(Part One by Nathan Stout)
[INT – WHO KNOWS WHEN – WHO KNOWS WHERE]
OPC/OLE PILLOWCASE HEAD/DUDE: Jezzzzus! I just want to tell my story!
(Ole Pillowcase Head, or whoever he is, paces around their new “jail cell.” He is really pissed and is very loud.)
DUDE: Did you see those guys? They worked for me once!
NATHAN: So are you going to continue this story… although we were there and know exactly what happened? It’s entertaining hearing it from someone else.
CHRIS: Yes, I love hearing others talk about my favorite subject… me.
DUDE: Well you knuckleheads were loosing your asses at Black Jack…
(The screen wobbles, as the past is shown again.)
[INT – DAY OR NIGHT – LOSESTAR INTERGALACTIC PLANETARY SUPER COSMOTIC CASINO]
(Chris and Nathan are still sitting at the Black Jack table with the really shitty dealer playing some unnaturally good hands… for him, not Nathan or Chris. Suddenly there is a sound from Chris’s pants.)
NATHAN: Oh no!
CHRIS: Don’t worry, that’s my ringtone.
(Chris’s phone continues to ring, and he pulls it out at the table… the cell phone that is. Somehow the room seems to darken, but that could just be from the extra thick plumes of cigarette smoke wafting from their table-mates. Chris looks up, and the jerk-hole dealer couldn’t look any more hateful. He stops his dealing, and backups up a step, with his hands up.)
BBD/BAD TO THE DONE DEALER: Uhn uh.
(The old hag next to Chris growls like a tiger growling though an oil soaked towel.)
OLD HAG: You can’t mess with phones at the table, sweetie.
(She winks at him and Chris throws up a little in his mouth.)
CHRIS: Oh.
(Nathan looks on nervously. Chris seems to take his time putting the phone away then BBD comes back to the table, still looking murderous. He mutters under his breath as he grabs the cards.)
BBD: Amateurs.
(Nathan looks down at his fingers as he picks up the cards.)
(Sudden screen wobble back to the present)
[INT – WHO KNOWS WHEN – WHO KNOWS WHERE]
NATHAN: Wait, wait, wait!
(Nathan points to Dude.)
NATHAN: You! You have stubby fingers!
CHRIS: Stubby Satan!
DUDE: What?
NATHAN: It’s you! You are the dealer. Ole Pillowcase Head is the dick head dealer. We started referring to you as Stubby Satan.
(Stubby Satan/Ole Pillowcase Head/BBD/Dude is apoplectic, and is unable to say anything.)
DENTRE: I think he’s gonna blow.
CHRIS: I think it’s a spasm.
Dude: Ee. Dur. Kef.
SHAG: Groovy.
(Nathan walks up to him and slaps him hard across the face.)
NATHAN: Get a hold of yourself!
DUDE: Stubby…. Satan…?!
CHRIS: Yes. Your attitude caused us to nickname you after we left your table.
DUDE: You…
NATHAN Yes?
DUDE: You…
CHRIS: What?
DUDE: You two Black Jack know-nothings left and DIDN’T TIP ME!
CHRIS: What do you expect?
NATHAN: You ran over us, took all our money THEN had the nerve to call us amateurs!
CHRIS: Well we were amateurs… this was fucking LoseStar in Oklahoma… not the fucking Sands in Las Vegas. Get over yourself!
DENTRE: I hate to break up this love-fest, but why are we all here?
NATHAN: Yes, why? I thought that the Professor said that Chris and I were “irrelevant” and not to be bothered with after they removed our powers.
SHAG: They took away your powers?! D R A G.
(Dude is still standing there making strange popping noises, running his blood pressure up unable to think how these two could call him a name like Stubby Satan. Miguel walks over to Stubby.)
MIGUEL: You know, if we wouldn’t have been interrupted by that whole imagination made solid thing when you were telling the first part of the story, we could have gotten massive amounts of hits on YouBoob.
(Dude is still making incoherent noises.)
(End of Part One)
(Part Two by Chris McGinty)
[INT – WHERE WE LEFT OFF – BUT LATER]
CHRIS: I think this might be worse than before all this started. I didn’t think it was possible to be more bored than that.
NATHAN: I know. Life got exciting after we got our powers.
CHRIS: No, I mean before Stubby started telling his story. That was entertaining compared to this. Stubby! Tell us another story.
STUBBY: Stubby Satan? Oh, I’ll show them…
NATHAN: I don’t think he’s going to be any help.
CHRIS: Shag tell us a story.
SHAG: Oh, there was this Bee Gees concert back in 1977.
CHRIS: Something from after I was born.
NATHAN: You were born in 1973.
CHRIS: I’m 38 years old!
(Chris stands up and goes to the bars. Or the door. Or… hmm. Whatever has them locked in.)
CHRIS: Quincy! Let me out! I’m overdue for my midlife crisis!
NATHAN: Chris, sit down. You wouldn’t have a midlife crisis if you were on your deathbed.
CHRIS: I think I left the iron on, Quincy!
SHAG: This was back when they were all still alive, I think.
CHRIS: Shag! Where did you get those glass containers? I hope Quincy doesn’t see them, or he’ll want to break them.
SHAG: They’re gold chains.
NATHAN: This is what he does. There is nothing interesting happening, so he’s compelled to make something interesting happen.
CHRIS: Wow! Car windshields everywhere! This dream state thing sure did bring Quincy’s promised land!
DENTRE: I’m really curious about this dreaming thing that’s been happening. What’s causing it? Why is it shaping reality?
CHRIS: Why the fuck is Dentre trying to further the plot when I’m this bored!
(There is a sudden crash. Everyone turns to look at Shag. One of his gold chains seems to have turned to glass and crashed to the floor.)
SHAG: Hmmm. I guess they are glass containers. I thought they were gold chains.
(The product of this strange reverse alchemy rises into the air and sparkles in front of Shag’s face.)
SHAG: I’m having a flashback Dentre! Find something wood for me to bite on!
DENTRE: That’s for seizures, Shag. If I’m not mistaken, I think we’re about to experience the dream state we were just discussing.
CHRIS: You were just discussing. Quincy! Your anti-dream ray, or whatever, is turned too low again. This is no time to be trying to save money on your electric bill. Oh, and bring me a Surgeon Peeper!
NATHAN: Nice generic name, Chris!
CHRIS: Thanks, Nathan. And they can use a Beatles song in the commercial.
(Nathan looks at Dentre.)
NATHAN: For about five seconds there, Chris and I were on the same wavelength. Now, I just don’t know what he’s talking about again.
DENTRE: Speaking of wavelength, I can see sheet music coming out of your ears.
(Nathan reaches up expecting cartoon notes floating away from his head, but instead finds an actual sheet of paper coming out of his ear. He looks at it and reads the title out loud.)
NATHAN: “The Star-Spangled Bruce Banner”… never heard of it.
SHAG: The US version was called “You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry.”
NATHAN: You’re making that up.
(Nathan looks at Dentre.)
NATHAN: He’s making that up.
(Dentre is no help. Nathan looks at Chris.)
NATHAN: Chris, he’s making that up, right?
CHRIS: Wouldn’t you like to know?
SHAG: Where did that Stubby guy go?
NATHAN: What?
SHAG: Do a headcount, my man. It’s just you, me, Dentre, Chris, and that demon in the corner. Where is…
(Nathan turns to look and sees that Stubby Satan is now, in fact, Satan, or at least a lesser minion.)
NATHAN: Wonderful.
(It’s about then that the door opens. A ten year old boy walks in. Chris grabs his crossbow and shoots him in the heart.)
CHRIS: Ha! Had a crossbow that time, didn’t I, fucker? I’m dangerous in the dream state.
LARRY: I am the dream state, idiot.
(Larry pulls the crossbow bolt from his heart. It burns in his hand.)
CHRIS: What is it that you want, Reece?
(Nathan pulls his character list from his back pocket.)
NATHAN: There is no Reece on here.
LARRY: My name is Larry.
CHRIS: Your name is Reece, Reece.
(Chris shoots him again with the crossbow. Reece makes the crossbow explode in Chris’s face. Chris looks like Tom or Jerry after something has exploded in their face. Nathan flips crazily through his list.)
NATHAN: There is no Larry on here.
CHRIS: His name is Reece.
NATHAN: There is no Reece on here.
(Chris points to a part on the list right at the end. Nathan reads it aloud.)
NATHAN: “Such as a bus driver and other non-vital characters.” I don’t get it. He was a bus driver?
CHRIS: What are you doing here, Reece?
LARRY: I’ll talk to you when you call me Larry.
NATHAN: You’re only doing this because I compiled a list. That’s all. You scoured the list and you found someone who was missing, and you brought them back just to piss me off.
CHRIS: Nope.
NATHAN: Did too.
CHRIS: Nope.
LARRY: You ready to call me Larry now?
CHRIS: Nope.
NATHAN: Listen, Larry…
LARRY: Call me Osmosis Man.
NATHAN: Os-what?
CHRIS: Just say nope to dope.
NATHAN: You’re that kid from TCC.
LARRY: Yes.
NATHAN: The really smart one.
LARRY: Yes.
CHRIS: And your name is Reece.
LARRY: Yes… no! I hate you!
NATHAN: Chris you have such a way with people.
DENTRE: May I interject?
CHRIS: No. Absolutely not. Sit down and tend to Shag. He thinks he accidentally took some of the brown acid.
DENTRE: Larry, you said something about…
CHRIS: This is Dentre. He speaks English just fine, but has trouble when other people speak it to him.
DENTRE: You tend to Shag if it’s so important to you, Chris.
CHRIS: Quincy! Let us out!
NATHAN: Chris, the door opened when Larry came in. It’s wide open.
CHRIS: Nevermind, Quincy You can go f –
SHAG: What I was asking, Larry, is what you meant by you are the dream state.
LARRY: My power was a strange ability to learn information at an incredible pace. That’s why I joked that I would be called Osmosis Man. I absorb information the way a sponge absorbs water.
CHRIS: And so you one day realized that you were using the fabled 90% of the human mind that most of us mere mortals can never harness to increase our intelligence because it’s mostly our motor functions and subconscious thought processes.
LARRY: How do you know that?
CHRIS: Sounds like some shit that I would write.
DENTRE: So then am I to understand that you have since harnessed the power of the subconscious mind to create reality dreams and dream realities.
LARRY: Yes.
CHRIS: And he’s still too dumb to realize that his name is Reece.
LARRY: My name is Larry!
NATHAN: Can I suggest that you just ignore him? It will save you from a massive coronary by the time you’re eleven.
CHRIS: Reece.
LARRY: Larrrrrrrrrry!
CHRIS: Fiiiiiiiiine! Reece.
NATHAN: Chris. Stop. Please. So then your powers manifested the night of the Rick Springfield show, and here we are.
MIGUEL: No, his powers manifested much earlier than that.
SHAG: Where did you come from? I didn’t see you earlier when I did roll call.
MIGUEL: Well if you must know, Stubby Satan swallowed me. I’ve been in his stomach for the last five minutes. He just vomited me along with 17 lbs. of street cut, Brazilian cocaine, into the corner over there.
DENTRE: When does this dream state wear off?
LARRY: Soon. I had to use a much bigger burst to get past Quincy’s anti-dream ray. And yes, Miguel, my power manifested at TCC the night the three of you enrolled in the professor’s course. How did you know?
MIGUEL: When we were over the pit of alligators, we suddenly woke up in the car. It was as though reality distorted a little bit, and the professor was suddenly in a wheelchair when he had walked into the classroom earlier in the day.
LARRY: The professor is a very bad man, and he must be stopped.
(There is a noise by the door. They all look over to see Chris messing with his cell phone.)
CHRIS: What? I’m bored. I figured I could check my voicemail.
(Chris puts the phone on speaker.)
VOICEMAIL FEMALE VOICE: You have one new message.
BOARD MEMBER REGINALD (on voicemail): Hey Chris, Board Member Reginald here. Your phone didn’t ring. It went straight to voicemail. Anyway, after you left our office, I was looking over various notes you made. I saw the notes on a character named Reece…
LARRY: It’s Larry.
SHAG: Hey, hey, little man. It’s a voicemail, he can’t hear you.
BOARD MEMBER REGINALD (on voicemail): … it suddenly occurred to me that there is a way of bringing that character back that will also clear up some continuity iss… um, hmm. That’s interesting. Chris, I just looked outside, and you seem to be pointing a bazooka, sort of at a DJ Booth, but mostly at the According To Whim Headqu… oh fuck. I’m to young to diiiiiiiie!…
CHRIS: Oops.
(End Episode Thirty-One)