Five Television Plays (David Mamet)

by David Mamet

  GOLDBLUME: And what is your specific . . . ?

  YOUNG WOMAN: My, my, my boyfriend won't make love to me . . .

  INTERIOR: HIGHWAY DINER. DAY.

  JABLONSKI, HILL, RENKO, and one STATE TROOPER having coffee in a booth by the window.

  STATE TROOPER: . . . they said that the way to do it, they developed a drill . . .

  RENKO: The thing of it, you should never give up the gun.

  HILL: The statistics say never give up the gun.

  STATE TROOPER: Well, that's what I'm saying. So they developed a drill . . .

  JABLONSKI: I've heard of this . . .

  STATE TROOPER: . . . you know what I'm talking about . . . ?

  JABLONSKI: Man's got the drop on your partner, got your partner's gun. You work out a signal, call him by some . . .

  STATE TROOPER: You call him by a strange name: you say, for example, “Clarence, give him what he wants.” The word “Clarence” is the signal, he drops . . .

  JABLONSKI: . . . your partner drops . . .

  STATE TROOPER: Your partner hears that word, he drops to the ground, you draw and fire.

  HILL: The chance that it's going to work . . . ?

  RENKO: Well, man, the idea is, it's better to die on your feet . . .

  (The SECOND STATE TROOPER comes up to the table, slides in.)

  SECOND STATE TROOPER: . . . the word is: my cousin says, you work back from the farmhouse, three quarters mile back there is an old abandoned apple orchard, and that's where he took his deer last year.

  HILL: Hey, man, we appreciate it.

  SECOND STATE TROOPER: . . . pleasure.

  (The Hill Street Bunch start getting up from the table. The STATE TROOPER reaches for the check.)

  RENKO: No, it's on us. Thanks for the advice.

  STATE TROOPER: Thank you.

  HILL (turns back): And why'd you pull us over?

  STATE TROOPER: Well, my partner thought you looked a tad “suspicious.” I said, “they're just going to a costume party . . .”

  RENKO: Costume party. These are our “Hunting Clothes . . .”

  SECOND STATE TROOPER: Uh huh . . .

  RENKO: . . . never hurts to show a little good taste in the woods . . .

  JABLONSKI: Farmhouse, three quarters mile back, apple orchard . . .

  HILL: Thanks for the advice.

  STATE TROOPER: Always glad to help a fellow officer.

  INTERIOR: SQUAD ROOM. DAY.

  Twenty-five Boy Scouts in full regalia sitting expectantly.

  (Angle: GOLDBLUME, still in hunting clothes, holding notes. He makes another note in pencil, comes up to the podium. Sighs. Looks out at the Boy Scouts. Beat.)

  GOLDBLUME: My name is Henry Goldblume. I am a Lieutenant of the Metropolitan Police. It might look as if I am involved in some undercover mission, but I'm dressed like this for a simpler reason. It's my day off. (He consults his notes.) I am speaking to you today because you have expressed an interest in Law Enforcement as a career. Law Enforcement as a career. Now: what does this mean? It means many things. It means a career which offers . . . friendship . . . loyalty, from those around you and to those around you, and pride . . . (Beat.) Service . . . and, also, as I've been reminded here today, duty. And this is what I would like to say to you: Where does the pride come from? Where does the feeling of accomplishment come from? From duty. And that is the price that is exacted of you if you'd pursue and be happy in a career in the police. (Beat.)

  How do you make the negative positive? How do you, how can you learn to take enjoyment in a job which is, which is for the most part not glamorous, but repetitive. Which involves paperwork, repetition, care . . . in which your accomplishments are not dramatic . . . ? When your job is standing on surveillance for twelve hours a day week after week . . . when you find the name you thought was the hot suspect died six months before the crime . . . when the case you worked a year on is thrown out of court . . . I'm speaking to you not as children now, but as men; because you have done us the compliment of coming here today to see the way we live . . . We are here to enforce the law. To serve and protect a populace in need of service and protection.

  (Angle: The back of the squad room. BATES and two other officers listening to the lecture, behind the Boy Scouts. Camera pans back to frame HENRY GOLDBLUME, as he continues to speak.)

  It is their will, the will of the people, expressed in the laws of the city, and the regulations of the department, that controls our life. The bad cop straining against that will, he bends the law, he flaunts the rules of the department, and his life in the force is an unhappy one—because this man forgoes the one, the only constant satisfaction he could have—the satisfaction of doing his duty. (GOLDBLUME clears his throat, shifts down to the next page. He prepares to continue speaking.)

  EXTERIOR: LOG CABIN IN THE WOODS. DAY.

  The station wagon. JABLONSKI and RENKO by the front door, waiting. HILL comes around the back.

  HILL: All locked.

  RENKO: Well, dang it all, man, why'd those Staties pull us over . . . ?

  HILL (to JABLONSKI): Can we catch up with your guy, get the keys . . . ?

  JABLONSKI: No, he's gone.

  HILL: Where'd he, where would he usually hide the keys?

  JABLONSKI: I don't know . . . this is my first time here . . .

  HILL: You've never been here before?

  JABLONSKI: The man's my landsman from the old days at Polk, he says “use my cabin” . . .

  RENKO: Gentlemen: I think the correct answer here is: break in. (Beat.) We will break in. We will unlock the doors. Prior to leaving we will seal the window over with wood, and leave your friend ample funds to reglaze the window. (To JABLONSKI:) Your sap, please.

  (JABLONSKI hands him a sap. RENKO walks over to the house, breaks in a window, climbs in.)

  JABLONSKI: Now, the thing is: chop wood . . .

  HILL: Chop wood. For . . . ?

  JABLONSKI: For to heat the house, my friend, for we are in the country now.

  (RENKO opens the door of the cabin from the inside. JABLONSKI and HILL walk over to the front door.)

  RENKO: Well, your friend at Polk's doing some well for himself.

  (Camera follows HILL and JABLONSKI into the cabin which is sumptuously furnished with plush rugs, electronic equipment, heads of game. The men stand looking at it for a moment.)

  JABLONSKI: Well, we're just going to have to take the Bitter with the Better. Let's get unpacked.

  HILL: Stan, does this mean no chopping wood . . . ?

  (RENKO settles down into a leather sofa.)

  RENKO: Man, I may not go hunting tomorrow. I may just stay here and order up a deer.

  (JABLONSKI closes the front door.)

  JABLONSKI: Well, break out the cards and let's get into this "weekend"!

  INTERIOR: HILL STREET STATION. GOLDBLUME'S OFFICE.

  He is tidying up some last minute papers. Hurrying into his hunting jacket. BELKER accosts him as he leaves.

  BELKER: Lieutenant.

  GOLDBLUME: I am not here. I am going hunting . . .

  BELKER: I was just going to wish you Good Shooting.

  GOLDBLUME: Thank you.

  (Camera follows him out of his office and through the squad room as he mutters to himself.)

  GOLDBLUME (sotto): Eight hundred Boy Scouts . . . girl whose boyfriend won't make love to her . . . overtime . . .

  (BUNTZ calls to him across the squad room.)

  BUNTZ: You shoot ’em, Lieutenant, cause they'd do the same to you!!!

  (GOLDBLUME waves. He passes the front desk. Leaves some papers on the desk. As he goes out, the YOUNG WOMAN whose boyfriend would not make love to her enters. She points at GOLDBLUME.)

  YOUNG WOMAN: That's the man. That's the man that raped me.

  (Beat. GOLDBLUME sighs. Starts for the door.)

  He raped me in his office. I came here for help. I. . . is no one listening to me? I want to file a report!!!

  (The action in the squad room stops. Ever
yone turns to look at GOLDBLUME. Beat. GOLDBLUME starts taking off his hunting jacket. Comes back into the squad room.)

  INTERIOR: SUMPTUOUS HUNTING CABIN. EVENING.

  Classical soft music on the stereo. A fire in the huge fields tone fireplace. JABLONSKI, HILL, and RENKO playing poker at a huge, oak-slab table.

  JABLONSKI: Two cards.

  HILL (dealing): Two cards . . .

  RENKO: Similarly . . .

  HILL: TWO cards for the man, and the dealer takes one . . .

  RENKO: . . . frontin’ off as usual.

  HILL: And time will tell. And, Stan, I believe that it is your bet.

  (Sound of a key in the lock. All heads turn.)

  (Angle point of view: The front door of the cabin opening. A man and a woman come in, necking furiously. Hold on the necking.)

  (Angle: The men at the poker table, looking on.)

  (Angle: The necking couple maneuvering themselves, entwined, toward the couch and the men at the table looking on for a long time. Finally RENKO clears his throat. He clears his throat again.)

  RENKO (to JABLONSKI): Is that your guy???

  (JABLONSKI shakes his head.)

  JABLONSKI: Sir . . . ?

  (The necking man looks up. Beat. He jumps back away from the disheveled, half-clothed woman. He starts dressing himself.)

  GUY: What are, you, who are, what you doing here . . . ?

  (The GUY starts trying to get a hunting rifle off of its moorings on the wall. The cops stand.)

  HILL: It's, it's, hold on, we're police officers ...!!! HOLD IT!!! HOLD IT!!!

  (JABLONSKI and HILL are fumbling out their badges. The GUY continues to try to get the rifle off the wall. RENKO takes out his revolver and holds it up.)

  RENKO: I said hold it, for God's sake:

  (Beat. The GUY puts down the rifle.)

  Now, who are you?

  GUY: Who are you?

  JABLONSKI: We're friends of John Swoboda.

  (Beat.)

  GUY: And who is John Swoboda?

  (Beat.)

  HILL: Uh, is this John Swoboda's cabin?

  GUY: No, it is not. It's my cabin.

  HILL: And you are . . . ?

  GUY: Who I am, it's none of your business who I am. You're in my home . . . what did, you're police officers . . . ???

  RENKO: Yessir.

  GUY: Well, then I think that you'd better give me your names and badge numbers.

  JABLONSKI: Um, urn, sir, could I talk to you a moment . . . could I talk with you a moment, please?

  (JABLONSKI goes off to the corner, leaving RENKO, HILL, and the disheveled young woman. Beat.)

  RENKO: We are awful sorry to have, as it seems we have, broken into . . .

  HILL: None of us have been here before, and we'll certainly . . .

  RENKO: Any damages that . . .

  JABLONSKI: Pack it up, lads, and let's move on. We want the next cabin down.

  (HILL and RENKO hurriedly assemble their belongings and apologize themselves out of the door.)

  HILL: We're incredibly sorry.

  RENKO: An honest misunderstanding, any damages, we'll certainly . . .

  (Camera follows the three men out of the door, foodstuffs, rifles, hunting gear in their arms. They go over to the station wagon and they put their stuff in the station wagon. They start to drive down the dirt road.)

  HILL: How did you talk us out of that . . . ?

  JABLONSKI: Guy had a wedding ring on, the woman did not. (Beat.)

  RENKO: I thought he didn't kiss her like the two of them were married.

  JABLONSKI: So it seems we're all of us going to forgive and forget.

  HILL: So if we got the wrong place, then how is Henry going to find us?

  RENKO: And where is our hunting lodge . . . ?

  (The car pulls up outside a hovel.)

  (ANGLE EXTERIOR: THE HOVEL. Dark against the night sky. It is a falling down shack. The men get out.)

  JABLONSKI: Does anybody want to chop some wood . . . ?

  INTERIOR: INTERROGATION ROOM. NIGHT.

  GOLDBLUME, still in hunting clothes. The YOUNG WOMAN, an I.A.D. OFFICER, a LAWYER. GOLDBLUME getting up from his seat.

  LAWYER: I'm very sorry.

  GOLDBLUME: Not at all, not at all.

  YOUNG WOMAN: I just don't know, I don't know what happened to my life . . .

  (She starts to cry. GOLDBLUME, the I.A.D. OFFICER, and the LAWYER exit.)

  LAWYER: I'm sorry to have emb . . .

  GOLDBLUME: No, you didn't embarrass me . . . It's just . . .

  LAWYER: I'm sure that nothing will come of it . . .

  GOLDBLUME: Nothing will come of it? The woman's loonier than . . .

  I.A.D. OFFICER: Lieutenant Goldblume was in a glass-walled room with this woman for something under five minutes. In full view of . . .

  GOLDBLUME: Look: I'm on my day off.

  (He takes out his wallet. Takes out a card.)

  Whatever the thing is, let's talk about it, if we have to talk about it, next week.

  I.A.D. OFFICER: Absolutely.

  (Shakes hands with GOLDBLUME. GOLDBLUME looks in his wallet.)

  GOLDBLUME: Oh hell . . .

  (We follow GOLDBLUME out into the squad room, looking at his wallet.)

  Can anybody lend me twenty dollars . . . ? Can . . . Well, let's not all rush up here at once. I'm on vacation, people, and I gave my money to Renko. I have no money for gas . . . (He looks around. Sighs.) Can anybody cash a check for me . . . ?

  INTERIOR: RUN-DOWN HUNTING CABIN. NIGHT.

  Interior of 10 × 12 barewood cabin. JABLONSKI stoking up the small woodstove. The door opens and HILL comes in with an armful of wood. He deposits the wood on the floor next to JABLONSKI, takes off his coat.

  HILL: Working up a chill out there . . .

  JABLONSKI: You think it's cold now? Wait ‘til five a.m. out there!

  (RENKO is sitting at a table. He has his rifle disassembled and is cleaning it. HILL sits down at the table, takes his rifle out of the case and starts to break it down. JABLONSKI comes over with an enameled coffeepot. He pours coffee and sits down.)

  RENKO: Well, this is the life. / don't care, Henry, you are missing it . . .

  HILL: Yeah. This is something more like hunting here!

  RENKO (to JABLONSKI): Thank you.

  (They sit around cleaning their rifles and drinking the coffee.)

  Yep. This is something—more like it. (Drinks coffee.)

  JABLONSKI: Don't want to drink too much of that.

  HILL: Nope.

  JABLONSKI: We want to hit the hay.

  RENKO: Oh, yessir, be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, four a.m., get the jump on some sleepy deer . . . (Beat.)

  HILL: Funny how things come back.

  RENKO: What is that?

  HILL: Sitting around here, cleaning the rifle. (Beat.) Wood fire. (Beat.)

  RENKO: Un-huh.

  HILL: I remember, one time, sixty-nine. Seventy? We were, bunch of us were on a ridge about ten kilometers north of . . .

  EXTERIOR: CURRENCY EXCHANGE. NIGHT

  GOLDBLUME getting out of his car, walks into the currency exchange. Camera follows him in. Currency exchange is empty. GOLDBLUME goes up to the window.

  GOLDBLUME: Sir . . . Sir? I'd like to cash a check. Sir . . . (Beat.) Sir . . .

  (The PROPRIETOR comes over to the window.)

  GOLDBLUME: Sir, I'd like to cash a check.

  PROPRIETOR: I, uh.

  GOLDBLUME: I don't have an account here, but I'm a Police Officer . . . (He takes out his badge.)

  PROPRIETOR: Oh, Thank God. Thank God. I've just, I'm waiting, I've just, I almost was held up.

  GOLDBLUME: No.

  PROPRIETOR: Yes, I uh . . .

  GOLDBLUME: Look: did you call it in . . . ? What do you mean you were almost held up?

  (The PROPRIETOR holds up the circular we saw at roll call.)

  (Angle: interior: circular.)

  (Angle: GOLDBLUME and the PROPRIETOR.)


  PROPRIETOR: This circular, the bandit. He came in the store.

  GOLDBLUME: How long ago was this?

  PROPRIETOR: Ten minutes ago, he . . .

  GOLDBLUME: He's gone by now. I'm sure the officers . . .

  (As he speaks two uniformed officers enter the currency exchange. The PROPRIETOR starts to come out from behind the protective barrier.)

  GOLDBLUME: Sir, sir, if you could, before you, if you could just do me the favor . . . (He holds out his check.)

  EXTERIOR: CURRENCY EXCHANGE. NIGHT.

  The squad car parked outside. GOLDBLUME, happy, comes out of the currency exchange hurrying. Camera tracks with him around the corner, to a dark parking lot. GOLDBLUME gets happily into his car.

  (Angle interior: Car. As GOLDBLUME starts the car, the driver's door is wrenched open and the currency exchange ROBBER described in the circular gets into the car and sticks a gun in GOLDBLUME‘s face.)

  ROBBER: Drive me out of here, and drive me out of here fast!

  INTERIOR: RUN-DOWN CABIN. NIGHT

  The lamp is flickering low. JABLONSKI, HILL, and RENKO huddled around the table, talking quietly.

  JABLONSKI: . . . and we were, we'd been dropped into Yugoslavia.

  HILL (softly): Uh-huh . . .

  JABLONSKI: And we were captured.

  HILL: I never knew that you were with the Airborne, Sarge.

  JABLONSKI: Well, I was. And I don't know what it was. The pilot got it wrong, intelligence was wrong, but we ran into an advance unit of the German V Corps. (Beat.) And they, uh, there was some talk about it, there were four of us they caught, and they told us that they were going to . . . they'd tied us up, they were in a barn, it was an old horse barn. Stone. And we said what are you going to do with us. They said next day when they left, that they'd be taking us to, to their base camp as prisoners. They left us under the guard of this young kid, young kid, he was just a little younger than us. Must have been twenty. And the kid was . . . he knew they were going to kill us in the morning.

  RENKO: They were going to kill you . . . ?

  JABLONSKI: They were an advance unit of the Armored Corps. They weren't going to burden themselves with prisoners. (Beat.) And . . . well. And the kid, we appealed to him. Somebody, said one thing they'd like, as it was obvious that this was the last time that we'd ever have it, was we'd like a drink. The kid went up to the house. The Germans were staying in the house, and he brought back a bottle. (Beat.) We started to drink. (Beat.) And we got the kid drunk. And. Um . . . (Beat.) Well, you know, I'd told the story several times . . . as you do. It occurs to me that every time I told it I would say that we got the kid drunk and we slipped out. But the truth, the truth was, of course, we killed him. (Beat.)