40 SH*T-STAINED SHEETS TO THE WIND Pt. 1 - Sex, Swords, & Krokodil
“When I was little…my father was famous.”
(FADEIN: Hotel television set, 32-inches. The screen is black with a white Japanese lotus symbol in the middle, and the first scene begins as the little boy narrator continues. A Japanese man walks out fully robed, inspecting the blade of his sword in what appears to be a low-grade movie from 1980)
“He was the greatest samurai in the empire. And he was the Shogun’s decapitator. He cut off the heads of a hundred and thirty-one lords. It was a bad time for the empire.”
(The next scene is a crazy old man closing his door to a crowd of angry people – presumably the Shogun. A black screen flashes with crimson letters – “
SHOGUN ASSASSIN” – and the camera now pivots from the television to the bed where CASTOR STRIFE lays shirtless in jeans. With one hand, he points the remote control idly at the television. With the other, he holds a folded deal book for entertainment attractions in greater Los Angeles, reading carefully through circular red-lens glasses. It’s nighttime, a fact evident at-once by sight of the balcony behind sliding glass, unshielded from curtains)
“The Shogun just stayed inside his castle, and he never came out. People said his brain was infected by devils. My father would come home; he would forget about the killings. He wasn’t scared of the Shogun, but the Shogun was scared of him. Maybe that was the problem.”
(The Droid Razor sitting on Castor’s chest vibrates twice. He pulls his attention away from the deal book and reads his phone. A second or two passes –
“Then, one night, the Shogun sent his ninja spies to our house.” – and Castor picks it up, makes a call)
CASTOR: “It’s 2020 Olympic Avenue. Why would I make you drive all the way out to- (interruption, some inaudible chatter is heard from the other end) Yeah, that’s the one.”
“They were supposed to kill my father…but they didn’t. (Female screams heard from television)
That was the night everything changed.”
(Person on other line says something resembling, “Oh that place is f
ucking disgusting.”)
CASTOR: “Whatever, they let me drink for half price. The film crew is with me for two more days, I just got paid – figure I have to shoot something tonight, so we’ll shoot it there. If not, I’m looking at a coupon for that reptile sh
it off the highway. Make my night, what’s it going to be? I need some cheap entertainment in me fast.”
(Other line now inaudible)
CASTOR: “Done deal. I’m taking the boys out for a steak dinner on the way. Meet me at the Rhino something like 10, 10:30.” (hangs up)
(Castor rises from his bed and turns to the balcony glass door where he loiters for a moment. While he stands there, cracking his neck side to side, the music from next scene begins to play)
(MUSICUP:
‘GOIN’ OUT WEST’ – Tom Waits)
(CUTTO: Interior of the SPEARMINT RHINO gentleman’s club, North Hollywood, CA. The camera is at the back of a female with platinum blonde hair that’s cut around the chin and rises up over the ears, to the back of the skull. The camera wraps around to a side-view of the woman as she’s patted down, arms out, by one bouncer. Her eyes are fixed on the other bouncer, a man who looks eerily similar to NLW’s ‘Dangerous’ Duke Mackey. He checks her ID with a flash-light and she continues to stare at him. Being ID’d at the door is a flattering customary for a woman of 34 years, and her tongue begins to swirl around her mouth until it comes up with a mini razor blade. She holds it out between her lips, and the bouncer stares at her a moment before taking it. LANA DREMIRE is motioned into the club, a smokey room pale lit by red and yellow lights. The cameraman swings around to her front, and she walks toward him and through the crowd of suits, hips, bikers, battalioneers, foreign investors, and washed-out former Disney executives sitting around the edges of the three main stages. To her right, topless [blurred out] women slide down poles and gyrate atop paper puddles of crisp dollars bills – Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson. A cocktail waitress passes by to her left, and Lana grabs her by the arm, whispers into her ear. The girl points to a room in the back, and Lana continues in that direction. When she gets to the room, she flashes a smile to a bodyguard who reciprocates and opens the door. He resembles the African American gentleman from
The Green Mile, who coincidentally had sex with Peter Windham’s mother in 1998)
I’m gonna do what I want, and I’m gonna get paid. Do what I want, and I’m gonna get paid.
(PR. ROOM ENTRANCE: Lana walks in to find CASTOR, two assigned ESEN staffers, and a handful of dancers. One of the girls is grinding on the lap of DEVIN MILLWOOD, ESEN and NFW interview man, running her fingers through his hair. SMITH WESSON, YouTube personality turned ESEN analyst, picks from the luxurious sushi spread laid out atop the body of a naked woman. Next to him is Castor Strife, with a stripper standing over him, gyrating her crotch into his face with the NFW World Heavyweight Championship slung over her shoulder. Lana takes a seat in the corner, crosses her legs and lights up a cigarette on the end of a black holder. With the ceiling lights directly over her face, we can now see the jagged self-inflicted scars, drawn in shapes like hieroglyphics down her arms, shoulders)
LANA: (blows smoke into an overhead cloud) “So I just wanted to thank you. Eric Dane robs you blind, you take off on a national bus tour without so much as a phone call, and repay a decade’s worth of devotion by taking me out to the sh
ittiest club in Los Angeles.”
CASTOR: (distracted, takes a moment) “Is this on film?”
LANA: (pokes at her ashes) “
It sure is.”
CASTOR: “Then I have a problem continuing this conversation. Don’t want to…be like everybody else. Opening a promotional with some crap dialogue between myself and a quirky female counterpart.
Devin…”
MILLWOOD: “Yeah man…?”
CASTOR: “This all part of the show right here?”
MILLWOOD: “If you want it to be.”
CASTOR: “
I want it to be. I won’t have you make all the best parts disappear like the Lindberg baby.”
LANA: “Castor Strife as he was meant to be seen.”
CASTOR: “That’s right.”
LANA: “Runtime limits be damned.”
CASTOR: “That’s right.”
WESSON: “
I ain’t a killa but don’t PUSH ME!” (sucks rice off three of his fingers then SLAPS the ass of the girl dancing on Millwood)
LANA: “And somewhere in Connecticut, Anarky hangs on your next word…”
CASTOR: “I don’t give a damn. He’ll wait as long as I make him, and if he doesn’t like it he can cry some more about how nine out of ten
Bleacher Report contributors prefer me to him.”
(Lana pulls an Rx bottle from her purse and dumps three blue pills into her palm)
WESSON: “KROKODIL…”
CASTOR: “He’s flying through my timezone and the weather is lovely…”
LANA: (sips out of a rocks glass, swallows) “Whatever, just give the network some promo-candy so I stop getting calls. Call him a dipsh
it and send it in for all I care.”
CASTOR: “He
is a dipsh
it. Whiney skull-faced dipsh
it, that’s what he is.”
WESSON: “KROKODIL. Turn that sh
it to a metaphor, son.”
LANA: “Hey YouTube guy, do you mind shutting the f
uck up?”
WESSON: “My bad, my bad.”
MILLWOOD: “Ha, you saw that documentary too?”
WESSON: “YEAH man! KROKODIL! HEAVY!”
LANA: “You guys make zero sense. I’m leaving.”
CASTOR: “No, I wanna hear this. What about the Krokodil?”
WESSON: “Aight so check this out. I seen this documentary on BBC about a wild out drug that’s straight up killing like, thousands and thousands of people in Russia and sh
it. It’s like some moonshine heroin, they call it Krokodil. Word is bond this sh
it is so f
uckin lethal, right, cause it’s real impure, mixed up with corrosive byproducts, f
uckin’ red phosphorus desomorphine and sh
it, niggas is gettin’ they sh
its amputated and sh
it.”
MILLWOOD: “Yeah they start to turn all green and scaley, from gangrene, and die in about two to three years. It’s scary-addictive…”
CASTOR: “You don’t say…”
WESSON: “YEAH man, all these Russian-ass niggas be tweakin they selves on the homemade HERRON, lookin’ like f
uckin’ crocodiles and sh
it.”
CASTOR: “Does Anarky have any Krokodil? And if not, can we arrange to give him some?”
WESSON: “Nah man, you gotta make it.”
LANA: “Joe The Plumber could, probably.”
CASTOR: “The odds are good that Joe
invented it.”
(The stripper dancing over Castor drops the NFW belt on his lap)
STRIPPER: “Baby you gotta hold this for me. It’s too heavy.”
CASTOR: “THAT’S my reply to Anarky. This girl just took us home – GOODNIGHT, ED!”
(Millwood snickers)
LANA: “Fine, that’s a wrap. Send the cameras home. Cut the media entourage loose, and start game-planning for the match.”
CASTOR: (pours himself a shot of Maker’s Mark, slams it) “Absolutely not! Anarky waited, and I’m going to give him his money’s worth. He wants me to talk, so I’ll talk. DEVIN! Follow me outside. You’re going to interview me, and Lana, Smith…you’ll both occupy the room until we’re back.”
(Castor stands up, buzzed but not intoxicated, and walks out of the room with Millwood in tow)
CASTOR: “Let’s go boys, we’ve business on the street. (walks out into the club and begins yelling)
Anarky’s waited for the champion, and here he comes, in the flesh, IN THE FLESH! On it’s way now…on it’s way…”
(Club music changes;
‘GIMME BACK MY BULLETS’ – Lynyrd Skynyrd)
CASTOR: “You and I, Devin. Time to conduct business as only we can.
PUT ‘EM BAAACK WHERE THEY BELONG! AIN’T FOOLIN’ AROOOOUUUND, ‘CAUSE-I-DONE-HAD-MY-FUUUN… I could have been a country rock singer, Devin. Keep moving, door is straight ahead…”
(Spots Duke Mackey at the front door and approaches him)
CASTOR: “Duke…Duke Mackey. (Duke is taken aback and shakes his hand) How are you my friend? My brother doesn’t owe you money, does he? The bastard.”
DUKE: (nervous laughter) “No no…”
CASTOR: “Look, if you ever need anything.
If your family ever needs anything…do not hesitate, alright? It’s a rough business. Alcohol abuse, cocaine, pills, Krokodil…I want to be there for the people who need help. You know where to reach me.”
DUKE: (confused but delighted to be in the conversation) “Alright man, thank you. Thanks. OK.”
(Castor leaves the club with Millwood while Mackey stands there perplexed)