12 Monkeys Page #4

---

PATIENTS, in K-Mart street clothes or ratty robes, stare gloomily

at the TV, or play cards, pace, or just stare blankly.

BILLINGS is at COLE'S side, beckoning to a patient, JEFFREY MASON,

a twenty year old white youth dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt.

BILLINGS:

Jeffrey. Yo! Jeffrey. This here is James.

Whyncha show James around? Tell him the TV

rules, show him the games an' stuff, okay?

JEFFREY:

(with a sly look)

How much you gonna pay me? Huh? I'd

be doing your job.

BILLINGS:

Five thousand dollars, my man. That

enough? I'll wire it to your account

as usual, okay?

JEFFREY:

Okay, Billings. Five thousand. That's

enough. Five thousand dollars. I'll

give him the Deluxe Mental Hospital Tour.

As BILLINGS walks away chuckling, JEFFREY turns to COLE.

JEFFREY:

Kid around, kid around. It makes them feel

good, we're all pals. We're prisoners, they're

the guards, but it's all in good fun, you see?

COLE nods and JEFFREY indicates card tables where PATIENTS are

playing cards, checkers, chess, or working on jig saw puzzles.

JEFFREY:

Here's the games. Games vegitize you.

If you play the games, you're

voluntarily taking a tranquilizer.

COLE sees a partially completed puzzle of the well-known painting,

THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM, depicting a serene world of animals in harmony.

JEFFREY:

What'd they give you? Thorazine? How

much? Learn your drugs -- know your doses.

COLE:

I need to make a telephone call.

JEFFREY:

A telephone call? That's communication

with the outside world! Doctor's

discretion. Hey, if alla these nuts

could just make phone calls, it could

spread. Insanity oozing through telephone

cables, oozing into the ears of all those

poor sane people, infecting them! Whackos

everywhere! A plague of madness.

(suddenly sly and confidential)

In fact, very few of us here are actually

mentally ill. I'm not saying you're

not mentally ill, for all I know you're

crazy as a loon. But that's not why

you're here. Why you're here is because

of the system, because of the economy.

(indicating the TV)

There's the TV. It's all right there.

Commercials. We are not productive

anymore, they don't need us to make

things anymore, it's all automated. What

are we for then? We're consumers. Okay,

buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen.

But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, you

know what? You're mentally ill! That's

a fact! If you don't buy things...toilet

paper, new cars, computerized blenders,

electrically operated sexual devices...

(getting hysterical)

SCREWDRIVERS WITH MINIATURE BUILT-IN

RADAR DEVICES, STEREO SYSTEMS WITH

BRAIN IMPLANTED HEADPHONES, VOICE-

ACTIVATED COMPUTERS, AND...

A woman orderly, TERRY, turns from the feeble PATIENT she's helping.

TERRY:

Take it easy, Jeffrey. Be calm.

Abruptly, JEFFREY stifles his hysteria, takes a deep breath and

continues, completely calm now. But COLE isn't listening. He's

mesmerized by the TV.

JEFFREY:

So if you want to watch a particular

program, say "All My Children" or

something, you go to the Charge Nurse

and tell her what day and time the show

you want to see is on. But you have to

tell her before the show is scheduled

to be on. There was this one guy who

was always requesting shows that had already

played. He couldn't quite grasp the

idea that the Charge Nurse couldn't

just make it be yesterday for him, turn

back time ha ha. What a fruitcake!!

This last thought actually penetrates COLE'S focus on the TV and

he turns to JEFFREY who's picking up speed again.

JEFFREY:

Seriously, more and more people are

being defined now as mentally ill. Why?

Because they're not consuming on their

own. But as patients, they becone

consumers of mental health care. And

this gives the so-called sane people work!

(hysteria again)

WHOOO! SHOCK THERAPY! GROUP THERAPY!

HALLUCINATIONS! THERAPEUTIC DRUGS!

IGGIDY DIGGIDY DIG! PERFECT! THE

SYSTEM IN HARMONY LIKE A BIG MACHINE...

TERRY:

Okay, that's it, Jeffrey, you're gonna

get a shot. I warned you...

JEFFREY:

(calming himself, smiling)

Right! Right! Carried away, heh heh.

I got "carried away". Explaining the

workings of...the institution.

Just then, TJ WASHINGTON, a somber-looking African American in a

bathrobe, taps COLE on the shoulder.

TJ WASHINGTON:

I don't really come from outer space.

JEFFREY:

This is TJ Washington, Jim -- he

doesn't really come from outer space.

TJ WASHINGTON:

Don't mock me, my friend.

(to Cole)

It's a condition of "mental divergence".

I find myself on another planet, Ogo,

part of an intellectual elite, preparing

to subjugate barbarian hordes on Pluto.

But even though it's a totally convincing

reality in every way...I can feel, breathe,

hear...nevertheless, Ogo is actually a

construct of my psyche. I am mentally

divergent in that I am escaping certain

unnamed realities that plague my life

here. When I stop going there, I will

be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

The P.A. SYSTEM interrupts, startling COLE.

P.A. SYSTEM (v.o.)

James Cole. Report to Staff. James Cole!

JEFFREY:

Staff! Whoo! Time for Staff. Now the

geniuses cure you. Hallelujah!

INT. PSYCH WARD CONFERENCE ROOM - MINUTES LATER (DAY)

COLE is agitated, speaking forcefully.

COLE:

This is a place for crazy people! I'm

not crazy!

RAILLY, four other PSYCHIATRIC RESIDENTS, including RAILLY'S best

friend, MARILOU MARTIN, and their chief, DR. OWEN FLETCHER, sit

around a beat-up conference table, watching COLE, who sits facing

the doctors, with BILLINGS looming behind him. (Some of the DOCTORS

bear a strong resemblance to the SCIENTISTS OF THE FUTURE.)

RESIDENT #1

We don't use that term..."crazy", Mr. Cole.

COLE:

Well, you've got some real nuts in here!

Listen to me, all of you -- I have to

tell you something that's going to be

difficult for you to understand, but...

DR. RAILLY

James...please. These are all doctors

here and we want to help you.

DR. FLETCHER

Mr. Cole -- last night you told Dr.

Railly you thought it was...

(checking a file)

1995. ... How about right now? Do you

know what year it is right now?

COLE:

1989. Look, I'm not confused. There's been

a mistake, I've been sent to the wrong place.

Suddenly, COLE reaches out and BILLINGS lunges forward, but COLE

is just grabbing a pad and pencil.

COLE:

Hey, I'm not going to hurt anybody.

FLETCHER restrains BILLINGS with a hand signal.

COLE:

(drawing)

Do any of you know anything about the

Army of the Twelve Monkeys? They paint

this, stencil it, on buildings, all

over the place.

COLE waves a sketch of the dancing monkey logo we saw earlier.

DR. CASEY

Mr. Cole...

COLE:

Right. I guess you wouldn't, this is

1989, they're probably not active yet.

That makes sense! Okay. Listen to me,

three billion people died in 1995.

Three billion, got that? Almost

the whole population. Of the world!

Only about one percent survived.

DOCTORS exchange knowing looks. This is an old story, apparently.

Rate this script:4.5 / 2 votes