SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Written by
John Guare
April 1992
1
INT KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT LIVING ROOM DAWN
JOHN FLANDERS KITTREDGE and LOUISA KITTREDGE ("FLAN" and
"OUISA") , an attractive couple in their 40s, in their night
clothes are in an uncharacteristic state of shock.
Some sort of horrible disaster has happened to them.
THEY survey their living room which under normal
circumstances would appear to be a serene haven.
But why are they-so aghast? And terrified?
Has the apartment been violated?
The Fifth Avenue apartment, red and cozy, threadbare with
the legacy of years of kids and dogs running in and out, is
filled with beautiful objects chosen with care. Even though
the apartment is 19th Century in feel, a lot of modern
paintings hang on the walls.
No. No visible disaster here.
But then why FLAN and OUISA's emotional state? THEY run
between the hall and the living room.
OUISA
Is anything gone?
OUISA opens the front closet with trepidation. But nothing
leaps out. SHE sees a mink is still there..
FLAW
How can I look? I'm shaking.
OUISA
My god! The Kandinsky!
0UISA runs into the living room. SHE can see by the
discoloration on that wall that a painting is missing.
OUISA Y
It's gone! Call the police!
FLAN
There it is!
An early abstract painting by Kandinsky leans against a
Philadelphia Chippendale chair: the painting is wild and
brilliantly colored.
0UISA
Thank god!
SHE picks the painting up and flips it around. It's a double
sided painting. The artist, Kandinsky, had painted in
different styles on either side of the canvas.
2
One side of the painting is geometric and somber; the other
side is all chaos and brilliant colors.
OUISA replaces the framed canvas on the wall where it
belongs, but the side she chooses to display is the
geometric side. SHE admires it.
FLAN opens the door from the hall into
THE OFFICE.
A computer. Calendars. File cabinets. Bulletin boards with
prints of paintings tacked on. FLAN checks - the slide
projector is there. FLAN opens and closes cabinet drawers.
OUISA appears in the doorway of the office.
OUISA
We could've been killed.
FLAN
Don't say that. The silver Victorian inkwell!
FLAN runs past OUISA down the hall back to the living room.
OUISA follows HIM back into
THE LIVING ROOM.
FLAN looks on an antique table crowded with framed family
photographs going way back in time and all kinds of
mementoes.
OUISA
How can you think of things? We could have been
murdered.
FLAN
I want to know if anything's gone?
HE picks up an ornate Victorian inkwell capped by a silver
beaver and looks at it with great objectivity..
FLAN
There's the inkwell. Silver beaver. Why?
OUISA, drained, looks out the window down onto Central Park.
OUISA
Slashed ---our throats slashed.
Go to bed at night happy and then murdered.
Would we have-woken up?
OUISA screams.
3
But it's their pug dog licking her leg.
OUISA picks up the dog and pets it.
FLAN remembers something and buries his face in his hands.
FLAN
We have to go to the wedding.
OUISA
I am in no mood to go to any wedding.
FLAN
We have to
OUISA
They're your friends
FLAN
I beg to differ. They're Your fr -
FLAN stops, frightened suddenly, listening.
FLAN
Hello?
OUISA runs to HIM, terrified. HE holds HER.
OUISA (WHISPERS)
You don't call out Hello unless--
THEY walk softly to the dark hall.
FLAN
I think we could tell if someone else was here.
OUISA
We didn't all night.
THEY look down the silent dark hall.
INT THE WHITE WALL SOMEWHERE ELSE
We don't know where we are yet but it's certainly not the
KITTREDGE'S. The rain drumming outside and the distant
thunder and the soft cool jazz playing makes the air of this
room with the white wall, wherever it is, claustrophobic,
even erotic.
A YOUNG BLACK MAN whose name is PAUL comes into frame and
leans against this white wall. Right off, you say this
YOUNG MAN is a winner.
PAUL frowns, then smiles. Right into the camera.
PAUL
(SERIOUS)
Hello.
(FLIRTATIOUS)
Hello.
(QUESTIONING)
Hello?
(SUSPICIOUS)
Hello...
(ELATED)
Hello!
Yes.
Hello.
SOMEONE OFF SCREEN claps.
PAUL bows to the OFF SCREEN PRESENCE.
EXT KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT BUILDING 910 FIFTH AVENUE DAY
OUISA and FLAN run out of their apartment building, their
clothes hastily pulled on, their faces swollen with shock.
THEY run down the side street into
THE GARAGE.
Their car is waiting - a Mercedes - FLAN slips the
attendant a bill. FLAN gets in the driver's seat.
OUISA gets in the passenger seat.
FLAN (a statement of fact)
I'm shaking.
OUISA
Then I'll drive.
FLAN
I have to hang on.
5
T
OUISA
Let's just get there
INT THE WHITE WALL
The Sound of the rain, the jazz, the thunder.
PAUL
Bottle of beer.
Bottle of beer.
Bottle of beer.
AN UNSEEN YOUNG MAN OFF CAMERA speaks - elegant phrasing.
VOICE
Bottle of beer.
PAUL
Bottle- of beer.
VOICE
Very good. You owe me.
PAUL takes off his shirt. HE's strongly built. HE throws
the shirt directly into the camera.
EXT HENRY HUDSON PARKWAY DAY
FLAN is driving terrifically fast. OUISA puts on a tape.
MARIA CALLAS sings the death scene from La Traviata.
OUISA
Be care - !
A CAR veers by. FLAN swerves his car.
OUISA
Let me drive!
FLAN (FURIOUS)
Driving calms me!
OUISA
When you're in one of these moods you do not
drive well and I do not want to be killed today.
FLAN
We could have been killed last night.
OUISA
Stop saying that!
6
!
FLAN pulls himself together. HE moves over to the Slow lane.
FLAN
I'm driving slowly. See. Slowly.
OUISA
I went in the room first.
FLAN looks for signs.
FLAN
Where's the goddam turnoff onto the Taconic?
A truck veers and almost hits them.
OUISA
You didn't see what I saw!
FLAN puts on brakes.
FLAN
It's that fucking Maria Callas!
Turn that damn thing off!
FLAN snaps off the tape deck.
THEY resume driving.
OUISA
It's not Maria Callas. It's that truck and you.
FLAN
And last night.
THE COUNTRYSIDE speeds by.
EXT ST PETER'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH LITHGOW, NEW YORK DAY
LOTS OF CARS parked in front of this sweet rural wooden
chapel near Millbrook, New York.
THE BRIDE, 20s, gets out of a limo escorted by her FATHER.
OUISA and FLAN run up to the BRIDE and kiss her.
OUISA
Happy is the bride the sun shines on
BRIDE (ALARMED)
You look horrible!
OUISA (BRIGHT)
No no! Could've been killed. All fine!
7
FATHER
What?
FLAN
Wonderful wedding. Wonderful day.
THEY run into
THE CHAPEL.
This.perfect country chapel with a dozen or so rows of pews
is bedecked with flowers and lit by candles.
A STRING QUARTET at the side of the little altar plays
Dvorak's American Quartet.
THE USHER in morning clothes, greets FLAN and OUISA and
shows them to their pew.
USHER
Bride's side? Groom's side.
FLAN
Either side. I can't even remember
how we met them. Why are we here?
THEY walk down the aisle, heads down.
OUISA
Do not make a scene.
THEY kneel.
FLAN (WHISPER)
Now I lay me down to sleep - the most
terrifying words just think of it -
OUISA(WHISPER)
I pray the Lord my soul to keep-
FLAN (WHISPER)
The nightmare part - If I should
die before I wake -
OUISA(WHISPER)
If I should die - I pray the Lord
my soul to take -
COUPLE IN THE PEW IN FRONT turn. A
MAN, A WOMAN, strangely not unlike FLAN and OUISA, perhaps A
few years older, perhaps more nautical as if they'd flown a
in from Nantucket, are named SANDY and CONNIE.
SANDY
Is anything wrong?
OUISA
We were almost murdered
FLAN
THROATS SLASHED
THE PEOPLE in the pew in front gasp.
FLAN and OUISA are serious.
THE QUARTET plays The Wedding March.
EVERYONE stands.
THE BRIDE and her FATHER walk down the aisle.
CU OUISA'S FACE lost in thought.
Bright vivid colors fill the screen. Later we will learn
they are from a double-sided painting by Kandinsky, which
HANGS IN
THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM.
OUISA (VO)
Chaos.
OUISA'S face appears briefly, smiling, then is replaced by
dark, geometric patterns. The other side of the painting.
It is lowered to reveal OUISA very serious.
OUISA (VO)
Control.
(The painting is flipped.)
Chaos.
(OUISA smiles. Flips it again. Frowns.)
Control.
BACK IN THE CHAPEL
OUISA, still frowning at her memory, realizes the wedding
ceremony is over.
THE BRIDE and the GROOM run up the aisle beaming at EVERYONE
to the strains of Lohengrin.
But even THEY slow down when THEY see the state FLAN and
OUISA are in.
GROOM
Is everything all
FLAN snaps out of it, putting on his party smile.
9
FLAN
We always get this way at weddings.
THE BRIDE and GROOM resume their run up the aisle.
It's FLAN and OUISA's turn to leave the pew and go up the
aisle. SHE is stricken.
OUISA
I do not always get this way at weddings.
FLAN
We're alive.
THEY walk up the aisle into the foyer of the chapel.
SHE puts her head into his shoulder.
OUISA
Oh, it was awful awful awful awful.
Then OUISA and FLAN put on their best smiles as THEY pass
through a receiving line, finally shaking hands with the
WEDDING COUPLE.
BRIDE
Did you say you could have been killed?
OUISA (MERRY)
Yes! Only hours ago!
FLAN (MERRY)
But we're here!
OUISA
Wouldn't miss it!
THE BRIDE and GROOM look after THEM.
EXT THE MILLBROOK GOLF AND TENNIS CLUB DAY
A spankingly bright and solid country club in Millbrook New
York situated on the golf course grounds surrounded by lots
of tennis courts.
INT MILLBROOK CLUB DAY
THE WEDDING GUESTS file into the cheery club, all bright
white and a shade of cheery green that only country clubs
seem to find.
MORE GUESTS than could f it into the CHAPEL are here in the
club waiting for the Bride and Groom.
FLAN and OUISA hesitate before going into the ballroom.
10
THEY stop in the small quiet dark clubby BAR.
THEY sit at a small table, pulling themselves together.
SANDY and CONNIE (the people from the pew in front of them)
come up to THEM. A WOMAN who looks like a dormouse is with
them. SHE is named JULIA.
SANDY
We hate to pry -
FLAN
No no. You're not prying
CONNIE
But what happened -
SANDY
This is our friend Julia
FLAN
Do we know each other?
JULIA
Oh yes through...
9 FLAN
Of course. Haven't seen them in years
FLAN shakes hands with the new acquaintance.
CONNIE
We're worried for you
FLAN and OUISA look at each other.
OUISA
Tell them!
SANDY and CONNIE and JULIA sit down at the small table.
FLAN
We were having a wonderful evening last night.
OUISA
A friend we hadn't seen for many years came by
for dinner. I don't think you know him -
FLAN (PORTENTOUSLY)
Geoffrey Miller. From South Africa--
OUISA
Don't say it so portentously.
11
FLAN (BRIGHT)
Geoffrey from South Africa.
OUISA
Don't be ga-ga.
(THEY give their orders to THE BARTENDER.)
Something large.
SANDY
I didn't know Geoffrey was in town.
JULIA
I saw him at Susie Baxter's
SANDY
I wasn't at Susie Baxter's
CONNIE
Sandy forgets he was married to Susie Baxter.
THE WAITER goes.
SAVOY
That's no reason why she can't
invite me to a party.
CONNIE whispers to JULIA, her eyes on FLAN.
CONNIE
He's an art dealer.
JULIA nods now that's she's remembered.
FLAN (hears it)
Private sales. Purchases.
OUISA leans forward. Somehow the telling calms HER.
THE CHUMS lean forward.
OUISA
We knew Geoffrey
FLAN
through our children when Geoffrey and his
family all lived in New York.
OUISA
They've moved back to South Africa.
FLAN
He was here in New York briefly on business
and asked us to ask him for dinner.
12
OUISA
He's King Midas rich. Literally. Gold mines.
THE WAITER puts down the tray of drinks.
FLAN
Seventy thousand workers in just one gold mine.
OUISA
But he is always short of cash because his
government won't let its people --
FLAN
Its white people --
OUISA
-- its white people take out any money. So it's
like taking in a War Baby.
(TO WAITER)
Thank you. That one's mine -
THEY switch drinks.
FLAN
When he called it was like a bolt from the blue
as I had a deal coming up and was short by
OUISA
TWO MILLION
FLAN puts down his drink.
FLAN
The figure is superfluous
OUISA turns to CONNIE.
OUISA
I hate when he uses the word "superfluous". I
mean, we needed two million and we hadn't seen
Geoffrey in a long time and while Geoffrey might
not have the price of a dinner he easily might
have two million dollars.
FLAN
The currents last night were very churny.
CUISA
we weren't sucking up. We like Geoffrey.
13
FLAN
It's that awful thing of having truly
rich folk for friends.
OUISA
Face it. The money does get in the -
FLAN
Only if you let it. The fact of the money
shouldn't get in-
OUISA
Having a rich friend is like drowning and your
friend makes life boats. But the friend gets
very touchy if you say one word: life boat.
(THE CHUMS laugh.)
Well, that's two words. We were afraid our
South African friend might say "You only love me
for my. life boats?" But we like Geoffrey.
CONNIE
I know who he is now.
JULIA
Lovely man.
X
SANDY
Didn't he invite us to visit him?
FLAN
It wasn't a life-threatening evening.
OUISA -
Rich people can do something for you even if
you're not sure what it is`you want them to do.
THEY turn at the sound of applause.
THE BRIDE and GROOM have entered the Country Club and our
table in the bar looks up as THE WEDDING PARTY passes by for
a moment rushing past the Bar into the ballroom.
Off in the ballroom THE SMALL ORCHESTRA strikes up "Just One
Of Those Things" for the ten thousandth time.
EVERYONE in the club is applauding and OUR TABLE applauds
too. OUISA starts to rise.
OUISA
Should we?
CONNIE
Not on your life.
CONNIE pulls OUISA back down to the table.
14
FLAN signals another round.
FLAN
Hardly a Life Boat evening -
OUISA sits, enjoying this.
OUISA (SING-SONG)
Portentous.
FLAN
But when Geoffrey called and asked us to take
him for dinner, he made a sudden pattern in
life's little tea leaves because who wants to
go to banks?
FLAN'S VOICE takes us back to last night
INT THE KITTREDGE.'S LIVING ROOM NIGHT
FLAN (VO)
Geoffrey called and our tempests settled
into showers and life was manageable. What
more can you want?
GEOFFREY stands up into the frame, an elegant, impeccably
British South African, more English than the English, ten
years older than Ouisa and Flan.
FLAN and OUISA are both dressed very stylishly and nattily
tonight. But not trendy, not so it shows.
FLAN was definitely an athlete and he still keeps himself in
trim. If HE's in the art world, there's nothing arty about
him.
GEOFFREY
Listen.
OUISA stops doing what she's doing which is rolling out a
drink trolley with little hors d'oeuvres on plates.
FLAN stops doing what he's doing which is checking that a
slide projector is in place on the desk along side the
silver beaver inkwell.
FLAN and OUISA both tense.
FLAN
What's wrong?
15
GEOFFREY
It always amazes me when New York is so quiet.
OUISA and FLAN relax and laugh.
OUISA
With the kids away, we get used to a lower noise
quotient.
FLAN pours a drink for GEOFFREY.
FLAN
Geoffrey, you have to move out of
South Africa. You'll be killed.
Why do you stay in South Africa?
GEOFFREY
One has to stay there to educate the black
workers and we'll know we've been successful
when they kill us.
FLAN
Planning the revolution that will destroy you.
OUISA sits back on the comfy sofa amazed at the thought.
OUISA
Putting your life on the line.
GEOFFREY
You don't think of it like that.
I wish you'd come visit.
OUISA takes her drink and strokes the ears of her dog.
OUISA
But we'd visit you and sit in your gorgeous
house planning trips into the townships
demanding to see the poorest of the poor. "Are
you sure they're the worst off? I mean, we've
come all this way. We don't want to see people
just mildly victimized by apartheid. We demand
shock." It doesn't seem right sitting on the
East Side talking about revolution.
FLAN
Only small murky cafes for Pepe le Noko here.
OUISA
No. La Passionaria. I will come to
South Africa and build barricades and
lean against them, singing.
16
FLAN
And the people would follow.
OUISA
"Follow Follow Follow". What's that song?
FLAN
The way Gorbachev cheered on the striking coal
miners in the Ukraine - yes, you must strike-
it is your role in history to dismantle this
system. Russia and Poland - you can't believe
the developments in the world -
(HE remembers:) "The Fantasticks" (SINGS:)
"Follow Follow Follow".
OUISA
China.
FLAN and OUISA (despair)
Oh.
GEOFFREY
Oy vay China. As my grandmother would say.
Our role in history. And we offer ourselves up
to it.
FLAN
That is your role in history. Not our role.
OUISA ponders this thought.
OUISA
A role in history. To say that so easily.
GEOFFREY suddenly gets up and looks through the telescope by
the window.
GEOFFREY'S POV
GEOFFREY flashes down nine floors into Central Park. HE
frowns in puzzlement when HE sees
A STATUE OF AN ALASKAN HUSKY
baying up into the sky.
FLAN and OUISA look at GEOFFREY's back and then at each
other. How to keep the ball rolling?
FLAN (to Geoffrey)
Do you want another drink before we--
17
GEOFFREY turns into the room.
GEOFFREY
Wonderful view.
OUISA
The phrase - striking coal miners - I see all
these very striking coal miners modelling the
fall fashions.
GEOFFREY
Where should we?
FLAN
There's good Szechuan. And Hunan.
OUISA
The sign painter screwed up the sign. Instead
of The Hunan Wok, he painted The Human Wok.
GEOFFREY
God! The restaurants! New York has become the
Florence of the Sixteenth Century. Genius on
every corner.
OUISA
I don't think genius has kissed the Human Wok.
THEY finish off their drinks.
GEOFFREY
The new Italian looked cheery.
FLAN and OUISA
Good.
FLAN
We made reservations.
FLAN looks at the slide projector.
FLAN
Geoffrey, I'd like to show -
FLAN'S sentence hangs in mid-air as GEOFFREY follows OUISA
INTO
THE HALL.
OUISA burrows in the closet getting her coat and
GEOFFREY's coat out of the hall closet stuffed with tennis
rackets and skis and boots.
18
OUISA
This restaurant - they wrap ravioli up
like salt water taffy.
FLAN appears behind HER to help HER.
THEY both wrestle the coats out of the closet.
FLAN
Six on a plate for a few hundred dollars.
And FLAN gets the coats. A clatter of tennis rackets
falling. GEOFFREY takes his topcoat.
GEOFFREY
You have to come to South Africa so
I can pay you back. I'll take you on my plane
into the Okavango Swamps -
OUISA
Did you hear - to take back to Johannesburg.
out in Eastharpton
FLAN
LAST WEEKEND
OUISA
a guy goes into one of the better food stores -
FLAN
Dean and DeLuca -
FLAN helps OUISA on with her coat.
OUISA
one of the Dean and DeLuca look alikes. Gets a
pack of cigarettes and an ice cream bar. Goes
up front. Sees there's a line at the register.
Slaps down two twenty dollar bills and goes out.
GEOFFREY doesn't get the anecdote.
FLAN
We sent it to the Times.
GEOFFREY smiles politely.
FLAN and OUISA press a little bit too hard.
OUISA
They have the joke page of things
around New York.
IV
19
FLAN
They send you a bottle of champagne.
THEY all laugh brightly.
INT MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
THE CHUMS listen enrapt. OUISA is serious.
OUISA
We weren't auditioning but I kept thinking Two
Million dollars Two Million dollars.
FLAN
It's like when people say -Don't think about
elephants' and all you can think about is
elephants elephants elephants.
OUISA
Two million dollars Two million dollars.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA and FLAN laugh brightly. THE FRONT DOORBELL rings.
OUISA and FLAN look at each other. Who is that?
OUISA goes into the hall.
OUISA
What ever you do, don't think about elephants.
GEOFFREY
Elephants?
FLAN rapidly steers GEOFFREY to a chair, closes the living
room door, then wheels a projector with a carousel tray into
place.
FLAN
Louisa is a dada manifesto. About the Cezanne -
unless we're careful, it'll be sold and never
seen again -
FLAN switches off the room's lights and clicks on the
projector. The slide projection of a beautiful green
landscape by Cezanne fills the wall by the door.
20
0
FLAN
Mid-period. Landscape of a dark green forest.
In the far distance you see the sunlight. One
of his first uses of a pale color being forced
to carry the weight of the picture. The
experiment that would pay of f in the apples. A
burst of color asked to carry so much-- The
Japanese don't like anything about it except
it's a Cezanne--
And suddenly the door in the wall opens up.
A YOUNG BLACK MAN supported by the ELEVATOR MAN, (EDDIE)
appears in the Cezanne forest holding his eyes against the
projector's light. And OUISA behind HIM.
FLAN clicks off the projector.
OUISA switches on the living room lights.
THE YOUNG BLACK MAN - PAUL - is in his early twenties, very
handsome, very preppy. His shirt front is ripped and
bloodied. Fresh blood. EDDIE helps PAUL to the sofa,
OUISA following at a loss.
PAUL
I'm so sorry to bother you, but I've been hurt-
and I've lost everything and I didn't know where
to go. Your children-- I'm a friend of --
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
THE CHUMS are transfixed.
OUISA
And he mentioned our childrens' names.
FLAN
And the school where they went.
OUISA
Harvard. You can say Harvard.
FLAN
We don't want to get into libel.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL (exhausted and scared)
I was mugged. Out there. In Central Park. By
the statue of that Alaskan husky. I was
standing there trying to figure out why there is
a statue of a dog who saved lives in the Yukon
in Central 'Park and I was standing there trying
to puzzle it out when -
21
OUISA
Are you okay?
PAUL
They took my money and my brief case. I said my
thesis is in there -
PAUL looks down. HE sees the blood seeping through his
shirt.
FLAN
His shirt's bleeding.
OUISA
His shirt is not bleeding. He's bleeding.
PAUL holds his mouth, nauseous.
PAUL
I get this way around blood.
FLAN (leading PAUL out of the room)
Not on the rug. Eddie, get the doctor--
EDDIE turns to leave.
PAUL
No! I'll survive. Please. No doctors -
PAUL, frightened, looks at FLAN.
FLAN (To EDDIE)
We'll call if we need any -
FLAN helps PAUL out of the room down the hall.
OUISA
Thank you, Eddie -
EDDIE goes.
FLAN, followed by OUISA, supports PAUL into
THE WHITE TILED BATHROOM.
PAUL sits on the side of the tub.
PAUL takes off his blazer and pulls off his ripped shirt.
His tie is still around his neck. There is a good sized
knife slash in his side by his rib cage. OUISA and FLAN
cringe. FLAN opens the medicine cabinet.
22
PAUL
I don't mind the money. But in this age of
mechanical reproduction they managed to get the
only copy of my thesis.
FLAN
Where's the first aid book!
OUISA runs into their bedroom.
PAUL looks out the bathroom door into FLAN and OUISA'S
bedroom. PAUL watches OUISA as she goes into
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
OUISA rummages through her book case and finds her Red
Cross manual. OUISA turns and sees PAUL sitting on the edge
of the tub staring at HER.
FLAN is crouched down, bathing PAUL'S slash.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA is moved by these events.
OUISA
We bathed him. We did First Aid.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S BATHROOM
OUISA reads from the manual.
OUISA
The Red Cross advises: Press edges of the wound
firmly together, wash area with water-
FLAN
Yes! I'm doing that - Hold on
FLAN daubs on mercurochrome.
PAUL
Owww!
FLAN
Hold still! Ouisa! I need gauze!
GEOFFREY pokes his head in the bathroom.
GEOFFREY (LEAVING)
It's been wonderful seeing you--
23
OUISA (firm but cheery)
No no no! Stay!
GEOFFREY
My time is so short. Before I leave America, I
really should call -
OUISA
You darling old poop -
FLAN
Have you seen the new book on Cezanne?
GEOFFREY
NO
OUISA
An absolute revelation - this'll only take a mo-
OUISA rushes out of the bathroom after GEOFFREY.
FLAN
I need the gauze
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
I ran down the hall to get the book on Cezanne,
got the gauze from my bathroom--
BACK AT THE KITTREDGE'S
We watch a flustered OUSIA dart about as she describes--
OUISA (VO)
Gave the Cezanne to Flan who wanted the gauze,
gave the gauze to Geoffrey who wanted Cezanne.
OUISA mutters under her breath as she dashes down
THE HALL.
OUISA
two million dollars two million dollars
AND INTO
THE LIVING ROOM
24
0
GEOFFREY stares at the gauze he's just been handed.
FLAK'S VOICE
ouisa?
OUISA grabs the gauze out of GEOFFREY's hand.
SHE runs back down the HALL.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
Two million dollars two million dollars--
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S BATHROOM
FLAN finishes bandaging PAUL's wound.
OUISA goes into
HER SON'S BEDROOM.,
SHE takes a pink shirt from the bureau.
THE MASTER BEDROOM
PAUL puts on the pink shirt and looks at HIMSELF in the
mirror.
FLAN
He's going to be fine.
GEOFFREY appears in the door with the book on Cezanne.
GEOFFREY
Lovely book.
FLAN looks stricken.
OUISA
Please? Stay?
GEOFFREY pauses.
GEOFFREY
Agreed.
FLAN beams.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
And peace was restored.
25
BACK IN THE MASTER BEDROOM
FLAN holds out PAUL's blazer. PAUL winces as HE lifts his
arms to put it on.
PAUL
Your children said you were kind. All the kids
were sitting around the dorm one night dishing
the- shit out of their parents. But your kids
were silent and said No, not our parents. Not
Flan and Ouisa. Not the Kittredges. The
Kittredges are kind. So after the muggers left,
I looked up and saw these Fifth Avenue
apartments. Mrs. Onassis lives there. I know
the Babcocks live over there. The Auchinclosses
live there. But you lived here. I came here.
OUISA, so touched, turns to FLAN and GEOFFREY.
OUISA
Can you believe what the kids said?
PAUL looks at the framed photos on wall of
0 THE HALL.
PAUL
But your kids - I love them. Talbot and Woody
mean the world to me.
FLAN
He lets you call him Woody? Nobody's
called him Woody in years.
THEY come into
THE LIVING ROOM.
PAUL looks around happily. HE goes to the wall by the
mantlepiece and looks at a dark abstract painting.
PAUL
They described this apartment in detail. This
is a Kandinsky! - a double. One painted on
either side. May I see - ?
OUISA lifts the painting off the wall and turns it around.
Even GEOFFREY is taken by the painting.
0 26
FLAN
What makes it valuable is Kandinsky painted on
either side of the canvas in two wildly
different styles. One side is geometric and
somr=r. The other side is wild and vivid.
GEOFFREY
My god!
FLAN
We flip it around for variety.
OUISA happily turns the painting back and forth to show off
its two sides. The SCREEN is filled with the bright colors
then the dark colors.
OUISA
You like? You like? Chaos? Control?
Chaos? Control?
SHE puts on a goofy happy face for the chaotic side and a
dopey tragic face for the geometric. Yes. We've been here
before, through OUISA's memory, at the wedding.
PAUL
It's wonderful.
OUISA leans the painting against a chair, the chaotic side
showing.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
FLAN turns to JULIA.
FLAN
Wassily Kandinsky. Born 1866 Moscow. Blue
Rider Exhibition 1914. He said "It is clear
that the choice of object that is one of the
elements in the harmony of form must be decided
only by a corresponding vibration in the human
soul". (very spiritual) Died 1944 France.
JULIA nods. Ah yes.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL looks around the apartment, so cozy, warm.
PAUL
It's the way they said it would be.
27
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
Geoffrey had been silent up to now.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
GEOFFREY
Did you bitch your parents?
PAUL
As a matter of fact. No. Your kids and I...we
both liked our parents... loved our--Look, am I
getting in the way? I burst in here,
hysterical. Blood. I didn't mean to---
FLAN and OUISA
No!
OUISA
Tell us about our children.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
FLAN (to JULIA)
Three. Two at Harvard. Another girl at Groton.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA
How Harvard?
PAUL
Well, fine. It's just there. Everyone's in a
constant state of luxurious despair and constant
discovery and paralysis.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
We asked him where home was
FLAN
Out West, he said.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL
Although I've lived all over. My folks are
divorced. He's remarried. He's doing a movie.
28
OUISA
He's in the movies?
PAUL
He's directing this one but he does act.
FLAN
What's he directing?
PAUL
Cats.
OUISA
Someone is directing a film of Cats?
FLAN
Don't be snooty.
PAUL
You've'seen it? T.S. Eliot--
FLAN
Well, yes. Years ago.
OUISA
A benefit for some disease or school---
FLAN
Surely they can't make the movie of Cats.
OUISA
Of course they can.
PAUL
They're going to try. My father'll be here
AUDITIONING-
OUISA
Cats?
PAUL
He's going to use people.
OUISA
What a courageous stand!
PAUL
They thought of lots of ways to go. Animation.
FLAN
Animation would be nice.
29
PAUL
But he found a better way. As a matter of fact,
he turned it down at first. He went to tell
the producers - as a courtesy - all the reasons
why you couldn't make a movie of Cats and in
going through all the reasons why you couldn't
make a movie of Cats, he suddenly saw how you
could make a movie of Cats --
OUISA
Eureka in the bathtub. How wonderful.
FLAN
May we ask who --
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
Can it be possible? A FEW MORE GUESTS have joined the table.
OUISA
And it was here we pulled up - ever so
slightly - pulled up closer--
FLAN
And he told us.
OUISA
He named the greatest black star in movies.
SIDNEY -
FLAN
Don't say it. We're trying to keep this
abstract. Plus libel laws.
OUISA
Sidney Poitiers There. I don't care. We have
to have truth. He started out as a lawyer and
is terrified of libel. I'm not.
30
INT THE WHITE WALL
PAUL, leaning against the wall, talks with great vivacity to
that OFF SCREEN PRESENCE who is the POV of the camera.
PAUL
Sidney Poitier, the future Jackie Robinson of
films, was born the twenty fourth of February
1927 in Miami during a visit his parents made to
Florida - legally? -to sell tomatoes they had
grown on their farm in the Bahamas. He grew up
on Cat Island, "so poor they didn't even own
dirt" he has said. Neglected by his family, my
father would sit on the shore, and, as he told
me many times, "conjure up the kind of worlds
that were on the other side and what I'd do in
them." He arrived in New York City from the
Bahamas in the winter of 1943 at age fifteen and
a half and lived in the pay toilet of the bus
station across from the old Madison Square
Garden at Fiftieth and Eighth Avenue. He moved
to the roof of the Brill building, commonly
known as Tin Pan Alley. Washed dishes at the
Turf restaurant for $4.11 a night. He taught
0 himself to read by reading the newspaper. In the
Black newspaper, the theater page was opposite
the Want Ad page. Among his 42 films are No Way
Out 1950/ Cry the Beloved Country 1952/
Blackboard Jungle 1955/ The Defiant Ones 1958/
Raisin in the Sun 1961/ Lilies of the Field
1963/ In the Heat of the Night 1967/ To Sir With
Love 1967/ Shoot to Kill 1988 and, of course,
PAUSE. (THE OFF SCREEN VOICE JOINS HIM)
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.
PAUL (LAUGHS)
He won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field and
was twice named top male box-office star in
the country. My father made no films from 1977
to 1987 but worked as director and author. Dad
said to me once "I still don't fully understand
how all that came about in the sequence it came
about".
And we hear the OFF SCREEN PRESENCE applauding.
PAUL bows, happily.
HE kicks his shoe off into the camera.
31
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL
Dad's not in till tomorrow at the Sherry. I
came down from Cambridge. Thought I'd stay at
some fleabag for adventure. Orwell. Down and
Out. I really don't know New York. I know Rome
and Paris and Los Angeles a lot better.
OUISA
We're-going out to dinner. You'll come.
PAUL
Out to dinner?
FLAN
Out to dinner.
PAUL
But why go out to dinner?
OUISA
Because we have reservations and oh my god'what
time is it? Have we lost the reservations and
we don't have a damn thing in the house and it's
Sixteenth century Florence and there's genius on
every block.
GEOFFREY
Don't mock.
SHE kisses GEOFFREY.
PAUL
You must have something in the fridge.
FLAN
A frozen steak from the Ice Age.
PAUL
Why spend a hundred dollars on a bowl of rice?
Let me into the kitchen. Cooking calms me. What
I'd like to do is calm down, pay back your kids-
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
He mentioned our kids names--
32
FLAN turns to a NEWCOMER.
FLAN
Two. Two at Harvard. A daughter at Groton.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL
- who've been wonderful to me.
OUISA
They've never mentioned you.
FLAN
What are they supposed to say? We've become
friends with the son of Sidney Poitier, barrier
breaker of the fifties and sixties?
GEOFFREY
Your father means a great deal in South Africa.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
Even Geoffrey was touched.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
PAUL
I'm glad of that. Dad and I went to Russia once
to a film festival and he was truly amazed how
much his presence meant -
OUISA
Oh no! Tell us stories of movie stars tying up
their children and being cruel.
PAUL
I wish.
GEOFFREY
You wish?
PAUL
If I wanted to write a book about him. I really
can't. No one would want to read it. He's
decent. I admire him.
OUISA
He's married to an actress who was in one of--
she's white? Am I right?
33
PAUL (painful territory)
That is not my mother. That is his
second wife. He met Joanna making
"The Lost Man". He left my mother
who had stuck by him in the lean years.
X had just been born. "The Lost Man"
is the only film of my father's I can't
bring myself to see.
OUISA
Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to -
PAUL (BRIGHT)
No! We're all good friends now. . His kids from
that marriage. Us - the old kids. I'd love to
get in that kitchen.
FLAN (to Ouisa)
What should we do?
OUISA
It's Geoffrey's only night in New York.
GEOFFREY
I vote - stay in.
OUISA, FLAN and PAUL
Good!
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
We moved.into the kitchen.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S KITCHEN
THE KITCHEN is large, was built in the 205 when people had
big dinners at home.
PAUL opens the refrigerators and freezers.
PAUL'S actions are synchronous with the words.
FLAN (VO)
We watched him cook.
OUISA (VO)
We watched him cook and chop.
FLAN (VO)
He sort of did wizardry
OUISA (VO)
An old jar of sun dried tomatoes--
34
FLAN (VO)
Left avers - tuna fish - olives - onions -
It's all dazzling and rapid. FLAN opens the wine. OUISA
takes dishes and silver out and hands them to GEOFFREY.
EVERYONE is in a picnic spirit. PAUL fills a large pot with
water from the tap.
PAUL (to Geoffrey)
YOU'RE FROM
GEOFFREY
Johannesburg.
PAUSE. PAUL Studies GEOFFREY. OUISA and FLAN freeze.
Is it a tense moment?
PAUL takes a breath. PAUL puts the water on the fire, eyes
never off GEOFFREY. Then PAUL resumes chopping onions
briskly and dropping them into the frying pan.
PAUL
My dad took me to a movie shot in South Africa.
The camera moved from this vile rioting in the
streets to a villa where people picked at lunch
on a terrace, the only riot the flowers and the
birds-- gorgeous plumage and petals. And I
didn't understand. And Dad said to me "You meet
these young blacks who are having a terrible
time. They've had a totally inadequate
education and yet in '76 - the year of the
Soweto riots - they took on a tremendous
political responsibility. It just makes you
wonder at the maturity that is in them."
PAUL opens a cabinet and takes out a Haitian candelabra that
obviously hasn't been used since it was brought home as a
souvenir. PAUL dusts it off.
PAUL
it makes you realize that the 'crummy childhood'
theory, that everything can be blamed in a
Freudian fashion on the fact that you've had a
bad upbringing, just doesn't hold water. May I?
FLAN
Oh, please.
PAUL pours a brandy.
35
GEOFFREY
What about being black in America?
PAUL scoops a melange of vegetables into a glass dish and
puts it in the microwave.
PAUL
My problem is I've never felt American.
I grew up in Switzerland. Boarding school.
Villa Rosey.
OUISA
There is a boarding school in Switzerland that
takes you at age eighteen months.
PAUL
That's not me. I've never felt people liked me
for my connections. Movie star kid problems.
None of those.
THE WATER boils. HE dumps in pasta.
The microwave timer goes off. PAUL removes the glass dish.
PAUL
But I never knew I was black in that racist way
0 till I was sixteen and came back here. Very
protected. White servants. After the divorce we
moved to Switzerland. My mother, brother and Z.
I don't feel American. I don't even feel black.
I suppose that's very lucky for me even though
Freud says there's no such thing as luck. Just
what you make.
PAUL takes the pasta off the boil and drains it, plopping
the pasta into a brightly colored bowl.
OUISA, FLAN and GEOFFREY sit at the counter, transfixed.
OUISA
Does Freud say that?
PAUL holds out three dishes heaped with food.
PAUL
Here's dinner. All ready.
OUISA
Shall we move into the dining room?
OUISA opens double doors leading into
THE DINING ROOM.
36
This room has not been in use for a while.
The overhead chandelier is very bright and harsh.
A sewing machine is in the corner there.
Bookkeeping items at one end of the long table.
Nineteenth century Victorian mythological paintings hang.on
the walls. FLAN adjusts the rheostat to dim the lights in
the chandelier.
OUISA
Don't look at the sewing machine.
FLAN sweeps the bill things off the table onto a chair.
OUISA opens the sideboard and takes out four linen place
mats and silverware and quickly sets the table.
PAUL takes out matches and lights the Haitian card"e'Yabra.
FLAN runs into the living room and returns with a vase of
flowers.
THEY smile at the appearance of the sudden party in this
wonderful room.
THEY sit down. THEY eat. Surprise. It's delicious.
PAUL
Is everything okay?
FLAN, OUISA and GEOFFREY
Mmrmmm .. yes.
GEOFFREY
This is the best pasta I've ever -
OUISA
The best!
PAUL
My father insisted we learn to cook.
FLAN
Isn't he from Jamaica? There's a taste of--
GEOFFREY
The islands.
PAUL
Yes. Before he made it, he ran four restaurants
in Harlem. You have good buds!
GEOFFREY
See? Good buds. I've never been
complimented on my buds-
R
FLAN
I am astonished!
37
PAUL leans back and watches them happily.
OUISA
Where's yours?
PAUL
The cook never eats.
FLAN
The more for us!
THEY all laugh.
PAUL leaves the room abruptly.
FLAN, OUISA and GEOFFREY look at each other.
FLAN stands.
FLAN
Hello?
PAUL returns with the rest of the real in brightly painted
bowls.
PAUL
Seconds?
THEY laugh and are served.
OUISA
Have you declared your major yet?
PAUL
You're like all parents. What's your major?
FLAN
Geoffrey, Harvard has all those great titles the
students give courses.
OUISA
The Holocaust and Ethics?
FLAN
Krauts and Doubts.
OUISA
I think we're lucky having this dinner. Isn't
this the finest time? A toast to you.
GEOFFREY
To Cats!
FLAN
Blunt question. What's he like?
38
OUISA reaches for the bottle of wine.
OUISA
Let's not be star fuckers.
FLAN
I'm not a star fucker.
PAUL
My father, being an actor, has no real identity.
You say to him, Pop, what's new? And he says,
'I got an interesting script today. I was asked
to play a lumberjack up in the Yukon. Now, I've
been trained as a Preacher, but my church fell
apart. My wife says we have to get mbney to get
through this winter. And I sign up as part of
this team where all my beliefs are challenged.
But I hold firm. In spite of prejudice because
I want to get back to my wife. Out of this
forest,back to the church... .' And my father is
in tears and I say Pop, this i:. not a real
event, this is some script that was sent to
you. And my father says ' I' m trying it out to
see how it fits on me.' But he has no life--he
has no memory--only the scripts producers send
him in the mail through his agents. That's his
past.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
Can it be? The CROWD listening to FLAN and OUISA is even
larger.
OUISA
I just loved the kid so much. I wanted to reach
out to him.
FLAN
And then we asked him what his thesis was on.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S DINING ROOM
GEOFFREY
The one that was stolen. Please?
39
PAUL
Well...
(HE takes a deep breath and leans back in
HIS CHAIR)
A substitute teacher out on Long Island was
dropped from his job for fighting with a
student. A few weeks later, the teacher
returned to the classroom, shot the student
unsuccessfully, held the class hostage and then
shot himself. Successfully. This fact caught my
eye: last sentence. Times. A neighbor
described the teacher as a nice boy. Always
reading Catcher In the Rye.
The nitwit - Chapman - who shot John Lennon said
he did it because he wanted to-`draw the
attention of the world to Catcher In the Rye and
the reading of that book would be his defense.
And young Hinckley, the whiz kid who shot Reagan
and his press secretary said if you want my
defense all you have to do is read catcher in
the Rye. It seemed to be time to read it again.
FLAN
I haven't read it in years.
OUISA shushes FLAN.
PAUL
I borrowed a copy from a young friend of mine
because I wanted to see what she had underlined
and I read this book to find out why this
touching, beautiful, sensitive story published
in July 1951 had turned into this manifesto of
hate.
I started reading. : It's exactly as I
remembered. Everybody's a phoney. Page two: "My
brother's in Hollywood being a prostitute."
Page three: "what a phony slob his father was."
Page nine: "People never notice anything."
Then on page twenty two my hair stood up.
Remember Holden Caulfield--the definitive
sensitive youth--wearing his red hunter's cap.
"A deer Hunter hat? Like hell it is. I sort of
closed one eye like I was taking aim at it.
This is a people shooting hat. I shoot people
in this hat."
40
PAUL (CONTINUES)
Hmmm, I said. This book is preparing people for
bigger moments in their lives than I ever
dreamed of.
Then on p. 89 "I'd rather push a guy out the
window or chop his head off with an ax than sock
him in the jaw. I hate fist fights...what
scares me most is the other guy's face..."
I finished the book. It's a touching story,
comic because the boy wants to do so much and
can't do anything. Hates all phoniness and only
lies to others. Wants everyone to like him, is
only hateful, and is completely self involved.
In other words, a pretty accurate picture of a
male adolescent.
FLAN, OUISA, .GEOFFREY are transfixed.
And what alarms me about that book--not the book
so much as the aura about it--is this: the book
is primarily about paralysis. The boy can't
function. And at the end before he can run
away and start a new life, it starts to rain and
he folds. Now there's nothing wrong in writing
about emotional and intellectual paralysis. It
may indeed thanks to Chekhov and Samuel Beckett
be the great modern theme.
The extraordinary last lines of Waiting For
Godot--"Let's go." "Yes, let's go." Stage
directions: They do not move.
But the aura around this book of Salinger's--
which perhaps should be read by everyone ut
young men---is this: It mirrors like a fun
house mirror and amplifies like a distorted
speaker one of the great tragedies of our times-
--the death of the imagination.
Because what else is paralysis?
The CAMERA moves closer and closer in on PAUL.
42
PAUL (CONTINUES)
The imagination has been so debased that
imagination--being imaginative-- rather than
being the lynch pin of our existence now stands
as a synonym for something outside ourselves
like Science fiction or some new use for
tangerine slices on raw pork chops---what an
imaginative summer recipe--and Star wars! So
imaginative and Star Trek--so imaginative! And
Lord of the Rings--all those dwarves--so
IMAGINATIVE---
The imagination has moved out of the realm of
being our link, our most personal link, with our
inner lives and the world outside that world--
this world we share--what is schizophrenia but a
horrifying state where what's in here doesn't
match up with what's out there?
Why has imagination become a synonym for style?
I believe that the imagination is the passport
we create to take us into the real world.
I believe the imagination is another phrase for
what is most uniquely Is.
Jung says the greatest sin is to be unconscious.
Our boy Holden says "what scares me most is the
other guy's face--it wouldn't be so bad if you
could both be blindfolded"--most of the time the
faces we face are not the other guys' but our
own faces. And it's the worst kind of
yellowness to be so scared of yourself you put
blindfolds on rather than deal with yourself.
To face ourselves.
That's the hard thing.
The imagination.
That's God's gift to make the act of self-
examination bearable.
PAUSE.
FLAN, GEOFFREY, OUISA are very moved.
OUISA
Well, indeed.
FLAN
I hope your muggers read every word.
42
OUISA (chiding FLAN)
DARLING
GEOFFREY
I'm going to buy a copy of Catcher i. the Rye at
the airport and read it.
OUISA
Cover to cover
PAUL
I'll test you. I should be going.
PAUL starts to go. THEY follow.
THE DINING ROOM opens into
THE LIVING ROOM.
FLAN
Where will you stay?
OUISA
Not some flea bag.
PAUL
I get into the Sherry tomorrow morning. It's not
so far off. I can walk around. I don't think
they'll mug me twice in one evening.
FLAN and OUISA take's PAUL's by the arm and leads him down
the hall into
THEIR DAUGHTER'S BEDROOM.
OUISA
You'll stay here tonight.
PAUL
No! I have to be at the hotel at seven AM sharp!
OUISA
We'll get you up.
PAUL
or Dad will have a fit.
QUISA
Up at six fifteen which is any moment now and we
have that wedding in Millbrook-
OUISA pulls back the covers on the bed and puts the dolls on
the floor.
4 3
FLAN
There's an alarm by the bed
OUISA
Your feet might hang out over the end
PAUL
If it's any problem--
FLAN
It's only a problem if you leave.
PAUL takes the alarm and sets the time.
PAUL
Six fifteen? I'll tip toe out.
FLAN
And we want to be in Cats.
OUISA
FLAN:
PAUL
It's done.
THEY shake hands.
GEOFFREY
I'll fly back. With my wife.
OUISA
Pushy. Both of you.
PAUL sits on the bed, testing it.
PAUL
He's not. Dad said I could be in
charge of the extras. You'd just
be extras. That's all I can promise.
FLAK
In cat suits?
PAUL
No. You can be humans.
FLAN
That's very important. It has to be in our
contracts. We are humans.
44
THEY all return down
THE HALL.
GEOFFREY
We haven't got any business done tonight.
FLAN
Forget it. It was only an evening at home.
OUISA
Whatever you do, don't think about elephants.
GEOFFREY puts on his overcoat.
PAUL
Did I intrude?
FLAN and OUISA
No!
PAUL
I'm sorry - Oh Christ -
GEOFFREY (to Flan)
0
There's all ways of doing business. Flanders,
walk me to the elevator.
OUISA
Love to Diana.
OUISA kisses GEOFFREY on the cheek.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
It seems the BRIDE and GROOM have joined the people
listening to FLAN and OUISA's tale.
OUISA
We embraced. And Flan and Geoffrey left -
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S HALL
FLAN walks GEOFFREY to the elevator, leaving OUISA and PAUL
alone. PAUL and OUISA look at each other. Then PAUL breaks
the moment and goes to
THE DINING ROOM.
_ PAUL
Let me clean up -
45
OUISA follows.
OUISA
Hal Leave it for -
PAUL looks at the table filled with dishes and bowls and
glasses and napkins.
PAUL
Nobody comes in on Sunday.
PAUL snuffs out the candles with his fingers.
OUISA
Yvonne will be in on Tuesday.
PAUL
You'll have every bug in Christendom -
The room is dark, -lit only from the living room.
THEY both reach for the dishes.
OUISA
Let me -
PAUL takes the dishes.
PAUL
No. You watch. It gives me a thrill to be
looked at.
PAUL looks at HER. OUISA is momentarily at a loss.
PAUL goes into the kitchen.
The service door into the kitchen swings back and forth.
DINING ROOM/KITCHEN
OUISA in the dining room looks at PAUL's back as HE washes
dishes at the sink.
Suddenly the dining room is flooded with light.
FLAN has flicked on the light.
FLAN
He's in.
OUISA
He's in?
FLAN parades around the table.
FLAN
He's in for two million.
46
OUISA
Two million!
FLAN
He says the Cezanne is a great inv1stment. We
should get it for six million and sell it to the
Tokyo bunch for ten.
OUISA
Happy days! Oh god!
PAUL comes into the dining room.
PAUL
Two million dollars?
FLAN runs into
THE LIVING ROOM.
FLAN picks up the slide carousel and kisses it.
FLAN
Figure it out. He doesn't have the price of -a
dinner but he can cough up two million dollars
and the Japs will go ten!
PAUL and OUISA come into the living room.
PAUL
Go to ten? Ten million?
OUISA
Break all those dishes! Two million! Go to ten!
And we put up nothing?
PAUL
Nothing?
FLAN
Geoffrey sold that Hockney print I know he
bought for a hundred bucks fifteen years ago for
thirty four thousand dollars. Sotheby took
their cut, sure but still--Two million! Wildest
dreams. Paul, I should give you a commission.
PAUL
Your kids said you were an art dealer. But you
don't have a gallery. I don't understand -
47
FLAN
People want to sell privately.
Not go through a gallery.
OUISA -Ï¿½
A divorce. Taxes. Publicity.
FLAN (holding up a slide)
People come to me looking for a
certain school of painting.
OUISA
A modern.. Impressionist. Renaissance.
FLAN
But don't want museums to know where it is.
OUISA
Japanese.
OUISA, FLAN and PAUL go down the hall to
FLAN'S OFFICE.
FLAN flicks on his computer.
FLAN
I've got Japanese looking for a Cezanne. I have
a syndicate that will buy the painting. There is
this great second level Cezanne coming up for
sale in a very messy divorce.
FLAN holds up the slide.
OUISA
Wife doesn't want hubby to know she owns a
Cezanne.
PAUL looks at the slide.
FLAN
I needed an extra two million. Geoffrey called.
Invited him here for dinner.
OUISA
Tonight was a very nervous very
casual very big thing.
PAUL
I couldn't tell -
48
s PAUL gives the slide very carefully back to FLAN who files
it.
OUISA
All the better. 0
FLAN opens a door in the OFFICE. THE OFFICE connects to
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
PAUL follows FLAN and OUISA into their bedroom.
PAUL
I'm glad I helped -
OUISA
You were wonderful!
PAUL
I'm so pleased I was wonderful.
All this and a pink shirt.
OUISA
Keep it. Look at the time.
PAUL
It's going to be time for me to get up.
FLAN
Then we'll say our good nights now.
PAUL
Oh Christ. Regretfully. I4l1 tip toe.
PAUL and OUISA follow FLAN into
THE HALL.
PAUL goes into their daughter's bedroom.
FLAN and OUISA hover in the hall.
FLAN takes out his wallet.
FLAN
Take fifty dollars.
OUISA
Give him fifty dollars.
PAUL
Don't need it.
49
OUISA
Suppose your father's plane is late?
FLAN
A strike. Air controllers.
OUISA
Walking around money. I wouldn't want my kids
to be stuck in the street without a nickel.
PAUL sits on the bed and takes off his shoes.
FLAN
And you saved us a fortune. Do you know what
our bill would've been at that little Eye-tie
store front?
OUISA
And we picked up two million dollars. One
billionth of a percent commission is -
FLAN
Fifty dollars.
FLAN hands PAUL the money. PAUL hesitates, then takes it.
PAUL
But I'll get it back to you tomorrow. I want my
father to meet you.
OUISA
We'd love to. Bring him up for dinner.
PAUL
Could I?
FLAN
You see how easy it is.
OUISA
Sure. If Paul does the cooking.
FLAN, OUISA and PAUL laugh.
OUISA goes into the bathroom and fills a glass with water
and puts it on the night table.
OUISA
Goodnight.
PAUL smiles at them.
50
THE MASTER BEDROOM/BATHROOM
FLAN and OUISA get ready for bed, undressing, hanging jacket
and trousers up neatly. OUISA undoes her dress.
THEY are in and out of bathroom and bedroom, -brushing
teeth.
FLAN
I want to get on my knees and thank god -money-
OUISA
Who said when artists dream they dream of money?
I must be such an artist. Bravo. Bravo.
FLAN putting on pajamas, OUISA her nightgown.
FLAN
I don't want to lose our life here. I don't
want all the debt to pile up and crush us.
OUISA
It won't. We're safe.
OUISA in bed turns off the light.
FLAN looks out the window onto the park.
FLAN
For a while. We almost lost it. If I didn't
get this money,. Ouis, I would've lost the
Cezanne. It would've gone. I had nowhere to
get it.
OUISA gets out of bed and comes to FLAN.
OUISA
Why don't you tell me how much these things
mean? You wait till the last minute -
OUISA and FLAN get into bed.
FLAN
I don't want to worry you.
OUISA
Not worry me? I'm your partner.
FLAN
There is a god.
OUISA
And his name- is --
A
51
FLAN
Geoffrey?
OUISA
Sidney.
THEY embrace. THE CAMERA comes in very close, circling
FLAN and OUISA, their love, their safety. Then THE CAMERA
drifts back and away from them, travelling out through the
window, out of their cocoon to
EXT THE APARTMENT BUILDING/CENTRAL PARK NIGHT
down the face of the solid apartment building and drifts
away through the night down into Central Park and stops at
the statue of the husky barking at the moon.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
OUISA
I dreamt of Sidney Poitier and his rise to
acclaim. I dreamt that Sidney Poitier sat at
the edge of my bed and I asked him what troubled
him? Sidney? What troubles you? Is it right
to make a movie of Cats?
BACK IN THE MASTER BEDROOM
FLAN is asleep on his side of the bed. OUISA is wide awake,
staring at A MAN in dinner clothes, who sits on the edge of
her bed. His back is to the camera. Is it SIDNEY POITIER?
THE CAMERA drifts in to OUISA, who is transfixed by this
apparition.
"SIDNEY" (very comforting)
I'll tell you why I have to make a movie of
Cats. I know what Cats is, Louisa. May I call
you Louisa?
(OUISA nods Yes)
I have no illusions about the merits of Cats.
But the world has been too heavy with all the
right to lifers. Protect the lives of the
unborn. Constitutional amendments. Marches!
When does life begin? Or the converse. The end
of life. The Right To Die. Why is life at this
point in the 20th century so focussed on the
very beginning of life and the very end of life?
What about the eighty years we have to live
between those two inexorable book ends?
THE CAMERA closes on OUISA. Her face, seen over "SIDNEY's"
shoulder, is all wonder.
52
OUISA
And you can get all that into Cats?
THE CAMERA drifts round with OUISA'S gaze to finally see
"SIDNEY'S" face. �,.
It is PAUL.
PAUL/SIDNEY
I'm going to try.
OUISA
Thank you. Thank you. You shall.
THE CAMERA circles off PAUL to OUISA. She is asleep.
CUT BACK to reveal
No one is sitting on the bed.
THE CAMERA moves onto FLAN's face, sleeping.
Slides of paintings by Matisse, Picasso, De Kooning, Pollock
appear over his face.
FLAN (VO)
This is what I dreamt. I didn't dream so much
as realize this. I felt so close to the
paintings. I wasn't just selling like pieces
of meat. I remembered why I loved paintings in
the first place - what had got me into this -
and I thought - dreamed - remembered-
INT AIRPLANE HANGAR
FLAN happily sits in the bright vast empty space at a slide
carousel projecting slides of paintings into the air.
FLAN (VO)
How easy it is for a painter to lose a
painting. He can paint and paint - work on a
canvas for months and one day he loses it - just
loses the structure - loses the sense of it -
you lose the painting.
A BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT shines on FLAN who turns to see
A TEACHER, in her forties, very pure and happy, hanging
beautiful and brilliantly colored children's drawings in the
air. FLAN'S VOICE echoes in this vast space.
53
FLAN
Why are all your students geniuses in the second
grade? Look at the first grade. Blotches of
green and black. Look at third grade.
Camouflage. But the second grade --your grade.
Matisses everyone. You've made my child a
Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into
the second grade! What is your secret?
THE TEACHER
Secret? I don't have any secret. I just know
when to take their drawings away from them.
THE TEACHER hangs pink shapes like paper versions of PAUL'S
button down shirt on a clothes line stretching to the end of
the hangar.
THE SCREEN is filled with the color Pink.
EXT PINK SKY DAWN
The bright pink morning sky flashes with golden blotches,
abstract, until WE see it is the morning sun reflecting off
windows on the West Side of Central Park.
Then we realize it is the view from
THE KIZTREDGE'S MASTER BEDROOM DAWN
THE CAMERA pulls back from the window to FLAN and OUISA in
bed, cozy. SHE wakens, smiles, kisses HIM.
FLAN mumbles in his sleep and rolls over.
OUISA looks at her bedside clock. 6 A.M.
SHE gets out of bed, then pauses to take in the dawn
display.
OUISA walks through
THE LIVING ROOM
and opens the front door. SHE picks up the Sunday papers
and goes into
THE KITCHEN.
OUISA looks at the spotlessly clean sink and counter.
SHE flicks on the coffee machine and takes juice out of the
refrigerator scanning the front page.
SHE sits at the counter and opens the magazine to the back
page and begins to do the cross word puzzle.
54
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
THE CHUMS hang on OUISA's every word.
OUISA
I sat in the kitchen happily doing the cross
word puzzle in ink. Everybody does it in ink. I
never. met one person who didn't say they did it
in ink.
BACK IN THE KITCHEN
OUISA fills in a word on the puzzle. is it in ink? Then
looks up.
OUISA (VO)
And I'm doing the puzzle and I see the time and
it's nearly seven and Paul had to meet his
father and I didn't want him to be late and was
he healthy after his stabbing?
OUISA puts the puzzle down and goes into
THE HALL.
0
OUISA (VO)
The hall is eighteen feet long.
OUISA walks down the hall which now seems impossibly long.
OUISA (VO)
I stopped in front of the door.
OUISA taps on the door of her daughter's room.
OUISA
Paul?
SHE hears - what? - sounds of moaning?
OUISA
Paul??
PAUL (MOANING)
YES YES
OUISA
Are you all right?
OUISA opens the door to
HER DAUGHTER'S BEDROOM.
55
SHE turns on the light. SHE screams.
A GUY mid 20s, buck naked except for ratty white socks,
stands up on the bed.
HUSTLER
What the fuck is going on here. Who the fuck
are you?!
PAUL, startled,"sits up in bed and pulls on his clothes.
OUISA screams.
OUISA
Flan!!
THE MASTER BEDROOM
OUISA shakes FLAN violently. FLAN comes to.
FLAN
What is it?!
FLAN AND OUISA step out into
THE HALL.
SILENCE.
THEY hear their dog bark in
THE LIVING ROOM.
THE HUSTLER, naked but for white socks, wanders around the
living room picking up things. THE DOG is barking at HIM.
THE HUSTLER turns and smiles at FLAN and OUISA. -
HUSTLER
Hey! How ya doin'? Nice stuff.
FLAN
Oh my God!
THE HUSTLER stretches out on the sofa.
HUSTLER
Hey. I got to get some sleep--
FLAN tips the sofa, hurling the HUSTLER onto the floor.
THE HUSTLER leaps at FLAN threateningly.
OUISA
Stop it! He might have a gun!
56
HUSTLER (laughs)
Yeah. I might have a gun. I might have a knife.
THE HUSTLER raises his hand threateningly.
OUISA
He has a gun! He has a knife!
THE HUSTLER chases OUISA around the room.
FLAN chases the HUSTLER. THE DOG chases FLAN.
PAUL,dressed, runs in to the living room, carrying THE
HUSTLER's clothes which HE hurls down onto the sofa.
PAUL
I can explain.
OUISA
You went out after we went to sleep and picked
up this thing?
FLAN
You brought this thing into our house! Thing!
Thing! Get out! Get out of my house!
FLAN picks up the HUSTLER'S clothes and opens the front
door.
THE HUSTLER
Hey! Be careful of the pants!
FLAN
Take your clothes. Go back to sleep
in the gutter.
FLAN flings the clothes out into
THE OUTSIDE CORRIDOR.
FLAN pushes the elevator button.
THE HUSTLER suddenly lunges at FLAN and grabs FLAN by the
lapels of his bathrobe.
HUSTLER
Fuck. You!
THE HUSTLER throws FLAN back violently, then picks up his
clothes.
OUISA runs to FLAN.
FLAN gasps, catching his breath.
THE ELEVATOR DOOR opens..
EDDIE, the elevator man, is startled by the sight.
W
57
OUISA is terrified as PAUL stands at the front door.
PAUL
Please. Don't tell my father. I don't want him
to know. I haven't told him. I got. so lonely.
I got so afraid. My dad coming. I had the
money. I went out after we went to sleep and I
brought him back. You had so much. I couldn't
be alone. I was so afraid. I am so sorry.
OUISA
Just go.
EDDIE
Is everything all right?
FLAN
Make sure they go out!
PAUL
I can explain!
FLAN
Give me my fifty dollars.
PAUL
I spent it.
OUISA
Get out!
PAUL
I'm so sorry.
THE HUSTLER is in the elevator, pulling on his seedy
clothes.
FLAN
Make sure they leave. By the back door.
PAUL steps into the elevator. The door shuts.
BACK IN THE LIVING ROOM
FLAN and OUISA survey the room. THEY are at a loss.
THEY straighten out the pillows on the sofa.
THEY are exhausted.
MILLBROOK CLUB BAR
THE CROWD is astonished.
58
OUISA
And that's that.
FLAN
Well, it's not
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN and OUISA survey the living room.
FLAN
I am shaking.
OUISA
You have to do something.
FLAN
it's awful.
OUISA
Is anything gone?
FLAN
How can I look? I'm shaking.
OUISA
Did he take anything?
FLAN
Would you concentrate on yourself?
OUISA
I want to know if anything's gone?
FLAN
Calm down.
OUISA
We could have been killed.
FLAN
The silver Victorian inkwell.
OUISA
How can you think of things? We could
have been murdered.
FLAN picks up an ornate Victorian inkwell capped by a silver
beaver.
FLAN
There's the inkwell. Silver beaver. Why?
59
OUISA
Slashed ---our throats slashed.
A framed portrait of a pug.
FLAN
And there's the watercolor. Our dog.
FLAN pets his dog.
OUISA
Go to bed at night happy and then murdered.
would we have woken up?
FLAN
we're alive.
THEY sit on the sofa, drained, holding onto the phone.
The phone suddenly rings. THEY clutch each other.
OUISA
Don't pick it up!
FLAN does.
FLAN
Hello?
INT A LIMOUSINE MORNING
GEOFFREY sits in the back seat of a limousine talking on a
cordless portable phone.
GEOFFREY
Flanders. Look, I've been thinking.
Those Japs really want the Cezanne.
They'll pay. You can depend on me
for an additional overcall of two fifty.
THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM MORNING
FLAN's rind is boggled.
FLAN
Two hundred and fifty thousand?
60
EXT CURBSIDE KENNEDY AIRPORT
As GEOFFREY'S DRIVER takes care of the baggage, GEOFFREY
proceeds into the
THE FIRST CLASS LOUNGE
never dropping one beat on his radio phone.
GEOFFREY
And I was thinking for South Africa. What about
a black American film festival? With this Spike
Lee you have now and of course get Poitier down
to be the president of the jury and I know Cosby
and I love this Eddie Murphy and my wife went
fishing in Norway with Diana Ross and her new
Norwegian husband. And also they must have some
NEW BLACKS-
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA is trying to hear the other end of the call.
FLAN
Yes. It sounds a wonderful idea.
INT JFK THE TERMINAL
GEOFFREY walks through the terminal.
GEOFFREY
I'll call Poitier at the Sherry --
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN
No! We'll call!
INT AIRPORT IMMIGRATION
GEOFFREY puts the phone down on the security belt.
The phone goes through radar.
All the while we hear FLAN's voice.
The SECURITY PERSON impassively watches the phone on the
X-Ray screen.
GEOFFREY picks up the phone as it slides off the band.
GEOFFREY
They're calling my plane- And again last night-
61
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN
No need to thank. See you shortly.
INT KENNEDY AIRPORT THE GATE
GEOFFREY
The banks.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN
My lawyer.
KENNEDY AIRPORT THE GATE
GEOFFREY
Exactly.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN
Safe trip.
KENNEDY AIRPORT THE GATE
GEOFFREY snaps the phone shut, sticks it in his pocket and
goes into the gate.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN and OUISA look at each other in amazement.
OUISA
We're safe?
As FLAN hangs up the phone we hear a car door shut as FLAN
and OUISA get in their car.
EXT THE MILLBROOK GOLF AND TENNIS CLUB DAY
THE GROUP FROM THE WEDDING waves goodbye not at the BRIDE
and GROOM but at FLAN and OUISA. THE BRIDE and GROOM as a
matter of fact are there.
THE BRIDE
And then?
SANDY
And then?
62
OUISA
That's all we know!
And FLAN and OUISA drive out of the parking lot.
INT/EXT THE CAR TACONIC PARKWAY DAY
THE CAMERA pulls back to show FLAN and OUISA driving back
down the Taconic Parkway. THEY are more composed now than
when THEY left - and even pleased.
THE RADIO plays a Bach Cantata: Gloria!
THE CAMERA pulls back further to show them entering New York
City via the Triborough Bridge. THE CITY looks magnificent
for a moment from this vantage.
EXT EAST 67TH STREET DAY
Below us FLAN and,OUISA's car heads for the garage.
OUISA's hand suddenly flies out of the car window, waving
at a couple in their forties, KITTY AND LARKIN, crossing the
street. FLAN honks the horn. THE CAMERA travels down to
KITTY and LARKIN as they glare at the car, then smile when
THEY see who it is.
T
OUISA
Do we have a story to tell you!
KITTY
Do we have a story to tell you!
INT PRECINCT NIGHT
We cannot tell where we are yet.
But OUISA and FLAN and KITTY and LARKIN lean across a desk
and tell a MAN we will learn shortly is a DETECTIVE.
OUISA
Our two and their son are at Harvard together.
KITTY and LARKIN are pleased about this.
INT MORTIMER'S RESTAURANT AFTERNOON
THE TWO COUPLES sit a table in this definitive East Side
restaurant.
FLAN
Let me tell you our story.
63
LARKIN
When did your story happen?
FLAN
Last night. We are still zonked.
KITTY
we win. Our story happened Friday night.
So we go first.
LARKIN
We're going to be in the movies.
KITTY
We are going to be in the movie of Cats.
OUISA puts down her white wine.
OUISA
You tell your story first.
LARKIN
Friday night we were home, the doorbell rang---
KITTY
I am not impressed but it was the son of -
INT PRECINCT
THE DETECTIVE makes notes.
OUISA and FLAN
You got it.
BACK AT MORTIMER'S RESTAURANT
KITTY
The kid was mugged. We had to go out. We left
him. He was so charming. His father was taking
the red eye. He couldn't get into the Hotel
till seven AN. He stayed with us.
SHE is very pleased.
LARKIN
In the middle of the night, we heard somebody
screaming Burglar! Burglar! We came out in the
hall. Paul is chasing this naked blonde thief
down the corridor. The blonde thief runs out,
the alarm goes off. The kid saved our lives.
64
FLAN
That was no burglar.
OUISA
You had another house guest.
KITTY and LARKIN laugh.
LARKIN
We feel so guilty. Paul could've been killed by
that intruder. He was very understanding -
OUISA
Was anything missing from your house?
LARKIN
Nothing.
FLAN
Did you give him money?
KITTY
Twenty-five dollars until his father arrived.
THE PRECINCT
THE DETECTIVE looks at THEM carefully.
FLAN (to the detective)
We told them our story.
MORTIMER'S RESTAURANT NIGHT
KITTY & LARKIN
Oh.
OUISA
Have you talked to your kids?
KITTY
Can't get through.
FLAN
Let's go back to our place.
INT KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT NIGHT
The sound of keys in the door. The door swings open.
FLAN switches on the lights. THE TWO COUPLES run in heading
for the phone. OUISA dials.
65
OUISA
Sherry Netherlands. I'd like--
THE PRECINCT
LARKIN
She gave the name.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA
No! I'm not a fan. This is not a fan call.
Sidney Poitier must be registered.
His son is a friend of-
CLICK. The Sherry's hung up.
The doorbell rings. FLAN goes to the door.
LARKIN
He must be there under another name.
Another phone call.
OUISA
Hi. Celebrity Service? I'm not
sure how you work.
KITTY
Greta Garbo used the name Harriet Brown.
OUISA
You track down celebrities? Am I right?
LARKIN
Everybody must have known she was Greta Garbo.
OUISA
I'm trying to find out how one would get in
touch with---No, I'm not a press agent--No, I'm
not with anyone---My husband. Flanders
Kittredge?
(CLICK)
Celebrity Service doesn't give out information
over the phone.
LARKIN
Try the public library.
KITTY
Try Who's Who.
FLAN returns carrying an elaborate arrangement of flowers.
FLAN reads the card.
66
FLAN
"To thank you for a wonderful time.
Paul Poitier.'"
FLAN reaches into the bouquet. HE takes out a p.t of jam.
FLAN
A pot of jam?
LARKIN
A pot of jam.
THEY back off as if it might explode.
KITTY
I think we should go to the police.
EXT THE 19TH PRECINCT NIGHT
THE FOUR approach the precinct on East 94th Street.
INT THE PRECINCT
THE DETECTIVE, whom we recognize from earlier, looks up from
his desk.
DETECTIVE
What are the charges?
OUISA
He came into our house.
FLAN
He cooked us dinner.
OUISA
He told us the story of Catcher In The Rye.
FLAN
He said he was the son of Sidney Poitier.
DETECTIVE
Sidney Poitier?
FLAN and OUISA
You got it.
DETECTIVE
Was he?
OUISA
We don't know.
67
FLAN
We gave him fifty dollars.
KITTY
We gave him twenty five.
LARKIN
S HHHH
OUISA
He picked up a hustler.
FLAN
He left.
KITTY
He chased the burglar out of our house.
OUISA
He didn't steal anything.
LARKIN
We looked and looked.
KITTY
Top to bottom. Nothing gone.
THE DETECTIVE closes his notebook.
OUISA
Granted this does not seem major now.
DETECTIVE
Look. We're very busy.
FLAN
You can't chuck us out.
DETECTIVE
Come up with charges. Then I'll do something.
INT THE MORGAN LIBRARY NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA have come to a charity do featuring a string
quartet playing Schubert Trio in B flat.
But FLAN and OUISA are not entranced by the music.
THEY stand at the back of the room by the bar telling their
story to a GROUP of fascinated FRIENDS (none of whom was at
the wedding) as the QUARTET plays. These FRIENDS are all
dressed formally but with the look of people who dress this
way every night. There-'s always one of these going on and
they're always there.
68
FLAN
Yes, there is another chapter.
OUISA
Our kids came down from Harvard. a
Loud groans of protest and disbelief fill the
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM DAY
Two of FLAN and OUISA'S college aged CHILDREN, WOODY and
TESS, and KITTY and LARKIN'S boy, BEN, slump around the
room. They are in dismay at OUISA, FLAN, KITTY and LARKIN
and their story.
FLAN
--the details he knew--how would he know about
the painting?
FLAN has taken the Kandinsky off the wall and flipped it
around to the wild side.
FLAN
Although I think it's a very fine Kandinsky.
FLAN leans the painting against a chair and studies it.
OUISA
And none of you knows this fellow? He has this
wild quality--yet, a real elegance and a real
concern and a real consideration.
TESS looks at the floral arrangement PAUL sent.
It's only slightly wilted.
TESS
Well, Mom, you should have let
him stay. You should have divorced
all your children and just let this
dreamboat stay. Plus he sent you flowers.
FLAN
And jam .
THE KIDS
Oooooo.
OUISA
I wish I knew how to get hold of his father.
Just to see if there is any truth in it.
69
LARKIN
Who knows Sidney Poitier so we could just call
him up and ask him?
KITTY
I have a friend who does theatrical law.
I bet he -
LARKIN
What friend?
KITTY (suddenly trapped)
Oh, it's nobody.
LARKIN
I want to know.
KITTY (SCREAMS)
Nobody!
LARKIN (RECONSIDERS)
Whatever's going on anywhere, I do not
want to know. I don't want to know.
I don't want to know.
KITTY (OVERLAPPING)
Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.
BEN (OVERLAPPING)
Dad. Mom. Please. For once. Please?
BEN, KITTY, LARKIN scream at each other in anguish.
TESS, in a fury, leaves the apartment.
FLAN follows HER to
THE OUTSIDE CORRIDOR.
FLAN
Tess, when you see your little sister, don't
tell her that Paul and the hustler used her bed.
TESS
You put him in that bed. I'm not going to get
involved with any conspiracy.
FLAN
It's not a conspiracy. It's a family.
THE ELEVATOR DOOR opens. TESS and FLAN virtually growl at
each other as the door shuts on TESS.
70
FLAN sees KITTY, LARKIN and BEN screaming at each other.
FLAN sees OUISA, to avoid involvement in the domestic stir,
hang the Kandinsky back on the wall.
The geometric ordered side.
EXT CENTRAL PARK DAWN
The Alaskan Husky barks at the moon.
THE CAMERA travels out of the park up the face of the Fifth
Avenue apartment once again into the safety of
THE MASTER BEDROOM.
FLAN and OUISA are in bed asleep.
OUISA sits up when SHE hears someone tapping insistently on
the window pane. SHE looks around the room.
PAUL appears outside on the window ledge wearing the pink
shirt. OUISA gets out of bed and opens the window.
PAUL
The imagination. That's our out. Our
imagination teaches us our limits and then how
to grow beyond those limits. The imagination
says listen to me. I at your darkest voice. .I
am your 4am voice. I am the voice that wakes
you up and says this is what I'm afraid of. Do
not listen to me at your peril. The
imagination is the noon voice that sees clearly
and says yes this is what I want for my life.
It's there to sort out your nightmare, to show
you the exit from the maze of-your nightmare, to
transform the nightmare into dreams that become
your bedrock. If we don't listen to that voice,
it dies. It shrivels. It vanishes.
(PAUL takes out a switch blade and opens it.)
The imagination is not our escape. on the
contrary, the imagination is the place we are
all trying to get to.
PAUL lifts his shirt and stabs himself.
OUISA screams.
PAUL falls over backward into space.
The phone rings, waking OUISA. FLAN picks up the phone.
OUISA sits up, a little stunned. She is relieved to find
things so normal.
INT THE PRECINCT EARLY MORNING
DETECTIVE
I got a call that might interest you.
71
BACK TO THE MORGAN LIBRARY
The string quartet reaches a climax.
FLAN
And a new character entered our story
EXT BETH ISRAEL DOCTORS HOSPITAL DAY
FLAN and OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN come to this hospital
across from Gracie Mansion.
INT BETH ISRAEL DOCTORS HOSPITAL DR. FINE'S OFFICE
DR. FINE, an earnest professional man in his 50s, comes
down the hall, and opens his office door.
FLAN, OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN sit in his office.
DR. FINE
I was seeing a patient. I'm an
obstetrician at New York Hospital.
The nurse opened my office door.
INT EXAMINING ROOM DAY
THE NURSE, a sturdy woman in her 50s, opens the door.
NURSE
There's a friend of your son's here.
PAUL appears,- looking much as HE was when HE came to FLAN
and OUISA's. PAUL's shirt front is bleeding.
DR. FINE'S OFFICE
OUISA and FLAN, KITTY and LARKIN are filled with dread.
DR. FINE
I treated the kid. He was more scared than
hurt. A knife wound, a few bruises.
EXAMINING ROOM
PAUL gets off the examining table, buttoning his pink shirt.
PAUL
I don't know how to thank you, sir. My father
is coming here.
DR. FINE'S OFFICE
THE TWO COUPLES sit cramped on the Doctor's leather sofa.
72
FLAN and OUISA and KITTY and LARKIN
He's making a movie of Cats.
DR. FINE stands by the window looking out at the river.
DR. FINE
And he told me the name of a matinee idol of my
youth. Somebody who had really forged ahead and
made new paths for Blacks just by the strength
of-his own talent. Strangely, I had identified
with him, before I started Medical School. I
mean, I'm a Jew. My grandparents were killed in
the war. I had this sense of self-hatred, of
fear. And this kid's father - the bravery of
his films - had given me a direction, a
confidence. Simple as that. We're always
paying off debts. Then my beeper went off. A
patient in her tenth month of labor. Her water
finally broke. I gave'him the keys.
EXAMINING ROOM
DR. FINE gives PAUL a set of keys and walks him out into
THE HOSPITAL HALL.
PAUL
Doug's told me all about your brownstone. How
you got it at a great price because there had
been a murder in it and for a while people
thought it had a curse but you were a scientific
man and were courageous!
DR. FINE
Well, yes! Courageous!
DR. FINE'S OFFICE
FLA.N and OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN agree.
FLAN
Very courageous.
DR. FINE
I ran off to the delivery room. Twins! Two
boys. I thought of my son. I dialed my boy at
Dartmouth. Amazingly, he was in his room.
Doing y hat I hate to ask.
73
INT COLLEGE DORM ROOM DAY
The call wakens DR. FINE'S son, DOUG, 20.
DOUG grabs for the phone from under the covers. Is there
someone else in bed with Doug?
DR.FINE'S EXAMINING ROOM
DR. FINE
So you accuse me of having no interest in your
life, not doing for friends, being a rotten
father. Well, you should be very happy.
COLLEGE DORM ROOM
DOUG
The son of who? Dad, I never heard of him.
Dad, as usual, you are a real cretin. You gave
him the keys? You gave ,& complete stranger who
happens to mention my name the keys to our
house? Dad, sometimes it is so obvious to me
why Mom left. I am so embarrassed to know you.
You gave the keys to a stranger who shows up at
your office? Mother told me you beat her! Mom
told me you were a rotten lover and drank so
much your body smelled of cheap white wine. Mom
said sleeping with you was like sleeping with a
salad made with bad dressing. Why you had to
bring me into the world!
A GIRL sits up in bed, terrified.
EXAMINING ROOM
DR. FINE
There are two sides to every story -
COLLEGE DORM ROOM
DOUG
You're an idiot! You're an idiot!
THE GIRL in bed puts pillows over her head.
DR. FINE'S OFFICE
FLAN and OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN lean forward in
fascination.
DR. FINE
I went home..-courageously with a policeman.
74
EXT DR. FINE'S BROWNSTONE DAY
DR. FINE puts the key in the door. The COP with HIM has his
gun drawn. DR. FINE and THE COP enter
THE BROWNSTONE.
THEY hear a Debussy quartet playing.
PAUL sits in the living room wearing a silk robe, swirling a
snifter of brandy, listening to the music.
PAUL smiles when HE sees DR. FINE, but when the COP appears
with the gun, PAUL rolls over on his side out of the chair.
DR. FINE
Arrest him!
DR. FINE snaps off the radio.
PAUL backs up against the wall.
PAUL
Pardon?
DR. FINE
Breaking and entering.
PAUL
Breaking and entering?
DR. FINE
You're an imposter.
PAUL
Officer, your honor, your eminence, Dr. Fine
cave me the keys to his brownstone. Isn't that
so?
DR. FINE
My son doesn't know you.
PAUL
This man gave me the keys to the house.
Isn't that so?
THE COP puts his gun away.
POLICEMAN (SCREAMS)
Did you give him the key to the house?
DR. FINE
Yes, but under false pretenses. This fucking
black kid crack addict comes into my office
LYING -
75
PAUL (cool and forgiving)
I have taken this much brandy but can pour the
rest back into the bottle. And I've used
electricity listening to the music, but I think
you'll find that nothing's taken from the house.
PAUL takes off the silk robe and neatly places it on the
table.
DR. FINE
I want you to arrest this fraud.
PAUL puts on his jacket and leaves the house.
DR. FINE
Stop him!
THE POLICEMAN walks away.
COLLEGE DORM ROOM
DOUG continues his tirade.
DOUG
A cretin! A creep! No wonder mother left you!
DOUG flings the phone against the wall.
DR. FINE'S OFFICE
FLAN and OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN look at DR. FINE
sympathetically.
DR. FINE
Two sides. Every story.
But THE TWO COUPLES are also embarrassed.
BACK TO THE MORGAN LIBRARY
PEOPLE from the back row of the concert turn away from the
music and listen to OUISA and FLAN.
OUISA
We went down to the Strand -
FLAN
Five Sherlock Holmeses-
76
0 EXT THE STRAND BOOKSTORE 12th STREET AND BROADWAY DAY
The TWO COUPLES AND DR. FINE, go into
THE STRAND BOOKSTORE.
which advertises itself as possessing Eight miles of books
and that seems an understatement.
THE CAMERA rushes past rows of books.
And then suddenly stops.
OUISA
I found it!
OUISA'S HAND reaches up and brings down.
CU
A COPY OF SIDNEY POITIER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: "This Life"
OUISA reads from the Poitier autobiography.
THE OTHERS are enrapt..
OUISA
"Back in New York with Juanita and the children,
I began to become aware that our marriage,
while working on some levels, was falling apart
in other fundamental areas."
FLAN takes the book.
FLAN
There's a picture of him and his four-
daughters. No sons. Four daughters.
BACK TO THE MORGAN LIBRARY
FLAN
The book's called This Life.
A CONCERT-GOER
No sons?
OUISA
No sons!
THE STRAND BOOKSTORE
KITTY
Oh dear.
OUISA
This kid bulldozing his way into our lives.
77
LA.RKIN
is We let him in our lives. I run a foundation.
You're a dealer. You're a doctor. You'd think
we'd be satisfied with our achievements.
TNT THE GOTHAM RESTAURANT DAY
THE FIVE of THEM have gone down the street fram the Strand
to this swell restaurant.
FLAN
Agatha Christie would ask what do
we all have in common?
OUISA
It seems the common thread linking us all is an
overwhelming need to be in the movie of Cats.
KITTY
Our kids. Struggling through their lives.
LARKIN
I don't want to know anything about the
spillover of their lives.
OUISA
All we have in common is our children went to
boarding school together.
FLAN (to Dr. Fine)
How come we never met?
DR. FINE
His mother had custody. I lived out West. After
he graduated from high school, she moved west.
I moved east.
LARKIN
I think we should drop it right here.
KITTY
Are you afraid Ben is mixed up in this fraud?
LARKIN
I don't want to know too much about my kid.
KITTY
You think Ben is hiding things from us? I tell
you, I'm getting to the bottom of this. My son
has no involvements with any black frauds.
Doctor, you said something about crack?
78
LARKIN
I don't want to know.
DR. FINE
It just leaped out of my mouth.
No proof. Oh dear god, no proof.
FLAN
We'll take a vote. Do we pursue this to the end
no matter what we find out about our kids?
OUISA
I vote yes.
DR. FINE
I trust Doug. Yes.
LARKIN
No.
KITTY
Yes.
FLAN
Yes.
KITTY looks through the Poitier autobiography.
KITTY
Listen to the last page. ".. .making it better
for our children. Protecting them. From what?
The truth is what we were protecting those
little people from... there is a lot to worry
about and I'd better start telling the little
bastards - start worrying!" The end.
KITTY closes the book in dismay.
OUISA, FLAN, LARKIN, and DR. FINE are each lost in thought.
INT LINCOLN CENTER METROPOLITAN OPERA NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA, dressed formally, the way people used to
dress for the opera, stand at the small champagne bar
outside the boxes. Their similarly dressed FRIENDS are
engrossed in the tale.
FLAN
We all went up to Harvard.
OUISA
We had to enlist our children -
79
EXT HARVARD UNIVERSITY DAY
FLAN and OUISA, KITTY and LARKIN, and DR. FINE cut through
the Harvard Yard at an urgent pace.
INT ELIOT HOUSE HARVARD
The FIVE PARENTS sit in the empty Dining Commons.
THEY've come for lunch. And now lunch is over.
TESS, WOODY, BEN and DOUG sit on the other side of the
refectory table, glaring at their parents, lunch trays
between the generations.
STUDENTS walk in and out. THE PARENTS speak in hushed,
library size whispers to avoid any echo.
FLAN
It's obvious. It's somebody you went to High
School with, since you go to different colleges.
DR. FINE
I just want to tell you how I appreciate
your coming today -
DOUG
Dad? Spare me?
DOUG'S voice echoes.
OUISA
He knows the details about our lives.
FLAN
Who in your high school, part of your gang, has
become homosexual or is deep into drugs?
TESS
That's like about fifteen people.
TESS enjoys her echo because it makes FLAN and OUISA
uncomfortable.
LARKIN
I don't want to know.
TESS
I find it really insulting that you would assume
that it has to be a guy. This movie star's son
could have had a relationship with a girl in
HIGH SCHOOL---
And BEN is just as loud.
80
HEN
That's your problem in a nut shell.
You're so limited.
FLAN and OUISA try to shush them.
TESS
That's why I'm going to Afghanistan.
To climb mountains.
OUISA
You are not climbing mountains.
FLAN
We have not invested all this money in
you to scale the face of K-2.
TESS leans across the table, matching them whisper for
whisper.
TESS
Is that all I am? An investment?
OUISA
All right. Track down everybody in your high
school class. Male. Female. Whatever. Not
just homosexuals. Drug addicts. The kid might
be a drug dealer.
DOUG throws back his chair.
DOUG
Why do you look at me when you say that? Do you
think I'm an addict? A drug pusher? I really
resent the accusations.
DR. FINE
No one is accusing you of anything. Sit down.
LARKIN gets up and paces around the table.
LARKIN
I don't want to know. I don't want to know.
I don't want to know.
FLAN
Nobody is accusing anyone of anything.
I'm asking you to go on a detective search and
find out from your high school class if anyone
has met a Black kid pretending to be a movie
star's son.
81
BEN
He promised you parts in Cats?
OUISA
It wasn't just that. It was fun.
TESS
You went to Cats. You said it was an all time
low in a lifetime of theater going.
OUISA considers.
OUISA
Film is a different medium.
TESS
You said Aeschylus did not invent theater to
have it end up a bunch of chorus kids wondering
which of them will go to Kitty Kat Heaven.
OUISA
I don't remember saying that.
FLAN
No, I think that was Starlight Express -
TESS
Well, maybe he'll make a movie of Starlight
Express and you can all be on roller skates!
THE KIDS stand up.
DOUG
This is so humiliating.
BEN
This is so pathetic.
TESS
This is so racist.
OUISA
This is not racist!
THE KIDS stride out of the DINING HALL into
THE CORRIDOR.
THEIR PARENTS run ahead trying to circle them.
82
DOUG
How can I get in touch with anybody in high
school? I've outgrown them.
KITTY
Now can you outgrow them?
You graduated a year ago!
THE PARENTS stop in front of
THE MAIN ENTRANCE
blocking TESS and DOUG and BEN's escape. OUISA takes a red
book out of her bag and brandishes at THEM.
OUISA
Here is a copy of your yearbook. I want you to
get the phone numbers of everybody in your
class. You all went to the same boarding
school.
DR. FINE
You can charge it to my phone.
OUISA
Call everyone in your class
and ask them if they know--
THE THREE KIDS try to break through the blockade.
DOUG
Never!
TESS
This is the KGB.
DR. FINE
You're on the phone all the time. Now I ask you
to make calls all over the country and you
become reticent.
TESS
This is the entire McCarthy period.
WOODY saunters up to his PARENTS.
HE is very cool.
FLAN and OUISA smile at his sweet attitude.
WOODY
I just want to get one thing straight.
83
FLAN
Finally, we hear from the peanut gallery.
And WOODY screams at THEM in rage, his voice echoing,
mindless of the STUDENTS who freeze in the background as you
would at a traffic accident.
WOODY
You gave him my pink shirt? You gave a complete
stranger my pink shirt? That pink shirt was a
Christmas present from you. I treasured that
shirt. I loved that shirt. My collar size has
grown a full size from weight lifting. And you
saw my arms had grown, you saw my neck had
grown. And you bought me that shirt for my new
body. I loved that shirt. The first shirt for
my new body. And you gave that shirt away. I
can't believe it. I hate this life. I hate
you.
EXT ELIOT HOUSE
WOODY's wrath grows and grows and drives OUISA and FLAN,
indeed all the PARENTS, out of the serene, venerable Harvard
building onto the street. PASSERSBY stop and gape.
WOODY doesn't care.
DOUG
You never do anything for me.
TESS
You've never done anything but
tried to block me.
BEN
I'm only this pathetic extension
of your eighth rate personality.
DOUG
Social Darwinism pushed beyond all limits.
WOODY
You gave away my pink shirt?
TESS
You want me to be everything you weren't.
DOUG
You said drugs and looked at me.
THE PARENTS go down the street, speechless, defeated.
84
CUT TO
PAGES of a Yearbook turning. The pages stop.
TESS (VO)
Trent Conway. -
EXT THE BANKS OF THE CHARLES RIVER DAY
THE FOUR KIDS look through their high school yearbook.
TESS spots a face. THEY all consider.
THE KIDS
Trent Conway.
CU
TRENT CONWAY'S YEARBOOK PICTURE
TRENT is weasel faced. Very hard to read. Not quite
looking into the yearbook photographer's camera.
TESS
Trent Conway.
DOUG
Look at those beady eyes staring out at me.
BEN
Trent Conway.
WOODY
He's at MIT.
INT KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM DAY
TESS has come down to New York with news for her mother.
TESS
So I went to MIT. He was there in
his computer room and I just pressed
him and pressed him and pressed him.
I had this strapped to me.
TESS puts a small tape recorder on the desk.
TESS turns it on. OUISA listens to the tape.
TRENT'S TAPED VOICE
Yes, I knew Paul.
INT A COMPUTER ROOM AT MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
THE CAMERA focusses in on her thigh. WE can see the slight
bump where TESS has strapped the recorder.
85
TRENT looks up from his bank of computers at TESS.
TRENT's pinched face looks as if it has never, known one
truly happy day.
TESS A
But what happened between you?
TRENT
It was...It was...
EXT A DOORWAY RAIN NIGHT
PAUL dressed in ragged clothes stands huddled in a doorway
to get out of the freezing rain.
TRENT passes by the doorway.
TRENT is gone.
Then TRENT reappears and stares at PAUL.
INT TRENT CONWAY'S APARTMENT NIGHT
PAUL stands against the WHITE WALL we've seen earlier.
Rain. Distant thunder. Jazz playing somewhere.
PAUL, unlike the elegant PAUL we have seen, is dressed in
torn jeans, a ripped tank top, dirty high top sneakers.
This is the PAUL we first saw.
PAUL looks at TRENT with a mixture of contempt and I dare
you.
PAUL stretches out on the bed.
HE pulls out a thick address -book from under him.
PAUL
What's this?
PAUL speaks.street talk speech. Hardly what we've heard.
TRENT
My address book.
TRENT tries to take the address book away from PAUL.
PAUL
All these names. Addresses.
Tell me about these people.
TRENT lies along side PAUL.
TRENT
This is where I wanted you to be...
Right here...
PAUL, hypnotised by the-'address book, slaps TRENT away from
him and gets out of the bed.
86
PAUL (FIERCE)
Tell me about these people, man!
TRENT
I just want to look at you. Sorry.
PAUL
Are these all rich people?
TRENT sits up in bed.
TRENT
No. Hand to mouth on a higher plateau.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA looks at the tape recorder, horrified at this
judgement.
OUISA
How long did Trent keep Paul?
TESS shushes OUISA.
TRENT CONWAY'S APARTMENT
PAUL paces around the room, looking into this book.
PAUL
I think it must be very hard to be with rich
people. You have to have money. You have to
give them presents.
TRENT
Not at all. Rich people do something nice for
you, you give them a pot of jam.
PAUL (AMAZED)
That's what pots of jam are for?
TRENT
Orange. Grapefruit. Strawberry. But fancy.
They have entire stores filled with fancy pots
of jam wrapped in cloth. English. Or French.
PAUL
I'll tell you what I'll do. I pick a name. You
tell me about them. Where they live. Secrets.
And for each name you get a piece of clothing.
TRENT
All right.
87
PAUL picks a name at random, circling his finger and
0
plunging into the address book.
PAUL
Kittredge. Talbot and Woodrow.
TRENT
Talbot called Tess was anorexic and was in a
hospital for a while.
PAUL takes off a shoe and kicks it to TRENT.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
Now it's TESS's turn to be hurt. OUISA comforts TESS.
PAUL'S TAPED VOICE
Their parents.
TRENT CONWAY'S APARTMENT
TRENT
Ouisa and Flan for Flanders Kittredge. Rhode
Island I believe. Newport but not along the
ocean. The street behind the ocean. He's an art
dealer. They have a Kandinsky.
PAUL
A Kan--what- ski?
TRENT
Kandinsky. A double-sided Kandinsky.
PAUL kicks off his other shoe.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA and TESS look up at the Kandinsky hanging geometric
side front.
TRENT CONWAY'S APARTMENT
TRENT catches PAUL's sneaker joyously.
TRENT
I feel like Scheherazade!
TRENT embraces PAUL with fierce tenderness.
Maybe TRENT had one happy day and this is it.
88
TRENT
I don't want you to leave me, Paul. I'll go
through my address book and tell you about
family after family. You 111 never not fit in
again. we'll give you a new ideas it.y. I'll
make you the most eagerly sought after young man
in the East. And then I'I1 come into one of
these homes one day---and you'll be there and
I'll be presented to you. And I'll pretend to
meet you for the first time and our friendship
will be witnessed by my friends, our parents'
friends. If it all happens under their noses,
they can't judge me. They can't disparage you.
I'll make you a guest in their houses. Ask me
another name. I'd like to try for the shirt.
PAUL kisses TRENT.
PAUL
That's enough for today.
PAUL takes his shoes and the address book and goes.
KITTRED4 E' S LIVING ROOM
40 OUISA brushes TESS's hair as THEY listen.
TRENT'S TAPED VOICE
Paul stayed with me for three months.
TRENT CONWAY'S APARTMENT
PAUL leans against the white wall.
PAUL frowns, then smiles.
All ready PAUL has begun to change from a street kid to
someone quite preppy - very Ralph Lauren. Only on the
surface. HE's still learning.
TRENT
This is the way you must speak. Hear my accent.
Hear my voice. Never say you're going horse
back riding. You say You're going Riding. And
don't say couch. Say sofa. And you say
Bodd-ill. It's bottle. Say bottle of beer.
PAUL
Bodd-ill a bee-ya.
TRENT
Bottle of beer.
89
PAUL
(SERIOUS)
Bodd-ill a bee-ya.
(FLIRTATIOUS)
Bodd-ill a bee-ya.
(SUSPICIOUS)
Bodd-ill a bee-ya.
(ELATED)
Bottle of beer.
TRENT claps. PAUL bows to TRENT.
TRENT'S face is transfigured with joy.
COMPUTER ROOM
TRENT smiles at TESS but the smile is one of tight lipped
stoicism.
TRENT
We went through the address book letter by
letter. Paul vanished by the L's. He took the
address book with him. Well, he's already been
in all your houses. Maybe I will meet him
again. I sure would like to.
TRENT stands up signalling an end to the conversation. HE
turns off his computers.
TESS
His past? His real name?
TRENT
I don't know anything about him.
It was a rainy night in Boston.
He was in a doorway. That's all.
TESS
He took stuff from you?
TRENT
Besides the address book? He took my stereo and
sport jacket and my word processor and my laser
printer. And my skis. And my TV.
TESS
Will you press charges?
TRENT
No.
TESS
It's a felony.
90
TRENT
Why do they want to find him?
TES S
They say to help him. If there's a crime, the
cops will get involved.
TRENT
Look, we must keep in touch. We were friends
for a brief bit in school. I mean we were
really good friends.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
TESS'S TAPED VOICE
won't you press charges?
TRENT'S TAPED VOICE
Please.
TESS leans forward-and snaps off the tape recorder.
OUISA is amazed.
INT LINCOLN CENTER METROPOLITAN OPERA NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA have brought their FRIENDS up to date.
OUISA
Paul learned all that in three months!
OPERAGOER
Three months?
FLAN
Three months!
The chimes ring, signalling the start of the opera.
OUISA
who would have thought it? Trent Conway, the
Henry Higgins of our time.
THE GROUP laughs and finishes their drinks as THE USHER
unlocks the door to
THE OPERA BOX.
THE GROUP proceeds in, deciding who'll sit where in the box
and checking their programs.
OUISA looks into the vastness of the Metropolitan Opera
House.
THe chandeliers are rising into the ceiling.
91
OPERAGOER #1
Quick - what the hell is the story of this
opera?
FLAN adjusts his opera glasses. a
OPERAGOER #2
Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl.
OUISA is distracted.
OUISA
Paul must have looked at all those
names and said I am Columbus. I am Magellan.
I will sail into this new world.
The camera comes in on OUISA as she remembers
THE KITTREDGE LIVING ROOM.
TESS laughs. OUISA laughs. It's a nice moment between these
two.
OUISA
I read somewhere that everybody on this planet
is separated by only six other people. Six
degrees of separation. Between us and everybody
else on this planet. The President of the
United States. A. gondolier in Venice. Fill in
the names. I find that A.] tremendously
comforting that we're so close and B.] like
Chinese water torture that we're so close.
Because you have to find the right six people to
make the connection. It's not just big names.
It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A
Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to
everyone on this planet by a trail of six
people. It's a profound thought. How Paul found
us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to
be. Or perhaps j& his son, although I doubt it.
How every person is a new door, opening up into
other worlds. Six degrees of separation between
me and everyone else on this planet. But to
find the right six people.
TESS kisses HER MOTHER.
OUISA puts out the light and THEY leave the room.
92
MUSIC
THE ACT ONE MUSIC OF PUCCINI'S TOSCA suddenly swells up and
CONTINUES UNDER:
THE MASTER BEDROOM NIGHT
OUISA looks out the window down into the park.
EXT CENTRAL PARK
THE HUSKY bays up at the moon.
INT LINCOLN CENTER METROPOLITAN OPERA NIGHT
The curtain comes down on Act One of TOSCA.
Applause.
SANDY and CONNIE (yes! Pram the wedding) have leaned over
from the next box.
FLAN
No. No news.
OUISA
He just vanished.
FLAN
Nothing. All quiet. Thank god.
THEY pass out of the box into
THE CHAMPAGNE BAR.
EVERYONE is very cheery.
OUISA
Yes! We are going to Rome.
CONNIE gives OUISA a card with a name on it.
OUISA reads the card and passes it to FLAN.
OUISA
No! I don't know them.
FLAN smiles when HE sees the card.
FLAN
Always wanted to meet them! Of course we'l1
call. As soon as we get to Rome! What fun!
93
EXT ROME DAY
THE CAMERA floats high across the city heading for ST.
PETER'S BASILICA. It descends, circling ST. PETER'S,
TOWARDS
THE VATICAN.
FLAN (VO)
Rome is always remarkable but to see -
Columns flash past. The blurring clears and we are moving
INTO
INT SISTINE CHAPEL
with FLAN and OUISA. They are escorted, through a maze of
scaffolding, by an elderly Italian ART DEALER.
FLAN (VO)
the Sistine Chapel like this!
OUISA (VO)
To stand at the very top on scaffolding!
FLAN and OUISA ride up through the scaffolding, in a
rickety elevator.
OUISA
We were at the opera and ran into them and they
gave us your address!
FLAN
This is staggering!
THEY step out, in great excitement, right onto
THE SISTINE CHAPEL SCAFFOLDING.
FLAN (VO)
They restored it after all these years -
FOUR ITALIAN WORKERS scrub away at the ceiling a few feet
above them. They refer constantly to banks of computers
operated by TWO JAPANESE.
OUISA (VO)
scraped all this paint off it
FLAN (VO)
and years of smoke and tourists and it's brand
new!
94
OUISA looks up. SHE is right beneath the hand of God
touching the hand of Man. SHE looks at it in awe. To be
this close to it! THE SCREEN is filled with the cleaned
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
INT SOHO LOFT NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA sit on cushions of a Soho loft done in the
most glamorous minimal Japanese mode.
FLAN
The colors are vibrant!
OUISA
Flan went for business but for me it was -
THE OWNERS of this loft are a MAN, 40s, who is confined to a
wheel chair, and his beautiful COMPANION, an elegant
Japanese woman. THE TEN DINNER GUESTS are dressed all in
black, except OUISA who has on a bright Chanel suit. SHE
and FLAN have managed to capture stage center.
THE WHEEL CHAIR MAN
(INTERRUPTING OUISA)
But what happened!
FLAN
No. It's not important -
THE JAPANESE HOSTESS
You must!
OUISA
Well, the day we got back from Rome -
FLAN
We stepped out of the taxi from the airport and
EXT THE KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT BUILDING DAY
FLAN steps out of the cab first.
OUISA (VO)
our doorman whom we tip very well at Christmas
and any time he does something nice for us-- our
doorman spits at my husband, J. Flanders
Kittredge. I mean, spit at him!
The DOORMAN - FRANK - good faithful loyal FRANK - holds
the door open and spits at FLAN.
95
SOHO LOFT
THE CROWD gasps.
FLAN frowns at OUISA for telling this part.
FLAN
Darling, they don't have to know every detail.
EXT THE KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT BUILDING
OUISA is afraid to come out of the cab.
DOORMAN
Your son! I know all about your son.
FLAN
What about my son?
DOORMAN
Not the little shit who lives here. The other
son. The secret son. The negro son you deny.
FLAN
The negro son?
DOORMAN
The black son you make live in Central Park
while you're gallivanting around Rome.
The DOORMAN spits at FLAN again.
SOHO LOFT
THE JAPANESE HOSTESS is interested.
THE JAPANESE HOSTESS
You have a black son?
FLAN
No! The cops brought this young girl to us!
OUISA
The cops called us up and we went
down to the precinct again!
INT PRECINCT DAY
THE DETECTIVE sits on the edge of his desk.
OUISA and FLAN sit in chairs in the small office, looking on
uncomfortably. The emotion in the shabby room is too big for
the size of it. THEY watch a young woman named ELIZABETH,in
her mid-20s, seated behind the DETECTIVE'S desk.
96
ELIZABETH (in a rage)
I want him dead. That's all I want.
SOHO LOFT
OUISA leans forward at the dinner table.
OUISA
The next chapter.
THE PARTY is silenced.
THE PRECINCT
ELIZABETH
My boy friend and I took a picnic
into the park
EXT CENTRAL PARK DAY
RICK, ELIZABETH and PAUL sprawl out on the grass in the
sun, under the statue of the Alaskan husky, the remains of a
picnic around them. Bongo Drums play in the distance.
ELIZABETH (VO)
and we met this guy and started
singing and talking.
RICK, a nice young guy in his mid-twenties, plays his guitar
energetically, the THREE of them having a great time singing
a cheery old rock song.
PAUL is wearing the pink shirt and the khakis but looks
pretty seedy. HE eats hungrily.
PAUL
I was hallucinating from not eating-
ELIZABETH
If I told people back home that
New York had trees and picnics,
they'd swear I was lying. I love New York so
much. Look at it! I can't get over it.
RICK
We're here from Utah.
PAUL
Do they have any black people in Utah?
RICK
Maybe two.
97
ELIZABETH
I saw them once. Two black people.
RICK
Yes, the Mormons brought in two.
THEY all laugh, enjoying each other, the day, the meeting.
ELIZABETH
We came here to be actors.
RICK
She won the all-state competition
for comedy and drama.
PAUL
My gosh!
ELIZABETH stands up and declaims.
ELIZABETH
"The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.."
SHE's not bad. But then SHE giggles and the Shakespearean
effect crumbles.
RICK
And we study and we wait tables.
ELIZABETH
Because you have to have technique.
ELIZABETH and RICK are very earnest.
PAUL
Like the painters. Cezanne looked for the rules
behind the spontaneity of Impressionism.
RICK
Cez - That's a painter?
ELIZABETH
We don't know anything about painting.
PAUL
My dad loves painting. He has a Kandinsky but
he loves Cezanne the most. He lives up there.
RICK
What?
98
PAUL points up at 910 FIFTH, the home of the Kittredge's.
PAUL
He lives up there. Count six windows over.
John Flanders Kittredge. His chums-call him
Flan. I was the child of Flan's hippie days.
His radical days. He went down South as a
freedom marcher, to register black voters - his
friends were killed. Met my mother. Registered
her and married her in a fit of sentimental
righteousness and knocked her up with me and
came back here and abandoned her. Went to
Harvard. He's now a fancy art dealer. Lives up
there. Count six windows over. Won't see me.
The new wife--the white wife-- The Louisa
Kittredge Call Me Ouisa wife - the mother of the
new children wife--
RICK
Your brothers and sisters?
PAUL (BITTER)
They go to Andover and Exeter and Harvard and
Yale. The awful thing is my father started out
good. My mother says there is a good man inside
s J. Flanders Kittredge.
ELIZABETH
He'll see you if he is that good. He can't
forget you entirely.
PAUL
I call him. He hangs up.
RICK
Go to his office -
PAUL
He doesn't have an office. He works out of
there. They won't even let me in the elevator.
RICK
Dress up as a messenger.
ELIZABETH
Say you have a masterpiece for him.
"I got the Mona Lisa waitin' out in the truck."
99
PAUL
I don't want to embarrass him. Look, this is so
fucking tacky.
(PAUSE)
You love each other? a
ELIZABETH
A lot.
RICK and ELIZABETH touch each other's hands.
PAUL (standing up to go)
I hope we can meet again.
RICK
Where do you live?
PAUL looks around HIM and makes a hopeless grand gesture.
PAUL
Live? I'm,home.
PAUL picks up two plastic shopping bags which are filled
with clothing.
ELIZABETH
You're not out on the streets?
PAUL
You're such assholes. Where would I live?
PAUL shrugs his shoulders and leaves.
RICK and ELIZABETH look at each other then follow him down
the path leading through the park to the carousel.
THE CAROUSEL calliope plays merrily.
RICK
Stay with us.
ELIZABETH
We just have a railroad flat in a tenement --
PAUL looks at a bank of daffodils planted by the carousel.
HE begins picking a bouquet of daffodils.
RICK and ELIZABETH are being as persuasive as they can.
RICK
It's over a roller disco. The last of the
roller discos but it's quiet by five AM and a
great narrow space -
100
ELIZABETH
A railroad loft and we could give you a corner.
The tub's in the kitchen but there's light in
THE MORNING-
SOHO LOFT
OUISA
And he did!
INT RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT DAY
RICK and ELIZABETH'S tenement is disastrously crummy and
probably violates every building code. But, yes, light
does flow in through that one narrow window.
PAUL puts the bouquet of daffodils into a jelly jar and sets
it down on a board that covers the tub.
THE PRECINCT
ELIZABETH composes herself.
OUISA pours ELIZABETH a glass of water.
ELIZABETH
He stayed for a few weeks. He taught
us so much. We even thought he was the
reason for coming to New York. He opened
up a new world for us. That's all anybody
wants, isn't it? A new world?
OUISA looks at FLAN.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK and ELIZABETH listen intently to PAUL.
PAUL
This is the way you must speak.
Hear my accent. Hear my voice.
Never say you're going horse back riding.
You say You're going Riding. And don't
say Couch. Say Sofa. And you say bodd-ill.
It's bottle. Say bottle of beer.
RICK
Bodd-ill a bee-ya.
101
ELIZABETH pokes around in the refrigerator.
ELIZABETH
(SERIOUS)
Hello. �. _
(FLIRTATIOUS)
Hello.
(SHE discovers two bottles of beer)
Hello hello!
SHE opens the beers. PAUL regards RICK for a moment.
PAUL takes the bottle of beer.
RICK and ELIZABETH share the other.
PAUL
Bottle of beer. And never be afraid of rich
people. You know what they love? A fancy pot
of jam. That's all. Get yourself a patron.
That's what you need. You shouldn't be waiting
tables. You're going to wake up one day and the
temporary job you picked up to stay alive is
going to be your full time life.
ELIZABETH is struck by his advice and embraces PAUL
gratefully.
THE PRECINCT
ELIZABETH is more pulled together, sipping her drink of
water. FLAN takes OUISA's hand.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK and ELIZABETH have made love and lay on their backs in
bed and dream.
RICK
I'll tell you all the parts I want to play.
Vanya in Uncle Vanya.
ELIZABETH
Masha in Three Sisters.
RICK
I'd like a -
ELIZABETH is on fire with happiness and unwittingly cuts off
RICK.
ELIZABETH
No, Irina first. The young one
who yearns for love.
102
RICK
I'd like a shot at -
ELIZABETH
Then Masha who loves.
RICK
I'd like a shot -
ELIZABETH
Then the oldest one, Olga, who never knows love!
RICK'waits to see that ELIZABETH is through, then:
RICK
I'd like a shot at Laertes. I think
it's a much better part.
ELIZABETH gazes in a mirror that- SHE holds close to her
face.
ELIZABETH
Do you think it'll hurt me?
RICK
What'll hurt you?
ELIZABETH
My resemblance to Liv Ullmann.
PAUL runs into the loft.
PAUL
He wrote me! I wrote him and he _
wrote me back! He's going to give
me a thousand dollars! And that's
just for starters! He sold a Cezanne
to the Japanese and made millions and
he can give me money without her knowing it.
PAUL lets out a whoop and leaps up onto the bed with RICK
and ELIZABETH in it and begins jumping up and down.
ELIZABETH
I knew it!
PAUL goes to a corner which contains a single mattress on
the floor and begins to pack his few things back in the
plastic bags.
PAUL
I'm moving out of here!
103
ELIZABETH reaches for her robe and pulls it on.
RICK pulls on his jeans.
ELIZABETH
You can't!
RICK
No!
RICK and ELIZABETH surround PAUL to make HIM stay.
PAUL hugs THEM.
PAUL
But I am going to give you the money to put on a
showcase of any play you want and you'll be in
it and agents will come see you and you'll be
seen and you'll be started. And when you win
your Oscars - both of you - you'll look in the
camera and thank me -
ELIZABETH loves the moment and weeps her acceptance speech.
ELIZABETH
I want to thank Paul Kittredge.
RICK
Thanks, Paul!
THEY all hug each other and that's real.
PAUL
One hitch. I'm going to meet him in Maine. He's
up there visiting his parents in Dark Harbor.
My grandparents whom I've never met. He's
finally going to tell my grandparents about me.
He's going to make up for lost time. He's going
to give me money. I can go back home. Get my
momma that beauty parlor she's wanted all her
life. One problem. How am I going to get to
Maine? The wife checks all the bills. He has
to account for the money. She handles the purse
strings. Where the hell am I going to get two
hundred and fifty dollars to get to Maine?
ELIZABETH
How long would you need it for?
PAUL
I'll be gone a week. But I could wire
it back to you.
104
PAUL goes into the john to take his toothbrush and razor.
ELIZABETH pulls on her dress and straightens out her hair.
RICK (QUIET)
We could lend it to him for a week.
ELIZABETH (QUIET)
We can't. If something happens -
RICK (QUIET)
You're like his stepmother. These women holding
on to all the purse strings.
ELIZABETH
No. We worked too hard to save that.
PAUL comes out of the john.
RICK - always laid back - is suddenly quite angry.
ELIZABETH
Paul. I'm sorry. We just can't.
PAUL
Look. No problem. I understand.
ELIZABETH
I'll meet you both after work. If your father
loves you, he'll get you the ticket up there.
PAUL
He does. It'll work out. Hey.
Posture. Stand up straight. Don't slump.
Attitudes of defeat.
ELIZABETH kisses PAUL and looks at sullen RICK and leaves.
SOHO LOFT
OUISA
She was one of those armies of
young people who come to New York
filled with dreams and end up on a treadmill
working and working just to stay alive.
INT A WEST SIDE RESTAURANT NIGHT
ELIZABETH is one of the few waitresses in this crowded bar
and works very hard.
EXT CASH MACHINE NIGHT
ELIZABETH gapes at the information on the screen.
105
CU MESSAGE ON SCREEN
"ACCOUNT CLOSED"
ELIZABETH begins hitting the machine to get her card back.
ELIZABETH picks up the phone on the machine and calls the
emergency number.
ELIZABETH (in phone)
There's some mistake. It says my joint account
- can you see the numbers on the screen - that's
right. that's my name. And his name. Joint
account. What do you mean? Closed? Who closed
the account? Who took everything out of the
account? Who did this! Give me my card back!
THE GUY next in line nudges her.
THE NEXT CUSTOMER
Let somebody else in here.
EXT THE KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT BUILDING NIGHT
An hysterical ELIZABETH goes into
THE LOBBY.
FRANK, the DOORMAN, is having a snooze.
ELIZABETH shakes him. HE wakes up terrified at the sight of
this hysterical creature over HIM.
ELIZABETH
- people named Kittredge. This Kittredge guy
has a black son he makes live in the park -
FRANK
Mr. Kittredge has what?
ELIZABETH
His black son took money from me -
FRANK
You have to be quiet
ELIZABETH
I want to get up to see them!
FRANK
You'll have to call or write a letter -
ELIZABETH
They owe me money!
R
106
FRANK takes ELIZABETH by the arm and ushers her out of
THE KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT BUILDING.
FRANK, the DOORMAN, bolts the front door to the-building.
ELIZABETH bangs on the door.
ELIZABETH
I'm here trying to get to meet people.
I am stranded. Who do I know to go to?
I want my money. I work tables. I work hard.
A CAB pulls up. A POSH COUPLE steps out of the cab to go
into 910 Fifth. THEY look at ELIZABETH.
ELIZABETH
"The quality of mercy is not strained?"
Fuck you, quality of mercy.
FRANK opens the door quickly. THE POSH COUPLE scoots in.
ELIZABETH kicks the building.
INT ORSO'S RESTAURANT NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA have come to this Broadway Italian restaurant
after the theater with a MAN and WOMAN who from their dress
and manner are obviously in the theater: ANDREW and ZEANNIE.
FLAN and OUISA are in mid-story.
FLAN
- all over the building that I had abandoned
some mistake of my past in Central Park!
THE COUPLE gasps!
JEANNIE
But it's too fantastic!
FLAN
Can't you just see me marching
down South for Freedom Now!
OUISA (PROUDLY)
Yes. Yes, I can.
FLAN
It was so embarrassing.
ANDREW
Horrible!
107
OUISA
It wasn't so embarrassing.
JEANNIE
I bet Flan loves being outraged.
FLAN (mock outrage)
I don't!
ANDREW
You do! Flan loves getting into
high dudgeon! His cheeks go all rosy!
Look at his cheeks! Dudgeon becomes him.
THEY all laugh as the WAITRESS puts down the plates of food.
FLAN
To high dudgeon!
THEY all toast.
But OUISA has stopped laughing.
INT RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TEN EME NT NIGHT
ELIZABETH sits up in bed in the dark. SHE impassively
watches a rat scramble across the floor. RICK comes in,
drained, dressed in a baby blue tuxedo with a ruffled blue
shirt - the kind of tux worn at high school proms.
RICK (BRIGHT)
Hi!
ELIZABETH puts on the light.
ELIZABETH
Where's the money?
BACK IN ORSO'S RESTAURANT
OUISA continues her tale.
DUISA
- she understandably wanted to know.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK laughs brightly and sits beside HER on the bed.
108
RICK
No! Let me explain. Paul found some extra
money of his own and he wanted to thank us for
staying here! He would've treated you but you
had to work or else we would've . We rented
these tuxedos! Isn't it a gas! He's going to
give us the money back! And then I'm going to
take you to the Rainbow Room. That's where we
went! I brought you matches!
INT THE RAINBOW ROOM NIGHT
RICK, in his ruffled blue tux, and, PAUL, in impeccable
black tie, look into the Rainbow Room.
THE CAPTAIN takes THEM to a table by the window.
RICK and PAUL look out over the city. The view is magic!
RICK (WHISPERS)
Now did we get this table!
PAUL
Stick with me, baby. I know the
right name to drop.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK (laughs brightly)
And it's not that expensive for what you get.
Well, it's not a bargain but it's
THE RAINBOW ROOM
THE WAITER opens a bottle of champagne.
RICK
How an I going to explain to Elizabeth
about the money?
PAUL tastes the champagne. THE WAITER pours.
PAUL
She'll have it back. With interest. Wonderful
bouquet. Bouquet. That's what you call the
taste of the wine. And I believe that wine from
the even numbered years is generally the
superior to the odd numbered years. Although
it's just a theory - Cheers! Skol! Prosit!
RICK
You are just about the greatest -
THE DANCE ORCHESTRA plays a salute to 1930's romance.
109
PAUL
Do you want to dance?
RICK
Elizabeth has never seen anything l_4e here. I
wish she was... Who do we dance with?
THE ORCHESTRA segues into a tango. PAUL stands.
RICK
We're guys.
PAUL
Every moment in life is a learning experience or
what good is it? Right? Right?
RICK
Well, yes.
PAUL
Then let this bunch of jerks see class.
ORSO'S RESTAURANT
FLAN nods for their dinner guests, ANDREW and JEANNIE.
A little bit of titillation.
FLAN
They danced. That's right! High
over New York City.
THE RAINBOW ROOM
RICK and PAUL go to the dance floor and begin to dance,
PAUL leading. RICK loving it.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK tries to laugh it up into a wild experience.
ELIZABETH sits impassively.
RICK
I swear nothing like this ever
happened in Utah.
THE RAINBOW ROOM
At first PEOPLE don't notice RICK and PAUL dancing. Then
PEOPLE do notice.
110
RICK (VO)
And, I'll tell you, nothing like that must have
ever happened at the Rainbow Room because they
asked us to leave. It was so funny.
PAUL spins RICK round and round and the CAMERA spins with
THEM.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK
You'll love the place. It's up so high.
THE RAINBOW ROOM
THE CAMERA spins around the panoramic view sixty-five floors
and then spins out of the windows down onto
EXT THE ICE RINK ROCKEFELLER CENTER NIGHT
THE CAMERA focusses in on a COUPLE spinning in the middle of
the ice. RICK and PAUL, hysterical with laughter, cut
through Rockefeller Center and then come to Fifth Avenue
where A HANSOM CARRIAGE waits. THE DRIVER tips his hat to
these customers. PAUL jumps into
THE HANSOM CARRIAGE.
RICK
We don't have any money -
PAUL
Amigo! When will you learn! Money is one
commodity you can always get.
THE HANSOM CARRIAGE proceeds up to Central Park.
RICK leans forward looking out the isinglass windows.
RICK
I'm going to have to explain to Elizabeth about
the money and calm her. She gets so nervous
ABOUT-
(PAUL draws a circle on RICK's back.)
Hey, stop that. Paul. Come on.
PAUL
I was wondering if I could fuck you.
RICK laughs. Then sees PAUL is serious.
RICK
I don't do things like that.
111
PAUL
That's what makes it so nice. You don't.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK reaches over and turns off the light by the bedside.
Downstairs we hear the throb beginning of the roller disco.
ELIZABETH looks at him coldly.
RICK
- and he did and it was fantastic.
THE HANSOM CARRIAGE
Time has passed.
PAUL kisses an amazed, mussed RICK on the mouth and jumps
out of the CARRIAGE and goes off into the dark.
EXT CENTRAL PARK
THE DRIVER stands up seeing PAUL run out. RICK runs out of
the CARRIAGE after PAUL. THE DRIVER chases them.
CU
RICK lost in the nighttime park.
RICK looks up and sees the STATUE OF THE HUSKY.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK paces back and forth.
RICK
Didn't we come here for experience? Right? We
can use this. Right?
ELIZABETH lies on her stomach on the bed away from him.
THE PRECINCT
ELIZABETH rolls a pencil back and forth on the desk.
FLAN and OUISA watch sympathetically.
ELIZABETH
He rambled on for hours. His own father
warned me Rick was a fool and I looked
at Rick and knew his father was right.
112
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK paces back and forth in a rage, pulling at his tux.
RICK - -
My father is not right! I can't have him be
right. I wanted experience. We came here for
experience. What's so wrong with that? Right?
ELIZABETH is repelled by him.
ELIZABETH
Don't touch me!
THE PRECINCT
ELIZABETH rubs her hands over her face as if trying to get
the memory away.
OUISA looks at FLAN and THE DETECTIVE.
ELIZABETH
He went on for a long time trying to get me
just to look at him. I couldn't even do that.
RICK AND ELIZABETH'S TENEMENT
RICK
But I didn't come here to do this or lose that
or be this or do this to you. Not to you. Look
at me? Elizabeth! What did I let him do to me?
ELIZABETH
Nobody did this but you.
BACK IN ORSO'S RESTAURANT
FLAN
Now the amazing part is
OUISA
talk about six degrees
FLAN
We were in the roller disco that night!
ANDREW and JEANNIE's jaws drop.
113
OUISA
Yes! There we were roller skating for heart
disease or cancer -
FLAN
It was illiteracy.
INT ROLLER DISCO NIGHT
MIDDLE AGED PEOPLE all dolled up roll skate around and
around trying to keep their balance to 40s swing music.
Among the SKATERS we spot FLAN and OUISA at this ROLLER
DISCO BENEFIT skating round and round breathlessly going
faster and faster, laughing and laughing.
Lights flash and whirl.
ORSO'S RESTAURANT
OUISA
I hadn't skated in I hate to tell you how many
YEARS -
FLAN
We came outside giddy and reeling
0
EXT ROLLER DISCO NIGHT
Lights reflect in a puddle on the wet street. THE CAMERA
pulls back to reveal it is a puddle of blood, seeping out of
a crumpled body.
OUISA (VO)
The body must have just landed there in a clump
FLAN (VO)
Because the blood seeping out had not yet
reached the gutter...
OUISA (VO)
The blood just oozing out slowly
towards the curb.
FLAN and OUISA and another COUPLE, SANDY and CONNIE from
the wedding, stop at the sight. They stare at the body
that has slammed into the pavement. The body of RICK.
FLAN (VC)
The boy had jumped from above.
OUISA (VO)
We just missed it by minutes.
114
ORSO'S RESTAURANT
OUISA
Perhaps we could have saved him - called an
ambulance - but it was too late -
FLAN
He could've landed on us!
ANDREW and JEANNIE are appalled. No!
OUISA frowns.
JEANNIE
It's so funny you say that. Yesterday we walked
through the park by Gracie Mansion
ANDREW
and it was cold and we saw police putting a
jacket on a man sitting on a bench.
JEANNIE
Only we got closer and it wasn't a jacket.
ANDREW
It was a body bag. A homeless person
had frozen during the night.
OUISA
Was it that cold?
ANDREW
Sometimes there are periods where you see death
everywhere.
FLAN waves to someone over there.
THE WAITRESS brings coffees.
OUISA looks straight ahead.
THE PRECINCT DAY
OUISA and FLAN sit with the DETECTIVE and ELIZABETH.
DETECTIVE
When this young lady told me the black kid was
your son, it all seemed to come into place.
What I'm saying is she'll press charges.
ELIZABETH
I want Paul dead. He took all our money. He
took my life. Rick's dead! You bet your life
I'll press charges.
115
OUISA
We haven't seen him since that night.
DETECTIVE
Find him. We might have a case. a
OUISA
How do we find him?
FLAN
We'll trap him. I'll release it to the papers.
I can call the New York Times. I have friends.
They'll publish the story. Someone will see
it. And turn him in. We'll find Paul.
OUISA
Six degrees. Six degrees.
OUISA looks at FLAN. FLAN is so secure.
INT THE FRONT DOOR OF THE KITTREDGE'S APARTMENT DAY
FLAN, in his bathrobe, opens the door and picks up the
morning paper.
t HE scans through the paper, then lets out a whoop and runs
through the apartment to
INSERT
NEW YORK TIMES article entitled:
"Who Says New Yorkers Don't Have a Heart"
THE KITCHEN
OUISA is making a breakfast drink at the blender.
FLAN (reading from the Times)
"Smart sophisticated tough New Yorkers such as
J. Flanders Kittredge who opened their homes and
pocket books to a young man learned yesterday
they had been boondoggled by a confidence man
now wanted by police -
FLAN pounds the kitchen counter in glee.
OUISA looks at him, askance.
EXT LINCOLN CENTER THE STATE THEATRE NIGHT
The fountain shoots up. The camera drifts up the face of
the State Theatre. It's intermission. FLAN and OUISA are
out on the terrace in,.mid story talking to A COUPLE (ALEX
and LILY) who are there with a YOUNG GIRL who is obviously
an aspiring ballerina.
116
LILY
I didn't see that piece.
ALEX
We were in Aspen.
THE CHIME signals the intermission's end.
FLAN
I'll send you the clipping.
OUISA
You could wall paper the Empire State Building
with all the copies he made.
ALEX
We'll meet right here at the next intermission-
THEY return inside.
THE YOUNG BALLERINA
Did you ever hear from Sidney Poitier?
FLAN
No.
ALEX
Did you hear from the boy?
FLAN
No.
EXT CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE DAY
OUISA and FLAN get out of a taxi in front of this gothic
cathedral. THEY see KITTY and FLAN running down the street
to the same destination.
INT CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE
OUISA and FLAN walk down the aisle with KITTY and LARKIN.
KITTY
Come for dinner with us after
OUISA
We'd love to but can't!
FLAW
So sorry! Have to work.
117
OUISA
Black-tie auction - Sotheby's -
FLAN leans in close to KITTY. Top secret.
A
FLAN
We are bidding tonight on an Henri Matisse.
LARKIN
The nudes? The bathers? The dancers?
THEY cut down a side aisle.
FLAN
It's a second level Matisse -
OUISA
but a Matisse -
KITTY
Who are you buying it for? The Japanese?
Germans?
AN ORGAN suddenly begins playing a triumphant Bach cantata.
OUISA
Not allowed to tell.
OUISA turns to look up at the choir loft.
LARKIN
Then it's the Germans.
FLAN
They'll go as high as -
OUISA
Don't tell all the family secrets -
FLAN
Well over 25 million.
LARKIN
Out of which you will keep -
OUISA
Not that much in this new market.
118
FLAN
Ugh. Bring back the 80s.
I'll have to give most of it away, but the good
part is it gives me a credibility in this new
market. It's all out of whack. Everything's
up. Everything's down. I mean, a David Fucking
Hockney print sold for a hundred bucks fifteen
years ago went for Thirty four thousand dollars!
A print! A flower. You know Geoffrey. our
South African -
OUISA shushes FLAN.
THEY have arrived at
INT THE BAPTISTRY OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE
OUISA and FLAN are part of the GROUP in this stone Gothic
chamber witnessing the baptism of the infant child of two
FRIENDS of theirs. KITTY and LARKIN are the godparents.
EVERYBODY applauds as THE PRIEST shakes the water on the
baby's head.
CU A SHOWER HEAD
spewing a jet of water
INT KITTRIDGE'S MASTER BEDROOM/BATHROOM EARLY EVENING
FLAN is in the shower singing merrily.
FLAN
The Matisse will be mine
- for a few hours
Then off to Tokyo
Off to Saudi
OUISA is on the speaker phone with TESS while she is
dressing for the auction.
TESS (VO)
What do you have on?
OUISA
I'm totally dolled up. The black. Have you seen
it? I have to tell you the sign I saw today.
Cruelty-free cosmetics. A store was selling
cruelty-free cosmetics.
INT HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS is curled up on her bed enjoying this chat.
119
TESS
Mother, that is such a beautiful thing. Do you
realize the agony cosmetic companies put rabbits
through to test eye shadow?
A
MASTER BEDROOM
OUISA
Dearest, I know that. I'm only talking about
the phrase. Cruelty-free cosmetics should take
away all evidence of time and cellulite and--
HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS
Mother, I'm getting married.
MASTER BEDROOM
OUISA picks up the receiver on the cordless phone. This is
too important for 'a speaker phone.
OUISA
I thought you were going to Afghanistan.
TESS (VO)
I am going to get married and then go to
Afghanistan.
OUISA
One country at a time. You are not
getting married.
HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS
Immediately so deeply negative--
OUISA (VO)
I know everyone you know and you are not
marrying any of them.
TESS
The arrogance that you would assume you know
everyone I know. The way you say it: I know
everyone you know -
MASTER BEDROOM
In the Background, FLAN shaves at the bathroom mirror.
120
OUISA
Unless you met them in the last two days - you
can't hold a secret.
(The other line rings)
Wait- I'm putting you on hold
TESS (VO)
No one ever calls on that number.
OUISA
Wait. Hold on.
TESS (VO)
Mother!
OUISA
Hello?
EXT UNIDENTIFIED PHONE BOOTH DUSK
Lights flash on the glass of this UNSPECIFIED LOCATION.
PAUL, frightened, is on a street phone AND dressed as HE was
when TRENT first met him, ragged, scared.
PAUL
Hello?
BACK IN THE MASTER BEDROOM
OUISA
Paul?
We will cut back and forth between these two locations for
the remainder of this scene. At times, the two will share
the screen.
During this scene OUISA walks throughout THE APARTMENT
speaking on the cordless phone.
PAUL
I saw the story in the paper. I didn't know the
boy killed himself. He gave me the money. I
didn't steal any -
OUISA
Let me put you on hold. I'm
talking to my child.
PAUL
If you put me on hold, I'll be gone and you'll
never hear from me again.
OUISA pauses.
121
HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS
Mother! I -
A
TESS is cut off.
BACK IN THE KITTREDGE'S HALL
OUISA
You have to turn yourself in. The boy comaitted
suicide. You stole the money. The girl is
pressing charges. They're going to get you.
Why not turn yourself in and you can get of f
easier. You can strike a bargain. Learn when
you're trapped. You're so brilliant. You have
such promise. You need help.
PAUL
Would you help me?
OUISA
What would you want me to do?
PAUL
Stay with you.
OUISA
That's impossible-.
PAUL
Why?
OUISA
My husband feels you betrayed him.
PAUL
Do you?
OUISA
You were lunatic! And picking that drek off the
street. Are you suicidal? Do you have AIDS?
Are you infected?
PAUL
I do not have it. It's a miracle. But I don't.
Do you feel I betrayed you? If you do, I'll
hang up and never bother you again -
OUISA
Where have you been?
122
PAUL
Travelling.
OUISA
You're not in trouble? I mean, more trouble?
PAUL
No, I only visited you. I didn't like the first
people so much. They went out and just left me
alone. I didn't like the doctor. He was too
eager to please. And he left me alone. But you.
You and your husband. We all stayed together.
CUISA
What did you want from us?
PAUL
Everlasting friendship.
OUISA
Nobody has that.
PAUL
You do.
OUISA
What do you think we are?
PAUL
You're going to tell me secrets? You're not
what you appear to be? You have no secrets.
Trent Conway told me what your kids have told
him over the years.
OUISA
What have the kids told him about us?
PAUL
I don't tell that. I save that for blackmail.
OUISA
Then perhaps I'd better hang up.
PAUL (PANIC)
No! I went to a museum! I liked
Toulouse-Lautrec!
OUISA
As well you should.
PAUL
I read the Andy Warhol Diaries.
123
DUISA
Ahh, you've become an aesthete.
PAUL
Are you laughing at me?
OUISA
No. I read them too.
PAUL
I read The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.
DUISA
You're ahead of me there.
PAUL
Have you seen the Sistine Chapel?
OUISA
Oh yes. Even gone to the top of it in a rickety
elevator to watch the men clean it.
PAUL
You've been to the top of the Sistine Chapel?
PAUL leans into the phone, amazed, as the screen floods with
the brightly colored ceiling of the
INT SISTINE CHAPEL
OUISA and FLAN stand on the top of a rickety platform.
THE WORIOCkN slaps it.
OUISA (VO)
Absolutely. Stood right under the hand of God
touching the hand of man.
THE WORKMAN
Hit it. Hit it. It's only a fresco.
OUISA looks up at the hand of God. SHE laughs and slaps
the hand of God.
PAUL smiles in wonderment as the SCREEN fills with color.
But then WE're out of his imagination and see the squalid
surroundings of his phone booth.
PAUL
You slapped God's hand!
124
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA
I slapped God's clean hand.
And you know what they clean it with? All this
technology? Q-tips and water.
PAUL is thrilled by this bit of knowledge.
PAUL
No!
OUISA
Clean away the years of grime and soot and paint
ovens. Q-tips and water changing the history of
Western art. Vivid colors.
PAUL
Take me to see it?
OUISA
Take you to see it? Paul, they think you might
have murdered someone! You stole money!
0 FLAN appears, needing help with his studs.
FLAN
Honey, could you give me a hand with--
OUISA (mouths to Flan)
It's Paul.
FLAN goes to the other phone.
FLAN
I'll call that detective.
The other phone line rings. FLAN picks it up.
INT HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS
Dad! We were cut off. I'm getting marr -
FLAN (VO)
Darling, could you call back -
TESS
I'm getting married and going to Afghanistan -
125
BACK IN THE KITTRIDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN
We cannot talk about this now -
HARVARD DORM ROOM
TESS
I'm going to ruin my life and get married and
throw away everything you want me to be because
it's the only way to hurt you!
TESS hangs up.
ANOTHER PHONE is picked up. It is at
THE PRECINCT.
THE DETECTIVE doesn't even get to say "Hello".
FLAN (on the phone)
I've got that kid on the line.
DETECTIVE
Find out where he is.
KITTREDGE'S LIVING ROOM
FLAN (mouths to Ouisa)
Find out where he is
PAUL
Who's there?
OUISA
Look, why don't you cone here. Where are you?
PAUL, pressed in the battered phone booth, doesn't want to
be in this cold street with its brightly lit squalor. HE
wants to be at OUISA's, but his fear wins out.
PAUL
I come there and you'll have the cops waiting.
OUISA
You have to trust us.
PAUL
Why?
OUISA
Because - we like you.
126
FLAN (mouths)
Where is he?
PAUL, straining to hear, gets very paranoid.
PAUL
Who's there?
IT'S -
I'm not here.
It's Flan.
FLAN groans impatiently.
PAUL brightens.
THE OPERATOR makes noises.
PAUL drops a coin in the box.
PAUL
Are you in tonight? I could come and make a
feast for you.
OUISA
We're going out now. But you could be here when
we come back.
FLAN
Are you nuts! Tell a crook we're going out. The
house is empty.
PAUL
Where are you going?
OUISA
To Sotheby's.
FLAN grabs the phone.
FLAN (SARCASTIC)
The key's under the mat!
PAUL is as cheery as HE can be.
PAUL
Hi! Can I come to Sotheby's?
FLAN thrusts the phone back to OUISA.
127
OUISA
Hi.
PAUL
I said hi to Flan.
OUISA
FLAN
OUISA
PAUL
That's wonderful! I'll come!
OUISA
You can't.
PAUL
Why? I was helpful last time -
FLAN
Thank him - he was very help -
OUISA hands FLAN the phone.
FLAN
Paul? You were helpful getting me that money
for the Cezanne. You impressed Geoffrey -
PAUL
Really! I was thinking maybe that's what I
should do is what you do - in art but making
money out of art and meeting people and not
working in an office -
FLAN
You only see the glam side of it. There's a
whole grotty side that -
PAUL
I could learn the grotty -
FLAN
You have to have art history. You have to have
language. You have to have economics -
-- PAUL
I'm fast. I could do it. Do your kids want to
128
FLAN
No, it's not really a profession you hand down
from generation to gen - what the hell at I
talking career counselling to you! You
embarrassed me in my building! You stole money.
There is a warrant out for your arrest.'
OUISA (wrests the phone away)
Don't hang up! Paul? Are you there? Paul!
(TO FLAN) You made him hang up -
PAUL
I'm here.
OUISA
You are! Who are you? What's your real name?
PAUL
If you let me stay with you, I'll tell you.
That night was the happiest night I ever had.
OUISA (to Flan)
It was the happiest night he ever had.
FLAN
Oh please. I am not a bullshitter but never
bullshit a bullshitter.
FLAN goes.
SHE paces into the KITCHEN, looking at the implements PAUL
had used that night, the funny candelabra.
OUISA
Why?
PAUL
You let me use all the parts of
myself that night -
OUISA opens the door into the DINING ROOM.
OUISA
It was magical. That Salinger stuff -
SHE turns on the chandelier in the DINING ROOM.
PAUL
Graduation speech at Groton two years ago.
OUISA
Your cooking -
129
PAUL
Other people's recipes. Did you see Donald
Harthleme's obituary? He said Collage was the
art form of the 20th century.
OUISA
Everything is somebody else's-
PAUL
Not your children. Not your life.
SHE walks around the empty dining room table.
OUISA
Yes. You got me there. That is mine.
It is no one else's.
PAUL
You don't sound happy.
SHE walks back into the LIVING ROOM.
OUISA
There's so much you don't know. You are so.
smart and so stupid -
PAUL slams the side of the phone booth.
PAUL (FURIOUS)
Never say I'm stupid -
OUISA
Have some flexibility! You're stupid not to
recognize what you could be.
PAUL
What could I be?
OUISA
So much.
PAUL
With you behind me?
OUISA
Perhaps. You liked that night?
I've thought since that you spent
all your time laughing at us.
PAUL
No.
130
SHE walks down the HALL.
DUISA
That you had brought that awful hustling thing
back to show us your contempt -
PAUL
I was so happy. I wanted to add sex to it.
Don't you do that?
OUISA looks into the MASTER BEDROOM and goes in.
DUISA (PAUSE)
No.
PAUL
I'll tell you my name.
OUISA
Please?
PAUL
It's Paul Poitier-Kittredge.
It's a hyphenated name.
SHE sits on her bed.
OUISA
Paul? You need help. Go to the police. Turn
yourself in. You'll be over it all the sooner.
You can start.
PAUL
Start what?
OUISA
Your life.
PAUL
Will you help me?
OUISA stands up.
OUISA
I will help you. But you have to go to the
police and go to jail and -
PAUL
Will you send me books and polaroids of you and
cassettes? And letters?
131
OUISA
Yes.
OUISA walks rapidly down the HALL.
PAUL
Will you visit me?
OUISA
I will visit you.
PAUL
And when you do, you'll wear your
best clothes and knock em dead?
SHE's in the LIVING ROOM.
OUISA
I'll knock em dead. But you've got to be careful
in prison. You have to use condoms.
PAUL
I won't have sex in prison. I only
have sex when I'm happy.
OUISA
Go to the police.
PAUL
Will you take me?
OUISA
I'll give you the name of-the detective to see-
PAUL
I'll be treated with care if you
take me to the police. If they don't
know you're special, they kill you.
OUISA
I don't think they kill you.
PAUL puts the phone receiver over his head in a sudden
gesture of fear. Then HE returns the receiver to his ear.
PAUL
Mrs. Louisa Kittredge, I am black.
PAUSE.
132
OUISA
I will deliver you to them with
kindness and affection.
PAUL
And I'll plead guilty and go to
prison and serve a few months.
OUISA
A few months tops.
PAUL
Then I'll come out and work for
you and learn -
OUISA
We'll work that out.
PAUL
I want to know now.
OUISA
Yes. You'll work for us.
PAUL
Learn all the trade. Not just the grotty part.
OUISA
Top to bottom.
PAUL
And live with you.
OUISA
No.
PAUL
Your kids are away.
OUISA
You should have your own place.
PAUL
You'll help me find a place?
OUISA
We'll help you find a place.
PAUL
I have no furniture.
133
OUISA
We'll help you out.
PAUL beams as HE becomes the PAUL from that night. His
imagination is off and running. The lights, from wherever
HE is, shine on his face and reflect on the broken glass of
the booth.
PAUL
I made a list of things I liked in the museum.
Philadelphia Chippendale.
OUISA
Believe it or not, we have two Philadelphia
Chippendale chairs -
PAUL
I'd rather have one nice piece than
a room full of junk.
OUISA
Quality. Always. You'll have all that.
Philadelphia Chippendale.
PAUL
All I have to do is go to the police.
OUISA
Make it all history. Put it behind you.
PAUL
Tonight.
OUISA
It can't be tonight. I will take you tomorrow.
We have an auction tonight at Sotheby's -
PAUL
Bring me?
OUISA
I can't. It's black tie.
PAUL
I have black tie from a time I
went to the Rainbow Room. Have
you ever been to the Rainbow Room?
OUISA
Yes.
134
PAUL
What time do you have to be there?
OUISA
Eight o'clock.
PAUL
It's five thirty now. You could come
get me now and take me to the police
tonight and then go to Sotheby's--
OUISA
We're going to drinks before at the Pierre.
PAUL
Japanese?
OUISA
Germans.
PAUL
You're just like my father.
OUISA
Which father?
PAUL
Sidney!
PAUSE.
OUISA
Paul. He's not your father. And
Flanders. is not your father.
FLAN comes in to the living room, dressed.
FLAN
Oh fuck. We have drinks with the Japanese at
six- fifteen - Get off that fucking phone. Is
it that kid? Get him out of our life! Get off
that phone or I'll rip it out of the wall!
OUISA (looks at FLAN)
Paul, I made a mistake. It is not the Germans.
We will come right now and get you. Where are
you? Tell me? I'll take you to the police. They
will treat you with dignity.
135
EXT PHONEBOOTH BY THE MARQUEE OF THE WAVERLY THEATER,
GREENWICH VILLAGE
PAUL
I'm in the lobby of the Waverly movie theater on
Sixth Avenue and Third Street.
KITTRIDGE'S LIVING ROOM
OUISA
We'll be there in half an hour.
PAUL
I'll give you fifteen minutes grace time.
OUISA
We'll be there. Paul. We love you.
PAUL
Ouisa., I love you. Ouisa Kittredge. Hey?
Bring a pink shirt.
OUISA
We'll have a wonderful life.
SHE hangs up and looks at FLAN.
OUISA
We can skip the shmoozing. Pick
the boy up, take him to the police
and be at Sotheby's before eight.
INT A FORMAL DINING ROOM
Of all the PARTIES we've been to, this is the most luxurious
of all, given by one of New York's legendary hostess's, a
glamorous woman who must be in her late 80s, MRS. BANNISTER.
OUISA and FLAN are here.
This dinner is really a state occasion in honor of that
United Nations type at MRS. BANNISTER'S right.
But FLAN and OUISA have captured the table.
OUISA
t The story ended there...
FLAN
It did not!
Clearly OUISA is as disturbed by the telling of the events
as FLAN is energized.
136
OUISA
There are so many other people here tonight. We
didn't mean to take up so much
MRS. BANNISTER slams her napkin down.
MRS. BANNISTER
No! It's my supper and I command you to sing!
FLAN
We called our new best friend, the detective.
OUISA
We told them Paul was at the Waverly theater.
FLAN (to his dinner partner)
Sixth Avenue and Third Street. The lobby.
OUISA
But we had promised Paul that we would
bring him to the police. We told the police he
was special.
FLAN
Well, Ouisa did.
OUISA
The detective said he'd honor our promise.
FLAN
We skipped the cocktails
OUISA
But we didn't count on
EXT TRAFFIC ON FIFTH AVENUE
OUISA and FLAN in dinner clothes are stuck in a traffic jam.
OUISA (VO)
Traffic traffic traffic
FLAN gets out of the car and looks ahead in this din of
honking horns.
EXT WAVERLY MOVIE THEATER, GREENWICH VILLAGE NIGHT
FLAN and OUISA speed up Sixth Avenue and double park in
front of the Waverly Movie Theater.
Two Cop cars are there. Red lights spinning.
PEOPLE gape on the street.
137
THEY see PAUL being dragged into one of the two Cop cars,
t kicking and screaming.
THE COPS throw PAUL into the back seat.
FLAN tries to talk to one of the POLICE while OUISA runs up
to the Cop car window.
PAUL, being handcuffed, looks at OUISA. HE smiles as if
HE's bumped into DUISA at a cocktail party.
PAUL
The Kandinsky is painted on both sides.
DUISA is startled. THE COP slams the car door on PAUL.
OUISA
Paul? Officer? Let me go with you -
I promised I'd take him!
OFFICER
Lady. Out of the way --
FLAN takes OUISA's-arm.
OUISA
We have to do soaething!
FLAN
Let's just get the hell out of here.
THE COP CAR pulls away, sirens blaring.
PAUL turns and looks at OUISA. Betrayal.
BACK IN THE FORMAL DINING ROOM
MRS. BANNISTER
There's nothing more you can do -
FLAN
What could we do? We tried.
OUISA
went to the precinct.
INT THE PRECINCT DAY
DUISA hands the detective's card to the DESK CLERK.
CLERK
He's transferred.
OUISA
Since yesterday? He's been handling this
138
CLERK
He's transferred -
OUISA
This is about an arrest made yesterday at the
Waverly Movie theater -
THE CLERK checks the records.
CLERK
This precinct didn't do any business at the
Waverly Theater.
OUISA
I didn't imagine it -
CLERK
I'm not saying you did.
OUISA
Could you find out which precinct -
THE CLERK looks through the book.
CLERK
The name?
OUISA
Poitier. He's a young black man. Or maybe
Kittredge. I don't know the exact name -
CLERK
Are you family?
OUISA
Not exactly. But the detective
promised me yesterday that I could go with the
young man when he was arraigned to let them know
he was special.
CLERK
We have no record of it. Some other precinct
must have made the arrest. It sounds like your
special friend was wanted for something else.
OUISA
Like what?
CLERK
Lady, how can I help you? You don't even know
your friend's name.
139
OUISA
We can find anybody - Six degrees
THE CLERK closes the book.
BACK IN THE FORMAL DINING ROOM
OUISA
We weren't family. We didn't know Paul's name.
EXT HOGAN PLACE THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE DAY
OUISA (VO)
I went to the District Attorney's office.
we weren't family. We didn't know Paul's name.
EXT THE CRIMINAL COURTS BUILDING
OUISA (VO)
I called the Criminal Courts.
I wasn't family. I didn't know Paul's name.
THE FORMAL DINING ROOM
OUISA
You see, I read today that a young man
committed suicide in Riker's Island.
Tied a shirt around his neck and hanged
himself. Was it the pink shirt? This
burst of color? The pink shirt. Was it Paul?
We never found out who he was.
FLAN
I'm sure it's not him.
MRS. BANNISTER
Yes. I agree. Isn't it amazing.
FLAN
He'll be back. We haven't heard the last of
him. The imagination. He'll find a way. Could
we talk about something else? Our guest of
honor tonight- it's such a pleasure to meet you-
But.THE GUEST OF HONOR FROM THE UN leans forward.
THE GUEST OF HONOR
Why does it mean so much to you?
140
OUISA
He wanted to be us. Everything we are in the
world, this paltry thing--our life--he wanted
it. He stabbed himself to get into our lives.
He envied us. We're not enough to be envied.
FLAN
Like the papers said. We have hearts.
OUISA
Having a heart is not the point. We were hardly
taken in. We believed him -- for a few hours.
He did more for us in a few hours than our
children ever did. He wanted to be your
child. Don't let that go. He sat out in that
park and said that man is my father. He's in
trouble and we don't know how to help him.
FLAN
Help him? He could've killed me. And you.
THE GUESTS agree.
OUISA
You were attracted to him -
FLAN throws down his napkin in mock outrage. Almogj mock
outrage.
FLAN
Cut me out of that pathology! You are
on your own -
OUISA
Attracted by youth and his talent and the
embarrassing prospect of being in the movie
version of Cats. Did you put that in your Times
piece? And we turn him into anecdote to dine out
on. Like this. As we are right now. But it was
an experience. I will not turn him into an
anecdote. How do we fit what happened to us
into life without turning it into an anecdote
with no teeth and a punch line we'll mouth over
and over for years to come. "Tell the story
about the imposter who came into our lives---"
"That reminds me of the time this boy--". And
we become these human juke boxes spilling out
these anecdotes. But it was an experience. How
do we keep the experience?
OUISA looks around the dinner table.
THE GUESTS have decided to start on their dinners.
141
FLAN (to his Dinner Partner)
That's why I love paintings. Cezanne. The
problems he brought up are the problems painters
are still dealing with. Color. Structure.
Those are problems.
OUISA (to herself)
There is color in my life, but I'm not
aware of any structure.
FLAN
What are you saying, darling?
OUISA looks at FLAN clinically. FLAN frowns and turns back
to his dinner partner brightly.
FLAN
Cezanne would leave blank spaces in his
canvasses if he couldn't account for the brush
stroke, give a reason for the color.
OUISA
Then I am a collage of unaccounted-for brush
strokes. I an all random.
OUISA stands up from the dinner table.
Her chair scrapes. There is an embarrassed rush.
MRS. BANNISTER (an order)
Sit down.
OUISA leaves the dinner table.
THE CORRIDOR OUTSIDE THE FORMAL DINNER PARTY
OUISA pushes the elevator button.
FLAN comes into the hall.
FLAN
What kind of behavior is -
OUISA
God, Flan, how much of your life
can you account for?
THE ELEVATOR DOOR opens.
FLAN
Do you realize how important this woman is!
SHE steps in the elevator. FLAN follows.
142
THEY descend in silence, not wanting a scene in front of the
THE OPERATOR. THE ELEVATOR DOOR opens into the lobby.
INT PARK AVENUE LOBBY NIGHT
FLAN follows OUISA through the lobby.
FLAN
Are you drunk? What are you unhappy about? The
Cezanne sale vent through. The Matisse went
through. We are rich. Geoffrey's rich. Next
month there's a Bonnard and after that -
OUISA
These are the times I would take a knife and dig
out your heart. Answer me? How much of your -
FLAN
- life can I account for! All! I am a gambler!
OUISA smiles at the simplicity of her realization.
OUISA
We're a terrible match.
OUISA steps out onto
EXT PARK AVENUE NIGHT
FLAN (following OUISA)
She is a very important woman. I am hoping to
do business! Did you see the paintings on her
walls! She might want to sell! She
FLAN glares at HER and turns back into the lobby and returns
to the party.
OUSIA moves to follow FLAN, then walks up PARK AVENUE, lost,
agitated, unsure.
OUISA walks on, remembering
THE SISTINE CHAPEL.
OUISA's hand completes the action.
OUISA slaps the frescoed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
OUISA slaps the Hand of God!
PARK AVENUE
OUISA gasps when SHE looks in a SHOP WINDOW
| Six Degrees of Separation
Writers : John Guare
Genres : Comedy Drama Mystery
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