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INT. CIVIC BUILDING - TEN MINUTES LATER (AFTERNOON)

A door reads "PROBATION DEPARTMENT." MOVE IN ON THE DOOR.

INT. OFFICE/PROBATION - DAY

Bernie is sitting across the desk from the stone-faced, balding

Probation Officer, PATRICK DUKE.

BERNIE:

(agitated)

Hey! Do I have a record? Have I

ever done time? I mean I been

arrested a few times, who hasn't?

Parking tickets for Chrissake!

Suspicion of stuff! Have I ever

been convicted of anything?

DUKE:

Mister LaPlante...

BERNIE:

Take a look at my employment

record, you got my employment

record there, right? You see any

unemployment there, any welfare?

I'm a taxpayer. They eat me

alive, the tax people, they got

taxes on everything, taxes, taxes,

taxes, and forms! Taxes and forms

so I can pay your goddamn salary,

so you can sit there and write

stuff, guys like me pay your

wages...

DUKE:

Mister LaPlante...

BERNIE:

Do I hit anybody? You see me shoot

anybody? Hey, drugs! Do I sell

drugs? Jesus, I don't belong in

prison. I'm a family man.

DUKE:

Mister LaPlante...

BERNIE:

Look, I got this kid. We got a

goddamn relationship! I'm takin'

him to a movie tonight! He worships

me. If I go down what's this do

to my son? I'm his goddamn role

model for Christ sake!

DUKE looks up at the "family man's" plaintive look. Then...

Bernie ruins it.

BERNIE:

Listen, if I coulda afforded an

experienced attorney, I woulda

walked. It was a shitty case,

very circumstantial. You gonna

send me downstate for having an

inexperienced lawyer? How you

gonna feel about the system if you

do that?

The brief flash of mercy is gone from DUKE'S eyes, replaced

with a hard glitter. BERNIE has just shot himself in the

foot.

INT. BALLROOM /N.Y. HOTEL - DAY

VIGOROUS APPLAUSE! GALE has just received the Silver Mike

Award, a tastefully small, mike-sized replica of a microphone,

from the MASTER OF CEREMONIES. Clutching it, she faces the

applauding AUDIENCE across a podium, speaking into a real

microphone.

GALE:

Thank you, very much. I'm grateful

for this. Since you're all

colleagues here, you know what kind

of a team it takes... to put a story

on a screen. I don't have to

explain to you how much the

cameraman, the editor, the

assignment editor and the news

director, to mention a few did to

get me this award.

GALE pauses. She reaches into her purse and pulls out an onion.

She holds it up.

GALE:

This is an onion.

(dramatic pause,

then...)

It's a metaphor for a news story.

Only a few hours ago I was standing

on a ledge sixty stories above a

street interviewing a man who

subsequently jumped to his death.

Forty million dollars in the bank,

happily married, good health. Great

story!

The AUDIENCE is attentive, mesmerized as they watch her rip off

the outer skin of the onion and toss it dramatically aside.

GALE:

(continuing)

There's gotta be more. We're pros,

right? Some kinda extramarital

hanky panky, maybe? Another good

story!

(she peels another layer

of onion)

Maybe the guy's been accused of

child molesting. Terrific story!

(she peels more off the

onion)

Then it turns out the accusation

was false. Wonderful! More story.

The AUDIENCE watches, captivated as the onion gets smaller.

GALE:

(continuing)

Maybe the alleged mistress was

lying, setting the guy up.

Sensational story!

(the onion is very

small)

We keep going, keep digging, keep

investigating. We expose the

guy's whole life, his family.

Why? Because we're pros!

Because...

(she pauses

dramatically)

we're looking for the truth!

GALE considers the tiny remains of the onion in her hand.

Then, she peels it down to nothing and lets it fall.

GALE:

But what if, after all our

digging, after all our painstaking

investigation, what if it turns out

there wasn't any truth? Just

stories! One story after another,

one layer, then another layer,

until there's nothing left. And

if it's like that, do we have any.

obligation to stop at any point?

Or do we just keep going, digging,

digging, digging, peeling,

peeling, peeling, until we've

peeled it all away, until we've

destroyed what we were

investigating in the first place?

ANGLE ON AUDIENCE

attentive, as GALE pauses dramatically, then...

GALE:

I'll bet all of you, like me,

yearn for just one story that

isn't about uncovering layer after

layer of human weakness; a story

that reveals with each new layer

of investigation, something finer

and nobler, something even...

inspirational.

GALE gazes soberly across the podium at the AUDIENCE.

TELEVISION IMAGE (EXT. SKID ROW STREETS - DAY)

A BAG LADY addresses the camera, a news interview.

BAG LADY/TV

First rule out here on the streets

is you gotta watch out for number

one. If you go down... break a

bone or something... you're gone!

Nobody's gonna pick you up.'

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