American Psycho Page #2

PRICE:

(Offering card)

You take Amex, dude?

The man stumbles away. The club DOORMAN, seeing the limousine,

unhooks the

velvet rope and welcomes them inside.

INT. LADIES ROOM, TUNNEL - NIGHT

Brilliant white light, a bemused elderly female attendant in a

black-and-white maid's uniform trying to give out paper towels.

MUSIC thuds through an open doorway. Trashed-looking girls

stare into mirrors repairing their eye make-up or sit on the

counter chatting to friends. There are almost as many men as

women in the room. Couples stand in line, twitching as they

wait to do coke. As soon as one bathroom door opens, a couple

lurches out rubbing their noses while another couple rushes

past them and slams the door.

PRICE:

There's this theory out now that if you can catch the

AIDS virus through having sex with someone who is infected,

then you can also catch anything-Alzheimer's, muscular

dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, diabetes, dyslexia, for

Christ's sake-you can get dyslexia from p*ssy-

BATEMAN:

I'm not sure, guy, but I don't think dyslexia is a

virus.

PRICE:

Oh, who knows? They don't know that. Prove it.

Price and Bateman finally get a stall and rush in. Price is

sweating.

PRICE:

I'm shaking. You open it.

Bateman opens a tiny packet of coke.

PRICE:

Jeez. That's not a helluva lot, is it?

BATEMAN:

Maybe it's just the light.

PRICE:

Is he f***ing selling it by the milligram? (He dips

the corner of his Amex card in the packet and takes a snort)

Oh my God...

BATEMAN:

What?

PRICE:

It's a f***ing milligram of Sweet'n Low!

Bateman dips his Amex in the envelope and snorts.

BATEMAN:

It's definitely weak but I have a feeling if we do

enough of it we'll be okay.

PRICE:

I want to get high off this; Bateman, not sprinkle it

on my f***ing All-Bran.

The GUY IN STALL next door yells at them in an effeminate

voice:

GUY IN STALL:

Could you keep it down, I'm trying to do drugs!

Price pounds his fist against the stall.

PRICE:

(screaming)

SHUT UP!

BATEMAN:

Calm down. Let's do it anyway

PRICE:

I guess you're right...

(Raising his voice)

THAT IS, IF THE F*GGOT IN THE NEXT STALL THINKS IT'S OKAY!

GUY IN STALL:

F*** you!

PRICE:

(Trying to climb up against the aluminum divider)

No, F*** YOU!!

(He collapses, panting against the stall door)

Sorry, dude. Steroids...Okay, let's do it.

BATEMAN:

That's the spirit.

They both dig their platinum Amex cards into the envelope

of white powder, shoveling it up their noses, then sticking

their fingers in to catch the residue and rubbing it into

their gums.

INT. NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT

Bateman saunters toward the bar as "Pump Up the Volume"

plays in the background.

BATEMAN (to BARGIRL) Two Stoli on the rocks.

He hands her two drink tickets.

BARGIRL:

It's after eleven. Those aren't good anymore. It's

a cash bar. That'll be twenty-five dollars.

Bateman pulls out an expensive-looking wallet and hands her

a $50.

She turns her back and searches the cash register for

change.

BATEMAN You are a f***ing ugly b*tch I want to stab to

death and then play around with your blood.

The music muffles his voice. She turns around. He is

smiling at her. She gives him his change impassively.

INT. BATEMAN'S APARTMENT- MORNING

Tableaux of Bateman's apartment in the early morning light.

A huge white living room with floor-to-ceiling windows

looking out over Manhattan, decorated in expensive, minimalist

high style:
bleached oak floors, a huge white sofa, a large

Baselitz painting (hung upside down) and much expensive

electronic equipment. The room is impeccably neat, and oddly

impersonal - as if it had sprung straight from the pages of

a design magazine.

BATEMAN (V.0.)

My name is Patrick Bateman. I am

twenty-six years old. I live in the American Garden

Buildings on West Eighty-First Street, on the eleventh

floor Tom Cruise lives in the penthouse.

Bateman walks into his bathroom, urinates while trying to

see his reflection in a poster for Les Miserables above his

toilet.

BATEMAN:

(V.0.) I believe in taking care of myself, in a

balanced diet, in a rigorous exercise routine. In the

morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice

pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand

now.

Bateman ties a plastic ice pack around his face.

Bateman does his morning stretching exercises in the living

room wearing the ice pack.

CUT TO:

A mirror-lined bathroom. Bateman is luxuriating in the

shower steam, scrubbing his body, admiring his muscles.

BATEMAN (V.O.)

After I remove the icepack, I use a deep

pore-cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a

water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body

scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Bateman stands in front of a massive marble sink applying a

gel facial masque.

BATEMAN (V.O.)

Then I apply an herb mint facial masque which

I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my

routine.

Bateman opens the door of a mirrored cabinet, which is

stocked with immaculate rows of skin care products. He

begins selecting bottles jars and brushes, laying them in

readiness on the marble counter.

BATEMAN (V.O.)

I always use an after-shave lotion with little

or no alcohol because alcohol dries your face out and makes

you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye

balm, followed by a final moisturizing "protective" lotion...

Bateman stares into the mirror. The masque has dried,

giving his face a strange distorted look as if it has been

wrapped in plastic. He begins slowly peeling the gel masque

off his face.

BATEMAN (V.O.)

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some

kind of abstraction, hut there is no real me, only an

entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold

gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping you

and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably

comparable:
I simply am not there.

INT. BATEMAN BEDROOM - MORNING

Another huge white room, equally minimal: a futon, rumpled

white sheets, a bedside lamp with a halogen bulb, and a large

expensive painting (Eric Fischl or David Salle) chosen by

Bateman's interior decorator.

Dressed in silk boxer shorts, Bateman stands in front of a

huge walk-in closet, filled with rows of expensive shirts,

shoes and designer suits, organized according to color and

tone.

BATEMAN (V.O.)

It is hard for me to make sense on any given

level. My self is fabricated, an aberration. My personality

is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is

persistent.

Fully dressed in Armani, Bateman stands in front of a

full-length mirror in the middle of his vast bedroom,

adjusting his cuff-links.

BATEMAN (V.0.)

My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared

a long time ago, if they ever did exist.

He gives a last look at the mirror and likes what he sees.

He gives his reflection a smile.

INT. OFFICES OF PIERCE & PIERCE - DAY

As Bateman walks down the corridor, he passes another MAN who

looks just like him.

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