Smoke

1.EXT:
DAY. ELEVATED SUBWAY TRAIN

Against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline, we see an elevated

subway train heading toward Brooklyn.

After a moment, we begin to hear voices. An animated discussion is

taking place inside the Brooklyn Cigar Company.

2. INT:
DAY. THE BROOKLYN CIGAR CO.

The cigar shop from within. Displays of cigar boxes, a wall of

magazines, piles of newspapers. cigarettes, smoking paraphernalia. On

the walls, we see framed black-and-white photographs of people smoking

cigars:
Groucho Marx, George Burns, Clint Eastwood, Edward G. Robinson,

Orson Welles, Charles Laughton, Frankenstein's monster, Leslie Caron,

Ernie Kovacs.

Words appear on the screen: "SUMMER 1990."

AUGGIE WREN is behind the counter. Somewhere between forty and fifty

years old, AUGGIE is a scruffy presence: unkempt hair, a two-day

stubble of beard, dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt. We see an

intricate tattoo on one arm.

It is a slow hour. AUGGIE is flipping through a photography magazine.

Near the counter are the three OTB MEN. These are local characters who

like to hang out in the store, shooting the breeze with AUGGIE. One is

black (TOMMY) and the other two are white (JERRY and DENNIS). DENNIS

wears a T-shirt with the following words printed across the front: "If

life is a dream, what happens when I wake up?"

TOMMY:

I'll tell you why they're not going anywhere.

JERRY:

Yeah? And why is that?

TOMMY:

Management. Those guys are walking around with

their heads up their asses.

DENNIS:

They made some great deals. Tommy. Hernandez.

Carter. Without those two, there never woulda

been no World Series.

TOMMY:

That was four years ago. I'm talking about now.

(Growing more intense)

Look who they got rid of. Mitchell. Backman.

McDowell. Dykstra. Aguillera. Mookie. Mookie

Wilson, for Chrissakes.

(Shakes his head)

JERRY:

(Sarcastically)

And Nolan Ryan. Don't forget him.

DENNIS:

(Chiming in)

Yeah. And Amos Otis.

TOMMY:

(Shrugs)

Okay, joke about it. I don't give a sh*t.

JERRY:

Jesus, Tommy, it ain't science, you know. You

got your good trades and your bad trades.

That's how it works.

TOMMY:

They didn't have to do a thing, that's all I'm

saying. The team was good, the best f***ing

team in baseball. But then they had to screw it

up.

(Pause)

They traded their birthright for a mess of

porridge.

(Shakes his head)

A mess of porridge.

The bells on the door jangle as someone enters. It is AUGGIE'S protégé,

JIMMY ROSE, a mentally retarded man in his late twenties. He has been

sweeping the sidewalk outside the store and holds a broom in his right

hand.

AUGGIE:

How'd you do out there, Jimmy?

JIMMY:

Good, Auggie. Real good.

(Proudly thrusts out broom)

All finished.

AUGGIE:

(Philosophically)

It'll never be finished.

JIMMY:

(Confused)

Huh?

AUGGIE:

That's how it is with sidewalks. People come,

people go, and they all drop sh*t on the

ground. As soon as you clean up one spot and

move on to the next, the first spot is dirty

again.

JIMMY:

(Trying to digest AUGGIE'S comment)

I just do what you tell me, Auggie. You tell me

to sweep, so I sweep.

The bells on the door jangle again, and a customer enters the store: a

middle-class man in his early thirties. He walks to the counter as

JERRY teases JIMMY. In the background, we see him talking to AUGGIE.

AUGGIE pulls some cigar boxes out of the display case and puts them on

the counter for the YOUNG MAN to inspect. In the foreground we see:

JERRY:

(Interrupting. Playfully)

Hey, Jimmy. You got the time?

JIMMY:

(Turning to the SECOND OTB MAN)

Huh?

JERRY:

You still have that watch Auggie gave you?

JIMMY:

(Holds up left wrist showing

cheap digital watch. Smiles)

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

JERRY:

So what's the time?

JIMMY:

(Studying watch)

Twelve-eleven.

(Pause, marveling as

the numbers change)

Twelve-twelve.

(Looks up, smiling)

Twelve-twelve.

A sudden outburst is heard from the area near the counter.

YOUNG MAN:

(Aghast)

Ninety-two dollars?

The focus of the scene shifts to AUGGIE and the YOUNG MAN.

AUGGIE:

They don't come cheap, son. These little honeys

are works of art. Rolled by hand in a tropical

climate, most likely by an eighteen year old

girl in a thin cotton dress with no underwear

on. Little beads of sweat forming in her naked

cleavage. The smooth, delicate fingers nimbly

turning out one masterpiece after another...

YOUNG MAN:

(Pointing)

And how much are these?

AUGGIE:

Seventy-eight dollars. The girl who rolled these

was probably wearing panties.

YOUNG MAN:

(Pointing)

And these?

AUGGIE:

Fifty-six. That girl had on a corset.

YOUNG MAN:

(Pointing)

And these?

AUGGIE:

Forty-four. They're on special this week from

the Canary Islands. A real bargain.

YOUNG MAN:

I think I'll take them.

(Takes wallet from his pocket

and counts out $50 which he

hands to AUGGIE)

AUGGIE:

A good choice. You wouldn't want to celebrate

the birth of your firstborn with a box of

stinkers, would you? Remember to keep them in

the refrigerator until you hand them out.

YOUNG MAN:

The refrigerator?

AUGGIE:

It'll keep them fresh. If they get too dry,

they'll break. And you don't want that to

happen, do you?

(Putting cigar box into a bag,

ringing up sale on the cash register)

Tobacco is a plant, and it needs the same

loving care you'd give an orchid.

YOUNG MAN:

Thanks for the tip.

AUGGIE:

Any time. And congratulations to you and your

wife. Just remember, though, in the immortal

words of Rudyard Kipling: "A woman is just a

woman, but a cigar is a smoke.

YOUNG MAN:

(Confused)

What does that mean?

AUGGIE:

Damned if I know. But it has a nice ring to it,

don't it?

At that moment, we hear the bells on the door jangle again. Cut to the

door. Another customer enters the store: PAUL BENJAMIN. He is in his

early forties, dressed in rumpled casual clothes. As he approaches the

counter, the YOUNG MAN brushes past him and leaves the store. The OTB

MEN and JIMMY look on as PAUL and AUGGIE talk.

PAUL:

Hey, Auggie. How's it going?

AUGGIE:

Hey, man. Good to see you. What'll it be today?

PAUL:

Two tins of Schimmelpennincks. And throw in a

lighter while you're at it.

AUGGIE:

(Reaching for cigars and lighter)

The boys and I were just having a philosophical

discussion about women and cigars. Some

interesting connections there, don't you think?

PAUL:

(Laughs)

Definitely.

(Pause)

I suppose it all goes back to Queen Elizabeth.

AUGGIE:

The Queen of England?

PAUL:

Not Elizabeth the Second, Elizabeth the First.

(Pause)

Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Raleigh?

TOMMY:

Sure. He's the guy who threw his cloak down

over the puddle.

JERRY:

I used to smoke Raleigh cigarettes. They came

with a free gift coupon in every pack.

PAUL:

That's the man. Well, Raleigh was the person

who introduced tobacco in England, and since he

was a favorite of the Queen's -- Queen Bess, he

used to call her -- smoking caught on as a

fashion at court. I'm sure Old Bess must have

shared a stogie or two with Sir Walter. Once,

he made a bet with her that he could measure

the weight of smoke.

DENNIS:

You mean, weigh smoke?

PAUL:

Exactly. Weigh smoke.

TOMMY:

You can't do that. It's like weighing air.

PAUL:

I admit it's strange. Almost like weighing

someone's soul. But Sir Walter was a clever

guy. First, he took an unsmoked cigar and put

it on a balance and weighed it. Then he lit up

and smoked the cigar, carefully tapping the

ashes into the balance pan. When he was

finished, he put the butt into the pan along

with the ashes and weighed what was there.

Then he subtracted that number from the

original weight of the unsmoked cigar. The

difference was the weight of the smoke.

TOMMY:

Not bad. That's the kind of guy we need to take

over the Mets.

PAUL:

Oh, he was smart, all right. But not so smart

that he didn't wind up having his head chopped

off twenty years later.

(Pause)

But that's another story.

AUGGIE:

(Handing PAUL his change and putting

cigar tins and lighter in a paper bag)

Seven eighty-five out of twenty.

(As PAUL turns to leave)

Take care of yourself now, and don't do

anything I wouldn't do.

PAUL:

(Smiling)

I wouldn't think of it.

(Waves casually to the OTB MEN)

See you around, fellas.

AUGGIE and the OTB MEN watch as PAUL leaves the store.

TOMMY:

(Turning to AUGGIE)

What is he, some kind of wise guy?

AUGGIE:

Nah. He's a good kid.

JERRY:

I've seen him around. He comes in here a lot,

don't he?

AUGGIE:

Couple of times a week, maybe. He's a writer.

Lives in the neighborhood.

TOMMY:

And what kind of writer is he? An underwriter?

AUGGIE:

(Peeved)

Very funny. Some of the cracks you make. Tommy,

sometimes I think you should see a doctor. You

know, go in for some wit therapy or something.

To clean out the valves in your brain.

TOMMY:

(A little embarrassed. Shrugs)

It was just a joke.

AUGGIE:

The guy's a novelist. Paul Benjamin. You ever

hear of him?

(Pause)

That's a stupid question. The only things you

guys read is the Racing Form and pages of the

Post.

(Pause)

He's published three or four books. But

nothing now for the past few years.

DENNIS:

What's the matter? He run out of ideas?

AUGGIE:

He ran out of luck.

(Pause)

Remember that holdup out here on Seventh Avenue

few years back?

JERRY:

You talking about the bank? The time those two

guys started spraying bullets all over the

street?

AUGGIE:

That's it. Four people got killed. One of them

was Paul's wife.

(Pause)

The poor lug, he hasn't been the same since.

(Pause)

The funny thing was, she stopped in here just

before it happened. To stock up on cigars for

him. She was a nice lady, Ellen. Four or five

months pregnant at the time, which means that

when she was killed, the baby was killed, too.

TOMMY:

Bad day at Black Rock, eh, Auggie?

Close-up of AUGGIE'S face. Remembering.

AUGGIE:

It was bad, all right. I sometimes think that

if she hadn't given me exact change that day,

or if the store had been a little more crowded,

it would have taken her a few more seconds to

get out of here, and then maybe she wouldn't

have stepped in front of that bullet. She'd

still be alive, the baby would have been born,

and Paul would be sitting at home writing

another book instead of wandering the streets

with a hangover.

(Pensive, his expression suddenly

turns to one of alarm)

Cut to white youth in the corner of the store, shoving paperback books

into the pockets of his tattered army fatigue jacket.

AUGGIE (cont'd)

Hey! What are you doing there, kid? Hey, cut

that out!

AUGGIE scrambles out from behind the counter, pushing his way past the

OTB MEN as the kid takes off and runs out of the store.

3.EXT:
DAY. SEVENTH AVENUE

AUGGIE chases the BOOK THIEF down the street. Eventually, he gets

winded and gives up. He pauses for a moment to catch his breath, then

turns around and heads back in the direction of the store.

4.INT:
DAY. PAUL'S APARTMENT. A BROWNSTONE BUILDING IN PARK SLOPE

(THIRD FLOOR)

Shot of a little brown cigar, burning in an ashtray.

The camera pulls back to reveal PAUL at his desk. He is writing in

longhand, using a pad of yellow legal paper. An old Smith-Corona

typewriter is also on the desk, poised for work with a half-written

page in the roller. Off in the corner, we see a neglected word

processor.

The workroom is a bare and simple place. Desk, chair, and a small

wooden bookcase with manuscripts and papers shoved onto its shelves.

The window faces a brick wall.

As PAUL continues to write, the camera travels from the workroom into

the larger of the two rooms that make up his apartment.

This larger room is an all-purpose space that includes a sleeping area,

a kitchenette in one corner, a dining table and a large easy chair.

Crowded bookshelves occupy one wall from floor to ceiling. The bow

windows face front, looking down onto the street. Near the bed, we see

a framed photograph of a young woman. (This is Ellen, Paul's dead

wife.)

The camera travels back into the workroom. We see PAUL at work. Fade

out.

Fade in. We see PAUL at his desk, eating a TV dinner while still

writing in the pad. After a moment, he inadvertently knocks the food

off the desk with his elbow. He begins to bend over to pick up the

food, but as he does so a new idea suddenly occurs to him. Instead of

cleaning up the mess, he turns back to his pad and continues writing.

5EXT:
DAY. IN FRONT OF THE BROOKLYN CIGAR CO.

We see PAUL walking out of the cigar store. JIMMY ROSE is on the

corner, observing him throughout the scene. PAUL takes three or four

steps, then realizes he has forgotten something. He goes back into the

store. During his brief absence, JIMMY remains on the corner, imitating

PAUL'S gestures:
patting in pockets, looking puzzled, realizing that he

has forgotten the cigars he just bought.

PAUL comes out again a moment later, holding a tin of Schimmelpenninck

cigars. He pauses, takes a cigar out of the tin, and lights up. He

continues walking, obviously distracted. He stops briefly at a corner,

then steps out into the street, paying no attention to the traffic. A

speeding tow truck is rushing toward the intersection. At the last

second, a black hand reaches out, grabs PAUL by the arm, and pulls him

back to the curb. If not for that timely move, PAUL would surely have

been run down.

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