Script:
Brophy was a shifty-looking guy in a navy anorak. He was being interviewed in his allotment, the alibi, Rachel Shuddern in his presence. The inspector flashed his badge and announced himself, Inspector Paul Missing Persons Unit. I was told I would find you here. Oh yeah? Brophy carried on, continuing to look down and rake. And so you found me. We're making inquiries about November 17th. What about it? Where were you, and who were you with? You've been named by a, ahem, gentleman to corroborate his whereabouts on the night. But sure you know that, no doubt. Is that so? Well, let me think. That would be the night I drove with my old pal Frank Delaney down to his house for tea, and we sat in and watched a bit of TV. Is that so? And what was on the box that night that you two choir boys watched, then? Choir boys. I like that. I like that one. Let me think. What did we watch? Ah, you know, a bit of the news on the RTE, and then there was a match on. Yeah, a match, if I remember correct. A match, was it? And who was playing? Brophy smirked. You're a regular Columbo, you. You must have great job satisfaction, Inspector. I don't know. Manchester United, I think. So we're going to write that up as an official statement. We'd be happy to sign your name to that effect. Brophy went on. I don't see why not. Well we also watched a bit of Grange Hill, and a bit of men behaving badly. He chuckled and shook his head. The Inspector was getting impatient now. What was the point? He had missed two calls from Sorka, his wife, and felt a mild panic grip him. He just needed to get out of here. This was pointless. Aren't you the smart bastard.
Script:
Come in, come in, out of the cold, for goodness' sake, come in by the fire. Thank you, Mrs. Byrne, thanks for seeing me. Joan, call me Joan, can I get you a cup of something, tea or coffee? I don't want to put you to any trouble. It's no trouble at all, I've the kettle on anyway for me. So I'll do you a coffee, is it? Speak now or forever hold your peace if it's not coffee. That's great, thanks, Mrs. Joan. Mrs. Byrne called John from the kitchen. Now we've none of the fancy stuff or French coffee, just instant. John's face flinched. He was out of sight of her anyway, but he regretted saying yes to the coffee now. He hated instant. I do know your face from the pub, all right, she said, appearing in the kitchen doorway. Yeah, well, I'm a regular there a good while now, longer than I care to remember. John looked around the cozy room full of family photos. There were photos of Annie from different ages. Joan Byrne came back in with a tray with all the tea and coffee accoutrements. I've only seen you once or twice there, if I remember correctly. Would that be right? You don't go often. I'm not a big pub-goer myself, John. The odd celebration and that, you know, christenings and that, I'm not weird, not as sociable as we once were. She pushed the tray towards him. Help yourself to biscuits. John knew better than to refuse and offend the poor woman, though he felt pretty sick. What was he doing here? He wasn't sure how he got himself into all of this. Thank you. That's very kind of you. There was a pause. Then she looked at him, square on, ready. Well, you wanted to ask about Annie, I believe. Ask away. I was just looking at all the photos of her. That's her, I take it? Mrs. Byrne nodded, smiling proudly at the photos. She looks lovely. He broke off. I'm sorry to disturb you with questions. Are you sure? She nodded steadily. I can talk about her, John. I can talk about what happened. How long has it been now? Mrs. Byrne looked back from the photos to John.
Script:
I met Sean Haney in high school. He was a little person. I think he was technically a dwarf but I'm no expert and he's never really said anything to me about it. I just knew he was a huge determined personality with a penchant for cracking people up or putting them down depending on what he thought their needs were. In our senior year, Sean and I worked for the school paper, The Horseman, which at that age, struggling in what we thought was a podunk high school, might as well have been the Paris Review. We were fleetingly cool. Sean went on to be a moderately successful local journalist, writing about music and movies for the Daily Breeze, our local rag. Although more than a stringer job, it wasn't full time. So in the past couple of years, he had been developing his pelican act, the same way some people develop a cabaret persona or birthday clown gig, like John Wayne Gacy, without the boys in the basement. I hadn't realized, he told me one day over beers, that it was such an important deal with the Indians. I just started on a hoot cause I was small and I liked pelicans. And, Sean added, I really hated the pelican mascot North High Head going at the time. Weak, he expounded with his arms out to the side. To make it really work, Sean always felt the seabird getup should be at least a two or three gig costume. The first gig ended up being his bit as the North High School Pelican's mascot. He would show up at football games and trot out onto the field with wings held high. He wasn't paid much, but he was paid. For the annual game with the El Forno High Moors, Sean could be found ruffling his feathers while leading cheers. To some, he was traitor extraordinaire. After all, he had graduated from EFHS, and the sacrilege of cheering for North High was not lost on him. It's a business, Sean would toss back. I'm a businessman. Small business, I added. Funny, bald man. But yeah, he kicked the foot on a chair. I'm Martha Stewart dressed as a pelican. Eventually, when the Rusty came calling, Sean was able to add nearly year-round work to his pelican gig. All spring and summer long, tourists would roll into town from up and down the coast, even Europe, China, Japan, South America, expecting to be entertained by the pelican man. I don't know how many countries must have a picture of me as the pelican, standing next to some woman in a veil or visiting Chilean winemaker. I don't care if they laugh or want to touch the feathers, he told me once. As long as they pay me, I can put up. And Sean had put a few fools in their place. Usually, it was a drunk who wanted to take off the pelican helmet, as he called it. A complete no-no in my book, he emphasized. A complete frickin' no-no. You don't take the pelican man's hat off, nodding. You just don't do it. In his favor, Sean Haney garnered a lot of respect in the area. With the Fornay, it was a position of high esteem.
Script:
It was constant violence, or the threat of violence, always hanging in the air. There was the potential and sometimes reality of attack from others. Then there was the aggression you directed towards yourself for being so fucking stupid to wind up here in the first place. There was the violence you felt towards the general population who had you pinned down in their brutal system like a fly caught in a web. Even if they didn't beat you, you knew your place and not to step out of it or you would be beaten to death if needs be. To survive, remember that the general population is trying to get you at all times, and so you must act to align yourself with someone or some group while placing yourself neatly and respectfully in the food chain. Not at the top, you're dead if you aim too high, and not at the bottom either because you're dead if you go too low. Your actions can get you an extra three weeks to six months, so whatever you do, whatever you must do for the group, make sure you are not seen. Do not befriend the guards at any cost. They are sadistic pricks. If you think befriending them is a good tactic that will get you out of having to do what you have to do, you are sorely mistaken. No way. Don't even think about it. They will turn on you, and the population will mistrust you. They will turn on you, too. Consider you Judas Iscariot, and then you're dead, or as good as, or worse. The guards have their own agenda. I swear they want to break you. The guards' strategy to make you march in order is constant mental violence, the menace. Drip, drip, drip. It's the little things that chip away, the small gestures, and they are masters at it. They strip away what sanity or peace of mind you have left, and that is the violence of men surveilling you. You're being watched 24-7, every move. That's a violent situation in itself, if you think about it. If you can't take it anymore, the best way for a break or any peace is to get into solitary for as long as you can. That's the safest place to be. You can't hear the deafening clanging of metal doors all day long and half the night. It's a real break. You're in your own world in the isolation cells with their sweet and sour stench of sickness and disinfectant.
Script:
Valerie Farr was sitting on a banquette that ran around the depressed part of the room with a plug-in telephone in one hand and a drink in the other, a greenish-yellow potion in an old-fashioned glass. After replacing the phone, she finished the drink, eyes tinkled, jewels on her fingers flashed, and a ray of sun leaked through an awning aperture. It set the red in her nearly black, wavy hair gleaming with beauty that Ben thought was probably natural, though carefully nurtured. She saw him. Ben, darling, join me. He approached on a carpet so deep it almost seemed to require a balancing effort. She added, Mine the stairs, five of them, down to here. If you trip, and people have done it, you can land in the goldfish pool. He laughed lightly, came down the steps, took her hand. You look marvelous, Valerie. She surveyed him, holding his hand, standing tall, graceful, and glad to see him plainly. More glad, he thought, than usual, and perceived the obvious reason. Faith was engaged to Barlow, and he was no longer a potential peril. He noticed that her dark eyes had a too wet glitter, not from tears, but owing to her sad affliction, her addiction. He wondered how many hundreds of thousands of women like this one had everything and also had the same disease, women similarly shielded in their illness by friends and family and by their own refusal to acknowledge that they were alcoholics. You look, Ben, she finally said, as pale as an oyster, and you seem to get more round-shouldered every month. You need to get outdoors more. Take some exercise. Meantime, how about a slalom? Slalom? Valerie lifted her glass and rattled the ice. A little drinky, I concocted, and named. Slaloms are those tricky zigzags in skiing that make so many people fall down. Ben shook his head. Not cocktail time for your round-shouldered, pallid physicist friend, but ice coffee? Valerie nodded, pressed a button, spoke into something invisible from his angle, and ordered another slalom with his ice coffee.
