STOKER
by ged Poulke
01/18/10
PRODUCE!
SCOTT FREE, INC.
614N. LA PEER DRIVE
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA 90069
PHONE: 310-360-2250CLOSE OW a epider.
Byes. Fange. Round hairy back puleing with life.
Cleaning itself at the center of its web, its small body is a
blur of hideous industry.
The image is grotesque, hypnotic, awesone.
Nature at its deadliest and most efficient.
WE WIDEN OUT, revealing our Little friend is someplace dark
and tight, ah ideal spot for going about your business
undisturbed
Until the web begins to shake. Violently. The spider is
startled, (So are we.)
Music.
Someone's playing the piano, a piece @ la Gnossienne No. 4 by
Erik Satie.
It's haunting, even
passion (as it is now).
a played with more precision than
The spider sets off to investigate, moving rapidly over a
series of ridges and planes. Tt comes to a smocth lacquered
surface, starts to descend.
Ae we watch it wind its way down one of the piano’s front
legs, we_1ealize we've been lurking beneath the instrument
the entize tine
The music continues ag the apider quietly touches down on the
hardwood floor, begins crawling stealthity toward the
pedalse.
CLOSE ON & shoe.
The black and white saddle kind, the kind a young girl might
wear, moving up and down on the’ gleaming braes pedals.
‘The spider comes closer. Closer.
The shoe moving wp and down, up and down...
And just as we're sure this repulsive creature is about to
skitter up that shoe and sink its teeth into tender skin, the
shoe casually pivots toward the spider, crushes it underfoot.
End of epide:
WE PAN UP from the shoe.o1/ie/10 2
Meet INDIA STOKER, eighteen years old.
and with no more than a glance at the thing on the floor that
used to be alive, this unusually cool customer goes back to
her recital.
ChOSE OW India.
Not an easy face to describe.
Not that it’s without beauty (it isn’t), not that it’s
without character (it isn’t), but it’s 4 face that gives
nothing away.
You can’t talk about the view with the shade pulled down.
WE WIDEN OUT, taking in the scene.
pressed in a sweater set and skirt (black), hair pulled back
in a ribben (also black), India sits at a black baby grand in
the room her mother refers to as “the parlor.”
Chippendale chairs, Georgian tables, Louis XVI commodes. A
long way fron Pottery Barn.
Back straight, fingering correct, India’s pale hands float
easily over the keys as April sunshine filters throngh the
big picture window behind her. Outside, gray-green woods and
fields etretch to the horizon and beyond.
Bverything before ua - girl, piano, parlor - feels well-
tended and appointed. Tasteful. and timeless.
Could be 2009 or 1959. Could be color, cowld be black and
wnite. Could go either way.
one thing ve do know: the masic is gorgeous. Too bad India’s
on auto-pilot. she’s a human player-piano, deaf to its
undercurrents of longing and loss. Might 4s well be “Frére-
Jacques.”
As the piece crawls to a close a woman appears, stopping just
short in the doorway.
‘This is BVELYN “EVIE” STOKPR, on the other side of forty but
still full of juice, still ripe for the picking (if only
someone would).
Not a hair's out of place ie a Lit + 80
she discreetly (she hopes) pots a hand on the wall to steady
herselt.
Like her daughter, Rvie is dressed head-to-toe in black
(French, expensive). Unlike her daughter, she is garnished
with diamonds.