How not to write a screenplay

FADE IN. LOS ANGELES. NIGHT.

The streets are slick and shiny like a sinewy snake’s back. All that is heard, besides Superstition by Stevie Wonder, is the moaning, gutteral echo of the downpouring rain, like a monsoon. Thick steam, as if from some subterranean locomotive, spews out of the sewer grates as a lone man steps through it, smoking a cigarette. A new age cowboy, Druska is ripped like Maximus from Gladiator, wearing a long black trenchcoat, giving him a very Nic Cage from Bangkok Dangerous look. He walks with stern contemptible purpose across the street to a coffee shop, with a flickering neon sign and no one inside but a fat, Jackie Gleason looking counter guy and Flick. Druska walks in and approaches Flick at the counter.

DRUSKA

What the fuck do you want.

FLICK

You better show some respect. I saved your

life once.

DRUSKA

And not a day goes by that I don’t wish you

hadn’t. I wish you had let me be burned to death

inside that dynamite factory. The images from

that day haunt my dreams. Living in this nightmare

is a cruel fate worse than death.

FLICK

But then you wouldn’t have gone onto a long,

successful career of killing for hire for various

ne’erdowells and criminals.

DRUSKA

Yeah. I do love killing. And I am the best at it.

But what the fuck do you want?

FLICK

There’s a shipment of Russian missiles being

delivered to the port tonight. These missiles are

being dispersed amongst the five Italian crime

families in town, with a hundred million dollar

bounty to whoever can get their missile into

city hall first, when the President visits next week.

DRUSKA

Just like the old days. Killing mobsters and Russians

and all that.

FLICK

YEAH AND GETTING SHOT AT! GET DOWN!

The Jackie Gleason looking guy fires a gigantic shotgun blast, the cacophony of the blast resonates in the ears. Druska and Flick duck, before they each withdraw matching golden handguns, firing multiple rounds into the chest of the man behind the counter. Fuel by Metallica is playing. Blood squirts out of every hole in his body and he collapses to ground convulsing. Druska and Flick run out of the diner after snorting cocaine off the countertop.