Brain Chunks For Breakfast

Well, it sure looks like summer has started here at the beach. The joint's been crawling with fat tourists from all over this smoggy burg. Weekend warriors, desperate to escape their empty little lives. Me? I'm holed up here in my lair, getting ready to serve you your daily fix of hardboiled pulp ...

Screened a cool little movie I hadn't heard of before -- RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, with Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. Well, okay -- it wasn't so little. And I'm not normally a fan of war movies, but this one was a corker. More of a legal thriller, really. Sam goes on trial for shooting what were supposedly innocent protesters outside the US embassy in Yemen during his rescue of the ambassador (the always great Bruce Greenwood) ... and has to defend his actions. Potent, powerful stuff. I'm no flag-waving hawk, but this was a nice example of true patriotism. Perfect timing for Memorial Day. Salute.

Onto today's joint from Wilshire Boulvard. The plot thickens when Carrie is confronted with he former neighbor Kip Slobotnick's dead body ... and she loses her lunch.

***

INT. ASSHOLE’S JOINT - MOMENTS LATER

Bernie stands in front of an old, worn sofa bed.

Opened up, revealing a very dead KIP SLOBOTNIK.

Half his head, gone.

We hear RETCHING in the next room.

BERNIE

(to someone off-camera)

Are you okay in there?

Carrie comes out.

Wiping her face with a hand towel.

CARRIE

Too early in the day for brain chunks.

BERNIE

Or are you still with the Bushmill’s for breakfast?

CARRIE

Dangle, bub. Put a sock in it.

(nods at the couch)

Think it was the bloody toupee.

The blast knocked it clear across the room.

Disgusting.

BERNIE

So that’s definitely him.

CARRIE

Yeah. I’d know that rug anywhere.

BERNIE

So what about his roommate? Where is he?

CARRIE

Martune travels alot on business,

he’s a cigar rep, always smoking those stinky fucks.

BERNIE

Well, I’m gonna have one of my boys

take this place out until he comes home.

I’ve got bigger fish to fuck.

(boasting)

You see on the news about that movie producer

who was shot in the face

and left on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

CARRIE

No. But his wife just hired me.

BERNIE

What the fuck? That’s MY case.

Carrie goes to the front door.

Opens it. Turns.

CARRIE

Looks like we’re working together again, bucko.

See you on the set.

EXT. CARRIE’S CAR - MOVING - DAY

On the car stereo,

The Divinyl’s BULLET spits shards

of broken glass over Carrie.

Hot in leather.

Cool in shades.

The car cruises the Main Street strip in Santa Monica.

CARRIE (V.O.)

My father taught me how to be tough.

How to make it on your own in the world.

He taught me that life sucks,

and that sometimes you have to shake off the shit

that gets shoved in your face and move on.

(beat)

Like the day my mother packed her bags and left.

He said it was just us now, us against the world.

(beat)

Until that morning he blew his brains out

with his service revolver.

Carrie stops at a light. Lights up a smoke.

CARRIE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

That’s what Slobotnik looked like.

Like half my father’s head sprayed across his barcalounger.

The light changes. Carrie HITS the gas.

CARRIE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

Enough warm, fuzzy childhood memories.

I’ve got to get ready for my close-up.