The City on the Edge of Forever
Page 16
SPOCK
(matter-of-factly)
Ten dollars and fifty cents for the week. Seventy hours at fifteen cents an hour.
COOK
(in pain)
Hey! Leggo, you’re gonna bust it.
SPOCK
(calmly)
Ten dollars and fifty cents…
COOK
(real anguish)
Okay, okay, ten, ten, anything you say…yeah, I figgered it wrong…
Spock releases him. The Cook rubs the wrist furiously.
COOK (CONT’D.)
Jeez, you don’t haveta ruin a stiff jus’ cuz he misfigured somethin’, do ya? Here’s your lousy buck…
He hands Spock the extra dollar. Spock moves toward door.
COOK (CONT’D.)
(shouts after)
You sure learned to figger money pretty quick…an’ you dint speak so good last week like that…you was just playin’ dumb…
But Spock has slammed the door to the alley exit as we HOLD on the Cook and he says his last line.
DISSOLVE TO:
65 EXT. NEW YORK STREET—EVENING (DAY FOR NIGHT)
as Spock moves down the block out of the alley. CAMERA WITH HIM as he PASSES THRU FRAME. It is a typically-dressed 1930 scene, with enough people on the street to give an impression of a populated evening. Cars in the street, vendors with pushcarts, street lamps illuminating a stickball game. And on the corner, as Spock nears it, we see a crowd gathered. Not a large crowd, but enough bodies to indicate a sizeable small gathering. There is a woman on a tiny dais, there on the corner, and around her are several Salvation Army types (though not in Army uniforms) with bass drum, cornet, triangle and clarinet. She is speaking to the crowd as Spock draws abreast of them. We HEAR HER VOICE as he comes toward the group. The VOICE of SISTER EDITH KEELER, the voice of truth.
NOTE: an actress with a VOICE that is warm, mature and truthfully effective is absolutely necessary in this role.
EDITH
(to crowd)
Shadow and reality, my friends. That’s the secret of getting through these bad times. Know what is, and what only seems to be. Hunger is real, and so is cold. But sadness is not.
Sister Edith Keeler is a young woman, possibly middle twenties, but with a voice that is instantly arresting. (It was said of the old-time radio announcer, Graham MacNamee, that anyone passing a room in which there was a radio playing his voice was compelled to stop. Sister Edith’s voice has that wonderful quality.) She is quite lovely. Not beautiful, but fresh and vibrant, truly alive. With no adolescence in her loveliness, but a kindness, a radiance. She wears a simple dress, but over it she wears a blue cape fastened at her throat by a scatter pin in the shape of a sunburst. The color of the cape is an attractive, though not gaudy, blue. And the sunburst is not overly obvious at first.
EDITH
And it is the sadness that will kill you, that will ruin you. We all go to bed a little hungry every night, but it is possible to find peace in sleep knowing you have lived another day, and hurt no one doing it.
Spock is passing them now, and he turns with a nod of agreement in f.g. as she says these words of profound simplicity.
66 XTREME CLOSE ON SPOCK
as his eyes widen and he sees something.
67 REVERSE ANGLE—SPOCK’S POV—WHAT HE SEES
CAMERA ZOOMS IN on Edith’s cape as we HEAR in ECHO OVER or FILTER OVER the words of the Guardian.
VOICE OF GUARDIAN
(echo filter)
Blue it will be. Blue as the sky of Old Earth…
Edith’s VOICE UNDER runs concurrently with this phantom sound.
EDITH
Love is only the absence of hate.
CAMERA MOVES UP to her FACE as she says the preceding line while VOICE of GUARDIAN OVER continues.
VOICE OF GUARDIAN
(echo filter)
…and clear as truth. And the sun will burn on it…
as CAMERA MOVES DOWN OVER CAPE to the sunburst scatter pin.
68 CLOSE ON SPOCK
as his eyes widen with recognition of the focus point in this time era. And as we HOLD on Spock, he MOVES TOWARD HER in FRAME and we see revealed a placard that was obscured before, while the VOICE of the GUARDIAN ends its phantom reminder.
VOICE OF GUARDIAN
(echo filter)
…and there is the key.
And we HOLD on the edge of the crowd with SPOCK prominent and the placard whose message is simply:
Hear SISTER EDITH KEELER Speak.
SLOW FADE TO
SOFT-FOCUS IRIS ON WORD “KEELER”
and
FADE OUT.
END ACT TWO
ACT THREE
FADE IN:
69 EXT. NEW YORK STREET—DAY
MED. SHOT on Sister Edith Keeler, selecting a few meager fruits and vegetables from a pushcart at the curb on the busy street we saw in Scene 65, but shot from a DIFFERENT ANGLE. CAMERA ANGLE WIDENS to INCLUDE Spock and Kirk PROMINENT IN F.G., watching her from the security of an apartment entrance.
KIRK
You’re certain?
SPOCK
The cloak was blue as the sky of Old Earth, fastened by a sunburst pin, and they said “there was the key.” Her name is Kee-ler.
KIRK
An amazing coincidence.
SPOCK
There are no coincidences in time. The Guardian said Beckwith would be drawn to the focal point. As were we. It was inevitable.
Edith moves away, waving gaily to the push-cart vendor who calls something bright and friendly after her. She moves down the sidewalk as CAMERA MOVES WITH HER even though HOLDING the Enterprise men in f.g. as their heads move to follow her passage. She stops to talk to two women, who seem bent under a burden of sorrow. They straighten and smile as she leaves them. She pauses to talk to a child sitting on the curb, playing with a cat. The child laughs. The CONVERSATION BETWEEN Kirk and Spock goes on OVER this.
KIRK
She seems such a pleasant woman.
SPOCK
She is a catalyst. Things will happen to time because of her.
KIRK
I wonder what things…?
SPOCK
Or what things will not happen. That is not our concern. We have to stay with her. Beckwith will find her, and so, logically, we will find Beckwith.
70 EXT. TENEMENT—ANOTHER STREET—DAY
as Edith ENTERS FRAME and climbs the worn and sooty stoop and enters the building. CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Kirk and Spock standing beside a closed-up store with GONE OUT OF BUSINESS soap-written on the front window.
SPOCK
This is where she came last night. She is in cubicle number eighteen.
KIRK
Apartment.
SPOCK
(shrugs)
Nomenclature.
KIRK
I’d probably better get an apartment here, if I can, if there’s a vacancy.
SPOCK
Will I be able to live here? These people seem to have all sorts of irrational categories for who can live where. Ghettos? Is that right?
KIRK
Sometimes.
(1/2 beat)
Yes, you can live here, too, but you’d better keep out of sight as much as possible. Find some place where you can keep an eye on her apartment without being seen, and you can work on the tricorder.
SPOCK
(without amusement)
I am amused at your perception of what I must do to return the tricorder to a functional condition, Captain. “Work” is not the word I would have chosen.
(beat)
Perhaps “reinvent” might suffice.
KIRK
(musing)
We’ve been here—what is it—eight, nine days?
SPOCK
Nine of these 24-hour Earth days.
KIRK
How far ahead of Beckwith’s arrival do you think the Vortex set us down?
SPOCK
I could only conjectur
e.
KIRK
A couple of weeks? A month? Not a year! You don’t think it could be a year, do you?
SPOCK
I could only conjecture.
KIRK
(exasperated)
Yes, Spock, I understand. You can only conjecture. I urge you to do so.
SPOCK
He could have already come through.
KIRK
Are you serious? Then why haven’t we seen him, or felt him, or—
SPOCK
We won’t know, if I extrapolate correctly, until he is drawn to the Keeler woman.
KIRK
Will it take him as long to reach her as it took us?
SPOCK
(shrugs)
There is no way of knowing.
KIRK
It’s incredible to think of Beckwith coming through hundreds of years, in a straight line to her, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow…
SPOCK
We traveled the same line…
We SEE the special look Spock is giving his Captain, whose eyes are still on that building; a look that seems perplexed and a shade concerned, as he adds:
SPOCK
(murmurs)
…straight to her.
HOLD on SPOCK and KIRK each locked with secret thoughts as we
DISSOLVE TO:
71 EXT. ROOFTOP—NIGHT—HIGH ANGLE—DESCENDING BOOM SHOT
TO Kirk and Spock, flat-out on their stomachs on the tenement roof, staring across an airshaft to a lit window, apartment eighteen. From time to time, Edith can be seen, moving back and forth. She SINGS a popular song of the period which can be HEARD UNDER. Kirk has just crawled in.
KIRK
Okay, go get some sleep. I’ll spell you.
SPOCK
Is there anything to eat?
KIRK
I bought nine pounds of cabbage and asparagus. The grocer is beginning to look at me.
SPOCK
It is the only Earth food I can keep down. No hydroponics, no synthetics, my system needs youbash and keva…
KIRK
I can imagine how inconspicuous you’d be with purple keva juice running down your Chinese face. Stick with the asparagus.
SPOCK
She is keeping a regular schedule.
KIRK
(musing)
Mmmm. She’s quite lovely, isn’t she, Mr. Spock?
There’s that EXPRESSION of concern again. SPOCK in b.g. of FRAME with KIRK in f.g. watching that lit window.
SPOCK
This is not an easy pursuit to begin with, Captain. Complications could make it impossible.
KIRK
(as if hearing him
for the first time)
What?
SPOCK
I have a theory, Captain, that the easiest world for a spaceman to “go native” on—is his own world.
KIRK
Don’t be ridiculous. The stakes are too high here.
SPOCK
(with meaning)
That was precisely my point.
He crawls away in the dark as Kirk looks after him for SEVERAL MEANINGFUL BEATS and then slowly looks back toward the brightness of the window, and Edith silhouetted, with her SONG on the ascendant. HOLD on Kirk, ambivalent.
DISSOLVE TO:
72 INT. TENEMENT—SHOT UP STAIRWELL—DAY
as Edith comes down TOWARD CAMERA brightly. There is joy in her movement, enthusiasm and spring in her step. A man could delight in this female, so very womanly and yet so self-possessed in her maturity. A VOICE O.S. halts her.
KIRK’S VOICE O.S.
Hello.
She is CLOSE TO CAMERA now and as she pauses with her hand on the banister, she looks back up the way she came and we see Kirk leaning over the railing on the floor above. HOLD Edith CLOSE IN F.G. to Kirk in b.g. above her.
EDITH
Hello.
KIRK
(nervous beat)
I wanted to say hello.
EDITH
(amused)
And you do it very well. Would you like to try it again? Hello.
KIRK
(grins widely)
I guess it was a pretty lame way to get to meet you.
EDITH
On the contrary. It worked marvelously well. I’m Edith Keeler.
Kirk comes around the newel post, down the stairs to her as CAMERA FOLLOWS holding her in f.g.
KIRK
I’m Jim Kirk. I just moved in. I saw you a couple of times.
EDITH
You have a very pleasant accent. Iowa?
KIRK
Uh, Iowa. Yes, that’s very good, most people don’t catch it.
EDITH
I have a good ear. From singing in church choir. You get to know pitch.
Now they stand beside each other.
KIRK
(at a loss now)
Well…
EDITH
You’re quite handsome.
KIRK
(nonplussed)
Why, uh, thank you. And you’re quite lovely.
EDITH
Now that all that is out of the way, would you like to take a walk with me? I’m going to pick up some stolen merchandise.
Kirk is astonished. His expression tells us so. She notes his consternation.
73 2-SHOT—KIRK & EDITH
EDITH (CONT’D.)
(laughs)
Don’t be bothered. I’m not a thief. Some young boys I know, well, they made a mistake. I talked to Lt. Gleeson at the precinct, and he said if the goods were returned—
KIRK
(pleasured)
You do quite a lot of that sort of good work, don’t you?
EDITH
I try to keep busy.
KIRK
There seems to be enough misery to keep a platoon busy.
(beat)
You seem sturdy, but it must wear you down.
EDITH
(confides)
There is a Depression on; the secret is not getting “depressed.”
(brightly)
Shall we walk now?
KIRK
Love to.
74 REVERSE ANGLE
ON THEM as they move together toward the vestibule door that will open onto the street. They carry the FOREGOING DIALOGUE with them as they leave the tenement. As they go out the door, CAMERA PANS SWIFTLY RIGHT to a mirror hanging on the wall, which gives us an ANGLED VIEW UP the stairwell. Spock is there, watching, troubled.
CUT TO:
75 LIMBO SHOT—EDITH & KIRK
against darkness, walking, apparently talking to one another, Edith laughing lightly at one point, as LIGHTS FLICKER BEHIND THEM then vanish, as STROBE LINES shoot past, giving us a sense of space and time elapsing. And slowly they reach toward one another without looking, and hold hands, still walking as we
DISSOLVE THRU TO:
76 INT. EDITH’S APARTMENT—KIRK & EDITH—NIGHT
a plain little room. The INTERIOR of WHAT WE SAW EXT. IN Scene 71 across the airshaft. (if feasible, suggest use apartment in Sc. 71, redecorated and shot in reverse to save cost of another set-up.) Feminine touches, but nothing very elegant. She lives in the same simplicity of decency which she preaches. A little square table covered with oilcloth (not a tablecloth) is in the center of the room and Edith comes from kitchen to the table set for two, carrying a hot dish of something. We HEAR a KNOCK on the outside door.
EDITH
It’s open, Jim.
Kirk comes in, a little wearily, and assays the room. He is dressed in work clothes. He slumps into a chair, pulls off a shoe.
EDITH
What’s the matter?
KIRK
(rubs foot)
Ah, I bought a cheap pair of shoes. They’re too tight.
She goes into the kitchen and putters there as we HEAR the SOUNDS of her activity. She speaks to him from there, O.S.
EDITH’S VOICE O.S.
How is it going on the job?
Drearily. But at least I’m learning how to operate a steam shovel.
(ironic)
Should be of immense help in my chosen profession.
She pops her head out, a dish towel in her hand.
EDITH
There are times when you say things that don’t mean what you said, know what I mean?
Kirk knows. We can see in his face his amazement and possibly his concern. She is watching him. He motions her toward him. She comes, carrying the dish towel, and he pulls her down into his lap as CAMERA CLOSES ON THEM.
KIRK
Why do you say that?
EDITH
Sometimes you seem, well, disoriented, Jim, like a man fresh from the country.
KIRK
Iowa?