SON OF PRIME
EPISODE ONE
‘THE EVIL SALESWOMAN’
1) Argyle Street, Monday Morning.
Argyle Street is very busy, buzzing with the overlapping conversations of 2000 people. Between Marks and Spencers and a mobile phone shop stands Gavin McIntyre. Surrounding him is a small circle that has assembled to see his show. He is a street comedian.
Gavin: Right, hello there. My name’s Gavin McIntyre and I would like to thank you for stopping. You didn’t stop for Greenpeace I see… bugger them. There are too many of these people trying to make you buy things on the streets today. You know like ‘Shelter’ and ‘Help the Aged’, you know, the usual crowd. There’s Big Issue sellers throwing the things at you!
Gavin: It’s annoying more than anything else when they bother you. I would rather go into Virgin Megastores than hear about bad things happening in the world. But saying that, I’m actually more upset when they don’t bother me. You know, when they just let me walk past, I think to myself: ‘Not good enough for you, eh?! What’s wrong with me?! Do you think I’ll steal your pen or something?!”
Gavin: It’s true. Now, was anyone at the Scotland game last night? We did well, didn’t we? I didn’t know we were capable of losing to Spain by a small margin. We did fantastic!
Subtitle: Some things never change.
Gavin: Admittedly we still lost, but… then… the Spanish are scum! They are. The annoy me. I hate the way they dive a lot, but there is one thing I hate more than that. Have you noticed the way the Spanish players always kiss their crucifix before they go out? … Aye, that’s right, Miguel… God’s gonna help you kick a football. If there is a God, he’s probably out there saving Hawaiian villagers from an exploding volcano, or helping a family escape from some village in a war-torn country like Bosnia. It would be blatant favouritism to help the Spanish guys out, wouldn’t it? And if kissing the crucifix to earn God’s favour actually made any difference, then FIFA would surely ban it. Because, it would be an unfair advantage wouldn’t it? It would be exactly the same as taking steroids, except your genitals wouldn’t shrink. They would really have to have something like a drugs test to catch the religious players. Like a urine sample! ‘Hey Sepp. This guy’s been to confession in the last twenty-four hours.’
‘Ban ze criminal for life!’
Gavin: They would! Ban crucifixes from being within 700 miles of football stadia I say. I think they’re health hazards for athletes as well. When I see the 100 metres races in the Olympics I watch the big, burly, black guys pelting down the track, and their crucifix necklace thing, is just lashing back and forth on their neck. Really hard. Ban them as well! Ban the whole damn –
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin stops dead and looks round rather irritated.
Gavin: Anyway, the thing about athletics is –
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin: Do you mind?
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin: Listen mate, I’m trying to do a show here.
Newspaper Seller: Am tryin’ tae sell papers wee man.
Gavin: Wee man? You’re the only midget I can see mate. I could stand on you, and all that would be left would be a sticky mess on the bottom of my shoe.
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin: And there’s another thing. Why do you always shout like that? The entire city of Glasgow can hear you. There’s people admiring paintings in the Burrell Collection telling you very politely to shut the hell up. And let’s face it – people only buy your paper for the obituaries page.
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin: If I buy a paper, will you shut up?
Newspaper Seller: Aye.
Gavin: Right…
Gavin retrieves a fifty pence piece.
Gavin: Here. You can keep the change.
Newspaper Seller: There you are mate.
Newspaper Seller hands over the Evening Times and Gavin walks back to the audience. A man at this point dumps a pile of new papers beside the newspaper seller’s feet.
Gavin: Has anyone ever noticed that male athletes have breasts? They do. That’s always been one of things I’ve never been able to understand about women. Big muscular guys, have quite a credible cleavage. Why women want that in a guy I don’t claim to know. I don’t claim to know a lot about women. Or men. Or anything really. I know a bit about… stuff. I’m always in a kind of mid-table obscurity when it comes to the Pub Quiz night. But, I’d bet for the majority of the male population, it baffles them when women tell them to get in touch with their sensitive side. When my ex-girlfriend told me that, I thought to myself - ‘Lesbian!’ It’s like the gateway to femininity. They’d think the same way with us, if we told them to get in touch with their masculine side.
Newspaper Seller: EVENING TIMES!
Gavin: What did I say to you mate?
Newspaper Seller: They’ve updated it. New paper.
Gavin: Updated it have they? Let’s see here. The headline in the morning was some ludicrous joke for journalism about a religious Cult that for some unknown reason wants to slaughter all those who cough in their vicinity.
Newspaper Seller: That’s not ludicrous. It’s true. They’ve killed thirteen people. And they think they’ll kill a hell of a lot more too since there’s a bug going round.
Gavin: My arse. Bloody joke headlines! Yesterday it was Chick Young’s ex-girlfriend getting pregnant. The headline now is…
Gavin reads the paper.
Gavin: Whoa!
Gavin turns round to his audience. None of them are there. He then looks over to the shop window of Dixons where large amounts of people are looking in. Gavin runs over and manages to get a glimpse of the TV facing the window. He sees a news report with pictures of a burning, wrecked city with the words ‘The Ashes of Schmolenskia’. Gavin’s mobile phone then rings. He leaves the circle and begins to talk.
Gavin: Hello?
Holden: Hey Gavin.
Gavin: Holden, did you hear the news?
Holden: Yeah. John Collins voted sexiest man ever. I mean, who would have though it?
Gavin: Not that news! A nuclear bomb’s gone off in Schmolenskia!
Holden: Schmolenskia? I’ve never heard of it. It sounds made-up doesn’t it?
SUBTITLE: That’s because it is.
Holden: It sounds like something out of a Hollywood action movie. Like some evil Eastern European state full of evil terrorists and one extra-evil British bad guy.
Gavin: Well it isn’t. It’s a real place and it’s been blown to smithereens. A million people could be dead.
Holden: Oh…
Gavin: What do you mean ‘Oh’? And what do you want anyway? It’s your first day; you’ve got to at least LOOK like you’re working.
Holden: I’ve quit.
Gavin: That’s an all-time record. This beats that time when you went into Oxfam, worked to the lunch break then in a conversation with a female member of staff you discovered you didn’t get paid.
Holden: Listen, it’s a long story. You don’t fancy meeting me in the pub do you?
Gavin: Sure. I’ll see you in Hecate’s in half an hour.
Gavin disengages from the phone and starts walking away. Then turns back and realises he’s left his hat where the circle used to be. He runs over. When he gets there he thinks there’s nothing in it. Then he turns it over and a pound falls out. He picks it up and then goes over to the Evening Times seller.
Gavin: Give me a paper.
Newspaper Seller: Haha!
Gavin: I just need change for the bus, alright?
2) Outside Hecate’s, Monday Morning.
Gavin walks in to the pub marked Hecate’s.
3) Hecate’s, Monday Morning.
Hecate’s is full of strange, and what would be defined by society as geeky, comic book collectables, such as statues, framed comics and signed film posters. The pub apart from that is rather common, like a Rover’s Return, with some compartments with tables in them and stools at the bar. Gavin walks in and sits down at the bar. At the bar, a beautiful ginger-haired barmaid serves drinks and then comes over to Gavin.
Julia: Gav, what do you want to drink?
Gavin: Now that is the question isn’t it Jules? That is the question isn’t it.
Julia: Yep.
Gavin: That is the question that must be answered. It’s a riveting race against time, a romantic old adventure movie, where the hero must answer the question correctly to save the heroine. That is the question.
Julia: You want a pint right?
Gavin: That is the –
Julia gives him a cold stare.
Gavin: Aye. Two pints though. Holden’s coming in.
4) Outside Hecate’s, Monday Morning.
On a swivel chair, Holden comes to halt outside the bar and staggers in.
5) Hecate’s, Monday Morning.
Gavin, carrying pints, walks over to a table and sits down. Then Holden staggers in. He is in terribly ripped trousers and a mangled shirt. He also has a large bruise on his chin. Despite his condition, he still manages a smile.
Gavin: What’s happened to you? Did you get ran over by one of the cars on display or something?
Holden sits down, and shows a bit of pain when he sits down.
Holden: Ah my arse!
Gavin: You alright?
Holden: Aye, aye.
Holden coughs then clears his throat.
Holden: Anyway, I’d been introduced to the staff, and I went down to sit at my desk. Then this weird-looking salesman came over and started looking in a people carrier.
6) Car Showroom, Monday Morning – FLASHBACK.
Holden sits at his desk, while another salesman looks into the people carrier. Holden coughs loudly and the salesman turns round incensed, though Holden doesn’t see him. The salesman turns back. Holden then makes a movement with his neck that suggests a sore throat and coughs again. Then the salesman turns round and runs toward Holden, red-hot tempered.
Salesman: IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN, I AM GOING TO STAPLE YOU TO YOUR SEAT!
Holden: Do what?
Salesman: You know what you did, you bastard!
The salesman walks backwards to the people carrier, then turns round and continues his inspection. Holden sits on his swivel chair, trying not to do anything. He looks baffled and worried at the same time, and when the salesman turns round and looks at him evilly, Holden gives a very worried smile. The salesman turns back. Silence. Then Holden makes another movement with his neck that suggests a sore throat, and involuntarily coughs again. Then the car salesman screams and run towards him.
Salesman: AAAAAHHHHH!!!
Holden: Oh bugger.
The salesman grabs a large hand stapler and clicks furiously between Holden’s trousers and the swivel chair.
Holden: What are you doing?!
The salesman clicks more and more until Holden is stuck. Then he grabs the swivel chair Holden is stuck to, and begins to push it.
Holden: Stop it!
The salesman pushes him towards an open glass door and then pushes him down the landscaped green hill surrounding the showroom. Holden hits the fence with a yelp of comic pain.
Holden: Ow!
Then from behind him, one of the cars on display starts up with the salesman inside.
Holden: Aargh!
Holden hops through a hole in the fence and starts accelerating down a hill still stuck to the swivel chair.
Holden: AAAAAHHHHH!!!!
7) Hecate’s Bar, Monday Morning.
Gavin looks at Holden open-mouthed.
Gavin: My god!
Holden: The only reason I stopped was because this Japanese tourist just happened to be crossing the street at the same time. We both ended up crashing into this fat builder. The Japanese tourist went flying right up his partially covered arse.
Gavin: The poor sod.
Holden: Yeah. And now we’re both unemployed.
Gavin: That’s completely wrong.
Holden: It is?
Gavin: It would take the lifetime of a turtle to correct that sentence.
Holden: No it wouldn’t. It would take the lifetime of a very angry wasp. You tell me what’s so inaccurate about it?
Gavin: Okay, number one. I am not unemployed.
Holden: Yes you are. You’re a street comedian and not a very good one either.
Gavin: I’m going to be the next Billy Connolly, mate!
Holden: No, you’re not. Maybe the next Jim Davidson. No-one is as gifted as Billy.
Gavin: I’m a naturally talented man of the people!
Holden: You’re a comedian who gets upstaged by a news bulletin with Nicolas Witchell. If it had been Sarah Heaney even the Big Yin himself would have been upstaged, but not Nicolas Witchell.
Gavin: Maybe the ladies find Nicolas Witchell to be some sort of sex beast.
Holden gives him a glare.
Gavin: Ok, ok! Point taken. What about my money-making schemes? That counts as a job. Remember that one for hayfever sufferers?
Holden: Oh yeah. ‘The Big Tissue’.
Gavin: I was in profit by 720 pounds. It was a brilliant scheme.
Holden: Very well. Point 2?
Gavin: Okay, No.2. At what time, when you were being stapled to a swivel chair, being pushed down a hill and crashing into a Japanese tourist, did you mention to the manager you were quitting?
Holden: I admit, I didn’t ‘formally’ hand in my resignation. But there’s no way I’m going back there again.
Gavin and Holden take another sip from their pints. Gavin then picks up the Evening Times.
Holden: God, has someone you know died? Or have we just run out of toilet paper again?
Gavin: No, no. I just had to get change for the bus. And, read the front page.
Gavin hands over the newspaper and Holden reads the front page.
Gavin: Man, it’s scary isn’t it? A million people dead. Radiation spreading west on the wind and charity shops selling gas masks for 95 quid. It’s a general crap time all over.
Holden: Nah. It’s just something that happened to happen.
Gavin: Happened to happen? Soon, the Schmolenskians will start shooting nuclear weapons at who they thought did it. And then the guys they thought did it will shoot back and then everyone will choose a side and the entire planet will end up like the Isle of Man. But all over.
Holden: The End of the World isn’t something to fear.
Gavin: You’re pure weird.
Holden: I’m not. And I’m not going get all uptight about nuclear missiles destroying some country I’ve never heard of.
Gavin: That’s just plain ignorance. Actually, wait a minute. I see.
Gavin strokes his imaginary beard and looks pleased with himself.
Gavin: You think Bruce Willis is gonna come to the rescue don’t you?
Holden: You what?
Gavin: You’ve seen too many films with the British bad guy, black guy sidekick and made-up evil Arab countries with names which have two syllables before they end in –Stan.
Holden: Leave it out Sigmund.
Gavin: Aye. You don’t want to leave your security blanket, that’s what they call it. I’m good at this. I’m like a trained psychologist.
Holden: I think that would require psychologist training.
Gavin: Good point.
Holden: Maybe you’re right. I’m not sure why I don’t care. You know what’s going to happen now though, don’t you?
Gavin: What?
Holden: Everyone will be running back to mass.
Gavin: Oh no. I can just see it now. ‘Repent! Repent!’ You won’t see me back there again.
Holden: I thought you were you pissing yourself.
Gavin: I am. But I just couldn’t bear mass these days. Ever since Father McWilliams retired.
Holden: He was 97 Gavin. For the last ten years he’d needed eight extra altar boys to move his hands and move him about the altar. Remember that Sunday when he had to do all four services? If he’d given every altar boy a knife that day, they would have had enough armed manpower to be registered as a private army.
Gavin: But they replaced him with that smiling dweeb, Father Peter.
Holden: He’s got better since he first started out.
Gavin: He says mass like a bloody Blue Peter presenter.
Holden: True. But I still think you should have given him another chance.
Gavin: Nah.
Holden: Then why didn’t you go to another parish then?
Gavin: Because they’re all smiling dweebs these days! All the old priests are retiring or dying and they’re being replaced by the newer, friendlier priests who are always known by their sodding first name.
Holden: Yeah…
Gavin: And then there’s Christian Rock music. ‘Shine, Jesus, Shine’!
Holden: That’s a hymn.
Gavin: What would you know about it? You haven’t been to mass since… you haven’t been to mass.
Holden: That’s not true. I made love in a Church somewhere, at one time.
Gavin: What’s that got to do with actually going to mass?
Holden: Em… nothing really. Just thought I’d mention it.
Gavin: You are such a liar! This is like that stripper story you told me.
Holden: Stripper story… wouldn’t know anything about that.
Gavin: I remember you telling me. You said it happened when I was on holiday for a fortnight in Motherwell.
Holden: You what? Motherwell?
Gavin: Yes, Motherwell.
Holden: What where you doing on holiday in Motherwell?
Gavin: I was bloody misinformed, alright!
Holden: Ok.
Gavin: Right. And you got a job in a strip club.
Holden: Did I? Was I a male stripper?
Gavin: No! You told me you were a bouncer.
Holden: That doesn’t sound right.
Gavin: No, of course it doesn’t. You have the same physical stature as Tony Robinson. Anyway, you were working at a strip club for sometime, somewhere. This stripper whose name you couldn’t remember and who no longer works wherever this place was, somehow loses the use of her legs on stage and instantly asks you to help her down stairs. So you pick her up and take her down the stairs to the front door, and for your trouble, she ‘makes out’ with you.
Holden: Yeah. I remember now!
Gavin: Holden, stop lying.
Holden: Where am I lying then?
Gavin: Apart from the implausible lack of detail in this story, the strange thing is that after your put her down by the front door, the story comes to an end.
Holden: What’s so strange about that?
Gavin: Did she somehow claw her away along the pavement with her bare hands? Did you provide her with crutches or a Zimmer? How did she get home?
Holden: Em… maybe she waved to a taxi.
Gavin: How would she do that? She can’t walk. She’d be belly-flopping along the pavement while her arms were waving about!
Holden: Maybe.
Gavin: The woman obviously needed to go to the hospital. She needed first aid immediately. As soon as you put her down to kiss you she must have fallen over again. I wonder where she is now. Probably dying of malnutrition and holding up traffic at a bloody pedestrian crossing.
Holden: What was the point of this story again?
Gavin: I can’t remember.
The guys tilt their glasses almost vertically, and finish off their pints.
Holden: Come on, let’s go watch Neighbours.
Gavin: And Countdown.
Holden: And the best sex scene from Bernadette – Red Hot Fever?
Gavin and Holden look at each other in awe of the potential greatness of this afternoon. They then abruptly run rapidly off the door and when they attempt to barge into it, they hit it hard and the door stays firmly in the same place.
Julia: That’s PULL. Not PUSH, guys.
Gavin: Yeah well, you’ve certainly taught me a thing or two about ‘pulling’ over the years! Haha!
Gavin and Holden pull open the door and run from the pub, leaving Julia to look annoyed.
8) Outside Hecate’s, Monday Morning.
Gavin and Holden walk outside and see the swivel chair still sitting there.
Holden: Now, you can’t say I was lying about that, can you?
Gavin: Guess not.
Holden looks at his watch.
Holden: Only 10 minutes to Neighbours starts. We’ll never make it. Unless…
Gavin: Shut up. We are not using the swivel chair as transport. It’s unsafe. If you fitted seatbelts and maybe gave me a crash helmet, I might think about it before saying ‘NO!’ But at the moment, it’s just ‘NO!’
Holden: I can drive her fine. Apart from the pain, it was a rather sweet experience.
Gavin: No way!
Then the sound of deliriously happy shouting comes from down the street. There is a shell-suited individual who is wearing a gas mask.
Man: Look at me! I’m an astronaut!
Holden and Gavin look at each other worriedly.
Holden: And already charity shops are exploiting the potential nuclear war.
Man: Weeee!!!
Gavin: Man, Get me out of this area!
Gavin and Holden move to get the swivel chair but when they do it starts to move off down hill. The shell-suited man looks at it coming towards him.
Man: I come in peace!
9) Outside Flat, Monday Night.
The flat is yellow sandstone and on a quiet street flanked by other tenements. The orange streetlights are on.
10) Flat, Monday Night.
Gavin and Holden are sitting on the top of the couch with their feet where they should be sitting, watching the TV. It is a slightly dirty place with walls adorned with posters of James Bond movies and Kylie Minogue’s rear end. Holden picks up the remote control.
Holden: Oh well, I’m Neighboured, Countdown-ed and Red-Hot Fevered out man. Oh, here’s the news report.
Gavin: Well, I’ll never be Red-Hot-Fevered out. Bet the Schmolenskians have fired their whole arsing arsenal at someone.
Holden: My bet is that the bad guys were one of those mad Middle East countries. Something nice and remote in the opposite direction from us, man. Like Flibbingibertstan.
11) News Report.
The face of a reasonably famous television newsreader appears on the screen.
Newsreader: Today, the former Soviet Republic of Schmolenskia was hit by a nuclear missile, believed to be coming from a K-220 submarine. Now these are old craft dating back from before the break-up of the Britain into the separate states of Scotland, England and Cornwall. We have been told by former military advisors that these submarines are still in use by these three nations. Thirty minutes ago, the American President, Arnold Schwarznegger, offered his condolences moments before revealing the fact that he was actually a woman. It has also come to light that his chief advisor told him in an e-mail an hour after the explosion, ‘this would be a good day to bury bad news.’ I’m hearing we can go live to a press conference with the Scottish President, Austin Beattie.
12) Scottish Parliament, late evening.
The Scottish Parliament is merely a wooden hut in the middle of a weedy field.
SUBTITLE: And it still cost £400 million…
13) Inside Scottish Parliament, late evening.
The president of Scotland stands at the wooden podium with a Scottish Flag behind him.
President: The 20th of June 2004. A day that will live in infancy. Infamy, forgive me. We express our condolences to the families of those killed in the nuclear disaster and we pledge to contribute greatly to the reconstruction effort. Aid will be given in no small order. We must all pull together to help the country of Schmolenskia recover from its terrible misfortune. We take the allegations relating a Scottish submarine to the missile attack very, very seriously and in response we would most solemnly say, with complete certainty in our guiltlessness…
Dramatic pause.
President: …Oops.
14) Inside Flat.
Gavin, who was sitting on the top of couch, falls backwards in shock and hits his head off the floor hard, while Holden jumps off down onto the seat and moves his head close up to the screen.
Newsreader’s Voice: A terrible confession from the Scottish President.
Holden: Well bugger me.
Gavin gets up from behind the couch, rubbing his head.
Gavin: Ow! My head!
Holden: Well, don’t worry. You’ll be exploded tomorrow by angry Schmolenskians.
Gavin: Exploded? Exploded! I’m getting out of here!
Holden: Out of where?
Gavin: This city, this country! I want out and I’m getting out! I am officially bailing from the sinking ship! I am out of this… golf-haven… weirdo… soon-to-be-bombed… country!
Holden: Don’t be stupid.
Gavin picks up his coat and then runs over to a table and takes all the banknotes from a biscuit tin.
Gavin: I’m taking the keys!
Holden: That’s MY car.
Gavin: Have a nice death Holden man! If you’ve got any sense you’ll bugger off with me!
Gavin runs out of the door. Holden watches him go, shakes his head, and then sits down to watch the news.
Newsreader’s Voice: Already around the world, people are burning Scottish flags. As you can see in New York, signs that clearly say ‘Burn, Scots, burn’ and ‘Give us your ginger pubic hair and I’ll tie it to a nuclear missile and shoot you off into space’. My guest, Richard Pickard, what do you think about this latest twist in a terrible tale?
Guest’s Voice: I must agree. Kill the bloody bastards.
Holden: Gavin, wait up!
Holden runs after him.
15) Outside Flat, late evening.
The light is just starting to fade while Holden runs out to find Gavin walking up and down the pavement, scanning the area. Holden coughs.
Gavin: Where’s the car?
Holden: It’s still at the showroom. I had to abandon it remember?
Gavin: We have to go get it!
Holden: No! There is no way I’m going back there again.
Gavin: We have to. We need to get out of here before we get nuked by angry Schmolenskians.
Holden: Gavin, calm down.
Gavin: Calm down!? Calm down!? I am going to be turned into the smithereens of smithereens. If I stay here, I’ll end up being a smear on the pavement! SPLAT! I am going to this bloody showroom and I’m heading north as soon as possible.
Holden: Why north?
Gavin: Hasn’t it entered your 10 metres of titanium-thick head that we have to bugger off as best we can! North is the only way I know to go! I’ve driven to Inverary before! That’s it! The only places I know in England are the arrival and departure lounges of Manchester Airport! Now, come on!
Gavin starts running away down the street. Holden watches him go on again, before deciding he has to follow him.
16) Car Showroom, Night.
Gavin and Holden stop as they see the car showroom in sight. The lights are still on for purposes of display.
Gavin: Is this it?
Holden: Yeah. Have you changed your mind yet?
Gavin: Absolutely not.
Holden: We’ve only got a hundred quid on us. That’s it.
Gavin: Oh right. So is it gonna be ‘us’?
Holden: Gavin, consider your position. You couldn’t survive up north.
Gavin: Sure I could. I could kill animals. You know, like rugby kick pigeons!
Gav demonstrates his rugby kicking technique.
Gavin: See!
Holden: You’d resort to eaten flying vermin. Oh man! You don’t even know anyone up there.
Gavin: Actually, I do know someone up north in fact. I don’t know them that well, but it’s not everyday someone gets to make incredibly rash and exciting decisions is it?
Holden: Who do you know?
Gavin: Well, to be honest, just some twenty year old girl I talked to on MSN 6 months ago.
Holden: You ponce! This is pathetic! How do you know she was even a twenty year old girl?
Gavin: She told me.
Holden: A lot of gender-swapping goes on in the chatrooms. That twenty year old girl could easily be a 62 year old male contestant in the World Beard Championships.
Gavin crosses the quiet street and walks up the stairs to the showroom. Holden follows them.
Holden: Come on. Stay. This is blatant idiocy.
Gavin: No way. I’m not getting vaporised. I’ve got a few hundred things I want to accomplish in my life and I will struggle to do that if my limbs are going to be pelted in the direction of Denmark, Alaska and Timbuk-bloody-tu!
Gavin walks over to the employee car park. Holden follows him slowly.
Gavin: Man, its freezing.
Holden: Yeah, and it’ll be colder up north, where the only heat you’ll find is off a hairy man’s body who smells like he bathes in a tankful of dead fish.
Gavin: Okay. Mental picture surplus to requirements, there.
Holden: I couldn’t survive there. I get colds down here. In the summer. I’ve got one right now. Managed to catch that damn bug haven’t I? I’ve been coughing like cancer all day. Imagine this, but in minus 20 degrees.
Gavin: It’s warm in the car anyway. You’d survive.
Holden: Gavin, this car, MY car, is 20 years old. I inherited it from my granny. Only the Second Coming of Jesus could prevent this car from failing its next MOT.
Gavin: I don’t care!
Gavin walks over to the rusty Lada and opens the door.
Gavin: Are you coming or not?
Holden: No thanks. Good luck mate.
Gavin: Aye.
Holden walks away from the car and takes up position at a suitable vantage point on the hill. Gavin gets into the car, starts it up and then reverses it. Holden then clears his throat and after a few movements of his throat, lets out a deep, chesty cough.
Voice: AAAAHHHHHH!
Holden looks round to see a woman coming out from the showroom entrance a few metres away looking insane, carrying a golf club in one hand and has a fist held high in the other.
Saleswoman: AAHHHHH!
Holden: AHHH!
Holden runs over to the car and Gavin opens the door so he can get in.
CUT TO:
Inside the car, Holden jumps in and shuts the door.
Holden: AH! DRIVE!
Gavin puts his foot on the accelerator. The car moves forward then stops. It has broken down. Gav and Holden look at each other in fear.
Saleswoman: AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
CUT TO:
Outside the car as Holden and Gavin run down the street with the saleswoman not too far behind.
17) Glasgow Street, Night.
Gav and Holden run away down a very steep hill. The saleswoman is still chasing them.
Saleswoman: AAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
Holden: She’s a nutter!
Gavin: …She’s a woman.
Holden: See that perceptive nature of yours? It’s extraordinary.
Gavin: You said the car salesman was a bloke.
Holden: Did I?
Gavin: You lied again. You just couldn’t admit you’d been beaten up by a woman.
Holden: She didn’t beat me up.
Gavin: Haha! You said ‘she’! You know this really puts a lot more doubt on one of the details in the stripper story.
Holden: You what?
Gavin: Did you really ‘make out’ with a male stripper, Holden? Be honest now!
Holden: Of course not!
Saleswoman: AAAAAARRRRGHHH!!! THOU COUGHER! THOU SOUL TRIES TO ESCAPE! DO NOT FORCE YOUR SOUL ON TO ME!
Holden: Yeah, what she said! And stop talking about male strippers!
Gavin: Okay!
Holden: Man, she’s gonna catch up! We’ve got to think of something!
18) Another Glasgow Street, Night.
They are now running down a less steep hill. Both sides of the street have red sandstone tenements.
Saleswoman: DIE! YOU COUGHING COUGHERS!
Gavin: I don’t know how long I can keep this up.
Holden: Neither can I…
Holden then spots something up ahead and smiles slightly.
Holden: Hello, hello!
CUT TO:
A man opens up his boot. It has four very large PC World bags all with large boxes inside them. The man struggles to remove a box. He places it down on the pavement.
CUT TO:
Gav and Holden running down the street.
CUT TO:
He then places another box down on top of the one he’d put there before. It has the picture of a swivel chair on it. Then he goes to the boot and picks up another box. When he turns round, he realises that the box has disappeared. He walks round the box and looks at it confusedly.
Saleswoman: AAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!
The saleswoman pushes the man away and continues running. The man goes flying and lands inside the boot. Unluckily for him, his fall provides enough leverage for the boot to close over.
CUT TO:
Gav and Holden are still running and trying to open the swivel chair box.
Gav: Damn! It’s self-assembly!
CUT TO:
The saleswoman continues to run wielding a golf club like it was a samurai sword.
CUT TO:
Holden and Gav still running, Holden holding various component parts of the swivel chair while Gav twiddles with them with a screwdriver.
19) Street corner, Night.
We see a hill that slopes downwards onto the main street at this corner. There is a pause with only the sound of passing traffic. Then we hear the noise of wheels hitting off the tiny holes and indentations in the pavement. Suddenly, there is a burst of heroic, dramatic music as Gavin and Holden come round the corner having both managed somehow to fit onto the swivel chair.
CUT TO:
They speed fast along the pavement.
Gavin: We’ve lost her! Woohoo!
CUT TO:
Now far behind them, the saleswoman stops.
Saleswoman: I will get them! I know where they live.
Then the saleswoman makes the same throat movements as Holden did to suggest a sore throat. She clears her throat loudly.
20) Outside Hospital, Monday Night.
The automatic doors open and out steps a bespectacled Japanese tourist wearing a cast around his broken arm. He walks out onto the pavement and presses the button at a crossing and waits for the green man. The road is empty, so he begins to cross. In the distance we can see the swivel chair coming towards him as he walks slowly across the road. We see them coming closer and closer, until the tourist looks up and screams.
Holden: Get out of the way!
Tourist: Aaaah!!
The word ‘BLAM!’ on a black background appears in a sort of Batman TV series way.
21) Outside Flat, Tuesday Morning.
It is a very rainy day in Glasgow.
22) Flat, Tuesday Morning.
From outside, there is the sound of someone finding it difficult to open the door. Then the door suddenly swings open, taking an exhausted Gav with it into the wall. Holden then staggers in and slowly makes his way over to the couch. He sits there for a few seconds before Gav appears from underneath the table having apparently dragged himself along the floor. Holden helps him onto the seat. Both are exhausted. Then they suddenly brighten with wide, inexplicable smiles.
Holden: It was nice of him not to press charges.
Gavin: Yeah. Now, he’s my kind of tourist. Kind, quiet and thin. It’s not like these American tourists with the giant bellies, who arrive at Glasgow Airport dressed in tartan suits and be generally… loud.
Holden: Aye, I know the type. The kind of tourist we don’t want is the one that thinks a haggis is a winged mythical creature sent down by the gods.
Gavin: Yeah. They’re mainly American those guys. Though you do get those older German women with the disgusting, not-even-fashionable-in-the-eighties haircuts, walking around Edinburgh Castle.
Holden: Since when did you care about haircuts?
Gavin: I didn’t then and I still don’t now. I just hated this one German woman. Her haircut just disgusted me! The testosterone was pumping. I wanted her dead!
Holden: OK… he was a nice tourist. You know, if he’d died, we’d probably have been up for manslaughter.
Gavin: Yeah well. Lucky us. Do you think we should have told the police about Mrs Wacko?
Holden: No. They would never have believed us man. Might as well forget it. We don’t need to be afraid. She’ll never find us. Its not like in a few seconds or so she’ll be cutting through our front door with an axe is it?
Gavin: Nah. Anyway let’s see how much more the world has buggered itself up since we last looked.
Gavin switches on the telly.
Newsreader: The news with Patricia Davies. A Scottish K-220 submarine has fired a nuclear missile at the capital of Schmolenskia, Schmolenskia City in the Province of Schmolenskia. 1 million people are believed dead. In a press statement, the Scottish President claimed responsibility for the missile, but said it was an accident.
President: We take the allegations relating a Scottish submarine to the missile attack very, very seriously and in response we would most solemnly say, with complete certainty in our guiltlessness…
Dramatic pause.
President: …Oops.
Newsreader: There has been international condemnation of this apparent accident and there have been calls from the neighbouring countries of Schmolenskia for revenge against the Scottish Republic. In other news, Arnold Schwarznegger is really a woman. The announcement was made by Schwarznegger in a school dinner-lady’s outfit. This would make Schwarznegger the first ever female President of America. And in Glasgow, a mysterious ‘Coughing Cult’ has decapitated another five people overnight, bringing the total to 17. According to sources, the cult will not rest until everyone who coughs in their vicinity has had their heads removed. Experts on cults say that anyone who has coughed in a Cultist’s vicinity, should be very afraid.
Gav and Holden begin to look worried again.
Newsreader: One expert said that if anyone had encountered one of these Coughing Cultists they should have reported it to the authorities.
The fear grows on Gav and Holden’s faces.
Newsreader: And all experts are agreed that the Cultists will cut open the front door of a tenement building in Glasgow with an axe in the next few seconds.
Gav and Holden look round at each other in complete fear.
Then, after a brief pause, an axe chops through the door.
Both: AAAAHHHHHHH!!!
The saleswoman then proceeds to chop the door into tiny pieces. She bursts through.
Saleswoman: DIE!
She begins to walk up to them with a murderous look in her eye.
Gavin: Oh dear. I see you’ve changed weapons. Not using the golf club now I see?
Saleswoman: NO.
Gavin: Golf fan?
Saleswoman: Yes.
Gavin: Not my type of thing really. You know hitting a ball with a stick over and over again for six hours. In fact, decapitation isn’t my favourite hobby either.
Saleswoman: We must all make little sacrifices.
Holden: Evil Cough-Hating Saleswoman, take me! Gav didn’t cough in your vicinity, I did.
Saleswoman: Yes, indeed. So Gav, will not be decapitated.
Gavin: Oh… em… cheers… em, I mean… sorry Holden.
Saleswoman: No, Gav, you will be killed using a variety of enlarged kitchen utensils. Many spring to mind. A nutcracker, for instance. Or a butcher knife? No, the one that will be used on you will be… a blender, perhaps?
Gavin: Ah… yummers!
The Saleswoman advances still. She gets to the couch. As she comes round the couch, Gav and Holden move round as well.
Gavin: I wonder if you’d ever considered what Catholicism had to offer?
Silence. They still walk round the couch.
Gavin: No? It’s quite a flexible religion you know.
Holden: No, it isn’t!
Gavin: True, there’s no sex before marriage, no abortion, contraception or gays but then you don’t need to follow all that stuff.
Holden: Yes you do!
Holden and Gavin stop dead to think about this. We zoom in on them.
Gavin: Come on Holden.
Holden: Come on nothing. I may have been to fewer masses than Martin Luther King had been to White Supremacist Meetings but I know thou are talking out of thine ass. They’ve got names for people like you.
Gavin: Like what?
Holden: Cafeteria Catholic for one. You just obey which rules you feel like obeying.
Gavin: Really? Then I must be a Cafeteria Catholic that’s lost his appetite then.
Holden: How come?
Gavin: Because I’d like to have sex but I’ve got absolutely no chance.
Holden and Gavin then turn round and see that in standing still, they have let the saleswoman walk round. She stands over them menacingly with the axe, ready to strike.
Gavin: Nice knowing you Holden. See you in Hell.
Holden: I’m an atheist, so I take that as an insult.
Gavin: Oh sorry about that. See you in… bye!
The saleswoman gets ready to strike. Gav and Holden cower, expecting the blow. Which doesn’t come. And still doesn’t come. Gav and Holden look up to see the saleswoman who is making involuntary movements with her throat. Then she lets out a huge, husky cough.
Saleswoman: NOOO!!!
She then turns the axe on herself and slices off her own head. We don’t see this of course. We only see Gav and Holden being splattered with tomato ketchup. Gav looks down at his clothes.
Gavin: Ah… Saleswoman 1, Gavin’s clothes 0.
23) Argyle Street, Tuesday Afternoon.
The weather is now simply overcast. Gav is buying a paper off the Evening Times newspaper seller.
Gavin: Yeah well, I suppose the Evening Times really does tell the truth about the world’s current affairs. You guys had all the information right.
Newspaper Seller: Yeah. Maybe we’re better than toilet paper after all, eh Mr McIntyre?
Gavin: Are you kidding? Any newspaper editor that gives Jim Traynor a chance to voice his opinions should be punched for trying to strengthen the case for totalitarian government. It’s premium bog roll material man.
Newspaper Seller: Jim Traynor doesn’t write for the Evening Times.
Gavin: Who does he write for?
The newspaper seller whispers in Gav’s ear.
Gavin: Oh! That particular daily Scottish tabloid.
Gavin and the newspaper seller turn to the camera and raise an eyebrow to suggest the paper Jim Traynor writes for is indeed crap.
CUT TO:
Gavin walking down Argyle Street. He then pauses by the TV Shop and looks at the big screen. The pictures of the burning Schmolenskia City appear on screen again. This time the words underneath ‘The Ashes of Schmolenskia’ say ‘ ‘Scotland to face vengeance’ says New Schmolenskian President’. Gav looks grimly at this picture.
THE END.
Well, cut out a lot of stuff, created an action scene and generally had a bit of a laugh. I'm not satisfied with the start of the scene - basically I actually quite like reading the Evening Times (
www.eveningtimes.co.uk) and I hate reading the Daily Record (
www.dailyrecord.co.uk). Pretty much because the Evening Times actually prints news whereas the Daily Record is just a load of tabloid junk about reality shows and celebrities. So, I created a bit where the Daily Record is seen as crap instead of the Times. I'm not sure I like that much, but I don't know. I can always change it.
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