‘The Flick was commissioned by and received its world pre- riere at Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Direc- tor; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director; Carol Fishman, General Manages) in New York City on March 12, 2013. 1¢ ‘was directed by Sam Gold; the set and costume design were by David Zinn, the lighting design was by Jane Cox and the ‘sound design was by Bray Poor, the production stage manager ‘was Alina Taylor. The east was: sa Matthew Maher aver ‘Aaron Clifton Moten ose Louisa Krause sevtan/riiy DREAMING MAN Alex Hannase serie “A illing-apare movie theater in Worcester County, MA. The setis the raked movi theater audience, ten to Steen rows of red seats with a dingy carpeted ssle running up the center. “The upstage wali the back wall of che movie theater, with 2 window into the projection booth, There isa metal door lead- ing out into a hallway which leads ou into the movie theater Joby. We, the heater audience, are the movie sreen. The ‘beam of light fram the projector radiates out over cur heads. Summer 2012. we coacreas sa thiryfive Stared lead. Caveasan Hic often wears a beat-up Red Sox cap. He used tobe very into Heavy Mec sveny, twenty ‘Alican-American. Bespectaled. He wears red slightly European-looking sneakers. Inlove with the movies. nose, rweary-four Cavcasian. Semully magnetic, despite the face that (or partly because?) her clothes are baggy she never wears makeup and her hair is dyed forestgreen surLan/Te Deanne say, twenty sic wove on casrowes ‘Sam and Avery wear the same degrading movie theater uni- form in every scene. It sa polo shire (prabably dark blue oF ‘purple or maroon) with a litle name tag/pin and black pans. ‘Maybe the polo has “The Flick” embroidered in yellow or ‘white omits chest pocket. Because Rose isthe projetionist she doesn't have to wear uniform, But maybe she wears the black. pans anyway. Or the same pair ofjans every day. "indicates where the net line of dialogue begins.Alter the theater euionce ba filed in, the bese ight ool dm (agen tbe most audience anda in be tuater sun Barnard Hero Priade "The Naked an the Deed sors plying andthe igh from be pro bams ou cer er ead Tae hat oe cant decipher ar ing preted, Dut mats re thine byte light. This as 0 mina (fom begoning rend ofthe smg and all ‘ee cam ace are shared dancing image boing ut of the fm peje “oon te smg ends, nd tbe aknoom move ead shee is ‘righ as of rec, nd then obit. Tb vitae ight ate- til fiche om andar aout ie endACT ONE ‘The door a tbe back ofthe mci beter is throm open. ‘Sam pecs bis ead i, looks around, and then deste dor A sco later, te deer pen agin and Sar das in a large ras. ‘am tha be uses to kep the dor propped open. Then be exits again: sd renters carrying a push brom and dt pa. Avery fells bine in carrying a pu broom and duct pam of bis 2m ‘We cal this the wallthrough, Prey simple You justahAvery ssa Sa als dn the st of tit irom, ring wp par ters amd pachng thom nt the dt pan When Sam fies te a es andes tb snl 7, ery okay begins epg tela om his side ofthe se Toy coma his ny, Sam ay one ro aba of ey, cach on is oom ide of the aie. Avery i ying t fre ot the ‘rey 1s i barr tha lok. teint lt, Avery enone someting we cant onthe fr. Be fens ‘it diane, te Beds brand ginger pc pa Subey snd “wich rape: Types of redded lea flat tthe ground Sam aks oer, nap abt be’ ding, and watches Avery, thot fering ay sages ‘Avery vals wp tbe ae, throws the Say wrapper nthe large trash can alg withthe cones of is dap, then wal bck ‘nd goes ack maepng. For some reso int working—the “ines of lee tase co's are tcking the gro Sem ‘ssl etching Sim. fier able ‘Yeah. With the litle pieces of letzuce you kind of have to— Avery inserapesbi by bending dont andi te pes oflt- ce off the flo. He mestydcapear frm view Som watches, then goes back to eepng. He’ abut three rows tea of Avery ben Avery finishes picking wp te tiny pee of et tuce.Cradling thm in bis palm, Avery walks up thease again to ‘he eras com and shakes bi al of ita it. Then be ges back to seeping. Afier moving on tte next ae ‘What do you do about spilled soda? We do one big mop atthe end ofthe night. Avery nade They o back to sweeping. Afer about event second: ‘What if people ate sil here? A pe Like lave you ever hal anyone ike just sit here and refuse /:o— Sometimes peopl stay uni the end ofthe eedits. Bur then. they go. Avery nas And they/l get the message when you start sweeping. Avery gues back omoeping. After a pause: Roberto told me that he once ... that one time this couple vwas like having sex, like fully fucking on the seats when he [Bathe justlike ignored them and like went about his busines.ove oa They contnsesseping. After passe Who Roberto? (Oh, He doesnt work here anymore. Pau te joined the Marines. Pew, ‘And who was the guy with the /big— "That was Bran ‘Sundays and Mondays is Brian and Rebecea ‘But you'll never meet them because you'll never work Sun days and Mondays. Avery nas litle smcomfertabe Tey go bck soecping. Thy re almost dome. Sar isin the scan rw and Avery tn the fourth. When Sam finishes be ace ashes Avery Did Steve ell you about the soda machines? ve FuEK ow to lean them? About the seltzer? ave No. ‘You gotta soak the spouts in seltzer overnight. Oh. Olay. Coo Tl show you. Ina minute, Abe ien mare ssn thn Aver ines soecping. They bead up he aie tgethr and dap tei dst pans in be tras cm. The ‘Sam ks the trac cam ad tart ralling teu tbe dar: They are lot out the door when Sam say So you're into movies? ‘What? Imean yeas! [love movies, And they're gone. The door sings tht bebind them. BlackoutSCENE Two Sam, alone in the mide ofthe eae, mseping. Afra fe rec- mds, very rans in, fastening Bis lle name tg pin and elding Bis bro, Hey! Hi Avery Pase Sony /Pm— You're late, we uee Yeah. Iwas just about to... yeah. Pm really sorry. Yeah. Uh-huh 1/just— [My dad was supposed to give me ave bur then he couldn’ sand Thad to take like thee different buses to get here and I'm still ying to figure / out the whole— ‘Ub-hub, yeah, 1 doa’ realy need an explana/tion, 13 jst— [No,no, ofcourse, just fel bad and Tean wully reassure you. ‘that ie won't happen agin. Pour, Te jast pats me in an awkward positon beczuse/ m— ‘The thing i, I'm actually ike... 'm actully like this obses- sively puneral person and I'm like never ever at and this was just lke a crazy um anomaly with the buses and now I know and [can promise you twill never happen agin. Powe, Fine, Fine Pause, Sam ges bask tsoeepng, then:ue wee mean, i no big deal, ‘But Im sot of de facto in charg om Saturdays /and— No, Tinow, {jas puts me in an awkward position. That all. Steve never here soe was just me and 1/had to— rouibe you dha cwon'e happen again Powe, ‘Thad todo sods and make a whole batch of popoom by / aye 1m so sory No. Iescool, Pause Tey bot stare soerping. Then enable obey himself Tm just like—I don't know why Steve doesn’t fucking pro- mote me. I'm so sick of this shit. Avery nods litle conf. | shouldbe a fucking projectionist by naw! © ‘Oh, Yeah. Pa lowe todo that. ‘Well, he'l probably promote you before he promotes me. He like clearly thinks Pm dieased or something Paws He promoted Rose and I've worked here five months longer than hee ‘They go bak 0 roeping. (ooking dam at he Borin Berns) vw fuck. ‘Whats this, Avery pean peers rom i ideo the ale Someone spilled lke chocolate pudiing or something. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you sure it not, lee... shit? A posse, Sam bende dan and inspec it Oh god.oc sce Definitely noe shit. ‘Are you sure? Ub-buh Beeause I'm kind of um. .. I'm kind of shiephobic, ‘There ae ike weird lide dal init 1 ike coclte apc pudding. ‘Who brings pudding nto movie theater?! ‘Sem gaze ait fra while then sraighten wp sep around it and pes hack 9 moeping. Sam notices Avery watching bit and gets & ide self omciou 1 eake care of eater ‘Tey sap for awhile Thens ‘What does that mean shit-phobie? Like other people’ shit makes me. it like makes me want vo puke. “Well sure, ‘Yeah, But with me i really. ike iT go ito the sal and someone has, um, like if someone’ lef something there ‘actully somerimes like, ..Tactally need to puke Like sometimes I aenally puke. Huh, Prue Have you heard ofthat website where people sendin pictures ‘oftheir shi and then other people rie it? Yes Thave heard of thar website. That website is lke my worst nightmare ‘Som giggles So if wanted tobe really like cre! I could like leave my lp- top open with that website up and you /would— 1 would literally puke all over your laptop. Seo gigs Oh man. A bapty peue in which they reac they've broken the cesion, and ther akard pause fllning that bappy paws. They go back 10ge wae serpin. A minute ltr, someone appears in the winds of the projevn buch, I. girl. Shei moving around, changing rel, spparing in and tof ew. ‘Sem maces be. (Oh, Hey. Thats Rose, Avery bss wp. HEY ROSE! ‘Sb dos’ bear bi. Afra bile: Hob T guess she like hates me or something, ROSE! (pau) ROSE! Wow. She really hates me. “Maybe she can hear you, She can hear me, Rose! T want wo introduce you to her. She cool, ROSE! Rose continues maving arc in the projecom bath bios, swe ruee Gear of pre aganyfanreguited oe) ROOOOSSSSSE!! Rose remains bios Wal. She offically ates me. Sam and Avery gaze up the prjeion ath ile Ree moves arund, tes diapers rom ves. Avery ges back 1 seeping Sam ks aching the window aif be Bope be igh sper gin. Theor om fret on rads, he BlakSUENE THREE A fr day later. Sam and Avery ar inthe middle of soeping om ‘heir separate ie of be ile. Jack Nicholson Jade Nicholson and uh... ‘And ah Renéo—no, Dakota Fanning. Jack Nicholson and Dakota Fanning A shor paw. ‘That’ t00 easy ‘Well jose do ie then Jock Nicholson to Tom Cruse in A Few Good Men. “Tom Cruise to Dakota Fanning in War ofthe Worlds. Hub, Come up with a beer one. ine, Fine. Uh Pauly Shore Pauly Shore and uh Jan Holm. Olay. Avery thinks, He suints and raises bis ind finger igh, as if rang completed algebraic equation inte ai Afr about si sess. Pauly Shore to Stephen Baldwin in Bio-Dosne. ‘You have i steady? Stephen Baldwin to Kevin Pollak in The Usual Suspect. Uh... th. .. Kevin Pollak to Brace Willisin.. ub lees say... The Whole Nine Yards.ue wae ‘What do you mean “le say"? They were also in The Whole Ten Yards together and—I think—Hostage. ‘And then Broce Willis to Ian Holm in The Filth Flement. Jes, ‘Make i harder. Uh-huh. Uh. ‘Michael J. Fox! MichaeJ, Fox and ub Ooh, Oley ‘Michael J. Fox and Britney Spears. Avery nade Olay. He doses bees, About tm sons pas, (oks-hooh. This one is hard. Averys mouth maces lightly and bie yer d strange things wile be oo bi cleans, (rrr ‘we Funk ‘Thisis a doory. Avery yebres rase—it seems lik be is geting emesbere—bat the be lary reaches a roadblock, (00000 boy. Uh-oh, About enty more seconds of sien aeaations, Bontualy Avery otis some kind fcomplcted mental kt, opens bis and ins. No. No! ‘This one takes afl si degres but F'n happy with (pau) Britney to Kim Cara in Crossroads, Otay: ‘Kim Catal to Estelle Gey in Mannequin. ‘Mannequin! ett [My fist semual fantary EVER was sbout Kim Cattrall in ‘Mannequin! T've actually never seen it. -sue wen Wsthe best Ie the best. Casall is this mannequin who comes to lfeand Andrew McCarthy isthe department store worker ‘window guy who fills in Tove with ber And Estelle Geeny is the store manager. dont remember oby exactly Kins Catrall umes 0 life ‘Taere’ some sort of magic Egyptiany reason behind it. And then she /ike— aclle Gety to Sylvester Stallone in Stop ot My Mora Wil Shoot Sylvester Stallone to John Lithgow in Cliffhanger, Littgow to Christopher Lloyd in... uh... okay... . Pm prety sure this is the tle: Advennares of Buckaroo Bansai ‘Across the Eighth Din/ension wHoAl! WHAT THE FUCK! YES! ILOVE THAT MOVIE! (Ciristopher Lloyd to Michael J Foxin, ofcourse Tacks the Pore Bacleto the Future, Pes One through Three A pate, Sam stares at Avery, oe, They dom nate Reenter se prjeion bc. Yor have lke a. that like almost like a diss 1 actually ik che opposite ofa disability. Rese nach om te wins of the pojecsion Both and mace a them. Obi Jesus! (Avery) ‘Thats Rose. Timow. ‘The nave back. Rese breather om the window, making a litle foggy area, and thon dro a cream penis in tbe fog with br finger: It mayor may ma be deiperale ‘Whats that Think ies penis, Re dra a bear around the pes. Whos, Yeah, Shea lesbian Really? 2Ye. Rose is wn-treading the projector new, mat cared rom vis. Does she havea gilriend? Shhh. Ub, No, Edan't ink so, ‘Toy go back to soeeping. Tey dn' se Rse lave the projection ‘booth. They hee scesping. Ree appears in te doar. She regards ‘Sam and Avery, then: Hi. Tm Rose. Pim Avery, Avery, right? Yeah, How old are yo? Twenty, Hoh, we ruck Pawe Tike your shoes. Avery lke dro at bs sbot Red. Powe, “Thanks. Anatber pause Hi Sam, Hello Rose. Pause, ‘Tm really hungover so you guys will have vo excuse me if'm like ile low-energy tonight Avery goes back 1» cleaning. Rse leans seplyagsinstsbe wal. ‘Sam sem sagert tlk ther ‘Who were you outwith?ae ou (fike-spaced-us) Waie (Ob. Ub, Who were you parting with lst night? Justa couple offends, Katie? ‘Oh my god, Kates ike... no Reiko, And cis other guy. We all drank moonshine ... have you guys ever had moon- shine? Un-huh. No. ‘Anyway, I'm just like... Trotlly ave «drinking problem. Ste fk yons Avery cident debs ram, thenquitly sip Tm gonna go take a nap, When does the nest show start? 620. Do you ned anything? Teoud ike runout and get you some- ‘bing. we rc (Oh ay god no. Pm toally fine. ‘She stares tle, then ps Twas nice meeting you Avery Yeah. You to. "Those shoes rock, Rese exit, Sa nde thre. Asery cmt epg Aer af samen of time bs gone by: So? What ‘What'd you think? She woe Roe renters. (Sam) Did you tell him about Dinner Money?so ener Sam gets tocrd “Uh—what? No. Wait “What did you do last night? Did you eke ital [thought that—he jus started working here, /2o— ‘Well. Exactly, dumbes, You have to explain ito him, 1 just—we have node fhe’ ging tobe cool with /itand— He bas o be cool witht. _Avery raring lok like be nt iting Hey Avery Avery turns arcana. Yeah. A the end of every shift you'r gonne get Dinner Money. I's just litle extra cash. We always split it three ways or wo we ruce ways if there's jst wo of us: It can be anywhere from you mow ten bucks on a weeknight to ike thirty bucks on the weekend. Ob, Coal ‘Store pau. (Sem) ave See? Tes fine, Soi’ lke a per diem? Avwha? 'No, Ub, Well Kind of Its kindof like a per diem Ie just Steve doesn’t now aboutit. A eid pow, Steve doesn't give ito us? ase looks at Sam. Sam rerugle tf the righty 10 ‘When we... when we take the tickets, we just kind of... you Jnow wien you tear them in half nd put the ater half inthe / bin, well— Yeah, Sue.‘Wel, sometimes we take like, uh like ten percent of those stubs, and we, uh, we, wh, we, ub resell them, A pause ‘And then we take ten percent of the, ub the, ub. Cash forthe night, ‘As Dinner Money. We calc Dinner Money. Wall i #knd of dinner money, because we're so vastly under paid and because Steve is a total douchehag and doesn't hive a credic card machine andi ik totally fishy anyway with his Finances and basically ha ike no idea how to un a movie chester A pase So actully i ke itis dinner money. Because $8.25 an hours nat enough to lve on, ‘You've never been caught? [No, it like alike a ike an employee wadition? Roberro—ihe _2uy who tained me—he told me about i and the people who “ TWeFuse worked here before him told bm aboutit and like nobody has ever been caught or like even been close to being caught. Because Steve is justlke... heb an idiot. He can like suck my cock Avery lak at Sar. Sam is embarrased. Uh. ..50 what are you guys asking me? guess we're not asking Because I don’ really want to you anything, doit Butyoucan'... itknot You don'thave todo anything! up to you to decide! 1 deal withthe tckers! You just ge alf the money! 1 don't wan to take Steve’ mane. ay, see, I don’ chink of it as Steves money. Steve is ike 2 compulsive gambler who doesa't pay child support. He has like five kids somewhere in like Maine and his exwife is Always taking him to court A long pe. 1 don’t want the money. I'm not gonna like rat you guys out bur, no, I'm sory, I could tall he didn't really want ro hice & black guy anyway and /T'm not gonna—WHOA! Realy?! Steve is a racist! Tdon'tknow, okay? Thats /what Pax— ‘That's so lame. That's so lame. He suc fucking rac. Tom not saying .. Pm just... he’ like an older angry white dade with a ruck and lke... just one of those things. ‘where ike if something goes wrong... A very long, uncomfortable pause To's fel vat way. Pew, Wai, what? Another weird pase (Can jue say... guess just wane to say tha, ub, Roberto, Roberto was Hispa—Latino? [And uh nothing ever happened. Nothing bad ever happened to him, Silence. very wales dons ais ssn the front res, and puts Dis bead in bis bands, They watch bm Afra sean, be cakes off i gases, ie them of on bis pal hire, pts them bak on, and hen pus bis ean bi bande again ‘Som and Roce sates bid ti and then start mouthing panicky ier bigs teach ater Maybe Ree i mohing ake WHAT ‘DO WE DOV?! HE'S GONNA TELL ON US! and Sams mouth- ing stuf ike ITS COOL IT'S COOL PLL TALK TO HIM ITS (GONNA BE COOL but shun’ realy beable o read their lis and maybe the conte, itsmre ji ke sual genre fp. ‘oem they go back 9 aching Avery, tbo 3 woming Bs ea 1f you hae ike— fies ike an ethical you know— You could always uh. He rail off. Another silence Listen. Avery. dont want tobe like a total eane about this and I don't want to put you in crappy position. ‘But fme and Sam are doing it and you're not it’ like ie like not fir eo anybody. Like it like relly bad for everyone involved. A few scons ltr, Avery sands wp, shakes bis bead asf clea ‘and pcs bis ands om bibs Yeah Otay. Fine Pre, ost ‘Wit, what does /hat—Ws fine ‘Tl take—TU do whatever, 188 coo Sorry 1 didn mean to like 1 didn't mean to freak you guys out. Or be judgmental. (bans) Sony. Yeah. Tm okay with it. They sare at bi _Helaughs nerouly, Seriously Tm fine, Sorry Rate and Sam exchenge a lng lak Then - Allright, boys. Pi gonna go take a nap inthe booth ‘Wake me up a ve til ‘She eves, Sam laos at Avery. Ave finaly sande up. They resone rowing. After litle while: Richard Pryor and Angelina Jol Blackout ‘ENE FOUR ‘Sar and Avery aren the middle of eoepng. Avery ie swhialng 9 Dine Le Tonle” from Jles an Jim). fer ab nate: You know what hate the mos? Avery stops wien Tes one thing if T sold you the food. Ics one thing if you you now legtimarlypurcated the food frm me snd then leave ili seared aeos the Boor Butte SNEAK FOOD IN... ct “To sneak ouside fod in and THEN to like seater aross the floor and leave empty bags of. (he if wy the bap) Sun Chipeon your eat. “That [do no understand.eelthe opposite \Whatdo you mean? Tt feds so weird when I oldie to them. It like, I gave you. ‘hat popcorn, [like scooped it out myself and puttin the bag snd hunded itto you and you paid me and sud thankyou. And ‘ow ill over the floor Hah, ‘With the Sun Chips it ike. es just rela ier Inceresing. Interesting perspective. ‘They omnue soning. Avery resume bis wisn. Afra while (emredulous) Somcone left a shoe. Heli a shoe up inthe ir dain, Someone left a nasty misty old New Balance shoe. Do you thinkeit was intentional? Like is ita sign of gang warfare or something? No. Like do you thnk someone forgot it and lfe here with fone shoe on (Or do you think they ie meant to throw it may? (estos pause) Like do we pot it inthe lost and found? Fuckno, Fuck no. Tesmell disgusting. ‘Sem lh up thesis the rac can, bldg the soe by is ace. Uch. Uch, Uch, Veh. UchUchUchUchUchUchUch “He tres the abo inthe tas ‘Then Sam races wade bis oe sirt and sath bi cllarbone My mek itches ‘They eantnuesoeeping. Aer boas twenty stds Hey. What do you wana ike ‘What do you wanns like be when you grow up? Pauam grown up. ob. ‘Yeah guess just mean /ike— ‘That’ ike che most depressing thing anyone} ever std tome. Sorry Tn iis epg. Theyempty cer das pans int the rah, On their way ut the deo: Achef SCENE FIVE Darke. The final reds fa movie. Swelling ui. Ligh from. the praetor A Dreaming Man ba say! il be end of the eet. ‘The msc end. A lath of green. A lah of white, The Hight inthe eater extomatical flicker om. A fe sons ter, Avery nd Sam come intro ted tbe ideo a comvretion. Ths tie they bave maps and large yl- ex map bucket on whece, Is te end ofthe night (ot main teri til mone the theater) 1 disagree. Lanrongly disagree [Name one. Name one grat American movie made in the—oe ener Avery nati the Dreaming Man and ps talking, ‘Toe man isin he fifo sith ros, lly lerping facing foroard. ‘Maybe bis beads suey Ksing tone side. ‘Sam and Avery tare to lan, waiting for Bim to go. The man it om ery sd of thease. Avery eventually als over looks at be ‘man, and ses thas bes alep. Avery ion’ sare what to do. He ger tes for Sam come ever: Sam comes ever. (othe man) Excuse me, {The man deen move or wake wp, ‘Sm pokes bis shoulder, ltd to aggresive ‘Toe man jolts ake and sare a them. “The movie is over Ob, Soy. Sam was back obs side of he theater and renames deaing Aucry remains sending in tess, oling bitmap are of ‘wht toda Te ma ope the ep from Bs ees, may sarces for someting on fer, gathers bis things, end the oper nt making ee contac. He els op he ide, ed ved end at tbe dhe sla bind bi ‘A pee, thr ‘Avatar! Avatar was 2 great movie made in the las ten years Tes whee! ‘eck More incredulous passing, Olay. Uh. Ifyou think that, if you actully dink that, can't even ie... Teant even ike continue to have this convertion. [Ifyou acualy think that I need to Like quit this job ‘Avatar was great movie, Pout ‘Avatar was a work of genius! Teant even. .Fean'teven Words ae fling me (Oh so lke oh so you think you're ike beter chan Avatar. Like you're bore Avatar. No.I/just— Because Tbet you really fucking enjoyed Avatar I bet you had a blast at Avatar. And now you're like looking down your nose at Avatar because it didn’t have ike German subtle or phat- 1 repeat I don’ think it possible for me to engage in like a rational debate with you about it 6(Oh come on. 1 ike iT std: Love ling babies. Let me like ty to com vince you why killing abies fan and you should enjoy Sill- ing babies ‘They ge back to mapping. Untied by them, Rese appears in the _projecion both, cleaning wp, remaving te fm. ‘Silence for awhile, then finaly, unable to elpbimslf Tewas video game. Excuse me? Avatar was basialy like a video game. Iewas nora video game A video game ie interactive. video game is defined by the fae thatyou're...thatyou'e..- moving on) Tewas3-D. That was fucking awesome. Did you seit in 3-D? Ub-bub. 1 just like different and that like scares you. People aways ‘eak out when ike you now when like ar forms move forward. were ‘Thats not the areform moving forward. ‘That the ar forma ‘moving backwards, 3-D was around ia like the 50s Roe leaves the projection both, {bought wat aly ese ooking. 1 don’ ike digi 1k where films going. ad Wall then it won'tbe film anymore Roe enters, bolding boa. Hey. Look whet found on the set. ‘Sam walk over abr and rad the title ou ods “Astrology and Yaur Love Life: How to Find ‘True Comat- ibility and Long-Lasting Relationships.” ‘What your sign? Uh. Leo,(Oh my god me too. Rose flips through te book, ‘What aboxt you, Avery? After ashen passe: I don't know. Excuse me? 1 don't remember. 1 don't edly care about that kind of thing. (Oh any ged. Ob my god ‘You ae soil of shit I don't belive in strology. (Okay, tha fine, but you know what your sign is. I don’t buy fora second that you don't know what your signi. Pease ‘rue ‘Oh my god Avery! ‘Don't even ty to pretend with me chat you dout know what / your— ‘Capricora. + Thank you, a She trot ak asin Hey Rose. at (i ting tregh the bt) ‘Avery thinks there hasnt been a single great movie made in the pas ten years. Single great Amerson movie. il fiping) Uh-huh. ‘And I think he's wrong.(io Sem) lp Fiction was the lst rly great American movieand that vwas'94, You have to do some oft for Rose. No, Do what? He has like all of Pulp Fiction memorized and he ca /ike— Nope. Do Ezekiel 25:17! No way, Go Row) Hie does the most ike increible Samuel . Jackon imitation (Gna bordering-om-afesive vie) ‘THE PATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHER IS BESET ON ALL SIDES BY THE TYRANNY OF THE WEAK" ese ees Avery dbo ‘we FunK ‘That’ not how it goes. a Ape What tou Millon Dollar Baby? ‘What about it. ar ‘hatha gratmorin That isnoee preatmovie, reyes fimsnob, “Tree of Life? aH A grim silence. Sam shakes bic bead, embers. (Oh boy. You both hate ‘Tee of Life Olay. Sam and Avery, 'm gonna read you your compatible, [es me and Avery's compatibility too because im aso a Leo. Magnoliat ‘There Will Be Blood,oe once "Those are good movies, Very good movies Bur ulimately disappointing. Lord ofthe Rings! Return ofthe King! ‘Are you kidding me? Uh oh uh uh ‘The third Bourne movie! ‘The Bourne Ulimatum! “This ia poinuess debate ‘Oh come on! “Those Bourne movies are lke like like fine wines! Avery shakes bis bead. Un... The Aviator! Wait. Never mind. (eaing lt) “Leo and Capricorn.” "es hard to make this combination of pertonates workin long-term love relaonship oh, Soy uy We Fuk (rolling bis ee) Hab “Orderly and organized, Capricorn is Likely ea disapprove of ‘Leo's exuberance and spontaneity. Leo has a bad temper but is quick to forgive and forget; Capricorn is more even-tempered but can hold a gradge for yeas. Capricorn is also the more ‘devoted parener and Leos tnd to havea wandering eye. Most ‘ofall, Capricorn and Leo are not sexually compatible. They are both dominators and yer almost complete opposites. Pra- dent practical Capricorn is often a bit ofa snob and fly / (OH MY GOD! TJUST SAID HE WAS A SNOB? AVERY IJUST CALLED YOU A SNOE! Ub-hub, «often a bit of 2 snob and Girly conservative, and will probably ty to tamp down Leo's adventurous and impetuous personality” ‘Uh. «what else. blah bbh bah “Capricorn is an Earth sign and Leo is a Fire sign... tean ‘ake Capricorn a while to open up his/her hear but once Cap- tricorn opens it he/she is extremely loyal ... but ie will be very. Dhar to make this marrage work. . Ooh! ‘Wait There’ ¢ “Business and Career section"!“That's probably more relevant. “Business and Career” Hey! “The career connection between Leo and Capricom is fantastic"! “They are both exited lea frm one another. Usually one partner has more experience and wil su the ater the ropes” ‘Ste oaks up and grins = Whoa ‘Thats weird, ‘Thacy... Acwoally Wei, “As long as there is noe a power struggle there can be an incredible and fruitful collaboration.” Uh... "Connections with the arts are fsvored"! Noll He leaks oer ber sould (Avery) Ie acral say chat! (Ghuting te bok) ‘That is awesome, you guy, ‘we rune Som sands here, nme. Soweird Soweird (parase) mean I don’ blir in that stuff but that SO WEIRD. Ary ge bck wo map. You don think thats weird?! "Het just being atypical Capricorn, Haha! Yes! Pradent and practical! Ary ec i 60 Rose, summoning up the op) Whatatouee? ‘What about us? sie ‘Leoon Leo. 7 mean, Leo with Leo,te ae Hmmm... Think the same sign together is usually a bad thing. Ieee see. “Leo and Leo.” “When this relationship is good itis very good, but when it is bad i i erribl. Leos have a very strong sex drive, so this couple will be highly compatible in bed This is kinky, pas sionate connection, but can sometimes be hard to sustain in a long-term way. These two Leos are King and Queen ofthe jungle Ie wil ether be a great love or a great rivalry. The big ‘question is: who the bos? There wil be heartfelt embraces ‘but aso egos butting heas. Compromise is key inthe fry relationship herween two Leos.” aus, Sem ir Bahing (crying to sound wires) Hub, ase cles the bak. wonder what sign Reiko ‘What our career connection? Yeah. 1'm bored. She gts up. (every) See ya later, Capricorn. ‘Werte Uh-boh, ‘She leave, Wes Anderson. Rushmore, That was 98, ‘And that is 2 good movie, bur nota Pulp Ficcion-level good Thay mop fr awit Thinkhe has 1 new one coming out this winter (bors pause) “ranino. Django Unchained. What? 1k called Django Unchained. More mopping ‘The Coen Broshers! All the Coen Brothers movies. ‘No County for Old Men. A Single... whats clled.“A Serious Man. Fargo! Fargo. First ofall, Fargo was". Second of all those ae all prety good movies, Those are Intersing movies. Bur those are not like ike ike like... profound commentaries (00 / like Do you find Rose attnctve? Paw. ‘Waite I find — Rose? Yes. Rose. fel like you guys have kind of «flirty antagonistic ban thing going on mean uh—I don't now. No, Not realy Noe rely? No. I meaa no, She... she kind of aes me uncomfortable. ed She' a lesbian anyway, s0/t— Yeah, Yeah. Do you find Rose / atte ‘Shhh. ‘They lan for while ‘Hey. Will youcome over here and look at my neck? Avery puts den bis mop and lk vert Sm. Does look wind? ‘Wall here ae all dese red blotches ba Tan el if hath Decause you've been sratching it. ‘Whac about my back. ‘My back itches too.oe oar ‘Sam urns around and ifs up the bow of is shirt Ob. Yeah, Yeah what? Yeah, There are a bunch of ed ke. ‘They're like lide rd lesions or something. Lesions? Like they're kindof red oval-shaped... Augeh! Avery ple Sam’ chr den. What? What? ‘They stated freaking me out. Great. Fucking great. [Fm gonna go lookin the bathroom. Sam exits: Avery hee mopping, by himself. He reaches the front ‘se bnacs onthe windr of the projection bob. Avery looks ‘up, Rese smiles and mo smeting be and) cn’ ndertand. enue What? ‘Ste mouths i again. ‘Wig, what? ‘Ste flaps ber band in tear aif 0 sy ‘forget abou i,” and thew oes back ro de- threading be poet. Avery continues mopping, ‘Som was back in Weird. ‘Some of them ae like sey ‘What the fuck, Have you ever had chicken pox? Yeah. Toe ‘When Iwas kd ts definitely noe chicken pox A pose, Repalsve. Avery doen't relly bo 1 respond to tie be inices mop ping bis side and then moves onto Same’ sde and keys mopping, ‘So just ds there Blackout.Avery aloe inthe theater, squatting om tbe hack ofone ofthe sats, talking to bie therapiceom bs cel phone Yeah. And thar— Yer. (ame) Yeah, (poe) Yeah, Wall How do you like do tha? How do you like ask someone to be friends with— A long pen, ‘we Fue Ubsbuh. Aad. Yeah. ‘Wall that makes me fel insecure to, Passe a "él remembered one fy deans. (pause) ve (omiling) Iida youd be apy abou at (Gaon pling att on) Wereon bree Erejone went Subway (pause) Clay. S inthe dean Te dead. Ime, eis ied And Tm in ths weird room. Which banal He ppt. ‘And thr «whole buch of banc of pale Wh jt died and wee all wag ote we you kno ore on To the ner eve, Oh And my da ser. Boos he J dled oo. And then the rom suldaly tm io my Ads sndy nd this puso bans wang ae Books on ny dad oakley wit as ISBN enn ng tnd hy ran the seaner ove lof is books za erent Ay one of th books goes lie HEEP BEEP BEEP and he ‘eter opus tnd a eam yd gogo feren And hens my ea, ‘oaave sce ‘Um. Wait. Sorry. Are you bored? Tjuse gor scared you were bored again. ‘When ia phone session Isa el ifyou're— (pa) Ubehuh. ong pene) by Un. So T'm up next. And sudéenly Tm surrounded by all dese shelves and on every selfs every move I've ever seen. And like some ae ike DVDs and others are like old VHS tapes from like the 908 and some ate even like old thirt)-ive- millimeter reels, like movie saw inthe theater. And like— yeah, Everything is there, Like ‘The Wizard of Oz, which is the ist movie Fever saw. And ike old Jim Carrey movies and the entire Criterion Collection ...and then they hand me the ISBN scanner and I realig, like, I ealine chat the way they decide whether oF not you get into heaven is throug, like, looking ata the movies yu've ever watched or ll the books you've ever read and figuring out whether there was one book ‘or movie that you truly muy loved. Like one movie tha ike symbolizes your entre if. [And I think, okay, I'm gonna be fine. Clove movies and I've seen ll dhese like awesome movies, his is gonna be no prob Jem, and I start cunning the scanner across the shelves. runt across all chse Valuza moves I watched in highschool run ‘across all he Traffut movies, and the scanner int beeping, Its weitd. 6 not recognizing anything. And then Trun ‘over Pierrot le Fou and Barry Lydon, and I've seen those movies like literally dozens of times, and it does’ beep. And we're ving post hundreds of vies. Really goal unites. Monies ike relly really love. Ard T sare getting nervous. There's ‘onlya couple shelves to go. And I ran the scanner over Andrei were Rubley and nothing happens. And then I run it over Fanay and Alexander and I an elev i bt... nahing happens. ‘And then I think to myelé I'm gong to hell T havent sruly like, loved of whstver in the sight way, T thought Idi, but didn, and Pm going to hell. And then Tmon thelas shelf moves and I've already ik completly Jostost hope this poinebu hen suldeny the scanner starts beeping and beeping and Hook athe movie that made it beep andi thi ike od ruddy VES tape of loneyaon in Vege (sic) “Honeymoon in Veg? (ones) 1 ike this erible move with Nias Cage and Sarah Jes- sica Parker from like 1989, [was obssed with i when [as ike fou T watched ie at my cousin’ tihday patty Wyle real ally bad move (pau) ‘And at ism like: what? My enti lif can be represented by Honeymoon in Vegas? Honeymooa in Vega ike the one movie T wu truly loved? But then Tm like, wai, doesnt water, Tm going to heaven {ms have done something right in my life because F'n going to besven. And that feng of ike. f ike knowing that I made the right choices, wa ike the bes esing I've ever had (long pase) Yeah ame) Yeah A long pate Oley T guess likeWell yesterday Thad this thought, vas like okay. Maybe it never gonna yet deer. ‘Maybe I'm gonna live with my da for the ees of my life and like the actual problem is jas that I'm waiting for things ro change. Like maybe I'm ost gonna be that weird depressed guy and T should just ike accept ‘nd chat be the life I get ‘And thal be okay. (log pa) Yeah (Ge laughs and rab af ears et of bse) Yeah (awe) No. That’ olay. I hinkI con wait until Tuesday (awe) Un ‘Well, Thope you're having + good vacation. Sony that you have to talk to me during it. ewes pene) No, [didnt sorry. Yeah now that as juse— Teas ike a stupid joke awe) Yeah, now that Yeah, Helms inte, Bacon SCENE SEVEN A day later Sam and Avery are sanding, bolding their brooms, in the midi ofthe aie. They are gazing up atthe tile cling, hich sane asa ona ep i it Tehappened on Sunday They tare afar awhile Bran and Rabecos are working, ik the matinee, ho hom, ho hum, there jst few people inthe audience, nd out of nowhere this huge chunk of le : (be point te gap be eling) comes crshing down and LANDS ON THE SEAT NEXT TO SOME OLD LADY.“Like two more inches tothe right and she'd be dea. “Apparently cher was plas all over her od lady sweater, Did she—she could sue, righ? Can you sue over that kindof thing? Probably. Probably. Bu Brien eke this huge charmer, ppar- cnaly Brian jus ik rad on charm and calmed her down and gave her a voucher fr like sx fee popeorms and si fre sodas which by the way e just like drew himself ona receipt or some~ thing so ifan old lady comes in witha weird cartoon that y= she gets fre popcorn ar sola give it to her no questions asked. He didn’ ven give her fee tickes? He didnt even do that. They gaze up at be ceiling fora long time. Wes liailcy. LS ulage lily [someone's gonna get illed and then what. ‘Can't he just pr in new eiling? wal ‘These are the questions anormal person would ask ‘Fuck But we're talking about Steve Steve will never spend s dime on anything. Steve would rather this place burn down than he like spend litle money to make ie safe or have a nacho machine at ‘Would that be nice? Tf'we could make those nachos with the litle cheese squrter chin Teep telling him to get one of those. ‘They go back to moeping. We haven't sold outa single show since Shumdog Millionaire. 1 pathetic. ‘They noe fr a wile. Silene ob. So, Ub went up tothe booth the other day and J uh. didn't realize there were so many old reels up there. (Ot yeah. Steve’ such a skerchball. He’ supposed to send them back to the disuibutor. And they're al like siting up there collecting dust. Some of them are relly old ‘There’ a lot of good stuff up there, Taguess,Tah... This is probably a stopid idea. But un. Twas thinking that on uh. 1 was thinking on Friday i might be fan to lke... we could lke jose stay here ater the last show and watch one or svo of (bor pans) Like Issw Goodfellas and Boogie Nights anda couple other— (werousy) Te would just be awesome to se chem onli the big sereen. TTve only watched Goodfellas on my compoter which s prety like blasphemous when you think about. (pou) I ine if ike you're bury or aot interested or whatever ‘Sam i si moeping. No. No. That sounds... thet sounds cool just uh... Tim ‘not gonna be here this weekend, Oh. Yeah. Rose wil be here if you need help with anything Seeve didat tll you? Uch, Heb an idiot. (short pause) ‘Yeah Tes not that hard with wo people. Rose will come erly and help you with setup and bor offce and stuff and then you'l just do clean-up on your ov. (Ob. Yeah. / Okay— ‘You've been here three weeks so [assumed you felt comfort- able with everything /and— (Ob, yeah. Yeah Sure Store should pay you double but ofcourse he was't So you'll just get my Dinner Money. ‘You don't need /to— 1No, that’ the way it works, Pru. Where are you going? A short and unnecessarily ocrd pause,My brothers geting married, Oh! Wow. Yeah. In Connecticut [ight outside Bridgeport (Congratulations. Yeah. And your whole familys going? Yeah, Yeah Coot (peu) Olde: oF younger? Older or younger? ‘Oh. Um. Older Yeah, He’ thiry-nine, Paws, {Do you like the woman? Wha? Do you like the woman he's marrying? ‘Uh, Yeah, Imean, I don’t know. I've never meter. oh. A long silence, daring which they go buck to cleaning. ‘Whats your brother’ name? Jone A long pause bile they hep leaning (cooly) He’ retarded,oe oar A shor, confied pou. Do you mess /ike he Like in the aetual definition ofthe word. Oh! Olay. She reardel too. “The woman ae’ marrying. Oty. "They met at this uh residential uh facility in Connecticut. ‘Cool. Cook Yeah. ‘Um. They mt like each othe lot. ‘Fuck Ist... does he have Downl/ syndrome? No. He’ just uh— He basically lke the—he basically like a tied grader. oh. Pus, Mere rocping (confeson) 1 don’t know him all hat wel, Rose enters sith ay, (Gryng to politely end the cenversaton) ‘wall ‘Next weekend maybe ‘New weckend maybe what? uh ‘We were thinking of ayingpas closing on Friday and wateh- ing Goodell, ‘Oh yeah, We ave that upetir.re sae But Sams gonna be away so Twas saying maybe / next— {i stay and watch it with you. ‘Sam, oh bas ben sanding th second re sts dow esc x ons of be reas and ce bce, (lancing oer at Sam) Oh... Ub— don't now ... maybe we should wat for Sam and then we can /all— ‘Wall we don't have to watch Goodfellas. We could watch something else. Theres Mulholland Drive. That movie is hot. And some older ones to fom before it was The Flick. Pm totally free on Friday. Lets do it. ‘Sam's faci mo lnger vil to Rae and Avery; be faces the movie sere and sores wpa it, beechingly Uh, Yeah. Sure. Okay. Hie: Look what Tike unearthed fom my close. ‘She bold up he yo Tm toally gonna bring the yo-yo back in style ‘be o-ys fora ail, siple wand dra, ‘only know how todo this theugh. Here, Letime ty. egos Avery the or and be dc omeahing of onpresie. ‘maybe be Walks the Dog? Or flips around and cates it YES! OH MY GOD!!Tloveit Avery bands back ober, Bashing ‘Where are you gonna be this weekend, Samm? (Gay, fin orcad) ++ My brothers wedding. Where?[Bridgeport Cool ‘Roe glances atthe back of Sam’ bead, clisking thet be ving ie wird and then exit. Ary gather up bis brome and dst pan and beads tword the deo. Hy. Ub. keep meaning to ask Did you ever find out what vas going on with your skin? Samm el siting and acing forcoard daring the met sesh, Yeah I went tothe doctor. (a short paw) [es called Pityriasis rosea, (@sbor paws) Tes not contagious (estore pane) Telos lke a fangus bu is not (estore pause) ‘They don't know what causes it but you ge call over your torso and titches like fuck andi ast set eight weeks, Ah man, “The good news is you only get it once in your lie ” ‘We Fue ‘He stands up and ifs up the back of is shir 0 very canst Whoa! ‘The spots make like ifthe spot are in distinctive Christ- sas tre formation you know is Pityriasis roves. ‘Wow. Wow. That looks pretty ba. ‘Sam cers bis sire egret) ‘Yeah. Is not though, ‘You want box office or refreshments? A long passe while Same cnteplaes ths Box ofce. After fees sands, Sam sly gets up and thy start te exit. together: Rose enters the projection both and we ee ber moving around in the winder, ‘Sem stands in te ase and bok p at ber Avery wits by the door ‘Som tears bis ge acy from the projection bot, and tbey lave ‘gether. The door same shut. BlackSCENE EIGHT Friday night. Darknes. The last mace is ending. The very end of he eet A flash of green. A fl of bite. The the lights come om automaticaly. We see Rae in the projection bot. After a fess Avery enter, dragging te yell mop bucket and mop. Hears deenng. He stars om bis side of the wide na mops. He encoters a lerge _poporn bog and shri ay. He mops mre. “He lances up atthe projeton bo, Rs is moving around, doing something. She secs im and pnp ber fin the ai in a “vee ganna party eure. Avery tiesto ile le moves tb otber side ofthe thewer and tare cleaning ase kuch othe wind and bul up a CD, wiggling Br ye brows. Avery shrugs and sabes bs bead, lke, “what are you saying?” Ide he projection bath (ve probaly can se ti), Rese inserts the CD ints the sound sem. ‘He ruck An extremely danceable bip-byp clase from the past decade comet ‘astng into tbe theater Maybe Jay-Z' “I Fast Wanna Lrve U.? Avery is sar. He eis to hep sueping. He's nat sre what ir bappening ase lavs the proeton both, and tm ston te hicks through the dn, grovcing othe msi. Dance Party! Avery laugh ans Rote grovces dun tbe aise. Avery bos bi bead up and don, y= ing ah suprtoe Come on! Avery shakes bis bead mo il bobbing mapper Rose roll er yes, dtepointed, but thn prceds todo ttlly svesme improv dane inthe ase and maybe coe in sme of the recs. Shet realy wild and weird and uninhibited. 1° pretty cathartic. I sould be diffrent every night. Maybe cb incorporates 4 couple maves from Bhangra andor bip-byp andlor West African lance clases from ber pat. hie las about to minutes. Avery stands in bs rs, bobbing bis bad the whale time, Finally Rese tucker bref eat. The sng i il ating, WHEW! Shera oft et dp te rein dh ie se tart ma of Te se ame omer, Aazanyway,sme oe ‘Thac was great Yeah. Whatever feel ike an idiot now, No, ne. Sorry I didn e— ‘Sorry I dda’ ike join in A weird pose. So what do you wanna do? ob. Ah, ‘We could watch a movie? On ‘You wanna get toned? ‘Ah... no, Thank yo. You sure? Yes. gecreally. .. getrelly freaked our I ge really angry ‘we FUER Avvesome, No. Not awesome. Ike sit in comer and refuse to talk to anyone. (abort passe) ‘The las time I smoked pot ie was the end of freshman year at this like huge parry and I like found this guys collection ‘of Calvin and Hobbes and st in is closet and read them all _night and if peopl tried to talk to me Iwas like: LEAVE ME, ‘THE FUCK ALONE! ‘You goto Clark, right? ‘Yeah. Well. I took this past semester off. But yeah Expensive, Tecrually havea fee ride tae son [My dad teaches there, He head ofhis department, so— ‘What does he teach?oe sac Uh, Linguistic... Semiotics have no idea what chat i. (eying aug) Yeah went to Fitchburg State. Cool Cool ‘You sil ive at home? ‘Oh, Well Yeah. For now while Pm taking ie of fom Clark, bbut when Igo back /Tl— Pm nor judging. I ved we hoe und Twas wenty-o (pau) ‘Som sil lives at home, He does? Yeah, we ruce Huh, ‘When he first stated working here he had this like super- controling gcfriend and thinkhe lived with heria like Athol ‘or something? She would like show up and ike give me these insane parmoid loots. You know; le one of those women who’ always lke: “are you gonna steal my boyfiend?!” ‘And then they broke up—I thnk he broke up with her?—and Ihe moved back in with his parens. He lives in the atte or something. Hu guess he like... he doesn tell mea lot. He seems prety private Yeah. Het weied. mean, Hike him alot. eal Tasca, me 90, Pause Did you know that his brother is retarded? WHAT?!une oxen ‘Yeah, Oh, Maybe I shoulda'thave told you that REALLY?! {mean is nota big del eid mar now that Pause Like how is he reared? Tdon'e know, mean, I chink he’ jst um. (pau) 1 chink he just retarded. Pause My ex-boyfriend had a cousin with Down syndrome and she alivays liked to ash people her tis. Like I went to their family reunion this one summer and she like fashed me her tts ike seventeen times. ‘And I would be ike: “awesome, Ruth, thank you" and T would tay not to lik stare at her like weird nipples. A long pose, abi Avery des 2 maber of mental calcalatons ‘We Fuck sean Your ex boyfriend? Yeah. Huh, ‘For some reason [uh Think someone told me that you were, ub... [think someone tld me that you were gay: Oh. No. mean, whatever, I've been with gris a couple times. Butno, Long werd pause. ‘You wanna watch a move? (relieved) - Yeah! Yes. Definitely, Hey. Uh, Woald you ever show me how to we the projector? 1s jostle shity old thitry-fve-mil,No, no... like. hat why Twaned to workere. This ‘sone ofthe only theaters leftin Worcester County that has— yeah. I'm obsessed with fm, and like old T actully refased 9 work at any ofthe theaters that just do digial But everything’ gonna be digit. In like six months. Seri- ously, Steve isan idiot. IPhe doesn go digital or sel this place inthe nex year il shut down. Yeah, Tike. guess disagree, Or like, Think that relly immoral Whaeist Projecting a movie made on flim through a digital projector dunno. (hort pause) ‘mean, I guess I personally lke ike apart from this job never goto the movies. (ore paws) Vm kind of over movies. (bore pause) used eo be super into them but now I'm over them. This is al realy depressing Avery. ‘We ruck You're totally obsessed with them, arent you? Yeah. Imem. ‘They're lke my lie Hub, A shor paws: ‘Well, show you how to doit You can il infor me when Pm sik or whatever and then eventually Stev'll promote you. Seriously? ‘Yeah. Sure. Samm keeps bugging me to show him how todo it ‘but I bet you'd be better cuz you're so obsessed with it. se starts walking up thease, Avery rye back, gill, thinking of Sem. ‘She tars around. Come on! Helles. They leave he heater disappear fr abo fifteen rend aud hen reappear in the winds of the projection bth. They move around, hen dsapear, ten reappear with a giant rel offiThrough he snd, serach Rase teach Avery bow to thread the psec He probaly dei bimself abil be watces and provides Incr Hei ming. They ih treading the prot They tur tom A move begins ese the green light, then Blacknes, then the opening ee sequence, mc Ie the i-mate omg opening cedi-sequence mae from Te Wild Bunch Aver watches te beginning ofthe moi hit face aban reed wp against the projection both winds, and then be and Ras exit and conn trough be theater deo again oar doen't bie ees off he sren while be walks down the ie, He inde the third ro, tage lft and sits inthe center ‘Re iirc bir and tnt 2 bin ‘They watch the movie for abou frye rons ‘Then Res ery sy sar er fe and sat Avery. He nts this ut consnues watching the sven, arempting 1 appar nonchalant. Bes hep eng ot Avery. Avery er loking ot the en After ail, Rave ams evr and kses Avery’ nek “Avery is frozen, sil watching the movie. He doesnot me 099. Roce kp ing Avery neck, conterpates bling bisa, decides gains tad gut back woking at bm Avery hee asbing the movie. Rowe take ber index finger and traces line stripes and circles on “Avery neck Then she takes er finger and rast asrigh ine dan Averys hire (or maybe se ps to make tiny ites around bir nipples. The ber band disappears from our view. Avery sill sath the ren Rose usp i pants and Begins tac bi, Avery eer touch ine and dos no take Bis yes off tbe sere ‘This got fora mateo bt somthing is clearly offend even ua Rae sly takes ber Band sway and, mortified, goes ack ro ‘batching the mie _ Avery keepe watching tbe movie. He igh ar crying. He doen Boeneually Rose gts up, walks up te ile (Avery dos mot turn arena), and om rand eter ee ern he proeton bot She sats off the mace and the igh he theater eutomaticaly goo. Asif released from a spell, Avery bends coe, els om knees, and overs bis face i bom, He says this wy while Roe comes back downstairs de the ie and tn the rw crs fra bin, be ae st. A long nc. Sorry. No. Pansonry. Store pace. (Oh my god. wanna kill myself Wor: ‘Thanks Avery removes bis face from bis bands end bok at Rese. Another dong sen. ‘We can just forge that this ever happened, okay? Powe,feel ike 1 ike male you oF something. You didn’ molest me Yeah Tmanidiot (ser pause) Honesty I don't know why Teven ike did that. Twas’ planning on doing that swear to god. (eshert peu) ‘There’ something wrong with me. [No, there's something wrong with me A long sien ‘Wal are we just gonna like st here and like freak out together in silence? Because then Pd /rather— Iesjuse ‘This has happened to me Before. Pause So don't fel—please don' fel /ike— ‘me Fuck Yeah, but you werent giving me che vibe and I went for it anyway. A long pause, + So you lke— just have a hard time Sometines. ‘When ike—my mind goes blank and Ike... ‘always just thinks Td rather he watching a movie, His eles go onto is kes an bit face goer into bs ands again 16s okay, Avery. ‘be mvs aco thesis and sis nest tim again, What do you chink about when you, ike, fantasize? No rence. After «pause: Do you ever think about / guys? ‘Treally don’t want to answer these questions. ; Obs. That okayHs face i il bis Band. ase leans lac in er set, almast ‘relaxed rz, ad props ber fet up om te sat infant of oe ‘Well, I'm focked up oo. ous Yeah? Short pause Tcan'-say sttracted to anyone for longer than four months Hoh, ‘Ac frst I'm like this ike crary ammphoraniac. All want to do {slike have sex all he time. Like eight, nine times day. Whos. ‘And then ilike erally ges away and Tear ito lke this ke dead fh, ‘And then Tike fake i uni we break up Huh, A long pause Tweet ‘And you know whats even weirder? When like fantasize I just like think abot mye A short pose. Realy? ‘Yeah. Like everyone elses barry except fr me, mike rtally in focus. And Tlike look amazing. And everyone is like: holy shit ‘That gel looks so amazing. Peuse 1 really embarrassing Ton’ think eh embarrassing a all Silence. They both ae leaning bakin tbr sats mow, facing the ‘lank sven, peace, arms wuching ‘Can we jus sit here for itl while?owe ancer Yeah, Yeah, Ofcourse. A long, mcs more comfortable silence. “Tandy iv he une-yeur auuiversaty of the day Tied 9 kill ysl After 2 paces Really? Uh-hoh. Paws How did you do it? swallowed a bunch of pins Oh my god. Pans. “That work? ‘we Fue Wal. (or pase) 1 dn plan on doing it (har pane) Tewasa weird day, A long pace. Huh, Tve been like super super sad before but I've never ‘wanted to commit suicide. just like dont geet. don’ gt suicide. 1e like: aren you curious what gonna like hyphen to you? In ike the future? I'm just ike so curious about my futur. Yeah, ‘You've probably never. He decides ot sy it You know what [don't get? What Bulimia. ‘Oh my god! Tow, right?!se eae arfing eso horsible mow Te ike /the— Ie ike the worst feeling inthe world e ike being in hel, T know! Like why would you like wheter... like if you're gina lke have an eating disorder ont be anoresie. Pace. ‘This an awesome conversation. Pee almost quitmy second day working here, jus like. Teouldn’ get out of bed, The fist day was just like really awloward and I eoulda't remember anything and Tike... Thad no idea how to hold the broom— he lg ‘WE Fuex Tm serious. And then T woke up the next day and just like freaked out. I was like: [can't have a job. Pm way t00 ‘depressed. And I dda’ get outofbed and like ay there under the covers staring upat the ceiling and four rat. rlled around, ‘like watched che numbers on my alarm clock, and Twas like, I should be at The Flick by now, but I coulda't even bring myself to cll in sick. And then was like 4:05, and chen it wae 4:10, and Iwas lik chai, I ast lost my fis job give up And then—is weird—I didn't even make the dedision—but it was lke—the second I thought, like—I give up—my body started moving and like pushed the blanket off and like stood up and put on my uniform and ike walked ourde and walked to the bus and took the bus and walked in here and made up some like ie to Sam about wiry Iwas late and tht wat Alling pase So why are you depressed? ‘Are you serious? oe aa rom ‘Um, Because everything is horrible? And sad? (esbort pause) ‘And the answer to every terrible situation always seems to be like, Be Yourself, but Thave no idea what tat fucking means. Who's Myself Apparently theres some like amazing awe-some person deep down inside of me or something? Thave no fides who that guy is. 'm always faking it. And i looks to me like everyone else is faking itt. Like everyone i acting out some like stereotype of like... of, like... exactly. who you'd think they'd be. ‘And Thad one friend, one fiend, at Clary this guy from Ban ‘ladesh who was really into sculprure, and then he transferred ‘to RISD at the end of freshman year. After shore pou: ‘And my mom like. ‘Actually nevermind. A long pou Do you think Pm a stereotype? OF ie (Of ike—whatever. (Of ike what Tam. You do?! ry We ruck T guess you're right. Powe, Uch. Wait. Were you being fake? Just now? When? When you were lke... when you were going off about how everyone isso fake. Were you faking ie then? mean yes and no, es bard wo tell, guess. Yeah. ‘Tey lok up a tbe Bank sven and prop their kee pom he seas in fron of thm. Maybe Rose pce ber bad on Averys sbolder Blackou. Jeanne Morea singing “Le Tourilln® pls, roACT TWO SCENE OWE ‘hove dae orn Sa and ry cc thi side of te ie, -roecping. Sam sn be middle ofa seemingly big dramatic soy. +0 the next day we all went to see a movie, Tmean minus ‘my brother and hisgtlfriend, Wife. We weit this hage like ‘multiplex ouside of Bridgeport. What movie? ‘The new Daniel Crag thing—/ State of — ‘Was it good?atk Twas olay, Teas olay Anyway. On the way there T stopped at this Mexican takeout place chat read about online. I ike this famous Bridgeport tamale place. And shen Through the tamales into the theater You hate when / people— inow, [know. This isthe point of Tlenow, But we were in «huge burny and I didn't wane to eat them in my aunts ear ‘ause she has this like pristine like fucking Passat that she's all obsessive about and I wanted to like you know you know ‘pour the lil cups of red and green salsa all over the tamales etoeteraereter, So I decide to bring the bag of tamales with me into the movie theater. But then we cant find parking and we're you know late and there’sa weirdly long line for tickers. And we don’ actualy sit down in the theater until halfway through the previews, So after we sit down T open my like styrofoam container and getin a few delicious bites of tamale before che movie stars. Bue then I put it away. Because Tm like you know like philosophically opposed to resting your plastic bags and ike squeaking your syrofeam contsner dur- ing the actual movi. So T pu the tamales bac inthe plastic ‘bag and I put the plastie bag on the floor. And wee lke five minutes into the movie when this wornan ‘comes like ub like wadding down the ssl into the theater. ‘And this is gonna sound horrible bur she ub... shel like really realy smelly Like one ofthe smelest people lve ever ‘uh, smelled, Like she not homeless or anything, ie not u like the homeless pee smell, es more like a... kind of like it Kind oflike a chunky cheesy kindof smell? avy (Oh god. Okay. gett [And she sits right infront of ws ‘And Tam. .. am like ined entice to people’ smells ‘When Iwas kid my dad had this friend who had hlitose and Teoulda' even like be inthe same room es him, ‘Wait, Do you— Have Lever smelled bad to you? ‘You have never smelled bad to me, You promise? promise. 1 mean a couple of times I smelled your very pleasant smelling shampoo but chat. Ota. Anyway this ladys down ight in font fu nd her cheesy smell lees coming t mein ike waves and Lean focus onthe smoviandT star going erry. And my mom and Tare whisper- ™{ng aboutitand then we convince my da and my aunt and my ‘cousins that we should move seats. Andso weall getup like @ ‘punch of assholes and move ive rows bck Di you bring dhe ramen wits you? That’ theno, I didn't. Te pointe hit Twas so freaked out by not being able to pay attention to Daniel Craig and gening aay from the smelly woman tha totaly forgotall about the ‘amas. And then we watch the movie and then it ends and. the credits are rolling. And we're all coleting our things and getting ready to go when T notice thee middle-aged ladies five rows in front of me, not the smell lady, che Indies who ‘were sitting to the left of us originally and they're all geting ready go. ‘And they start walking towards che ssleand then one of them goes, *Linds, are these your?” And the other one goes, “No. “Tish, ae they yours?” And Tish or whoever is like, “No 1 didnt bring anything in." And look nd I see they're hold- ing up my bag of tamales. And then I realize: I'm that douchebag. Tm tht douchebag who brings like random weird ethnic food. into movie theater and then forgets aboaticandleavesic chee! Tam my own worst nightmare! And I sitthere paralyzed, watching them ask exch other, itis Yours? is this yours? and I'm too seared to say anything and. then eventually Linda or whoever just aks the bag and they all walk up che asl together and when they get tothe doors he thet inte track She throws itaway for me. Pause ‘wee Olay. Pease, That’ the story 1 don’ git. Tek i ke Twas dead or something. [was watching the word like go on without me. Bat if you were dead you wouldnt have lef the bag of tales / fon the— No. But Twas ike... A long po. {tall made more sense in my head, Paws Te was like a really good story in my head, Pease1 fel ike some profound lke realization and now T can't remember what the realization was. Rare enter. How vas the wedding? Oh. Tewasokay, ‘What you wear? Uh... asuit, So00e Tebink Steve eying to sell it Ty bok at ber ‘The Fick. hin he trying to sel it. Ne ‘eu ‘Teame in early yesterday and he was herewith some like busi~ rnessy guy talking about how the lobby had “promise.” Then after the guy lef was like wa the fack is going on and Steve ‘was like “T might be moving 10 Tucson.” Whos. Thet he selling i ease he can't got any distibutcrs to send him seaff anymore ‘Who would he sll ito? 1 don't know. Probably Fuckfice 500, ‘You mean Loews? AMC? Thave no idea. Huh, He can'esell it 7 ‘That would be like one ofthe saddest things ofall time. Un. 1 think the Hola is one ofthe saddest things of alltime.ewan ‘The big guys woulda bay it Tes jst one screen, Ir woulda sake financial sense, Temust bea smaller chain. Te-was just one guy with him in the lobby? Yeah. Did he say anything about going digital? Nope didn as fhe goes digital your job will be obsolete. TI be happy if sells Why? Beenuse this place is apiece of shit And Steve isa retard. “Then sb catches berelf and bases. (Sam) Sorry Paws. we FUE fm gonna go upstairs, Go Sam) Tm glad you had nice time with your family, ‘Sb leaves, Sam cocks ll of hs, frowns, them dmg someting in te rah, ‘Thats unbelievable, If they go digital I might have to ike might have to quit. ous. Tey go bac to cleaning, then: Did you tell Rose bout my brother? Pew, You / mean— ‘You know what T mean. Pow, Uh 7 Yea. Its cool eb cool. just like mentioned that to you in confidence, you know?nek Paw. Sorry 1 didn’ know. ‘You didn't know what? Powe, Did you tel her fike—what di you tell her? just sid that he was um (ase) Tm really sorry. Pose Yeah. Whatever Who cars. ‘just had lik a fackng shy weekend. hate weddings, anyway, so, Paws ‘My mother went ike way over the top Tt was disgusting. Te was like—you're the one who fucking sen hrm away and then there were like—chere were ike cookies in ie cloth bags with like my brother ad bis wif ike fucking nals stenciled on them. ‘we ruee ‘And it like, great, Mom. Now you have even more fucking creditcard debe. Powe, ‘Anu ie waslike—everyone wat ating 20 happy. Like trying so ard. ike oh this whole ackng charade is 0 fucking joyful (awe) And ike the only actualy happy people here ae reared! “The rest of ou are just miserable fucks Long pans. They seep. ‘And everyone always pretends like the catering is s0 good! Like ob my god the food is so god isn't it? ‘And Tm lik: i was sity! ‘Tewas shity lukewarm food cooked for 115 people! (Can't we just admit that wedding food is always a litle shies? Pau, [fever have a wedding 'm gonna ike have food trucks come and like set up outside the wedding tent and people can line Lup one hy one and order tacos. ee aver ‘Maybe lke one taco truck and then one shawarma truck.oe abcek ‘would do massive amounts of take-out Chinese. Hoh. Did you have a good time with Rose? Yeah. Sure. What'd you watch? Oh. Un. ‘The Wild Bunch Yeah. ‘She'd never seen it before. Jesus. Steve cls chis place to some like chain thal be so depressing. ‘Did you guys lke hang out afterwards? Uh A litle Why are you being weird? Di you guy like give each ther like banjos or something? ™ ‘veruk (aagbing) No! God, no. Jens. Sem. We jus talked. ‘Whar you tk about? Nothing. A pow, More roping, Oh. Thought you might be— Teturns ou she straight? Or bi, Pm not sure. Excuse me? mean, noe cht ie matters. Bur she told me that she's not lesbian, Dida’ you sy sho— ase enter, Avery forgot. (Can you cover for me for thé fst hour on Thursday? know, Pm already taking advantage of you.oe sae (quick paranoid glance at Sam) Uh. Sure. Yeah. OF course Cool (Oh, and Illegally downloaded ehat Four Nights of Dreamer You're right. Tewas amazing ‘She leave, ‘A long silence, Som ares after ber then turns to Avery and stares athim: Avery tris oy someching bust terrified Did she show you how rouse the projector? Powe, ‘Well. Iwas realy curious. mean Iwas actualy just interested in how it worked, not um in um geting promoted or anything ‘but then she said she could tran me to be the uh the uh aker~ nate and I dida fel ike Icoulé— ‘Sam picks up a balfeten bag of pcr from bis side of be the- ater, cals say ars thease ta Averys side of the theater, rips the hg open and then lings i glroucly into Avery are, poporn showering everyobere “Then be als out ofthe theater and slams te deo bind bm Avery stand there rail ‘Roe moves around inthe projection boot, treading te ext film into the projecon Blackout SCENE TWO ‘The end ofthe nigh. Sant and Avery are inthe mie of mopping. Som song Aoery the lent treatment. hy mp in teriblelene eben ncaa they each ave go sguceeout bir map nthe yelre Buc and lien the bore queesng diping sound. Then the send of he mop sopping don agains the lar Tis psn frail Ras ii the praecson bt, sing rod, indi the fm. She ames dona, ‘Shes onthe ee of telat ey, Avery de ‘She tkersome money ou and courts undernst br Sesh “Ten, ewenty, thirty, thirty-three. God.(pase) leven each. ‘Ske bande money to Avery. She walks ver to Sam and tries to band i one, but be is ferouly mopping. She puts the money down (om the arre ofthese ears 1 bm. Could one of you give mea ride home tonight? -My sstr borrowed my ca. ‘Sam continues mopping, Afra pause: (Ob. Um, My dad is picking me up. Sam? He das’ respond He cmtiner mopping. Sam, No respon But Un. gues could aschim if e'd take you back to Boylston. Sam. ‘What the fuck. ‘Sam mops some more. Then be walks oer tothe mep bucket. He ‘syncezes the mop in the mop bucker with rend poser. Then be in iin he water and equccesit again. ‘Rese and very watch bio d bis. Save dcr mot take bse off the nop when be finaly sy: quiet) ‘Why'd you show Avery how to use the projector: Paws ‘What the fuck s wrong wit you. un. Tm gonna goto the bathroom. Avery wasup the ile and ezes. Ras lookng t Sam, Sam is staring into the dey mop water. ida’ know you /wanted— Yes, Yes you did. [Pye been working here for almost rice aslong a you and you know Steve only promored you first because he thinks you'r hot. ‘And three months ago asked you ifyou would train / me and ‘you sid— Fes Olay. Okay. ‘You're right. Tmsony.a ‘Do you know how humiliating i isto be working with like twenty somethings who are rising inthe ranks of your shitty job faster than you are? Pause Tm sory Te was seupid, I wasn chinking. 1 juse— Tan train you too, Then if get sick you can / tke rarns— No. No way. Tm not interested anymore. Pee No facking way. Oke. Pause. Sam is starting look i So. What. ‘Are you gonna like hate my gus now? Afr «pans: ‘wert quiets) Oh god. Whats going on? Tiel sick, Teel ike Pm gonna Oh my god. “He ss dea in one of te fons rows and faces the movie sen, sony from Rose Sam, Silence, just... ean stand it Teant doit anymore. Paw ‘ek making me nauseous [es making me sick. (shor passe) alike breaking out in fcking ass, have no idea what you’ aking about. ‘You don't?Pose, Realy? A len silence, 1 ike—I facking lore you. Pease, Samir sil ooking out athe movie sen. 1 don’: even know why: ‘You're like 1 see all hese things that are wrong with you. uci like Pew es really bad. 1s realy bad, Te not ike 2— le goes way beyond the word “crash,” o ike— want to lke Tean'sleep. mean, I haven't rally slept for lke the past year and a half. And then when Ido sleep I dream about you. And you're like talking to me. Or lke focking some other guy. Or standing jn front of mein like motel oom like brushing your teth. (stort pause) 1 never been like this before. [valle down the street and ll Tm thinking ist ‘we rune Rose Rose. Rose. Ti ike the facking soundkerack to my lif Just your name makes me like Silene Te pictured saying this to you. ‘Ve pictured saying it so many times, Pans, He does mot urn around. bey are bth very il So what do you wan? Pa He isi facing rood What do you mean? Like what do you thinks gonna happen now? Pau don't know, Pus. T guess just. guess Tneeded to ge it off my ches. aowe ec Buti this the kind ofthing where you want the person to love ‘you back or you actully secrely din’ want them to love you back? ews ‘That’ a good question. Because it sore of sems ike ichas nothing todo with me, Like me me, You know? ous, Sam’ bear bres, ‘That not how I wanted to seem, Be. ‘Thats not how I wanted to be. Roce igh a lg, sd igh Like Like even right now. I’sike you're performing or something. Pas, Tm not performing. Posse. ‘Tm not performing. So tur around and look at me. Pouce. (eae sarting to bri in is 9) ‘Do you lite me back? (Oh my ged. ous ‘Would you plese just rum around? ‘Som shabu bis Bead mo. Sem. He shakes bis bead mo again. You're setiousl not going to turn around and lookeat me? He dosnt tar around. You don'tknow me,{Lie for whatever reason you lke me...i notlike im ot like like that al (estore pane) “Trostme (ashor pos) hay? Avery burt through the do, trying nat to dry beac. Rose and Sam stand up. Ob my god Thay ara bi. Someone roka Someone took a shit onthe floor ofthe men’ bathroom and hey “Heicbon oer And they spread itll over the— Wall over the walls and ie— He tries to beat 1 just poked. ust puked on the floor ofthe bathroom. feel like Pm gonna— ‘Sam oals up tbe aise and takes Averys arm. re ruex You gots sit down. ‘You gota st down and put your head berween your knees, Avery sits dom and pus bis bead berwen bie ke. sa ‘You gota breathe. “Tike deep breaths. Oh goa. T’m gonna take care oft He grabeshe mop. You just take i easy, The. No. No. (my) You stay here and you watch him and you get him water. 'm gonna take eare of i. ‘You're gonna have to [Now my puke isall ove the place. @(bis bead sineing) Tm so sony Are you sill mad at me? Is fine. Tm not mad atyou, Is everywhere. Why would somebody d that? us happens. ‘This kind of thing happens in movie theaters Fm gonna deal with it Butyou have sucha sensitive sense of smell! Avery. Don't worry aboutit. Ym totally cool with puke. Tm toally cool with shit. Pm gonna take care oft ‘Sam walks wp thease tard the doe. Before exiting be scaly thre the mop up into tear lke rood. Tm taking care of it And be ext Avery bends ver and breathes. Rosewater bi ‘we rubK ‘You wanta cup of water? Yeah (be breathes) ‘That would be great. ‘Ske watches bi fora whi very Please don el Sam about what happened the other night. Ofcourse. Irmesn. You don’ ether. Can sil fil in for you on Thursday night? ‘She concider tic Til make it work. Penssae oe Sometimes I worry that there's something realy, really wrong swith me, But that I'l never know exacly what itis. un "No. You're fine Really? Yeah, Peue Til geryou some water. Roe walls tof he seater ge water Blackout SCENE THREE ‘Sam and Avery, mid-walktrough. Ras isin the projection boot, ‘ming around. Occasionally she ops and ries to casually per out ahem. Have you seen this video everyone is puting up on Facebook? ‘The one where the water boule stars talking back wo the ‘woman? Uh... no. Tm not on Facebook. Pau,‘Thats funny. Iooked for you once and couldn’ find you. But then I thought that maybe you were “invisible.” mean, if was on Facebook we would be Facebook friends. T mean, I would've feiended you by now. dure. Sure. Poe ‘What the objection to Facebook? ‘Acrully. Never mind. I'm tired of hearing the objections to Facebook. ‘The go back 0 sesping. Theme Twas onit- Fora lide while. When Iwasa freshman. But then iy mom got on it because I was on it and she seared recon necting with all her frends from high school and then she reconnected with her high school boyfriend and they stared vwiting each other eters and then she lft my dad for him. Powe, ‘Wisi, seriously? Yeah. She moved to Atlant year anda half ago. Tobe with him. me we Fue “To be with her high school sweetheart?! Yor. A shor passe How do you feel about that! ‘mean. She like. seb like a terrible person. ‘Thats how Lfeel about it. “Have you visited her there? Nope. You haven't seen your mother for a year and alP! She came back. A year ago, To visits When Tike... when a bbunch of eu happened in our family. Bu didn’ want to ale to her I didn't even want to ike lok athe, Pease Whos. Whoa.Pause. Tey soe. ‘For some reason I pictured that you came ftom alike perfect family. ‘That like everyone in your family is super close and ‘happy and tha you all like wear the same glasses. Uh.No. Pm the only one with glasses. Pee ‘You probably should go vist her at some point Pm not interested. ‘They noe for ail. Them Sam wakes bc iPhone oof bis back pocket ond fide with i. Then be lok ever at Avery. ‘So you wanna see this? Avery nade, thn walks overt Sam. Sam bols tbe phone extn rane of Avery and press play. We bear te faint mies of tbe video ‘he connot male out anything cneee, Olay. Just. Keep watching. Te gts fanny in ike ffeen seconds. Fifcenweonds pass. A grin spreads acres: Avery’ face. Same mart gia Right? ‘Abba ba ba! Avery noe and gine and maybe silently sakes eh ie eughter The video continues. ‘They watch fora fs more seconds and shen Sava hesve a satisfied sigh takes the phone, and pati back nbz peke. ‘Thay bead n tei sara sds of the aie Race ocs om the indo of be projecion ont, ecery looks wp. Sam doesn. Rose wavs. Avery ave back and gos back roeep- {ng Rse looks as Sam, She kncks onthe wind again. Same dos at ook up. Blackout.‘Sam and Avery sit wit heir broamson cite side of be ile. Avery asa meth fle eter in bit band hat be is abot t read ut lad. Olay. Ready. ‘Actually. Wait What? I listen to ts you have to do Feekiel 25:17 for me one its Uch Fine, (Great. Tm ready, sets “Dear Mr. Saranse, _My name is Avery Sharpe and Iam ar employee at the North Brookfield Fick. T recently eared of your plans to buy Te Flick and tur ie ino the North Brookfield ‘Venue’ I commend you on your keen business sense and your entrepreneurial...” Tm sil ying to figure ou the right word to use. “Entrepre~ reurial...” Embarkings? Entrepreneurial embaslings? ‘That doesn't make sense. Spine? “Lcommend you on your keen busines sense and your entre~ reneutal spirit” ike tha. don't now. Ise want be you know, nice/ before Sure, Sureae wae “Teommend you on your etcerera etcetera, Steve Bosco also informed me and the rest of The Flick employees that you ‘intend to keep us on if we so desire and that you~" Wait “if we so desire” sounds alle gay. ‘What does that mean? Iesounds gy, (ina British ascent) "if we so desire.” ‘That's British accent Do you mean it sounds British? Same thing Paws. ‘Sand that you alo plan on replacing our shiny-five- nillimeter Century projector with digital projector. Tunder- stand you may have many good reasons behind this decision — fewer maintenance foes, simpler training for new projetion~ ists the unavoidable fact vhat many movies are now shot digi tally, and, ofcourse, the desire to keep working with compa- nis like 20th Century Fox who starting in January will refase to distribute any oftheir movies on ciry-five-milimeter im" Paws ‘We ruce “Hsever™ Haba! “However Turge youto think ewice about this decision. You are the only theater in Worcester County, and one of only cight theaters inthe entire state of Massachusetts that still se 1 film projector. This an honor, Me. Saranac. You are cary ing torch and I strongly encourage you not to extinguish it.” Nice “Movie aficionados ike myself come to this theater because of your film projector. And as more and more movie theaters in the United States convert to digital prjection I predict that the rave few that continue o use film wll become highly val- ‘ved. You see, Mr Saranac, the word ‘ln’ refers wo celluloid So ifyou say, ‘Wanna see the new Spielberg fm?” you ae by ‘efnition saying, ‘Wanna see the new Spielberg movie! om s- ‘ulsid. By the way, people ike Steven Spielberg have spoken ‘ot about tis wary issue and hei om the record a saying that ‘he will continue to shoot on thirty-fve-millimeter unl they pry the camera out of his cold, dead hands.” Wait. He sid that? ‘Wall, noe the cold, dead hands part. That / joke, ®‘we wae “Too much, Take tout Really? ‘Yea. Iejust makes you sound cary. Olay. “He will continue to shoot on thiry-fve-milieter” blahblahblah. “Because of people like Mr. Spielberg and many others who WILL continue to shoot on film, it important that there sl be afew remaining theaters that use film pro- jets. When you digitally project a movie that was shot on fim, you are not actually showing that movi. You are notgiv- ing the audience what they paid for.” ‘Nice, Powerful. “Film can express things that computers neve wil Film is 2 series of photographs separated by split seconds of darkness. Film is ight and shadow and its the ight and shadow that were there onthe day you shot the film.” Pau “Digit movies think che phrase digital film is an ‘oxymoron-—are actully just milins of tiny dots. These dots, ‘or pixels, cannot express the variation in color and texture that film can. All the dots are exaciy the sume size andthe same distance spare ‘we ruck ‘Mr Saranac, projecting a thicty-sive-milimeter fiz digitally is lke looking ata postard of the Mona Liss instead of the ‘Mona Lisa itself Turge you to keep our beloved Century projector and to take 4 stand agains the digital takeover of American movies and ‘movie theaters, Sincerely, Avery Newton Sharpe.” Pout. Midale mame Newton, ‘Yup. Don’t make fn of me would never, ‘My middle nameis Gruber. Powe, I thinkith« good eres. ‘You do? do. Something sboutitis realy... Whae,1 don't know. Tes like something someme would write ina movi. Imean, ike the hero of the move. He'd like bring it to Washington and go like running dowa the corridor ofthe courthouse and ike stop to kis the love of his ie and she'd say, like, you know, GO FOR TT, and then he'd run into the ‘courtroom and read this lene in front ofthe judge. ‘And what would the judge sy? ‘You know. "Oa this day ofall other days...” “We have learned..." “Tam humbled to admit thateven in myold age Team...” ‘You know: "This young man has ght us the true meaning of Chrismas.” tay. Cool Powe, Did F convince you? Pew, Oh. Him. Good question. Pause You know, I guess I don' really care ether way. Blackout "The igh tbe beter are comple diferent. ax fal he bull ‘bev changed their wattage, gone uorscent, or swcd lation ‘Sam and Rose ar iting om diferent sider ofthe aie, They are ‘ath searing new wniforms.A yells polo shirt insted of a maroon one, or vce vera, Now the words "Te Venue” ae sized om thir poekes, ‘Rowe and Same ar wating for something. After sien: ‘He sai I couldn't wear my Red Sox exp anymore, Seriously? Fae ‘Ub-buh. And Iwas ike, Paul, we live in Massachusexs, Ie isn't like alike a controversial at.oe sak And? He dida'e go fort. After a sien So how are you? Tokay. Paw. ‘My roommate lef this like long pusive-aggressive note on my bedroom door this morning. Ie wa like seven Post-It long. [And she has this really annoying handwriting. Anyway, whatever Afr apse: “How are you? [have no idea how route / like — Ym olay Powe, ‘Whae—what’ new? We Fuck Not much, went ona date lastnight (Oh yeah? With Hke— Was ita first date? Tewas fire date ‘Was tan internet date? ‘ewas an inceret date, And? Tike hes ‘She was actually pretty cool Powe “Tiler. With ani.sate a Powe “What does she do? Fe Well. ‘a At the moment she i tri Okay. fe but she also sort of um paresime low-fying rape ast, Oh wow. Poe So she must have lke a relly great body. Past. she like a rapene ari. ‘Som sighs Afra chore pou Why do you have tobe o crude? we ruck What do / you Like, you're always lite, you know, talking about you know, fob, yeah, he had a huge coek, oF lke, oF Ike, se’ lke se ike—wowr she must hive a nice pussy or something. have never sid anything about anyone having a nice pussy infront of yo. You know. You know what I mean, ‘You must be thinking shout Tiler and her nice pussy because never said / anything abour— have been on one date with Tier! have never even kiss Tiler! Pest Whatever, Look, you... you've nade i clear that you're not interested Sol don'tunderstind why you can't havea lide like you know pity on me and /Tike— ‘You woulda' look at me!oe oacer What does—whar docs—why does—wait—vhar does that have toda with—ohy are you—ehatis ike / completely — You dida'z even give me a/ chance to— You ssid that T didn't know you! And that... chat you were nothing lke the person I thought you vere! So— So that true! Pow, ‘So that face! Pause But ike... that doesnt mean you bare to run ovt and start like inrernet-dating and lke forget all sbout me. Like ob yesh, you must be really in love with someone ifyou like do that So—so—s0—s0 what ae you— Do you like want co go out on a date or something? Pout No! ‘SO WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?! Poe Tm jos saying tha was right. Th like a big performance. That ll jewnslike a... vhatiewas. Pus Lean below this ean believe this. “This doesn’ make any sense Pause ‘You want me to / lke— Jostlike GET TO KNOW ME! Tean' get to know you if7ou keep acting like a. like ikea. Hke a— What Sayit Sayit.soe oan Never mind, ‘You think I'm like a toa bitch. Paws Right?! He don’ respond. You like totally ate me now. So just say it Avery wells im alin mew uniform He ks deeply shaken. Tey fll sient. Hey, How'd it go? Uh Wal He told me I coulda’ wear my Red Sox cap anymore. Ob. That sucks Te Fee He's gota weird fic, right? Pause Did he say anything about your ltr? He figured ont Dinner Money. Wit, what? He figuredivout, He looked atthe books and looked atthe receipts and lke— apparently there wa ike foo much money inthe register from like last month and that lke a sign that people are stealing and then he found the shoebox with the stubs underneath / the Fuck Fuck! ‘Wait, why was he looking at che books from last month? What docs he care? He has like whole new sytem anc creditcard machine! We're not gonna steal from bm! Tguese he ike... he wanted to make sure we were good employees, of /ike—se oa Somso what was... He was mad, Powe. ‘Well, yeah, But what/ was— ‘And he thinks its me. Powe, mean, he thinks ie all me Pause Because of your letter? ‘There was a note for Sam in the box. In ay handwriting, (oSem) rom the weekend you were gone guess he recognized my handwriting? Taleo think he Passe So what did you we ruce mean, I dida'traryou guys out Rese and Sar bth ty not sh that hey ae relieved. wal. Oty. So we jst need to ub. To ub. Tou Well, Iwas thinking that you guys could gp to him and like ess up to your side of i too and like ee him that you were the ones who told me to do i in the fist place and / then le Wait. What? and then maybe he won't /ke— Wervaiwaivaiwat Hold on hold on ald on. “Leta ike stop and take a deep breath. (oes) ‘Why should we ell him we were the one: who tld yx to do- fein the fs place? Pou.Whict by the way is kind ofa um whastcalled revised way of ‘ooking ait If recall erred you were pretty happy to take Sfteen bucks from ws everynight. cate if we say that all of us were doing it and ie was like an employee tradition like you sid and chat everyone did it maybe he'll understand snd like... not fre me. Hel fe all of ws. mean, or he'l ike let it go. Pause Whoa Olay. Thavbreally intense. “That really intense thing to ask of -.. to askeus to do. Tidal on you. ‘Yeah well, that would have been ik evil Sam islet we ruck Unb, Do you have anything to say about tis? He shakes bis ead no, averting bis eyes. No? He sabe bic ead no again, Both Ary and Res lak bi, brad. oe nose A horrible, borvible silence (poliely, ro oery) Pmjustum “How much money does your dad make? Excuse me? {Tm just curious Your dad teaches semantics at Clark, right? Yeah. Semi— Yeah. [told you that “How much does he make?“That none of your business. And you have freeride, right? Pau. T don't see how— Because I sil have like twenty thousand dollars in student loans to pay off and my mom is secretary And I don’t havea rich dad My dad iste ich, And Sam isthinty-fve and he lives in a stity attic above his crazy parents ‘Sam wines but does a sy amybing, Pas ‘And thi sour ike—this nt ike a job we have while we go to college. "This is what we ike —feed ourselves with, (pawe) So I just think tae. Wow Okay. we en | just think that you should think about that A long pace. Tes jst a like really really intense thing to do to ask some= ‘one who’ super in debe and someone who dida’t even go 0 / college— quiet) Okay, Rose— —to like give up their jobs to ike defend you. Pas, Tejost makes me fel lke you don't really get Pause, Avery ust sands there, And mean, I'm realy sorry tha Pal s blaming yo. ‘That’ seally fucked up, Anutberpewse. Avery takes off bis glass, plibes them on bis shire, «and pss them back om agin 7 He puts bis hands om isis, He ses ob ating for sametbing. Finally ‘What did he say about the projector? caove ance He geting rid oft He’ going digi Pause, mall, bp) So maybe you wouldnt have wanted to stay Pau, (oon more tiny and feb) mean, maybe you would have wanted to quit anyway T remember you saying that Avery aks at Sa fra lng tim, thor nds, Tn be sly sake 1 the sce tard the door. Then be st Hey Sam Peas, Sam eke a im You wan me to do Ezekiel 25.172 Huh? You want me todo Ezekiel 25:17 for Rose? we ruce Ub. maybe. Pa not sure if now i the right / ime to— EZEKIEL 25:7. ‘THE PATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS BESET ON ALL SIDES BY THE INEQUITIES OF THE SELFISH AND THE TYRANNY OF EVIL MEN. BLESSED IS HE WHO, IN THE NAME OF CHAR- ITY AND GOOD WILL, SHEPHERDS THE WEAK ‘THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE DARKNESS. FOR HE IS TRULY HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER AND THE FINDER OF LOST CHILDREN. AND I WILL STRIKE DOWN WITH GREAT VEN- GEANCE AND FURIOUS ANGER THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO POISON AND DESTROY MY BROTH- ERS, AND YOU WILL KNOW 1 AM THE LORD WHEN TLAY MY VENGEANCE UPON YOU. Pause. Avery speaks tboughfl sadly Teen sayin that shi for year. ‘And ifyou evr heard it t meant your ass never ely querooed what ie ment 1 chong it wt ott some cold-blooded sito say to a motherfucker before you popped cap in his ae. Buc saw some shit his moming that made me think ice. (Gira peu) [Now I'm thinking: iecoud mean youre the evilman, Ac Tm therghteoos man. And Mi. Nine Millimeter here. he theshepherd procectng my righteous ass inthe valley of darkness. Orit ould be, you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and is the word that’ evl and selfish. ike that ‘Bot that shit ain’ the ru. ‘The euth is, you're the weak, ‘And 'm the tyranny of evil men. Buc Pm eya’, Ringo, Tm myn’ real ard tobe the shepherd. Hei aking at Sam, Sa lok ke be might or. After sence: That was awesome, Avery lve, Blackout ‘The theater i dark and empty. Th fim projector it om. We Bear it ‘whirring, Ie ache green, thn white then i goes off. We see Roe and Sane enter the projevon bath and turn onthe Ligh. They are wearing their news wifrms. They ae talking and ming aren in the ile lit-up winders, Tey rem tbe geting along. Maybe at ome point Rose laugh and bite Sam on th ar. Tee theaters sil dark ‘hen we watch Sam and Rote secly and methodical dicemble te film projector. They remeve te res and ten, piece by pee, they remave the fb poet from the inde and put it on the flor of the proeton both, Toe might tke aie wile. Then we wath them inal he news gal praetor I doen’ take ary lng. Thy tur tom fra seond writ. tema leving square of white lig and ben begins projet images It icon fr ‘wb, proetng images we can se, Sam and Rose lee the orth, ‘Toon the projector goe 0 green, thea white, thn darkness. The ‘igs in be move theater flicker on, nd afer about fe scons:‘he dor atthe bak ofthe mucie theater is tren pen ‘Sam peck bis ead in, looks around ben cls te dor “A scan later, the dor apes again and Sa drags in a large trash ‘an that be wero kep the dor propedspen. Then be exits again and renters carrying large pas broom and dust pan. ‘Sylar ills bi, carrying a broom and dust pam of bien, So this is the wakehrough, Premy easy, Tweruce Samm gos overt bisside of th aise anders reeping. Skylar goer ver tthe eter side ofthe aisle and sare weping. He’ gud sweeper. He accidentally kicks a lantic Coke ote and sends it roll- ing doom tbe wise Then be chaes afte i picks wp, and ram it Ick tthe rach cam mst tthe dH pny He ever faster ‘than Sem. Sam watchs bm, imprest ‘Have you worked ata movie theater before? Yeah. At Cinema World. In Leominster. ‘Oh yeah Lnow that one, Afra pose: (eying make a joke) So you're ited to the oversized polo shir. Uh-huh, ‘They len niles ra wile Did Paul or someone else go over the soda machinss wih you? Yeah. Paul did I think I gotitCook Coal (ae) Did he tlk to you about how to clean the burter dispenser? Uh I do Windex and then Tuse the almond hand soap in the bath- Oh. Okay, Army ol job we jus: Windexed and then rinsed it of After ashore pause Yeah, would ry the almoad hand soap to, Okay. Coal. ‘They hep cleaning Whatelse, What es. After a pause ‘WEL For some reason people don't se the garbage an underneath the island... the butter and stws island... i juste like constructed badly. I didn't weed to— ‘Anyway, people think there’ n> garbage s0 they like leave all their suaw wrappers and staff on the island so T ty to you know swing by there afew ses before the movie starts tnd lke brush all the wrappers and like popcorn kernels oF ‘whatever int the tas. Olay. Pou ‘There used to be three of us werking at ime including the ‘projectionist bur now it justewo, One of us goes up and presses play when i ime forthe movie vo start Ie prety easy. [fyou're working tthe same tine as Rose you should prob- ably let her do ie Olay. Pause sa We used to... Rose sed to like splice together the prevows. 1Wow. Yeah. ‘They roeep fora while. About ren) eonds of roeeping as. Sly lar finishes noeping bre Sam, He wait pavenl in font ofthe {first re. He looks out atthe movie een. After alte whl, be ‘walk up othe move een, at be ip of the stage, and then reaches ct and lightly touches the move sereen. Sam nates ined ‘Whoa. Whatare you doing? (backing say) Ob, Sorry. No. Just—why did you do that? Idan’ know: Sorry. Afi pase: [always have thie urge to like. 1 always jst kindof want to touch it Don you? scarbed) ‘Oh. Okay. Sorry. Styler wits fr Sam fi secping. Save fiber, smevbat ‘rely. They ead up be ile The dp chr das pans nthe srah can. Thy eit. The dora shat hind thom. Blac,seve ou Avery, in roe lathes i standing in the msde of the sie, wat- ing, Tbe door to the seater is propped open. Save, alo in sect lobes is up inthe proeton both meving ard. (alting out) ‘Are you sure hes not here? ‘Sam doc’ bear bm. He leave the oo and a few seconds Later be comes diam into the allay with a range looking piece of metal equipment, He Beaves it nts the flor Are you sure he ent gonns like come inal of sudden? Yeah, yeah. Heb away forthe weekend, ‘Trust me, ‘week ‘Sem disappears again. A fo scons Iter ese bi in te bot, sing around. He lave and then comes dew with nacber pice of equipment, He ptt don in he balby next the fr pec. Heeb not gonna notice its gone? Hie tried to sell ton eBay and nobody wanted it. So he tld sme to donate it as scrap meta. ve been saving it for you. ‘Sam disappears again. Avery wits, He hake at he movie seen fir lie wie. Them very walks nt the balay, picks up te fire pine of sipment, and lence. fr secmds ter, Same comes ron sagtin with anther pee of equipment. es becoming car that be 4s Bringing dn pees ofthe disasembled iba projector. He oks around for Avery, confused fe stands liter, Avery returs. Where'd you go? _My dad is waiting out font. In his car Ob. Okay, ‘Sam disappears again. Avery picks wp roo pieces and disappears again. Same comes dion again withthe ls pice of the projector A fee scnds later, Avery rearns, sping bis bands o bis pants ‘This,sue ance fay: Coo They and there fora sd Ob. Wai ‘Sam rans back wp to the proeton but. We see bie gra roo xzagonal tine. He comes back dean with them. Some of Steve's old sees. He took most ofthe good ones. But there area couple lef. Oh. Olay, Sam put cach me don om te far, reading its abel ut loud wile be dee shie Crouching Tigee Hidden Dragon Rugrats in Paris He rune back up tthe Bout, then comes back dow with roe more ny, heaving them down on the ground. Sua Trek Insurrection and Honey I Shrunk the Kids ‘Thats actally 2 prety good find You want them? ‘We were just gonna throw these out 10, ™ swe FuEK Um Yeah, Sue. Hold on. “He picks up eve of tem, ees the theater, and ther returns thirty second ter: He pick the ast containers and bls thos nt in each band, Thy are bevy, ‘So what ae you gonna do with the projector? |Ldon' now. Stare some kind of underground basement cin- Sem laugh. {Fm sore of serious Ob. Okay. Cool. “Maybe when T go ack to Clark inthe fal ' form a thiey— Sve-milimeter film sociey. I don'tknow. (Own my own theter some da. Awesome. A long poe, moe ean Look. Tob Anotber pause, Maye Avery bas put down a in because i 00 ben. Tm sory, Aven. A ps, No. I mean. Whatever. It was good for me. A passe had some kind of tpi idea thar we were fiend. And then— (in pain) (Oh goa. Let me finish. And hen ic became like very clear that we Look, everything that’s... everything that like ever hap= pened to me has disappointed me. The world keeps ‘So clearly Pm lke... clearly Ym lke puring too much fat install. Pew, ‘mean, chink the ruth s that you can’ trust anybody. m ‘we Fuck ‘That's not te. No, I don't mean tha in 2 bad way. Not like everyone is ‘untrusoworthy or something. Just ike, don't expect anything Don't expect things to sun out well inthe end. Uh... don't know if agree with cha worldview. Look, realizing that as helped me. es actually made me feel olay forthe first dime in a while, Tike let go of... Peuse Pmnotsaying I want tobe friends with you or anything. don’ (eer a sor pase) And you Know, we were never really frends in the ist place Tlet Rose show me how to use the projector Every man for himself. you know? Jesus, Avery, I chink thats the way goes. (enable tbe ime?) ‘And the truth is, one day I'll come back to visit Massachu- sets and you'll sill be here sweeping up popeor. Working: for some bigot from Nashua. And I'll be lke... 'lbe living in Pais oF something. So... you know.se sae Powe, “Thanks for thinking of me. And for saving the projector. And the fl, Pause, Avery bends dm and pick p 1 as in Do you remember the end ofthe movie Manhattan? UN Woody Allen like realizes he stil in love with Mariel Hem- lngway and he like rane dewen the eset and finds er in er doorway and she's geting ready to go to London and she's ‘brushing her har and he' ike stay herewith me or whatever, and she’ like, no, 'm leaving, and he like, but what's gonna happen? and she like: "You gota havea ie faith in people” and the musi swell up? on. Yeah, "This slike the opposite of thar ending Avery turns to go and arts alking up be ae var tbe dor Lowi. Avery Just—before you go, I know my life might seem kind of depressing to you, and you know, ina lot of ways itis But theres some good stuffin it m ere ‘Maybe I never told you aboutit, uc there's some rally good scuff in my lie Peuse ‘And sometimes the people you fll in love with fll in love ‘with you back Paws Sometimes they don't But sometimes they do. And its awe Pose And I feel ike once that happens to / you ‘Okay: Thanks forthe advice, San, Avery walks urvard he dor As be walks ot: ‘Macaulay Culkin t> Michael Caine Avery tops ond shakes bit bead na, ‘Macaulay Culkin to Michael Caine. See ya, Sam. ™Avery sal out the doo. elses bebind Bim. Sam sande in the sil of the movie tester, hie bande sud int he puke of Bi pants He sares a the dor, waiting, A very very long amount of time pot. Maybe a minute anda balf ‘Sam stands tere pation. ‘Suddenly Avery comes back in through the dor, unomilng. ‘Macaulay Culkin to Mandy Moore in Saved. ‘Sam ares int beatific grin ‘Mandy Moore to Robin Williams in License to Wed Robin Williams to Jade Law in A. Robin Williams was /in—? think was uncredited. “He was lke the voice ofthe computer robot guy. “Trost me Otay. Jode Law to Michael Caine in Sleuth ‘They lek at each ober oor ie il unomiling Easy, oo wee And with tat, Avery leaves, ‘Sam it dom in eof be as, sing to Biel (One ef tbe orchestral themes from Jules and Jim Vacances” by Georges Deleras) replying, undorcoring Sam’ mavement. ‘Sa pts bis fet up om tbe sean fame of im and lk up atthe calling ofthe mace theatr fra ile Tho be sup, ill ailing, and alls wp the aie. Right Before be exis, be flick of te light. “The tester ic paged into darks. The sun ofthe dao ching. The muscle Blackout