Strange Days

A burst of bright white static exploding across the

darkness. A high whine on the audio track gives way to

street sounds and rapid breathing.

AN IMAGE wavers and stabilizes: A nervous POV. We're in a

car, sitting in the backseat, and we're nervous, the view

swinging around, showing the street rolling by outside the

windows, then whipping back to the two guys in the front

seat.

Our POV looks down at a SMALL RECORDING DEVICE in "our"

hands. A red LED is flashing. We slip the recorder into

a coat pocket.

OUR VOICE:

Okay. It's goin'. I'm recording.

The guy riding shotgun, LANE, is just pulling a pantyhose

over his head, smearing his features into a pig-like mask.

He turns, DIRECTLY TO THE LENS, pissed off.

LANE:

Good one, d*ckhead. Thanks for

waitin' till I get this f***in thing

on. You tryin' ta I.D. me, or

what?

He tosses another pantyhose right at us and we catch it.

Our POV looks down, into the pantyhose, which comes up

over our field of view.

We realize:
this is not some ride-along verite video.

WE ARE ONE OF THESE GUYS. Real honest-to-God point of

view, with no cuts, no music. This is not film, it is

human experience.

The driver is a Hispanic guy named "SPAZ" DIAZ. Lane is a

white guy who looks very strung out. Couple of

crackheads. The car is a mid-seventies barge, piebald

with primer.

LANE:

Next alley... just pull in slow.

(turning to us)

Hurry up will ya. Here.

He hands us a big stainless steel revolver. The POV looks

down as our shaky hands snap open the cylinder, check the

rounds, snap it closed.

Diaz pulls the barge into an alley. The headlights

illuminate overflowing dumpsters. A Chicano busboy is

making trash runs out the back door of a restaurant, which

he has chocked open. The busboy goes back inside.

LANE:

Let's go.

Out of the car, quickly, our own breathing loud in our

ears. We even hear our own heartbeat, racing now.

Through the door, after Lane, moving fast.

Into the kitchen. Fluorescent glare. The busboy turning,

surprised, Lane putting the shotgun in his face. Freezing

him. Lane puts a finger to his lips: "quiet" in any

language.

Our hand puts the magnum in the THAI COOK's face. We get

them down on the greasy floor, Lane controlling them with

the shotgun. He looks at us, snaps his eyes toward the

front room.

We hear voices as we approach the swing door. Go through.

Whip pan left, then right. Scoping the layout. Low-rent

THAI place. Red wallpaper. Closing time. Middle-aged

Thai OWNER, by the cash-register, counting money. Young

Thai WAITRESS, cleaning up. They look up, stunned, as we

put the gun on them.

OUR VOICE:

(shouting, edgy)

Don't move, don't talk, don't do

nothing.

Our POV is whipping around, from the front door to the

owner to the kitchen where Lane is standing in the doorway

covering the cook and busboy, back to the owner as he

steps back from the cash-register.

We scoop up the big wad of bills: seven, eight hundred

bucks in tens and fives.

Now yelling, herding the owner and the waitress into the

kitchen, the owner trying to calm the girl in singsongy

Thai, Lane shouting at him to shut up.

Into the walk-in cooler. The steel door closes on four

scared pair of eyes. POV looking around, seeing... a

dish-rack. Our hand pulls out a spoon, drops the spoon

handle through the hole in the cooler door-latch. Locking

them in.

Lane heading out the back door. Laughing, as he looks at

the wad of cash our hand is waving in front of him.

We follow Lane to the car. Snap a look down the alley one

way, then the other.

Sh*t! Cop Black-and-White pulling into the far end of the

alley. Heartbeat goes triple time. Scrambling into the

car.

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