Sunday, August 28, 2011

Baby Boy



BABY BOY
for Tennessee Williams

INTERIOR. DAY.
A voluptuous boy, under twenty, is asleep on a bed, with the covers thrown off. This is young succulent Baby Boy McCorkle, Archie Lee’s virgin boyfriend. A sound is disturbing the kid’s sleep, an incessant, insane drilling sound, furtive as a hungry rat scratching, he stirs, it stops, he settles again, it starts again. Then he wakes, without moving, his back to the wall from which the sound comes.

INTERIOR. DAY CLOSE SHOT. BABY BOY.
Baby Boy is a little frightened of what sounds like a dirty ravenous rat in the woodwork and it still doesn’t sound like just a mere rat in the wainscoting. Then the kid gets a crafty look.

INTERIOR. DAY. FULL SHOT.
He gets up, as the awful drilling sound is continuing, and moves stealthily out of his room.

HALL. DAY. FULL SHOT.
He comes out of his room and just as stealthily opens the door to an adjoining room and peeks in.

CLOSE SHOT. BABY BOY.
Astonished and smirky at what he sees.

WHAT SHE SEES. ARCHIE LEE MEANY.
Archie is crouched over a section of broken plaster in the crummy wall, enlarging a hole between exposed boards with a penknife. Unshaven, black jowled, in sweaty pajamas. On the bed table behind him is a half-empty bottle of liquor, and old alarm clock, ticking away, a magazine called “Dirty Chicken Dream Boats” and a tube of K-Y. After a moment he removes the knife and bends to peer through the enlarged hole.

CLOSE SHOT. BABY BOY.
Baby Boy: Archie Lee. You’re a fuckin mess.

ARCHIE LEE.
He quickly gets up off his knees, pulling his pajamas up bashfully. And shamefaced.

BABY BOY.
Baby Boy: Y’know what they call people like you? Fuckin pervert Peeping Toms!!!

FULL SHOT. ARCHIE LEE’S BEDROOM.
Archie: Come in here, Baby Boy, I wanna talk to you.

Baby Boy: I know what you’re gonna say, but you can fuckin save your breath.

Archie (interrupting): We made an agreement…

Baby Boy: You promised my Big Daddy that you’d leave me alone till I was ready for marriage…

Archie: Well?

Baby Boy: Well, I’m not ready for it yet…

Archie: And I’m going crazy…

Baby Boy: Well, you can just wait…

Archie: We made an agreement that when you was twenty years old we could be man and wife in more than just in name only.

Baby Boy: Well, I won’t be twenty till November the seventh…

Archie: Which is the day after tomorrow!!!





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