More Pt. 2

second part of the story

-         More Pt. 2

-            -Cut to a kid outside smoking a cigarette by himself. A tall, lanky kid with short, curly hair and glasses and tattoos all along both his arms. He takes several drags, tosses the butt and immediately lights another. As he inhales deeply he hears a voice come from behind him.-

 

Nathan: Got another one of those?

-          Joe turns around “I don’t know. I might have a few left.” Followed by a short pause.

Nathan: Well smartass can I have one?

Joe: Sure man. Go for it.

Nathan: [grabs a cig out of the pack and lights it and holds in the inhale] So. Where were you this weekend?

Joe: Busy. Doing s**t with my family.

Nathan: Is that why you didn’t answer my phone calls?

Joe: Yea. Like I said I was busy, and didn’t have my phone with me.

Nathan: So, that’s what you did all weekend? You didn’t hang out with anyone?

Joe: [takes another drag and just stares at Nathan for a second] Nope. Didn’t have any gas in my car so I couldn’t really go out and do s**t. Just sort of chilled at my place with my family.

Nathan: Couldn’t hit up a gas station?

Joe: No money man. Dead broke right now.

Nathan: Hmm. [Nathan ponders for a second whether or not to bring up Erin. He almost does, the words are on the tip of his tongue, but at the last second he decides not to] Well that’s too bad. I had some really good s**t that I wanted to smoke with you. But some a*****e decided not to answer his phone so he missed out.

Joe: F**k man. I’ll just have to smoke with you next time, I guess.

Nathan: [staring menacingly] Yea, I guess so. Maybe next, I won’t even bother calling your a*s.

Joe: [no reaction] Right. Like you have anybody else to smoke with.

Nathan: Hey f**k you! I have plenty of people to smoke with. People who actually you know, answer their f*****g phone when someone calls them.

Joe: F*****g A. I get it already. I’ll answer my phone man. Jesus, give it a f*****g rest.

Nathan: Just saying. You never answer you f****n phone. Sometimes I think you get home and just chuck it into some f****n bushes [throwing motion] and leave it there all day.

Joe: [finishes his cig and flicks the burning embers out into the grass] You would think that? Wouldn’t you? Well I’m gonna head back in. I’ll see you in there.

Nathan: What are you doing after class?

Joe: I’m heading home first. Then probably going out to Peoria.

Nathan: Really? I thought you said your car was low on gas and you were broke as s**t right now?

Joe: [pauses and remembers he indeed said that] Did I? F**k. I mean I was out of gas and money, but I eventually got some money.

Nathan: Doing what?

Joe: Donating plasma?

Nathan: When, I thought you were busy all weekend?

Joe: Sunday afternoon.

Nathan: They’re closed on Sundays.

Joe: [puts chewing tobacco in his mouth] See you in there man. [then walks away]

 

-Cut Back to class. Everyone is sitting in silence as the the counselor sits in front of the class staring at them waiting for one to say something. He's tapping his foot vigorously and then finally stands up and starts to talk.-

Perkins: So we got off track before we went on break. I think things got a little too personal in here. Let's get back on track. We're going to talk about, or at least I am. You can listen. About why we use? What compels us to keep using? 

[random kid raises his hand]

Perkins: Yes?

Dylan: What do you mean?

Perkins: I mean. What is the thought process that goes through our minds when we decide we want to use. Because let me tell you something. You are conditioned to feel this way. You are conditioned by society, and in some ways condition yourselves to think that you need to feel better and the only way you can accomplish this is by getting "high". Trust me  I know how you feel. I have about 10% of a functioning liver left. That's because I did so much heroin and my body is so damaged that I now have to take 15 different medications a day, just so I can die slower. I knew what it was doing to my body. But I kept doing it anyways. Know why? Because I was conditioned to feel this way. Following me here?

Amy: Kind of.

Perkins: It all has to do with Rational Emotive Theory. R.E.T. Does anyone know what this is?

[blank stares]

Perkins: Well it works like this. [drawing a model on the board] You have an event happen to you. Bad or good, in this case let's say bad. For example, your car breaks down. You have this event happen to you and whats the first thing that you do when this happens. You interpret it. It goes through your senses. You know sight, taste, smell, etc. and you process this event. And from this you get emotions. Based off your observations. Now considering this was a bad event. You can assume you are going to have negative emotions from this, so what do you do with these emotions. You act, you make a decision. And for all of you, that decision most if not all the time was to use and abuse a substance to get high in order to feel better. Right? Which is not why you really used, but we'll delve into that later. And this keeps happening time after time. So how do we break this cycle?

[Nathan raises his hand]

Perkins: Yes?

Nathan: We rationalize?

Perkins: Exactly. Instead of making decisions based of your emotions. You need to think about the situation rationally, objectively instead of letting your emotions control the situation and make the decision for you. I you can [draws an arrow] bypass or move your thought process around. Cause let's face it, you can't get rid of your senses or how you observe something happen to you. Right? You can't. It just happens and you react. And you can't stop your emotions or how you feel when something happens to you. But you can change how your thought process works. You can start to think about things more rationally and make decisions based on facts instead of your emotions. Is everyone following me?

Dylan: So you're saying, that if we basically get rid of our emotions and make choices based of logic. It can help us make better choice?

Perkins: well yes and no. Like I said, you can't get rid of your emotions. But you can, I liked the word you used, take those thoughts you get with those emotions and make more logical decisions by looking at the situation objectively instead of subjectively. But you have to condition yourself to think this way. Because everybody is conditioned to think the other way. To have something bad happen to them, to process it and get upset or angry or sad, and then they go out and make decisions, most of the time bad, based off of their emotions instead of logic. It takes time, a lot of time to change your thought process and the way you think. Because your brain is gonna want you to think the other way. Because when we use we get a rush of endorphins and seratonin to our brains, and we what? We feel better. But after awhile, the drugs stop working and we stop feeling better. No matter how much you do. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

This is the second part of the screenplay I wrote called More.