The Dreamers

 

FADE IN:

EXT: PARKING LOT – AFTERNOON

 

Burgis and Coug are sitting on the ground, against the side of the car. It is still running. 

 

COUG

F**k, I hate the winter

 

BURGIS

Yea. I wish Creston would get his a*s here, so we didn’t have to freeze ours off.

 

COUG

And love it simultaneously

 

BURGIS

Me too.

 

COUG

I don’t think there’s such a good thing as a good season. I mean winter’s too cold. Summer’s too hot. And spring and fall - you just want them to make up their minds.

 

BURGIS

But it comes down to what would you rather?

 

COUG

What do you mean?

 

BURGIS

No one is a hundred percent happy every season. Either you sweat too much in the summer. Or you shiver too much in the winter; it rains too much in the spring; and you rake too much in the fall. Bullshit like that.

 

COUG

I guess. I think if it came down to it, though, I’d rather be in winter.

 

BURGIS

Why’s that?

 

COUG

Jackets.

 

He presents his own jacket as an example. 

 

BURGIS

Jackets?

 

COUG

Jackets. Jackets are the best clothing ever invented. 

 

BURGIS

You think?

 

COUG

Jackets make you warm; they keep you dry; they can make you look bigger. They create the illusion that you’re not as big as you really are. Hell, a jacket can even make you look classier. Some restaurants won’t let you in without a jacket. (>>>) 

COUG (CONT)

If it didn’t get as hot as hell during the summer, I’d wear my jacket all year round. Christmas? Easter? 4^th of July? What’s Coug wearing? – F****n’ jacket.

 

BURGIS

That... is so f*****g true. I get so bummed around May 1^st, and I just realized that it’s because that’s the date that you really can’t wear your jackets anymore.

 

COUG

Damn skippy.

 

BURGIS

January, February - you’re wearing a jacket, or jackets. March – same thing, but toward the end of March, snow starts to melt. Then one day you find yourself sweating in the coat, so you take it off. April rolls around and you find you’re wearing it less and less; but you’re still trying to hold on to it. Then finally May rears its ugly head, and you have to hang up that jacket in the closet for the next 4-6 months.

 

COUG

It’s almost romantic, in a way: two friends that have stuck with each other through the harshest conditions that nature has to offer them. You know that it won’t last forever, but you never address that. You stick it out, till the end. And when the end comes you don’t get emotional about, you don’t let it get the best of you. You both take it as it comes, because deep down you know that you’ll see each other again.

 

BURGIS

      (a beat)

You are such a woman.

 

COUG

      (laughing)

I really didn’t know if I could keep going like that without laughing.

 

BURGIS

It was a very nice job though. I wish I had it on video. I could show people how good of an actor you are.

 

COUG

Really? That good?

 

BURGIS

Yea, it was great. (>>>)

BURGIS (CONT)

I got welled up. I had tears in my eyes; it was awful.

      (a beat)

Speaking of jackets – we should go to Canada this summer

 

COUG

What does that have to do with jackets?

 

BURGIS

Because it’s cold in Canada.

 

COUG

Even in the summer?

 

BURGIS

You’d be surprised.

 

COUG

Why Canada? 

 

BURGIS

Have you ever been to Toronto?

 

COUG

No sir.

 

BURGIS

Toronto's the S**T.

 

COUG

Is it?

 

BURGIS

The s**t! And I've got a friend there we could crash with.

 

COUG

Oh, excellent.

 

BURGIS

Everyone goes to the beach during the summer, but I hate the beach. And you do too.

 

COUG

That I do. With a fervent f*****g passion.

 

BURGIS

I mean the only good part of the beach is the boardwalk.

 

COUG

True dat.

 

 

BURGIS

And Toronto is like a land-bound boardwalk. And it’s crazy unique; the architecture is all gothic revival. And there's an underground city.

 

COUG

      (amazed)

... UNDER. GROUND. CITY.

 

BURGIS

Yes, underground f*****g city. Toronto gets so cold in the winter that people can't go outside, so they built underground tunnels connecting all the majors buildings.

 

COUG

Underground?

 

BURGIS

Yep.

 

COUG

That's crazy awesome.

 

BURGIS

So? August: “Burgis and Coug’s Amazing Toronto Vay-kay?”

 

COUG

Why’s your name first?

 

BURGIS

Alphabetical.

 

COUG

Hmm....? Maybe. Probably the cheapest vacation option available.

 

BURGIS

Definitely. And it’ll be wicked fun.

 

COUG

But we have time to decide what we’re going to do.

 

BURGIS

If you say so. But you have to book Method Man way in advance

 

COUG

Why Method Man?

 

BURGIS

Why not Method Man? Having Method Man with us would make any trip that much better.

 

 

COUG

Only if he brought Redman, too, though.

 

BURGIS

      (a beat)

“Got blunt?”

 

COUG

“Got chronic?”

 

Both laugh.

 

BURGIS

I also know a guy who manages this dive hotel in the Toronto ghetto. It's over a strip club. 

 

COUG

Is that who we’re staying with?

 

BURGIS

No. He’s a giant, with 70 feet of black hair, beard and burliness. His name is Weigh.

 

COUG

Weigh?

 

BURGIS

Weigh.

 

COUG

As in ‘Walk this Way’? Or as in ‘I weigh 100 lbs.’?

 

BURGIS

Weigh.

 

COUG

Oh... That's the strangest thing I've ever heard. I really don't know what to say to that.

 

BURGIS

Neither do I. Also, he's carried more dead people than I've seen in my entire life.

 

COUG

WHAT?

 

BURGIS

Yea.

 

      Coug gets up and walks out of frame.

 

COUG

Keep telling the story.

 

BURGIS

Not much of a story.

 

COUG

Tell it anyway.

 

BURGIS

It’s just that a lot of residents are drug users, and OD-slash-off themselves, or just die all the time. And sometimes they die in the hall. He’s had to help cops and paramedics carry out corpses on numerous occasions.

 

Coug walks back into frame, looking confused.

 

BURGIS (CONT)

I keep telling him he should write a book...... Something wrong?

 

COUG

I just took a piss.

 

BURGIS

Excellent.

 

COUG

And the weirdest thing happened: I held myself with the wrong hand. Like instead of using the left, which would be normal, the right hand came down and was like 'No I got this.' And I’ll tell you right now, it is f*****g awkward to piss while using the opposite hand.

 

BURGIS

I usually don't think about what hand I use

 

COUG

Neither do I. But generally you would use the hand that you write with. Right?

 

BURGIS

Well when I'm writing.

 

COUG

      (laughs)

I mean that you use the hand you write with to hold yourself. Using the other hand it's like having a stranger holding it. Someone who has no idea what they're doing.

 

Burgis laughs.

 

COUG (CONT)

And I can just imagine my left hand yelling at my right hand saying.

 

He starts to use his hands as puppets.

 

COUG (CONT)

“No that's not how you do it....put the – no that’s not how you do it....I told you to not do it like that” and the right hand being like “I'm sorry (sob, sob, sob) I'm doing my best.” (left hand) "You're worthless, why don't you just leave." 

(faux sobbing)

"Cause I got no place else to go."

 

BURGIS

Speaking of hand puppets -

 

COUG

(attentive)

That’s never a disappointing segue.

 

BURGIS

I watched all of Purple Rain yesterday and it confirms my theories that Prince is the biggest d****e in the universe.

 

COUG

Why would you do that to yourself?

 

BURGIS

I don't know, Coug. I don't know.

 

COUG

I mean, I like Purple Rain, like everyone should, but I don't think I could sit through it all in one sitting.

 

BURGIS

Oh, don’t get me wrong I was thankful for the commercials. And my DVR allowed me to change channels, and watch something else, thank God. It was one sitting, but it took about 3 hours, and even that was a little too much.

 

COUG

Purple Rain should have a 45 minute intermission-

 

BURGIS

Every 15 minutes.

 

COUG

(laughing)

I was just about to say that.

 

He pauses for a second, then looks disgusted.

 

COUG (CONT)

Oh, f**k, man, that’s just wrong. I just got that hand puppet joke. That’s f*****g wrong.

 

 

BURGIS

(laughing)

I wasn’t referring to anything like that. I was addressing the fact that Prince is a very small man, and that he could probably fit in your hand. Also, he’s already in costume all the time. Prince would make the perfect hand puppet.

 

COUG

Too bad Jim’s dead. He could have done a duet on “Rainbow Connection” with Prince as the Prince doll.

 

Burgis looks at Coug astounded.

 

BURGIS

OH! MY! GOD!

 

COUG

(worried)

What?

 

BURGIS

Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?

 

COUG

What?

 

BURGIS

You’ve just simultaneously created and destroyed the single greatest idea to have been produced from a human.

 

COUG

Why thank you?

 

BURGIS

If Prince, one of the greatest musicians of all time, sang “Rainbow Connection,” one of the greatest songs of all time, they might have to stop making music forever, because nothing could top that. But if Prince sang “Rainbow Connection” as a duet with Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog, the world would have to end, because nothing – nothing! - could top that. 

 

COUG

But you’d like that.

 

BURGIS

No wait, I take that back. The only way to top that would be if Steve Perry was there. But he’s not there the whole time. And it has to be just like in the movie.

 

COUG

In the swamp?

 

BURGIS

In the swamp. Prince on guitar and puppet.

 

COUG

Kermit on banjo. 

 

BURGIS

Then during the second chorus, Steve Perry rises up out of the water –

 

COUG

Completely dry.

 

BURGIS

Yes! And sings the “All of us under its spell, we know that it’s probably magic,” part. Then Prince and the Prince Puppet bust out an amazing guitar solo.

 

COUG

How would -?

 

BURGIS

I don’t know. Then for the last chorus they all sing in unison for an amalgamation of breathtaking splendor that might be the closest thing to the voice of God.

 

COUG

      (a beat)

Oh my God. I can actually hear that... It’s incredible.

 

BURGIS

This is the saddest I’ve ever been.

 

COUG

Why?

 

BURGIS

Because I know it’ll never happen.

 

FADE OUT.

Author's Note

(>>>) This means that there's a page break in the middle of the line.