[Hey readers-- below is the first draft of the first part of what I'm absolutely certain will be the most important screenplay I ever write. I hope you like it, and I'm interested to hear what directions it moved you emotionally while you were reading it. It's pretty amazing.]
NEW YORK. DAYTIME. EXT. A RATHOLE APARTMENT IN A BAD PART OF THE CITY.
Our hero, ISAAC KRUETZMACHER, is arriving back at home after a hard week being the doctor for a SWAT team. He is ruggedly handsome and around 22 years old. He is obese.
He goes up some stairs and unlocks the door to his apartment building.
ISAAC: What should I do now that I'm off work? Listen to classical music or watch baseball or write a biography of my grandparents? Maybe I should practice cooking some great but healthy foods....
As he enters the apartment building, he does NOT see a note taped to the front of the door. The camera zooms in on it. It reads "Isaac! Please help it's your wife Judy they came and kidnapped me! And I'm injured! I need your Swat and Doctor skills to help me! All I know is they have a red van! And one of the thugs is named Mark Danson! And, also, I overheard them talking about another man, who I guess they work for, who they referred to only by the mysterious moniker "The Calavera!" Obviously it's a fake name, but I did hear the one they called "Mark" mention that the secret lair of this Calavera is someplace near the old docks on Crosbie Street, in a building with fading purple paint and a pile of tires near the door. It's an old warehouse! And they're going to take me there, to a room that used to be a storage locker in the back! With any luck I'll be able to tape this note to the front door as they drag me, screaming at the top of my lungs, from our home. Please, save me! Yours, Judy."
When the audience is finished reading that, cut to the interior of the apartment, where ISAAC has already started watching Knight Rider on Hulu. He eats an Oreo and whistles a little tune, not really watching Knight Rider but not doing anything else, either. He farts and checks his twitter in one movement.
ISAAC: I wonder where Judy is?
He takes his gun from the holster on his belt and screws around with it. He pretends to shoot some terrorists.
ISAAC: Oh! Right in the face!
On the laptop, KITT (Knight Industries 2000, a Super-Intelligent Black Pontiac Trans Am) rescues Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) from a gang of stringy ultra-marathon runners in animal costumes being mind-controlled by Michael's arch-nemesis for this episode, a science experiment gone wrong named "The Mentaler"(Guest Appearance by Ted Hughes). With the combined power of their own endurance specialized limbs and the crushing domination of The Mentaler's unending mind-dominance, the zombie-like marathoners are able to keep pace with the fleeing KITT until it runs out of gas in the Sonoran desert, whereupon they attack the stalled vehicle with the unreal ferocity of the damned. As their bones and teeth shatter against KITT's nigh-invulnerable "Tri-Helical Plasteel 1000 Molecular Bonded Shell" Michael uses the time until they die to call his girlfriend, Marta. Only a flash of the scene is visible on the laptop, but it catches Isaac's attention just long enough for him to accidentally spill his glass of orange juice all over the kitchen table. He does a half-ass job of cleaning it up then goes to get some chicken at the fried chicken place down the street.
INT. CHICKEN PLACE- DAY
At the chicken place two men, ANTHONY and TRIO, are using the ATM machine.
TRIO: I don't like paying the ATM fee.
ANTHONY: Nobody likes paying the ATM fee, you asshole. Just pay it. You owe me lunch.
TRIO: Let go to the grocery store and get cash back on something.
ANTHONY: They don't have fried chicken there.
TRIO: I'll get a drink or something and then we can come back.
ANTHONY: You have to spend ten dollars to get cash back. You have to spend two dollars to get cash here. Want me to do the math for you?
TRIO: Shut your face. I'm doing it.
ANTHONY: Thank you. Hey, your PIN is stupid. 1122? The fuck is that- that's a baby's pin number.
TRIO: You're right, I guess. I should change it.
ANTHONY: Yeah.
ISAAC pushes past them to get to the counter. At the counter is the owner of the chicken place, RAVI. They speak to each other through a two inch plexiglass barrier.
RAVI: What you like sir?
ISAAC: Hey-- can I just have a chicken tenders basket with fries?
RAVI: Ok. No drink sir?
ISAAC: No thanks. Wait- do you have Code Red? I could use the boost.
RAVI: Mountain Dew Code Red is discontinued.
ISAAC: Balls. Are there any other code reds? Like Pepsi code red, for instance?
RAVI: No sir.
ISAAC: Balls. Okay. Just the tenders with Fries.
RAVI: Two minutes.
Behind them on a old wall mounted television with the sound muted, a female news reporter broadcasts in front of a flaming disaster. She is holding back tears. Lip-reading movie viewers will be able to make out what she is saying: "Deaf people are not welcome in this movie theater."
Isaac gets his chicken and leaves the store. When he gets to his front door, having already eaten more than half the fries that came with his meal, he finally notices the note his beloved wife left for him as she was being kidnapped. He pulls it off the door and doesn't read it until he's sitting in front of the computer again, a long chicken tender poking out of his mouth like a lizard tongue. When he speaks it falls to the table.
ISAAC: Oh no! My wife's been kidnapped!
Isaac begins crying.
SLAM CUT TO OPENING CREDITS
The opening credits are a stock footage montage of people crying, starting with babies and going through teenagers and regular people and ending with the very, very old. Music: 'Till Tuesday's "Voices Carry." Boviously, these opening credits last for the entire duration of the four minute eighteen second duration of the song.
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