Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 00:30:53 +0000 From: Daniel Keys Moran Subject: Elvis I've had some interesting e-mail the last couple of weeks ... The following needs some setup. David Gerrold teaches a writing class out at Pepperdine. I've taken it twice and sat in on it 4 or 5 other occasions. This was one of my last trips down there -- the exercise is called the "five-minute brick." You get five minutes to complete a conversation with a dead person -- to say something to them you'd have liked to have said if they were alive. It costs $500 and they won't let you talk to Elvis. Karl Martin and I performed it in front of the class ... ~~~~~ INT. A BEAT UP, DIRTY, DARK ROOM An unusually handsome man enters. His fierce intelligence and unwavering sense of purpose are evident in his demeanor. For the sake of this story, we'll call him DAN. DAN Can you believe that son of a bitch? Five hundred dollars, five measly minutes - and no famous people. Has to be someone I knew -- Christ, this is bait and switch, if I'd known I couldn't talk to Elvis, I wouldn't have come down here in the first place. Hey, buddy! How about bringing him in! Time is money, you capitalist pig bastard! A door is thrown open and a 6'2" black man, played ably by Karl Martin, is shoved into the room. Dan turns to look at his long-dead buddy, MIKE -- DAN MIKE! Buddy! MIKE Dan! Man, you're looking - older. DAN (touches bald spot) Well. You look - you know, okay, for being dead and all. How you been? MIKE (are you fucking stupid?) Dead. DAN Right. I mean, you know, besides that. MIKE In Hell. DAN Faux pas, huh? GERROLD Four minutes left! DAN Come The Revolution that son of a bitch is going to be one of the first ones up against the wall. MIKE Man, you haven't changed at all. Well, except for the hair -- how long have I been dead? DAN Six, seven years. MIKE I don't remember . . . dying. What happened to me? What was my funeral like? DAN You didn't have one. Your mom didn't want your body back so the County incinerated your ass. Mike stares at Dan. MIKE My mom didn't -- DAN Buddy, do you remember how you died? On your knees in an alleyway in Pomona. Bullet in the back of the head? Bullet came out didn't leave much left on the front, sort of -- (gestures face blooming out) -- I mean, I just heard that. I didn't see the body. Nobody did, your mom had you incinerated. MIKE Why are you doing this to me? Why did you bring me back to tell me this shit? DAN Elvis wasn't available. GERROLD Three minutes! Dan makes a gesture like he's going to go kill Gerrold - but refrains. DAN Why you? Why bring you back? Let me tell you, buddy, I felt like sneering at someone and you were the logical choice. Remember our friends? Remember Jamie? MIKE ... that chick you used to date ... DAN Died while you were in prison the first time. Smacked her car into a pylon on the 405 at 90 miles an hour. (smacks hands together) Remember Sammy Tom? Lost track of him. Promiscuous gay man, moved to San Francisco in 1980, I figure he's probably dead. Jeff's still alive, I think, I saw him on the tv -- doing a commercial for some cocaine recovery service. "Hi, I'm Jeff and I'm a cocaine addict." Like that was a news flash. MIKE Bobby? DAN Heroin overdose. MIKE Modesto? DAN Bullet. MIKE Tom Handel? DAN Good news there -- he gets out around the year 2000. I promised we'd do lunch. GERROLD Two minutes! DAN Remember? You and me were supposed to have lunch. Your mom had to call me and tell me you weren't going to be able to make it. Permanently delayed, so to speak. (turns to audience) This is a cool story -- MIKE Who are you talking to? DAN The audience -- look, never mind about that. Detail. The point is, Mike is pretty light-skinned for a black dude. One day - this is like fifteen years ago now, Mike hadn't gone to prison the first time yet - we're at the beach together and this woman walks up and wants to take a photograph of us. And we look at each other, cause this stuff doesn't happen often, not even to guys as good looking as us, and the woman says, "You're darker than he is." And I was. It was the end of summer and we were down there on Venice beach together, and I was darker than the black man I was hanging out with - I wish I had a copy of that photo. I miss you, man. GERROLD One minute! DAN I miss all of you -- all the people I was young with. Cause I'm the last one standing. I'm the one who got out. And I brought you back from the dead, you worthless son of a bitch, so that I could sneer at you. Sammy and Jamie were weak. Modesto and Bobby were weak. The world damaged them and took them out. Tom wasn't weak, but he was stupid and it caught up with him. I feel sorry for all of them. You, though -- you were strong. You were smart. You don't get any slack. (to audience) Two trips to prison. Once in the U.S., once in Mexico. The boy sold heroin. Crack. Amphetamines. Cocaine. Uppers downers floaters buzz ecstasy weed and those big pink motherfuckers that stretch you in eight directions at the same time. (back to Mike) So anyway I brought you back because I wanted to tell you something. I was better than you. I was better than all of you but you're the one I never felt sorry for. Your mother called me up and told me you got shot and I thought to myself, play with fire, you get burned. So this is it right here -- success is a matter of luck, all you gotta do is ask any failure. You were all failures . . . and it was you. You coulda been here with me right now, living nice, living large. Instead it's just me and I deserve everything I have because I FUCKING WORKED FOR IT! GERROLD Time! MIKE I'll keep a place warm for you. DAN (leans forward and kisses Mike on the cheek; whispers) Burn, baby. They turn and exit through opposite doors. GERROLD Next! The door opens and a man enters wearing dark glasses. A woman enters, looking hesitant - they see one another and he yells: MAN Priscilla, darlin'! PRISCILLA Elvis! They clinch and we fade out.