Going Pizza sreenplay
Going Pizza
The US Postal Service, challenged by the Internet and hemorrhaging money, partners with a pizza chain.
EXT. URBAN STREET DAY
A late model tricked out lowrider convertible rolls through a decayed neighborhood.
Maybe this isn't the most squalid ghetto in America, but it is grimy urban blight. No greenery, except for a weed-choked lot, alleviates the bleak vista of pavement and concrete. The other vehicular traffic consists of rattletrap beaters and graffiti-speckled city buses spewing fumes.
The corner groceries and liquor stores have barred windows and all seem to specialize in cheap fortified wines and ales. Garbage spills from overturned cans along the curbside. Many stores are boarded and vacant. The few residences look rundown and shabby. The only color on the street is on the palings, thick with bright, rococo spray-painted gang sign. Listless men slouching in doorways hardly look up as the convertible passes.
The convertible slows down and stops at a light, under a line of elevated billboards.
CU on the occupants, four muscular young bad dudes dressed in tank tops showing off gym beef crawling with gang tats. The four are ethnically diverse: a scowling white skinhead; a Hispanic with a tear tattooed under his eye and prison scroll on his neck; a hyper-muscular black; and a mustachioed, angry-looking Asian. Their hard faces bespeak the insolence of youth and the arrogance of animal strength untouched by compassion.
They are driving their heads in unison to a rap cadence on the radio.
A billboard overhead advertises a skin lotion. "Chill with SunBan."
A large thermometer at the upper right of the billboard shows that today's temperature is 99 degrees. The hazy air above the asphalt shimmers in the relentless heat. Wilting pedestrians waiting at the intersection guard themselves against implacable ultraviolet by wearing Kepi-style do-rags under baseball caps.
As the convertible pauses at the light we notice that this run-down block is ethnically diverse, with blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and whites sharing a depressing panorama of inner-city decay
In b.g., sweating, sloppy youths in baggy trousers, oversized tank tops, and reversed ball caps, lean against a paling plastered with ads for Prybar Ale.
The hoarding also displays a poster for the rap artists Lavese Las Manos and their new single, “Fuck the Losers.”
CU on driver of convertible as he fiddles with tthe dashboard player.
As the music starts, the light changes, the convertible lurches forward with the four thugs inside bobbing their heads in time with the hypnotic rhythm.
Roll credits
CUT TO: An MTV style video, with a Rapper at a Rave Party, surrounded by throngs of delirious swaying youths. A banner in b.g. alerts us that the rapper is the lead singer for Lavese Las Manos. He smilingly steps forward on the stage to tumultuous applause..
RAPPER
Wha you say you wahn a handout?
(wild applause and shouting from audience)
Why? I ain’t no Boy Scout,
Got no time for losers...
CUT TO: A backup chorus of three smiling vapid teenage Valley girls in halter tops and short-shorts.
CHORUS (nasally)
Fuck the losers.
CUT TO: The four bobbing thugs in the convertible.
RAPPER (o.s.)
Tha’s righ’, bitch, fuck the losers.
Noblese oblige? Puh-leese.
My wallet done bleedin’
I’m sick ah whinin’
The cryin,’ anna jivin’
CUT TO: A montage of images along the street that illustrate the song.
A derelict lying beside the curb; a tattered beggar soliciting coins.
RAPPER (o.s.)
Every cripple in the gutter,
Every dumb motherfucker
Wants a helpin’ hand,
I can’t be no sucker…
CUT TO: Smiling girl chorus
CHORUS
Fuck the losers
CUT TO: Montage. Dope addicts in an alley. Fry cook at a hotdog stand. Pimply pizza delivery boy. Fat trailer trash white woman. Panhandlers.
RAPPER (o.s.)
Sniffin’ glue from a sack,
Fools suckin’ crack
Junkie witta monkey onna back.
Low-pay burger flipper,
Flunkies who deliver
White trash in the trailers
Panhanders, moochers,’
Washed-up failures
CUT TO: Smiling Bad Dudes singing along.
BAD DUDES
Fuck the losers.
CUT TO: Rapper at the Rave, to tumultuous applause.
RAPPER
Fuck the losers.
CUT TO: Montage. A group of angry welfare moms and their swarming children are gathered around the postal gang box outside a dilapidated apartment building. They’re soundlessly yelling at a female mail carrier.
RAPPER (o.s.)
Fuckin’ welfare slut,
Coolin’ at the mailbox,
Get a check for doin’ nothin,’
Bitch, keep your knees shut.
CUT TO: Valley Girl chorus
CHORUS
Fuck the losers.
CUT TO: Montage. Bums and derelicts standing outside the Salvation Army. A crazy bag lady, silently sobbing, is pushing a shopping cart piled high with her filthy possessions.
RAPPER (o.s.)
All the lame old geeks,
Boozers anna freaks,
Bums wit no teeth
Standin’ by the Sally
It’s your own folly
Oh stop your bellyachin’
I know that you be fakin’
Crazy old lady…
I hate a crybaby.
CUT TO: Girl chorus
CHORUS
Fuck the losers
CUT TO: Montage. A thirty-ish unshaven veteran with one leg missing below the knee, on crutches, dressed in a dirty Army jacket with sergeants’ stripes. He’s looking straight at the camera, with the expressionless thousand yard stare.
RAPPER (o.s)
Yo vet on a stump
Thanks a bunch, chump.
Some hajii pop a cap?
Can’t help it you’re a sap
Ain’t my problem, Sarge.
CUT TO: Girl chorus
CHORUS
Fuck the losers.
CUT TO: Rapper, surrounded by happy dancing couples
RAPPER
Fuck the losers.
I wash my hands of ‘em
End credits
EXT URBAN STREET DAY
In the center of the block is a take-out pizza joint, somewhat in the manner of franchises such as Pizza Hut or Roundtable, but far grittier. The marketing, as typified by the sign over the door, seems geared to the ghetto:
Malboca’s Bad Ass Pizza
You Want Some?
Anytime Anyplace
The logo on the sign features a cartoon of a pizza delivery boy, muscular, pierced, tattooed, skinhead, with a truculent face and a box of Bad Ass pizza under his arm.
The convertible pulls into a reserved parking space in front of the pizzeria.
INT. BAD ASS PIZZA
The full-blast air conditioner is blowing colored streamers straight out. Several floor fans circulate the sluggish, humid air. At the counter, a scrimmage of lowlife thugs, mostly wearing tank tops, are drinking beer and watching sports on TV. Passing behind them is a Bas Ass Pizza delivery boy, a tough young Hispanic balancing a pile of pizzas in insulated bags.
The four bad dudes from the convertible enter and pull up stools along the bar.
Camera pans along the simian faces wolfing pizza and guzzling brew, and comes to rest on the television set.
CU TV SET
The game is interrupted by a commercial.
COMMERCIAL: A very attractive young woman, dressed in a sexy version of the U.S. Postal Service uniform, with tight blouse and short skirt, is fighting her way out of a mail truck during what appears to be a monsoon. The wind drives her skirt higher up her thighs, while the drenching rain plasters the blouse to her well-developed bosom.
ANNOUNCER o.s.
“…neither rain…
The same well-endowed woman now is fighting her way through a blizzard, knee-deep in a snowbank, wearing a very tight-fitting postal snowsuit.
o.s. the howling of a wolf.
ANNOUNCER: o.s.
“…nor snow…”
The same woman, her leather mail bag over her shoulder, again in her mini-skirt, is taking a frightened glance over her shoulder as she tip-toes in the dead of night through a gothic graveyard
o .s. eerie organ music and sepulchral laughter
ANNOUNCER: o.s.
“..nor gloom of night stays this carrier
from her appointed round…
An upscale, white bread suburban neighborhood. In the b.g. a two-story house and well-tended lawn and garden. The female mail carrier stands by a mailbox next to the gate of a white picket fence. She is joined by Mom, a smiling, well-groomed matronly blonde.
The mail carrier reaches in her pouch and brings out a flat red/white/and blue box, which Mom opens.
CU on pizza inside the box.
MOM (brightly)
“It’s round, all right. And piping hot.
ANNOUNCER
Yes, the US Mail is going…pizza…
We’re partnering with PizzaPals to bring
you on-time priority delivery of mouth-watering,
oven-baked pizza…the way you like it….
as close as your mailbox
Cartoon character of a demented mail carrier, with saucer eyes, cap askew, arms flapping,
CARTOON (laughing manically)
We’re going pizza…
END COMMERCIAL
INT. BAD ASS PIZZA
A pizza chef, dressed in dingy white apron, is tossing a round of dough as he yells as the TV
CHEF
Whadda those assholes know about pizza?
They don’t know shit about pizza.
Deliver the mail! Deliver the
goddamn mail…. Boss, am I right?
CU The boss, Malboca, standing in the doorway of the office. He’s a thin, wiry coil of viciousness, with his flashy silk shirt open to the navel, the slicked hair and etched mustache, and sporting half a pound of gold bling.
MALBOCA
One thing I can’t stand: Government
interference with private enterprise.
The bastards can’t compete with the internet
so they want to horn in on my territory. I’ll tell you this.
The federales ain’t gonna peddle
their pies in this neighborhood.
(to men at bar) Huh?
CU of bad dudes at bar.
BAD DUDES (in unison)
Fuckin’ ‘a’ Malboca. Damn straight, Malboca.
EXT URBAN STREET DAY
A semi truck and trailer bearing the markings of the US Postal Service passes in front of the pizzeria and slows for the light at the corner.
CU on side of truck shows a corporate logo has joined the postal eagle: PizzaPals, along with the slogan, “We’re going pizza,” and the cartoon of the maniacal mailman.
The light changes and as the truck begins to move a billboard in b.g. reveals a political message.
"All Together for One America."
In colors as garish as a Chinese wall poster, the billboard depicts a rippling American flag held aloft by a middle-aged, slightly cherubic and bespectacled CEO-type in a business suit. He strides forward with determination in his eyes, followed by a smiling troop of the proletariat, a Latina maid, a fast-food clerk, a Persian service station attendant.
"Americans Demand Values."
The truck passes another billboard, this one depicting a large Christian fish with open mouth and shark-like teeth, about to devour a Darwin amphibian. To the side is the picture of a smiling politician somewhat resembling the late Sonny Bono.
God, Guns, Guts, Family
Paid for by the Committee to Reelect Fred Bonnet."
The postal truck turns into a huge parking lot crammed with beat-up work cars, and edges toward a huge grim cement building, cracked and blackened with soot, where other postal trucks already are backed against a long loading dock.
Next to the postal trucks are several PizzaPals trucks delivering sacks of flour and tins of tomato paste.
EXT. LOADING DOCK
The noise is deafening. Shouting men in blue jumpsuits are wrestling sacks of mail and flour out of the various trucks and throwing them aboard tall metal carts. In the background a high decibel conveyor belt moves other sacks of mail through canvas flaps and into the bowels of the building. Another belt brings sacks of mail out onto the dock.
The camera follows a mail bag as it enters the building.
INT. POSTAL ANNEX
This is a mail factory. It isn't a post office, but a gigantic postal annex that processes the tons of mail that flow through an American city daily. Although the building itself is begrimed and shabby, much of the equipment inside is new and high-tech, bespeaking recent efforts to automate mail handling. The roar of machinery is continuous.
Workmen throw the sacks of flour onto a conveyor belt leading past a bank of huge brick ovens, creepily reminiscent of a crematorium, where soot-blackened gnomes are feeding flat rounds of dough into the maw of the furnace. Obviously, the building is servicing two functions: mail sorting and pizza making.
(A complete description of postal annex is in appendix)
It is evident that the mail is being sorted by vastly complicated and sophisticated machines, served by human automatons of very low wattage.
ON: A postal Drone, mindlessly feeding trays of mail by rote into the maw of the scanner. He is slack-jawed, glassy eyed, and numbed beyond normal human endurance..
As the mail quickly moves through the huge factory we get peripheral glimpses of the walls, all painted a dull institutional green. Bulletin boards are thick with sheaves of union posters, job announcements, pay differentials, job bids, holiday schedules. Red-lettered slogans read: "No More Cuts," and "Save Health Care,” and “No Take Backs.”
Above the management bulletin board in bold letters are the words, "Protect the Sanctity of the Mail" In smaller type below: "Disciplinary Proceedings."
An air of oppressive gloom pervades the cavernous building. On the faces of the scurrying drones one reads either the downcast mien of fear or the glittering eye of barely suppressed rage. Bosses, identified by their white short-sleeved shirts and clipboards, patrol the perimeters of the building. There is a palpable, simmering tension. Worker and supervisor glare at one another with contempt.
This is a grim workplace, soulless, cheerless, barren of comfort or warmth. Everywhere the human drones are pushing large steel two-tier cars crammed with bundles of junk mail down narrow dingy aisles of dirty linoleum.
Over the clangor of the machinery and the metallic rumbling of the carts, we hear a far-off, wailing human voice:
VOICE (o.s.)
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
As the letters stream past an operator they are sorted at impossible speed into twenty different bins. Every so often one of the letters suddenly flips into the air and sails across the room, glides across the floor and disappears under a cabinet.
The camera is undercranking a little and the scanner is speeding up. The operators are more frantic in their movements, as they attempt to key in the six characters for each piece of mail.
Slow zoom away. The sorting machine suddenly malfunctions. There is a high-pitched electronic buzzing, then a loud bang, and thousands of letters erupt into the air in a blizzard of white. The operator begins to scream.
OPERATOR.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
INTERIOR. CAGES
Computers can only do so much. Much of the mail for a carrier's route still has to be sorted by hand, in a three-sided case, or cage, made up of hundreds of pigeon holes
As the camera slowly roams this hive we see the letter carriers inside sorting the mail.
Generally, the carriers are better postal specimens, more comely and healthier than the misshapen drones who push the carts or feed the maws of the machines. Most of them are wearing shorts, and their legs show some muscularity and definition. They wear a hodgepodge of uniforms but mostly blue shirts with the postal shoulder patch and blue shorts with maroon stripe. All of them are wearing iPod earbuds. The carriers comprise every nationality and ethnic persuasion, and about a third are women.
Shelly, an attractive slim young woman in her mid-twenties, is inside her cage, throwing mail rapidly into the pigeon holes and bobbing her head and humming in time to the unheard tune coming through her iPod.
In the next cage is Postal, a middle-aged, wiry, grizzled madman, with unkempt beard, a tangle of gray hair springing from beneath his postal cap. Clearly he is demented. His wild rolling eyes, the spittle at the corner of his lips, the gnashing of his teeth, reveal a personality under much internal stress. He adjusts his earphones. He is listening to talk radio.
POSTAL (screaming):
Yeah? What about the Club of Rome?
What about immigration? What about Area 51? Is it all supposed to be a coincidence?
In the next cage is Jim, about thirty, good-looking, muscular, obviously of a humorous bent, yet at the same time having a wary, street-wise maturity. He has the set mouth of an adult, and the skeptical eyes that confront the world with good-natured forbearance. He’s the sort who’s hard to ruffle.
He is flipping mail into the pigeon holes with an amazing dexterity.
JIM (to himself)
Garbage, garbage, garbage…
In the next cage is Marlene, tall, voluptuous, with torpedo breasts. She is forty-something, but very sensual, favoring a tight-fitting, revealing uniform. She has a mirror hanging in her cage, and frequently consults the condition of her makeup as she cases the mail.
Ramsey approaches the cages, pushing a postal cart.
RAMSEY is late fifty-ish, portly, with ponytail and walrus mustache. Tied around his forehead is an American flag bandanna.. He wears Harley togs, the leather vest with the motorcycle logo. His black longshoreman's trousers are held up with a military webbed belt, on which dangles a sheathed hunting knife. Most prominent of the dozens of ribbons and medals pinned to his chest are the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the yellow-and-red Vietnam service medal, and the Purple Heart. He has the semi-stricken expression of a man permanently amazed at the incompetence of others.
RAMSEY (to Marlene)
Yo, Marlene. Party. Driscoll’s. Tonight. BYOB.
MARLENE (lifting an earphone)
What? Oh yeah. Driscoll’s. Bring your own beef?
RAMSEY
Bottle, Marlene. Bring your own bottle.
MARLENE
Speak for yourself.
Ramsey pushes the cart past Marlene.
RAMSEY (to Jim)
You got your relays?
JIM
That’s affirm, herr colonel.
RAMSEY
I was only corporal yesterday.
JIM
Promotions are quick at the front.
Ramsey glances over the stacks of relay mail neatly arranged on trays and clumped together with rubber bands.
RAMSEY
You got bumps here? Wanna put in for a swing?
JIM
That’s a negative on that, general.
RAMSEY (smiling)
Next I’ll be the fucking commander-in-chief.
(picking up the sacks) I’m outta here. Party on Driscoll’s, p.m.,
you commie-loving, tree-hugging traitor to the fatherland.
JIM
There he goes, ladies and gentlemen.
Napalm Ned Ramsey. Yo, Zippo.
Ramsey, after heaving a mail sack on the cart, flicks his Zippo lighter as weaves down the cluttered aisle.
INT. CATWALKS
High above, overlooking the sorting machinery and the cages, are steel walkways, which at strategic points are covered by elongated rooms dotted with downward facing spy ports with one-way glass, in the manner of those positioned above the gaming tables in casinos. This is the domain of the Postal Inspectors who monitor the activities of the employees on the floor, ostensibly to prevent theft and drug dealing, but also lending another dark touch to the Orwellian atmosphere of the postal factory.
A shadowy figure, difficult to discern in the gloom, wearing a badge and pistol, skulks along the catwalk and disappears into one of the observation rooms.
INT. OBSERVATION ROOM
Shrouded in shadow, JUDD alternately turns from one spy port to another.
ON spy port. On the floor below, partly hidden by an impromptu barricade of mail carts, two postal employees engage in a furtive sex act.
Another spy port. In a dark corner two figures conclude a drug deal.
The postal inspector continues watching, but does not pick up the phone hanging on the wall nearby.
INT AISLE
It’s heavy traffic around the cases, as drones and carriers push carts stacked high with mail through a labyrinthine welter of cabinets, machinery and bins. A mail cart rushes past a large hand-lettered poster on the wall that reads:
PARTY ON TONITE
Driscoll’s Place
BYOB & etc.
No Host Potluck
Two mail carts collide and one, pushed by a middle-aged letter CARRIER wearing uniform shorts, tips over, spilling his trays of cased mail. The driver of the other cart is a tiny non-descript ASIAN WOMAN.
CARRIER (enraged)
Fuck. Fuck. I can’t believe it.
I spent three hours casing that mail...
(to the woman) You fuckin’ idiot. I’m gonna kill you. I’m fuckin’ gonna kill you...
The tiny Asian woman, hands to her cheeks, bows her head in humble apology.
Suddenly, the enraged Carrier goes postal, throwing a wild, roundhouse punch at the woman’s head.
Asian Woman deftly sidesteps the punch, then karate kicks him twice in the groin. As he doubles in pain, she raps him in the nose, and sweeps him with a turn kick.
Carrier lands hard in his pile of spilled mail, and becomes completely distraught.
CARRIER (weeping)
I can’t take it. I can’t fucking take it.
A SUPERVISOR arrives. They all look alike in the annex. K-Mart slacks, utilitarian black shoes, white short-sleeved shirt, clip-on tie, buzz haircuts and tortoise shell glasses.
SUPERVISOR (into hand-held radio)
We’ve got a 459 situation at the 07 case.
We’re gonna need three swings, and a sub
to recase route nine. (To Carrier, who is still blubbering on the floor)
This is gonna count as a sick day.
CARRIER (quickly collecting himself)
No. No. (scrambling to his feet) I'm okay.
SUPERVISOR
You’re gonna lose two hours recasing this. That’s one swing. It’s either a sick day or two hours vacay.
CARRIER
Jesus Christ. Okay, okay. Two hours vacay.
SUPERVISOR
I’ll tell the timekeeper. (to Asian woman)
You waitin' for lunch?
Asian Woman, after bowing to the supervisor, pushes her cart down the aisle, while the still-tearful Carrier begins to pick up the spilled mail. The Supervisor, with one more look around, exits.
ON: A Sad Sack mail drone, MOPE, approaches the cases pushing a parcel cart, which has canvas sides and is loaded with packages. The mope appears to be severely retarded, or at least deficient. He has bulging eyes, protruding wet lips curved in an imbecile smile. He stops the cart in front of Jim's case.
MOPE (holding up a package)
Hey, Jim. Look at this one.
The package is about the size and shape of a breadbox, wrapped in brown paper and silver duct tape, with several cylindrical bulges underneath the tape. The address is made up on multi-colored letters clipped from magazines.
The Mope shakes the package violently.
MOPE (cont)
It's for Congressman Bonnet.
There's a faint hiss, a slight burr of activated machinery, and a thin ribbon of black smoke begins issuing from beneath the wrapper.
Jim drops the letters he's casing, leaps toward the Mope and tears the package from his hand. Then he dashes down the aisle, the package at arm's length. By this time puffs of smoke are issuing from the package like a choo-choo and it's making a much louder buzzing.
At the end of the aisle is a large round steel canister, the size of a trash can, but much sturdier, and painted black and stenciled with yellow triangles. Jim lifts the heavy steel lid of the canister, throws the package inside, slams the lid and locks it.
A second later there is a dull thud, the canister leaps up and rocks from one end to the other, and then black smoke pours from the vent holes.
JIM wipes his brow and returns to his case.
ON: Shelly, who removes her ear phones and looks at Jim questioningly.
JIM
Letter bomb.
Shelly nods her head and replaces the phones.
SHELLY
Oh.
MOPE (scratching his head)
Gol-durn. There was another one just like it for Assemblyman....
From the other side of the building there's a tremendous explosion.
ON: The far end of building: A cloud of dense smoke rises, around which flutter several thousand suspended letters, many of them half-burned or charred. A tremendous commotion of yelling and profanity.
The Supervisor rushes by Jim's case.
SUPERVISOR (into hand-held radio)
There's a 311 at bin-sort twenty.
We'll need more subs...
ANOTHER ANGLE
The water fountain, and soda machine, against the wall by a bulletin board covered with notices. One large sign says, “Party Tonight, Driscoll’s.” On the wall are several posters. An ancient one, besmirched with grime, advises: “THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH NO LOITERING.” A newer one nearby says:
THE US POSTAL SERVICE FORBIDS SEXUAL HARASSMENT
IT’S THE LAW
Shelly and Marlene, pushing carts, approach and meet Jim and Ramsey, carrying trays of flats, and engage in good-natured bantering.
SHELLY
Studmuffins. All quadrants. Cute pecs and buns.
MARLENE
Hunk city. Beef-a-rama.
RAMSEY
Damn! Those torpedos.
JIM (giving Shelly’s shapely bottom a glance)
Hey, Shelly. You ride that scooter?
The couples pass like ships at sea.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Shelly and Marlene pass by another cart, the Accountables Cage, pushed by several armed postal inspectors. The inspectors are macho types, in shades, with police stars on their gun belts. The Accountables Cage is like a small mobile jail cell, barred all around, inside which a WOMAN CLERK sits behind a low desk.
WOMAN CLERK
Accountables.
Jim and Shelly come forward while the woman clerk opens a small window in the cage. Jim approaches the window.
WOMAN CLERK (cont)
Route seven. Four certs. One registered.
One postage due.
She passes the letters to Jim. Then she portentously draws from a shelf of pigeon holes a large key on a golden chain.
WOMAN CLERK (cont)
And the arrow key. Sign here.
Jim signs for the accountable letters and the arrow key.
SHELLY (to Jim)
Can you put some pepper in that shaker? All day.
Don't have.
JIM
Your guff. Don't need.
ON: One of the postal inspectors is JUDD, a Germanic clean-shaven muscular bully, with piercing eyes and a sadistic mien, the same person we saw earlier voyeuristically spying on other employees. He interposes at the window, putting his hand over the arrow key just as Jim is about to pick it up.
JUDD
You’re accountable for that key, hot shot.
JIM (evenly)
You’re accountable for where you put your mitt, asshhole.
JUDD (examining key)
(to Woman Clerk) Okay. Number seven. (To Jim) Better not lose this, boy. Automatic dismissal.
JIM
Judd, gimme the damn key or it’s gonna
be part of your dental work.
JUDD (smiling suggestively at Shelly)
Oooh. Him's a tough guy.
Jim grabs the key chain and yanks hard. Judd yelps as he pulls away his hand.
JUDD (angry, squaring his shoulders)
Ouch.! You dipshit. You want trouble
with a postal inspector?
JIM
Here I am.
JUDD
I’m a sworn officer.
JIM
I don’t live in Topeka.
Judd bulls forward, and it looks like a fight, when Shelly intervenes.
SHELLY
Would you two clowns get away from the counter.
I’d like to do my route today.
Jim and Judd back away from each other.
SHELLY (cont., singing)
Macho, macho, macho man...
(cont. speaking) Testosterone spill, cleanup, aisle four.
At this moment the Supervisor, stopwatch and clipboard in hand, passes the cage.
SUPERVISOR
Let’s get accountables moving. (to Jim and Shelly) Is it break? Is it ten o’clock?
Jim and Shelly, smiling at each other, return to the cases.
ON: Judd, glaring at Jim, as he moves off with the Accountables Cage.
INT. LOCKER ROOM
Dingy and oppressive. Gunmetal gray lockers line every wall, while a couple of wooden benches with peeling green paint make up the furniture. Jim is seated in his shorts on a bench, his duffel bag open in front of him, as he suits up for the street.
Jim is solidly built and well-muscled, with short-cropped hair, in appearance more like a soldier than a letter carrier. He is strapping on a forearm protector, a sheath of ribbed steel held in place by Velcro straps. Already on both legs are armored shin guards. Around his torso he wears a lightweight model of a Kevlar vest.
He pulls on a pair of loose trousers, postal gray with the maroon leg stripe. Finally , heavy black steel-toed boots.
Postal enters.
Postal has the eyes of a true lunatic, along with a crazed, tortured smile. He is laughing demonically to himself as he opens his locker.
JIM (shifting his seat)
What's happenin', Cray?
POSTAL (muttering)
Bastards of the world. Bastards of the fuckin' world. (he suddenly turns on Jim) Don't let them ruin you, Jim. I’m damaged, Jim. They ruined me, Jim. Don't let 'em get you..
JIM (warily)
Okay.
POSTAL
I'm damaged. I’ve been damaged. That fuckin' Ralston... The fuckin' bastard. (He slams his hand on the locker.) He changed my tour. I'm Tour One now. After fifteen fuckin' years. Ralston, you scum. It isn't over....
Postal pulls open the locker door and wildly begins throwing out a miscellany of articles that don't seem particularly related to postal work, books, pizza wrappers, baseball trophies, tennis balls, cooking mitts, all of which pile up around his feet.
ON: locker door. Pasted inside are several pictures of light assault weapons, an Uzi, and an AK47. Also, an article clipped from Slug Gun News, with an attached photo that appears to show the remains of a shattered cranium.
POSTAL (screaming at the ceiling)
It isn't over, Ralston. Blood will flow. Widows will
weep and wear black. Ralston! Oh, the fuckin'
bastards of the world, Jim.
INT. ANNEX
Shelly is pulling down her mail from the cases and putting it into trays when Judd approaches.
JUDD
That guy Jim is headed for trouble.
SHELLY (indifferently)
Yup, yup. The hand basket to hell express.
JUDD
He’d better wise up if he wants to keep workin’ here.
SHELLY
Workin’ here. What a joy it is.
JUDD (hesitatingly)
Say Shelly. You know the party tonight?
Ya need a ride?
SHELLY (not concealing her disdain)
You mean, like, with you?
JUDD
I could pick you up after work. Maybe have a drink before we go over.
SHELLY
Here’s the deal, Judd. You can pick me up when the
Lake of Fire is an ice rink and the post office delivers SnoKones. That won’t be until at least January.
JUDD
Um. Is that a No?
SHELLY
No, nada, nyet, negative, never, not in your wildest dreams. And please. Take no for an answer.
EXT. STREET
The street in front of the postal annex. Jim has what is called a walking route, which means he begins work directly from the annex, carrying his canvas mail pouch, which boasts the new slogan, “We’re going pizza”. During the day he will stop at relay boxes along the way to pick up additional mail.
The side door opens, and after warily looking both ways, Jim emerges. He is wearing what appears to be a standard issue gray post office pith helmet, with the strap running under his chin. With his loose fitting postal uniform shirt and slacks it isn't obvious that he wears body armor. He appears self-confident and easy in his quick movements but he is obviously alert as he crosses the street. In the crook of his arm he carries some flats, while in his hand he has a batch of letters.
EXT. ROW HOUSES
The residences in this neighborhood are shabby and dilapidated. Many of the windows are broken and boarded with slabs of plywood. All the rest are guarded by steel bars. Each doorway is protected by iron grillwork. Slouching on each street corner despondent young men of all cultures and races who combat the oppressive heat by drinking ale from cans still wrapped in brown paper bags.
In this neighborhood at least the usual cultural and racial animus seemingly has been suspended under the weight of a hopeless and general poverty.
Jim walks under the political billboard on the corner.
ON billboard. An aggressive young CEO, in suspenders and designer eyeglasses, has his pinstriped sleeves rolled up and a can-do look of resolution on his cherubic face. The subscripted slogan:
America's Entrepreneurs Make It Happen.
One County. One Party. We Can Do It."
On the corner is a parking garage. A huge sign is painted on the wall next to the entranceway:
THIS CONTRACT LIMITS OUR LIABILITY
READ IT!
Underneath, from roof to sidewalk, run 2,000 words of dense text. Somebody has crudely spray-painted across the face of the sign, Fuck This Shit.
Jim approaches a despondent teenage KID sitting on a stoop with a wastebasket beside him.
JIM
Yo, Bates. What’s happenin,’ dude? Ya workin’?
KID
Nope.
JIM
Any prospects?
KID
I’m thinkin’ ‘bout a career in pizza cargo.
JIM (laughing)
That’s wide open.
KID
‘Cept I got no car, an’ no license.
JIM
You may have to give up the dream. Why aren’t you dealin’ crank like everybody else on the block?
KID
Wrong credentials. (he pulls out a handkerchief from his back pocket) I got a red hankie. You need a blue hankie.
JIM
It’s a tough world when you’re screwed.
The Kid, smiling, holds out the waste basket and Jim deposits a handful of junk mail.
As Jim continues along the sidewalk, an elderly Pervert, hammer in hand, is atop a stepladder on his stoop attaching a sign to the window next to his door. The pervert has the haunted fixed stare, the loose wet lips, of the aging sexual obsessive.
Close on the sign. This depicts a large yellow flower with symmetric petals and a happy face in the center. Underneath the flower, in orange letters: "Safe House."
JIM
Morning, Mr. Jakes.
The Pervert starts guiltily and wobbles a moment on his step ladder.
PERVERT
Oh. It's you. (sarcastically) Cliff Clavin. Yeah?
Jim thumbs through the letters in his hand.
JIM (reading)
Publisher's Clearing House,
PERVERT
Refused.
JIM
Canadian Sweepstakes.
PERVERT
Refused.
JIM
"Tom Jakes you are a winner..."
PERVERT
Refused.
JIM
The Man-Boy Love Catalog.
PERVERT
I'll take that one.
Jim hands up the catalog. A few steps away Jim notices two adolescent BOYS watching Pervert install the sign.
JIM (to the boys)
Ah, you guys. If I were you I wouldn't...
BOY ONE.
Duh.
BOY TWO.
Doy.
These street-wise kids obviously don't need anybody to explain Tom Jakes' predilections.
Jim turns the corner, under a billboard.
ON: Billboard. A picture of a snarling Rottweiler. The copy reads:
ROTTWEILERS IN THE US, 1970 -- 500
ROTTWEILERS IN THE US, TODAY– 5 Million
CALL ROTS 'R' RUCK
AND DON'T FACE CRIME ALONE
Jim crosses to the intersection divider, where a BEGGAR has installed himself to hit up passing motorists as they stop at the light. Set on the divider in front of the beggar is a mailbox in a bucket, with the red flag up.
ON: Beggar. Wearing a luau shirt, white ducks, sandals and a wide-brimmed straw hat, he is reclining in a chaise lounge, watching LiveRav on a portable TV set on a crate. An umbrella shades his head, with a cell phone dangling from the stand. A small table at his elbow supports an ice chest. Next to it is an open soda and a half-consumed Hoagie.
A hand-lettered sign propped up against the mailbox says, "Disabled Veteran. Will Work for Food. God Bless." In one hand he idly holds a tin bucket at the end of a stick, which he holds out to passing motorists.
The TV is blasting out the latest hit from the hip-hop group Aorta, CEO Killer.
TV (music o.s.)
Theu polluted New Jersey
So I'm in a big hurry
I show no fuckin’ mercy
'Cause I'm cozy with my Uzi.
Motherfucker do my home like that!
Gonna kill a plutocrat...
BEGGAR
Yo, Jim. My quarterly tax return
(indicating the mailbox). Don't lose it, bro. The IRS’s already on my case...
Loud, angry honking . A carload of blue collar HARDHAT types pulls up, with the windows rolled down.
HARDHAT
Ya fuckin’ bum. Whydoncha get a job.
The Beggar picks up another stick, at the end of which is a carved wooden human hand with the middle digit extended. He calmly displays the finger to the hardhats.
HARDHATS (in chorus)
Fuck you.
The light changes and they screech away.
BEGGAR (to Jim)
Cretins. They think it’s easy out here. The heat. Pollution. The ozone layer has fallen, Jim.
It’s right here at ground level. It’s no picnic.
JIM (reaching in his bag)
Here’s your pizza.
BEGGAR (opening box)
Alright. Hey, wait a minute. Man, this is stone
fuckin’ cold. Hey. What is this shit? This
is an anchovy. I’m on a salt-restricted diet, Jim.
I ordered pineapple.
JIM
Did you tell that to the…
BEGGAR (testy)
Yeah, well it would help a lot if your order takers
could speak fuckin’ English. Not Swahili.
I don’t know how to say pineapple in Swahili.
JIM
Pineapple-stan, I think.
BEGGAR
I ain’t payin’ for this. You can delete if from
my debit card…
Jim is about to walk away.
BEGGAR
Hey bro, hold up. I heard somethin’
Tomorrow be the fifteenth?
JIM
Today’s the fourteenth, so you heard right.
BEGGAR
Welfare checks, bro. Social security checks.
(he points his wooden finger across the street,
toward Malboca’s Bad Ass Pizza) I hear some somebodies lookin’ to boost 'em.
EXT BAD ASS PIZZA
Malboca’s windows are plastered with ads for PryBar Ale. A large banner now hangs over the door, announcing, “SOON TO BE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT”
Loitering in front are the Bad Dudes from the convertible, who are amusing themselves by harassing a young woman as she walks along the sidewalk in front of the store.
EXT. STREET
JIM
You mean that crew?
BEGGAR (lowers voice)
That way, bro. Malboca’s bad dudes. I hear they might be doin’ the checks tomorrow.
JIM
Off me?
BEGGAR (lowering his voice further)
Maybe they gonna boost ‘em from the boxes
after you deliver.
JIM (doubtful)
Unh, I don’t think so. Those checks are a bitch
to cash without ID.
BEGGAR
Malboca will cash ‘em. Pipe the sign?
ON: The “Soon Under New Management” banner over the door of the pizzeria.
BEGGAR (cont.)
He’s unloadin’ that nickel joint on some Korean face. When the Feds are sniffin’ he’ll be flown.
JIM
Hmm.
BEGGAR
Piece of cake, bro. Sign off on the checks. Deposit at Bank of Mafia. Wire-transfer off-shore.
JIM
No, no, no. Tomorrow the geezers and the welfare moms’ll be hangin’ on the boxes like leeches. I don’t care if those guys wear their hats backward. Nobody takes a check off a welfare mom.
BEGGAR
(taking a tentative taste of soggy pizza)
Shit. Then I don’t know.
EXT BAD ASS PIZZA
The conversation between Beggar and Jim has attracted the attention of the Bad Dudes, who are glaring across the street with studied viciousness.
ON: Beggar notices and hunches down on the lounge chair.
Jim shoulders his bag and steps off the divider.
BEGGAR ( sotto voce)
Jimboy. I didn’t say nothin.’
.
EXT. STREET
Jim crosses the street and continues along the sidewalk, through a Robert Crumb landscape of urban decay. He hears the sound of a car engine slowing, and turns.
ON: Shelly, driving one of the boxy little Postal Service jeeps with right-hand steering, pulls up alongside Jim. She obviously is on her way to her driving route, and has three trays of mail on a platform to her left.
Jim continues walking along the pavement arranging the mail splayed on his left arm. In postal argot, he is “fingering the mail,” that is, arranging the mail for the next series of deliveries.
ON: Shelly, as she cruises along the curb, keeping pace with Jim.
SHELLY
You know, Jim, when I see you schlepping
around out here all by yourself, like the
Lone Ranger, I kinda feel sorry for you. You know? A man alone.
All alone on your lonely patrol. A solitary
figure. A lonely wanderer with no one to talk to.
JIM
Well, yeah. But lately I’ve been hearing strange voices. Right now, for instance.
SHELLY
Voices, huh? Well. Have these voices ever said
anything to you about that girl Shelly? Yeah, that Shelly.
An outstanding letter carrier and a real sweetheart.
Just a goddamn peach of a sweet girl.
JIM
Is she the egotistical one? Kinda skinny?
SHELLY
I mean the one who’s so darn cute. Friendly
and sincere. Hilarious sense of humor.
And a nice little figure.
JIM
I’m not placing the face.
SHELLY (trying to imitate Jimmy Stewart)
Everybody says she’s just a swell gal who’d make some lucky fella a great companion. (normal voice) Of course, she’s not gonna wait around forever, you know, for some mope to get off the dime.
JIM
Act now. Limited offer..
SHELLY
Well, what I’m sayin’, I hear she is pretty popular.
Judd’s been makin’ the moves on her.
JIM (a little nettled)
Judd? You know, somebody oughta tell the princess:
sometimes a frog...really is a frog.
SHELLY
What I’m gettin’ at here is that there comes a time, you know, when the appropriate person needs to take the
appropriate action. You see, that Shelly, she has a lot of warmth and feeling in her that to tell the truth isn’t getting much air play right now, you know...because...? (a beat) You’re supposed to supply something here.
JIM
Oh. Um. Because...she’s arranging her sock drawer?
SHELLY
No. No. You’re not quite up to speed. It’s because she’s kinda waitin’ around for somebody, you know, who’s appropriate, to initiate, you know...a beginning. A sign of interest. Like maybe a dinner date. You know, traditional courtship ritual ...
JIM
Courtship ritual?
SHELLY
Yeah. Somrthing like that.
JIM
I think I know what you mean. Courtship riitual.
ON: Jim, who has fanned out a handful of the very brightly colored junk mail and is waving it in front of his forehead. An instant later the dexterous Jim has arranged another sheaf of multi-colored junk mail into a fan for his left hand, which he waggles behind his butt. At the same time he begins strutting like a peacock, uttering what one supposes is his version of a mating call.
JIM (cont)
Ah-wo-oooo. Wak. Wak. Ah-woooo.
ON: A gaggle of Street People, loungers and loafers, who watch the mailman’s mating dance with bemused interest.
ON: Shelly, who arches an eyebrow in mock disdain, as she slowly accelerates the jeep, leaving Jim behind on the sidewalk waving his impromptu feathers. But as she turns away from Jim, her face lights up with a smug smile of satisfaction. Despite Jim’s male buffoonery she has got her message across.
MEDIUM SHOT
Jim, strutting on the corner, before an audience of street people.
JIM
Ah-woooo. Wak, wak. Ah-woooo.
EXT ROW HOUSES
A succession of stoops. On each is a housewife with a wastebasket in her hand. Jim, now returned to his normal persona as a letter carrier, approaches.
Across the street, the Bad Dudes are tagging after Jim. He is aware of them now, and keeps them in peripheral vision as he delivers the mail to the housewives along the block.
JIM
Morning, Mrs. Johnson.
JIM hands her one first class letter, and she holds out the wastebasket to receive the junk mail. This is repeated at the next couple of stoops, the housewife accepting the first class mail and holding out the wastebasket for the rest.
JIM (cont.)
Good morning, Mrs. Etkins.
The thugs have closed up and are directly across the street from Jim. They are eyeing him and talking among themselves. They are looking at:
CLOSE: The gold loop of chain on Jim’s belt containing the arrow key.
EXT. ALLEY
Jim turns up a narrow alley. The bad dudes cross the street and follow him. About half way up the alley Jim stops by a collection of garbage cans that are in front of a dingy hovel recessed between the brick walls of the surrounding buildings.
ON: A crudely lettered sign on the fence in front of the hovel. "Beware the Dog."
The Bad Dudes, mean and determined, are moving up the alley toward Jim.
JIM begins kicking the garbage cans with the toe of his steel-toed boot.
EXT YARD.
Dogs begin barking. But this is not ordinary barking. This is more akin to the savage howls of ravening wolves bent on a raw meal
ON: The thugs stop in their tracks.
From beneath the shanty, a pack of large dogs crawl out, one after another. Another one appears from a previously hidden dog house. The dogs are Rottweilers, lean and muscular, with huge heads, seemingly 50 percent snarling jaws and salivating teeth. They rush the gate, slamming into it with such force that it nearly collapses, howling like Cerberus the whole time.
ON: The thugs still frozen in place.
A huge Rottweiler, isolated from the rest of the pack inside the shanty, slams against the screen in the front window, falls back and attacks again. This time it smashes through the screen, sails across the porch, bounds across the yard in a leap, vaults the fence, and with foam flying from its muzzle, arches through the air headed for Jim's throat.
Jim deftly leaps from a garbage can to the top of a nearby dumpster, jumps in the air to catch hold of the bottom railing of a fire escape stair, and pulls his feet up just as the crazed Rottweiler’s open jaws sail beneath him, missing him by inches.
The Rottweiler hits the ground, rolls over twice, regains its feet, and with a deep throated growl speculatively eyes Jim hanging out of reach on the fire escape.
Then, slowly, the dog turns his head toward the frozen thugs.
THUGS (in chorus)
Oh shit.
With a blood-chilling howl, the Rottweiler charges the group of thugs, who immediately come to life and hightail out of the alley, with the dog nipping at their hindquarters.
EXT STREET.
The thugs, like a burst of buckshot, tear down the sidewalk, with the blur of an angry dog in close pursuit.
EXT ALLEY.
The HOMEOWNER comes out of his front door and walks toward the front fence, where the rest of the dogs have collected around the gate, howling in one throat at Jim, still hanging from the fire escape.
HOMEOWNER (to Jim)
What you doin' to my dogs?
JIM (dropping down from the fire escape)
Just delivering their pizza.
HOMEOWNER
My mailbox ain't up there.
CLOSE ON: A rusted metal mailbox next to the shanty door.
ON: Jim, who jumps down to the pavement. The dogs are quiet now clustered around their master. Jim picks up his bag and hands the Homeowner his box of pizza.
JIM
I wish you'd put the box in front of the gate.
HOMEOWNER (feeding the pizza to his dogs)
Where every lowlife can steal my mail? You ain't afraid of these puppies? They won't bite nobody. (the dogs begin to growl)
They don’t like cold pizza, though.
ON: The pack of dogs snarling and lunging as they gulp the pizza.
HOMEOWNER
Harmless as kittens. Look. Look here.
HOMEOWNER puts his hand in one of the dog's mouth, and presses on the jaw, trying to get the dog to bite.
HOMEOWNER (cont.)
Harmless as babies. If you don't like dogs, why'd you want to be a mailman?
EXT STREET DAY
Another stretch of urban dystopia. A long fence paling choked with gang graffiti. At several points the fence has been plastered over with ads for PryBar Malt Liquor.
The designed-for-the-ghetto malt liquor features the slogan, "Break It Out," and depicts a smiling young man dressed in black watch cap and tem jacket, a pry bar in one hand and a can of ale in the other. He is surrounded by symbols of the good life, such as stereos, TVs, iPodss, Camcorders. The ad copy: GET THE GOOD THINGS.
Jim is moving warily through the usual sidewalk obstacles, the spilled trash, dog shit, vandalized news kiosks, delivering mail to door slots.
As he moves from door to door he is beset by the frenzied barking of a dozen vicious dogs. It seems that in every yard, at every window, behind every door, a snarling attack dog crouches, ready to lunge at any intruder.
ON Jim pushing mail through a door mail slot. Suddenly a banging on the inside of the door and wolf-like snarls. The mail is torn from Jim's hand and pulled inside the house, to the accompaniment of more canine howling.
ON The door at the next house. A Rottweiler at a screened door is in a howling frenzy, butting its head against the screen and snapping its teeth.
Suddenly the dog disappears. Then with a snarl of vicious hatred it bursts through the door, and leaps the yard's small Cyclone fence. With another bound the dog goes for Jim.
ON: Jim, as he catches the Rotweiler’s teeth on his armored wrist guard. Jim slings the dog around and over the fence.
In an instant the dog is up, leaps the fence, and attacks Jim again. This time Jim is able to defend himself with the mail satchel. The dog sinks its powerful jaws into the satchel and begins pulling.
Jim is doing what in mailman lingo is the sideways shuffle, moving backwards slowly while playing the dog like a big fish, the idea being that it's better to keep the animal's teeth in the sack, since the dog won't release its teeth while it perceives the sack is being taken away.
EXT NEIGHBOR’S YARD
The next-door neighbors have come out on the porch to watch the struggle.
NEIGHBOR (to Jim)
Don't be hurtin' that dog.
NEIGHBOR TWO
That's poor old Mr. Carrol's dog.
JIM (struggling with the dog)
I've got two words for Mr. Carrol. Humane Society.
NEIGHBOR ONE
Now don't you be callin' the Humane Society.
NEIGHBOR TWO
Mr. Carrol paid two hundred dollars for that dog. He's all by himself over there.
EXT PORCH
The front door of the house opens as MR. CARROL emerges. He's very elderly and frail, wobbling on crutches, with the huge sunglasses prescrib ed for vision impairment.
- CARROL
What's goin' on? Postman! Let that dog be. (he whistles) Saint. Come're Saint.
ON: The dog perks up its ears, looks toward the house, ceases snarling.
- CARROL (cont.)
Saint. You come here.
The dog releases the mail satchel and obediently trots up to the porch, where it puts its massive head under Mr. Carrol's palsied hand.
MR CARROL (cont)
That's a good dog, Saint. Good feller.
NEIGHBOR ONE
Good puppy.
NEIGHBOR TWO (glaring at Jim)
Some people just don't take to animals.
EXT STREET
Jim continues down the street, checking his torn mail satchel. He stops at the corner and uses his arrow key to open a relay box. This is one of those green postal boxes that says "Not for the deposit of mail.” They serve to hold mail for carriers on a walking route.
ANOTHER ANGLE.
An armored personnel carrier on fat tires lumbers around the corner, with the head of a man in battle helmet and flak vest sticking out of the top hatch.
Jim looks up casually as the armored car rolls by.
The logo on the vehicle's side reads, "BAD ASS PIZZA We’re Armed. We Deliver"
ON: The relay box. It's empty. Jim looks around, wondering what happened to his relay.
EXT. STREET
Ramsey is driving one of the boxy, utilitarian postal Jeeps. His radio, tuned to a country/western station, is blaring the lyrics of ‘Nam Vet, by Unknown Soldier.
RADIO
...LZ’s hot, slick’s on fire,
All outta caps 'n' Luke’s in the wire
I’m a Nam vet
No-oooooo I can’t forget
Fuckin’ little punks, whatda they care
Ring in the nose, dyed green hair
Jus' some old dude, no more hair
Fuck you, punk, I was there...
I’m a Nam vet
(guitar like a machine-gun)
No-oooo I can’t forget
ON: Ramsey, pulling the Jeep up to the curb beside the relay box.
RAMSEY (to Jim)
Hey, Jim. Sorry I'm late with the swings.
From around the corner, Malboca’s Thugs approach, several of them armed with pry bars. They position themselves menacingly beside the relay box.
THUG ONE (to Jim)
Hey. Letter dude. Lemme hold that key.
JIM
Say what?
THUG TWO (pointing at arrow key)
The key, dude. Give it up.
JIM
I don’t think so.
THUG ONE (raising pry bar)
Lemme hold the key.
JIM (taking a fighting stance)
Here I am.
RAMSEY
Ah, excuse me. gentlemen. The arrow key is official government property and an accountable item.
THUG ONE (to Ramsey)
Fuck off, pops. Unless you want a pry bar up your ass.
RAMSEY
What'd you say?
THUG ONE
I said, how'd you like this pry bar up your ass?
RAMSEY
Ha ha. I wouldn’t like it. You hear that, Jim? That's a good one. (to Thugs) I got one for you.
Ramsey draws a.45 Colt auto from beneath the seat, cocks the slide, and points the muzzle of the weapon at Thug One’s stomach.
RAMSEY (cont.)
How would you like...about a foot of your spine plastered against the wall?
ON: The Thugs, backing off.
THUG ONE (to Jim)
We’ll see you later, dude.
The Thugs disappear around the corner. Ramsey puts the gun back under the car seat.
JIM
I guess they want an arrow key.
RAMSEY
What the hell for?
JIM (shaking his head)
You know, it’s kinda hard to say.
EXT STREET CAFE
A Korean restaurant with a terrace in front where diners are having lunch al fresco. The patrons are nicely-dressed, middle-class business people from a block that still supports some enterprises, such as cellular phone outlets, dry cleaners, pet supplies, karate studios and gyms.
Jim approaches with his mailbag.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Across the street, in an alley, a tottering victim is being mugged by two beefy assailants MUGGER ONE and MUGGER TWO. The two knock the man down, and then, while one continues to kick the victim, the other rifles his pockets.
Jim takes his cell phone from its holster and speed dials 911.
RECORDED VOICE (o.s.)
Police emergency dispatcher. All dispatchers are presently busy handling other emergencies. If this is not an emergency, please press one now...
ANOTHER ANGLE:
Directly across from the patrons dining on the patio, a thief with a pry bar wrenches down the window on the passenger side of a BMW, reaches in and opens the door.
RECORDED VOICE (o.s. cont.)
...if you wish information on traffic conditions, press three now...
ON: The muggers. Although the victim holds up his hands for mercy, one assailant continues to kick him, while the other examines the contents of his wallet.
DISPATCHER (o.s)
Police emergency. How may I assist you?
JIM
This is the letter carrier at Fig and 15th. There's a mugging in progress in the alley. Also, somebody is breaking into...
DISPATCHER
Please hold.
Recorded music from a sappy Beetles tune, Strawberry Fields, replaces her voice.
ANOTHER ANGLE
From the sidewalk, a tall, emaciated young ACTIVIST wearing a scraggly beard and a ragged overcoat furtively approaches the diners on the terrace. In his haunted bespectacled fervor he kind of resembles the young Trotsky. His backpack is stenciled with the words, “Too Proud to be an American.” He pauses by a parked Hummer just long enough to plaster a sticker next to the gas cap.
CU on sticker: YOUR SON’S BLOOD GOES HERE
ANOTHER ANGLE
In disgust, Jim returns the cell phone to its holster, then crosses the street and confronts the muggers.
JIM
Excuse me. Guys. Bulletin just in. I nine-elevened the cops.
The muggers casually turn to Jim, not showing much alarm. One continues pulling money and cards from the wallet while the other perfunctorily administers a kick every time the victim tries to rise.
MUGGER ONE
So?
MUGGER TWO
The cops never come down here.
MUGGER ONE (to Jim)
What's in the bag? Got any registereds?
JIM (beginning to back away, in the same sideways shuffle he uses to fend off attacking dogs)
No. No registereds today.
MUGGER TWO (looking up from the wallet)
Got any checks?
JIM
No. No. Checks come out tomorrow.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The thief, busy inside the BMV removing the stereo, looks back a moment at the muggers and Jim, then returns to his work.
MUGGER ONE
Fuckin' Cliff Claven, man. Hey, let's see the bag.
MUGGER TWO
What's in the bag, Cliff.
Jim levels his canister of HALT and sprays both muggers with pepper spray. The aerosol, meant to repel dogs, is mixed with yellow dye.
Both muggers recoil when the mist hits their eyes.
MUGGER ONE
Motherfucker.
MUGGER TWO
This shit stains, man. It's gonna fuck up my shirt.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The furtive young Activist, moving very cautiously, is among the tables. He reaches under his tattered overcoat and brings out a sheaf of leaflets, which he begins to distribute among the diners.
ACTIVIST (in a low, furtive voice)
Life isn't fair. The rich don't pay their share. (He hands a diner a leaflet) The rich don't have to worry about the rent. The rich have more fun than you do. The rich are happier. They go to nicer restaurants than this. The rich are better looking than you are. Their children go to top orthodontists.
Some of the ordinary-looking middle-class diners pick up the leaflet and stare at it.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Suddenly, certain obscure people across the street are perking up. An ostensible telephone lineman begins sliding for the ground. A gardener clipping a hedge throws down his shears and starts toward the terrace. Two heavy-set men sitting in a sedan open the doors and get out. One of them begins speaking into a handheld radio.
EXT CAFE TERRACE
A patron, DINER, paunchy, bald, wearing a cheap suit, looks at the leaflet.
DINER
You're saying that...life isn't fair?
ACTIVIST (sotto voce)
Life isn't fair. And the rich don't share.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The two muggers, rubbing their eyes, have started again toward Jim but now stop and turn their attention to the terrace. The victim also rises on one elbow to watch developments.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The Thief, now out of the BMW with the stereo in his hands, also regards the terrace.
EXT TERRACE
The Activist, looking over his shoulder like a startled deer, notices the movements of the lineman, the gardener and the two burly plain clothes cops with radios. He begins to move more quickly, rapidly passing out the remaining leaflets.
ACTIVIST
Rich people aren't fair. They don't like to share.
Now the two burly men are running full speed. The gardener and the telephone linemen are circling around to cut off the Activist's escape.
O.S. a siren and the screeching of brakes.
ANOTHER ANGLE
A black police van pulls up in front of the terrace and four men in police overalls jump out. All are armed with heavy truncheons. The back of their overalls reads: POLICE SWAT.
The SWAT Team leaps the terrace fence and pursues the Activist, who is now dodging through the tables.
ACTIVIST (louder)
Rich people only think of themselves.
The two burly plain clothes cops cut off the Activist’s escape just as the SWAT Team catches up with him among the tables. The Activist goes down in a flurry of blows from the truncheons. He is quickly handcuffed and dragged to the street.
ACTIVIST (his head bloodied)
The rich get special tax breaks and have more influence with Congress.
At that, the Activist is thrown to the pavement and the four Swat Team officers administer a Rodney King style pummeling.
A large boxy sedan screeches up to the curb. One of the plain clothes officers opens the trunk lid, and the officers pick up the Activist and dump him in the back.
The police return to their vehicles and depart with a squealing of tires.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The two muggers, both of their faces stained with yellow dye from the pepper spray, shake their heads as they finish dividing the money from the wallet of the victim, who is still lying against the alley wall.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The Thief, after watching the cops depart, puts the stolen stereo under his arm and saunters away.
EXT. STREET DAY
Billboards look down on the dismal street as Jim walks his route.
ON: Billboard. A picture of a pretty, well-dressed young woman standing at night under a streetlight, clutching her purse, with a Rottweiler guard dog, looking protective, on a tight leash. The subscript ad copy reads:
FEAR NO EVIL -- WHEN DOG IS YOUR CO-PILOT
CALL ALPHA GUARD DOGS INC.
WE BREED ‘EM MEAN
ON: Another Billboard. Picture of disreputable derelict family, with small, ragged ill-favored children, huddled in an alley. Copy:
LET'S CLEAN UP AMERICA
WORK NOT WELFARE
COMMITTEE TO REELECT BONNET
EXT APARTMENT COMPLEX
The apartment complex is the usual rundown dump owned by some absentee slumlord. The grass in the front yard is threadbare and worn down by traffic. A litter of tricycles and cheap plastic toys obstructs the front walk. A deep hole filled with water near the water meter is covered with a flimsy scrap of ply board. Some of the windows are broken out and patched with cardboard. Half-naked children, redolent of neglect, frolic in the dirt along the borders of the crumbling stucco walls.
Jim is warily negotiating the sidewalk, avoiding the coils of dog shit, when he comes across PUNK, who is standing directly in Jim’s path and evidently not in a mood to move. The Punk is utterly repellent in appearance, with a shaved and tattooed skull, studiously tattered jeans, and a shirt imprinted with swastikas and death’s heads. Despite his youth, there is absolutely nothing appealing about him.
Jim, ignoring the Punk, steps into the street to go around him, as if he was just another coil of excrement.
PUNK
Hey. Get the fuck off the sidewalk, government asshole. Fuck you guys. Jerkoffs. Fuckin’ government flunky. Hey. I’m talking to you. Fuck you, asshole. Hey. You. Stick it up your ass. You hear me? Fuck you. Hear me? Fuck you guys.
Jim, completely ignoring this outburst, returns to the sidewalk on the other side of Punk.
Jim stops at an apartment house gang box. This is one of those large central mailboxes set on a pedestal with boxes for dozens of residents. The resident opens his individual box in front. The mailman opens a door to all the boxes on the back with his arrow key.
Half a dozen women, a Greek CHORUS, are clustered in front of the mailbox. Some are elderly and careworn. Others are saucy young gum-chewing slatterns in gaudy junk jewelry and tight tank tops.
Jim opens the back door of the gang box with the arrow key attached to his belt loop. The women simultaneously open their doors in front. Their hands already are in the mailbox to grab a letter as soon as Jim inserts it.
CHORUS
Where’s the checks, where’s the checks?
JIM
Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the fifteenth.
CHORUS
Tomorrow’s the fifteenth? Tomorrow’s the fifteenth?
JIM
Checks tomorrow.
CHORUS
Where’s my child support? Where’s my alimony? Where’s my unemployment?
The women pull forth and rummage through the junk mail, then throw it on the ground atop the pile of yellowing litter around the mailbox.
JIM closes and locks the back door.
JIM
Tomorrow.
CHORUS (high-pitched, hysterical)
Where’s the check? I need my check.
ANOTHER ANGLE
A block of storefronts, 90 percent empty, a bleak testament to the voracious appetite of suburban mall discounters. A billboard above the street depicts happy children trying on new school clothes at a giant discounter, while a Kathy Gifford mom smiles with approval. In the b.g. emaciated waifs smile up from their sewing machines.
Shop Bargain-Kart
Featuring Ball-Brand Children’s Wear
Made For Kids, By Kids
Along the sidewalk, the doors and windows are boarded up. The entrance ways are blocked by refuse and lounging winos. The one venue that shows activity is the headquarters of the APFI, the Association for People on Fixed Incomes, a grassroots organization for promoting the interests of welfare mothers and social security recipients.
Jim enters the APFI office with the mail.
INT OFFICE
The office is a little dingy, but cheered by the addition of many posters depicting the triumph of welfare moms or of various sorts of geezers over adversity. Also, on the wall inside a glass case, a list of honorees in gold letters under the heading, Golden Oldies. One poster shows a serious-faced determined black woman facing down a teenage hood, titled “Tough Mom, Tough Love.” Another poster shows an aged couple, eyes snapping with anger, holding up canes shaped like snakes, titled: “Don’t Tread on Us.”
An old frail blue-haired lady, acting as RECEPTIONIST, is on the telephone.
RECEPTIONIST
What? What? Can you speak up?
ON: A large banner, strung across the wall:
PROTEST THE CUTS
MARCH AGAINST BONNET
Jim removes his helmet to wipe his face and forehead with a handkerchief, as the Director of the association, BURROUGHS, a bluff, fifty-ish organizer in shirt sleeves and suspenders, approaches to take the mail.
BURROUGHS
I guess you think it’s hot out there.
JIM
I hadn’t noticed.
BURROUGHS (pointing at the jungle helmet)
That’s some protection anyway.
Jim knocks the helmet against the receptionist’s desk. It makes a loud metallic clanging.
JIM
Steel.
BURROUGHS
That’s the kind of protection you need around here.
JIM (replacing the helmet on his head)
When’s the demo?
BURROUGHS (preoccupied, rifling through mail)
Huh? Oh. Tomorrow. Bonnet is in town speaking to the Million Dollar Club.
JIM
You’re against real estate agents?
BURROUGHS (throwing all the mail in the trash basket)
No. Just Bonnet. He voted to cut Social Security and family assistance.
JIM
In this district?
BURROUGHS (shrugging)
He’s just another whore. But tomorrow we're gonna teach the bastard a lesson.
JIM
Yeah?
BURROUGHS
Got a minute? Take a look in back.
EXT COURTYARD
A courtyard behind the association’s office. Chanting seniors are lined up in ranks under the leadership of an octogenarian drill SERGEANT in a VFW barracks cap. The ancient veteran, standing tall, speaks through a bullhorn which he holds up to the hole in his throat, where his originsl larynx once reposed
The ranks of seniors all carry heavy canes.
SERGEANT (puffing up his pigeon chest)
Presh-hunt!
The ranks of seniors hold the canes straight in front of them.
SERGEANT (cont.)
Arms!
The SENIORS, in unison, brandish the canes over their heads.
SENIORS
Shame! Shame! Shame!
ANOTHER ANGLE.
A line of welfare MOTHERS stretches down the courtyard. As Burroughs and Jim stride along the line, each mother, as the two men arrive abreast of her, thrusts out an infant, or sometimes a surly teen.
MOTHERS
Starving child! Starving child!
JIM
This is impressive.
BURROUGHS
Look over here.
ANOTHER ANGLE
At the end of the courtyard a life-size cutout photograph of Congressman Bonnet has been set up on a stake. A large group of seniors and moms has gathered thirty paces away, under the direction of a fierce-looking CHICANA, with a baby on her hip.
CHICANA
Ready! Fire!
The group lets loose with a barrage of eggs, tomatoes and cabbage heads, which splatter against the smiling campaign photo of the Congressman.
JIM (covering his nose)
Jesus!
BURROUGHS
Yeah. Been saving those eggs.
EXT MALBOCA’S PIZZA
Around the front doorway shiftless young men are loitering, not at all heroic in appearance, drinking ale from cans still wrapped in the paper bags.
INT STORE
At the cash register near the front door sits a loutish CLERK thumbing through a skin magazine. All around him are display cases for cigarettes. He is armed with a .357 in a belt holster, and leaning against the inside of the counter by his leg is a pump shotgun.
ON: A large sign on the back wall behind the register. “CHECKS CASHED HERE.”
Several of the Bad Dudes enter the store, nod to the clerk and proceed toward the back. One of the Thugs has the seat of his pants ripped out. These are the same guys who pursued Jim earlier. They disappear through a back door.
INT BACK ROOM.
MALBOCA and ROMEO are seated at a table counting piles of money. Malboca, the middle-echelon Mafioso, is dressed in a gray silk suit and black porkpie hat. He’s got a weasel’s face, pock-marked and scarred, with slit eyes and a bitter mouth. Romeo is a hulking muscular body guard.
The Thugs enter and slump into various chairs around the room. The Bad Dude with the torn pants eases himself into a chair.
MALBOCA (to injured thug)
What?
THUG ONE
Rottweiler.
THUG TWO
Got a piece of Limmy’s ass.
MALBOCA
A dog bite your ass, Limmy?
THUG ONE
The fuckin’ mailman sic’d him on me.
MALBOCA
Ha ha. Limmy got bit on the ass. Hey. This don’t mean you get the day off. We gotta lotta stuff to do. This store here is turnin’ hands by Friday.
THUG ONE
To who?
MALBOCA
Some Korean faces. It ain’t important. What’s important, we ain’t here when the Feds come around on the checks. Where’s the key?
THUG ONE (abashed)
Ah, we ain’t got it yet.
MALBOCA (rising in anger)
Ain’t got the fuckin’ postal key? What you been doin’ all morning...?
THUG ONE
The fuckin’ dog...
MALBOCA
I don’t give a fuck about no fuckin’ dog. You fuckin’ assholes got to understand this is a one shot deal. The geezers’ll all be at the hotel tomorrow. They won’t be guardin’ the mailbox like usual. Every check you guys bring in, two bits on the dollar. Tomorrow only. We got to cash out these checks and get rid of ‘em before the Korean faces take over. We need that fuckin’ key.
THUG TWO
We’ll get the key. We know the mail guy’s route.
THUG ONE
Why not just knock the bastard down and take the checks?
MALBOCA
What I’m dealin’with? Jerks. You clout the mail bag, the Feds put a stop on it the same day. You take the check out the mailbox it takes a
coupla days to stop.
THUG ONE
Okay, okay. We’ll run over the guy...
THUG ONE
We’ll pretend to do first aid. Grab the key.
MALBOCA (disgusted)
I’m startin’ to think I better do this myself.
EXT STREET DAY
A middle-aged couple sits at a picnic table in the front yard. They are dressed in Bermudas and luau shirts, and nearby a barbecue smokes with grilled meat. The DOG OWNER is wearing a garish apron that says, "Born to Grill."
He has seated his large German Shepherd in front of him on his lap and is holding the dog's paws as he cuts the meat on his plate with knife and fork. He feeds one bite to the dog, the next to himself. His WIFE looks on approvingly.
ON Jim approaching the mailbox on the fence.
The dog begins to bark and to growl menacingly. As Jim puts the mail in the box the dog goes into a frenzy of barking. The owners do nothing to reprove the animal.
JIM
Some people shouldn't have kids.
DOG OWNER
Bosco likes everybody. I don't know what it is about you.
WIFE
Ohh, my Bosco-Wosko. (to Jim) Maybe it's that stupid uniform.
JIM
Maybe it's the parents.
Bosco's snarling subsides as Jim moves along, the Dog Owner resumes feeding it from his plate.
EXT STREET DAY
A jumble of Goodwill-style furniture blocks the sidewalk in front of a slum cottage, really just an appalling shack, wedged in between two slum apartment buildings.
ANGLE ON Two young undermench workmen bringing a ratty sofa out onto the porch. They unceremoniously dump the couch onto the sidewalk.
ANGLE ON Jim approaching with his mailbag. He maneuvers through the obstacle course of evicted furniture, reaches the mailbox by the fence, opens the trap, and begins to feed in letters.
ANGLE ON a SLUMLORD, who comes out onto the porch behind the workmen and glares down at Jim.
SLUMLORD (to Jim)
Hey. You. Never mind the mail. These people are outta here.
Jim, ignoring him, continues to put letters in the box.
SLUMLORD (cont.)
Hey. Dickhead. Did you hear what I said? Get that shit outta the mailbox.
The Slumlord comes to the fence and makes as if to put his hand on the mailbox to stop the delivery.
ANGLE ON Jim, whose face has become as hard and chiseled as the bust of an early Roman senator. He stares down the Slumlord with the steely eyes of barely suppressed rage.
JIM
Do not ever...interfere...with the delivery of the US Mail.
Slumlord, intimidated, quickly backs away.
SLUMLORD
Okay, okay.
Jim closes the trap and continues his route.
SLUMLORD (when Jim is safely distant)
Hey. Hey. I'm gonna talk to your supervisor about you. I’m gonna file a complaint. (to workers) You see that? You see that? Limbaugh was right. Get off our back.
EXT STREET
Jim is walking under another corner billboard. This one shows a modern office scene, with dozens of happy clerks in neat rows typing at keyboards and terminals.
Hyperion Bank
The Information People
We Know About You
EXT BUILDING
In the heart of blight there's one imposing building. It's square monolithic marble, windowless, featureless, without ornament, frill, or gewgaw.
Carved above the square bronze door. "Gates University of Service Arts. Servicia con una sonrisa."
Jim rings the bell.
INT SCHOOL
An armed uniformed guard opens the door, interrogates Jim a moment, then admits him.
The guard leads Jim down a long hallway lit with purple fluorescent light. The walls are white with the occasional modernistic noncommittal paintings. Several doors are open as Jim passes by.
ON: Classrooms, darkened but eerily flickering with light from a hundred humming computer terminals. Young people are hunched before the screens in silent concentration.
INT OFFICE
Very stark and white. An ethereal young woman is at the reception desk terminal. She is very attractive but at the same time, somehow, nerdy. Nearby, half a dozen other stylish but geek-y keyboarders are also spot-welded to their screens. There is a soft indistinct hum of electronics but no human conversation. Banks of screens in the background are scrolling information from the web. This is a paperless office, without bookcases, file cabinets or any other sign of printed material.
The guard stands close by as Jim reaches into his bag and puts a letter on the receptionist's desk.
RECEPTIONIST
Yes?
ON: The letter.
JIM
It's a registered letter.
The receptionist stares at the letter. The other workers also stop their keyboarding to behold the unexpected appearance of this relic from the Pleistocene in their midst. Then they glance up at the rough-hewn, muscular figure of Jim, sweating, ruggedly pre-Silicon, his shirt-sleeve in tatters, with the steel jungle helmet cocked back on his head. A throwback to the Dark Age of Paper.
JIM (cont.)
You have to sign for it.
The receptionist and the nerd clerks continue to stare at the letter in silence and wonderment.
EXT STREET NIGHT
Apartment building in a working class neighborhood. The usual stucco cracker boxes piled on one another around a small pool. O.s. music coming from an open window.
INT APT NIGHT
A party is in progress. A crowd of laughing, yelling, working class revelers pour themselves drinks, or grab snacks from a long table. A loud radio is playing o.s.
RADIO (o.s.)
Wanna job nigger,
Thiz how I figger
Bettah eat salsa
And live in Guatemala
...the boss gets a stock tip,
My momma gets a pink slip,
It make my head flip,
They on a greed trip,
Close the plant in Jersey,
Take the jobs to Missouri,
Boss in Maui with a good tan,
Shirts are made in Pakistan
CIA, CIO, CNN, on they go,
...CEO KILLER...
RADIO DJ (o.s)
...Aorta... Numbah One in the hot city tonight with CEO Killer.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim and Shelly are noshing along the buffet table along with a dozen or so other party goers. Shelly picks up a sausage.
JIM
Isn’t that bad for you?
SHELLY
Nah. Girls are bulletproof. Arteries like a garden hose.
JIM
I hate to think about your colon.
SHELLY
Never mind my colon. I’ll let you know which body parts I want you to think about. Besides, I’ll be dancin’ on the bar when you’re worm chow.
JIM
At least I won’t be pork roast.
SHELLY (patting her slim tummy)
Hey. I never put on a pound. My mother’s the same way.
JIM
A smart ass?
SHELLY
A thing of beauty. Look. It’s okay to eat fried food if you know how to do it. See, you just wrap the sausage in cocktail napkins...
Shelly wraps a small sausage in a huge wad of napkins and begins pressing it with the heels of her hands.
SHELLY (cont.)
... and squee-eeze the oil out. See. Practically fat free. I do that with all my food.
JIM
There’s a reason I don’t go to restaurants with you...
SHELLY
No. No. It’s because you won’t pay.
JIM (picks up a greasy sausage and bites into it)
Why should I pay?
SHELLY
Because you’re the guy. Look. When you’re courting a woman...
JIM
You can’t you buy your own tofu...
SHELLY
I’m a modern woman but some old fashioned traditions we keep.
JIM
I don’t understand the liberated reasoning here.
SHELLY
Of course you don’t. I’m from Venus.
JIM
I thought you were from the moon. You know...lunar.
SHELLY
Well let’s just say I still like a man with a big bulge in his trousers....(she slaps her wallet pocket) ...right here.
JIM
It's a good thing you're cute or there'd be a bounty on you.
INT HOUSE NIGHT
Judd and Malboca are huddled together in an alcove, as the party swirls around them.
JUDD
Yeah, maybe you heard. Management is bringing back mandatory overtime. The troops could use some more reds.
MALBOCA
Whatever you want, pal. Reds, bennies, crank, serbondine, Quaaludes. I’m an allnight drug store.
JUDD
What about somnolodrine?
MALBOCA
Somnolpdrine? You mean that date rape...knockout bullshit?
Judd glances across the room.
ON Jim and Shelly, talking and laughing together at the buffet table.
JUDD
Yeah. I hear it works pretty good?
MALBOCA (following Judd's glance, and getting the drift)
So's I hear. Sweet dreams. Yeah. It puts 'em in the mood.
JUDD (indicating Shelly)
I could use some.
MALBOCA
Sure. Fine. No problem. I can fix.
ON: Shelly’s shapely figure.
MALBOCA (cont.)
You know, you could do me a favor too. (a beat) I need an arrow key.
JUDD (reacts)
Oh oh. That's a tough one. It's an accountable. Signed in and out, locked up at night.
MALBOCA
There must be a way.
ANGLE ON A smiling Jim, now slow dancing in a tight embrace with an illuminated Shelly.
JUDD (malevolently)
There's always a way.
_
INT ROOM NIGHT
The party is well along. All the tables and other flat surfaces are covered with bottles and half-empty glasses. Women are sitting in men's laps on the sofa. The lights are lower and the music higher. Voices are animated by alcohol, and the laughter is boisterous.
Marlene is at the buffet table when Ramsey approaches. With his face flushed and his nose burning like a lantern, Ramsey obviously has been drinking, and he holds a large Screwdriver.
RAMSEY (lecherously)
Oh, Marlene, Marlene, Marlene. How’d you like to come over to my apartment right now and slick down with Mazola oil?
MARLENE (picking up some carrot sticks)
Can I have dinner first?
RAMSEY
Ha ha. Oh, Marlene. I could say something here.
MARLENE
I’m hopin’ you’ll keep it to yourself along with your mitts.
Shelly, carrying a plate of food, approaches.
RAMSEY
Hey, Shelly. (indicating Marlene) I’d like you to meet my significant vulva.
MARLENE
Knock it off, dickhead.
RAMSEY
Dickhead? That’s kind of a gender slur.
MARLENE
Okay. Asshole.
RAMSEY
That’s better.
MARLENE (rolling her eyes at Shelly)
Too bad old soldiers never die.
Marlene exits.
SHELLY
Were you reliving your days of glory?
RAMSEY
The veteran gets no respect.
SHELLY
Oh, the injustice of it. Aren’t you supposed to fade away.
RAMSEY
Hey, hey. You’ve never been in a foxhole under fire...
SHELLY
I’ve never hit myself in the head with a hammer.
RAMSEY
Typical female. All feel-y, no think-y.
SHELLY
Typical male. Won’t communicate, but won’t shut up either.
Jim comes over carrying a beer and a plate of snacks.
JIM
Hey, Ned. I spotted ya clear across the room. You could guide a sleigh.
RAMSEY (rubbing his nose)
Rice paddy rash.
JIM
Right.
RAMSEY (holding up the Screwdriver)
Too much Agent Orange.
JIM
And Comrade Vodka.
RAMSEY (examining his Screwdriver)
Maybe it’s my liver. The doctor says either major surgery, or an office visit. It depends on what our insurance will cover. ( a beat) That’s a joke.
SHELLY
I’ll say.
ANOTHER ANGLE
MARLENE, now with two other voluptuous, scantily-attired female coworkers, passes near Bad Dudes, who are loitering near the doorway, evidently waiting for Malboca to finish his conversation with Judd.
THUG ONE (to pals)
Hooter alert. I'm talkin'... trophy racks.
THUG TWO (to Marlene)
That's some shelf you got there, sweetheart. (to pals) Her shoes don't get wet.
THUG THREE (to women)
Why don't you girls park your Bambi over here awhile? (holds out a plate of snacks) Have some hors d’oeuvres.
THUG TWO
Clam dip.
THUG ONE
‘N’ smoked oysters.
MARLENE (to friends)
Yech. Something's dead around here.
As Marlene tries to move away, Thug One grabs her arm.
THUG ONE
What's your hurry?
MARLENE (looking around)
We could use some help over here.
ANOTHER ANGLE
A group of postal workers at the buffet table, including Ramsey. He turns and reacts as he sees Marlene being restrained by Thug One.
RAMSEY (drunkenly, to Thugs)
Hey. What’dy think your doin?
THUG ONE (to Ramsey)
Well, well, the old dude. We're just yakkin’ with peaches here?
MARLENE (seeing that Ramsey is weaving and unsteady)
Ah. Where's Jim?
THUG TWO (to Ramsey)
Looka this? Merit badges. (he fingers the Purple Heart) Where'd ya get this? A Wheaties box?
RAMSEY (angry)
That's the Purple Heart, asshole.
THUG TWO (mockingly)
Oh. Oh. The fat fuck is getting angry. I hope he doesn't strike me.
Ramsey assumes a superannuated, arthritic karate pose. The Thugs laugh.
MARLENE (worried, for Ramsey's sake)
Ah, Ramsey.
RAMSEY
Ahhh-yee!
Ramsey attempts a karate punch at Thug One's head. Thug One easily deflects the blow. Then he kayos Ramsey with a short, hard jab to the jaw. Ramsey falls backward against the buffet table scattering the canapés.
THUG ONE (to Marlene)
Yuk, yuk. Can one of you bimbos count to ten?
Thug One puts his arm around Marlene's shoulder and tightens his hold when she tries to pull away.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Suddenly, a whirling dervish comes spinning out of nowhere. It's Asian Lady, the diminutive middle-aged and nondescript clerk we met in the annex during the credit roll.
ASIAN LADY (her karate yells sound authentic)
Ahhhhh-ya! Ah! Ah!
Asian Lady flies through the air and lands a heel in the belly of Thug One, who keels over. Then, with a double spin, she cracks Thug Two across the pate. And with a lightning series of kicks and punches, she demolishes Thug Three. They are all down and vanquished without ever realizing their attacker barely weighs eighty pounds.
MARLENE (to Asian Lady)
Thanks, Ming-Lee.
Asian Lady bows modestly, reassuming her humble role.
ON Thug One, who starts to open his eyes.
ASIAN LADY (to Thug One, after momentarily returning to guard position)
Ah!
Thug One cowers away, putting his hands over his head.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim has arrived and is helping the dazed Ramsey to his feet.
JIM (to Ramsey)
You are one fighting piece of furniture. (he brushes a splatter of chips and dip off Ramsey's vest)._
ANOTHER ANGLE
Toward the back of the room the ACTIVIST is moving furtively from couple to couple surreptitiously handing out leaflets. His head is bandaged, as is one hand, and his face is covered with purple bruises.
ACTIVIST (furtively, to young hip couple)
Life isn't fair. The rich don’t share.
ON: Jim and Shelly. Jim notices Activist’s movements.
JIM (taking Shelly's arm)
Oh, oh.
SHELLEY
What's the matter?
JIM
It might be a good idea to get outta here.
INT POLICE CAR NIGHT
A sequence from COPS, in the manner of a crack house bust, shot cinema verte from shoulder cam with garish high-speed film. A young sincere, square-jawed OFFICER is at the wheel as his squad car speeds down a dark street illuminated only by the pales of street lamps. The revolving glare of the red light washes across the windscreen while in the background is the wail of the car's siren.
OFFICER (to the o.s. cam)
We have a 217 PC in progress. Don't know too much about it right now. We’re gonna respond and see what’s goin’ on. This is kind of a marginal neighborhood...
EXT STREET NIGHT
The Officer is out of the car and running toward the apartment building, the o.s. camcorder right behind him, with the mic picking up the sound of his panting breath.
ANOTHER ANGLE
At the front door the SWAT TEAM, in police coveralls, is battering down the door with a ram.
INT APARTMENT NIGHT
The POLICE rush through the hallway, all screaming at once.
POLICE (chorus)
Police. Police. Put your hands up. Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands down.
Pandemonium inside the apartment as guests scatter or are pushed aside by the police officers.
In b.g. at the far end of the hall we can see the figures of Jim and Shelley climbing out a window onto a fire escape, although their faces have been pixelated.
INT KITCHEN
The camcorder arrives just as four or five SWAT Team members have wrestled the Activist to the linoleum floor. One of the cops has his hand over the mouth of the Activist, who is struggling to say something. The Activist's head is covered with fresh blood.
EXT STREET NIGHT
The camcorder is following the young Officer back to his squad car.
OFFICER
The suspect is in custody and will be transported to, ah, Mission emergency. We recovered some contraband, some ah, seditious material, and, ah, several books, that we'll be looking at. So we had a good outcome here...
A few bars of the Cops "Bad Boys" theme. "Bad boys, whatcha gonna do..."
End Cops sequence.
EXT. FIRE ESCAPE
Jim and Shelly are huddled on the fire escape outside the apartment window. From inside the room we can hear a commotion of raised voices, and a COP’S VOICE screaming orders.
COPS’S VOICE (o.s.)
You’re under arrest. You’re under arrest. Put your hands behind your back. Now. Now.
Jim peers over the railing.
ON: The dark alleyway, one story below, littered with trash and debris.
JIM
Well. I think we’re gonna have to jump.
SHELLY (alarmed)
Are you out of your mind. It’s dark down there. I might hurt myself. I might get my shoes dirty. There might be... rats down there.
JIM
Fine. Fine. We’ll try your plan.
SHELLY
What’s my plan?
JIM
I’d like to hear it.
SHELLY
You’re saying, if I don’t have a plan I should stop my bitching.
JIM
If you think that’s best.
SHELLY
Well, my plan is to confound the wicked and ascend to heaven in a whirlwind.
JIM
Yup, that’s Shelly. Lift the hood and fix it.
INT APARTMENT NIGHT
Jim’s small studio apartment. The room is redolent of bachelorhood. A small kitchen, with a tiny refrigerator fills one corner. Unwashed dishes are piled high on the sink. The furniture is Goodwill Eclectic. A velvet Elvis graces one gloomy wall, a dart board another. Various pictures and posters tacked up randomly complete the decor. The room is lit by a couple of guttering candles.
ON: Jim and Shelly snuggled up together in bed.
SHELLY (stretching and sighing)
I have to tell ya. This has beeen a lot of fun. It was almost meaningful. Toward the end I was starting to feel, like, emotions.
JIM
Ah, this isn’t going to turn into a talk, is it?
SHELLY
What? This? Casual sex between unwed adults following alcohol abuse? What’s to talk about?
JIM
I was just wondering if this makes us an item.
SHELLY
One night does not make an item. An item is sharing and commitment.
JIM
There wasn't any fluid exchange.
SHELLY
Right. It's not a commitment if you use a condom. Slam, bam. Dunk and run. Dip and skip...
JIM
Oh, okay, okay. I suppose you can spend the night. You probably don't have anyplace to go...
SHELLY
You've got a silver tongue in that square head of yours. Actually I was thinking of moving in permanently. This is really very charming. So masculine in its lack of any kind of taste.
JIM
Thank you.
SHELLY
And plenty of room. The Thighmaster could go right there.
JIM
Great. We'll share everything. The John Wayne videos.
SHELLY
Yeah. Common interests. The Home Shopping Network.
JIM
My velvet Elvis. It’s half yours.
SHELLY
Macramé curtains. I'm in heaven.
JIM
Here are my favorite meals...
SHELLY
I beg your pardon.
JIM
That's the kitchen over there.
SHELLY
Really? That square boxy thing is...?
JIM
A stove. You know, maybe we'll need a contract.
SHELLY
Right. Get the lawyers talking to each other.
JIM
Now as for children...
SHELLY
Let's adopt. I don't want my chest to, ah...you know.
JIM
Chest?
SHELLY
Okay, so I’m not Marlene. Wait until she’s fifty.
JIM
I’m a pelvic girdle man anyway.
SHELLY
Well, I don’t want any of your sauce in there. My hips are too narrow to deliver a fathead.
JIM
But we'll still have occasional sex.
SHELLY
I don't think so.
JIM
Yeah, what's the point.
SHELLY
I prefer Letterman anyway.
JIM
One thing. Don't ever touch that remote.
SHELLY
Okay, darling. Just no sports or politics.
JIM
This is great. It’s been years since I’ve raised my voice in anger. (louder) The moon, Alice.
SHELLY
Shh shh. I'm sure your neighbors have to get up early.
JIM
Nope. None of 'em work.
SHELLY
Oh, fine. I’ll be living with a bunch of lowlife bums.
JIM
Hey. You’ve got your faults too.
SHELLY
I can’t think of any. That Shelly. A sweetheart. A girl- next-door type.
JIM
Maybe in this neighborhood…
SHELLY (cuddling up)
Ahh, Jim. We're gonna be so happy.
EXT RESTAURANT DAY
A Denny’s style eatery.
This is an interlude, filmed in the style of an amateur student documentary. The camera work is shaky. We can’t see the film makers but we know from the shadows on the pavement that two people are approaching the restaurant.
INT RESTAURANT DAY
The young PUNK is sitting at a booth, the same guy who earlier was confronting Jim on the sidewalk of the housing project. He's the epitome of callow obnoxiousness and poor hygiene with skulls-on-leather jacket, studiously ripped shirt, wispy beard, shaved skull, and spotty complexion. There's nothing likable or cute about him.
O.S. a young student VOICE is beginning an interview with the Punk, who is looking straight into the camcorder.
VOICE (o.s. a little muffled)
Hope you don't mind. This is for the project we told you about...
PUNK
Ey. Fuckin' yuppie scum. I don't give fuck-all about your fuckin' project.
VOICE (o.s)
It’s for school...
PUNK
I don't give a fuck about that. I hate fuckin' school. You know. Fuck 'em all. The teachers, the fuckin’ deans, everybody. I don't give a shit about any of those assholes. Fuck the whole fuckin' system. I hate the whole fuckin' bunch of 'em. I don’t give a fuck about anything. I hate the whole fuckin’ system and everybody in it. Fuck ‘em.
With dramatic prolonged and revolting noisiness, Punk hawks up a mouthful of mucus from his nose and throat, then opens the top of the ketchup bottle and spits the whole mess inside. He elaborately screws back on the lid, shakes up the bottle, then sets it back with the rest of the condiments on the table.
PUNK (cont)
Ha. Ey. Fuckin’ boogers with the burgers. Ha. What are you lookin’ at ? Fuck you! I don't give a fuck about anything, dude. The only fuckin' person I care about is me.
VOICE (o.s)
I’d like you to meet my associate, Mr. Moto.
Punk turns slightly to one side, as if facing a new arrival.
There is a loud gunshot, and Punk's head disappears in a cloud of blood. His brains are spattered across the wall behind him.
End student sequence
INT SWING ROOM DAY
The austere employee break room, lined with vending machines. The carriers and clerks are having morning coffee. Most of them have an eye cocked at the wall clock, which is inching closer to seven. Jim and Ramsey are sitting together at a table. Ramsey is a little glum and hung over.
- Postal. He's pacing back and forth along the far wall, talking to himself. His uniform is disheveled, his hair sticking up anyhow, a three-day growth of beard darkening his jaw. Suddenly he will stop, his wild eyes staring at nothing, and begin screaming gibberish.
POSTAL
Beware the snakes. Beware the apes. Beware the fucking ….. Bastards of the world. Sneaking slimy bastards. There's no redemption of fucking coupons. (holds out his hands as if warding off some invisible evil) Don't! Don't ! I can't fucking stand it..
ON: Jim and Ramsey seated.
RAMSEY
How does Postal look today?
JIM
Normal. For him.
RAMSEY
I'm worried he might crack.
JIM (making a motion as if cocking a revolver)
Oh. You think? Because he's a hair trigger with the hammer cocked...?
RAMSEY (stretching around to look at Postal's antics)
You know I'm a hundred and ten percent union...
JIM
Come on? You'd beef a guy just because he's a violent, delusional psycho...
RAMSEY
Hey. That's hitting pretty close to home...
JIM
Sorry. Postal isn't even a veteran.
RAMSEY
That's what pisses me off. If he'd been in 'Nam I could understand this.
ANOTHER ANGLE.
With the minute hand just caressing twelve everybody except Jim and Ramsey gets up at once.
ON: Shelly as she passes through the room with Marlene and several other female carriers.
RAMSEY (cont.)
Female units approaching.
SHELLY (to Jim and Ramsey)
Hey. Jungle Jim and Napalm Ned. Can you do something about that (indicating Postal) It's a little unnerving to work next to that kind of cashew. Circus personnel in cute safari outfits I don't mind. They're harmless. Hello, you read? (she raps a few time on Jim's pith helmet, which gives off a metallic ring)
JIM
Ramsey. An attractive female unit is talking to me. What should I do?
RAMSEY
Steady.
JIM
Should I look at her?
RAMSEY
God no. It’s Shelly.
SHELLY (to Jim)
Kiss, kiss, Cutie fudge. Tender mittens.
Shelly and the other female carriers exit.
RAMSEY
Heh, heh. She likes you. Oh ho.
JIM (readjusting his helmet)
Well, I magnetized this thing. I was bound to pick up something.
INT ANNEX DAY
It's morning and the letter carriers are casing the mail. Alternately, Jim and Shelly steal glances at one another. Shelly, as usual, is bobbing around her case with her headphones on. Jim is flipping mail like a Las Vegas dealer.
At the next case, Postal is getting increasingly loony, in fits either wailing, or gnashing his teeth in a frenzy of rage, or laughing violently at nothing.
INT OFFICE DAY
The annex managers, including FOSTER, in a glassed office overlooking the sorting machines, are discussing Postal with MC EVOY, the union's shop steward.
FOSTER, the customer service supervisor, is the usual manager type, with close-cropped hair, white short-sleeved shirt complete with clip bow tie and pen protector and name tag. Half a dozen other similar managers sit around a long table.
Standing at one end of the table is MC EVOY, union all the way, who wears a vest dripping with union buttons from a dozen labor disputes. On his head is a ball cap featuring the Farm Workers logo and the word Huelga.
FOSTER (angrily to McEvoy)
I'll tell you what the problem is. The problem is, he's a lunatic...
MC EVOY (holding up a sheaf of computer printouts)
I’ve got his stats right here...
FOSTER
...all I'm saying, a doctor should look at the guy...
MC EVOY (reading)
...on-time punch-in, one hundred percent; on-time route delivery, ninety-seven percent; safety record, perfect; customer complaints, none...
FOSTER (pointing out the glass window)
Look at the guy...
ON: Postal, in his case, jumping up and down and waving his arms.
MC EVOY (not looking)
...the union position is, we'll grieve or seek arbitration in any management action where unsubstantiated or unjustifiable cause...
FOSTER
He's a time bomb.
MC EVOY
...violates the contract provisions for suspension or termination...
FOSTER
Jesus H. Christ..._
INT. THE CATWALK
The catwalk, high above. The shadowy figure of Judd skulks along the walk and disappears inside an observation booth.
INT BOOTH
It is silent inside the both. Judd seats himself and begins watching the scene below. Over his shoulder, through the spy port, we see Postal shaking the case in a frenzy of rage.
Judd flips a switch on his console.
POSTAL (o.s)
...rotten bastards, the fuckin' luckin' duckin' buckin’ suckin’ bastards. Ha. HA. I'll fuckin' buck ‘em sump ‘em...
Judd flips off that switch. A moment of silence. Then he flips another switch.
SHELLY (singing o.s.)
...my guy, talking about my guy, he's so fine...I'm gonna make him mine...
Judd, stung, flips off that switch too. He hunches over the spy port, watching Shelly at work.
ON: Shelly silently bobbing in her case, sneaking looks at Jim.
INT ANNEX OFFICE
The Managers are still meeting. FOSTER, pointer in hand, is standing in front of a large chart of unbelievable complexity. The whole thing is a confusing welter of numbers, graphs, arrows, and dense blocks of type extensively crossed out and rewritten. The heading is "Vacation Schedule."
McEvoy is to the other side of the chart, a heavy loose-leaf binder in his hands.
MC EVOY (shaking his head as Foster points at something)
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Postal, a mad glint in his eye, appears in the doorway, with his mail bag over his shoulder.
FOSTER (nervously, to Postal)
Yes?
POSTAL (calmly)
I understand you'd like to see me.
FOSTER
Not right now.
POSTAL (softly, calmly)
Oh. Well. I have a couple of points I'd like to make.
MAC EVOY (soothingly)
Sure. But right now were sorting out the vacation schedule...
FOSTER (soothingly)
Maybe you could come back later...
POSTAL
First, I'd like an immediate raise. One thousand dollars a month. Eight weeks vacation. A new tour. No swings after three. And Mr. Ralston must never speak to me again.
FOSTER and MAC EVOY (looking at each other, worried, in unison..)
Ah, well...
ON: RALSTON, a barrel-chested, bull-necked manager, seated half-way down the table.
RALSTON (riled)
What the fuck is this? I’ll speak to you any Goddamn time I want. (to others) Why are we listening to this loony bullshit...(to Postal) Get the fuck outta here.
ON: Foster and Mac Evoy, who wince.
POSTAL
Fine, Mr. Ralston. In that case...
Postal suddenly pulls an Uzi submachine gun from the bag.
ON Foster, McEvoy and the other supervisors frozen in horror.
POSTAL (cont. screaming)
...I'm going pizza!
Postal opens fire on the supervisors frozen around the table. His contorted laughing face is lit up by the delight of unfettered lunacy, underscored by the stuttering cacophony of rapid fire and the stream of spent cartridges exiting over his left shoulder.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The impact of the bullets knocks Ralston off his chair, sending him crashing to the floor, riddled with bloody wounds. Foster, McEvoy and others dive under the table.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The office from outside the glass windows. Postal is an enthusiastic gunner but not a particularly accurate one. All the windows are shot out, but one assumes because of the volume of fire that there must be considerable carnage inside the office.
ON a SECRETARY who was approaching the office along the catwalk. The reacts in horror to the gunfire, the breaking glass and splattered blood.
SECRETARY (turning, and screaming out to the other workers in the building)
He's gone...postal.
INTERIOR ANNEX
Panic seizes the building. There are screams of terror. Others pick up the call of, “He's postal" Everybody drops his work and runs for cover.
ANGLE ON the catwalk. Postal emerges from the office, the mad gleam still burning in his eye. He brings out of his postal bag two 30-round magazines that have been taped together back-to-back for quick reloading. He throws away the spent clips and inserts the new ones.
ANGLE ON the floor below, where pandemonium rules and all the employees hit the deck or try to find cover behind the sorting machines.
ANGLE ON the DPS sorters where the obscenely obese keyboarders ponderously pull themselves from their chairs and begin a slow-motion elephantine waddle toward the haven of some filing cabinets.
ON Postal, who opens fire on his fellow employees on the floor below.
INT CASES
Jim, Shelly and Ramsey spin around as the firing starts.
JIM
Oh oh.
SHELLY
Friend of yours?
RAMSEY
Ouch. He's downsizing management.
INT ANNEX
The sparkle of impacts on the gleaming machines accompanies the sound of ricocheting bullets. Everybody is screaming. Bullets walk along one of the high-tech electronic DPS sorters, until the machine explodes, spewing columns of mail into the air.
ON A fat DPS keyboarder who just reaches the safety of a file cabinet as the bullet impacts twinkle past his shoulder.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The Postal Inspector's office on the catwalk across from Postal's firing position. Judd and another postal inspector emerge and stare across at the mad gunman.
ON Judd, who blanches, immediately ducks down, and crawls ignominiously back into the office. He has no stomach for a gun fight.
The other postal inspector, however, a stern FBI type, pulls his revolver and begins firing across at Postal. Unhappily, he's no marksman.
ON Postal, as two or three mis-aimed bullets ricochet off the catwalk railing. Postal looks across at the opposing gunman, aims and fires.
ON the postal inspector. Bullet impacts erupt all around him and two or three find their mark in his chest cavity. He clutches his shirt front, then tumbles over the railing head first.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The dead postal inspector lands on the moving ord belt amidst the moving stream of mail and is conveyed immediately into the maw of the machine. The ord sorter begins to scream and howl as it tries to digest this unexpected burden.
ON the sorter, which begins to spew letters incarnadine with blood.
ON Postal, laughing maniacally.
POSTAL
It’s a red letter day.
Postal is on the move, firing as he goes. He has more ammo in his mail pouch, and he ejects clips and reloads on the run.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim, Shelly and Ramsey drop to the floor as bullets rain down on the cases.
JIM (to Ramsey)
I suppose this is going to remind you of something.
RAMSEY. (grinning)
No. Nothing. New experience to me.
Jim, Shelly and Ramsey are crouched behind a sorting machine as bullets ricochet overhead.
SHELLY
That crazy bastard is gonna Darwinize the whole place.
JIM (to Ramsey)
Maybe we should stop him before he hurts somebody.
RAMSEY
Do you want some tactical advice?
JIM
No. I'll go that way. You go that way.
RAMSEY
Okay.
ON Ramsey, who starts crawling off the left.
ON Jim, who starts crawling to the right, but is impeded because Shelly has grabbed on to his ankle, and is being towed along behind him.
SHELLY
Let's talk about this.
JIM
Sure. Let’s have coffee sometime.
SHELLY (being dragged along)
I know men don't like to talk about this stuff. You know... Relationships. Feelings. Rationality...
ON Postal, still laughing maniacally and pouring fire at any moving target. He spots Ramsey, hop-scotching from one machine to the next, and fires.
ON Ramsey, who takes cover amid a hail of bullets.
ON Postal, who now spots Jim and Shelly inching along.
ON Jim and Shelly. Bullets begin hitting all around them Jim grabs Shelly's arm and pulls her close beside him behind the protection of a sorting machine.
JIM
Could you hurtle right to the point.
SHELLY
Fine. Grace under fire. Last night... Ugh. This is hard. Well, I mean... It seems to me we have some kind of a new arrangement. Not total commitment or anything. But different than it was. I mean, more than just pals. Higher than the pal level...
JIM (looking her seriously straight in the eye)
We're lovers.
SHELLY (uneasily)
Well, yeah. I guess. That's what I think too. So, ah, I don't think you should do things that sort of put you in danger until at least we've had a chance to...
JIM (distracted, looking for his chance to move to the next concealment)
...to what?
SHELLY
To make me your beneficiary. Ha ha. Goddamn it, Jim. I don't want you to hurt yourself. There. I said it.
JIM
A man's gotta do...and so on.
SHELLY
Yeah, blah blah. I hate this part of the female role. I hate it. You start to have a little feeling for someone...
JIM (embraces and kisses her)
Bye.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim is deftly snaking through the tangle of carts and machinery, keeping an eye on Postal, who has retreated toward the far end of the building, still firing wildly at any movement.
ON Ramsey, who has flanked Postal on the left.
ON Jim, now hidden within a few yards of Postal. Jim signals to Ramsey, pantomiming for him to distract Postal so that Jim can make a rush.
ON Ramsey, who rolls his eyes in mock disgust. Then he pops up his head, puts his thumbs in his ears and wiggles his fingers.
ON Postal, who sees Ramsey and opens up with a long burst of fire.
The Uzi clicks. It's out of shells. Postal reaches in the bag for more ammo...but he's out. He turns the bag over. It's empty.
ON Jim, who stands up, smiling, and starts sauntering toward Postal. Postal, although bazook, is small and thin, no match for the muscular Jim in a fight.
ON Ramsey, who also stands up smiling.
ANGLE ON a fire extinguisher box. With the fist of his left hand, Postal smashes the glass, reaches in, and comes out with two more clips of ammo.
POSTAL (slamming in the new clips)
More nickels, motherfuckers.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim and Ramsey dive for cover as Postal resumes firing. Postal backs up toward the conveyor belts serving the loading docks. Still firing, he hops aboard the outbound belt...and disappears out the hatch._
EXT LOADING DOCK DAY
Postal emerges onto the dock from the conveyor belt, leaps to his feet and jumps to the loading platform where two African-American DOCK WORKERS are unloading a truck.
ON Postal, whose face is covered with grime, gunpowder and blood. His left hand, dripping blood, holds the Uzi. With a glare of pure insanity he confronts the dock workers, the Uzi pointed at chest level.
POSTAL (to dock workers)
I went postal.
DOCK WORKERS (in unison)
All right!
They high five with Postal.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Postal jumps down from the dock and disappears between the trucks.
INT ANNEX
Jim and Ramsey tentatively are peering out the back door, when a supervisor, his white shirt smeared with blood, approaches.
SUPERVISOR
Hey. Is it lunch? The mail doesn’t case itself, you know. Let’s get movin’ people. We got routes to deliver.
ON: Jim and Ramsey, who look at each other and shrug.
EXT AIRPORT DAY
A corporate Gulfstream flares over the runway and lands.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The Gulfstream, bearing the corporate logo of OPTIMUS CHEMICAL, taxies up to the apron where two limos are waiting.
ON The plane door opening. A group of prosperous-looking middle-aged white men, all in expensive business suits, descend the stairs. Among them is Congressman BONNET, a nervously-smiling balding politician with pencil mustache who bears a striking resemblance to the late Sonny Bono. At his elbow is the imposing malign figure of Andrew GIRTH, the buccaneer CEO of Optimus Chemical. The rest of the entourage are minions, the lawyers, accountants and other corporate henchmen.
INTERIOR LIMO DAY
Bonnet and Girth are in the back seat of the limo. Girth has the easy confidence of the powerful and moneyed as he relaxes against the leather upholstery, puffing a contraband Montecristo. Bonnet, however, is distinctly uneasy, and darts nervous glances out the window. It is evident that Girth is the alpha male in this pod, from the patronizing way he addresses Bonnet, always giving the word "congressman" a sarcastic twist.
BONNET
I'll be damn glad when this day's over.
GIRTH
All contributors, Congressman. Every salesman in the Million Dollar Club has been massaged and squeezed. They've all bought tickets to your dinners. Just give 'em the usual spiel. Hard work and good credit. No government interference with free enterprise. Got your paint brush?
BONNET takes a paint brush out of his back pocket.
GIRTH (cont.)
You lifted yourself from lowly house painter to real estate mogul by your own industrious efforts. An American success story.
BONNET
I wish the club would meet downtown.
GIRTH (frowning as he looks out the window)
Yeah. This is a crummy neighborhood.
BONNET
I hate it.
GIRTH
Well, Congressman, it's your district.
EXT HOTEL DAY
The two limos pull into the entranceway of the hotel. Already a crowd of elderly demonstrators are milling on the sidewalk, kept back from the entrance by a couple of uniformed policemen. The placards read: "SAVE THE SENIORS." and "NO CUTS."
ANOTHER ANGLE
The limos stop at the front door. Liveried doormen rush forward. As Bonnet gets out he's greeted with a chorus of boos from the massed seniors on the sidewalk. Girth behind him, is unperturbed and smiling. The henchmen have the blank faces of robots.
BONNET (nervously)
They look mad.
GIRTH
They're just old people.
INTERIOR BANQUET HALL DAY
It's the typical business club lunch. The salesmen of the Million Dollar Club are lunching at round tables in front of a podium. The men tend to be beefy, uncouth Babbitts, too loud in both deportment and apparel, with a Philistine predilection for bad ties. At one table at front right sit Girth and the minions, who seem to hold apart from the rowdier sales force.
Behind the podium sitting along a line of chairs are the local dignitaries, mostly white-haired and ruddy, although there is one corpulent African-American and one corpulent Asian-American.
On the wall behind the dignitaries hangs a banner: The Million Dollar Club Welcomes Congressman BONNET" Other signs say, "WORK, NOT WELFARE" and "DON’T TAX INCENTIVE."
At the podium is Bonnet, now looking earnest and sincere, as he addresses the group.
BONNET
...the country no longer has the luxury of burdening the productive and entrepreneurial with the waste products of a by-gone day. As a nation we cannot allow the surplus and the superfluous to eat into the working capital that keeps our economy on the crest of global expansion, an expansion driven by individual initiative and incentive. And I speak from personal experience. (He takes out the paint brush) Do you see this paint brush. I carry it in my pocket to remind myself...
ANOTHER ANGLE.
There is a commotion in the back of the room. The diners turn around as a scuffle breaks out between the policemen at the doorway and some unseen protesters.
INT HALLWAY DAY
A wall-to-wall phalanx of SENIORS and WELFARE MOMS with babes in arms push up to the doorway, chanting and yelling. In the front rank, led by Geezer SERGEANT, are four or five very frail women pushing walkers, along with two pretty welfare moms with month-old infants.
They are halted at the doorway by two muscular local cops wearing one-way mirror sunglasses and black leather gloves, flak vests and riot gear. They are led by an older police CAPTAIN, wearing the same gear sans the sunglasses and gloves.
ANGLE ON: SERGEANT, an ancient, ram-rod stiff military type who holds a bullhorn to the bandaged hole in his throat where his larynx used to be.
SERGEANT (hoarsely)
Troops halt. Form up those lines.
CAPTAIN (kind but patronizing)
Come on now, folks. Ya gotta back up. This is private meeting.
The cops, their batons in front of them, slowly begin to move toward the group.
ANOTHER ANGLE
SALES MANAGER, obviously an official with the club, comes to the doorway, looking panicky.
SALES MANAGER (to Police Captain)
They can't come in. Get those people outta here.
CAPTAIN (to sales manager)
We're movin' 'em. Just take it easy.
SALES MANAGER (voice rising)
I want those people outta here now.
SERGEANT (to protesters)
At the quick step. March.
The phalanx of protesters lurches forward. The frail ladies push their walkers right up against the columnar thighs of the young cops, who look at the Police Captain for direction.
ON the Welfare Moms, who thrust their babies toward the cops.
WELFARE MOMS (in unison)
Starving babies. Starving babies.
SERGEANT
Ready. Present.
SENIORS (lifting their canes and shouting in unison)
Shame. Shame.
With a look of utter determination, the frail ladies push their walkers against the immobile cops. The Police Captain is shaking his head in perplexity.
SALES MANAGER
What are you waiting for? Use your clubs. Knock 'em back.
As the protesters surge forward one of the frail ladies in front is pushed and beings to fall, until one of the young cops gently lifts her up. The Police Captain is nettled by the blood lust of the Sales Manager, yet at the same time somewhat bemused by the scene.
CAPTAIN
Ah shit. I can’t do this. Let 'em in.
The two young cops, very relieved that they don't have to club old ladies, quickly move aside.
SALES MANAGER (beside himself)
What! What. What are you doing?
The crowd surges through the doorway, pushing the Sales Manager aside.
INT BANQUET HALL
The seniors, in lock step, canes raised, march toward the podium, chanting their cry of rage.
SENIORS
Shame. Shame.
ON The Welfare Moms, thrusting their little babes into the amazed faces of the well-fed diners.
WELFARE MOMS
Starving baby. Starving baby.
ANGLE ON The podium, where Congressman BONNET is frozen with abject fear.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Girth and his minions quietly get up from their table and surreptitiously exit through a side door, held open by one of the limo chauffeurs.
INT NARROW HALLWAY
Girth and CHAUFFEUR head for the street, followed by entourage.
CHAUFFEUR
The party got rough for the Congressman.
GIRTH (shrugging)
Oh well. They're his constituents.
INT BANQUET HALL
The seniors have massed around the podium, surrounding the aghast Bonnet. The dignitaries are still sitting behind him, shocked and dumb.
SERGEANT
Prepare to fire. Fire.
Bonnet comes under a pelting rain of vegetables and rotten eggs. Some of the misses strike dignitaries seated in back, who at last wake up and jump for the sidelines.
Bonnet is unavailingly trying to shield himself from the barrage with his paint brush. His anguished face is lit up by the flashes of news photographers cameras.
A potato bounces off Bonnet’s skull, staggering him.
SERGEANT (angry)
Who threw that? No potatoes.
ANGLE ON The cops, standing at the back, arms folded, watching with amusement.
SENIORS
Shame, shame, shame.
Bonnet tries to escape through the same door that Girth used, but finds it locked. He turns, facing his tormentors, and tries to hide his head amidst the torrent of rotten eggs.
ON the Police Captain.
CAPTAIN (shaking his head)
I actually voted for that guy.
INT APARTMENT DAY
Begin student sequence
The student documentary camcorder is moving through a trashed apartment. The camera work is jerky, amateurish. As the camcorder moves through the rooms there are all the signs of abject squalor. The walls are grimy with dirt and water stains. Large chunks of plaster are missing, the rug is torn up, a gaping hole is in the floor. Garbage is strewn everywhere. The kitchen is filthy. The bathroom toilet is disgusting beyond description.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Young children and toddlers are playing in the filthy hallway. Through an open door, a young mother, babe on hip, bends over a steaming pot on a stove.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The camcorder meets the SLUMLORD coming up the stairs, the same guy who hassled Jim on the sidewalk.
SLUMLORD
...so what is this again, some kind of junior Sixty Minutes- type documentary? Hey, go ahead, look around, it don't bother me...
The O.S. Student Voice is muffled, indistinct.
SLUMLORD (cont)
What? That's right, I buy these shitholes because they're cheap. You get in for a small amount of dollars, and hold on until the city gets on your case. Then, whammo, turn 'em over to the Patels. This place we’re in. I'm rentin' this dump, as is, $700 a month. Sure, it's a dump. But you can't do anything for these people. They got no credit, got no assets. They'll bring in eight wetbacks and ten crack addicts. They're lucky anybody'll rent to 'em at any price.
VOICE (o.s)
I'd like you to meet my associate, Mr. Moto.
SLUMLORD
Hey, what's happenin', kid...
There's a loud gunshot. SLUMLORD's head erupts into a mask of blood, and he falls backward down the stairs._
End student sequence
EXT STREET DAY
The green postal relay box is on the corner. In the rundown tenement house behind the box the lascivious PERVERT, licking his lips, peers out through the curtains of a window over the "Safe House" sign with the smiley-face daisy. He is peeking at the two young Boys, aged eight or nine, in shorts and tank tops, pitching pennies against a wall.
ANOTHER ANGLE
A post office jeep stops at the relay box. JUDD gets out, opens the box, puts in a gray mail sack, then, after carefully looking around, begins fiddling with the lock, using small tools he surreptitiously brings out of his pocket.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim comes out of a building, mail sack over shoulder. He approaches Judd who is surreptitiously stuffing tools back into his pockets.
JIM
Where's Ned?
JUDD
Oh. He had extra swings. We're shorthanded, you know.
JIM
I know. Any word on Postal?
JUDD (icily)
I'm sure the police have the matter in hand. Well...I won't keep you.
JIM
Thanks.
Judd gets in the jeep and exits. Jim pulls out his arrow key and opens the relay box.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Judd drives around the corner, up onto the sidewalk and along a rickety fence. The Pit Bulls and Rottweilers on the porch of the house begin yapping in a slavering frenzy as the jeep pulls up beside the yard.
Judd reaches out and opens the latch of the gate. Then he hits the accelerator and exits.
ON The amazed dogs, as they realize the gate is open.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The dogs, now a hunting pack howling with fiendish glee, round the corner in search of prey and immediately sight two possible targets.
ON Jim, reaching in the relay box for the bag of mail.
ON The two little Boys obliviously pitching pennies.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The dogs, selecting the boys, begin a furious charge, snarling and gnashing their teeth with homicidal rage.
ON Pervert in the window. He sees the boys' danger and immediately begins tapping on the windowpane with his fist to attract Jim's attention.
ON Jim. When he sees the four vicious attack dogs charging the two boys, he drops the relay bag and tries to pull the key from the lock. But the key won't come out. It's stuck in the lock.
ON The furious canines bearing down on their quarry.
ON The two boys, suddenly realizing their danger, press themselves against the wall, too paralyzed with fear to run.
ON The Pervert, who is talking excitedly into a telephone.
ON Jim, struggling to get the key out. Finally he disconnects the arrow key chain from his belt, leaving the key dangling from the lock, and rushes to the boys' aid.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim manages to interpose himself at the last instant between the charging beasts and the fear-immobilized children. He bangs the Pit Bull with his mail sack, and the other three dogs quickly surround him, snarling and snapping.
ANGLE ON The two boys, scurrying to safety.
ON The Pervert, phone to his ear, hopefully waving to the boys to come into his house, and then registering disappointment when, not being complete fools, they run into the house next door.
ON Jim, fighting the four dogs. The pit bull has the mail sack, another has sunk its jaws into the shin guard on one of Jim's legs, and the other two are making leaps at his throat, all the time making a horrendous din.
ANOTHER ANGLE
While this battle is going on, the postal jeep creeps up to the relay box. Judd, a small screwdriver in hand, reaches behind the door and releases the lock. Then he takes the arrow key out and slowly drives away.
ON Judd, holding up the key and laughing.
ANOTHER ANGLE
A white ambulance-style van with the Humane Society logo in red letters tears down the street, siren wailing.
ON the Humane Society van pulling up to the corner and two uniformed DOG CATCHERS jumping out.
ANGLE ON Jim, who by this time has a dog attached to each shin guard, one on his wrist guard and one hanging from the mail bag.
DOG CATCHER ONE
There's a sight you don't see every day.
DOG CATCHER TWO (shaking his head)
If he doesn't like dogs, he shouldn't be a mailman.
ANGLE ON Jim, wrestling with the four furious beasts.
EXT STREET DAY
The blighted neighborhood, with the crumbling postal annex on one side of the street and Malboca’s Bad Ass Pizza on the other.
INT JEEP
Ramsey and Shelly are returning to the annex.
RAMSEY
I'll drop you off. I still got a couple swings left.
SHELLY
How come you got the shit detail?
RAMSEY
Call me lucky. I hope somebody took care of the relay boxes.
SHELLY
Let me off at Malboca’s. I need a Coke.
EXT STREET
Shelly gets out of the jeep in front of Malboca’s. A big banner stretches across the front, with a message in English and Korean. The English version says, "Soon Under New Ownership."
INT BAD ASS PIZZA
Shelly enters and heads for a big tub of ice-ed sodas near the counter.
CLERK
Heyy... Shelly. (calling to back of store) Hey, Malboca. Shelly's here.
Shelly looks up from the ice tub, surprised her presence should be of interest to Malboca.
She puts the soda and a dollar bill on the counter.
ANGLE ON Malboca, emerging from the back room, smiling unctuously, with a couple of letters in his hand..
MALBOCA
Shelly, sweetheart. I got a question. This mail here. I don't know what kinda postage...
ON The Clerk, unscrewing the soda bottle.
CLERK
Let me open this for ya, Shelly.
MALBOCA
Is it first class or third class or no class? I don't know.
SHELLY
That's a hard one.
MALBOCA
Would you just take a look.
SHELLY
Well, okay.
CLERK
Here's your soda.
Shelly absent-mindedly reaches back for the bottle.
MALBOCA (holding up the letters)
Whaddya think?
Shelly takes a long swig of soda as she glances at the letters.
SHELLY
Gosh. Letters. They're gonna need...a stamp. Yes, I believe that's it.
ON The Clerk, who smiles maliciously and gives a thumb up to Malboca.
MALBOCA (smiling)
Well thanks, Shelly. A stamp. I never thoughta that.
SHELLY (taking another swig)
That's why I take home the big federal paycheck. (stumbling a little) Whoa. Heat stroke. I need this. (she takes another long drink)
Malboca and the Clerk exchange glances.
EXT STREET DAY
A postal jeep carrying Judd pulls up in front of Malboca's .
ANGLE ON Judd as he hops out of the jeep and enters the store.
INT BAD ASS PIZZA
Judd enters.
JUDD (to clerk at counter)
Malboca?
The clerk points to the back room.
INT BACK ROOM
It's very dimly lit. A few overhead lamps shine down on greasy wooden tables where some of the Thugs are counting money. Malboca is perched on the side of a desk, reading the Racing Form.
JUDD sidles up alongside and brings forth the arrow key, which he dangles in front of Malboca's eyes.
JUDD
It's signed out to that punk in the pith helmet. It DOES NOT have to be returned. It's star, dash, end of transmission for that motherfucker. He is through…at the post office…
Malboca reaches for key, which Judd pulls away.
JUDD (cont.)_
Un uh.
MALBOCA
Oh yeah.
Malboca gestures toward the darkly-lit corner of the room where an indistinct supine figure lies huddled under a trench coat.
Judd steals across the floor and with trembling hand lifts the fold of the coat.
It's Shelly, with a beatific expression on her face, sweetly slumbering.
JUDD
Yes!
MALBOCA
The key.
Judd quickly hands it over. With no further ado, Malboca signals to Romeo and the other Thugs, and they all exit.
ANGLE ON Judd, who sinks to his knees next to the slumbering Shelly and drinks in her soft respiration. Shelly’s face is angelic and inviting in repose. He gently caresses her cheek and hair. Judd can hardly believe that he is this close to the object of his unrequited desire.
INT POSTAL ANNEX DAY
An excited, agitated Judd pushes a mail cart containing a large parcel bag of sufficient volume to conceal a human body. The annex is humming with activity. Other carts career along the aisle, and Judd snarls at the other drivers as he negotiates through the clutter of bins, carts and machines.
JUDD
Outta the way, make a hole.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Judd pushes he cart onto an elevator and jabs the up button.
INT CATWALK
The elevator door opens and Judd emerges pushing the parcel cart. He propels the cart down the steel walkway to the observation room.
INT OBSERVATION ROOM
Judd enters carrying Shelly and gently lays her on the couch. He turns on and adjusts some spot lamps, lighting her in the manner of a mannequin in a store window. Then he begins to arrange her limbs in different poses, gradually hiking her blue postal skirt higher up her thigh.
He is so overwhelmed with excitement of the posed scene that he has to stop momentarily to collect his breath.
_
EXT STREET DAY
A vista of bleak cheerless apartment high-rises. The unkempt litter-strewn yards surrounding the buildings are unusually shorn of activity. A few unsupervised toddlers gambol in the mud; a few cryptic teenage hoodlums slouch in doorways.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The apartment house gang boxes stand as unworshipped idols. Absent is the usual gaggle of women awaiting the arrival of the mail and a possible check. All along the row of mailboxes stretching to the horizon, nary a person to be seen.
Suddenly a sedan careens around the corner and speeds up the deserted street, screeching to a halt in front of the nearest gang box.
ANGLE ON the car. Romeo is at the wheel, Malboca in the passenger seat. Malboca jumps out, opens the back of the gang box with the purloined arrow key, and begins stuffing welfare and social security checks into a paper bag.
MALBOCA
This is great. This is fuckin’ great.
He jumps back into the car, which burns rubber down to the next gang box.
EXT STREET DAY
Ramsey pulls up behind the Human Society van just as the two Dog Catchers are shoving the last of the attack dogs, now ensnared in a net, into a cage inside the Human Society van. The other three dogs, yapping furiously, already are in custody.
ANGLE ON Jim, whose shirt sleeves and pant legs have been rent to shreds by dog teeth.
RAMSEY
Hey, pardner. I know you like to play with the bow-bows, but we’re runnin' kind of late today...
JIM
I got a problem.
RAMSEY
I know you do. I got your next relay right here...
JIM
I lost my arrow key.
RAMSEY (shocked at the enormity of it)
Fuck.
Jim throws his mail sack into the jeep.
JIM
Turn around. I wanna go back to the projects.
RAMSEY
Why? You already delivered 'em.
Ramsey is having difficulty getting the jeep into reverse.
JIM
I got a real bad feeling. Move over. (Jim pushes Ramsey into passenger seat and jumps in behind the wheel.)
EXT PROJECTS
The demonstrators are pouring back into the projects following the protest against Congressman Bonnet. Rattle-trap church buses, draped with anti-Bonnet banners, are discharging squads of geezers, while old beater Fords and Dodges, trailing blue smoke, bring home the welfare moms.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Fifty or sixty angry residents have clustered around the gang box, the back door of which is still open. The social security and welfare recipients are becoming increasingly agitated as they madly finger the junk mail in search of the missing checks.
GEEZERS and WELFARE MOMS (all at once, in great agitation)
Where's my check?
ANGLE ON Jim and Ramsey, as they pull up in the postal jeep. They are immediately surrounded by the distraught crowd.
GEEZERS and WELFARE MOMS ( cont. to Jim)
Where's the checks?
Jim surveys the looted gang box, then peers further down the street.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Distraught crowds are gathering around the other postal gang boxes in front of other apartment buildings.
JIM (to Ramsey)
Shit. They got 'em.
RAMSEY (aghast)
They stole the checks?
A horrible ululating cry of rage goes up from the crowd.
GEEZERS and WELFARE MOMS
They stole the checks.
JIM (thinking, half to himself)
The checks have to be cashed at a certified outlet.
RAMSEY
Who'd be sleazy enough to cash stolen welfare checks?
RAMSEY and JIM ( in unison)
Malboca.
Jim guns the jeep, and the vehicle catapults away from the crowd with peeling tires.
GEEZERS and WELFARE MOMS (take up a cry)
Malboca. Malboca.
EXT URBAN STREET
The little postal jeep is twisting and turning through heavy traffic, dodging pedestrians and barely avoiding collisions with oncoming cars.
EXT PROJECTS
The rattle-trap church buses, now reloaded with geezers, turn to follow the jeep.
INT BUS
GEEZERS
Malboca's Malboca's.
INT JEEP
RAMSEY (holding tight to the roll bar)
Funny thing. I just dropped off Shelly at Malboca's.
JIM
Son of a bitch.
EXT URBAN STREET
The jeep hurtles through the clogged streets, mindless of obstacles.
EXT MALBOCA'S
Jim drives the jeep right up onto the sidewalk next to the front door, upsetting a vegetable cart.
ANGLE ON Jim and Ramsey bailing out of the jeep and into the pizzeria.
INT GROCERY
The Clerk is sweeping up in front of the counter when Jim and Ramsey burst in.
JIM
Where's Malboca?
CLERK
We already got our mail.
Jim grabs the Clerk by the shirtfront and jams him against the counter.
JIM
Where's Malboca?
INT BACK ROOM
The Thugs are seated around tables processing the stolen checks in assembly line fashion. One Thug endorses the check, a second stamps it with the store check stamp, a third fills in the blanks.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Malboca is to one side talking with GIRTH, whose well-dressed entourage waits behind him in the shadows. Malboca is consulting some adding machine tape, while the CEO holds a leather briefcase in one hand.
MALBOCA
....so twenty-one hundred and fourteen checks for a grand total of six hundred and thirty two thousand, give or take, fifty percent of which is...
ANGLE ON Girth, who lays the briefcase on the table, opens it to reveal stacks of money.
GIRTH
I hope you don't mind cash.
MALBOCA
Ha ha. Right out of the laundry, I bet...
CEO
Is that...a question, Mr. Malboca?
MALBOCA
Ooops. Off-limits.
ON Romeo, who is boxing up the completed checks.
ROMEO
You want us send the checks to the usual bank?
GIRTH (to Malboca)
I prefer the off-shore affiliate this time, Mr. Malboca. Less interference.
MALBOCA
Ay. You guys are way smooth. By the time the feds figure this one out this place will be selling kim chee. (He mimics an Asian voice) "Welfare check-ee. So sor-ree. No cash-ee check-ee"
He hears a commotion out front.
MALBOCA (to Thugs)
See what that is.
INT MALBOCA’S
Jim has the clerk pinned against the counter. The Thugs emerge from the back room. Jim pushes the clerk aside and determinedly strides toward the Thugs, who draw their pistols.
THUG ONE (to Jim)
Is that a hubcap on your head? Hey, and look who's here. (to Ramsey) The War Hero, and his purple liver.
EXT MALBOCA’S
The church buses pull up in front and begin to disgorge geezers.
INT MALBOCA’S
JIM
Aren't you guys tired of arguing with the post office?
THUG ONE (rubbing his bandaged head)
Hey, if I ever see that slanty-eyed bitch again...
ANOTHER ANGLE
The geezers pour into the store, sweep down the aisles, engulfing Jim and Ramsey and rolling right up to the startled Thugs.
GEEZERS (together)
Shame. Shame.
INT BACK ROOM
Malboca and Romeo, surprised at the clamor, move to the doorway to investigate.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The CEO, with a presentiment that something is amiss, snaps closed his briefcase and he and his henchmen quickly exit out the back door.
MALBOCA (turning to speak to Girth)
I'll be damned. It's a bunch of old... (but the CEO is gone)
INT GROCERY
The angry Geezers have surged forward and completely surrounded the Thugs. Thug One, pistol still in his hand, is confronted by the FRAIL OLD LADY.
FRAIL OLD LADY (to Thug One)
Shoot if you must, this old gray head, but spare my goddamn social security check...
Thug One, narrowing his eyes, stares at Frail Old Lady with growing recognition.
THUG ONE (lowering the gun)
Mom?
FRAIL OLD LADY (she strikes him with her cane)
You ungrateful little bastard.
ANGLE ON A GEEZER, standing by the barrel of iced soda. He picks up a can of Coke.
GEEZER (holding up the can)
Stone them!
The incensed crowd goes crazy.
ANGRY VOICE O.S.
Stone them.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Thugs Two and Three hesitate, ingrained social convention making them reluctant to gun down the elderly. The hesitation costs them the battle, as they fall under a hail of soda cans.
ANGLE ON Thug One, also struck on the head with a can. He staggers, but manages to aim his pistol at one of his superannuated assailants when...
Ramsey grabs him by the neck. Although old and fat, Ramsey has a grip of iron. Thug One, gasping for breath, drops the gun.
Ramsey hauls Thug One to his feet, and smacks his head against a post. Then, giving the battle cry of the infantry, he waves forward the marshaled seniors.
RAMSEY
Follow me.
The Geezers charge the stunned Thugs, pummeling them with their canes.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim already has pushed through the crowd to the door leading to the back room.
INT BACK ROOM
Jim bursts in and is confronted with Romeo, who stands between him and Malboca.
JIM (yelling to Malboca, who is backing away)
Where's Shelly, Malboca?
ROMEO (to Jim)
Ya wanna see the boss? Ya gotta talk to the receptionist.
Romeo punches Jim and the two fight. Both are wily street fighters, strong and agile, but ordinarily Romeo, being much larger and a professional goon, would have the advantage. In this case, however, Jim is favored by his personal version of body armor including the chest protector and steel helmet, but even more by his fiery determination, which is fueled by his anxiety for Shelly's welfare.
Jim rebuffs blows and kicks with his wrist and shin guards, and Romeo hurts his fists hammering at Jim's flack vest. Then Jim lowers his head and deflects one of Romeo's roundhouse rights against the steel helmet.
ROMEO
Ouch!
Romeo drops his guard and Jim springs forward like a tiger, landing a succession of well-aimed punches on Romeo's prognathous jaw. Romeo reels backward and upsets the table containing the piles of stolen checks, then rolls over on his face. The checks are scattered pell mell across the floor.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Malboca, seeing that his bodyguard is on the canvas, turns and retreats toward the back exit.
ON Jim, who removes his helmet and sails it like a Frisbee across the room.
ON Malboca, as he is struck down by the flying steel helmet.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim hauls Malboca to his feet and slams him against the wall.
JIM (enraged)
Where's Shelly?
Ramsey arrives at his side.
RAMSEY
Jeez, don't kill the guy.
Jim reaches over and pulls the hunting knife from the sheath of Ramsey's belt.
With his left hand he pins Malboca against the wall, with the other he uses the knife to slice Malboca's belt. Then he reaches down with his left hand.
This is below the frame, but what is happening is that Jim is grabbing Malboca's genitals with one hand and putting the knife blade to his testicles with the other.
MALBOCA (wild-eyed with fear)
Ah. Ah. Ah.
RAMSEY
Jesus. We could have used you in my platoon.
Jim usually is fairly easy-going, calm, unruffled, rational, and slow to take offense. But now rage drives, and he's clearly just a click short of going postal. There's that pure glint of madness as he stares into Malboca's eyes.
JIM
Tell me about Shelly or you're a soprano.
MALBOCA (believing him, and talking very fast)
I gave her a drug that knocked her out and then I traded her to Judd for the arrow key and Judd took her across the street to the annex...
JIM
What drug?
MALBOCA
Somnalindrine.
Jim steps back a pace and throws the knife hard at Malboca's head. The knife sticks an inch from his ear, quivering in the wall. Malboca is out of his wits with terror.
RAMSEY (worried)
Jesus. Don't go postal on me.
Then, with a vicious right, Jim cracks Malboca in the jaw. Malboca drops like he's been poleaxed.
O.S. Sirens.
ANGLE ON Jim, as sanity begins to flow back into his consciousness. He backs up a few steps and picks up his helmet.
JIM (to Ramsey)
Why don't you sort this out with the cops.
EXT STREET DAY
Jim sprints across the street just as police cruisers, red lights flashing, begin pulling up in front of Malboca's.
INT OBSERVATION BOOTH
Judd is rearranging some spots to showcase Shelly as she lies recumbent on the couch, still in an unconscious haze under the spell of the date-rape drug. She is in relaxed repose, her face serene.
Judd comes out of the shadows and begins to rearrange her limbs in different suggestive poses. With trembling fingers he lifts her postal skirt higher and higher. Then he begins to unbutton her blouse.
EXT ANNEX LOADING DOCK
Jim vaults onto the dock and, rushes across the platform and disappears into the annex.
INT OBSERVATION BOOTH
Judd, his hands shaking, is removing Shelly's blouse.
INT ANNEX
Jim is rushing along the aisle, dodging carts and bins.
JIM (to passing Drones pushing carts)
Have any of you seen Judd?
All the drones shake their heads, until finally one aging, slump-shouldered DRUDGE nods affirmative.
DRUDGE
I just saw him. He was takin’ a parcel up the elevator.
Jim pushes the Drudge aside in his haste to get to the stairwell.
INT OBSERVATION BOOTH
Judd now has Shelly's blouse and skirt off, and he is posing her again on the couch, placing a pillow under her head and spreading her knees.
INT STAIRWELL
Jim is barreling up the corkscrew stairs. He reaches the top, looks both ways, then sees the dim light glowing inside the observation booth.
INT OBSERVATION BOOTH
Judd is kneeling over Shelly, puckering her lips with his fingers, and is about to kiss her, when...
Jim kicks open the door and enters. By this time he looks more than just disheveled. His shirt and pants are in tatters from the dog attack, he has blood and bruises on his face from the fight with Romeo, and his face is contorted with postal ferocity.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Aghast at this unexpected apparition, Judd pulls his semi-auto nine-mil double-action and fires. Once again Jim's precautions pay off. The bullet glances of the steel helmet with a shower of sparks and ricochets around the room.
Jim lunges at Judd and grabs his gun arm. The two weave about the room, locked in struggle. The gun discharges again, the bullet ricocheting with showers of sparks off the metal walls.
ANGLE ON Shelly, who is groggily awakening. She looks down in bewilderment at her body clothed only in panties and bra, then blearily stares upward at the two men careening in and out of the shadows.
SHELLY (muttering to herself)
Neither one of 'em can dance.
The gun discharges again. The bullet ricochets by Shelly's ear, and this has the effect of quickening her return to reality. She focuses her eyes and recognizes Jim.
SHELLY
Jim!
ANGLE ON The two men fighting. Jim reacts to Shelly's voice, which allows Judd to get in a telling punch. But Jim still doggedly holds Judd's gun hand as the two collide against the wall and then fall together through the open doorway.
Judd loses his grip on the gun, which goes bouncing down the catwalk.
Both men scramble for the piece, but Judd is ahead and retrieves it. Both men are lying almost side by side on the catwalk. Jim is about to deliver a blow to the back of Judd's neck when to his horror he finds that his tattered sleeve has caught on a valve lever for an adjoining water pipe.
ANGLE ON Shelly, who has managed to roll off the couch and is half-crawling toward the door, still very much under the lethargic influence of the drug.
ON Judd, who now rises to one knee and takes sure aim at Jim's heart.
ON Shelly, who has managed to crawl out the door.
SHELLY
No! Jude! No!
ANOTHER ANGLE
Judd's attention momentarily is diverted, giving Jim a chance to slide off the catwalk.
ON Jim, who is dangling by one arm from the catwalk.
ON The moving ord belt underneath him. The belt, which already has chewed up one body, is busy hustling mail into the maw of the huge sorter.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Judd is now on his feet. He fires down at Jim, but the bullet hits one of the metal slats on the walk. Judd stamps at Jim's fingers.
ON Jim, now going hand over hand under the catwalk slats.
ON Judd, who presses the trigger, but the gun is empty. With shaking hands he begins to reload, but drops some of the bullets, only managing to get a few into the clip. Meanwhile Shelly has arrived and in slow motion, her drug-numbed arms hardly responding, tries to strike Judd on the legs. She also tries to stay over Jim to foil Judd's marksmanship.
SHELLY (still groggy)
Stop it! That's the one I want.
Judd tugs her aside, then kneeling down, puts the barrel of the reloaded gun through the slats.
ANGLE ON Jim, hanging under the catwalk. The gun barrel is pointing right at his chest. He swipes at it with one hand, but the barrel is just out of reach.
ON Judd, as he pulls the trigger. A "click" as the pin falls on an empty chamber. Judd pulls the clip and resets it. The gun fires, but by this time Jim has swung out of the way.
SHELLY
Missed, didn’t you. You little rodent...
ANOTHER ANGLE
Judd picks up the drug-numbed Shelly, throws her over his shoulder, and staggers down the catwalk.
INT STAIRWELL
Judd hurriedly descends with the sluggish Shelly over his shoulder.
INT CATWALK
Jim painstakingly pulls himself up over the railing and collapses on the catwalk.
INT ANNEX
JUDD is making his escape down the aisle but his bundle is rapidly waking up. She is kicking and clawing and biting.
JUDD
Ouch. Ow.
SHELLY (more or less awake now)
This is sexual harassment big time, buster. I'm filing a grievance. (to passing Drones) Hey. Attention. I'm being kidnapped by a pervert.
Judd waves the pistol at the Drones. But then, glancing over his shoulder, he sees:
ANGLE ON The pursuing Jim, flying down the aisle. The slack-jawed drones are staring at Judd and the feebly struggling Shelly.
JUDD
Shit.
Judd unloads Shelly on a table and then clubs her across the head with the pistol barrel. Shelly slumps. Then Judd picks her up and dumps her on the moving ord belt.
ANGLE ON The moving belt taking the inert Shelly inexorably toward the maws of the mail sorter.
ON Jim, who sees Shelly about to be gulped by the mail sorter.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Jim vaults over a parcel cart and lands on the ord belt. He dives for Shelly and grabs her ankle. But her head already is inside the maw.
ON Judd, escaping out the back door.
ON Jim, trying to pull Shelly out of the maw. But both of them are being carried inside.
INT MAIL SORTER
The mail is collecting against a whirling set of blades that sorts letters by size. Although Jim is struggling to hold her back, Shelly's head is about to strike against the spinning rotors.
Jim, holding Shelly's hips with one arm, removes his steel hat and rolls it down ahead of her into the rotors.
There is a horrible Crunch and the grinding of metal. The ord belt lurches to a stop.
ANGLE ON Jim, pulling Shelly away from the rotors, which are now beginning to smoke and fume.
With a horrible screeching noise the machine is digesting Jim's helmet.
INT ANNEX
Shrapnel and metal fragments from the helmet are flying out of the sorter and ricocheting around the building.
ANGLE ON Drones running for cover.
INT MAIL SORTER
Suddenly, with a belch, the grinding stops. The belt begins to inch forward again.
ANGLE ON The bespectacled head of a SUPERVISOR poking into the maw.
SUPERVISOR
Hey. You're not authorized to be in there.
JIM
Reverse the belt!
SUPERVISOR (miffed at Jim's tone of voice)
Excuse me. You're a letter carrier. I'm a tour supervisor...
JIM (postal)
Reverse the fuckin' belt.
ANGLE ON The supervisor's head disappearing.
A loud screech of changing gears. The belt lurches forward, bringing Shelly's head within in inch of the twirling rotors.
And then the belt reverses.
INT ANNEX
Jim and Shelly come out of the maw of the mail sorter conveyor belt and are carried along, utterly exhausted, in a litter of mail. Shelly is holding a bruised forehead.
JIM
Don't do any more drugs.
SHELLY
I'm positive I just said no. Did anything happen up there? If it did, it wasn't good for me.
JIM
You're still a virgin.
SHELLY
Oh. Sure. Okay. A scenario. (putting her arms around Jim) But I'd rather be the French Maid.
EXT LOADING DOCK
JUDD races along the platform, jumps down to the parking lot and gets into a postal van.
INT VAN
An agitated Judd jerks closed the door and cranks the ignition. The engine catches. He slams the shift lever into reverse, turns his head to look back...and screams in horror.
ANGLE ON The demented Postal, who has taken refuge in the back of the van, and who now is grinning maniacally at Judd over the barrel of his Uzu,
ON Judd, screaming.
EXT MEDIUM SHOT of the postal van
The staccato stutter of the Uzi. The interior of the van lights up with muzzle flashes, the front windshield is blown out, and the bloodied body of Judd is tossed across the dash like a rag doll.
INT ANNEX
The back door swings open and in strides Postal, the maniac with a machine gun. He immediately looses a burst of fire.
ANGLE ON The postal Drones, once again breaking for cover.
ON Marlene, and her attractive busty friends, standing by the coffee machine next to the women's bathroom. They begin screaming as they hear the gunfire and see Postal.
ON Postal, who notices Marlene and her friends and directs a barrage in their direction.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The coffee mess is shattered by hits, and the plaster wall above Marlene's head is stitched with bullet holes.
Marlene and her friends flee in terror into the women's bathroom.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The ord belt. At the sound of gunfire, Jim starts to get up. But Shelly grasps him with both arms and both legs.
JIM
That sounds like Postal.
SHELLY
Please, please, please, don't go...
JIM
Why not?
SHELLY
Well. For one thing... You don’t have your hat.
ON Jim, who again starts to rise.
SHELLY (cont.)
Alright, alright. You big lug. ( a beat) Gosh darn it. I love you.
JIM
So? I love you too.
SHELLY
So all those great wonderful heroic qualities that made me love you... Give them up. They’re too damn scary.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Postal, accompanied by his maniacal laugh, is striding across the annex, firing bursts at random. He stops at the door of the women’s john.
INT BATHROOM
Marlene and her friends are pressed in abject terror against the far wall, near the stalls.
ANGLE ON Postal, bursting inside. He hesitates a moment, erotically relishing his power over the terrified women, and then, grinning like a demented demon, carefully seats another clip, lifts the weapon, when...
...his expression changes to one of bewilderment, as he slowly...looks down.
DOWN ANGLE ON Asian Woman, in her quilted Mao jacket, benignly smiling up at him, her hands clasped together in front of her.
EXT LOADING DOCK
The SWAT Team has arrived in two police vans, and other police vehicles are pulling up.
Ramsey and some of the Geezers and Welfare Moms have just arrived, and are being held back behind the cordon of police, as they watch the body of Judd, on a stretcher, being loaded into a coroner’s van.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The SWAT team, in full battle array, has formed up on the dock and is ready to deploy into the annex, when...
ANGLE ON The Asian Lady comes out onto the dock, holding the Uzi by its strap, and leading a now-docile Postal .
ON Postal. He is shambling along very slowly, half bent over, as if he has just received a hard kick in the groin. And his nose is bloody.
ANOTHER ANGLE
Asian Lady gently leads the pacified Postal over to the SWAT Team. She expertly ejects the clip and clears the chamber before turning over the weapon to the officers.
ON Postal, who meekly holds his hands out for the handcuffs.
POSTAL (to Asian Lady)
Sorry.
ON Asian Lady, who gives a polite bow._
INT. ANNEX
Jim, seeing that the Asian Lady has Postal in hand, lies down again on the ord belt with Shelly. They are in each other’s arms as the belt slowly moves the mounds of mail backward, away from the sorter, and toward the loading dock.
__
SHELLY
Well, I guess I’m your girl now.
JIM
Sure, why not.
SHELLY
After something like this...we’re bonded. You’re the winner.
JIM
Secretly I was hoping for the steak knives.
SHELLY
Nope. First prize. Me. We’re mated...for life.
JIM
That’s a tough sentence.
SHELLY
I know, I know. It won’t be easy. I’m gonna wanta shop.
JIM
Ey-yah...
SHELLY
Yes. Credit cards. White sales. Flat ware.
JIM
Ey-yah.
SHELLY
There’ll be my moods. And my mom. And my menstrual cycle.
JIM
Well. I’m not saying I’m perfect either.
SHELLY
I’ll say. You won’t have time for bowling.
JIM
But the tournament...
SHELLY
Don’t make any plans for Saturday.
JIM
My fishing trip?
SHELLY
Yard work. This is great. At last. My own man
too nag and dominate.
JIM
Uh huh. I hope you like surprises.
SHELLY
You mean like, roses and champagne?
JIM (smiling)
Maybe I should warn ya. I’m no patsy.
SHELLY
Yeah? You treat your women rough?
JIM
Oh yeah. They walk the line.
SHELLY (smiling)
Is this, like, another scenario? Are you gonna tie me up?
JIM
A gag.
SHELLY
Oh no you don’t, buster. Your days of quiet reflection are over. You’ve got me to think about now.
JIM
Fine. Let me do the thinking.
SHELLY
That’s what you’re good at.
JIM
Thaa-at’s what I’m good at.
SHELLY (kissing him)
One of the things you’re good at.
Shelly and Jim, lying in an embrace atop a carpet of mail, and flanked on both sides by lines of Drones, are carried out of the building on the conveyor belt.
FADE
Roll closing credits
_
INT BUILDING DAY
Begin student sequence
The jerky amateurish student filmmakers are being led through the ornate lobby of a corporate headquarters, complete with marble statuary and gurgling fountains.
ANOTHER ANGLE
The guard hands the unseen film makers over to several nattily-suited MINIONS who continue the progress down a plush, carpeted hallway. They proceed along corridors and up elevators in accordance with the length of the final credits.
MINION (over his shoulder)
So this is some kind of class project....?
VOICE (o.s., muffled and indistinct)
...got a grant from a student organization...
MINION (not very interested)
Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Okay. Here we are.
ON The two Minions, who open a large, walnut paneled door and usher the unseen film crew inside.
INT OFFICE
The lushly appointed office of a top CEO, appointed with every luxury, including furniture upholstered in politically incorrect rare animal skins.
Seated behind a huge mahogany desk is GIRTH, the CEO of Optimus Chemical.
The film stutters, fades a moment, then picks up Girth in mid-sentence.
GIRTH
..no, no, I don't have to apologize for my salary. We're living in a global economy. There isn’t any brand loyalty, there isn’t any guaranteed market. Out there, it's intense, relentless, and fiercely competitive. You're on your own. This is reality. People get no guarantees, no social contract. It's up to the individual to make himself economically useful. It’s up to everybody to make sure he’s operating at the maximum of efficiency and economy. That’s what’s gonna add up to survival. People are responsible for themselves. I don't have to apologize when I fire people who are superfluous to profit and productivity. My loyalty is to the bottom line. And... if I have the wisdom to see it and the guts to do it, then I should be compensated accordingly. I think that’s fair... I have nothing to apologize for...
VOICE (o.s)
I'd like you to meet my associate Mr. Moto.
Girth turns to smile at another person off-camera.
FREEZE FRAME
Then, frame-by-frame, we watch Girth’s expression progress through a declension from bland, patronizing self-assurance, to mild surprise, to concern, to alarm, to outright terror.
As Girth’s mouth slowly opens in a silent scream...
FREEZE FRAME
A gunshot and simultaneously...
BLACK
Appendix:
Another conveyor belt crossing overhead routes mail into the bowels of the building. In the foreground, employees called bag breakers are spilling the sacks of mail onto the ord belt, where a line of plodding drones, reminiscent of fishermen on a tuna boat, do the first sort, culling out pieces of mail that won't fit into the machines and throwing the irregular-sized pieces into white plastic baskets.
Working the cull line is the stoop labor of the postal annex, where the most degraded human specimens, the hunchbacks, the morons, the ill-favored, paw through the moving piles of mail and flip letters like fish into the surrounding baskets.
After flowing through the line of fishermen the mail disappears into the maw of an automated mail sorter.
The camera pans along this articulated stretch of computerized machinery until suddenly, like a waterfall, the mail spills out into moving lines of trays. Other drones pick up the trays, walk across an aisle, and dump the letters onto another belt that feeds them into an optical character reading scanner for further sorting.
Voices are drowned out by the thunderous humming of more machines, sounding like swarms of mad locusts.
The humming is from the latest postal breakthrough in sorting technology, DPS, (delivery point service), an ultra-sophisticated scanner that can read not only bar codes and typed zip codes but handwritten addresses. For fifty yards the letters pour forward in a never-ending stream along a grooved conveyor. Now they all have been turned on edge, their facings inward, moving toward a bank of optical scanners. Behind each scanner screen sits a human operator, all of them, male and female, obscenely overweight, a chorus of Jabba-like slugs. Every half-second a letter passes before these operators, who must key a six-digit code.
Finally there is "casing the mail." Each letter carrier spends two or three hours during the morning sorting letters in his cage before he hits the streets.
At one end of the building hundreds of cages are arranged in rows. In front of each cage is a three-tier metal cart loaded with parcels and "flats," which are magazines and catalogues, along with endless trays of junk mail. First class letters are sorted by address.
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