
bringing a gun into your house.

GARRETT
(smiling)
You’re a poet, and you didn’t know it.

THE DUKE
(now singing to himself off-key)
“...and if I swallow anything evil,
put your fingers down my throat-”

Garrett suddenly steps over to The Duke’s locker, and before
he can stop him, reaches past him and clicks off his tiny
football-shaped radio. The Duke reaches out and grabs a
bundle of his T-shirt and slams him up against the lockers.
Garrett is held about three inches off the ground while the
Duke snorts in his face.


THE DUKE
(furious)
Fuck you do that for?

GARRETT
‘Cause you were giving me the creeps.

THE DUKE
You know, that was my song. Someone
turned off my song once before. You
know what happened to him?

GARRETT
Why don’t you put me down and
tell me?

The Duke drops Garrett and then takes his football radio
from his locker and holds it lovingly as he talks. Garrett
smoothes out the hand print from the front of his shirt.

THE DUKE
I coached a high school football team
some years back and we had a psyche-up
song I would play for them before the
games. It was important to us. More
important than they even knew. Just
like the radios I passed around the
prison yard. They never understood
what I was trying to...

The Duke’s voice fades out as he ponders something, then he
snaps back into the story.

THE DUKE (cont’d)
Anyway, one day, this little third-string
fuck, who’s never touched the field in his
life, walked through the locker room and
CLICK! He turned off my goddamn song.
Just to be a prick, he turned it off
right before the best part, right
where the drums kick in-

HANSON
What song was it?

The Duke gives him a hate-filled look for interrupting his
story and Hanson starts packing up faster to get out of the
there.


THE DUKE
It’s not important. Even if I
remembered it wouldn’t be important.
What is important is what happened
to that kid.

GARRETT
(coaxing The Duke on after
another awkward silence)
I’m listening.

THE DUKE
Well, I don’t remember exactly.
It was something bad though.
Make up something bad in your
head involving; locker rooms,
angry boys, football equipment,
shower stalls and sexual confusion
and you’re halfway there.

Garrett looks confused and glances at Hanson. He shrugs
too.

THE DUKE (cont’d)
There’s no room for anyone on
the team with that attitude.
It’s hard to even imagine that
a kid like that even exists.
He throws away his summer to be
on a football team that never
lets him play, he spends a season
squeezed in on benches and buses
with boys that he secretly hates.
How can there be a kid like that
on a football team-

GARRETT
(interrupting him)
You know what, Jim? That kid
you’re talking about? I know
him.

The men stare at each other and an understanding seems to
pass between them. Hanson heads for the door. The Duke
puts away his football, and takes out the red tackle box.
He extends the shelves and removes a colorful fishing lure.
He touches the hook with the tip of his finger. Then he
takes some fishing line and starts wrapping it around the
base of his thumb. Garrett looks over and doesn’t see the
fishing line at first. He isn’t sure what The Duke is doing
until the lack of circulation to his shaking hand turns The
Duke’s thumb purple.

THE DUKE
(wiggling his thumb to
get the blood back in it)
You don’t really need both of these things to
keep going, do ya? A man can do a lot with just
one of these. Kinda like kidneys. . .

GARRETT
What?

THE DUKE
Nothing. Hey, we still going fishing
this weekend, boys?

Garrett and Hanson glance at each other and Garrett sighs
loudly.

HANSON
(throwing his bag
over his shoulder)
We go through this every Friday.
There ain’t no fish to catch.
We’ve hit every patch of water for
fifty miles. All we catch keep
catching is sunburn, Jim.

GARRETT
Seriously Jim. Why the hell are you
trying to be the first man to catch
a fish in the desert?

THE DUKE
They’re breaking ground for a new
prison about a hundred miles west.
I heard they hit water and-

GARRETT
You want to drive that far so
we can not catch some more fish?
Good idea.

The Duke slams his locker door in disgust and again it
rebounds off the warped fishing rod protruding from it.
His nostrils flare and he grabs the end of the rod to stop
it from vibrating. Then he tries to tie the fishing pole
into a knot and snaps it in half with a BANG! Hanson trips
over his own feet as he heads for the door and Garrett
starts to pack up his gear faster.

THE DUKE
(yelling to Hanson)
Hey! Where did you hear that? That
nursery rhyme thing? I know you didn’t
make that shit up yourself.

HANSON
(stopping at the door)
Something one of the kids was
singing in the visiting room.

THE DUKE
(eyes blazing)
What kid? Who’s kid?

HANSON
One of the Chicanos. Sal Ramirez’s
boy. You know Ramirez? Tier 7,
block 5? The one who hangs with
“Neapolitan Boys”?

THE DUKE
(more interested)
When did you hear it?

HANSON
Three days ago. When he was visiting
his dad. Right before you had him
transferred out.

THE DUKE
(after staring at
him another moment)
Announce a concert for Friday.
Bring in a fucking accordion
player or something. I’ve got
a surprise for them.

Hanson nods and leaves with his head down. It’s just The
Duke and Garrett now. The Duke suddenly sits down on the
ground next to the bench. He seems exhausted.

THE DUKE
They got to take their shot before
the weekend. It’s going to be Friday.

GARRETT
Why?

The Duke hangs on Garrett’s locker door, then he slowly
pulls himself up to his feet, he seems to be considering
whether or not he should say what he’s thinking. Then he
looks up into Garrett’s eyes and speaks.

THE DUKE
Because they’re closing this place
down, remember? They’re breaking up
the population and shipping them all
out. Us too. I know, it’s been going
on for a while, but they’re stepping it
up. More men are missing. Everyone
thinks they’re going over the wall.

GARRETT
They aren’t though, are they?

THE DUKE
There’s nothing going out and you
know it. Everything is coming in.

The two guards leave the locker room and walk out of the
building.

EXT. PRISON GATES - NIGHT

The Duke and Garrett are standing in the light of a guard
tower, closing the gate behind them.

THE DUKE
Those orange bags still missing?

GARRETT
Three whole rolls.

THE DUKE
You see anything orange, you let
me know. That’s how they got
shit in. Those planes were just
a distraction. You see anything
orange, you shoot. Just the
opposite of hunting season.

The Duke looks up to the sky and his eyes find a strange
distant light moving between the stars.

THE DUKE
It was the children. The toys.
And the kitchen. The apples, the
potatoes. Some guards had to be
in on it too...

GARRETT
What are you talking about?

THE DUKE
(still watching the sky
with his dead blue eyes)
They didn’t get it everything they
needed though. They didn’t get all
the pieces of the puzzle. I didn’t
but neither did they. And you can
still build a puzzle even if you
ain’t got all the pieces...

Garrett stops at the gate and turns to listen to The Duke
finish his thought.

THE DUKE
(continuing)
...and if you do most of the puzzle,
that shit’ll still look like a sunrise,
or a farm house, or a unicorn. Or
whatever. But up close, it’ll be
missing an eye. Or a thumb. With a
puzzle like that, you can see right on
through to the table underneath, if you
look close enough. And if it’s a glass
table, you can see who’s hiding under
there, stealing you’re shit. You know
what? You never needed all the pieces
anyway. You can just force ‘em together
to finish the picture.

GARRETT
Goodbye, Jim.

Garrett walks off and The Duke turns to watch a prisoner
rolling a laundry cart past a distant window. The prisoner
turns and squints out the window at The Duke. Then he
raises his hand slowly from his hip. In slow-motion, the
prisoner mimes like he’s loading and cocking his hand. Then
he raises his imaginary gun and pretends to shoot the Duke
through the bars and glass. The Duke raises a finger to
“shoot” him back but his hand is trembling to hard. He
angrily bites his finger to make it stop. Then he stands a
moment, then turns and walks off out of the light of the
guard tower and disappears into the dark.

INT. PRISON AUDITORIUM - DAY

Guards are marching across a catwalk over a stage with their
rifles slung. The Duke is walking up and down the aisles
between the rows. The stage is empty. The men are getting
restless waiting for some sort of entertainment. Some of
them yell out, but most just stamp their feet, silent and
pensive about what’s going to happen. There are many empty
spaces along the rows of benches.

ANGRY VOICE (VO)
Why the fuck we here?

ANGRY VOICE #2 (VO)
Where’s the fucking show?

After he completes a lap around the men, The Duke takes the
stage.

THE DUKE
Sorry boys, the band’s bus broke
down, so there will be no show
today. But since you’re here...

He walks back and forth on the stage, pointing and gesturing
with his shotgun for emphasis. The men slowly turn their
heads to watch him pace, never taking their hate-filled eyes
off of him.

THE DUKE (cont’d)
...I should let ya’ll know that
everyone will be shipped out of here
by Saturday. This prison is being
closed for lack of funding and you
men will be relocated. This move
has been in progress for several
months now and-

JONES
(cupping his hands over
his mouth from his seat)
Bullshit!

THE DUKE
(smiling)
These halls will be empty in two
days. This is straight from the
warden. Most of you will be locked
down in another state in just
twenty-four hours-

JONES
(yelling louder)
Tell the fucking truth!

The Duke stops pacing and smiles at the crowd. He walks
forward lays his shotgun on the edge of the stage at his
feet. Then he holds his arms out with his fingers spread as
he talks. Bishop, Gumby and Jones look around nervously.

THE DUKE
C’mon. What do you assholes think
is going on around here? Huh, tell
us, “Encyclopedia Brown”. You got
a theory? Let’s hear it. Step on up.

The Duke waves Jones up to the stage, and Jones quickly
stands up on the bench. Bishop starts to stand and a look
from Jones causes him to sit back down. Gumby reaches out
to stop him instead.

INSERT - WHITE SKIN OVER BLACK

Close up of Gumby’s fingers reaching out and tightening
around Jones’ forearm. Jones looks down at the hand, his
eyes showing an acknowledgment of Gumby’s gesture. Then his
arm jerks away from him and is gone.

BACK TO SCENE

Jones starts walking up the steps to the stage and the men
start to get louder, their chests swelling and throats
rumbling like a threatening storm. Jones eyes the shotgun
on the stage and stops several feet from it. The Duke kicks
the shotgun closer to Jones and continues to coax him
forward.

THE DUKE
This is your chance, boy. Think
of me as one big-ass customer
comment box. Come on up and
let this establishment know how
you enjoyed our service.

Jones walks forward and stops again, about a foot from the
shotgun, about three feet from The Duke.

JONES
(quiet but firm)
I just want to hear the truth,
that’s all. I’ve heard a lot of
crazy shit since I got in here.
Tell me why you do it.

THE DUKE
Don’t you mean, “since you got back
in here?” I’ve seen you before. I’ve
seen all you men before. Same dead
eyes, talking the same shit. Now you
think you’ve solved some mystery where
there wasn’t one? You really think I’d
waste my time? Killing a bunch of dead
men? That’s like firing a bullet into
a rotten apple. That don’t do nothin’.
Bullet rips on through and the apple
don’t even move. No satisfaction in
that. Just like you. You’re dead men.
All of you. Waste of my fuckin’ time.
Whether I’m killing you or kicking you,
you wouldn’t even flinch. Dead as shit,
all just an ugly gray blur of time and
you don’t mean a fucking thing to me
even if I stopped to scrape you off
my fucking boots-

There’s a flash of movement as Jones lunges for the shotgun.
The Duke suddenly jerks his arm back as if he’s elbowing
someone behind him. The fishing line he’s tied to the stock
of the shotgun whips it back against his boots. He quickly
picks up the weapon and cracks Jones in the face with it.
Jones goes down. The men are on their feet, Bishop and
Gumby are moving towards the stage. The guards on the
catwalk
have stopped pacing and are looking through their sights.
Jones stands back up and gets off a hard straight punch to
send the Duke stumbling backwards. The shotgun falls loose
and is kicked away from their fight. The Duke starts to get
the best of Jones. He gets him down on the ground and
starts pounding him in the back of the head. Rivers of
blood pour out from under his face across the stage. The
Duke stands up and starts to deliver a series of boot-heels
to Jones’ skull.

THE DUKE
(through his teeth)
See, whether I kill you or kick you,
you don’t even fucking flinch...

Gumby pushes and stiff-arms his way through the crowd and
grabs the shotgun on the stage. He points it at the Duke’s
chest and The Duke turns to face him. Smiling. The shotgun
clicks on nothing. The Duke looks up to the sky and points.

GUMBY
(looking around laughing)
What?! More airplanes?!

A guard on the catwalk fires his rifle and the bullet tears
a tunnel through Gumby’s chest. He falls to one knee, then
the other. Then his mouth hangs open and most of his life
spills out and he collapses forward onto his stomach.

INSERT - BULLET SHELL

A hot metal shell casing falls through the air and lands on
a white man’s neck. He flinches as if stung by and insect
and struggles to get the burning thing off his neck.

BACK TO SCENE

The small black man from the rec. room, the one with the gun
who had argued with Bishop earlier, moves towards the white
man who is burning and retrieves the shell casing from his
shirt collar. He squints to read the numbers on the back
and nods when he sees he was right about the ammunition the
guards carried. Bishop is standing on the bench and looking
up at a guard who’s aiming his rifle straight at Bishop’s
face. Bishop’s hand is behind his back, as if he’s ready to
pull out a gun. They stare at each other for several
seconds. Bishop’s hand slowly returns to his side. On the
stage, Jones opens his eyes to see Gumby’s body shudder,
then lie completely still. Around the hole in Gumby’s back,
black and red lines from the tattoos have stained random
letters through his prison shirt.

EXT. PRISON HALLS - SAME DAY

Bishop is walking fast, approaching some guards at the
locked door of the infirmary. They don’t acknowledge him.
He finally turn to leave, then stops at a window and looks
through the bars at a plume of gray exhaust outside. A bus
is idling at the gates. An old black con pushing a broom
stops to lean on it and check out what Bishop is staring at.

OLD CON
What you looking at, son?
I’m supposed to be the one
with the white wash.

BISHOP
“White wash?”

OLD CON
You never read Tom Sawyer?

BISHOP
Yeah. No. Maybe it was Huck Finn.

OLD CON
Tom Sawyer is better than Huck Finn.
They only say “nigger” two-hundred
and fifty seven times instead of
four-hundred eighty two.

BISHOP
You counted?

OLD CON
Got little else to do. Except
white-wash the fence.

BISHOP
What do you mean?

OLD CON
I was just telling you. Tom
Sawyer? When he was white-washing
the fence? He acted like what he
was doing was so much fun that all
the boys stopped to do his work
for him.

BISHOP
How am I doing that?

OLD CON
(laughing)
That staring-out-the-window
bullshit. Why don’t you just
point at a spot on the ceiling
instead? Either way, I can’t
resist that shit. So what the
hell is out there, boy?

The old man leans forward and spots the bus at the gates.
He turns to look into Bishop’s tired eyes. He doesn’t like
what he sees there, so he turns back to the window.

OLD CON
Started shipping us out, eh?
You know, I remember when people
used to leave here on a regular
basis. Where you from boy? Never
seen you before. You from deep
segregation? I’m from Fourth Tier.
You must be Second or Third-

Bishop grabs his shoulder and spins him back around from the
window to face him.

BISHOP
What?

OLD CON
(removing Bishop’s
hand from his shoulder)
You know what they used to do
when the let you out? They used
to give you a fistful of dollars.
They used to give you “gate money”.
Fifty bucks cash. Fifty bucks to
start over. I used to think that
wasn’t much money, even back then.
Now it sounds like all the money
in the motherfucking world.

BISHOP
What did you mean when you said;
“When people used to leave here?”
Why does everyone in the place
resign themselves to this shit,
this fucking doomsday bullshit that-

OLD CON
(moving away from Bishop)
Whoa boy. I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I was just looking
at the same bird you were, just
looking out a window-

BISHOP
(putting his arm
out to grab him)
How long you been here? Wait! I’ve got
some questions. How long have those toy
planes been coming in over the walls?

OLD CON
For a long time. Back when they were
running on rubber bands instead of motors.
Hey, you ever hear of that scientist? He
did that experiment where the cat wasn’t there
until you looked at it? That was HERE. He did
time right here. Him and his cat. Ring any
bells? No? You skip that day in physics?
Sorry. Work to do. And you got reading to do.
Unless you want to be white-washing my
fence.

BISHOP
What? Hey, I just want to-

OLD CON
(over his shoulder, walking away)
Boy, now I know you read Tom Sawyer. And
I’ll bet you loved that part where the boys
run away and hide in the trees, didn’t ya?
So they can watch their families cry at their
funerals? Me, I’ll just white-wash the
fence
like they want me to.
(He stops and turns around
to rest on his broom again)
You sure got an imagination, son. Back when
I came in, they had a way of squeezing that
imagination right out of you. And they did
it with one question. When you went to court,
and you stood there in front of the judge
trying to come up with crazy stories and
excuses and alibis for your crime, they asked
you this one question. They would ask you
“True” or “Not True.” These days they just ask
“guilty” or “not guilty.” And there’s some
room
for creativity between those words. “True” or
“Not True?” Now, that’s a whole different story.
It’s just one or the other.

BISHOP
I don’t get it.

OLD CON
You will, boy. You know, I saw a man run
out the gate once. On his last day, when
he was gettin’ out legal. He got to that
gate, and he ran. And they just watched
him run, heads shakin’. It was beautiful.

The old man turns a corner and is gone. Bishop stares after
him a moment, then turn his attention back to the bus. He
waits and watches to see who’s being loaded onto it for
transfer. Suddenly a line of men stream out off the bus and
walk through the gates. Bishop is horrified at the sight of
more men coming in. He squints at one man in the line who
looks familiar. The man is looking down at the chains on
his ankles and Bishop can’t get a good look. Bishop pushes
his head against the bars and squints until the man looks up
and Bishop gets a good look into his face. It’s Jack Gray.
Coming in. Three more buses pull in behind the first one.
Bishop slowly backs away from the bars in horror, then turns
to walk fast down the hall. After a few steps, he’s
running.

EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY

Bishop is standing out in the middle of the yard. There is
no one left that he knows. Very few prisoners are left. He
stands in the middle of the runway that The Duke had made
with his boot. He is waiting for him. After a while, the
three walking guards head inside, and three different guards
come out to replace them. It’s The Duke, with Garrett and
Hanson on either side of him. Bishop’s fingers drum the
side of his leg as he gets ready to pull the .38 and take
his shot. That’s when Garrett holds out his arms and the
three men stop walking. He leans over and puts a hand on
The Duke’s shotgun.

GARRETT
Let me see that thing. I think a spider
just ran into the barrel. You don’t want
to kill a spider, Jim. That’s bad luck.

Garrett takes the shotgun out of his hands and before The
Duke can react, Garrett empties the weapon by pumping the
shotgun rapid fire until all the shells are skipping and
rolling across the sand. Then he hands it back and pulls
his .38 from his holster. He points it at The Duke’s head.

THE DUKE
(calmly)
What’s this, Tomcat? You gone native on me?

GARRETT
Just doing my job.

THE DUKE
You ain’t that deputy anymore.
You ain’t that man anymore. You
are inside with the rest of us now-

The Duke takes a sudden lunge with the empty shotgun and
Garrett is hit with a glancing blow above his ear. He
stumbles to the side and fires his .38. He misses. He
closes one eye and fires two more shots but his feet aren’t
steady in the sand and has to put a hand down for balance.
The bullets spark off the distant fence. Hanson runs up and
reaches for his own gun. Some of the remaining prisoners
move towards the action. Some run.

PRISONER’S VOICE (VO)
Fuck they doin’?!

SECOND PRISONER’S VOICE (VO)
(to the first prisoner)
Yo, dumbass!?! Where you going?
You gather around fist-fights,
not gun-fights...

HANSON
(pulling his weapon)
Drop it, Tom!

Garrett squeezes off another shot and blasts a bloody trench
through The Dukes arm. He falls to one knee and Garrett
steadies his hands enough to get one of the Duke’s dead blue
eyes in his sight. Then suddenly Garrett is staring at the
sky as Hanson’s bullet takes him off his feet. His gun
fires off into the clouds. The Duke walks up and stands
over him as his blood soaks into the sand around him.

THE DUKE
Why?

GARRETT
(spitting his last words
through blood-stained teeth)
Why?

THE DUKE
You been here too long. You’ve gone native.
Believing their stories. That’s all it is.
And you know what, Tom? I thought you’d
be a better shot than that. All six bullets,
point blank and you couldn’t hit shit? How
did you ever manage to shoot that kid anyway?
They issue you a bazooka back then, or what?

GARRETT
(whispering)
...five...

THE DUKE
(leaning down)
What?

GARRETT
I only fired five bullets. The
last bullet is still looking for
you. Go fishin’...

The Duke backs up confused and then turns to find himself
staring into the angry faces of a mob of prisoners. And
down the barrels of five or six handguns.

THE DUKE
What the fuck-

The Duke runs straight towards a con with a small black
pistol and smiles as the gun clicks and the prisoner
back-peddles. The click is barely audible, like a
rubberband snapping. The Duke is laughs and points as thick
blood runs down his arm.

THE DUKE
You crafty motherfuckers! You got
your kids to smuggle in some toys!?
Painted them black and silver? Look
at you faggots, tryin’ to point a toy
at me without shaking. Can’t do it,
huh? You think I’m going to be scared
of a buncha toy guns. But there’s a
metal one in there, ain’t there? That
don’t scare me neither. Just a fucking
shell game. I beat the shell game every
time. I can find that little ball under
the fastest hands in the west and you
really think I can’t find the man out
here with the real gun.

The Duke reaches out towards another weapon and a small
orange dart rebounds off the Duke’s palm. He wraps his hand
around the plastic gun and crushes it in his huge red hand.
He cracks the black prisoner across the face with his
shotgun. Then he steps over the man’s body and moves
towards another prisoner.

THE DUKE
(sighing impatiently)
Yeah, I know there’s one real
gun out there. And one real bullet.
But I don’t give a fuck. Just like
a nigger, brings a toy to a gun fight-

He turns and comes face to face with Bishop. The song
“Piggy” by Nine Inch Nails is playing from an unknown
source. Bishop is aiming the .38 at The Duke’s chest. The
Duke smiles and closes the distance between them in two huge
steps. The gun is against The Duke’s red razor-burned
throat. The song says, “Nothing can stop me know, ‘cause I
don’t care anymore...”

THE DUKE
Do it. If you got the-

Bishop pulls the trigger before he even finishes his
sentence. The gun clicks. The Duke flinches, then smiles.

THE DUKE
You did a hell of a job sneaking
all that shit in here. Putting it
together. But guns got a lot of
pieces and you didn’t get them all.
You’d have been better off with
one of those squirt-guns.

The Duke delivers a heavy blow to Bishop’s midsection with
the barrel of the shotgun and drops him to the sand. Then
he cracks Bishop across the back of his neck. He kneels
down into the sand with him and pulls Bishop’s hands behind
his back. He handcuffs him quickly and efficiently, then
stands up over him, blocking out the sun.

CLOSE UP - GARRETT’S GUN

A hand reaches down to pull Garrett’s .38 from his stiff
bloody hand.

BACK TO SCENE

The Duke starts bringing both boots down on Bishop’s face
like pistons, stomping the life out of him and into the
sand. Bishop tries to roll away and starts taking kicks to
the back of his head instead. One of The Duke’s feet
freezes above Bishop’s head, then slowly comes down to press
onto the back of his skull. The Duke steps forward, putting
his full weight onto his foot and driving Bishop’s face deep
into the sand.

THE DUKE
(muttering through his teeth)
Another dead man...like a dead bug
under my shoe...a rotten potato shoved
back in the ground where it came from...
a dead man that don’t even flinch...

Bishop strains to keep his head up and catches a glimpse of
a man walking towards them with a gun. It’s Jack Gray. The
gun fires and the crushing weight is off his head. Bishop
rolls over and sees The Duke in the sand next to him with a
round leaking hole in his forehead. Jack Gray sighs and
sits down cross-legged in the sand next to Bishop.

BISHOP
Thanks.

GRAY
(smiling)
No. Thank you.

There’s a buzzing noise in the distance and the men look up
to see a remote control plane coming in over the fence.

GRAY
Just like mosquitoes around here.

Gray stands up and walks towards the plane.

BISHOP
Is that your ride home?

GRAY
(laughing and turning back
around to smile at Bishop)
Stranger things have happened. Once,
I was walking through a park, and I
came across a boy playing with a dog.
The boy had a remote control of some
kind in his hand and I looked at the
street and the sky and could not see
any remote-control toy anywhere.
For a crazy second, I thought that
it was the dog that the boy was really
controlling. It really upset me for
some reason. I took the controls away
and grabbed the kid by the neck to ask
him what he was doing. Turned out, it
was just a radio in his hand.

The tiny plane skips across the sand past Gray and buzzes to
a stop, wings shaking in the hot desert wind. Gray looks up
towards the guard towers. There are men with rifles coming
down a ladder. More men in riot gear are bursting into the
yard behind them. Gray turns to walk towards the plane
again.

GRAY (cont’d)
It’s funny now, but I don’t know
what I was thinking at that moment
that upset me so much. I guess I
thought it was some kind of portable
electric leash or something. Hey,
you ever seen that “invisible fence”
bullshit? I think I thought that boy
had some kind of collar wired to
respond to his controls, and maybe he
was zapping the dog when he got too
far away. Like I said, it’s funny
now. I guess I shouldn’t have done
what I did to that boy. Or the dog.

Bishop is now sitting up on his elbows, blood dripping from
his nose. He stares as Gray picks up the plane and turns it
over. The men are closer now, the sounds of their clacking
plastic gear and their orders and threats fill the air.

GRAY (cont’d)
(eyes cloudy as he
looks to the horizon)
You know, when we were little, my
brother used to force me to wear
that invisible fence collar, then
he would drag me screaming across
the invisible line, right through
those invisible walls, until I got
that electric shock, right in the
throat. I remember that like it
was yesterday. If you want a little
childhood trauma to define me, little
something for my biography, something
to explain why I bust into prisons,
that would have to be it. Too many
invisible prisons when I was a boy...

BISHOP
Is it yours?

GRAY
(confused)
What? The plane? No. They’re the
one thing that I never understood.
The one thing I wasn’t controlling.

He opens the cockpit on the plane and pulls out a small
piece of paper. Gray reads it, then the plane’s propeller
buzzes and he drops it into the sand.

GRAY
Fucker tried to bite me.

BISHOP
What is it? What did it say?

GRAY
(crumpling the note and
dropping it into the wind)
Nothing at all. Don’t worry.
The planes meant nothing.
Hitchcock would have been proud.

The riot guards are getting close. Gray tosses the .38 back
in the sand next to Garrett’s body. Then he sits down
cross-legged next to Bishop again.

BISHOP
Where did you go, Jack? And
more important, how the hell
did you come back?

GRAY
I can come and go whenever I want.
I worked on the plumbing in this
place, I worked on the heating in
this place. I’ve worked on a lot
of these places. And there’s lots
of ways in. Not as many ways out,
but a lot of ways in. I told you,
back when we first met, that I was
the last thing that you should worry
about. That was the truth. I am
the last thing...

CUT TO:

FLASHBACK - EXT. PRISON GATES - DAY

The day Bishop, Jones, Sal and Gumby are coming off the bus.
They pass a man being dragged out and arrested at the gates.
The camera moves in for the first long look at his face.
It’s Jack Gray.

BACK TO SCENE

BISHOP
(in shock)
That was you? At the gates?
Coming out?


GRAY
Yeah. I actually got caught
coming in. Or was it out? I
can’t remember anymore. Guess
it had to happen at some point.
You’d be surprised how easy it
is though. Most prisons are only
made to keep you in, not out.

BISHOP
Why would you want to sneak
in here?

Gray just stares at him and Bishop’s expression slowly
changes to shock. The riot guards behind them are working
through the mob of prisoners, dealing with a couple who
refuse to lay down. They are about five cons away.

BISHOP
You’re the one who’s killing us.

GRAY
(holding up his
hand and laughing)
Hey, slow down there brother.
What the hell? Your toilet
tell you that shit? You know
what? That apple I was eating
that night? It was as green
as you were...

CUT TO:

FLASHBACK INT. PRISON - NIGHT

Bishop is sitting against the wall of his cell, staring at
his reflection on the side of his metal toilet and talking
to someone he can’t see. The camera moves through the bars
and swings around to face the next cell. Jack Gray is
revealed to be the UNKNOWN PRISONER. He is sitting on the
floor dressed as a guard. He has an apple in his mouth, and
is talking around it between bites in order to disguise his
voice.
They are having a conversation that we never heard.

UNKNOWN PRISONER
(muffled around a wet
mouthful of fruit)
You notice how no one ever asks what crime
you committed? Everyone thinks it’s rude
or an insult or something. Not true.
The fact is, no one in here even knows.
They remember that they killed a man, or
stole a car, or raped a girl, or burned
down a house. Or maybe they burned down a
man, or stole a house, or killed a car, or
raped a dog? They honestly don’t remember
what they did. The thing is, around here,
you forget your crime after a couple months.
This only happens in about three prisons on
Earth, and this is one of them. Something
in your head gets confused with the things
you wished you would have done, the things
you can’t believe you did, and the things
you swear never happened. What comes out
of you head after that is...nothing.

BISHOP
I remember what I did...

BACK TO SCENE

BISHOP
(bleary eyes full
of understanding)
You were in that cell. That
night. You told me to talk
into the toilets.

GRAY
You know what would be great?
If you got to testify about what
happened, and some old lady in a
courtroom had to type out those
words as you said them, “he told
me to talk into the toilets.”
That would be fucking great.
That would be worth everything.

BISHOP
Have you heard of a man in here
that did an experiment with a cat?

GRAY
(impatiently)
Not that shit again. Don’t worry
about that shit. He was nuts.

BISHOP
Was he really-

The guards are almost on top of them now.

GRAY (cont’d)
(looking at the guards
and talking faster)
Yes, I knew The Duke was listening
in. Depending on what he ate that
day. You set up one hell of a
distraction, though.

BISHOP
Distraction for what? So you could
kill prisoners?

GRAY
(pointing at The Duke’s dead
and twisted body collecting
sand around the bullet hole)
Not just prisoners. Think of me as the
hired “gun” you smuggled in from outside.
Think of me as a gun sneaked into a prison
that can fire. The first time I broke in,
I had a righteous cause. I was just a man
who came knocking on the brick house in
order to kill a man who killed someone I
loved. Or was it to kill someone I loved?
Or was it to kill someone who loved someone
I loved? I can’t remember. Point is,
I had a fucking righteous cause back then.
It’s harder to find one these day.

BISHOP
Why?

Riot guards are standing over them. They see that Bishop is
handcuffed and simply shove him over onto his stomach. Gray
flips over and pushes his own face into the sand before they
even touch him. The riot guards step over them in waves and
they carefully turn their heads to look at each other.

GRAY
(whispering to Bishop)
Why what? We ain’t got that kind
of time. Let’s just say, I’ve been
following that monster for a while.

BISHOP
(exhausted)
Are you going to run?

GRAY
(blowing the sand and dust
away from around his mouth)
I got a real number now. I ain’t
going anywhere for awhile. Not
‘till this madness dies back down.
What cracks me up is the fact that
I got arrested breaking in the last
time. So I plead guilty-

BISHOP
Not true.

GRAY
What?

BISHOP
That’s what they used to say in court.
That’s what they should have asked
you instead. It’s not that I don’t
believe you, Gray. I just think that
your story exists somewhere between
“true” and “not true”.

GRAY
Anyway, so then I get processed
like potted meat and shipped right
back here. What kind of punishment
is that? That’s like getting expelled
from school for skipping class.
Guess I learned my lesson! Seriously
though, why do you think they sent me
back here? You think The Duke was on
to me? After all these years?

Gray rolls over to spit some sand at The Duke’s dead eyes.
A guard steps over him and he quickly buries his face again.

GRAY
(whispering again)
Maybe he lied about the place
being closed down. Maybe he was
just trying to smoke me out of my
hole. Or maybe it’s just like you
suspected, maybe there’s something
to your “locked-room mystery,”
black hole, sci-fi bullshit after
all? So, you still think this place
“eats niggers like popcorn?”

BISHOP
I never said that. And those were
your theories, not mine.

GRAY
Whatever. Maybe I threw that shit
against these brick walls, I just
never thought it would stick. You
know what I feel like? Right now?
Not to get all post-modern on yo’
ass or anything, but I’m not just
doing the villain’s speech at the
end of this thing. See, I’m doing
the villain doing the villain doing
the villain’s speech at the end of
the movie. That’s some funny shit!
Look at you, Bishop. You believed
all that nonsense I said? That’s
quite an imagination you got. Too
bad you couldn’t use your powers for
good. Hey! You remember your friend,
Sal? And his fucked-up nursery rhymes?
What kind of dad tells his kids stories
like that? Those kids will be in here
in five years, telling fucked-up nursery
rhymes to their fifty kids. See, I’m
just trying to curb the herd. A fox in
the hen house, or a wolf in the brick
house. The Duke over there, well, he
made a good decoy. A good little duck
to float across his industrial fishing
holes. He got the real ducks to show
up. And bring the fish in with them.
He was perfect, until I followed him
here and things got even weirder...

BISHOP
(mumbling into the sand)
A killer who killed the killer
who killed the killer who...

GRAY
(laughing)
Swallowed a fly! Perhaps he’ll die!
Listen to you! Now you’re doing it!
You could write fables too. That
nursery rhyme shit must be infectious
in here or something.

BISHOP
(looking up, eyes distant
something is on his mind)
I found a book in the library. Have
you ever heard of man named “Schroder?”
Did quantum physics experiments involving
a cat? Something about time travel?

Gray stops laughing and stares into Bishop’s eyes.

GRAY
What?! Oh him again? You heard about
that too, eh? That was a long time ago.
The man’s name was Erwin Schrodinger.
With two of those little Motley Crue
dots over the “O.” Some men claim he
did time here but I don’t see how that’s
possible since-

BISHOP
Yeah. That was it. The experiment was
called “Schrodinger’s Cat” and he talked
about how, when you looked into this box
an atom or electron or something was in
there. Only it wasn’t there, not until you
looked at it. So it was both “there and
not there” at the same time. Since it was
too hard to get your brain around that idea,
he suggested putting a cat in the box, and
opening the box would kill it, so the cat
was both alive and dead at the same time or...
it still doesn’t make any sense to me.

GRAY
It doesn’t make any sense because you
got some things mixed up. First of all,
it was Schrodinger’s rat. Not cat. You
could never keep a cat hidden in this
place. And second, it was just the opposite.

BISHOP
What do you mean?

GRAY
(sighing loud enough to
dust his own face with sand)
The rat didn’t appear there when you
opened the box. It vanished. Only it
was gone as soon as the box was shut.
Just like these men. They’re gone
as soon as the cell door slides
shut. And the experiment only works
in prison. Just another story to freak
people out. I hear some men talk about
a guy doing experiments on dead rats all
the time. Only they’re fucking the rib cage
instead. Maybe that could bring one back
to life...

More guards walk over them and one steps on Gray’s head to
shut him up. Bishop’s eyes are pinched shut.

GRAY
Actually, I made all that shit up.
He was never here. Erwin was arrested
once though. For burglary. And he
successfully defended himself in court
by proving that the money was never in
that safe...until he actually cracked
it open.

BISHOP
(frowning)
I don’t get it.

GRAY
(eyes darting around after
the boot lets his head up)
Time’s up! Let’s go! If you were planning
on some dramatic ending here, you wasted
your chance asking all those questions.

BISHOP
(mumbling)
Three little kittens that lost
their mittens...

Bishop slips his blood-soaked four-fingered hand easily from
The Duke’s handcuff and quickly pushes himself up from the
sand. He continues to recite the nursery rhyme as he stands
up. A guard is yelling at him.

RIOT GUARD
Get the fuck DOWN! Faceplant
motherfucker! Hands over your head!

Bishop starts talking louder as he calmly steps through the
minefield of prisoners on the ground.

BISHOP
They smelled a rat close by...

RIOT GUARD #2
Do it! Down on the ground!
Three seconds!

Bishop walks to one of the convicts that The Duke kicked
into oblivion and pulls the silver toy squirt-gun from his
hand. He turns, takes aim at Gray with his trembling
thumbless hand and fires it at his head. Gray flinches
before he can stop himself and rolls out of the way. He
sits up and checks his ear to see if it’s wet. He holds his
hand up to his face then turns towards Bishop to shakes his
head at him in disgust.

GRAY
(voice shaking)
Not even close.

Bishop holds the toy gun high. He steps towards Gray and
Gray blinks and takes a step back. Gray can’t hold Bishop’s
stare. Bishop’s eyes are on fire.

BISHOP
Close enough. See how my hand
shakes? That’s anger, not fear.
It’s loose...

Bishop turns to face guards and aims the toy at his own
head. A guard in riot gear sees the silver flash in
Bishop’s hand and blows a bloody basketball-sized hole
through his chest. Bishop goes down hard. He stares at the
water dripping from the end of the squirtgun. He stares
into the tiny ball of water growing on top of the sand. The
sunlight jumps around inside of it like something alive.
Then the bubble bursts and the desert soaks it up.

FADE OUT

INT. PRISON HOSPITAL - NIGHT

Bill Bishop is lying on a bed, his eyes open. A sliver of
moon manages to shine through the bars on the window. A man
sneaks in and pulls Bishop’s arm out from under his body.
Then a small flashlight clicks on in the darkness and the
face of the man carrying it is revealed. It’s INK, back to
finish his job. He licks the corner of his gray shirt and
wipes away the dry, black blood from Bishop’s mutilated
tattoo. Then he takes a pen and needle from his shirt
pocket. He fixes the letters and finishes the message,
changing the word “forget” (the “E” and the “T” that Bishop
had scratched into his skin with his fingernails) back to an
“I,” “V” and an “E.” Ink stabs the last dot of color into
Bishop’s cold arm, then leans back to mouth the words to
himself. Under Ink’s shaky flashlight beam, Bishop’s first
tattoo is revealed in its entirety, the words finally
completed.

CLOSE UP - THE TATTOO

It reads, “JENNY FORGIVE ME.” in a twitching circle of
light. Then the flashlight beam is gone. The only light
that is left in the room are the faint reflections of
moonlight flickering in Bill Bishop’s dead eyes.

CUT TO:

INT. PRISON WAITING ROOM - DAY

The visiting room of another prison. Very clinical looking
walls, pastel colors, harsh lighting and soothing music
being piped through speakers buried in the white ceiling.
We see a black man in the corner meeting with his family.
He has a child on his knee and we can hear Sal’s distinct
voice telling another bizarre fairy tale, even though he is
nowhere to be seen. As usual, Sal’s voice makes the
children’s’ story end the way he thinks it should.

SAL (VO)
(tired)
The wolf eats Little Red Riding
Hood and shits her out the next
day. She’s fine though. Don’t
worry. That’s the crazy thing
about the wolf. It eats you, and
even after you spend a year in its
stomach, you come out the other end,
wipe the shit out of your eyes and
walk away. That’s what Little Red
Riding Hood did. She did her time
and, one day, she walked away...

A girl walks through the doorway. It’s Bishop’s daughter,
JENNY, finally showing up. She’s young but looks tired
beyond her years. It’s Jones she has come to see. She
finds him alone at a table and sits down across from him.
They stare at each other for a long time. Then she makes a
point of slowly checking her watch with a sigh. Jones blows
a laugh through his nose. Eventually, Jones decides a
graphic description of prison procedures might force her to
speak.

JONES
So this is the first visitor I ever
had. Normally I can’t tolerate the
search. Standing in line with fifty
naked pricks. But this time something
different happened. Pig was going
through the list; hands over your
head, spread your fingers and wiggle
them, open your mouth, stick out your
tongue, lift up your balls, I mean,
your testicles, turn around, bend at
the waist, cough so your ass flexes,
lift your left foot, now lift your
right foot. Same old shit, but it
was strange this time through. Except
for the “spread your ass” bullshit, it
made me feel like I was alive. It was
like that pig was listing all the parts
of my body to prove I was a human being.
Like I was just born and the doctor was
making sure I had all my fingers and
toes. I don’t know. It just made me
feel strong.

Some more time passes and they sit and steal glances over
the awkward silence. Jenny looks around the room, then
absently starts to scratch her arm. Jones finds a spot on
the table to pick at with his fingernail. Eventually, Jones
looses his patience and tries again.

JONES
You know, I heard of some dudes
coming home after a long sentence
and complaining that they have to
shit at the same time every day.
‘Cause of their daily prison routine.
One white man in here actually did
the math and figured out that it takes
only ten months, two weeks and four
days inside to affect your bowel
movements for the rest of your life.
Now, that used to scare the shit out
of me. Until I met your dad. Now I
worry that, if I ever did get out,
not only will I be having to take a
crap at the exact same time every
goddamn day, I’ll get urge to dunk
my head into the toilet and start
talking to it...

Jenny rolls her eyes and sniffs in irritation. Jones tries
to engage her one last time:

JONES
So this guard is three knuckles-deep
in my sphinct-

JENNY
(holding up a hand to
interrupt his second story)
Okay, I get the point. Listen, I
don’t know why I came to see you.
I never came to see him-

Jenny stops, not wanting to talk. She looks into Jones’
eyes and sees that he is honestly waiting to listen. She
continues.

JENNY
You know, my dad once said he
never did anything he could be
proud of. One time...

Jones leans back and gets comfortable, satisfied that she is
finally speaking to him.

JENNY (cont’d)
(wringing her hands)
...he told me about how there was this
flag flapping on the side of a car in
front of him while he was driving down
the road. He said it was an American
flag and that all the sudden it came loose
and, since he had his arm hanging out the
window at the time, he somehow reached out
and caught it. Doing sixty. And no one
was in the car with him, so he knew no one
would ever believe that it even happened.
He tried to follow the car that the flag
came off of, he told me that he told
himself that he wanted to give it back,
but he really just wanted to prove to
someone what he’d done. He caught up
with that car, and that just freaked them
out and they tore off down the next exit
in order to get away from him. He said
he threw it out the window, because no one
would have believed him anyway. But then,
days after he told that story, he confessed
that it wasn’t really an American flag that
flew off that car. He said it was just the
flag for some football team. And after he
confessed, I started to wonder if he’d
really
caught any flag at all. Later, I asked him
one question. Something like, “did it hurt
your hand when you caught it?” ‘Cause I’d
think that a flag coming at your hand that
fast could cut your fingers off. And he
just got all depressed. He could see that
I didn’t believe him. He said, “the only
thing worse than catching a goddamn flag
off a car once, and that possibly being
the greatest moment of my life, is the
fact that you think I lied about it”.

JONES
(raising an eyebrow)
So you thought he cried wolf with
the letter too? He didn’t. I was
there. He didn’t cry wolf, we killed
the fucking wolf. And everything
he told you in the letter was true.
It all happened. I think.

Jenny gets up to leave, then hesitates after a couple steps.
She turns back to glare at him but she can’t hold his stare.

JENNY
(looking down)
You’re right, I didn’t believe the
letter. Letters from prisoners all
always full of conspiracies, full of
master plans.

JONES
How the hell would you know? You
never been inside anything like this.

JENNY
Right after it happened, I would sit
behind the post office, sifting through
the dead letter piles. I told my friends
I was looking for money, pictures or
whatever. But I wasn’t. I was reading
letters from prisoners. One of the mailmen
told me that unopened prison mail is like
seventy percent of the letters that never
get delivered. I’d ride my bike behind
their recycle bin, pull them out of the
trash and I’d read all the letters that
had the worst handwriting. Like a child’s
handwriting, only meaner. And you know
what? I knew they were all lying. I knew
they were all guilty.

JONES
Your dad never said he wasn’t guilty.

JENNY
He didn’t say it wasn’t “true”.

JONES
Huh?

JENNY
(impatiently)
Something he wrote in the letter.
Something about how they should have
asked him “true” or “not true” instead
of “guilty” or “not guilty”. He said
they used to do that in court, a long
time ago. He was wrong though. I
looked it up. They still do it. That’s
the question that they ask children when
they commit a crime. The judge asks a
child that question, “True or not true?”
By using those two words, it keeps a
child’s mind from wandering. It keeps
the child from making up nonsense to
explain why he did what he did. Maybe
he was trying to tell me that it never-

JONES
(interrupting her)
No, maybe he just heard that story from
a man who came to prison as a child.
Those lifers are everywhere. Like I
said, your dad never-

JENNY
(interrupting him)
He never said a lot of things.
Instead, he just sends me a goddamn
map and a story about black holes and
Bramuda Triangles in the desert.
What kind of goodbye was that?


JONES
The only goodbye he had time for.
You don’t have to believe all of it,
Jenny. Just believe some of it. Like,
say, thirty percent.

JENNY
(after looking at her
shoes for a moment)
How long have you got left?

Jones gives her a hard look.

JENNY
No, I mean, how long have you got left
in here?

JONES
(sitting back and
crossing his arms
with a long sigh)
My sentence has been extended. After
Eeloy got closed down and torn down,
they chopped up the population and
shipped them off to prisons all over
the country. Some got out early, and
some got buried even deeper than before.
I got sent here, and I got buried deeper.

Jones glances around the room for a second and motions for
her to come closer. She remains standing where she is.

JONES
(shrugs)
Me and my boys, we got ways to play
with the clock. I can change the
sentence they gave me.

JENNY
(leaning on the wall)
“Play with the clock?”

JONES
(big smile)
Something your dad taught me, actually.
Back when we first got here and they
put us in solitary for the first couple
days. It fucks with your head, and it
fucks with the clock. It’s even worse
when they weld you in and ‘take away the
door.’ I got dropped in the hole the
third month I was here and it put the
zap on my brain. The hole squeezes your
head like a concussion. Like getting
tackled on frozen ground, you think
you’ve been out for a day and it’s been
only five minutes. Well, I got sick of
them fucking with space and time so I got
five or six dudes to do it for me. You
heard of Hawkings? That nigger in the
wheelchair? With the robot voice? Talking
about black holes and time warps? Well,
he was talking about prison. How the hell
you think he ended up in that wheelchair?
And you wanna know a secret? We read those
books up and down. And we can do that time
travel shit right here.
(whispering)
See, I got these five or six dudes that
surround me when I get out of the hole
and hit the yard, and their job is to
keep everyone away from me that’s got a
watch or a newspaper or a TV or a needs
a haircut since I saw them last. My boys,
they take those watches and change the time
on them, they bust those TVs, they get out
a magic marker and change the dates on those
newspapers and, if some ratty mother has
been letting himself go, they cut his hair
so he looks just like I remembered him
before I went under. They do all that and,
by the time my eyes adjust to the sunshine...
POW! I’ve only been gone two days instead
of six months. Or, you can go the other
way, and my boys will shave everyone’s’
heads and, in my mind, I’ll have been gone
six years. Depends on the mood I’m in, see
what I’m sayin’?

JENNY
No.

JONES
(looking around
impatiently)
Forget it, you wouldn’t understand.
Let’s just say, you’re dad taught
me something about imagination.
To answer both your questions, I don’t
know how long I got, and I don’t know
how long I got left. I don’t want to
know. Our conversation just now?
That took seventeen days off my sentence
because I never once looked at the clock.
Or maybe ten seconds. It’s up to me.
That’s the only way I can serve the
two hundred thirty plus life that
they gave me.

JENNY
(shaking her head and
checking her watch again)
Whatever works for you. I guess I
still don’t get it.

JONES
(bigger smile)
Me neither. And that help too!
And sometimes my boys fuck up the
time travel. Once I was really down,
and I used to waste my phone calls on
the time and temperature line in other
towns, to see what it was like outside
back home. And one of my boys tried
to fake the voice to make me think a
week had passed since lunch. I pick
up the phone and hear, “it be June 18th,
seven o’clock, seventy eight degrees
and uhh sunny, motherfucker.” Kinda
ruined the illusion.

Jenny smiles a little in spite of her anger and turns to
leave again. Jones calls out one more question before she
gets to the door.

JONES
Hey! Did you know a kid? Name of
Stevie Clines?

Jenny is irritated since he won’t let her leave. She rolls
her eyes, then seems to remember the name.

JENNY
Who? No. Wait. Yeah, that little
freak show that lived down the street
at our first house. Never really
talked to him. We were little but dad
never let him play with us ‘cause-

She stops and bites her lip. Jones tilts his head.

JONES
‘Cause?

JENNY
‘Cause he was black.

JONES
What?! Wait, then we’re talking about
two different freaks. This kid was white
as snow. Hold on, your dad said what?

JENNY
(thinking hard)
Or maybe just his dad was black. Or his mom.
They didn’t like us. Yeah, maybe that’s why-

JONES
(mumbling, deep in thought)
Impossible. Unless he got whiter as
he got older. That can happen. Hair
gets straighter, eyes get cloudy.


JENNY
What? Listen, thanks. I gotta go.

JONES
(snapping out of it)
Hey! You listen. Everything in that
letter is true. Everything that matters.
Your dad saved some lives. Even if they
were dead men like me, that’s still got
to mean something. And you know, even if
he only caught that one flag, that shit’s
impressive as hell. Hey, Jenny, wait.
Seriously, I’m glad you finally went to
see him. Even if-

JENNY
(impatiently)
Yeah, I saw him before they closed
the lid. I saw what he did to himself.

Her hand moves down to grip her other wrist as she talks.
She scratches her arm again as she leaves. Her shirt sleeve
rolls back enough for Jones to catch a glimpse of something
dark on her skin. His mouth moves as he starts counting to
himself.

JONES
(sighing in relief)
...eight, nine, ten. Good. For a
second there I thought she cut her
thumb off, too.

He walks over to the guard standing at the door. He taps
him on the shoulder and leans in close like he’s telling a
secret.

JONES
(smiling)
Wanna hear a joke? A white man, a
black man and a Mexican walk into a
prison...and the black man walks out.
Now that shit is funny.

CUT TO:

EXT. PRISON GATES - DAY

Jenny’s hands are bundled into fists as she stands outside
the gates. She rolls her sleeve up all the way and traces
an outline of her father’s name on her arm with her
fingernail. She traces the name hard. Not hard enough to
scratch herself and draw blood. Not yet anyway. She looks
at her watch, then turns it around so she can’t see the
time. She starts scratching again, her hands speeding up
and the scratching getting faster and faster. People speed
up around here, turning into blurs of motion while she
remains still. The sun crashes down into the mountains
behind her.

CUT TO:

EXT. ROOFTOP - DAY

Time lapse image of hands building a model airplane. The
hands slow down until a gang tattoo is visible on the skin
between the thumb and first finger of the largest hand.
The camera pulls back to show a teenage boy and his father.
It’s Salvador Ramirez and his oldest son. He must be the
son that never came to Eeloy Prison to see his dad. Still,
it is obvious that it is Sal’s son. Sal reaches down to a
radio at his son’s feet with a cassette tape in his hand.
He slams it into place and stabs the “play” button. The
song “Prison Bound” by Social Distortion starts blasting at
maximum volume.

BOY
That’s one thing prison did to you.
Gave you shitty taste in music.

SAL
(spinning the prop on
the toy with his finger)
No. It did something else.
Hey, you want to hear a story?

BOY
(blowing on the ends
of some batteries, then
sticking them in a remote)
No more fairy tales, please.

SAL
(hands out, smiling)
True story, I swear. Once upon a time...

His story fades as the two of them finish the plane
together. The man takes a square paper from his pocket and
unfolds it in the sun. The boy takes it and holds it tight
in his hands against the wind. It’s a map, rattling in the
boys grip as he struggles to keep it still. Something is
written on the map, on a brown desert square in the center.
It’s a name and address, in red jagged script like a child’s
Valentine, scrawled under a huge red “X”:

CLOSE UP - THE MAP

“THOMAS JEFFERSON JONES
DEATH ROW
SWEETWATER PRISON, ARIZONA”

SAL
Think it’ll work?

BOY
Just like you said, “Throw enough
shit at the wall and some of it will
stick. Throw enough shit at a fence
and some of it will go through-”

SAL
(interrupting)
Just like my coach used to say,
“throw enough balls at the hoop
and good things will happen.”

BOY
(lowering the map)
What?

SAL
Did you know that the Aztecs used
to play basketball? Right here in
this desert?
(flicking the map
with his finger)
Maybe right on that very spot.
‘Course, they used to play basketball
with six balls. Actually, I think it
was more like six heads-

BOY
(interrupting him back)
Bullshit. That’s impossible.
Imagine the mess, trying to dunk
two bloody heads at once. Impossible.

Sal makes a playful grab for the map and his son hides it
behind his back. The wind suddenly pulls it open and it
shakes and spreads out behind his body like new wings.

SAL
(shaking his head
and laughing loud)
You kids got your history all fucked up.
You want to know why they never dunked
those heads? ‘Cause they didn’t have
the shoes! Nothing? Okay. Speaking
of history, what about your planes.
How many did you put together? I mean,
the men said they were buzzing in once
a week. Before I even got there. How
the hell did you-

BOY
(confused)
What? I sent one plane. One time.

SAL
(more confused)
The cons swore that...

BOY
One plane. Just once. I swear.

SAL
(shaking his head hard)
There’s men in that prison that swear toy
planes had been flying in over the fence since-

BOY
(cutting his father off
and shaking his head too)
I don’t know what’s worse. Your
version of history, or your version
of those fables you told us every night.

SAL
(throwing his head back)
You didn’t believe those! C’mon,
I swear that shit is true-

Sal stops to look down and wrestle his shoe loose from the
hot tar of the roof. His son starts to fold the map back
up.

SAL
(staring off into the sky)
Think we can get him out? Jones?
Think we can stir enough shit up?

BOY
You know, I swore I’d fly you out.
And you didn’t believe me.

After studying the horizon and the wind on their thumbs,
they release the plane and watch it fly off into the sky. A
bird approaches it, then backs off. The toy finally
disappears in the distance.

FADE TO BLACK

FINAL QUOTE

SUPER: “I used to have a large, nude
pin-up on my cell wall. It was
there, across from the bed, doing
time just as I was, until I woke
up from a wet dream and, in the
half light, thought a naked woman
was in the cell with me. When
fantasies become that real, it’s
time to give them up. The next
time I pin up a photograph, it
will be of something I can use.
Like a helicopter.”
-Jerome Washington,
Ironhouse

END CREDITS

::: david - 10:14 AM [+] :::
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