by Ray Succre
Through a weekly show, he could still access the drama he so loved, still take part in those opportunities people left laying around for people like Emery to find. He could remain the writer he had been, just on the side for a spell. He had two Emmys, a Radio and Television Writer’s Annual Achievement Award, a Roderick MacGuffin Award, the rare Farnsworth Achievement in Television for All the System, and he had been patted on the back by some of the biggest players New York had to offer. These had served to carry him forward, a vehicle in which he could haul his future manuscripts a certain distance, one he hoped would prove vast and not become bogged down in one or two early successes.
FADE OUT
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FADE TO:
The office was surprisingly small and not personal in feel. Bernie Dozier had a decent window behind his chair, with a view of several lots. There were three ashtrays on the desk, variously placed and identical, but they were suspiciously clean. Though small, there was enough space in the office that Mr. Dozier, who was not a diminutive man, could undertake animated, quick-turning strolls while talking, and the room somewhat allowed for the producer’s inability to cease moving. He was a squat but sharp looking man. That his chin was lifted in disproportion to his neck, which seemed quite loose, made for an odd and almost turkey-like look. Mr. Dozier appeared to be a man who had lost much weight recently, and this, when considered in view of his large, thick hands, made him awkward.
There was a plaque on the wall, business-like, but upon closer inspection, this was an award for having won a motorcycle race at the Los Angeles speedway a decade prior. The weight loss, empty ashtrays, racing award... these depicted a man of the age wherein he begins to attempt reviving the naivety of his youth somewhat. The crisis of middle-age. A man making changes in some way, either good or bad for him, but changes. New York was full of this crisis, as were her television people.
In a suit unfamiliar to Emery, the man looked new. A new sort of person Emery was unaccustomed to meeting. Dozier was imposing, but this was set aside quickly once Emery heard the voice that came out of the man. It was somewhat high in pitch and gave him a slightly comical presence. This was alleviating.
“Good to meet you, though you’ll remember we’ve met before,” Dozier said.
“I was just thinking you look familiar, sir,” Emery lied.
“In Manhattan. You gave a talk about television drama to a group of producers. I was there, said hello but we didn’t talk.”
“Oh, I see. Well, it’s nice to run into you again,” Emery said, aware of how contrived and unfelt this sounded. Emery was some guy from Ohio, a tourist asking a movie star for an autograph. His hands were sweating and his nerves reached an even simmer.
No, Emery had been asked to come. He was an award-winning player from New York and he was present because he had made things happen. If the meeting went badly, it was a failed pitch, but if the meeting went well, it was a successful job interview. Things had to go well. He thought of Beth and the girls. Then his stomach. The abundance of coffee in his gut had reached low tide, and the sensation of its power was beginning to make itself known in the form of uneasy and near-complete digestion. It was too late for a visit to the restroom, however. He would have to wait.
“So okay, Mr. Asher, let’s talk. I know you’re big in the New York drama club, but what you’ve shown me so far isn’t that. And I’m intrigued. Tell me about The Other Side. What are your ideas for this thing? How does she fly?”
Mr. Asher. He had been called this before, but he had never felt it appropriate. This discussion felt like business, and they were dressed for business, but there was a unique laxity in the air. Emery lit a cigarette, stood up, and began to pace. He needed to move in order to focus. Mr. Dozier looked at Emery’s cigarette for a moment, seeming to smell the air with a sort of reverence. After several moments and a slight look of guilt, he opened a drawer and procured a cigarette case. He leaned back and lit up, had a slow drag, as if testing it. He possibly had quit smoking recently, and had not.
“Well sir, I see it like this: Fantasy but not fantasy. Horror but... never quite horror. Drama but never in full. Science fiction but-”
“But not science fiction, okay. I get it.”
“…right. I want to take the clay of these genres and shape them around morality tales, real stories of the people and the... the troubles in our culture. The day’s events, so to speak, but wrapped in sensational stories. You know, like from the comic books. You remember those, I’m sure.”
“Morality and comic books?”
“Well, forget I said comic books. That... wasn’t the right way to say it. And when I say morality, I mean in the literary sense, not necessarily biblical. Uh, things man ought not attempt, wishes that, if they were to come true would be... just... more damaging than someone might suspect… twists, of course, there would be twists to the stories and-”
“Slow it down. I want to follow what you’re saying.”
“Right, okay.”
Mr. Dozier licked his lower lip and sat there, gauging Emery and waiting. It seemed that, at any moment, Bernie Dozier would say ‘at-ease’. Emery somewhat hoped this could occur. It would be clear. Easy. Then the talk might truly begin. This of course was not real. The reality of the room was that of two men, one in power and one seeking favor, and in these matters of life, there was always a pitch. They dragged from their cigarettes and Emery propped himself near the curtains, beside the view of the studio lots. This was the delivery and he had forgotten every talking point he had made the nights previous. He was standard and trapped at the top of his head.
“My apologies,” Emery said, pausing for a moment, “Despite the good things that have happened for me in the past couple of years, I’m still quite nervous about pitching and... well, I think the L.A. coffee I had an hour ago is a bit stronger than what I’m used to drinking back in Ohio. Please, let me start over.”
“Ah, got it. No problem,” Mr. Dozier said.
Emery gathered his senses, had a drag from the cigarette, and with little planning, he went broad.
“I’ll say it like this: There are terrible situations in the world that are brought on by our fervor for exper
imentation, for just knowing things, doing things, our curiosity, our science, just fighting and living in general. There’s no end to the troubles we see in society. They’re very human problems, and they’re in us. And they come out in our capitalism, in our art, in our wars, marriages... in everything. What I’m proposing is that we show those troubles and tendencies... that we show the people what they’re capable of and who their neighbors are, good and bad, but I want to do this in a fantastical light. I want to write and show the people stories that give light to our forays into war, our market economy, our classes and races and all the foibles and... But I want to show of these things in a sort of 'casing' that depicts the other-worldly, for the fun of story. I’m looking for that anthology. That's what I want us to make.”
“Something tells me you’re not talkin’ about Flash Gordon.”
“No sir. We use fantasy, horror, science fiction, myth... we use those things as a mirror to show the people the people, without pointing a finger directly. Just to keep ourselves at a distance. We make it more interesting and suspenseful by keeping it out of the everyday sort of drama people are used to. I want to show morality tales wrapped up in fantasy. Sugar with the medicine, so to speak. If we make it likeable, and fantastical, we can then say something important while viewers are still paying attention.”
“You have an example?” Dozier asked, uncertain he understood.
“The stories I sent you are good examples of what I have in mind.”
“Huh. To be honest, I didn’t really find anything moral in there. They were good stories, but I’m not seeing this... moral connection.”
“Then I did my job pretty well. You’re not supposed to see it unless you’re looking for it. There’s a moral to the story, a meaning in the fable, but we don’t want to be obvious about it until the closing monologue. This is so we can get around the nitpicking of sponsors and really tell something that hits home. I finished an outline two days ago for a new one. It could be the pilot, if you’re interested. I call it Everything is Broken. It’s a story that I think demonstrates what I’m envisioning for the show:”
“Let me hear it,” Dozier said, simple. Emery had not considered that he might end up in a discussion about this particular story. It was quite new and he had not tuned the structure yet, or written it, for that matter. An outline was a series of ideas, and he was not certain he should be talking about details that had yet to exist.
“Sure,” he agreed, not wanting to decline, “We start with a town named Marburg. We see a you-are-now-entering sign. Then a car pulling off on the side of the road. Now, Marburg is a town gripped in fright. We don’t see it at first, but it happens throughout the piece. The whole town is afraid to go anywhere or do anything. They rarely leave their houses, they never drive their cars, the shops are closed down, and they watch passersby from windows. No lights on. No anything. The trees are dry and dead. The roads are cracked. The place is just dead. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“An epidemic. There’s a disease or something,” Dozier threw in.
“No no, the worst is this: You see, the Sun hasn’t come up. It’s been years but the Sun simply won’t rise. It’s always just after five in the morning. Always dark. And the people are terrified. They hide in their homes and seldom come out.”
“Weird. I like this. How do we show that?”
“Well, mostly with lighting. We set up-”
“No, I mean with the story. How do we give all this information out in a first act?”
“I have an outsider, the protagonist, whose car breaks down outside this town. That’s where we start. We see all of this through his eyes and with directives. Our man enters this decrepit town looking for a garage, like any of us would. He’s who we see all the dread in these simple folk, which is so uncharacteristic.”
“Yeah okay, it’s bad. Where does it take place?”
“Midwest.”
“Eh. Try a duster town. El Paso maybe.”
“Well, that could work, but it has to be an undisclosed location, so more people can identify, but a dry area would work, sure. So long as we have a fertile area on hand to show later, and a small town where the people don’t mind us shooting their streets and homes for a few days.”
“We could do it on a lot pretty easy.”
“Maybe, sure. I suppose that would be a matter for the budget to work out.”
“So what about the guy now? What happens next?”
“He walks through this seemingly forgotten town looking for a garage. About four minutes, maybe three distinct scenes. Here, we’ve got him seeing townsfolk, but they seem to hiding from him. He gets frustrated, then a little frightened. Isn’t anything open? Sure, it’s early, so places would be closed, but he sees people around, looking out at him through windows. Everyone seems to be awake, but hiding. Why will no one talk to him? When he approaches, they run off. We get a brief scene where he knocks on a door but the fellow inside, who he’s seen in a window, won’t answer. Our guy starts to question the morning, at this point, because he’s noticing now that the Sun has been below the horizon for several hours, and that just doesn’t make sense. He keeps looking at his watch, which we see with an ECU. Couple of times we’ll do that, and it keeps reading 5:40 a.m. Seconds hand is moving, sure, but the hours and minutes hands are not.”
“He’s stuck in the same minute, over and over.”
“Right, and he’s getting scared. So, he finally catches a small boy near a shop with busted out windows. It’s the garage, but it’s closed down. Ramshackle. He gets hold of the boy and forces him to talk. The kid is upset, tells him everything; the Sun won’t come up, the crops won’t grow, and no one can leave the town because when they try, when they walk out past the outskirts, they only get lost and find themselves back in town. The whole town is broken and won’t let them leave. The roads won’t take you anywhere but town, no matter which direction you go. In a car, on foot... you just can not leave Marburg.”
“How old is this guy?”
“Well, that’s open, I suppose. Early twenties would be good, so he gets a little hot when no one will speak to him. Fighty, maybe.”
“Teen could be good, too. Has dad’s car, wants to get home. Troublemaker sort. Greaser.”
“Sure, that could work. Anyway, the guy lets the kid go, more confused than ever, and we probably have the first commercial here, end of act I. We start out again and he’s trying to use a phone in an abandoned drug store, but it doesn’t work. Nothing does, of course. He ends up near a town square, and maybe here we have a nice roof-shot looking down, and he’s shouting about how mad all these people are, and what’s wrong with them? And what’s wrong with this place? He’s just losing it. Finally, he realizes he’s not alone. The townspeople have left their homes and have surrounded the square. He spins about, frantic, seeing he’s the center of their attention, and for once, they’re not running away, but circling him. He runs to one edge of the square but gets walled in by the townsfolk. Runs another way, same thing. There’s no exit. He’s trapped in the town square and he’s surrounded. His fists come up; what else is there? Everything gets very quiet as they draw around him. When they get in close, he starts shouting, “Get away from me, all of you!” or any number of other things. I don’t have the dialogue yet. But they stop, and quietly, one of the hayseeds steps forward, starts explaining the circumstance of the town.”
“Good, let’s hear it.”
“Right. So the hayseed tells him that five years ago, the town was fertile and full of life. Great place to live. But they had an idea on how to increase the town limits, by slowly and financially devouring a smaller, neighboring town. A greedy thing. So the town council pooled together with a lot of money from the local farmers, and they bought out just about every farm in that neighboring town, right out from under them with the help of two crooked bank managers. They did it to have more land for better crops. To make money. To be successful and large and a place worth living. And that neighboring town t
hey did this to, it dried up and died. Everyone left. But strangely, the fields of these new acquisitions wouldn’t grow anything, and slowly covered with dust.”
“Shit, like a curse.”
“Sure. Nothing in that other small town worked. The cars, the tractors, the phones... nothing. And all the people of that neighboring town left, one by one. Deserted the place. The Marburg people, however, were dismayed and they wondered what to do. They had all this new property but it was suddenly useless. And worse, the brokenness of that town spread, eventually overwhelming their own crops. Like the neighboring town, Marburg started to wither, too and cease working, too.”
“The curse spreads.”
“Well kind of, I just mean that the badness of the neighboring town slowly overruns Marburg. Whatever happened in that dried up town started happening to Marburg. One of the crooked bank managers steps forward then, and he tells more of the story: Everything has broken down where they live. Everything. The cars stopped running first. Then the telephones shut off. The televisions went black. No radio. No lights. No machinery. No refrigeration. No anything. Everything is broken. And so are they. The people. Through the bank manager, we learn that none of them eat, none of them sleep, and sometimes they even begin to wonder if they’re breathing, because it’s like they forget to do so. They just sit in their houses, ashamed of themselves and unable to leave. There’s no running water but they have no thirst. The roads always lead one back to town. Repeatedly. It's illogical, but unavoidable. The bank manager tells him, ‘You can’t escape, mister. You’re trapped in this broken down town with all us broken down people beneath a sky where even the Sun seems to have broke down.’ The man can’t believe what he’s hearing. We get a few short questions and answers to really clear everything and spell out the details.”