INT. TRAILER”€”THAT MOMENT

Gloom inside. To the left a dirty kitchen. To the right”€”

“€”I never see what. A gun is shoved into my temple. A sweaty hand clamps and restrains my head by the neck. I’m grip-locked.

ME
Holy shit”€”

The door slams behind me, shut by my captor. We are alone, I understand. Me myself, and, whomever it is who’s taken me captive.

ME
What the hell is this?

MICKEY
Policia?

ME
Poli”€”what? What the fuck are you talking about?

I strain to turn my head. The hand won’t let me budge.

I know your voice from a mile off, Mickey. It’s me, Mickey. Bombay. Ring a bell? I’m not 5-0. You hear me? Hello?

I remain frozen”€”and finally the gun (an old Browning Hi-Power) is hesitantly lowered. The body clamp is not.

ME
No police, Mickey? No policia. Buenos dias?  Now let go of me.

And Mickey releases me, stepping into the beam of one 40-watt lamp. He stares long and hard at me. The constriction of his jaw slackens. He squints at me like a zoo animal.

ME
Mickey? Anybody home, inside that brain?

MICKEY
What are you doing here? What are you, Bruce fucking Wayne?

ME
I could ask you the same question. The “What are you doing here?” question. Only my question has more weight, on balance. No?

MICKEY
Balance?

He blinks, troubled. In the poor lighting he looks like he’s crawled out of a grave.

ME
What are you doing in here? This belongs to Doe. What’s going on with you? I thought you were clean and serene? I thought you were so hella tired of the scene, of the “same old bullshit””€”I think those were your words?

MICKEY
I’m…I’m relaxing.

ME
Relaxing. By getting so high you’re paranoid the cops are here? “Relaxing” in the dark? In a 120-Fahrenheit trailer? What happened to the A/C?

MICKEY
It’s coded.

ME
Huh?

Mickey responds by putting a finger to his mouth. Sshhhhh. The place is bugged, he implies.

MICKEY
I had to…I had to get out, man. I couldn’t keep up”€”so I did the right thing. I got out.

Mickey closes his eyes to recall…

No more traffic. The 405! No more meetings. For films that will never happen, that everybody with half a brain knows it, deep down; they know it. And nobody says so because they’re scared about destroying the dream economy. Because they’re dying of hope, too. And, because they’re scared a new paradigm is occurring right around the corner and”€”whoa!”€”they might miss it.

Mickey shrugs.

I changed my path”€”“A private toll road at night; undisturbed…”

ME
I know that line.

MICKEY
The toll road? Private toll road? That’s Gogol.

ME
What does it mean? To you?

MICKEY
It’s…it’s where I need to be.

ME
It is? A dual society? Serf underdogs and….aristos with exorbitant privilege?

MICKEY
What’s different now?

He had a point there. I spot an upturned book on the counter. I focus on the spine. The gold letters say Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol.

ME
A Russian estate, late nineteenth century? It’s not a real place.

MICKEY
No. It’s a state of mind.

ME
Why, Mick? What’s wrong with your picture? You’re the highest-paid writer in town; you escaped career death not long ago. You live a charmed life and you detest it. What? What is it that makes you want to tear it apart?

He’s lost for words. I see a tear welling in one eye. Do I? Not tears, I think. Please not tears…. So I step forward, arms open, and”€”so does he.

The two of us perform a bear hug. It’s a little awkward but better than words. It’s not looking good for Mickey from where I stand. He looks about as comfortable as a herpes-ridden coyote in a suburban drawing room. A coyote on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

MICKEY
I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. It’s this town.

ME
Don’t need to say anything, brother. You look 140 years old. Why else are you here?

MICKEY
I’m doing some work, important work for me. Dead Souls…remember? New adaptation. Truer to the original. She”€”uh, she’s”€”

ME
Doe Kazu? The owner”€”

MICKEY
“€”she’s been, you, been distracting me but”€”going well. Strong. Nothing here to disturb me. That’s right, Officer. No distractions.

I don’t know if it’s another quote, or some rehab/parole linguistics? And I don’t want to know.

ME
You could have been the greatest dramatist of your generation. Mamet. Pinter. Miller. You still could be. Look at you now. The last decade: all lifestyle and no life. You look like an extra from Spartacus. And I mean a slave extra. Not a warrior. How do you get here? Tell me, man”€”

MICKEY
I took my opportunities when they came.

Mickey grabs a pinch from a celebrity-sized pile of white flaky powder that’s sitting beside the Gogol tome and stuffs it in his nose, then turns, addressing someone other than me.

Go back into your corner, Freudy. Go back.

ME
Freudy? Who’s Freudy?

MICKEY
He lives over there. In the corner. Can’t get rid of him. He was here before I arrived, so…I guess he has rights.

Mickey frowns as he sizes up the corner. There’s nothing there other than a pile of girl’s clothes.

ME
Mickey? There’s nothing in that corner. You know that, right?

MICKEY
Freudy’s there.

ME
There’s nothing there. Just a load of unwashed”€”

MICKEY
That’s the form he takes, isn’t it?

Mickey is suddenly animated.

When he gets to talking, which is usually at three in the morning, then you”€”you’d realize he’s a force to be reckoned with. Got a lot of things to say. Don’t let his form deceive you.

Mickey ignores his own nonsense for a moment and inspects the quality of the cocaine.

Anyway, she’s an improvement on Tracy, I’ll give her that.

Shaking his head in self-delusion, Mickey bends over. He snorts a bicep-sized line of blow and becomes emboldened.

You know what? You’re the fucking toxic influence. Tracy was right about one thing about you. If I’d listened to you, know where I’d be? In the public toilets in Piccadilly Circus, getting cruised for small change”€”so I could write plays in ancient Greek for an audience of three. You, your “creative truth””€”

ME
Fuck you, Mick. You’re the one who’s going insane because you can’t handle the management side of the creative fucking business!…Wake up, Mickey. You’re in a private toilet right now.

MICKEY
I’m in this trailer because I’m on vacation.

He turns to the corner of the room.

What do you say, Freudy? Has he come back to build the bridge he burned?

Yes, Gato: It’s weird shit. This time Mick had really gone and lost it. It took hours, excruciating hours, to extricate myself, let alone him. When I left, Doe was off my list. I never want to visit that set again. It’s got the bad juju. You see how bad our man had become. Heavy stuff.

I need time out after that meeting. I need to gather strength before the next. Because”€”if I can be frank”€”the future I see for Mickey is something like the opening and ending sequences of Amadeus. Remember Salieri in his wheelchair, whining about Mozart’s “touch of God”? Loving his rival, hating his rival. Torturing his nemesis, torturing himself.

The nineteenth-century insane asylum”€”that’s no future. I’m prepared to go in with a syringe full of Mirtazapine/Quetiapine and take down the mofo if he pulls any more stunts.

Send word, send help. Mick’s out of miracles. So am I.

10-4, Mahoney.

“€”Bombay