Hero Page #4

GALE looks shaken.

TV IMAGE (EXT. OFFICE BUILDING LEDGE - DAY)

Later, the CAMERA "finds" GALE in mid-sentence standing on the

ledge, "wearing" her broadcast voice and persona...

GALE:

(into mike)

Suicide number 137 of this year

in this city was neither a

destitute nor a lonely man, but

a successful executive with a

loving family and forty million

dollars in the bank. If there's

nameless "despair" in executive

offices, what can there be sixty

stories below where the hungry and

the homeless, the brutalized and

the addicted, fight their daily

battle for survival.

(beat)

From a ledge sixty stories above

the street, I'm Gale Gayley for

Channel Four News.

REVEAL:
THE TV MONITOR IS IN AN OFFICE

INT. DEAKINS' OFFICE/CHANNEL 4 - LATE AFTERNOON

DEAKINS, fifty, shirtsleeves, News Director, and WALLACE, sixty,

Station Manager, suit and tie, patrician, are watching the

monitor while CHUCKY and PARKER, the boyish gofer, hover behind

them.

CHUCKY:

Whadja think of the fall shot,

Chief? The guy drops twenty

stories in perfect focus, center

frame while I go smoothly from F16

to F5.6.

DEAKINS:

Helluva shot, Chucky, beautiful.

(pulling out the video

tape)

Parker, run this down to Frazier,

tell him we open with it at six,

eleven and at seven a.m....

PARKER is already running out the door as Gale enters.

GALE:

Hi, Chief. You like the suicide?

WALLACE:

Never reach out!

GALE:

Hello, Mister Wallace.

DEAKINS:

(to Gale)

He's right. It's unprofessional.

WALLACE:

(to Gale)

If you reach out, you could get

pulled over yourself.

GALE:

What're we talking about? Reach

out for what?

CHUCKY:

I told them how you were upset we

didn't save the guy...

DEAKINS:

Saving people is not our job. It's

as wrong to step in and save someone

as it would be to push someone off.

WALLACE:

You wouldn't push the guy, would

you?

GALE:

I didn't say I thought we should

have saved him..

WALLACE:

You didn't?

GALE:

I said I wished it had at least

occurred to me to consider saving

him.

DEAKINS:

What good would that do?

GALE sits on Deakins' desk.

GALE:

It would make me feel like a human

being instead of a cynical,

hardbitten newswoman. Besides it

wouldn't be a bad story, would it,

"Newswoman Saves Suicide?"

DEAKINS:

Unprofessional.

GALE:

You just can't bear the idea of

good news.

DEAKINS:

You're sitting on your ticket.

GALE finds an envelope on the desk under her butt.

WALLACE:

Ticket! What's going on?

DEAKINS:

She's flying to New York. She's

been nominated for a Silver Mike...

WALLACE:

A Silver Mike! You're covering us

in glory!

GALE:

I haven't won it yet.

(studying ticket, to

Deakins)

I notice you've got me scheduled

on a flight back an hour after the

ceremony.

WALLACE:

An hour after...! Deak, for

Heaven's sake! Let's give her a

night in New York City. We'll put

her and her boyfriend up at a good

hotel...

DEAKINS:

She broke up with her boyfriend.

(to Gale)

Listen, babe, we needja back.

You gotta follow up on the jumper,

find the human interest in the

grim, unending tale of woe that

pours from the wounded heart of

the heartless metropolis.

GALE:

The story behind the story, the

ugly scandal behind the falling

millionaire, the dirt, you mean.

DEAKINS:

That too.

GALE:

(to Wallace)

Would the station put me up at a

good hotel...?

WALLACE:

(a look toward Deakins)

Absolutely!

GALE gives DEAKINS a big grin and starts out.

DEAKINS:

Okay, hell with it. Party hearty...

is that what they say? I'll figure

something out.

(once she's gone)

She's just pretending she's a

person. She's really a reporter.

Fifty bucks she's on the first

flight back.

CHUCKY:

You know what I don't get? I don't

get why a guy who's gonna jump asks

to talk to a TV reporter?

DEAKINS:

Cause how's he gonna know he's

jumped if it's not on the six

o'clock news.

EXT. STREET/CITY CIVIC CENTER - AFTERNOON

HORNS BLARE as a FORD VAN cuts off a CAB and squirms into a

parking place marked "HANDICAPPED ONLY."

The side of the van reads GUMLEY'S SUPER CARPET CARE and

features a cartoon logo and a phone number.

BERNIE, wearing Gumley overalls, jumps out of the van and

hurries up the steps to an imposing municipal building.

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