FADE TO:

 

INT. PARLOR. NIGHT.

 

A large room with antique fixings -- built-in bookcases, a fireplace, sconces -- but hardly any furniture other than an incredibly dirty sofa where Bill now sits, his backpack at his feet, a copy of House of Mirth in his lap. He checks his phone: 9:21. Time to give up.

 

He rises, putting his book in his bag as he makes his way out the door...

 

INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

 

“All those nerves for nothing,” he thinks as he continues down the hallway. He was surprised that Jacob had already observed him from across the room -- it added pressure to an already stressful situation. What’s he supposed to do now? Send another email? He can’t; he’s too intimidated. It’ll sound passive-aggressive, dweeby. Suddenly he thinks he can hear the faint sound of jazz, and as he continues down the hall, he’s sure he can -- it’s coming from behind one of these doors, and he’s getting closer and closer to its source.

 

Finally he stands at the door where the music is surely coming from. On the door is taped an artisan ex-libris bookplate with a picture of an elephant on it. The smell of incense wafts from under the door. Of course.  

 

He stands outside the door a moment, not even considering knocking but feeling something at the knowledge that Jacob is likely on the other side of the door. Too busy with Ahmad Jamal and Nag Champa to help some timid freshman with his paper. Bill is blushing to himself, at himself, when suddenly the door swings open. Jacob is standing there in a Casper t-shirt and pajama bottoms, freshly showered, his room pleasantly glowing behind him.

 

JACOB

Oh my God. I totally forgot! I am so

sorry. You’re Bill, yeah?

 

BILL

Oh -- uh -- yeah...

 

JACOB

Did you just get here?

 

BILL

...yeah...

 

JACOB

I’m so sorry; I completely spaced. I --

is it horrible if I ask if we can

reschedule? This week has been...

 

BILL

Totally. Yeah, man, no worries at all.

 

JACOB

Thank you. I’m so sorry about that. I’m

just like -- I’d just rolled a joint, was

totally getting ready to like, hang the

fuck out.

 

BILL

Oh, for sure. I know, uh... I know how

necessary that can be.

 

What the fuck is he saying?

 

BILL (CONT’D)

We can... We can just, like, email later

and make a plan, so... Yeah. Have a good

night.

 

JACOB

Perfect. Yeah, you too. Thanks. So sorry again.

 

Jacob retreats back into his room, closing the door, and Bill turns, making his way back down the hall. He’s almost at the stairs when

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

(back in the doorway)

Hey Bill!

 

Bill turns. Jacob holds up the unlit joint.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Want any of this?

 

CUT TO:

 

INT. JACOB’S ROOM. A LITTLE LATER.

Bill sits in an armchair. His room transcends what Bill thought was even remotely possible for a dorm: the whole place has been decorated like a proper apartment. Every object has been carefully chosen, from the colorful area rug on the floor to the Sendak prints on the wall to the steaming mug of tea Jacob is placing before him now, which bears, curved across its ceramic face, a photo of the Monkees.

 

JACOB

I hope you don’t mind if I’m cutting up

magazines we’ll we talk... It’s been my new

routine here to get stoned and save stuff for

collages. I’m in Drawing 205 but I haven’t

submitted basically anything that has my hand

in it.

 

He kneels by his bed and rifles through a pile of vintage magazines, settling, finally, on National Geographic with a picture of the Patagonian forest on it.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

I just really like seeing these weird

incompatible combinations, trying to make

them compatible. Things’ presences change

so much when you put them side by side. A

clipping will have such a life of its own,

such a, like, presence, but then when it

gets recontextualized and starts responding

to something new, it totally changes. When I

was a kid my parents would take me to the

Met and I was really into the rooms where two

exhibitions opened into each other. Like,

where the Egyptian section converges with the

American section? Pretending those were all

one collection.

 

He lights the joint in his hand, taking a long, elegant drag from it as he makes a seat for himself on the ground, surrounded by his tea and his magazine and the scissors he’ll be using to cut it up. Bill has never quite met anyone like Jacob before: his sincerity and availability make him all the more untouchable.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Sorry, I’m fucking rambling.

 

BILL

No! No. I’m just thinking...

 

Jacob passes him the joint and he takes a hit. As he exhales...

 

BILL (CONT’D)

It’s funny to me that you see collages as

so alive. I see them as dead. Or not even

dead -- absent. When I’ve seen collages --

which, granted, isn’t that much -- the clips

of the photos always feel like they’re just

a references to the full photo. And then

photos obviously are just references to

whatever they’re of.

 

Jacob, who has opened his magazine, stares at him fixedly.

 

BILL (CONT’D)

(quickly)

Oh my God, I don’t mean to, like, diss

your project, though. That’s totally just

my take; that’s all I meant.

 

Now Jacob laughs.

 

JACOB

Why haven’t you been talking more in

English class?

​

Bill laughs, turning bright red.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Seriously! You’re a freshman?

 

Bill shrugs.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Are you liking it here?

 

Bill shrugs.

 

BILL

It’s... I dunno.

 

JACOB

Yeah. It’s weird settling here. I was

surprised by how homesick I was, actually.

 

BILL

Yeah?

 

JACOB

Yeah... I’m really close with my parents,

and I have a super tight-knit group of

friends from high school -- and we were all

driving each other nuts by the end, for sure

-- but it weirdly felt so wrong to be gone.

We had spent so much time preparing for this

impending end, and then when it arrived I

was suddenly like, “Wait... This feels so

arbitrary!” Y’know? Like, they’re my family.

Why’d we all go our separate ways?

 

“He’s such an open book,” Bill remarks to himself. Is this how dudes get to talk to each other now that they’re in college? Or is this guy just different somehow?

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Are you homesick at all? -- Where are you from?

 

BILL

I’m from Madison.

 

JACOB

Nice. That’s... Wisconsin?

 

BILL

Yeah.

 

JACOB

Awesome.

 

BILL

I guess. I definitely don’t miss it. I mean,

Madison’s interesting enough. But it doesn’t

feel particularly relevant. There’s no one

there who’s...

 

“Like you,” he wants to say, but he stops himself and just shrugs. Jacob has resumed thumbing through his magazine.

 

BILL (CONT’D)

I dunno. I had a girlfriend for all four

years of high school... We broke up when

we left for school. She’s on the West

Coast, so.

 

JACOB

Fuck. That sounds so hard.

 

BILL

It is. And we haven’t spoken once; we’re just

trying to... Y’know, to give each other space

for a while. Have you been in a serious

relationship?

 

Jacob looks up, shaking his head.

 

JACOB

Nah.

 

BILL

It’s... It’s sorta like what you’re

describing with your friends. She was my

family. And now...

 

He can’t believe he’s saying this to anyone, let alone the Radio Host.

 

BILL (CONT’D)

I dunno. I don’t know why I had to change

my life so that she wasn’t in it anymore.

 

JACOB

Damn.

 

He’s begun cutting out a photograph of a Grecian statue, a large chunk missing from its head.

 

BILL

But you -- you were saying you found a

group of friends here?

 

JACOB

Yeah, I have... I... I mean, it’s

complicated, for sure. Things have felt

maybe a little more in flux this year than

I’d expected...

 

BILL

Yeah?

 

Jacob makes a final snip of his scissors and the image falls out of the magazine. As he picks it up, holding it in front of himself:

 

JACOB

I dunno. Uh... My best friend here suddenly

has a new best friend. Which is fine -- it’s

obviously allowed and maybe, like, healthy.

It’s just different when I didn’t expect it

to be different.

 

BILL

Totally. Who’s the friend?

 

A sudden authoritative KNOCK ON THE DOOR -- Bill and Jacob both jump.

 

VOICE (OFFSCREEN)

Security!

 

JACOB

(mouthing at Bill)

Fuck.

 

He leaps up and stubs the joint on the windowsill, throwing it out the window once it’s out.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

(polite as can be)

Just a sec!

 

He begins to fan out the window rapidly with his arms; Bill leaps up and joins him. Another LOUD KNOCK...

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Coming...

 

He opens the door. Bill, still at the window, can’t see the guard’s face.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

Oh, fuck off. I cannot believe you.

 

In walks the Beatnik, the one who Jacob was with in the bookstore. He’s cracking up.

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

I threw a fucking joint out the window

just now.

 

NICK

It was too easy.

 

JACOB

I hate you. Nick, this is Bill; Bill, Nick

is an asshole.

 

NICK

I am.

 

He offers a high-five.

 

BILL

(taking him up on it)

Bill. Nice to meet you.

 

JACOB

Should I roll us another joint?

 

NICK

I honestly don’t care, dude; I’m so fucking

stoned.

 

JACOB

I wasn’t asking you.

 

Bill laughs, shrugging -- sure. He makes brief eye contact with Nick, who nods at him, a slight smile of affirmation on his face. Jacob rolls a perfect j as they talk:

 

JACOB (CONT’D)

So how’d it go?

 

Nick suddenly switches gears, rocking back and forth above his feet.

 

NICK

It went fine.

(shaking his head)

I’m just kinda blocked, man. Or not blocked

-- I wrote a new song today, it just sounds

totally different from the last one. Which

sounded totally different from the last one.

I dunno, sometimes I feel like I’m, like,

schizo.

 

BILL

You’re a songwriter?

 

Nick nods.

 

JACOB

A, like, gifted songwriter.

 

Bill believes it.

 

NICK

But my songs don’t work together. I don’t

know who I am, or some shit.

 

JACOB

I’m not worried about it. I think they’re

really solid songs and that’s what matters.

 

BILL

I’d love to hear them sometime.

​

NICK

We still need to record them.

 

JACOB

Yeah.

(to Bill)

We’re in a band. I play bass.

 

BILL

No shit. What’re you called?

 

JACOB

Narrator.

 

BILL

Shit. You guys have a drummer?

 

Nick nods.

 

NICK

You play?

 

Bill shrugs.

 

BILL

Yeah.

 

Nick nods.

 

NICK

Cool.

 

A beat.

 

NICK (CONT’D)

You a freshman?

 

Bill shrugs.

 

BILL

Yep.

 

NICK

Met any girls?

 

BILL

Yeah, man. I have a girlfriend, actually.

 

JACOB

Wait... You do? A girlfriend here?

 

Bill blushes, feeling suddenly deceitful for not having brought her up before.

 

BILL

(shrugging)

Yeah.

 

JACOB

No way...

 

Jacob’s justifiable bewilderment makes Bill feel slightly judged, like he’s done something truly weird. But Nick’s expression is approving.

 

NICK

Shit. Already found himself a ball and chain.

She a freshman too?

 

BILL

No... She’s a junior.

 

NICK

Fuck, dude. Well done. She hot?

 

JACOB

Who is it?

 

BILL

Sheila Abbasi?

 

Nick and Jacob look at each other blankly. Bill shrugs.

 

BILL (CONT’D)

She’s the editor of the paper?

 

NICK

Oh, that’s why I don’t know her.

 

JACOB

I should know who that is.

 

BILL

(shrugging)

I dunno. But yeah. She’s pretty damn cool.

 

Nick nods.

 

NICK

Good for you, man. Not easy to find good ones

out here. Or maybe I’m just the one who’s got

the problem...

 

JACOB

Joint’s ready.

 

He holds up his masterpiece, offering it to Bill unlit.

 

NICK

I just can’t figure out what they want from me.

Girls, I mean. They say they’re looking for

sensitive, but then suddenly you’re too

sensitive. So really they want tough, then

you’re too tough. I dunno, man. It’s so hard.

I can’t win. I can't fucking win.

 

He looks at Bill, a pained look on his face. Bill nods sympathetically.

 

SHEILA (OFFSCREEN)

I don’t think he could win again.

 

CUT TO:

 

INT. SHEILA’S DORM ROOM. NIGHT.

 

Lights off. Bill and Sheila cuddle in bed.

 

BILL

Yeah?

 

SHEILA

Yeah, no, I don’t. He’s proven himself to

be exactly what the Democrats said he’d be in

2000 -- just as ignorant, just as incompetent.

I think he should be pretty easy to take down.

 

BILL

What’s his approval rate right now?

 

SHEILA

I can’t remember the exact number. But it’s

low. I think, like, historically low,

actually.

 

BILL

I just hope people are able to stay mad.

And that more people start to realize that

they’re mad. That was the problem in 2000 --

Al Gore wasn’t mad enough about what was

happening. We’ve gotta get people fired up.

That’s what Dean’s campaign is about.

 

SHEILA

(laughing)

I’m honestly impressed by how often you’re

able to bring up Howard Dean. I hope you’re

considering working for his campaign this

summer. Assuming he’s the candidate.

 

BILL

He’s gonna be the candidate. And I am

considering it.

 

Sheila laughs.

 

SHEILA

Good.

 

They make out for a sec. After they separate:

 

BILL

I don’t think Bush could win either.

 

SHEILA

He is a good fear-monger...

 

BILL

It’s true. Yeah, and Iraq’s far away.

 

SHEILA

What do you mean?

 

BILL

I’m just meaning to say, like, about the way

ignorance works... Because it is fear-

mongering, what Bush is doing. And part of how

it works, I think, has to do with like,

distance. And if something happens out of sight,

it’s easier for people to leap to conclusions

about it.

 

SHEILA

Or I think really what it does is make it

easier for scary people to step in and

shape people’s conclusions about it.

 

BILL

Totally. And that’s what Bush is doing.

 

SHEILA

It’s sickening. It’s truly sickening.

 

After a beat:

 

SHEILA (CONT’D)

I don’t even really want to talk about it

anymore.

 

After another beat:

 

SHEILA (CONT’D)

Fuck. Now I’m scared.

 

BILL

He’s not gonna win again. He couldn’t possibly

win again. You said so yourself one minute ago.

 

Another beat:

 

SHEILA

A minute ago it seemed true.

 

​