"Dead-set Sicko Loser: The Film Script"
ISBN: 9781301590988.
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Dead-Set Sicko Loser
Filmscript by D. Bruno Starrs. Copyright 2012.
INT. ROOM. NIGHT.
(A room with out-of-focus, smokey black walls. Two posh, professional-looking WOMEN, in white lab coats, are seated at a table, entering notes onto clipboards or laptops. They are invisible devices. Seated opposite the WOMEN is DE BORTOLI, a middle-aged man who is happily tying trout flies, which are also invisible, under the glare of a desk lamp. He is wearing pajamas, slippers and a dressing gown)
WOMAN 1:
So, Mr. De Bortoli, is it? Stirling De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
(Looks up, as if seeing them for the first time)
What? Oh, yeah, that’s me, sweet-heart.
(He resumes tying flies)
WOMAN 2:
Address?
DE BORTOLI:
Whoa there, honey. You’re cute and all, but we’ve only just met!
WOMAN 1:
Please be serious, Mr. De Bortoli, this is most important.
DE BORTOLI:
Touchy little thing, aren’t ya?
(Winks at WOMAN 2)
The horny ones always are at the start.
(He puts aside his flies and adopts a formal tone)
Well, the one and only Stirling De Bortoli Esquire resides at Unit 5, Bachelor Mews, Uptown West Paramore, 2195.
WOMAN 2:
Your age and occupation, please, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
Well, I’m 46 years young and I teach grade 3 at St. Bruno’s. You know, don’t ever let anyone tell you the teaching game’s no good, ‘cause there are perks galore! Like the three months vacation every year. Whoosh! Off I go: Bangkok, Manila, Phnom Penh, wherever. Brown sugar …
(Winks again)
A little taste of the exotic, if ya know what I mean?
WOMAN 1:
Do you travel alone when you take annual leave, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
Oh, I see where you’re going. Ball and chain, Mr. De Bortoli? Hmm, who’s the little missus, Mr. De Bortoli? Where’s your better half, Mr. De Bortoli? Huh! Not for me, sister. I figured out long ago that getting married was a recipe for an early grave. I’m what the young fellas call a playa!
(Uncomfortable pause)
You know, Boom Chicka Wow Wow!
WOMAN 2:
That is interesting to a certain extent but we’d like to know a little more about what makes you tick, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
Well, there’s my fishing. That’s what I’m doing now. Obviously not fishing right at this very moment: there’s no water in here, now is there?
(Laughs a fraction too long at his own joke)
But tying flies like this. Nothing like taking a drive out into the countryside on a weekend with a selection of lures you’ve painstakingly made yourself. Finding a secluded stream and watching a particular fish rise and selecting a fly to match … It’s like a seduction … Presenting that tiny bunch of feathers and silk wrapped around a miniscule hook and seeing that wily old Rainbow trout rise up slowly from the depths, inspecting your fly as it floats into range, before casually sucking it down. Waiting the longest second and a half before striking and Kapow! All hell breaks loose and that little trout is flippin’ and a flappin’ around for dear life. Un-freaking-real!
WOMAN 1:
And what is the appeal, Mr. De Bortoli, in dragging a defenseless animal about by its torn and bloody lip? Strikes me as nothing less than animal cruelty, don’t you think?
DE BORTOLI:
Well, Oncorhynchus mykiss is a beautiful animal, there’s no argument. But let’s face it. He’s just a fish. It’s not as if he actually feels anything.
WOMAN 2:
So you don’t see it as barbaric to impale another one of God’s creatures on a piece of cold, jagged steel and prolong his suffering by, as you anglers say, ‘playing him’, until you finally pull him ashore where he dies a horrendous death, slowly asphyxiating?
DE BORTOLI:
(Defensively)
Like I said, your average Rainbow is a thing of beauty, but he don’t feel a thing.
(Pause. The women take notes)
WOMAN 1:
No children, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
Rug rats? Hell, no!
WOMAN 2:
Never sought the joy of nurturing a kindred spirit, apart from those you teach at school?
DE BORTOLI:
(Contemptuously)
The kids at school! Little bastards!
WOMAN 1:
That hardly sounds like the philosophy of a model school-teacher, Mr. De Bortoli.
WOMAN 2:
I’m not sure I’d enjoy being under your pedagogical tutelage, Mr. De Bortoli, with an attitude like that.
DE BORTOLI:
When it comes to the kids born with a silver spoon in their mouth, I guess I don’t really care that much. If they are not sufficiently motivated, then it’s a living hell. But there’s the charity, of course. Uncles for Orphans. Every few weeks I’ll take a young lad fishing with me. But they never last.
WOMAN 1:
Why do you think that is, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
Oh, you know how it is with boys these days. If it ain’t first person shooter they’re just not interested.
WOMAN 2:
Do you harbour fond memories of any of these boys in particular?
DE BORTOLI:
Nah, I forget all about ‘em. If they’re not gonna play along, then it’s not worth the effort.
WOMAN 1:
By “play along”, do you mean …
WOMAN 2:
(Interrupting)
Our next question, Mr. De Bortoli, is a bit personal.
DE BORTOLI:
Go ahead. I’ve got nothing to hide.
WOMAN 1:
It’s a little, well … sensitive.
DE BORTOLI:
I’m up for it.
WOMAN 2:
Have you ever had a homosexual experience, Mr. De Bortoli?
DE BORTOLI:
What? Me? A pillow-biter? Not bloody likely, honey. I’m all man, and if you’d care to put down your pens for a moment I could show you. Yes, both of you … at the same bloody time!
WOMAN 1:
Never wondered, Mr. Bortoli? Entertained the possibility that …
DE BORTOLI:
I said no, Sweet Cheeks, and you can write that down in your damn report with big, fat capitals!
WOMAN 2:
Homosexuality is not a crime, Mr. De Bortoli, but we’d just like to know. For the records, that is.
DE BORTOLI:
Well, of course it’s not necessarily a crime. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their closely shuttered home, in a different su
burb, out of the view and earshot of we normal folks, is none of my business at all. As long as I don’t have to know anything about it.
WOMAN 1:
And what about non-consenting?
DE BORTOLI:
Well, no, that’s not permissable at all.
WOMAN 2:
And what about non-adults?
DE BORTOLI:
Here, what are you getting at?
WOMAN 1:
Tell me, Mr. De Bortoli, does this sound familiar?
(WOMAN 2 presses play on an invisible tape deck)
YOUNG BOY (V/0):
He said he’d take me to a special trout stream only he knew about. Guaranteed fish. Rainbows. He’d teach me to cast a fly. He was always on about flies.
DE BORTOLI:
Who the hell is …
(Holding his forehead and grimacing in pain)
Oh, man, my head.
WOMAN 2:
(Stopping the tape)
Please, Mr. De Bortoli, it is imperative that you concentrate on the task at hand.
DE BORTOLI:
Go to hell, you bitch! I don’t have to sit here and listen to this Goddam rubbish …
WOMAN 2:
Actually, Mr. De Bortoli, you do. Indeed, you have no choice in the matter.
WOMAN 1:
None what so ever, Mr. De Bortoli.
(WOMAN 2 presses play again)
YOUNG BOY (V/0):
That’s when he’d undo my zipper and put his hand in. He said, it’s alright. It’s OK for uncles. Just doing up your fly. Sometimes he’d ...
DE BORTOLI:
This is outrageous. Oh, I got a killer migraine … Where did you get this? Look, I know my rights. I want to speak to my … Aargh ...
(Presses his temples)
I never hurt anyone ...
(Falls to the floor).
They don’t feel anything, not a …
(The lightbulb in the desk lamp flickers then goes out)
WOMAN 1:
Mr. De Bortoli?
WOMAN 2:
Mr. De Bortoli?
(The two women stand and take off their coats, revealing grungy black nightclub wear and black Angel's wings. WOMAN 2 presses stop on the invisible tape deck and lights a cigarette. WOMAN 1 clicks her fingers and DE BORTOLI’s body zaps onto the table. He is now naked with a black sheet draped over his corpse, one big toe of which has a mortician’s tag looped around it. Standing either side of the table, the women address the camera directly, no longer posh. Static noise interrupts intermittently)
WOMAN 1:
What a lousy sicko.
WOMAN 2:
What a goddam loser.
WOMAN 1:
(To WOMAN 1)
How do I look?
WOMAN 2:
Fine, darling. Oh, wait … Loose feather.
(She adjusts WOMAN 1’s wings)
And me?
WOMAN 1:
Gorgeous. Ok, so let’s do this thing!
(WOMAN 2 grinds out her half-smoked cigarette)
WOMAN 2.
Subject: Caucasian male, 46 years of age. Name: Stirling De Bortoli.
WOMAN 1:
Cause of death: brain aneurism.
WOMAN 2:
Next of kin: none.
(pause)
WOMAN 1 and 2:
(Together, with joy, they high-five!)
Dead set sicko loser!
(Static increases and the camera shudders and falls)
THE END.
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