Storm of the Century (37 page)

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109 INTERIOR: THE “KIDS’ CORNER”

The KIDS are MOANING AND TURNING on their cots, their serenity broken by some interior fear

... or something that’s happening to them FAR AWAY and HIGH ABOVE.

(horror and panic)

Get him! Stop him! For God’s sake, stop him!

110 INTERIOR: RESUME STAGE AREA.

REV. BOB RIGGINS throws his arms around MIKE’S shoulders before MIKE can do more than reach the foot of the stairs. HATCH joins him and also grabs hold before MIKE can throw off RIGGINS, who is big but a touch on the blubbery side.

Mike, no--we’ve got to hear him out--at least hear him out-

(struggling)

No, we don’t! Let me go, Hatch! Dammit-He almost gets free, but then he’s swamped by LUCIEN, SONNY, ALEX, and JOHNNY. Big boys all, they drag him back to his seat in the first row. We can see they’re embarrassed to be doing it, but we can also see that they’re determined.

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You just sit tight for a bit, Michael Anderson, and let him have his say. We’ll hear him out.

We got to.

You’re wrong. Listening to him is the worst thing we can do.

He looks to MOLLY for help and support, and what he sees there stuns him ... a KIND OF

DESPERATE UNSURETY.

(horrified)

Molly? Molly?

I don’t know, Mike. I think we better listen.

Surely it can’t hurt to listen.

He’s got us over a stump.

They turn back to LINOGE.

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111 INTERIOR: THE ISLANDERS.

All of them turn back to LINOGE, waiting for the bottom line.

112 INTERIOR: RESUME LINOGE.

As he speaks, THE CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY IN TO CLOSE-UP.

In a matter such as this, I cannot take . . . although I can punish; I assure you I can punish. Give me one of the babies sleeping yonder to raise as my own and I’ll leave you in peace. He or she will live long--long after all the others sleeping there are gone--and see much. Give me what I want and I’ll go away. Refuse me, and the dreams you shared last night will come true. The children will fall from the sky, the rest of you will walk into the ocean, two by two, and when the storm ends, they will find this island as they found Roanoke Island. Empty . . . deserted. I’ll give you half an hour. Discuss it ... isn’t that what a town meeting is for? And then . . .

He pauses. We have reached EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Choose.

FADE TO BLACK. THIS ENDS ACT 4.

Act 5

113 EXTERIOR: THE LITTLE TALL ISLAND TOWN HALL--NIGHT.

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The wind is still blowing the snow around, but the stuff falling from the sky has stopped. The Storm of the Century--Mother Nature’s version, anyway--has ended.

114 EXTERIOR: THE SKY--NIGHT.

The clouds have begun to tatter and pull apart. This time when the FULL MOON appears, it remains in view.

115 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL, FROM THE CORRIDOR.

We’re looking in through the glass doors, and running across the bottom of our view, like a super on a newscast, is that motto: LET US TRUST IN GOD AND EACH OTHER.

We can see ROBBIE BEALS getting to his feet (his hair is still mussed from hiding under the table) and crossing slowly toward the podium.

116 OMIT.

117 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL--NIGHT.

[The director will shot-block the following as he/she desires, but it should play almost as one big master, which is how it’s mostly written.]

ROBBIE reaches the podium and looks out over the silent, waiting audience. Below him, on the first bench, MIKE remains seated, but thrums almost visibly, like a high-tension wire. HATCH sits on one side of him, and MOLLY on the other. MIKE is holding her hand, and she is looking at him anxiously. Sitting behind him on the next bench are LUCIEN, SONNY, ALEX, and JOHNNY--self-appointed sergeants-at-arms. If MIKE tries to interfere with the decision-making process, they will restrain him.

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At the rear of the room, where the KIDS are sleeping, the circle of adults has grown. URSULA has joined TAVIA near SALLY GODSOE; both ANDY and JILL are with HARRY; JACK has joined ANGIE to be close to BUSTER . . . although when JACK tries to put an arm around his wife, ANGIE

dips her shoulders and slips away from his touch. “Jackie, you got some ‘splainin’ to do,” as Ricky Ricardo might have said. MELINDA is sitting by PIPPA, and next to her, SANDRA is sitting by DON. CARLA and HENRY BRIGHT sit at the foot of FRANK’S cot, holding hands. LINDA ST. PIERRE is with HEIDI. The attention of all the parents is not on their sleeping children, however, but on ROBBIE, the self-appointed moderator . . . and on their fellow ISLANDERS, who will decide the fate of their children.

Making a tremendous effort to get his act together, ROBBIE looks beneath the podium and brings out a GAVEL--old and heavy, a relic that has been handed down from the seventeenth century. ROBBIE

looks at it for a moment as if he’s never seen it before, then brings it down with a HARD BANGING

SOUND. Several people jump.

I call the meeting to order. I think it’ll be best if we deal with this matter the way we would any other piece of town business. After all, that’s what it is, isn’t it? Town business?

SILENCE and strained faces greet this. MIKE looks as if he would like to respond, but doesn’t. MOLLY continues to look at her husband ANXIOUSLY and to caress his hand, which is tightly (painfully, one would think) enfolding hers.

Any objection to that?

SILENCE. ROBBIE brings the gavel down again--WHACK!--and once again, people jump. Not the KIDS, though. They are deeply asleep again. Or comatose.

The item on the floor is whether or not to give this . . . this thing that’s come among us ... one of our children. He says he’ll go away if we give him what he wants, and kill us all--the kids included--if we don’t. Have I stated it fairly?

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SILENCE.

All right. How say you then, Little Tall? Will you speak of this?

SILENCE. Then CAL FREESE gets slowly to his feet. He looks around at his fellow ISLANDERS.

CAL

I don’t see what choice we have, if we believe he can do what he says he can do.

Do you believe him?

CAL

First thing I asked myself. And . . . ayuh, I do. I’ve seen enough to convince me. I think we either give him what he wants or he’ll take everything we have . . . includin’ our kids.

CAL sits down.

Roberta Coign’s got a good point, though. How many of you think Linoge is telling the truth? That he can and will wipe out everyone on the island, if we go against him?

SILENCE. They all believe it, but no one wants to be first to hoist his or her hand.

We all had the same dream . . . and they weren’t regular dreams. I know that. We all know that. He’s
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given us fair warning.

She raises her hand.

There’s nothin’ fair about it, but-One of BURT’S arms is in a makeshift sling, but he raises his unhurt one in the air. Others follow suit, at first just a few, then more, then almost all of them. HATCH and MOLLY are among the last to raise their hands. Only MIKE sits grimly where he is, keeping the hand MOLLY’S not holding in his lap.

(low, to MIKE)

It’s not a question of what we’re going to do, Mike . . . not yet. It’s just whether or not we believe-

I know what the question is. And once we start down this road, every step gets easier. I know that, too.

(lowering his own hand)

All right, I guess we believe him. That’s one issue out of the way. Now, if there’s any discussion of the main question-

(to his feet)

I have something to say.

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That’s fine. You’re a taxpayer, sure enough. Have on.

MIKE walks slowly up the stairs to the stage. MOLLY watches apprehensively. MIKE doesn’t bother with the podium; he simply turns to his fellow ISLANDERS. We take several beats to FOCUS and build tension as he thinks about how to begin.

No, he’s not a man. I didn’t vote, but I agree with that, just the same. I’ve seen what he did to Martha Clarendon, what he did to Peter Godsoe, what he’s done to our kids--and I don’t believe he’s a man. I had the same dreams that you had, and I understand the reality of what he’s threatening as well as you do. Better, maybe--I’m your constable, the man you elected to enforce your laws. But . . . folks . . . we don’t give our kids away to thugs. Do you understand that? We don’t give away our children!

At the back of the room, where the children are, ANDY ROBICHAUX steps forward.

What’s the choice, then? What do we do? What can we do?

A DEEP MURMUR OF AGREEMENT greets this, and MIKE is troubled, we can see that. Because the only answer he has makes no sense. It has only the virtue of being right.

Stand against him, side by side and shoulder to shoulder. Tell him no in one voice. Do what it says on the door we use to get in here--trust in God and each other. And then . . . maybe ... he goes away. The way storms always do, when they’ve blown themselves out.

(stands)

And if he starts pointing his cane around? What then? What about when we start to drop like flies on a windowsill?

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MURMUR OF AGREEMENT is louder.

REV. BOB RIGGINS

(stands)

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” You said that to me yourself, Michael, not an hour ago. Book of Matthew.

“Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that be of God.” Book of Mark. (looks around)

Folks ... if we give up a child--one of our own--how will we live with each other, even if he lets us live?

Very well, that’s how.

MIKE turns to look at him, stunned. At the back of the room, JACK CARVER comes forward to the head of the center aisle. When he speaks, MIKE turns back that way. He’s being bombarded from all directions.

We’ve all got things we live with, Mike. Or maybe you’re different.

That hits home. We see MIKE remembering.

He addresses JACK and all of them.

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No, I’m no different. But this isn’t like trying to live with a test you cheated on, or a one-night stand, or the memory of somebody you hurt when you were drunk and in an ugly frame of mind. This is a child. Don’t you understand that, Jack?

He’s maybe getting to them . . . then ROBBIE speaks up.

Suppose you’re right about being able to send him away--suppose we just put our arms around each other, gather our will, and give out a big collective “NO!” Suppose we do that and he just disappears?

Goes back to wherever he came from?

MIKE looks at him warily, waiting for the hook.

You saw our children. I don’t know what he’s actually done with them, but I have no doubt that flying high over the earth is an accurate representation of it. They can fall. I believe that. All he has to do is wave that cane of his, and they fall. How do we live with ourselves if that happens? Do we tell ourselves that we killed all eight of them because we were too good, too holy, to sacrifice one of them?

He could be bluffing-

(sharp; unfriendly)

He’s not, Michael, and you know it. You saw it.

TAVIA GODSOE comes hesitantly forward to the head of the center aisle, which seems to be the preferred speaking position for the ISLANDERS. She talks hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence.

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You speak as though he were going to kill the child, Michael ... as though it were some kind of ... of human sacrifice. It sounds more like an adoption to me.

She looks around, smiling tentatively--if we have to do this, let’s make the best of it. Let’s look on the bright side.

And a long life, as well! (pause) If you believe him, that is. And after seeing him, I ... actually, I guess I do.

MURMURS of agreement. And approval.

Linoge beat Martha Clarendon to death with his cane! Knocked the eyes right out of her head! We’re debating whether or not to give a child to a monster!

SILENCE greets this. Folks drop their eyes to the floor, cheeks red, ashamed. REV. BOB RIGGINS

sits down again. His wife puts a hand on his arm and looks at MIKE resentfully.

Maybe that’s so, but what about the rest of the kids? Do we say no and then watch them die right in front of us?

Yeah, Mike--what happened to the good of the most?

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