Seasons Out of Time (2)

[TRANSITION BACK INTO PAUL AT THE RESTAURANT]

PAUL:
Did you not put two and two together, and get four? What the fuck man? Tremaine, tell me you didn't know that was Kyle.

TREMAINE:
Kyle? Here?

PAUL:
What the fuck is wrong with you people?

COLIN:
No need to get defensive. It's not like we did anything to him.

PAUL:
That doesn't fucking matter! He is my friend!

[RYAN RUNS IN COMPLETELY OUT OF BREATH]

RYAN:
That fucker is quick. I couldn't get anything on him. Did someone call the police?

[PAUL LOOKS AT RYAN, WHO IS COVERED IN DIRT. HE LOOKS UP AND DOWN, AND GETS A LOOK OF ANGER ON HIS FACE)

PAUL:
So where did you get that pretty little necklace you've got hanging out of your pocket?

RYAN:
What necklace?

PAUL:
I can't see the thing hanging on the end, cause it's in your pocket, but I'm willing to bet it's a turtle.

RYAN:
Yeah, so what?

PAUL:
It's Kyle's.

RYAN:
Aw hell no man, I picked this shit up on my way back from running after that guy.

PAUL:
You picked it up? Where?

RYAN:
Out in that wooded area behind the restaurant. Guy must have dropped it or something. Man, what the fuck does it matter? Your bitch ass friend just got whacked, and you worried bout this necklace. Shit, you got your shit all mixed up. You would rather question where I got a random trinket rather than who beat the fuck out of your friend.

PAUL:
Use his name, motherfucker. He has a name, and you know him just as well as these other two guys. Do you feel some sort of guilt when you say "Kyle?"

RYAN:
Aw hell no, you are not accusing me of this shit. You a fool.

PAUL:
Who else was out there other than you three?

TREMAINE:
There were two other people walkin' by when we pulled in, but they didn't do it, cause Kyle was on the ground when we pulled in, and those folks were walking from the other direction.

PAUL:
So answer my question. Who was out there that could have done this?

COLIN:
There was a white blazer that had pulled out a little bit earlier that could have done it.

PAUL:
Mmmhmm...So you are telling me someone pulled in, whacked Kyle, and left?

RYAN:
Makes fuckin' sense don't it?

PAUL:
Actually, no. It doesn't. But I need to go to the bathroom. Hold your thoughts.

[TRANSITION TO STACY AND JOANNA]

JOANNA:
You see why I wanted to talk to you today?

STACY:
Why? Why now?

JOANNA:
Several things caused this. The biggest one is just because he was due apparently. Someone had it in for him, from what the police are saying.

STACY:
Who would?

JOANNA:
I don't know. The police only have a little bit of testimony to go off of, and they have no really convincing suspects yet. Paul thinks he knows.

[TRANSITION TO PAUL BEING SLAMMED AGAINST A BATHROOM WALL]

RYAN:
Listen, bitch! You keep fucking asking questions like that, and making it look like I had the slightest bit of anything to do with your mother fucking pussy ass bitch friend's whacking, I'm gonna actually do some whacking.

[RYAN PULLS OUT A GUN AND POINTS IT TO PAUL'S HEAD]

You understand?

[PAUL NODS, AND RYAN LETS HIM DOWN. TRANSITION TO A SCENE OF JOANNA AND GEORGE SITTING IN THEIR LIVING ROOM. THERE IS A CAPTION ON THE SCREEN THAT SAYS "NOVEMBER 20, 10:14 p.m." THE PHONE RINGS, AND JOANNA PICKS IT UP.]

JOANNA:
Hello?

[PAUSE]
Oh my God. When?

[PAUSES FOR A LONG TIME, AND JOANNA REACTS AS SHE HEARS THE MESSAGE THAT IS BEING SENT OVER THE PHONE]
Oh...My God...

[JOANNA STANDS IN DISBELIEF AS THE SPEAKER CONTINUES]

PAUL'S VOICE (THROUGH TELEPHONE):
They said that Kyle isn't moving, or breathing. I think he might be dead.

JOANNA:
Oh God, does Stacy know?

PAUL:
No, she was supposed to call Kyle about 10 minutes before he stepped outside to talk to him about it. He went out to the car because he forgot his phone there. He didn't actually forget it there, but I thought I'd let him step outside for some air, because he was really getting torn up in here about Stacy, and what they had been going through. Well, what he had been going through. I don’t know about Stacy. She seemed pretty unaffected.

JOANNA:
So if she had called...?

PAUL:
He would still be sitting here.

JOANNA:
Because he would have known that he had his phone on him.

PAUL:
Yes, but I would recommend not telling that to Stacy. Do not tell her that she is in any way responsible for this happening.

JOANNA:
She will already feel it.

PAUL:
Guilt?

JOANNA:
The knowledge that she could have saved his life will enter her mind.

PAUL:
Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Regardless, it would be best not to mention it unless absolutely necessary.

JOANNA:
Understandable.

PAUL:
I need you to do me a favor. If Stacy asks about Kyle, tell her to call me. If she doesn't, then she doesn't, but I hope for Kyle's sake that she has enough concern to care.

JOANNA:
She will not ask, but she will know.

[TRANSITION TO PAUL ON THE PHONE IN THE BATHROOM]

PAUL:
I'm calling from the bathroom of this restaurant because I'm afraid that the person, or people, responsible are standing in the entryway to the restaurant. I don't have any solid evidence, but my intuition, and common sense tells me that there is a reason they just happened to be here.

JOANNA'S VOICE [THROUGH THE PHONE]:
Just calm down, Paul. Just don't do anything to let them know that you think it was them.

PAUL:
It's too late. I've already asked some questions, and been threatened.

JOANNA:
Threatened? How so?

PAUL:
Long story, no time. Police just got here. Will call when I know more about the situation.

[TRANSITION TO JOANNA AND GEORGE. JOANNA HANGS UP THE PHONE, AND SITS DOWN NEXT TO GEORGE.]

GEORGE:
What's wrong, honey?

JOANNA:
Everything. Everything is wrong.

GEORGE:
What do you mean?

JOANNA:
Have you ever felt completely helpless?

GEORGE:
Many a time, my dear Joanna, many a time.

JOANNA:
I do right now. I know what is coming, and there is nothing I can do about it.

GEORGE:
What?

JOANNA:
The world is about to change. The entire way we have lived our lives is about to be affected by recent events. We will be living in utter helplessness as we watch the lives of a few young people be torn apart, and mutilated in front of their very eyes.

[JOANNA'S EYES CLOSE, AND A TEAR BEGINS TO FALL]

Kyle was attacked tonight, and may not survive the night.

[JOANNA STARTS TO CRY, AND GEORGE HOLDS HER IN HIS ARMS, TRYING TO COMPREHEND THE SITUATION, AND HOLD IN HIS OWN EMOTION. TRANSITION TO JOANNA AND STACY SITTING AT THE TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT. STACY CLOSES HER EYES, AND A TEAR BEGINS TO FALL.]

STACY:
Why Kyle?

[STACY STARTS TO CRY, AND JOANNA TAKES HER IN HER ARMS, AND HOLDS HER, AS SHE BEGINS TO CRY AS WELL. TRANSITION TO A SHOT OF PAUL SITTING IN A BOOTH AT THE RESTAURANT. HE CLOSES HIS EYES, AND A TEAR BEGINS TO FALL.]

PAUL:
...I fear for him because he does not...

[PAUL BEGINS TO SILENTLY CRY, AND LOWERS HIS HEAD TO THE TABLE. THE SCENE NOW TRANSITIONS BETWEEN STACY AND JOANNA, JOANNA AND GEORGE, PAUL, AND FINALLY, TO KYLE ON THE GROUND. THE CAMERA, WHICH STARTS CLOSE TO KYLE, SLOWLY BEGINS TO LIFT UPWARDS, AND PULL FURTHER AWAY, AS THE SCENE FADES.]

======================END ACT I============================

========================ACT II=============================
[SCENE OPENS WITH STACY SITTING IN A CHAIR, IN A GENERALLY EMPTY ROOM, ALMOST AS IF SHE IS NARRATING – Date Caption Reads: November 23.]

STACY:
I am still in a state of shock. To be honest, it reminded me of a movie he had written. Guy falls in love with girl, girl breaks the guy’s heart, but acts like nothing at all has happened, guy get upset, guy dies because of something the girl forgot to do. It has the same basic elements. This situation is a little different in that the girl didn’t break his heart. I didn’t break his heart….did I? Oh my God, it's as if he predicted the whole thing.

[PAUSES, THEN LAUGHS]
Or maybe I'm just pulling strings, looking for some reason to give the guy credit for things that never even happened. Regardless, the movie he wrote was undeniably eerie in how accurately things are happening. There is no way he could have known. Perhaps the gods look favorably upon that script, and decided to give it a try. A way of making the strong moral message sink in. By making it a reality, the message is not one of "Oh...that made a happy ending...A nice feel good moral..." It is more one of "Oh...that could really happen...and is..." Why thought would they waste their time on something like this? Anyway, that's all theoretical, and unimportant at the very least. After a day to reflect on the reality of what had happened, I still don't know what it is I really feel about it. I am upset about it, but at the same time, I realize that Kyle wasn't hurt because of me. Kyle did not get attacked because I was too busy, and didn't get a chance to call. Kyle was beaten because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is nothing I could have done to prevent him from being in that particular restaurant that night. I couldn't have...

[SHE STOPS IN THE MIDDLE OF HER SENTENCE, AND CLOSES HER EYES]

Fuck….

[TRANSITION TO PAUL SITTING IN A PADDED CHAIR, HE SPEAKS PRIMARILY AS A NARRATOR]

PAUL: Why? Why Kyle? Why do I feel like I should be waking up to the way things were a week ago? Kyle was placed in the intensive care unit upon his arrival to the hospital. The doctors say that he has a less than 10% chance of survival. Why didn’t I go with him? Why didn’t I care that he went outside? I knew she wasn’t going to call him. Why did I let him go outside? Why did this have to happen? He was finally reaching the turning point in his struggle with Stacy. He was finally starting to see the good things that he still had, and then this…this…terrible thing.

[TURNS TO CAMERA]

I can’t describe to you how terribly uncomfortable it is, knowing that you were the last person someone talked to before their death. How odd that I remember his exact words so clear in my memory. He spoke with such conviction. I tried telling him that he shouldn’t even bother retrieving the phone from my car, and he got really offended that I would make such a comment. I told him that he couldn’t live his life waiting for her to come back to him, and to do so would be a waste of his time. He replied, very quickly, I might add, ‘Oh can’t I?’ How was I supposed to respond? At that point, no one could win the argument with him. He knew what he wanted, and he wasn’t going to back down until he got it. It’s almost haunting how his words had a ring of darkness about them. They were so heartfelt, and he almost seemed to say them without thinking once. His words will never leave my mind. He seemed to know that she wasn’t ever going to come back, and yet in his heart, he held out the hope that she would. He had accepted that her absence made life unlivable, and that he didn’t want to go though until the end of time feeling that way. Whatever, I told him, it’s your life. Then he spoke. ‘This is my decision,’ he said with that slight smile he always had, ‘she is the reason I live my life.’ I looked at him, and the smile had faded into a straight face, and he looked as though he was going to break down right there. ‘I wake up every morning thinking about her, about what we had. I live every day of my life for her, and if I miss her call, it would be worse than death to me.' Missing her call would hurt him more than death itself. It’s as though he was calling Death out, only this time, he showed up. I felt a chill go down my spine and my stomach knot up as he finished those words and walked away. I tried to call out for him to just call her on my cell, but I couldn’t get the words out.

[TRANSITION TO STACY IN CHAIR]

STACY:
Fuck…He should have been here that night...

[TURNS TO CAMERA]
He should have been here instead of at that restaurant. He should have been here. What was I thinking? What could have possibly been going through my mind?

[CUT TO PAUL IN CHAIR]

PAUL:
The part that most people don’t know about the whole situation is that Kyle and I were supposed to have been at her dorm that night. We called early in the morning to verify where we were going exactly, but it seemed she had made other plans. We talked with her a little bit, and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. Turns out one of the guys from out there was having a party, and he had invited her and her roommate. She explained that she already told the guy she’d go. Well, we were kinda pissed, and told her that she should take us with her, since she had already made plans with us as well. I knew Kyle really wanted to see her, and I knew he would be devastated if his girlfriend had fallen through on him again. I knew in my heart that all she could do for him was cause him more pain, but every time I tried to tell that to Kyle, he would get pissed off. So we tried to negotiate with her.

[TRANSITION TO STACY ON A PHONE AT HER DORM, HALF DRESSED (PJ TYPE STUFF)]

STACY:
You want me to what?

[PAUSES]
Uh huh…Hold on a sec, ok?

[COVERS PHONE]
Hey Sara, guess what my “boyfriend” wants me to do?

[SARA WALKS INTO THE SHOT]
SARA:
What?

STACY:
He wants me to take him and his friend to John’s party tonight.

[SARA LAUGHS AS STACY RETURNS TO THE PHONE]

I’m sorry, Paul. It’s just not gonna work out.

[CUT TO PAUL AND KYLE, WITH PAUL ON THE PHONE]

PAUL:
You fucking invited us there first! Where the hell are your priorities? What’s more important to you anyway? You realize you have a boyfriend here who hasn’t seen you since you left for college. Doesn’t that mean a god damn thing to you? Doesn’t it?

STACY [OVER PHONE]:
Not right now it doesn’t. Listen, I’ll call him tonight and explain everything to him

PAUL [VOICE OVER]:
I knew I should have told Kyle. I knew I should have told him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t let her break his heart like that. I had to phrase my response carefully.

[ON PHONE]:
Well what is stopping you form having us there then? What would it hurt to have a couple more guys there?

[CUT TO STACY]

STACY:
You obviously have no idea. Listen, let’s reschedule ok?

PAUL [ON PHONE]:
Reschedule? You realize we both took this day off work, and now you want us to reschedule? Listen. You have priorities, and you need to get them in the right fucking order.

STACY:
They are. Hot guys, booze, THEN Kyle.

[HANGS UP THE PHONE. SCENE CUTS TO PAUL]

PAUL [VOICE OVER]:
Oh shit...

[ON “PHONE”]:
Oh… I see. Well, then I guess we have this all worked out. We’ll see you then.

[HANGS UP THE PHONE]

KYLE:
So are we in?

PAUL:
Well, the good news is, she’s not going to the party. The bad news is…well…

KYLE:
She doesn’t want us over?

PAUL:
It’s not that, Kyle. She’s not feeling so hot, so she doesn’t want us getting sick over there. She made up the story about going to the party so that you wouldn’t insist that we go over there. Her room mate is puking all over the floor, and the whole dorm is coming down with something.

KYLE:
Sounds…fishy…

PAUL:
I dunno…I think so too, but I have to believe her, cause she sounded really serious about it. I was also sick of arguing about it.

KYLE:
Sometimes, it gets to the point where it’s not worth trying anymore.

PAUL:
There’s more good news. She said that she was going to be coming in town in about a week, and we could all hang out then. She gave me a promise this time.

KYLE:
She gave us a fucking promise this time. What the hell happened to that?

PAUL:
I don’t know Kyle, I don’t know.

[TRANSITION BACK TO PAUL]

PAUL:
Well, I felt terrible lying to him like that, even though I know he didn’t believe it. I don’t blame him. She did end up going to the party, and I don’t know what she did there, but if it has anything to do with the way she was talking, I don’t want to. I just wish she would come out and tell Kyle that they were over, and just be done with it. She fell into the whole college environment and started doing all these things she swore to Kyle she’d never do. That’s ok, though, Kyle still drew first blood.

[LAUGHS]

[TRANSITION TO STACY’S DORM, WHERE SHE HAS JUST HUNG UP THE PHONE WITH PAUL]

SARA:
What the hell was that all about?

STACY:
Nothing. Nothing at all.

SARA: I don’t think you are being honest with me.

STACY:
Shut up. It was nothing. We have to get moving though. We have a lot to do before John’s party.

SARA:
Oh, I get it. You were talking about the party…

STACY:
When?

SARA:
“Hot guys…..booze….”

STACY:
Well?

SARA:
I’m just saying…you tell me it’s nothing, yet it really was something.

STACY:
Well, I just told Paul that my priority wasn’t Kyle.

SARA:
Kyle…your boyfriend?

STACY:
[QUICK RESPONSE]
If you must call him that, yes.

SARA:
You can do better anyway. He’s kind of clingy.

STACY:
You’re telling me. He just won’t stop doing it, even though he knows it’s the one thing that pisses me of more than anything.

SARA:
That’s the best part about these party boys, you can just fuck em and leave em, and they won’t care a bit, as long as they get theirs.

STACY:
Regardless of whether we get ours or not though, huh?

[BOTH LAUGH]

SARA:
Wait…you don’t?

STACY:
Shut up. You missed my point. It’s gonna be a good party tonight, and we are gonna have a blast.

SARA:
Damn right.

[TRANSITION BACK TO STACY (present)]

STACY:
He should have been here. I shouldn’t have gone to that party. It was a flop anyway. There weren’t any cute guys there, except John, but he’s taken. There were some good looking guys, but none that were just drop dead gorgeous. The music they had playing was shit, and they ran out of alcohol before we even got there. The room reeked of pot smoke, and that could literally kill me, what with my asthmatic condition and slight allergy to it. So I ended up leaving like 5-10 minutes after I got there. Sara was hitting it off with some guy that was fairly attractive, and he was totally on her like flies on honey. They were totally into it, and she left with him. I knew where she was going. She was going to make sure he “got his” for that night. Walking home, I couldn’t help but think about the first time I helped someone “get theirs” for the night. Well…to be honest, I was more concerned about getting mine that night, because it seemed so right at the time.

[PAUSES....THEN SMILES]
I certainly did get mine that night...no doubt about that. Unfortunately, it's the only time I have actually gotten off. I’ve not been able to since then.

[SCENE TRANSITIONS TO THE OUTSIDE OF A CAR]

I’ll never forget the way we stared into each other’s eyes as we made out in my car. When I left my house to go get him, I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t really know if it was truly what I wanted. Once I got there, all of my reservations just vanished. It was like I just melted.

[SCENE SHOWS TWO FIGURES IN THE CAR, BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL WHO THEY ARE. THEY PROCEED TO ENGAGE IN SEXUAL ACTIVITIES AS THE SCENE PROGRESSES, ALL THE WHILE, NO ONE CAN ACTUALLY SEE WHO THEY ARE, OR ANY DETAILS.]

There was something interesting there, but I can’t really put my finger on it. It felt so right, and he was so perfect. That was the night I lost my virginity, and the situation was just perfect. Nothing could have possibly ruined that moment.

PAUL:
It’s that kind of thing that makes me wonder if her breaking up with Kyle was more out of a fear of her investing everything she had into him, and then somehow getting hurt. He obviously meant something to her.

STACY:
He meant the world to me that night, and I wouldn’t have wanted him to be anyone else. I really felt like he was perfect, and nothing could make that night any better.

PAUL:
Kyle was so lucky. How often do you find something like that? At the time you wouldn’t have been able to even imagine anything keeping them apart. They were so happy.