Strange Days Page #3

A shanty-camp of homeless people under a freeway overpass.

Homes made of cardboard and carpet remnants. Their lives

in shopping carts.

HOST:

You're a glass-is-half-empty kind of

guy, aren't you Dan? Well I for one

happen to think that us making it

2000 years is worth celebrating--

Lenny cuts him off, punching to another station, and MUSIC

blasts. Something fast... a rap-metal hybrid. Anger and

energy.

WE CUT IN fast blitzes of images like a burst of automatic

weapons fire:
helicopters on patrol, people running in the

streets, buildings smoldering, fists raised, shouting

people, paramedics rushing a body into an ambulance,

Korean store owners armed to the teeth, a body covered by

a yellow plastic sheet, blood running down the gutter.

Cops in riot gear, with M-16s, on patrol in a Hispanic

neighborhood.

BACK TO LENNY coming out of a bar with a nervous

businessman. We don't hear the conversation. MUSIC OVER.

Lenny palms a roll of bills from the guy as he slips a

squid tape into the pocket of the businessman's suit

jacket. Lenny claps him on the shoulder and walks away.

Lenny's beeper goes off and he pauses to look at the

number.

ON LENNY DRIVING.

Ahead, through the windshield we see a police checkpoint.

The cops have thrown a block across the street and are

shinning their lights in the cars as they creep through.

Lenny slaps his ID against the side window with one hand,

not missing a beat in his conversation. This is just part

of life in LA.

LENNY:

(on cellular)

Jimbo. I'm there, Jimmy. Right now,

can't you hear me knockin'?

CUT TO LENNY working his way through a crowded club, music

pounding. Strobe lights. We don't see much. He hears

his phone rings and pulls the tiny DIGITAL CELLULAR out of

his breast pocket. Sticks a finger in his other ear and

answers.

CUT TO LENNY, back in the BMW, on the streets. On the

move.

LENNY:

-- so you line up the talent, shoot

the clip, get it to me by Monday.

OK? Client wants a guy and two

girls, the guy wears... yeah, I

know, thinks he's being original.

Girls have to be young. So don't

use your mother like you usually do.

Yeah, you too, pendejo. And no big

tits... French tits. That's it...

like Champagne glasses... you got

it. What a pro. Page me.

LENNY PULLS UP to the security checkpoint of a gated

community. The white upper-middle class hiding behind

walls and paid security.

LORI:

If you read the Bible, Mark, you'd

know that there won't be another

thousand years. Right now we are in

the Last Days, as foretold in the

book of--

HOST:

The Last Days? You mean the coming

of the Apocalypse, right? The

Rapture?

Lenny fishes around in the glove compartment, flipping

through about twenty plastic security passes for different

parts of town, all bogus. He finds the right one and

flips it onto the dash.

LORI:

Yes, that's right. You only have to

look at the signs... there are wars

and rumors of wars--

The RENT A COP at the guardshack hits him with his light.

LENNY:

(lying)

I live here.

The cop waves him through. Lenny is the right color.

HOST:

Now just so the rest of us know how

much time is left, when is the

Rapture supposed to hit, exactly?

Is it midnight New Year's Eve?

And WE CUT to a burst of news videotape, enlarged, noisy,

distorted... images of a great gathering in the desert,

the faithful waiting for God's sign as the millennium

approaches.

HOST:

Is that midnight LA time, or Eastern

Standard or what? I mean, what time

zone is God in, anyway?

LORI:

I pray for you all.

Lenny's BMW cruises past an overturned burning car. There

is no-one around. He barely glances at it. Common sight

these days. If it is the end of the world, Lenny's not

going to let it break his rhythm.

LENNY:

(cellular)

I just got something in, Bobby, you

might appreciate. A 211 at a Thai

joint goes south, and these three

scuzzballs end up in a gun-and-run.

It's a beauty, two thumbs up.

Parental discretion advised. I'm

talking it's the master, not some

stepped-on copy. One of a kind.

LENNY INSIDE A GLOOMY BAR. He slides into a booth with

NORM SKINNER, a paunchy guy with thinning hair who dresses

too young. A pretty, stoned-looking girl is leaning

against Skinner.

LENNY:

Yo, Skinner. The Skin Man.

(fingering his

jacket)

Red leather. Nice feminine touch.

SKINNER:

(laughing)

F*** you, Nero.

LENNY:

Whattya got for me?

CUT TO:
POV of a woman writhing above us in ecstasy.

Lovemaking in point-of-view. We look down, see OUR BODY,

a woman's body... our hands moving over the other woman's

torso. The image is dark, a primal impression. Sound of

harsh breathing, rustling sheets.

BACK TO LENNY in the booth with Skinner. Lenny has

Skinner's tape running in a playback deck clipped to his

belt, next to his pager. He is hunched over the table,

"sampling" the merchandise by touching a few of the trode

pads to his temple without putting on the whole headset.

Like a coke dealer taking a little on the fingernail.

LENNY:

Yeah, I can use this...

(to the stoned girl)

... but honey you gotta move your

eyes slower next time. It's too

jerky.

SKINNER:

It was her first time, Lenny. Cut

her some slack.

TIGHT SLOWMO SHOTS... ABSTRACT: SQUID tapes and money

changing hands. A SQUID tape sliding sensuously into a

deck.

TIGHT CU LENNY, through the windshield of his car. Neon

moving over him.

NEWS FOOTAGE:
LAPD Aerospatiales circling, their xenon

lights turning night into day, giving the impression of a

futuristic war zone.

INSIDE THE COCKPIT, the infrared camera shows green-screen

images of people in cars, in their homes... like footage

of hyenas shot at night in total darkness.

The impression is of a society under siege, an occupied

nation... a watched society where the camera eye and the

police spotlight define our reality.

HOST:

Go ahead, caller, you're on the air.

VOICE:

My name's DeWayne, and I got a New

Year's resolution for the po-lice.

Hey, yo Five Oh, you better get down

with 2-K.

CRASH Unit cops with a bunch of Salvadoran gang kids

racked up against a storefront. A dozen 16 year-old girls

and guys, hands against the wall, acting bored, as the

cops walk up and down, reading IDs.

HOST:

2-K? What's that DeWayne?

A group of cops have two black guys proned out. Nearby a

crowd jeers, shouting insults. A black kid throws a beer

bottle and one of the cops chases him into the crowd.

DEWAYNE:

2-K. The big two thousand. Comin

tomorrow night. Out with the old

and in wit da new. See for the Man,

no new is good new, what I'm sayin.

He like to keep it the way it is.

But we going to take it, make it

new, make it our own. History gonna

start right here, right now--

LENNY cuts him off as his cellular call connects.

LENNY:

Hi, Dave, this is Lenny.

(pause)

Nero. Lenny Nero. That's right.

Oh, is it late? Sorry. It's just

that I have something that might be

of interest, and since I always call

you first--

(pause)

Uh, huh. Well, what would be a good

time? Okay, sure. Catch you then.

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