“BOXING DAY”

By

Reggie Knox

FADE IN:

EXT. THE STREET – AFTERNOON

(WIDE) Pan across a quiet, pleasant suburban street; a few cars parked outside houses, but no people, noise or other signs of life. It’s the day after Christmas and there’s snow on the pavement. A small hatchback pulls up, the driver’s door opens.

CUT TO:

(CLOSE-UP) THE VISITOR’s shoes: brown patent leather in flawless condition, they crunch snow underfoot as he steps out.

CUT TO:

(CLOSE-UP) The Visitor’s midriff: He’s wearing a dark duffle coat and black Iso-toner driving gloves. He slams the door and pulls the gloves on, clenching his fists tensely as he does so. The gloves squeak.

CUT TO:

(CLOSE-UP) Lower half of his face: we watch him exhale the cold air. His skin is pale and clean-shaven, again flawlessly so.

CUT TO:

(EXTREME WIDE, LOW ANGLE) We watch him crossing the street and approaching a door. He takes something from his pocket.

EXT. THE DOOR

(OVER HIS SHOULDER) We see he has a small notepad and pencil in hand. He rings the doorbell. Muffled footsteps approach and THE HOME OWNER opens the door. He is middle-aged, balding, tall, has a large, bulky frame, he wears thick horn-rim glasses; behind them his gaze is intense. He has a mug in his paw. He greets The Visitor with a well-practiced, cheery smile; is softly-spoken.

THE HOME OWNER

Hello, can I help you?

THE VISITOR (his voice is extremely calm, accent very neutral, almost robotic)

Hi, I’m here from the… men’s magazine. I’m sorry we couldn’t arrange a more practical time for the interview. Are you busy?

THE HOME OWNER

No problem, I’ve been expecting you. Please come in. Season’s Greetings!

THE VISITOR

Season’s Greetings.

THE HOME OWNER opens the door wide, THE VISITOR enters, and we see the back of his clean-shaven head as he does so, the door shuts behind them.

INT. THE LIVING ROOM

(WIDE, Just inside the door) From The Visitor’s perspective we slowly pan across the room, right to left: The door we have entered is in the right-hand corner of the room. Directly ahead there is a hallway leading to a flight of stairs. The furniture is generic, the wallpaper drab and brown. There are a few cheap landscapes and a couple of framed photos on the walls. Fitted in the wall to the left is a fireplace which is turned up, blazing. A rocking chair is in the far left corner. Next to the door is a large window, curtains open, but Venetian blinds drawn together. The Home Owner stands ahead of us, about to head through to the hallway.

THE VISITOR

You have a lovely home.

THE HOME OWNER

Why thank you. I must admit to being house proud. You know that settee over there is an antique. I’m going to get a refill of this mulled wine. Can I get you some?

THE VISITOR

No. Thank you.

THE HOME OWNER

Well come on through with me to the kitchen.

We follow The Home Owner into the hallway and he turns left into the kitchen. The room is tiny, barely wide enough to allow more than one person in at a time. We stop in the doorway as he ladles crimson liquid from a large pan on the stove into his mug.

THE HOME OWNER

You know I love this stuff. The turkey, the presents; that stuff’s all great, but this is my favourite part of the holidays.

He smiles broadly and takes a sip.

CUT TO:

(CLOSE UP) As he speaks, we see The Visitor’s face in full for the first time. His expression gives away nothing.

THE VISITOR

If I’m not being too forward by asking, do you film the videos in this house?

CUT TO:

The Home Owner: still smiling, but now darker, more sinister.

THE HOME OWNER

Done with the small talk, are we? Straight to the point, I like that. That’s good journalism. Yes, we shoot our little home movies upstairs. Follow me; I’ll take you up to “the studio”. Haha!

INT. THE STAIRS

(LOW ANGLE) from the bottom of a dark stairway we look up to the second floor. We hear The Home Owner speaking from O.S. and then he enters the shot from the left, walks up the stairs followed by The Visitor, now scribbling notes. At the top of the stairs, The Home Owner pulls out a bunch of keys, fumbles through them, unlocks a door to his left, and turns the door handle…

THE HOME OWNER

Yeah, me and my partner do all of the work ourselves, right here in our humble abode. Some people question how we’ve been able to keep it up so long without getting caught, but once you’ve got your routine right and if you work as a team, it’s pretty foolproof, pretty uneventful. At least the set up is! Yeah, me and my partner…

CUT TO:

INT. THE BEDROOM (UPSTAIRS)

(LOW ANGLE) The room is dark; the door opens directly in front of us, letting in a little bit of light. We see the two men’s lower halves as they enter. The Home Owner, still talking, walks past us and as we hear the curtains open, we get more light in the room.

CUT TO:

(THE DOORWAY, in the room’s left-hand corner) We are in little more than a box room, the bedroom is dominated by a single bed with an iron frame, up against the wall to the right. The Walls are painted dark red, as is the radiator, from which a towel hangs. The ceiling is white. The bed has a liquid-proof cover and over the carpet is a transparent plastic sheet. As downstairs, the curtains are open, but the white Venetian blinds are drawn together. Slightly to the right, The Visitor stands with his back to us, the Home Owner faces him, close to the window.

THE HOME OWNER

We stick with really young ones, girls if possible – they struggle less. Truss them up tight and leave them in the dark here for a couple of days before filming. Kills any fight in them.

THE VISITOR

And the bodies?

(CU) Top half of his face: He has no eyelashes, eyebrows perfectly plucked, then pencilled in. He raises one slightly.

THE HOME OWNER (Clearly enjoying himself)

Why that would be telling, and where’s the fun in that? Safest to keep that one to myself. You know my partner didn’t even want to do this. He’s out for the afternoon, didn’t want any part in it. Anyway, this is where the magic happens.

He pats the mattress, laughs.

(CU) The Visitor’s right arm: The blade of a military shank slides down from his coat sleeve. He drops the notepad, gets a hold of the knife handle, his grip tightens, and he steps forward and buries the blade in The Home Owner’s gut.

CUT TO:

(CU) The Home Owner’s face: Eyes wide in an expression of shock and horror.

CUT TO:

(CU) Blood dripping down the blade.

CUT TO:

(CU) The Visitor’s face: Cold, emotionless.

CUT TO:

(From behind The Home Owner) The Visitor gathers his strength and in one swift motion drives the blade up through the centre of The Home Owner’s stomach, chest, throat, face (including his glasses).

CUT TO:

(CU) Flecks of blood on the white blinds.

CUT TO:

(CU) Blood splattered on the white ceiling.

CUT TO:

(CU) The Home Owner’s shoes: A pool of blood forming around them on the plastic sheet, the two perfectly shorn sides of his glasses fall either side of his feet. He drops to his knees.

CUT TO:

INT. THE STAIRS

We hear the muffled sound of movement for a few moments, and then the bedroom door opens. The Visitor comes out and makes his way down the stairs. He is wiping his face with a towel. He then cleans the blade of his knife, wipes his coat, his gloves, walks past us.

INT. THE LIVING ROOM

(WIDE, LOW ANGLE, looking into the room from the corridor) We can see the whole room, slightly out of focus, so that The Visitor’s face is not clear. He walks past us into the room, throws the towel and the notepad onto the fire, stretches his arms, loosens his shoulders. Exhales as he settles into the rocking chair across from us. He sheaths his knife on his forearm. Takes a pistol from his coat, checks the clip, attaches a silencer, and rests it on his lap. He checks the time on his watch, he waits.

CUT TO:

INT. THE LIVING ROOM – EVENING

(CU) The door, we hear a key turning in the lock. The handle turns. We pull back to see a silhouetted figure, THE PARTNER, in the doorway, he pauses. He steps forward, turns on the light; we pull further back to see the bloody footprints that have caught his attention. He turns to his left, to where the footsteps lead, over to The Visitor still in the rocking chair. He’s pointing the gun at The Partner, we hear the click of the safety pulled back.

CUT TO:

EXT. THE STREET

Looking at the front of the house, the curtains still pulled back, we see the flash as the gun goes off.

CUT TO:

INT. THE LIVING ROOM

(CU) The Partner’s head hits the wall with the impact of the gunshot.

CUT TO:

(In the hallway, looking into the room at The Partner’s corpse)  The Visitor moves quickly across the room, lifts The Partner’s legs out of the way and moves to shut the front door.

CUT TO:

EXT. THE DOOR

(CU) The door slams.

CUT TO:

Black.

Kindest regards to:

• Let the Right One In
• No Country for Old Men
• Little Children
• The Informers
• Kill Bill Vol. 1 (The O-Ren Ishii Origin Story)
• 8MM
• Dexter
• South Park (The NAMBLA Episode)

Serge Gainsbourg Et Jane Birkin

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)

• The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

• Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.

• If the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty.

• Those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.

• A really well-made buttonhole is the only link between Art and Nature.

• Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

• The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

• Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance.

• Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness.

• In all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential.

• If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.

• Pleasure is the only thing one should live for. Nothing ages like happiness.

• It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

• No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.

• Only the shallow know themselves.

• Time is a waste of money.

• One should always be a little improbable.

• There is a fatality about all good resolutions. They are invariably made too soon.

• The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

• To be premature is to be perfect.

• Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right and wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.

• Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

• A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.

• In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.

• Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.

• One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

• It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man’s deeper nature is soon found out.

• Industry is the root of all ugliness.

• The ages live in history through their anachronisms.

• It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us.

• The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.

• The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.

• Only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure.

• There is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in England at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession.

• To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Thought I appreciated Apocalypse Now when I was 16. Know I appreciated it more when I was 18. But I see it now and it’s so much more impressive.

HE HE HE

Because he didn’t grieve then, he’s paranoid and neurotic now (?)

He doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t know what he wants. It must be an incredibly unattractive trait. It gets uglier by the day.

Consumed by guilt, self-loathing, a little fear of the future to top it all off. He adds a little Jack and Coke hoping to leave the glass half full. He drops in the last couple of ice cubes, listens for the crack (he loves that sound). Fills the tray at the sink and places it back in the freezer. Fancies himself Hank Moody sans the talent; the first sip is heaven.

Pourquoi? Why the need for the crutch?

He has his reasons.

He moves on into the living room: Darko? Igby? Dreamers? Maybe Killing Zoe will distract him? He settles on Ghost World, ghosts being particularly apt: he chases one (it haunts him or he haunts it?) and he doesn’t even know it.

Maybe a call or a visit to Jezebel will numb him or distract him or even create the illusion of intimacy in his mind? But he doesn’t know her or want to. He reasons that he’d only end up hating himself more. And he doesn’t have her 30 pieces.

Chuck resigns himself to hoping film and music and whiskey will be the means to his unachievable end. Ah well, drink fast enough and, though he may fail to drown his tormentors, he’ll surely put himself to sleep.

Officially passed and now a Master of the Universe. whoop whoop!

“At this moment there are men with university degrees scrubbing dishes in Paris for ten to fifteen hours a day. One cannot say that it is mere idleness on their part, for an idle man cannot be a plongeur; they have simply been trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them.”

George Orwell: Down and Out In Paris and London.

I found reading the above passage triggered some – not wholly related – thoughts, particularly as I approach the winter of my discontent. It’s cold enough for Liquid Swords. When she left, I spent four hours walking around the city, absorbing the cold, listening to sad songs, drinking in the self-loathing. I can’t be bothered with the drink anymore, it only makes me sad… the illusion has lost some of it’s grandeur. I stopped to talk to a homeless man, asked him if he wanted to go in the chippy nearby and get something to eat. Selfish as ever, I needed a stranger on whom to unburden my problems, an objective listener who’d be grateful of the company. He eyed me suspiciously, his bony fingers seemed to crack when we shook hands, he politely declined. I felt I had offered myself up to the one person who surely wouldn’t judge me and find me wanting. I was wrong, I was drunk, I walked on. I stopped in a cafe, just before closing at 3. Scalding hot tea from a Styrofoam cup, I blew on it to warm my fingers with the steam. The owner sat down opposite me and asked me what’s my story? we exchanged nationalities and places we’d been. I identified myself as a student, though technically, in occupational terms, I’m no longer anything. He came from Pakistan, he’d spent 25 years in Germany. he likes this city. Kind eyes, conversation, but too polite to really say anything. I stared at the couple in the booth by the door, they looked happy. The chubby girl who’d been sat on the doorstep outside came in and joined them: all smiles. I’d initially thought maybe I could speak to her, but then I saw she was on the phone, she had someone. I told him I needed to go, made an excuse… needed to check my train time. To shed my dishonesty I walked across town to the station: still another 3 hours. More walking; I sat on a picnic bench for a while, moved on to the large cement steps in front of the big public screen running the news, sport, weather, news, sport, weather. McDonald’s was closed. Joy Division didn’t aid my sadness, they just came across boring. Oasis: Talk Tonight: on repeat: much better. I strolled around the back streets, half-hoping for trouble. I walked until my feet hurt, then went back and sat in the station. Japanese girl at the other end of the cold wooden bench talked on the phone a full hour without stopping for breath, then she left (presumably to get on her train). The roof, held up by pillars, was deceptive as a source of shelter; no walls, just black night flooding in to chill my bones. Wrong choice of jacket (might as well look good as I freeze) and the temperature continued to drop. Shoved hands in pockets, gripped my bag between my feet, fell asleep to Coldplay. never a deep slumber, too uncomfortable for that. The Red Bull and the alcohol wore off, central nervous system a little less depressed, distracted from hating myself by the cold and the fatigue. I listened to Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”, a little Malcolm X then the battery died. The train eventually turned up and I balled up in the first carriage. Cheap bastards: no heating and it took a while to fill up with people, warm up with body heat. An hour home, enjoyed the sunrise halfway through the journey. Hopped on the bus. Happily, it stops right on my doorstep, so I lurched up the stairs and met the cousin of death.

I can’t feel because they’re not her. People don’t need love, they need success. Love can be that success, but it doesn’t have to be. It won’t be for me. Old man died and realised my/our mortality. That’s ok. All we can do is leave our footprint. I wouldn’t burden a child with having me as a father, so I’ll have to create something else that matters. Easiest stamp I can see is to write something that means something, an idea or two that resonate. Will it matter at all to me if it means everything after, but nothing before, my death? I don’t wear tortured or rejected well, though I can’t see self-mutilation like Vinny v in my future. Should I stay or should I go now? If i go there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double. Wish I had the choice, I have to leave, they don’t want my kind. In such a panic I can’t make a decision; I’m petrified. Home is a backward step. I love them, but they deserve something better than this when I return. I can’t be empty-handed, can’t be the same duck. So I go elsewhere, run away. Maybe I’ll mature? Or will I stay the same, keep running. Worth finding out first: who will have me? Keys open doors, but these borders don’t want my paper plane. Immigration and the environment: that’s gonna be the 21st century. career, money (having money’s not everything, not having it is), adoration. all I want is to be adored by one individual who thinks I’m pretty hip… and isn’t me. Would make it all so much more bearable. I say I want that, but maybe I’d rather just keep staring at my own dead reflection. Black Narcissus, and speaking of nuns, I’d be a monk if I had the faith. I want someone who’ll let me be me or pay me to do something I enjoy… at least something I’m good at, be someone I’m proud of. heaven-sent nepotism has me subsisting proof-reading and it’s much better than a kick in the teeth or a job in sales (people scare me).

Too enamoured with my creature comforts to give up on money, lose the safety net. also too arrogant, but the office jobs are such a waste of time. My time is the only saleable asset I have and I want them to pay more. Why can’t I just have it now, enough money to not think about money? such a drag. need to learn languages. learn Spanish and move to Cuba or Venezuela, find solidarity with socialist brothers. I’d teach in East Asia, but they might not like the colour of my papers. I’d help develop the motherland, but I don’t have their precious work experience and Catch 22 has me by the short and curlies. Quarter-life crisis (being optimistic) and it’s getting no easier. So much guilt at my own inaction and filth and fear and laziness. and why are you such a neurotic cunt? All this and yet I do enjoy it all, in the grander scheme of things. And I have memories, memories make stories and one day maybe I’ll learn to tell them? One day someone’ll “get it”, there’s 6 billion of them.

“God is just out my back door, yet I choose not to visit. I would rather sit alone and scheme on how to be remembered, on what more that I can do here to cement the evidence that I once walked these roads with you. It is a futile exercise. I know it is, and yet I persist.” – BC

“I’m clearly a small-minded person, with my own petty grievances. Hopefully, my work transcends my own petty grievances and small-minded nature. It’s best for me to remain small-minded on an emotional level and broad-minded on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that makes me do my work. Neurosis, obsession, wanting people to like me, wanting my parents to feel bad for underrating me, making a lot of money, power, social status, wanting girls to like me or just to meet one girl on a job. All of this doesn’t matter as long as the work that I do to achieve these small-minded needs is a lot more interesting than me and my reasons for making it.” – VG

Tuuuune!