Things Beyond Midnight (36 page)

ASHLAND, sweating a bit now, somewhat harried, edges toward the back door of the kitchen, still searching for LYDIA.

A dark, doll-like girl (who could be a teenager) suddenly steps in front of him to hold out a cigarette.

BLACK GIRL

Light?

He fumbles out his silver lighter, applies flame to her cigarette. She takes a drag, blows the smoke out through her nose.

BLACK GIRL

You seem alone. Are you? Alone, I mean.

ASHLAND

(putting away the lighter)

No... my wife’s here somewhere.

BLACK GIRL

I haven’t been alone since Milwaukee. I was about 14 or something and this creep moves in with me. My parents were dead by then.

ASHLAND

(not sure what to say)

I’m sorry.

BLACK GIRL

Yeah, this creep was sorry, too. Things were bad right from the start between us. That’s why I killed him.

ASHLAND

You what?

BLACK GIRL

Shot him. Three times.

(she points a finger at Ashland, like a gun)

Bang! Bang! Bang!

(shrugs)

It was self-defense. He came at me with an iron golf club. He was a golfer.

ASHLAND

I’d better try and find my wife.

But as he turns away from her, a curly-haired man grabs his arm.

TRAVERS

I lost a wife once. Greek belly dancer with a Jersey accent. She used to quote that line of Hemingway’s to Scott Fitzgerald.

You know the line?

ASHLAND

No, I—

TRAVERS

One that goes “We’re all bitched from the start.” Bitter. Bitter line.

(puts out his hand)

I’m Terry Travers. Not my real name, but no matter. Remember the ole Triple Trouble for Terry series on TV?

ASHLAND

Not that I can recall.

TRAVERS

Had to step on a few people to get that series...

(flips open a wallet, showing a snapshot)

Lookie here, that’s me before I did the show.

CLOSE ON WALLET PHOTO

TRAVERS, totally bald.

BACK TO SCENE

as ASHLAND nods,

TRAVERS

I wear rugs now. Have ever since the series. Top quality. Hand-sewn.

(inclines his head down)

Go ahead,
tug
at it.

ASHLAND

No, really, I’ll take your word that—

TRAVERS

Aw, c’mon—as a personal favor to me. Tug at it.

ASHLAND does, but without enthusiasm.

TRAVERS

(note of pride)

Snug, eh? Stays on the ole dome. I’ve got a wind-blown one for outdoor scenes. Then I got me a crew cut for Army-Navy flicks -and a western job with long sideburns. Absolutely authentic.

ASHLAND

I see.

TRAVERS

But I don’t act anymore. I just booze. Me an’ six million alcoholics!

ASHLAND

My wife’s obviously not here. Guess I was mistaken about seeing her.

TRAVERS

It’s all illusion. Reality versus illusion. Like they say, “A lie often reveals truth, but the truth is often a lie.”

Having had enough, ASHLAND leaves the kitchen.

MAIN PARTY AREA

as ASHLAND exits the kitchen he reacts to:

VOICE (Psychic’s)

(O.S.)

You! You leaving the kitchen!

HIS POV

a tall man in a satin dinner jacket with dark, intense eyes, standing atop a chair in the middle of the smoke-filled room.

PSYCHIC

(gestures at ASHLAND)

Please, sir... a moment of your time.

ON SCENE

as ASHLAND moves warily through the crowd to the psychic.

ASHLAND

You want me?

PSYCHIC

(extending a hand, fingers out)

Might I borrow that ring you’re wearing?

ASHLAND

Well, I really don’t...

PSYCHIC

No harm will come to it, sir... If you please.

Reluctantly, ASHLAND removes his wedding band, hands it up to the man on the chair.

PSYCHIC

(cupping his hands around the ring, pressing his hands to his forehead)

Ah... now... let me begin to read the vibrations.

(beat)

Your first name begins with a “D”... Not Daniel... or Dexter...Ah! David. Am I correct?

ASHLAND

That’s right.

PSYCHIC

You are talented... an architect... and rich... However—you have not
worked
for your money. It is your father’s money... a large inheritance.

ASHLAND’S face is tight; he does not find this amusing.

PSYCHIC

(continuing)

You like women... and have married two of them...

(beat)

And you like to drink. Too much. Far, far too much.

ASHLAND is now angry.

ASHLAND

That’s enough!

(thrusts up a hand)

My ring!

The smiling psychic hands the ring back to him—and ASHLAND stalks away to the bar, CAMERA FOLLOWING.

AT BAR

where he mixes himself another scotch... sits down with the drink on a long couch, his face red and sweating.

Note: During his entire exchange with the psychic, few if any people paid the slightest attention to it.

ANGLE AT COUCH – TWO SHOT

as a soft-faced man seats himself very close to ASHLAND.

SALESMAN

Do you worry a lot? I do. Runs in the family, I guess. Mother used to worry about the Earth slowing down. She read somewhere that between 1680 and 1690 the Earth lost 27/100ths of a second of its orbital speed.

(beat)

She said that was a bad sign.

ASHLAND

Don’t mean to be rude, but frankly I’d rather not talk right now.

SALESMAN

So don’t talk.
I’ll
do the talking. Talk’s my business. I’m a salesman. Dover Insurance. Like the White Cliffs of, ya know?

(beat)

Meet a lot of fruitcakes in this game. I sold a policy once to a guy who lived in the woodwork—spent all his time inside this foldaway bed in the wall. Had a real bad temper. Didn’t care for many people.

(beat)

Well, one night his roommate invited some friends over and their noise woke up this guy—and out he pops from his bed in the wall with a loaded Thompson submachine gun in his hands, yelling for them all to get the hell out of his apartment. He was ready to cut loose with the Thompson.

ASHLAND

That’s crazy.

THIN MAN’S VOICE (O.S.)

I knew a man who was twice that crazy.

ANGLE WIDENS to include a third man who has taken a seat on the other side of ASHLAND (also very close to him). He is incredibly thin, practically a walking cadaver.

THIN MAN

This fellow lived up in Vermont, and he believed in falling grandmothers.

(beat)

“Watch out for falling grandmothers,” he used to warn me. “They come down pretty heavy during winter in this area. Most of ‘em carry umbrellas and big packages and come flapping down out of the sky by the thousands.”

(another beat)

This Vermont guy swore he saw a postal worker killed by one. “Awful thing to watch,” he told me. “Knocked him flat. Crushed his head like an eggshell.”

Before ASHLAND can react to this bit of madness, the salesman cuts right in:

SALESMAN

Fruitcake! I know the kind. Like the guy I met who called himself a creative writer. Said he couldn’t write on paper. Not enough texture. So he’d rent a house and scrawl these novels of his on walls and ceilings with a big black crayon, a chapter in every room. When he’d finish the novel he’d rent another house for the next one.

THIN MAN

Did he have talent?

SALESMAN

(with a shrug)

Dunno. I never read any of his houses.

ASHLAND stands up; his glass is empty again.

ASHLAND

I have to get another drink.

THIN MAN

(raising his own glass)

Booze is no good here... no damn good at all.

With a tight smile, ASHLAND moves away from them, back to the bar.

ANGLE AT BAR

Now a frost-haired blonde in sequins edges up to ASHLAND.

BLONDE

I have a theory about sleep. Would you care to hear it?

ASHLAND

Not particularly.

BLONDE

(charging on)

My theory is that we all go insane each night. When we sleep our subconscious takes control – and we become unwilling victims to whatever it conjures up. Our conscious mind is totally out of it. We lie there, helpless, while our subconscious pushes us off high buildings, in front of speeding trains, buries us in quicksand... We have absolutely no control as the mind whirls madly in the skull.

(beat)

Isn’t that unsettling to think about?

ASHLAND

Very. Now, if you’ll excuse me—

But she grips his arm, tightly

BLONDE

I wrote a poem about it...

(begins to recite)

“In the skulled winding sheet of our blooded nightmares We sand-crawl the hallways of madness!”

ASHLAND

I need to find my wife... I know she’s here somewhere, and I—

The Blonde is relentless; she simply won’t let him leave.

BLONDE

(intense, her face close to his)

You know, sometimes, even when you’re awake, your mind can play awful tricks on you. Like this one morning when I was in bed. Woke up. And here’s this huge kind of spider-thing. And I mean it was huge! About the size of a baby. It was right there in bed with me... Well, you can
imagine
what I—

ASHLAND

(cutting her off)

If you’ll excuse me, I need to find my wife. She’s here at the party.

A hand touches his shoulder. ASHLAND swings around, facing:

SIDNEY

The chauffeur has his jacket off, shirt unbuttoned.

SIDNEY

Looking for Mrs. Ashland?

ASHLAND is startled.

ASHLAND

Sidney! What are you—

SIDNEY

—doing at the party?

(he smiles)

I was invited. We were all invited.

ASHLAND

Where’s my wife?

SIDNEY

(casually)

Around. You’ll run into her. Don’t sweat it.

ASHLAND

(angry)

Damn you! Where is she?

SIDNEY does not answer. He turns away, walks into the depth of the crowd.

Note: More and more people have been entering the main party room and it is now jammed.

CAMERA WITH ASHLAND

as, really pissed, he goes after SIDNEY—and is literally engulfed in the crowd.

We use various distortion lenses... ripple effects... huge close-ups, etc... to achieve a surreal, nightmarish aura as ASHLAND pushes through this mass of bodies in the smoke-choked room.

As he is pushing forward, voices assail him from all sides:

VOICE #1

You can’t get fingerprints off human skin.

VOICE #2

... so he took out the Lüger and blew her head off.

VOICE #3

Like I told him—the X-rays destroyed his white cells.

VOICE #4

They found her in the tub, strangled with a coat hanger.

VOICE #5

What I had, exactly, was a Grade Two epidermoid carcinoma at the base of a seborrheic keratosis.

VOICE #6

Potatoes have eyes. I really
believe
that.

VOICE #7

Big tiger moth! No blood inside... just like dust when I smashed him against the glass.

VOICE #8

Yeah, yeah... tied in a laundry bag in the car truck. Face was all blue.

VOICE #9

Five hundred seventy six murders in L.A. in 1977. Up to fifteen murders a week by ’79...

VOICE #10

Med schools won’t accept a dead body if it’s more than twelve hours old.

VOICE #11

When a man is shot in the head his eyes go black.

VOICE #12

Never sign your name in blood.

CLOSE ON ASHLAND’S FACE

sweating, filled with panic. His eyes seek out:

HIS POV

the huge Chinese gong, flaring gold from the far wall.

WIDE ON SCENE

as ASHLAND smashes his way through the partygoers to reach the gong.

ASHLAND

(to himself half crazed)

Got to... stop all this...

With his full strength, he drives his right fist directly into the center of the bronze gong.

It trembles and vibrates under the blow. But there is NO SOUND FROM IT.

And no one at the party pays any attention whatever to ASHLAND.

ON ASHLAND

as he staggers back, stunned. The thin-faced cadaverous man leans in close to his ear.

THIN MAN

No use, fella. You can’t stop the party.

ASHLAND

(desperate)

I’m... leaving...

THIN MAN

(with a chuckle)

So go ahead. Nobody cares if you leave.

CAMERA FOLLOWS ASHLAND

as he stumbles to the door, pulls it open, rushes into the hallway.

CAMERA. TRACKS him to the elevator—where he frantically thumbs the “Down” button.

The doors slide open, and ASHLAND reacts to:

LYDIA inside the elevator, smiling calmly.

LYDIA

Been looking for me?

ASHLAND enters in a daze, as the doors close behind him.

INT ELEVATOR

as he stabs the “Lobby” button. The cage descends.

ASHLAND

What’s going on? That party...

It’s insane. Absolutely horrible.

LYDIA

(amused)

But, David, I thought you adored parties.

ASHLAND

(tight-faced)

Let’s just get out of this building. I’ve had enough.

Suddenly, the elevator stops. Doors open again.

ASHLAND’S first wife, TRISH, steps inside, wearing a red-velvet party dress and carrying a martini.