Midnight Express Page #7

A narrow cobblestone STREET. TEX pulls the car to a halt.

CUT:

THE PUDDING SHOPPE TWILIGHT Internationally-known cafe,

adjacent BAZAAR. Crowded, noisy. WOMEN dressed in black

hold crying CHILDREN by the hands. FOREIGNERS, mostly

students and hippies, move about laughing, joking. Hawkers,

street peddlers, vendors cooking shishkebab. small GYPSY

BOY leads a huge MUZZLED BEAR on a leash.

BILLY sits at a small outdoor TABLE alone sipping tea and

eating baclava - nervous, very nervous, still trying to

sort it all out in his head. If he doesn't find the seller,

what will happen next?

MOVE across the TABLES, past a middle-aged AMERICAN COUPLE,

to TWO TURKISH PLAINCLOTHESMEN watching him closely. They

look evident. TWO HIPPIES make a wide berth around them.

HIPPIES (OFF)

(in passing, low)

Hey Janet, why don't you go sell

'em some dope.

MOVE ON to another TABLE where TWO MORE PLAINCLOTHESMEN

sit, equally evident, watching BILLY.

TEX sits in his car, in the distance, casually glancing at

a newspaper.

BILLY's eyes rove.

INTERIOR PUDDING SHOPPE Large. Many tables. Stairs. A back

exit.

ANOTHER GYPSY BOY leads a huge PINK PIG leashed with a

wooden sign around its neck proclaiming "Pig" in Turkish.

Various TURKS point the pig out, laughing at it, some

disgusted by it, making faces and gestures: "Go way, go

way! "Ayip!" The PIG moves past BILLY, who shifts his

gaze to:

POV - CABDRIVER #1 lingering at the curb. PAN to CABDRIVER

#2 PAN to CABDRIVER #3. PAN BACK to #1 and again to #2

indicating no real fix on identity.

BILLY tense now, knowing this is the chance he must take,

nods with his head, pointing at CABDRIVER #2, off.

THE PLAINCLOTHESMEN move out towards CABDRIVER #2.

BILLY tentatively rises, as if to join them, but moves

slyly towards the interior of the cafe.

PLAINCLOTHESMEN move in roughly on a surprised CABDRIVER

#2 who begins to protest LOUDLY (AD LIB).

BILLY moves through the INTERIOR of the PUDDING SHOPPE,

past the tables, past the stairs, towards the back of the

shop, at a normal.to attract attention.

A PLAINCLOTHESMAN looks around, sees he is gone. Tells the

others (AD LIB) They spread out looking, abandoning the

CABDRIVER #2 who spits and curses them (AD LIB).

BILLY, with one backward glance, now eases out the BACK

DOOR, into a bilious sunlight, onto a STREET. Pause.

A HAND with GUN moves into FRAME pointing a six-inch barrel

right at his temple. BILLY freezes, moving just his eyes

to:

TEX looking down at him calm, merciless.

TEX:

You seem like a nice enough kid to

me Billy, but try it and I'll blow

your f***ing brains out.

BILLY - the sense of betrayal in his eyes.

ESTABLISH PRISON - OVERHEAD ANGLE. A large and Byzantine

structure suggesting the 15th Century Sultan's Janissary

Barracks. Irregular crescent various wings; a MOSQUE inside

the prison. The possibly a shapes to the sense of an endless

a decorative an equally in a city, labyrinth built by some

mad Arab architect to suit purpose and now, in the 20th

Century, transformed by mad Turkish bureaucracy into a

prison. It should be preferably made to look like Istanbul.

Faint background atonal Turkish CHANTING. Evening Muslim

prayer."Allah wakbah, Allah wakbah..." on and on, suggesting

to us fear rather than praise.

BILLY VOICE:

Dear Mom and Dad. This is the

hardest letter I've ever had to

write. know the confusion and the

pain it will cause you. And the

disappointment...

BILLY - his scalp being shaved off by a prison BARBER in

an un-specified ANTI-CHAMBER, His eyes are staring dead

ahead.

BILLY VOICE:

(continuous)

I really thought knew what I was

doing with my life. I'd hoped

somehow to get out of this quickly

so that you'd never know about it.

But that just isn't possible now.

I don't know what's going to happen.

But what can I say to you? Will

'I'm sorry' make a difference?

Will it ease the pain, the shame

you must be feeling? Forgive

me...Please...

BILLY is now completely BALD, SOUND SHARP OVER:

CUT:

A CELL DOOR SLIDING OPEN. BILLY steps in, bewildered.

ZIAT VOICE (OFF)

Git!

The cell is dark, almost black, an overpowering stench; a

small grey metal bunk is bolted to the floor with a lumpy

mattress. BILLY turns, looking back at the man staring at

him from the door.

ZIAT is quickly summing up Billy's character. This is his

craft.He is a prisoner and trustee. sinister man whose one

motivation in life is the accumulation of money, in the

pursuit of which he has acquired an ugly purplish SCAR

running the width of his throat, various other facial SCARS;

and one blind milky white EYE. He's stocky and strong --

about five ten, with bushy eyebrows, brown cigarette teeth,

big dirty nails, repulsively in need of a bath. What's

surprising is that he is no more than thirty years old

looks and behaves like sixty. The personification of the

denaturalization of a man. Time, body, mind - all of them

warped.

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