(FADEIN: A parlor room of a funeral house. Flowers are scattered across the room, and a giant posterboard size photo of a man and his German Sheppard stands lazily against a wall. We close in on an open casket. There’s a body laid in the casket. He looks so peaceful. So quiet.)
FLASH!
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment…”
FLASH! BOOM! BAM!
“Hold still asshole. This has to look real. Take a deep breath and get a feel for what that scene is like, in just a few years you’ll be there no strings attached.”
FLASH!
“Hey, come on now Adrian…”
(Death could only keep Joey Melton silent for so long…”
“I’m not THAT old.”
(4 foot nothing Adrian Evans walks up to the casket, shaking a Polaroid picture in the air violently.)
“The world’s gone digital Melton, and yet you have me taking pictures with this same damn camera you stole off Benson in the mid-90s.” Evans coughs into his right forearm. “And I was more or less referencing your drunken, drugged ways of the past what..forty---“
“Digital? Are you still mad at me because I asked what kind of dog Cruise had when he told me he was going home to twitter?”
“No, I’ve gotten used to being completely embarrassed in social settings next to you. Thank you.”
“You’re a tripod Evans that’s embarrassing for me. Though I’ve often been called the same…”
“Really?” Evans tosses the photo at Melton, who’s now upright. “Penal humor when its’ just the two of us? It’s unnerving, Melton.”
“I don’t think penal means what you think it means.”
“That’s it! That’s it! I can’t take this anymore!”
“Oh right, you have to get back to serving McGinnis coffee and getting her Red Box movies back before she’s charged an extra day. Look Evans…”
“No you look! While you’ve been sailing the seven seas or whatever the hell you’ve been doing the last few years, I’ve built a life for myself. I’m somebody now Melton. I matter. I feel good about myself.”
“Does she ever mention me?”
Sigh. “Only when she tires of taking the lord’s name in vain.”
Melton looks at the photograph and smiles. “He’ll buy this. You think?”
“Instead of faking your death, Joey you could just pay Silver his debt.”
“Oh there’s always an easier way, the shorter way, I imagine.” Adrian tightens, “but I’m no faking anything Adrian. I have been dead. I was dead when she left me. When she stopped answering my calls. I was dead when I realized there wouldn’t be a day that I didn’t wake thinking about her. I was dead when I finally realized I cared about someone more than myself.”
“Bull****.”
“Sorry?”
“You’ve never cared about yourself, Melton. You’d have to take yourself seriously for that to happen. You’d have to stop dreaming of new ways to **** yourself over, for me to buy that last sentence.”
“What do I have to show for my life Adrian? The phone doesn’t ring anymore. I’ve burned more bridges than Madison County.”
“okay, you really didn’t see that movie did you…”
“What’s next in life Adrian? Do I have anything but my memories and dreams of what I once was? I have nothing left. I have nobody to share the rest of my time with. Where do I go? Answer me that where do I go?”
“Boston.”
Pause, “Boston. Works for me.” Melton hops out of the casket.
“Are you even in the least bit of shape for this?”
“Hell no, but what kind of shape do I have to be in for Shawn Hart?”
“Hey, he was good once.”
“And thirty some years ago I was a virgin. What we were always is somehow sweeter.”
“I like that.”