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02/24/2006: "THE BED VIGNETTES"
…for intellectual creation too springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only like a gentler, more ecstatic and more everlasting repetition of physical delight… In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love revive, filling it with sublimity and exaltation. And those who come together in the night and are entwined in rocking delight do an earnest work and gather sweetnesses, gather depth and strength for the song of some coming poet, who will arise to speak of ecstasies beyond telling.
from “Letters to A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Scene I
The camera pans in on the feet of three women, walking briskly. #1- leather sneakers, #2 - flat leather shoes, #3 - heels.
Small text at bottom of screen:
August 2001, New York City – fourteen days before September 11th. East Village, Avenue C, a weekday night – 2 am.
Only the feet and the sidewalk are seen. Their steps wobble, they’re obviously tipsy. (Sharp car horn blast.) They walk close to each other, laughing gregariously. (Noise of someone loudly trying to hail a cab, people laughing.)
Girl 1, in a loud voice with German accent: “Just one drink, ladies!” (A cigarette butt drops; a leather sneaker stomps it out.)
Girl 2, smooth rich low voice: “Just one drink… Come on, kid.”
Girl 3, sarcastic sigh: “I can’t believe we’re doing this again. (Laughing) OK. Just one drink.”
Camera pans out to a busy late-night street scene. The 3 girls, in their late 20s/early 30s, walk up to a bar without signage. Fifteen or so people form a line outside, waiting to enter. Three doormen with various length dreadlocks are seated on tall stools, guarding the door. The women walk up to the doormen.
Girl 1, tall buxom blonde (kissing Doorman 1 on the cheek): “Hello Michel, how are you, cheri?”
Girl 2, brazen streetwise latina (grabbing the hand of Doorman 2), warmly: “Justice -- man, it’s good to see you…”
Doorman 2 squeezes her hand and in a low voice responds: “Hey sweetheart.”
Girl 3, bright-eyed flirtatious type, planting kisses on the cheeks of Doormen 2 & 3, smiles at Doorman 1, playing with his pinky finger: “Will you dance with me tonight, Michel?”
Doorman 1, French accent: “Of course, baby, of course.” (She responds with a kiss.)
The door opens and loud Brazilian music spills out. The women walk in through a crowd of people dancing, and walking by the DJ, each plant a kiss on his cheek. Girl 1 smiles at the bartender; he kisses her hand. He prepares 3“mojitos”and passes them over to her.
Girl 1: “Cheers, girls.”
Girl 2: “Cheers.”
Girl 3: “Chin chin!”
All three take a long sip and laugh.
Girl 3: “Aaahh - hate to admit it, but when’s it’s good, it’s goooood… Home again.”
Girl 2: “Home.”
Girl 1: “Mmm, home.”
Girl 3 motions she’s going towards the back of the place. Camera follows her as she adeptly weaves through a crowd of dancing and kissing couples, and slows to make lengthy eye contact with a handsome Elvis (1950’s, not 1970’s) look-alike, brushing closely against him to get past. In the corner of the room, she notices a tall dark-haired guy flirting with two girls; he’s trying on the beret of one of the girls and batting his eyelashes. The girls laugh. Girl 3 half-smiles and walks into the bathroom. She places her drink on the sink, checks her face and hair, picks up her drink, and shoots the rest of it down.
Smiling at herself in the mirror, Girl 3 whispers: “Let’s go.”
Slowly tracing her footsteps back through the swaying crowd, she makes eye contact with the beret guy, smiles at him and heads his way. Stepping closer, she touches his beret.
Girl 3: “Nice.” She walks away to the bar, rejoining her friends
Girl 3: “I’m ready for another.”
Screen goes black for one second then cuts to tight close-up of the first of the four bed vignette drawings. The camera starts on the left and very slowly pans to right over each of the other three drawings.
Voiceover (Girl 3): This is the story of these four little drawings -- of why they exists, of what inspired them. I call them my bed vignettes: four sketches in plan, aligned in a row, black ink on white paper. It’s a strange story, but a good one… It all started the night I met David.
Screen cuts back to bar scene, loud Brazilian music & bar noise, 3 girls laughing and dancing.
Voiceover: Admittedly, I was already wasted.
Girl 3 looks over her shoulder and beret guy is looking at her across the dancing crowd. She turns around and motions with her finger, beckoning him to come over. He comes. He is wearing dark running clothes and his hair is damp with perspiration.
Beret guy: “Hey.”
Girl 3: “Hey. I like your hat.”
Beret guy: “Why, thank you. I’m David. What’s your name?”
Girl 3: “I’ll tell you later. Are those girls your friends?”
David: “God no.”
David takes off beret and places it on the adjacent bar. He sits on an empty bar stool; Girl 3 remains standing Suddenly, a young good-looking guy grabs Girl 3 from behind, placing his hands around her waist.)
Young guy, French accent: “Hallo, hallo cherie… I’m going to tell on you tomorrow! We’re going to ‘Louis’. Come with us. We’re going right now, come!”
Girl 3: “Phillipe – hi. (Kisses Phillipe’s cheek. Laughs.) I’d love to go to ‘Louis’, but I can’t. I just met David.” (She turns to David, and placing her hand on his face draws it close to hers and proceeds to kiss him slowly on the mouth.)
Close-up of faces, kissing.
Voiceover: And that’s how I met David. We met, and I just kissed him. And we continued to kiss for the next hour and a half.
David: “Let’s only kiss. Let’s never consummate this. Let’s always only kiss.”
Girl 3 looks at him, gently closes his eyelids with her finger, kisses each lid, then moves back down to his lips, and with both hands, brushes back his dark, wet hair. David, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead, stands, grabs her hand, quickly pulls her through the crowd and, pushing the door open, pulls them both outside into the breezy night air. Still holding hands, they run underneath a large willow tree on the corner of Avenue C and 9th, and rounding the corner, stop to sit on top of some furniture out for trash collection. Kissing and groping, they stop, laugh, and proceed to the next piece of furniture… first a broken chair, then a wobbly stool, then a small rusted table. With each stop, their kisses get progressively longer and more passionate, until finally they tumble upon some wet lawn furniture, also out for trash collection. Sucking on her ears and her neck, he opens her shirt and moves his face down to kiss her breasts. She brushes back his damp dark hair and kisses the top of his head.
Voiceover: It was one of my most alive nights in my life – 4 am in the East Village, on a bright August night, under my favorite trees in the city… the 9th Street weeping willows. Kissing a beautiful stranger endlessly on wet, dirty lawn furniture…
Camera pans out to a wide shot of the trees and the kissing couple. The street light flickers off for a second, then back on. On the corner in the background, people walk by slowly and stare.
Scene II
Cut to Girl 3 and David kissing passionately in the back of a New York City cab.
Voiceover: We took a cab to my apartment, the apartment I had lived in with my ex, the apartment that was now nearly unfurnished since the day he left, the day I asked him to leave, the day he took almost everything, and rightly so I guess… All that was left was the couch in the living room, a loaner from my ex’s brother…
Cut to dark apartment, lit only by the light that comes in through two shaded windows. Panning, the dark room is empty but for the couch. The camera moves back to find the couple lying naked on the couch, embracing. The screen then shows a tight shot of the two mouths kissing, silhouetted against a window shade backlit by yellowish streetlights outside. Heavy breathing and a syncopation of car horns and random whistles outside are the only sounds heard.
Voiceover: David told me he was writer, a poet. We never consummated the night. We only kissed…
David, deep raspy voice, recites a poem in perfect Spanish, kissing Girl 3 during each poetic pause:
“Esa dulce curva (kiss)
Ese sinuoso camino (kiss)
Conduciéndome (kiss)
A una segunda loma (kiss)
Suave y aun vacía (kiss)
Su pozo pequeño, oscuro (kiss)…
Invitándome (kiss)
A conocer sus huecas profundidades (kiss)…”
David: “Ti piace? …es mío.”
Girl 3, whispering: “Si… hermoso.”
The camera zooms out slightly to show the silhouetted torsos of the kissing couple.
Voiceover: In the hours that followed, in between soft kisses and cigarettes-breaks in the dark, David told me his story. That he was born and raised in Manhattan, that he couldn’t and wouldn’t live anywhere else, that he was fluent in Spanish and Italian, that his close friends called him Davide, that his mother had died when he was 17, and that he hadn’t seen his family, no – correction - his father, in 15 years. That his father was a hard man, a man of important connections, a man that had always been very cruel to his mother. That his father had always accused his mother of cheating. That he would never see his father again, never, because of his hand in it – His hand in what? I asked. In her death, in the death of his mother. That he, his sister, and his brothers knew for sure that their father had a hand in it. That his father had threatened to kill her many times, and that he finally hired someone to do it. And that he had paid to have the autopsy falsified and had paid for the inquiries and the rumors to go away. That he had the connections to get away with it, and that he did. That his father had gotten away with it. And that the few people who knew about it couldn’t say a word, nothing.
Silhouetted profile of Girl 3’s face, looking down, eyes closed.
Whispering, Girl 3: “David, you’re scaring me. Stop. I really don’t want to hear any more. (Looks up.) Please.”
David, also in silhouette: “But now I have connections. Now, I have a lot of powerful friends. He knew important people, but now I know important people, too. (Curt laugh.) I saved a wise guy’s life, you know. Well, really the son of a wise-guy. Didn’t mean to – guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It just happened. Some guy was trying to mug this young kid and I stopped it. It was all over in 30 seconds. And for whatever it’s worth, now I have connections, too.”
Cut to David in profile, sitting with naked torso, silhouetted at the shaded window now backlit a pale cream color by early daylight, smoking a cigarette and cracking a beer can open: “And that’s what my screenplay’s about, a kid saving the son of a real-life Don Corlione. It’s going to be a 20-minute short… the story of a regular joe that gets made, and unwittingly becomes part of this… organization… when all he really wants to do is write, make movies. And the people who know the kid start to fear him… and he wishes it would all go away. But it can’t, and it doesn’t…”
Girl 3, softly: “David, please, can you just not talk anymore? Please…”
The screen goes black.
Voiceover: Turns out David had dark issues. I wanted nothing to do with him. As the night turned into morning, his black silhouette against the pale window shade, he said he wanted to see me again. He asked me again for my name. I lied to him and responded, “Beatrice”. He laughed to himself and, kissing my forehead, whispered that Beatrice had delivered Dante from Hell. He asked for my number. I said I couldn’t give it to him. I didn’t ask for his. As I told him to please go, I remember thinking that he had one of the most beautiful male profiles I had ever seen – like Michaelangelo’s David... the Poet. Davide.
Scene III
Wide shot of busy subway station interior, Girl 3 seen from behind, slowly maneuvering through masses of people during the afternoon rush hour.
Voiceover: Fast-forward a week -- 7 days before September 11th. The last days of summer – slow, sunny, hot. I numbly went through the repetitive motions of going to work, going out, going home, and going back to work. All I could think about was David. I couldn’t get him out of my mind… For days and days, I saw his silhouette. I smelled his scent, the cigarette smoke. I heard his raspy voice, the poem, the crack of the beer can… Davide. And then -- it happened. … I left work one day and took the train home. I was climbing the stairs of the A,C,E subway stop at West 4th Street. The station was hot, and I felt dizzy. As I climbed the crowded stairs, looking down at my feet, I thought of him: the Poet. The image was so strong, so keen, that I could almost feel him. ‘God, I want to see him.’ Suddenly, someone bumped me hard on the shoulder and quickly brushed by me. Startled, and stepping onto the last stair tread, I looked up. And there he was. Right in front of me: David. Not the silhouetted image in my head, but in full color, in the light of day, right in front of me. And suddenly, I relaxed… and smiled.
David, laughing: “Well, look who’s here…”
Girl 3, laughing back: “How’s the screenplay coming?”
David: “It’s nearly there. (Smiling and grabbing her hand.) You look pretty in the light of day. Let’s go get a drink.”
Scene IV
Cut to image of Girl 3 and David on a couch in the dark corner of a very crowded bar, kissing and embracing passionately. Loud bar music.
Voiceover: And we did it again. Kissed for hours – this time we were on Houston Street, inside a random happy-hour bar. But it was just like before – like time had stopped.
Cut to Manhattan street corner, nighttime. Girl 3 is playing with the lapel of David’s shirt.
Voiceover: Nearly three hours later, we stepped out into the night and he asked to come home with me. I told him the truth – that had I moved out and had gotten rid of all my stuff, that I was staying at a friend’s until I could get into a new place. So, he offered his apartment. I thought about his father, his connections, the “organization” – and said ‘No’. He asked again for my number. I said I’d rather not give it to him. Feeling guilty and cold-hearted, I confessed to him my real name. He took out a pen and a small receipt from his pocket; he wrote his phone number on the back of the receipt and handed it to me. I slipped it into my purse.
Girl 3 looks up at David, and gives him a forced half-smile. He winks and touches her hair. She turns and walks away, crossing the street. While crossing she turns around and gives him a small wave goodbye. Girl seen walking away from behind, screen slowly fades to black.
Voiceover: I had to go. I left him on the corner of Houston and MacDougal. I walked a couple of blocks, took the receipt out of my purse, and threw it into an open trash can.
Scene V
Empty black screen 2 seconds. Fade in image of first of the World Trade Center tower collapsing on September 11th, only the image – no sound.
Voiceover: Fast-forward again --7 days later, September 11th,, 2001. I won’t recount the details – there’s no need, we all remember our own version of it. I don’t feel like repeating my version – I’ve done it too many times… Suffice it to say that life in Manhattan took on a strange surreal quality for several weeks after the event…. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was pensive. Everyone moved slowly… People you hadn’t heard from in years called you. Strangers cried and embraced on the streets, in the post office, on the subway… People came together -- a lot... No one wanted to be alone.
Cut to Girl 3, filmed from behind, riding bicycle up 10th Avenue at dusk in fairly heavy traffic.
Voiceover: In the days following, my old boss called me to see how I was doing: “Come to see the new baby, come, we want to see you, come.” I went after work one day, riding my bike up to Hell’s Kitchen. They cooked me a nice dinner; it felt good to see a baby, comforting. I left around ten, and crossed 53rd Street to unlock my bike. (Cut to Girl 3 at bike.) Leaning down to unlock the U-lock, I sensed someone watching – I looked up: a man was sitting on a stoop a few feet away. (Cut to man on stoop.) We made eye contact – I couldn’t believe it: it was David. He was in his running clothes, all sweaty, sitting eating a slice of pizza out of a brown paper bag. I remember shaking my head and smiling.
David, swallowing & laughing: “Do you live around here?”
Girl 3: “No, do you?”
David: “Kind of, I live a few blocks down, on 49th. I went for a run and got a slice at Sacco’s before heading home... Funny, I never walk down this street.”
Girl 3: “I used to work on this street.”
David, studying her: “It’s good to see you. I was thinking about you… Come on, walk me home…” (She unlocks bike and they start walking down street together.)
Girl 3: “Strange days, no?”
