Awakenings Page #7

51. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM -DAY 51.

From above, patients in wheelchairs dot the black and white

checkerboard linoleum-tile floor like chess pieces. The

pattern is regular to a point but then breaks up — is

interrupted by an area of solid white, where a wall once stood

— before being restored. It forms a kind of narrow "sea," the

white area, on either side of which lies "land."

At floor level Sayer and Miss Costello, on their hands and

knees, are "blacking in" the missing tiles with shoe polish,

"bridging" the gap between the two checkerboards. The retarded

patients around them ignore them. The ward nurses pretend to. '

Completing the pattern Sayer glances across the room to

Leonard. He seems to be "watching." His mother, nearby, idly

thumbing through a magazine as she brings Leonard up to date on

neighborhood news, isn't.

•t, .

Sayer crosses to Lucy. Lifts her gently out of her chair.

Points her in the direction of the drinking fountain.

She begins to move. To step slowly over each tile. She

reaches the "bridge" and hesitates. Then crosses it.

REV. 10/13/89 p.34

Sayer doesn't know whether to applaud or cry. He does neither,

burying his emotions behind a professional mask instead, and

watches as Lucy, "delivered" to the other side, free now, lets

the regularity of the pattern guide her toward the fountain.

She nears it. She is almost there. Then she is. there. But

doesn'tdrink. Doesn'tstop. Shecontinuespastit. ..

To a window, the window bevond the drinking fountain which

Sayer hadn't noticed before, had no reason to notice, had no

need to notice, with a broken pane allowing a view to the

outside.

She stares out at the traffic below, in hopes no doubt of

figuring out where she is.

And Sayer's eyes, behind which exhilaration and horror rise up,

shift from her to Miss Costello, and then to Leonard, in whose

mask of a face Sayer thinks he sees a faint glimmer.

These people are alive inside.

52. INT. DAYROOM (B) -DAY 52

A soap opera on a portable black and white TV in a narrow

passageway of a nurses' station. Beyond.it, beyond a glass

partition, a crowded idle dayroom.

Miss Costello crosses into and out of view and reappears

moments later next to the TV. She switches it off and turns to

face the three RNs who were watching it. In their defense —

V:

NURSE:

The patients have all been given

their morning medication.

MISS COSTELLO:

Good. Dr. Sayer was hoping you'd

have some free time.

She hands a book to the nurse who spoke (MARGARET), a first

edition worn /rom many readings. Margaret glances from it to

the other nurses and back to Miss Costello.

53. INT. DAYROOM (B) -LATER -DAY 53

The nurse holds the book like it's something quite foreign to

her. She finds the beginning of the first chapter, clears her

throat, and reads —

MARGARET:

"Callme... Ish-ma-el...

She glances up at her audience: three blank-faced post-,55

encephalitics. Miss Costello, who is nearby, nods to her to

continue. She clears her throat again, and, feeling like a

fool, reads —

MARGARET:

"Some years ago, never mind how

long precisely, having little or

no money in my purse, and nothing

particular to interest me on

shore, I thought I would sail

about a little and see the watery

part of the world ..."

Miss Costello leaves.

54. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM -DAY 54

Leonard's head locked on his shoulders at an improbable angle

that forces his entranced gaze upward to a point well above

Sayer.

SAYER:

Can you hear me, Leonard? I want

to hear you speak your name.

:

.-

Sayerwaits. .. butLeonardremainsmute.

55. INT. SAYER'S HOUSE -MORNING " 55

Tight on Sayer pulling record albums from his extensive

classical collection.

56. INT. DAYROOM (D) -DAY 56

An.old box-style phonograph. The kind whose top is also a

detachable speaker.

An orderly, Fernando, dusts it off, rigs it, takes the record

Miss Costello holds out to him, gets it spinning, and sets the

needle down.

Opera music. For the "enjoyment" of two more postencephalitics.

The eyes of one narrow slightly, almost

imperceptibly. -

--.

i

57. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM -DAY 57

The keys of Sayer's old manual Underwood typewriter. And

Leonard's claw of a hand hanging over them like one of those

unmanageable penny arcade cranes.

REV. 10/2/85

SAYER 57

L... Leonard... L...

Leonard's hand remains still, suspended above the keys, for

what seems an eternity.

58. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM -DAY 58.

Under Miss Costello's supervision, maintenance men remove the

gratings from the windows and washhthe panes.

59. INT.-DAYROOM (D) -DAY 59.

30's jazz music. The orderly from before with "his" two postencephalitics.

Each has a tray of cafeteria food, but only one

is eating, and mechanically at that.

The moment Fernando takes the record off, Rose stops eating,

stops moving. The orderly puts on Mozart and waits. Neither

patient moves.

FERNANDO:

I haven't found anything that

moves Bert yet.

59A. INT. CORRIDOR -DAY ' 59A.

A "normal" patient with multiple sclerosis has managed to

intercept Sayer on his way somewhere else, his arms full with

an 8mm camera and tripod and screen.

j MS WOMAN

I don't interest you like those

other people, those ones with that

disease.

SAYER:

That's not true.

REV. 10/2/89

MS WOMAN:

I wish I had something like that.

SSmething that would interest you

instead of this stupid boring MS.

60. INT. EXAMINATION ROOM -DAY 6

Leonard in his wheelchair, absolutely motionless. Sayer behind

the lens of the 8mm camera on the tripod. Drs. Tyler and

Sullivan, at the doorway, watch with some amusement.

60A. INT. DAYROOM (A) -DAY 60A

Miss Costello wheels the man who shreds invisible things to a

window and places a piece of toast from a tray into his hands.

He tears at it, the crumbs sailing out onto a landing, and a

flock of pigeons swoops up.

61. INT. DAYROOM (C) -DAY 61

Three post-encephalitics with cards in their hands and the best

poker faces you ever saw.

:

MARGARET:

They'll sit there all day like

that if I let them. I have to

play the first card.

>

Sayer watches her pull a card from one of their hands and place

it on the table. All three "wake" and begin throwing down

cards, one after another.

SAYER:

Is it a real game I wonder?

MARGARET:

If it is, I don't know it. Maybe

it's three different games.

SAYER:

(delighted)

Yes.

62. OMITTED , 62

63. INT. CORRIDOR / DAYROOM (B) -DAY 6

Sayer moving past "normal" patients lined up in the hall like

planes on tarmac. Suddenly, from a dayroom, booms the opening

bass line of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady."

(WHITE) REV. 12/4/89 P. 38

63.CONT. .. .. „ . ,, « 63.

Sayer peers curiously into the room. Bert is eating and

Anthony is grinning. He sees Sayer in the doorway and sends

him a self-satisfied thumbs-up sign.

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