Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Excerpt #2: Lucky Dog

GYPSY
Everybody has a little bad luck.

FLANGE
But nobody has only bad luck --

GYPSY joins in on the end of the sentence:

FLANGE & GYPSY
-- except for me. 

Flange looks at the man like a potentially long lost brother. 

FLANGE (continuing)
Are you a lucky man?

GYPSY
Do I look lucky?

FLANGE
Yes you do.  You look like you have a lot of luck.  My kind of luck.  Bad luck. 

GYPSY
Well if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve found it.  I’m Gypsy.

FLANGE
Have you had a lot of hard luck, Gypsy?

GYPSY
Oh yes I have.  I’d say I’m the expert on hard luck.  My expertise goes back to my earliest days.  I have studied the history, anthropology, and sociology of blights, banes and evil dispensations. I’ve joined many congregations of many different denominations in a fruitless quest to change my fortune.  My intellectual investigations have been tested and confirmed through rigorous, repeated experiments over a long career of hardship and disappointment. I have never successfully completed any undertaking or venture.  I have, in short, an abundance of experience in the back of fate’s high hand. 

FLANGE
Have you ever seen one of these?

He hands Gypsy the token.

GYPSY
No, but I know what it is.

GYPSY, continued: I’ve seen a photograph of one.  It’s a Senufo fetish, from around Burkina Faso.  Their villages had sacred forests, where all their important observances took place.  They took their religious symbols very seriously.  Do you know what it says?

FLANGE
No, my Senufo is rusty these days.

GYPSY
Don’t get smart. I can’t read it either.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t read it.  This is a powerfully evil poker chip.

FLANGE
What are you talking about?

GYPSY
I can feel the bad luck just pouring out of this thing.  How long have you had it in your possession?

FLANGE
About 30 years.

GYPSY
Oh my word.  And you’re still standing.  You really are the most misbegotten loser in Christendom. You’ve got a corner on the guano market.  You are the winner of the loser contest. I can’t believe I found you.  That you found me. You’re the one man in the world more screwed than I am. You may be the only person alive who can help me.  You could take the albatross from my tired neck. 

FLANGE
If you’re asking for help, you’re asking the wrong guy.  I can’t help anybody.  Everything I touch turns to garbage.  Haven’t you been listening to yourself? I’m bad luck.

GYPSY
Exactly.  That’s what I’m counting on. You see, bad luck is like teflon.  It doesn’t really stick to anything but itself. 

FLANGE
Teflon sticks to itself?

GYPSY
What I’m saying is that bad luck follows bad luck, and some people are just magnets for it.  They’re like a vortex of misadventure and any bad luck in the vicinity gets drawn to them.  And you, sir, are one of those.  I’m thinking that you’re the only guy who’s unlucky enough to attract my bad luck. I’m going to do something I’ve never done: I’m going to curse you.  I’ve never uttered a curse, and I tell you I have been sorely tempted.  I’ve always held back out of some sense of basic decency.  But now I just don’t feel that way anymore.  It’s been too damn long since things went my way.  I no longer care about my fellow man.  That leaves me free to curse you into taking my bad luck.

FLANGE
You mean, if I let you curse me, I’d actually be doing you a favor?

GYPSY
The most precious favor of all.  I’ll shed my fate on you, and my bad luck will stick to you like a magnet. Someday I may even die in peace! 

FLANGE
What the hell.  It’s not like things are ever going to get any better. I’m just not the lucky guy.  I’m wronger about that than I’ve ever been about anything else.  The only thing left is to shoot the moon.  Turn myself into the biggest loser I can.  If I’m destined for failure, I might as well do a decent job of it.  Just one question: am I really the single most screwed-up guy in the entire world? 

GYPSY
Well, I’d say there’s an excellent chance you are.  But if you’re not right now, you are going to be after I’m done with you. I’ve been planning for this day for some time.  Let me get my papers.

Gypsy pulls out a pen and a piece of paper from his case, on which he has written a bill of transfer.  He reads aloud:

GYPSY
In consideration of his assuming my terrible luck and my role as fate’s whipping boy, which is good and valuable consideration for a cursed old man like me, and whereas I freely bestow this consideration on – what’s your name?

FLANGE
Flange.  Flange Van Der Winkle. 

GYPSY
(writing the name)
Yep, that’s bad luck.  Flange Van Der Winkle, and he acknowledges that he’s stuck with it, I hereby give and transfer all my possessions and property to said Flange Van Der Winkle, cursed or not cursed, for bad fortune or good.  My freedom from these evil artifacts is my benefit herein. 

Gypsy pulls out a battered case and marks down the items he’s transferring:

GYPSY
“(clothes) these’ll itch you, (photo) she’ll leave you, (book) the last chapter is missing…

He concludes by pulling out a deed to property:

GYPSY
This is the land where I labored, not two hours from this cesspool where we wallow today.  I farmed it for 30 years.  It broke my back, my credit and my soul.  I planted corn; I planted hay, I planted everything… I raised rocks.  Stupid, selfish rocks.  If I never see it again it’ll be too soon. 

Gypsy signs the deed over to Flange, tells him to “sign here”, and hands him a walnut-sized rock from the farm. 

GYPSY
Here’s a rock from your farm.  I carried it to remind me of the hardships I’ve overcome, the rocky road I’ve traveled. Maybe it was a bad luck charm.  Maybe you should carry it with your fetish carving: maybe enough bad luck for you might turn to good.  There may be something to that “shoot the moon” idea. 

Gypsy gets up and starts to leave. 

FLANGE
That was your curse?

GYPSY
What did you expect?

FLANGE
It just sounded so legal.  Like a contract. 

GYPSY
I can’t tell you how much lawyers have done for the cursing industry.  They’ve got some really good ideas if you know where to look.  I hope you never meet one.  You’ll learn about bad luck all over again. 

FLANGE (holding a medium sized, filthy old suitcase)
You forgot this.

GYPSY
I’ve been sitting on it for a month and no one’s come for it.  It was here when I got here.  Take it, for what it’s worth.

FLANGE
What’s in it?

GYPSY
Who cares? It’s lockedand it’s your problem now.  Flange, thank you for decursifying me.  My life begins anew today. I am finally at peace. 

The rain is clearing. Gypsy steps into the street in a shaft of sunlight.  He’s immediately hit by a bus.  Flange rushes out to help him, struggles heroically to save him till an ambulance comes.  He shouts out:

FLANGE
Somebody call 911!

People all around on cell phones shrug—they’re on important calls, can’t break off.  A home videographer films Flange’s efforts.  Flange calls out to him.

FLANGE (continuing)
Come on, man, get involved!  Put down your camera and pick up your phone!

The videographer does, after a moment.