Draft Screenplay: On reading Tom Andrews BLACK SCREEN

Narrator: here were my thoughts - FADES TO: scene: my life as a frame, encompassing your canvas (how we do this is yet to be decided, but some really gaga fx I'm sure).

Narrator: by which is meant you lived and died a hemophiliac's death between the covers of my book. scene: camera cuts rapidly (a montage shot): - to a motocross bike with a crucified Jesus aboard the rider's shirt - a hospital, double room, a codeine shot being fed into a boy/man's rump - closeup of his eyes as they glaze (what color?) - closeup of a girl's face reading Dante's Inferno (aloud?) - the boy's eyes (again) - the girl's eyes scanning right to left, right to left - the boy's mouth, small grin beginning - the snore of a man dying in the next bed

from congestive heart disease (can that be imitated?) - the girl speaking (we see just lips) "That ankle is hot enough to fry an egg!" - the boy's smile (has it changed? we're not sure) - a grave site, headstone with white flowers in a summer breeze

Narrator: you brought back the memory of pain which doesn't relent, and your description of it was the same as the one I would have made when my heart's skin was trying to burst, bubbling up, rubbing off my lungs, liver, stomach - pain felt through the codeine as I vomited up chicken broth - that somehow this was transformative, I could die happy despite being a virgin, despite never having children, despite blah blah blah . . . scene: imago of Tom in three dimensions (can we do this as a 3D flick?), grainy, blue background. Tom is floating in this aether (well, yes, but they won't mind, it's the willing suspension of disbelief, right?). His face shows no emotion, but that may be because it lacks focus, we cant' say. He opens his arms to us, reaching out in that classic 3D effect (we'll have to warn parents not to bring small children)

Tom: (ok, he has to say something here, but we'll put it through a sound mix and wash away anything intelligible to leave an eerie quality to the voice, a wail of some sort) FADE TO: scene: the narrator standing against some sort of landscape (me really, but we'll get someone like Kelly McGillis, to play the part) and she's nude from the shoulder up, still talking but nothing can be heard as music plays, samba music perhaps . . . )

background vocals: random voices are heard speaking as the music fades (but never completely stops), angry, male and female voices alike, shouting as scene: Tom and the Narrator are superimposed on one another. (if we want an R rating this is where we show Kelly's breasts, the real sagging breasts of a middle aged woman, and Tom's hands pushing through them, out into the audience like an offering)

Narrator (shouting to be heard): What does she look like! What does she look like, dammit! FINIS (we'll try it at Sundance as a short, then an option to IFC? great.)