MAN-LIKE MACHINES: art / enlightenment / the future


	I Was Jesus and Dracula a short screenplay by George Dalphin © 2008 Man-Like Machines CAST: ELI – the boy, fourteen MYSTERIOUS MAN – the bum, immortal HANK – Eli’s father, forty-two RACHEL – Eli’s mom, thirty-nine UNCLE TIM – Eli’s uncle, twenty-something JOHN – Eli’s friend, sixteen YANCY – The girl Eli is interested in, sixteen 1 EXT. BUSHES ACROSS FROM WAYNFLETE – DAY ELI is crouched, thinking he’s hidden, watching for something across the street, where students are leaving school. He opens his backpack, carefully looking around to make sure he isn’t seen, and gets out a Capri Sun, sips from it, looks again. He listens to the Lou Reed song Dimestore Mystery on headphones. As I Sat Sadly By Her Side? Exquisite Corpse? His eyes light up as he sees her. ACROSS THE STREET – YANCY and a female friend walk slowly away from the school, talking. ELI, in the bushes, sips his Capri Sun and sighs, looks down in thought. 2 EXT. WIDE SHOT of ELI walking from the west side of PORTLAND to downtown - DAY 3 EXT. PORTLAND HIGH SCHOOL – DAY ELI, picking the last of the tiny bush leaves off his jacket, walks down an alley toward Portland High School and comes out by a side entrance of the school. A few other kids are standing around, waiting to be picked up. ELI finds a place against the wall by himself and takes a notebook out of his backpack. He opens it, revealing a bunch of drawings of anime characters, and he works a little more on one that is unfinished. After a moment, HANK’s white BMW convertible pulls around the corner and peels up the street to a hard stop right in front of ELI. HANK, with sunglasses on, stands up in the driver’s seat and calls out to ELI. Gassed & Stoked plays on the stereo. HANK Hey, you! The badass in the red jacket! ELI puts his notebook back in his backpack and gets up, gets into the car with his dad. ELI Hey dad. I was just listening to Lou Reed on my headphones earlier. New York. HANK Huh – a little random synchronicity there for you. That’s cool. Just goes to show how much of me really is in you. How was your day? ELI Eh. HANK Anything the matter? ELI is quiet for an overly long few seconds, struggling with whether or not to tell his father, then finally he decides to do so. ELI I skipped school. HANK looks confused for a moment, looks at the school building then back at ELI. HANK But came back to it? ELI Well, you were picking me up here. HANK I guess that makes sense. (beat) Why did you tell me about it? You’re not supposed to tell adults when you do things like that. Now I have to... ELI You don’t have to do anything. HANK Well why did you skip school? Did you skip the whole day? What did you do with your day? ELI No, I left at lunch. I went over to Waynflete. HANK What was at Waynflete? ELI A girl I like. HANK You like a girl? How exciting! ELI Dad, please. HANK Sorry, sugar. What’s her name? ELI Yancy. HANK laughs, but ELI gives him a look and HANK stops his laughter. HANK How do you know this girl? ELI Well, I— HANK Actually, you know what, it doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business. You can bring information like this to us whenever you see fit. This may just be some weird adolescent stalking thing for all I know. Could be nothing. Just a masturbation thing or something. ELI It’s not a masturbation thing. Jesus. HANK Don’t take the lord’s name in vain while discussing masturbation. Jesus hates that. ELI grimaces in embarrassment. HANK I was just kidding, of course. I’m sorry, Eli. Have I just made you feel extremely awkward? Cut to: WIDE SHOT of them in the still-parked convertible by the side of Portland High School, a few other kids still standing around waiting for rides. ELI Can you take me home or what? HANK Sure, son. Sure. 4 INT. IN THE CAR WHILE DRIVING After an implied long pause of silence, during the instrumental middle of Magic and Loss, HANK turns to ELI. HANK You know we still love each other, right? You and me, I mean. Even though I’m not here anymore. (beat) I miss our old normalcy. ELI I think the normalcy was the problem, Dad. HANK frowns, intrigued. ELI She’s a friend of John’s. HANK Who, your Mom? Who’s this John? ELI John is my friend who transferred to Waynflete. HANK Oh, John, right. Who’s his friend? ELI Forget it. 5 INT. AT HOME – EVENING ELI and HANK walk into the breezeway of the house. RACHEL, ELI’s mother, and her brother UNCLE TIM are in the kitchen, talking as they work together on making dinner. The Public Enemy song Is Your God a Dog plays on their little boombox. RACHEL This box is about as hard to shut correctly as anything could possibly be. I mean look at these tabs and slots, Hank, it’s like an Escher drawing! UNCLE TIM Well they don’t want those chicken-broccoli fellows to escape. Inject broccoli and buttery cheese into the center of an asteroid-shaped chicken and it gets mean. They’d be coming at you if they weren’t sealed behind that contraption. RACHEL But these tabs are to reseal the box! It’s like they don’t ever want the chickens to get back in, or at least to feel secure in there once in, ever again, after they’ve been born to the world from this box womb. HANK It’s a mystery. RACHEL Oh, hello Eli. Hank, can we talk in the garage for a few minutes, before you go? HANK Get out of my face, bitch. I’m just dropping him off. RACHEL Did I say anything rude whatsoever? I need to talk to you about some minor phone stuff. It’ll just take a minute. Jesus. Then I’ll be happy to let you leave. HANK Your eyes say it. UNCLE TIM Hank. HANK Tim. HANK slightly slams the door on his way out to the garage and RACHEL follows behind. 6 EXT. DRIVEWAY Seen through the window from ELI’s POV, RACHEL having some last words with HANK as he goes to his car and she stands there watching as he pulls away. 7 INT. KITCHEN – EARLY EVENING ELI sits, beginning some homework. UNCLE TIM works on finishing up dinner. RACHEL comes back in the house. RACHEL Jesus christ. It will never end, will it? (beat) Say, Eli, do you think you can eat two of these chicken units? You are a growing boy; it’s not shameful to eat as much as you feel you need to. ELI I’m not concerned about the shame involved, mom. I’ll have just one. Will there be a side dish? UNCLE TIM Well actually, Eli, since I forgot to go to the store, we don’t really have much of anything in that category. RACHEL There’s some cold pancakes in the fridge, I think. Or half of one. ELI I guess I’ll have two chickens then. UNCLE TIM Eli passes on the side of cold pancake strips. RACHEL Two it is, Muffin. 8 INT. DINNER TABLE – EVENING Dinner is over and the family’s plates are all clean except for Eli’s, which still has some bits of chicken and broccoli. RACHEL We’ll just give that to the bird. Nothing to be ashamed about if that’s all you can eat tonight. UNCLE TIM You know, our parents, your grandparents, would set a timer if I didn’t finish all my food by the end of dinner, and when it went off if I hadn’t finished yet I’d get a spanking and then the timer would be reset. RACHEL It’s true. UNCLE TIM Have I told you about that before? ELI shakes his head. RACHEL It’s just a different time. Thank god for progress, right, Muffin? UNCLE TIM Really you should thank reason for progress, to be fair. ELI How long did they set the timer for? UNCLE TIM You know Eli, I don’t remember. Maybe twenty minutes or something. ELI Did it ever go off and you got a spanking? UNCLE TIM From time to time I guess. ELI What were you, just sitting there perfectly still, not eating? Like, dinner was over, everyone else had left? UNCLE TIM Yeah. I would just sit there. One time I got the bright idea – the food item at hand in this instance was a salad – I got the idea to just sit on it, to hide it, and then say I had eaten it. But then when I got up, of course, it was there on the chair and stuck to and falling off of the seat of my pants. RACHEL and ELI both laugh along with UNCLE TIM’s story. UNCLE TIM I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a different time. Progress, as your mother just mentioned. ELI So anyway, um, may I please be excused? RACHEL Sure you may, Muffin. Go forth and explore, experiment. Make me a cool something in that rock tumbler your grandma got you. ELI frowns, and starts to leave the room. RACHEL Oh and hey, Muffin – your Dad told me about what you told him, of course, as we do, and I just want to let you know that if you want to talk to either of us, like your Dad or your Uncle Tim for instance, about that girl or how you feel about skipping school today or anything like that, you should do so. ELI You know, thanks, but I really don’t right now. UNCLE TIM That’s fair, champ. We’re here for you, though, no judgments. We know – I mean, everyone knows that around a certain age everyone – and really, everyone does it – RACHEL Tim. She shakes her head with a somewhat appalled, almost-laughing look, and HANK stops talking and looks down. ELI Thanks. ELI leaves the room. 9 INT. ELI’s ROOM – NIGHT ELI sits at his computer with headphones on, playing a weird, violent first-person-shooter. His room is dark. The door opens, flooding light into the room, and ELI quickly takes off his headphones and turns around to see RACHEL. RACHEL Hey, Muffin. I have to go out to the store since your uncle forgot to, and since he’s out at his meeting I need you to come with me, because there’ll be no one here. ELI We can’t start early with me being able to be home alone? I’m almost fourteen. I could handle myself. Even if there was a fire or a burglar showed up or something, I would be okay. I am a capable person with a mind. I’m not a larva. RACHEL You’re not a Roman spirit of the dead? Good argument, but sorry. It’s not about what you’re capable of; it’s about what I worry about. I promised you fifteen, but you’re still unlucky fourteen and I’m still a responsible, concerned mother. So, if you don’t mind, please come put on your coat and come with me to the store. You don’t have to come in with me if you don’t want to. You can wait in the car and listen to music. ELI Alright, gimme a minute. Can I finish this level? RACHEL Sorry; now. ELI groans and just quits his game. RACHEL Don’t you not save your game and then use it somehow passive-aggressively against me. You could’ve saved. You don’t need to find a save point or anything. I know how that game works. ELI groans again. 10 INT. CAR - GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT – NIGHT RACHEL pulls her car into a parking spot at the GROCERY STORE. The Pink Floyd song Childhood’s End plays on the car stereo. Before she turns off the car, she turns to ELI. RACHEL So are you going to come in with me, or do you want to stay in the car? ELI I’ll stay here. RACHEL Okay. But you’ll be missing some great people-watching, at the very least. Not to mention I’d buy you a box of fruit snacks. Spider Man fruit snacks? ELI doesn’t bite, so RACHEL opens her door. RACHEL Well, be safe. Don’t let strangers in the car. ELI Can I talk to them through the window? RACHEL scoffs a little laugh. Then she walks off toward the store, and ELI watches her. Out of nowhere, an arm comes into his view with a book in its hand, and the person who owns the arm begins to squeegee the windshield with the book right in front of ELI, on his side. ELI then notices, with a jump, the MYSTERIOUS MAN standing right outside his window, owner of the book-squeegeeing arm. The MYSTERIOUS MAN looks at ELI and leans in a bit. MYSTERIOUS MAN You got a dollar? The MYSTERIOUS MAN then puts the book away inside his big coat and pulls a fan of playing cards out, holding them up against ELI’s window. MYSTERIOUS MAN Or I can teach you a card trick! You like magic? Roll down, you window! The MYSTERIOUS MAN throws his fan of cards at ELI’s window as if he is casting an opening spell on it by doing so, but nothing happens, then just stares at ELI. ELI stares at the scraggly man, nervously fascinated, but after a minute of eye contact, ELI turns down the music in the car and rolls down his window a little bit. ELI I don’t have any money, and I don’t want to know magic. Science and reason suit me fine. Thanks, though, mister. Sorry about your...situation. MYSTERIOUS MAN Hey, kid, don’t be sorry about my situation. I’ve got it better than anyone on earth! Didn’t you see my magic just work? It was on you, boy! The MAN raises his arms to the sky as he shouts the above line, then falls back slightly drunkenly to the window. ELI recoils from the smell of booze. ELI You’re drunk right now, right? The MYSTERIOUS MAN nods, impressed. MYSTERIOUS MAN It wasn’t that situation you meant you felt sorry for, was it? ELI Oh, no. I look forward to being able to get drunk sometimes. It must be interesting. MYSTERIOUS MAN You said it! The only thing it is, if anything … is interesting. The MYSTERIOUS MAN seems to go inward upon his drunkenness for a moment, reflecting with a bizarre vapidity. Then he comes out of it. MYSTERIOUS MAN Well, just be sure you don’t go so far it kills you. Keep track of yourself, is the key. But who am I to preach to you, really? I can take it as far as I want. You know, I’ve been drunk since the Sixties? Literally. ELI I’m Eli. Who are you? MYSTERIOUS MAN I’m nobody. ELI Who am I, Polyphemus? MYSTERIOUS MAN But I’ll tell you who I was. ELI Who were you? MYSTERIOUS MAN Well two thousand years ago they called me Jeshua, whom you’d today know as Jesus. ELI laughs a soft laugh. MYSTERIOUS MAN You want to know who else I was? ELI Who? Quetzalcoatl? The MAN nods again, impressed. MYSTERIOUS MAN Here I am, I haven’t believed in synchronicity for centuries, and I stumble drunken across a kid like you. Now this is interesting. I haven’t had an interesting moment in decades, kid. What was your name again? ELI Eli. MYSTERIOUS MAN Vlad Dracul. Dracula, you’d know me as. That’s who else I’ve been. ELI frowns with concern. MYSTERIOUS MAN I’m serious, you know. I’m the only immortal man. At least, the only one I know of. And I’ve been around for a long time, so I think I would have found anyone else. ELI You’re immortal? MYSTERIOUS MAN You got it. I don’t even know how old I am, because I don’t remember my birth or my childhood. Those long caveman millennia feel like my childhood, but I was no child. See, I’m at least like ten thousand years old. I remember pre-history. I was around in Egypt when the first towns popped up on the Great River. Jesus. Thought I had some good ideas, but, you know. Got crucified, which blew. But they didn’t kill me. But all that stuff they wrote about what I said after I came out of that cave – that was all bullshit. That was them covering for me, because I was fucking furious after that ordeal, and I had spent those three days deciding whether or not to fucking give up on mankind, and I did. I sailed in secret to Gaul. I was like, fine, fuck you guys. ELI And then you became Dracula. MYSTERIOUS MAN Well, a few hundred years later, yeah. I was in a dark place. What can I say? I gave up on static morality a long time ago. Know what I mean? ELI Not really... RACHEL appears behind the MYSTERIOUS MAN, pushing a GROCERY CART and shouting to ELI. RACHEL Eli? Eli, are you okay? Hello! Who are you, please? The MYSTERIOUS MAN backs away from the window with his hands up and stumbles backwards, tripping over the front of an adjacent car. MYSTERIOUS MAN Whoa! Pardon me, Mrs. Status-Quo. Forgive me for conversing with your precious progeny. RACHEL Fuck you, mister. Get away from my car! MYSTERIOUS MAN You’re right. My faux pas. I’ll be off. The MYSTERIOUS MAN ambles off out of the parking lot. RACHEL leans in close to ELI’s cracked-open window. RACHEL Who was that? ELI He was just some weird bum. He wanted to teach me a magic trick. RACHEL opens the back door and starts throwing bags into the backseat. RACHEL Teach you a magic trick? She shuts the back door and goes around to the driver’s side, gets in and turns to ELI before she puts the car into drive. RACHEL Trust me. You don’t want to dabble in bum magic. How did you know you’d end up talking to someone through the window? ELI I don’t know. RACHEL Did you think you would, though? ELI Sort of. RACHEL Huh. They look at each other for a moment, then both look up at the MYSTERIOUS MAN who is stumbling away. Then RACHEL calmly pulls the car away. 11 INT. ELI’S BEDROOM – NIGHT ELI lies awake in bed, staring up in thought. Begin : OVERTURE to Jesus Christ Superstar ELI stares up at the shadows on his ceiling and the childhood posters on his walls. 12 EXT. BUS STOP – NEXT MORNING ELI stands, still staring/thinking, at the bus stop the next morning while other kids wait around him, talking and playing. When the bus arrives, it seems massive. 13 EXT. PORTLAND HIGH SCHOOL – DAY From out of a crowd of high schoolers, ELI steals away down an alley, into the city. 14 EXT. PORTLAND STREETS – DAY As ELI walks down the Portland streets and sees the people walking around him, everyone seems different than before. Some eye him back, all somehow eerily now, unlike before. 15 EXT. OUTSIDE WAYNFLETE – DAY ELI meets his friend JOHN and girlfriend YANCY, and they exchange salutations. JOHN opens his bag and reveals the bottles of spray paint and cut-out stencils within. 16 EXT. PORTLAND STREETS – DAY The three of them fairly romp through the streets and alleys of Portland until they come upon a good secluded wall, where there is already some graffiti. They open up their bags and start tagging. After a while, from around a corner stumbles the MYSTERIOUS MAN, and he comes to rest on a small pile of trash several yards down the alley from the teens as the OVERTURE to Jesus Christ Superstar comes to its end. ELI No way. JOHN Check out the vagrant. YANCY Jesus. ELI chuckles. JOHN Hey man, don’t laugh at the homeless. ELI Last night that guy told me he was Jesus and Dracula. JOHN That dude was Jesus and Dracula? I gotta talk to him. YANCY No, John, leave him alone. Don’t go over there. Eli, don’t let him get you into this. JOHN walks over toward the MYSTERIOUS MAN, and steadily behind him ELI and YANCY follow. JOHN Yo! (beat) Yo Jesus-slash-Dracula. As they slowly approach, the MYSTERIOUS MAN, sprawled out on the pile of trash, slightly opens his eyes. YANCY John, stop fucking with the poor guy. Eli, why did you say that about this guy? You just got John all riled up. You know he hates Jesus. JOHN laughs. JOHN I don’t hate Jesus. I hate Jesus freaks. I hate the festering growth on the Jesus story that the church and its mindless followers are. MYSTERIOUS MAN You said it, son. JOHN Oh, the savior has awakened! MYSTERIOUS MAN No savior for you. (beat) Eli. YANCY How did he know your name? ELI I told you, I talked with this guy last night. How you doing, man? Still drunk? MYSTERIOUS MAN I’m keeping a good run going. I’d have to have some kind of point to want to make to stop now. JOHN So you were Jesus and Dracula in your past lives is the word I hear on the street, mister. ‘Sthat true? MYSTERIOUS MAN Not in past lives – in this life! This one, long, unending blur of dispassionate torment. The one immortal man. You could never imagine. You could never, ever live long enough to imagine. YANCY scoffs a little laugh. YANCY Please. I think science would have heard of you. Come on guys, let’s finish what we were doing and let this magic bum enjoy his buzz. The MYSTERIOUS MAN begins slowly to get up. MYSTERIOUS MAN Oh this is way more than a buzz, darling. I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s interesting. You know, I haven’t interacted in any significant way with other human beings since King was killed. I don’t know what it was about you, Eli. You just looked so lonely. And maybe I was feeling a little … you know, crazy. I mean I’ve seen a lot. And now it’s like this. Every god forsaken window’s got a screen. The MYSTERIOUS MAN signals the world around them with a shrug-like swaying gesture as he gets to his feet. He laughs a little with dispassion. YANCY So you really are claiming to be immortal? Because you don’t look much over forty or so. MYSTERIOUS MAN Sure am, little sister. I may look the eternal thirty-three, but it’s more like forty-thousand. JOHN (laughing) So you’re, like, an immortal caveman, effectively. And you were Jesus and Dracula? ELI He somehow made it make sense last night. YANCY So the whole Jesus birth story? MYSTERIOUS MAN Egyptian. That’s the Horus story. (beat) I don’t expect you to believe me. I was Grigori Rasputin, too, if you could believe that. But that would just be too far to stretch, wouldn’t it? YANCY I don’t know, that could make a weird sort of sense. JOHN And you’re the Easter Bunny too, right? MYSTERIOUS MAN You know, friend, when you’ve been around as long as I have you see yourself very differently. You stop sectioning off your life into days and years and begin to really see larger life phases. Move, perhaps, from identity to identity. ‘Cause I’ve got no special wisdom you don’t; I may have thought I did at various points, but where’s it gotten me, or the world? I stayed awake from Eighteen-Twenty to Nineteen-Thirty-Eight. I was even worse-off looking than I am now, if you can believe that. I was real insane. The MYSTERIOUS MAN wobbles a bit where he’s standing, and takes a swig from the bottle in his hand. MYSTERIOUS MAN I spent the entire seventeenth century at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. ELI laughs, but the MYSTERIOUS MAN just glares at him, serious as a heart attack. MYSTERIOUS MAN What I’m trying to say I guess is that, when you’ve moved through so many phases of life you begin to notice the symptoms. And it was you, Eli, who made me realize, for the first time since the Sixties, that I think I might just start doing something very new. Maybe something I haven’t even done before. (beat) I mean, it’s the Twenty-First Century, right? Imagine what the one immortal man could do! I could do the Jesus thing again, perhaps, only with a new, updated, modern understanding of what morality really ought to be. Maybe I could hold my head up longer than just a few hours while they gut me this time! Or I could just give this immortal body to science at last. I’ve been considering that for centuries. Only really seems now they might be able to get somewhere. (beat) Or maybe, maybe I could do something quite the opposite. Maybe I could do the negative role-model thing again. Scare you pathetic first-world haves straight. Although back in Wallachia all that seemed to do was spread the bloodlust like a fever. Something big and bold like that really can rile up the crazies. The MYSTERIOUS MAN begins slowly to stumble toward the kids, and they to slowly back away from him. ELI Easy, man. Be Jesus now. MYSTERIOUS MAN Fuck Jesus! Fuck the world for constantly reminding me of my failure thus! YANCY But people love you. MYSTERIOUS MAN Bullshit. They don’t love me. They don’t know a thing about me. They want me to love them. JOHN Look, stop, man! JOHN suddenly stands firm where he is and pulls a knife out of his pocket. He brandishes it at the MYSTERIOUS MAN, who stops approaching and makes a face at the knife. MYSTERIOUS MAN Where did you get that? JOHN My dad gave me this. And I bet it can hurt you even if you are immortal. ELI John, Jesus Christ! They both look over at ELI, then back at each other. JOHN So what would happen, Dracula? Is your skin like metal or some shit? MYSTERIOUS MAN Oh no, I’d bleed. I’ve just got … infinite blood. YANCY John, put down that knife, please! Eli… YANCY pleads gesturally for ELI to do something. ELI looks at JOHN, then at the MYSTERIOUS MAN. ELI Let’s get out of here. MYSTERIOUS MAN Or do you need to see my blood, John? You want to see a miracle? You want to watch a drunk vagrant prove you ignorant? The MYSTERIOUS MAN and JOHN stare each other down. JOHN begins to shake. ELI nervously eyes them both. The MYSTERIOUS MAN suddenly snatches the knife out of JOHN’s hand. MYSTERIOUS MAN Baptism in blood then, eh, fella? ELI grabs at the knife in the MAN’s hand, startling him in his drunkenness, but he still holds on and grabs at ELI’s hand with his other hand. ELI brings his other hand into the mix, grabbing at the MYSTERIOUS MAN’s fingers and struggling back and forth between them with the knife. YANCY Eli, no! The MYSTERIOUS MAN drunkenly stumbles backward, and with his and ELI’s hands on the knife it gets plunged into his heart slowly but steadily as ELI’s weight falls against him, their hands clasped. ELI lets go with a gasp. The MYSTERIOUS MAN stumbles back. ELI and JOHN look at each other as YANCY starts to prance back away from the gurgling, bleeding man, and after a moment ELI and JOHN join her, and the three all run back together to the corner of the alley, but then slow there and turn back to watch as the MYSTERIOUS MAN seems to slowly shake out his last death throes, and then flops limp on the trash pile. YANCY Oh my god. You killed him. Of course it was bullshit; Jesus! Oh my god, Eli, you just killed that guy. John, that’s your knife. You gotta go retrieve it. JOHN No, nobody knows it’s mine. It’s new. There’s gotta be a million like it. YANCY John they can trace that stuff; you gotta go get it! They have the death penalty for murder! JOHN Fuck that. There’s a million like it. ELI I just killed a man. JOHN He was crazy. He was just some crazy derelict. (beat) Come on, let’s get outta here. We gotta go back to class. Come on, dude, now. JOHN and YANCY dash off, and ELI quickly follows. 17 EXT. PORTLAND STREETS – DAY The three teens dash through the streets of Portland, away from the scene, then stop together a few blocks away, in an open place near Congress Street. JOHN We will never tell anyone about this. YANCY Agreed. ELI looks at them both and slowly nods. YANCY I’ve got to get back to class. I’ll call you, Eli. See ya, John. YANCY heads off toward Waynflete. JOHN and ELI stand there and watch her for a moment, then look at each other. JOHN Hm. ‘I’ll call you, Eli.’ All you had to do was kill a vagrant. ELI Shut your mouth. (beat) Gimme one of your cigarettes. Somewhat dumbstruck, JOHN takes out his pack of cigarettes and hands on to ELI, then lights it for him. ELI Now get out of here. JOHN looks at ELI questioningly for a moment, then looks around as he turns and walks away, after YANCY, toward Waynflete. JOHN glances back at ELI a couple of times, which ELI watches with growing uncertainty. ELI looks around nervously, smoking his cigarette, and starts walking slowly back toward his high school. On the way, ELI’s expression belies his inner struggle over apparently having just killed a man. Along the way back to school, he at one point has to stop and face a closed shop window to compose his distraught tears and hyperventilate for a moment. Then he continues along his way with a weird calm glare. 18 EXT. PORTLAND HIGH SCHOOL STEPS – AFTERNOON ELI sits waiting to be picked up, hugging his backpack. HANK’s convertible pulls up and ELI walks up and gets in. 19 EXT. DRIVING THROUGH THE STREETS OF PORTLAND – AFTERNOON HANK So what have you learned today, son? ELI laughs morbidly, then gets a weird, inward look in his eyes. HANK What was it, Sex Ed. Day? HANK laughs. ELI glares over at his father. ELI Do you think certain people’s lives are worth more than other people’s lives, Hank? HANK You’re calling me Hank now? ELI I mean like, do you think that there really is good and bad? Like, above circumstances? HANK No I don’t, sugar. It’s interesting you ask, because I’ve been thinking about this very thing today. I do not think that there is such a thing as good or bad – there’s just stuff happening and you do with it what you will. You do what you gotta do, and essentially everyone’s just using each other, using the people in the past who set up society as a thing, really. We’re all just on the edge of … well … why, you kill somebody at school today? ELI No reason. As they stop at a stop sign to turn onto Congress Street, while HANK looks to see if any cars are coming from the left, ELI sees a dark figure crouching in the gutter, behind a mailbox, staggering slightly, its back to him. In slow motion, the figure rises and turns, revealing itself to be the MYSTERIOUS MAN, no knife in his chest any longer, and no wound, though he has doffed the shirt he had been stabbed in. The MYSTERIOUS MAN’s gaze is delirious, drifting around, looking into the air for a moment, then down directly at ELI, making eye contact and a moment later a realization. Then his eyes widen, his mouth snarls, and he points firmly right at ELI just as HANK begins to pull the car away, off down along Congress Street. ELI turns his head to stay on the pointing drunk behind the snowbank, then turns forward in his seat and just stares into space in shock and awe. CUT TO: TITLE CARD IN MAUVE ON BLACK: I WAS JESUS AND DRACULA