THE KEY by Ernesto Gastaldi

EXT.- SAN FRANCISCO. DOWNTOWN - CRYSTAL BALL EFFECT - DAY

Reflected in the glass of a crystal ball, there is a beautiful woman, MARA, staring sadly at it.

From a window washer's scaffold suspended at the 30th floor of a skyscraper, a bucket full of
detergent begins to fall.

On the sidewalk, one SLIM man buys a newspaper from a vending machine.

The bucket continues to fall. Slim takes two footsteps. He is
now just under the bucket. He stops to read the newspaper headline:

QUEEN OF ENGLAND TO VISIT THE U.S.

He takes another two steps, unwittingly getting out of the way of the imminent danger.

In Mara's eyes, the fear suddenly subsides.

Slim suddenly retraces his footsteps and is directly under the path of the falling bucket.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

A miserable basement, poorly furnished. The light bulb hangs from the ceiling hung to an
electric wire. It's always lit. Slim is seated at a low coffee table with the crystal ball in
front of him. Mara is reading the future in it.
She lifts her head

MARA
Sorry.

The man gets up from the stool, knocking it over. He leaves slamming the door.

INT.- A LUXURIOUS BEDROOM - CRYSTAL BALL EFFECT - NIGHT

Seen in a crystal ball:

A voluptuous BLOND offers herself on a bed with black satin sheets. An AWKWARD man, around 50,
jumps on top of her.

Reflected in the crystal ball, Mara's face appears and, in the background, an obviously excited
50 year old man's face.

A disheveled woman storms into the bedroom and unloads an entire cartridge of a .22 caliber gun
into the buttocks of the man.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

The awkward man jumps up, holding his buttocks and cries out in pain.
Mara shrugs her shoulders and holds out her hand to receive her fee. The man gives her the middle
finger.

INT. - A LARGE KITCHEN - CRYSTAL BALL EFFECT - DAY

Seen in the crystal ball:
A HOUSEWIFE is preparing dinner. Reflected in the crystal ball, the contours of Mara's face and
those of a bald FAT PERSON.

A DELIVERY BOY enters with grocery bags. The woman takes away the bags and rips off his shirt
and pants. She ravishes him on the kitchen floor.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

Mara is concentrating on the crystal ball:

MARA
...she screws the gardener twice a week, the dairyman
every morning but the minister only on Sundays.

The bald fat person jumps up and shouts

FAT PERSON
Shut up! Stop it!

He kicks a stool which falls against a cage, frightening the hen inside.

FAT PERSON
My wife is a virtuous woman! You are the cheap whore !!

FRANK, handsome, 30 years old, Italian-American type, enters and places a large bag filled with
packets of popcorn on the table

FRANK
This guy's a jerk, Mara.

Then to the hen fluttering

FRANK
Shut up, McNugget!

FAT PERSON
She told me my wife's a whore who screws every man she
meets!

FRANK
Keep cool! Mara's a good fortune teller, but she sees
everything upside down, topsy turvy. She told you your
wife is having sex with everybody? Terrific!
It means she wouldn't even let Tom Cruise have a piece
of her ass.

FAT PERSON
Go to hell!

He leaves, very upset. Frank sets all the popcorn packets in a row

FRANK
You told the butcher he was going to amputate one of his
fingers and yesterday he chopped off his middle finger
with a cleaver. Now, he says, we can't get meat on credit
anymore. He thinks you're a jinx and we bring bad luck.

MARA
I don't bring bad luck. I just tell people what I see.

She looks into the crystal ball

MARA
Frank, a man is looking for you.

Frank eats a handful of popcorn. The hen clucks and he throws her a fistful of corn.

FRANK
Yahoo, McNugget! Corn for all!

MARA
An important man.

FRANK
Swedish?

MARA
No, he's dark-haired.

Frank fills his mouth with some popcorn and then goes to the bathroom.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT. BATHROOM - EVENING

Frank looks at himself in the mirror

FRANK
There are also dark-haired Swedes. He must be from
the Nobel Prize Committee. He'll knock on the door
and say "Are you the great author, Frank Marcucci?"
I'll bow and he...

MARA (V.O.)
...all confiscated! He's a repo man. He's coming to
sell our furniture.

FRANK
What furniture?

He kicks the old detergent box that Mara uses as a stool

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

Frank re-enters slamming the bathroom door

FRANK
You're not a fortune teller, you're a misfortune
teller!

MARA
I only tell the truth.

FRANK
Only the truth. Don't you see what happens with
your wonderful truth?

An ambulance passes by with its siren screeching and a puff of exhaust vapor comes through the
window. Frank closes it.

FRANK
Mara, the truth is like a woman. She has to be made
up, perfumed and dressed. You offer her naked. Today
that poor cuckold and yesterday that retired man! He
almost had a heart attack.

MARA
It's not my fault if I predicted he would get run over
by a train.

FRANK
But you shouldn't tell him! Both legs, zap! He wet his
pants, you scared him so bad, and you expect him to pay
you?

MARA
At least he'll avoid taking the BART.

FRANK
Or he'll get run over because you frightened him.

EXT. - ALLEY STREET - EVENING

MRS. BROOKS, a busty woman with cheap looks, is pushed against the window gate of a basement
apartment by a PIMPLY-FACE boy who lifts up her skirt.

MRS. BROOKS
What are you doing? Not here, people could see us.

PIMPLY
Good, then people can learn...how it's done...ah...ah!
You are so hot!

MRS. BROOKS
My husband could pass by any minute. You're crazy. Oh...
oh...oh yes...yes...more!

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

Mara picks up a needle and cuts a piece of thread with her teeth. Frank looks at the couple who
is making love against his window.

FRANK
Mara my dearest, everyone makes loads of money predicting
the future, like those '900' call-a-psychic phone lines...

EXT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT STREET- EVENING

Mrs. Brooks and her lover are copulating.

MRS. BROOKS
Yes....more, don't stop!

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

FRANK
...to tell the idiots who believe in this stuff, you're
going to win a lottery jackpot, take an important trip,
meet your true love, live forever. These are the things
you have to predict.

EXT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT STREET- EVENING

The two lovers are climaxing. The light inside the basement goes out.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

Frank still has his finger on the light switch and gets closer to the window for a better view.

FRANK
Have you ever read a weekly horoscope saying Cancer
signs will drop dead of cancer?

MARA
No...

FRANK
A week doesn't go by that it doesn't happen to Cancers,
Virgos, or Pisces. Everybody knows it and each of the
morituri has a wife, children, mothers, fathers, lovers,
friends ...all born under every sign of the zodiac!

MARA
Very interesting.

FRANK
Reading crystal balls to penniless losers doesn't even
pay well. Those so-called psychics with pay-by-the-minute
phone numbers are all making lots of money telling people
what they want to hear.

MARA
Turn on the light.

FRANK
Hell, it doesn't even matter what they predict. As soon
as their phone rings...ching, ching, the money pours in.
They're all raking in the cash. Everybody except you.

Mara gets up and turns on the light.

EXT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT STREET - EVENING

The illumination causes Mrs.Brooks' passion to subside. She pushes away her lover and fixes her
dress.

MRS. BROOKS
They saw us!

The young lover zips up his pants

PIMPLY
Nah, I don't think so. They'd be giving us a standing
ovation if they did.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

FRANK
You scared that poor innocent woman.

Frank spreads a bunch of newspapers around Mara, while she attempts to thread a needle.

FRANK
Read these horoscopes. Do any of them say "loss of
a loved one"? A loved one dies every day of the year
but nobody actually predicts it.

MARA
Horoscopes are a rip off. I tell the truth.

FRANK
Why don't you go upstairs and tell Mrs. Brooks' husband
he's a cuckold? That's the truth, isn't it?

MARA
I didn't see it in the crystal ball.

FRANK
But it's the truth. Why not tell him?

MARA
Because he didn't ask me, damn you!

FRANK
Look, it's not necessary to tell lies. The earth revolves
around the sun. It's a fact. It just depends how you
explain it. You'd explain it like this...

MARA
Don't be silly.

FRANK
A dirty ball, infested with billions of living organisms
who copulate, reproduce, die and decompose, thus entering
the food chain of their own children in a neverending cycle
of patricide, rotates around a fiery hydrogen cloud that is
trapped in a neverending series of nuclear fusion.

Mara exhales and inserts a hen feather in a little cotton sack which she sews all around with
tiny stitches

FRANK
Instead one could simply say: one awesome green-blue planet,
spewing life and beauty, cradle of cosmic intelligence,
revolves around a marvelous golden star that warms it with
its beneficial light.

MARA
Yuck. That's as disgustingly corny as the Gospel read by
a TV evangelist.

FRANK
Hey, those TV preachers are very successful. You can learn
a lot from them. Just tell your clients, sweetly, that they're
going to win a pot full of money, spend a week on a deserted
island with Marilyn Monroe and run for the presidency of the
United States.

MARA
Idiot!
FRANK
Why am I an idiot? As long as you're giving them candy, and
the taste is sweet and in their favorite color, people will
happily buy it. And for a good price. See? Promise them money,
sex and power and you can charge one hundred dollars or more.

Mara inserts a feather into another pouch and sews it shut

MARA
Perhaps you haven't noticed that Marilyn Monroe's been dead
for thirty years.

FRANK
Just facing facts. In a man's dreams, it's always Marilyn
that he dreams about.

MARA
I don't sell dreams. Charlatans do that and it's immoral.
Get me a couple of feathers, will you?

Frank slips a hand into the cage and plucks a feather from the hen. The hen squawks in protest.

FRANK
Why is it immoral? To make people dream is the strength
of all religions.

He raises three fingers like Christ

FRANK
The truth is that tomorrow you will be with me in
paradise.

Mara tries to thread another needle

MARA
Religion is like fireflies. To shine, it needs
darkness.

FRANK
Tell them a couple of sweet, phoney predictions
and folks will cover you in money.

Mara's hand trembles and the tip of the thread misses the needle eye.

MARA
You tell them! I'll lend you my crystal ball.

FRANK
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd only laugh. One has to believe
in it, at least a little, otherwise people will realize
and won't pay.

MARA
Why don't you find a job instead of giving me a hard time?

FRANK
Life's a poker game that you play only once and if you keep
the low cards you're screwed! You end up being...

INT. - ROBOT FACTORY - DAY

Frank is dressed in yellow overalls. He is surrounded by robots which besiege him.
Long automatic arms reach out and steel fingers pinch him everywhere.

FRANK (V.O.)
...a crummy little factory worker for fifty years,
then retire with a pension that can't even buy you a
can of dog food! Or a bank teller...

INT. - A SMALL BANK - DAY

Frank is a bank teller who is counting money at dizzily fast speed

FRANK (V.O.)
... getting your hands dirty counting other people's
money. Or behind a counter...

INT. - CLOTHES STORE - DAY

Frank is helping an argumentative customer

FRANK (V.O.)
...grinning with a pasted-on smile to the customer
who's "always right," who wants it with whipped cream or
in stripes or with a square collar or in mauve.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

FRANK
If the choice is to play those cards, I prefer waiting
for a better hand.

MARA
Especially if I'm the one working instead of you.

FRANK
Until I find myself and make a decision, I don't have
a predetermined destiny. I could become anything.

He closes his eyes and continues

Tom and I...

EXT. - MARS LOWLAND - DAY

Martian lowland with red sand. A lander leans at thirty degrees with one leg damaged. A small
transparent dome. Two men in spacesuits with helmets and oxygen tanks, scurry around their
spacecraft.

FRANK (V.O.)
...understand that the lander won't be able to take off
right away, but we'll finish our job on the Red Planet
until the moment the oxygen runs out.

INT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT- EVENING

Frank breathes noisily and with difficulty.

FRANK
Day after day, breath after breath. It will be a long
glorious period on the big blue marble.

Mara successfully threads the needle

MARA
You dream about this kind of stuff and I'm the stupid one.

FRANK
Or to win a scholarship in Biology from Princeton. A single objective--to conquer the AIDS virus.

INT. - REANIMATION ROOM - DAY

Frank, restless and with intravenous tubes in his arm, is in an oxygen tent

FRANK (V.O.)
An incredible victory but too late for me. Because I've
inoculated myself, I'll be the last victim of the AIDS
virus and the first dead one to win a Nobel prize.

INT. BASEMENT APARTMENT - EVENING

Frank falls onto the bed which squeaks in protest.

MARA
You could invent happier endings, you know.

FRANK
Life doesn't have a simple happy ending; unhappily,
it just simply ends. Only in fairy tales do they say
"and they lived happily ever after - The End".
If the fairy tale went on, they'd be saying "happily
until the Prince crashed his car into a truck and
Cinderella died of food poisoning.

MARA
Well, why don't you write a novel?

FRANK
All literature rotates around one crucial question--why
did she take off her panties?

Mara sucks a pricked finger

MARA
I ask myself that same question. Why did Mara take off
her panties?

FRANK
Good question. Be politically correct: why I did take
off my panties? God could make me queer and...

The point of the needle punctures Mara's finger.

MARA
God didn't make you queer, Frank. He made you an asshole!

Someone knocks and rings the doorbell at the same time.

REPO MAN (V.O.)
Open the door! Repo Company!

Mara gives a gesture of victory

FRANK
We didn't need the crystal ball for that!

The aggressive pounding at the door continues

FRANK
Coming!

He opens the door to find a man dressed in black, carrying a briefcase. His eyes are hidden
behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

REPO MAN
Are you Marcucci?

FRANK
Yes, I'm Mr. Marcucci.

The man enters and turns up his nose at the unpleasant odor

FRANK
Do you smell feces? It's McNugget, our feather supplier.

The repo man curls his lips like a horse

REPO MAN
You can appeal the court order, if you like.

FRANK
And we could keep our furniture?

REPO MAN
The seizure is enforceable, but we wouldn't bother to
send a truck for this load of junk.

He takes note, checking the inventory and getting closer to Mara

REPO MAN
...a table in bad condition. Two chairs in terrible
condition.

FRANK
(pointing out Mara)
A lover in fairly good condition. Is she going to be
auctioned off too?

REPO MAN
A second hand lover? Not an item in big demand. Sorry,
lady, just joking. A stool in bad condition. A clock
that doesn't work. A crystal ball.

MARA
No! I use this for work. It's my livelihood.

REPO MAN
Oh yeah? To me it just looks like a knick knack;
a table decoration.

MARA
Tool of my trade. I'm a fortune teller.

REPO MAN
You pulling my leg, lady?

FRANK
She sees it in living color. That's why we don't
have a TV.

REPO MAN
Never mind. Cage with...

FRANK
...six pound hen with a bald, plucked ass. It's
work related, too.

The man points to the little sacks sewn by Mara

REPO MAN
What are they?

MARA
Amulets.

REPO MAN
If you can really read the future, can you look
at mine?

MARA
Sorry, I need to be calm in order to concentrate.

REPO MAN
Hey, if you're nervous because of me, how about this?
I didn't find you.

He tears up the paper he's been writing on

REPO MAN
And you can prove to me that you really use this crystal
ball here to make a living.

FRANK
Make him happy, my darling. Look into your crystal ball.

The repo man sits down in front of the table. Mara puts her hands on the crystal ball.

REPO MAN
I have a serious problem and have to make an important
decision about my career. If you give me a little peek
at my future, I could erase this whole repo business.
It can disappear into thin air. Poof! Like magic. Get
the picture?
FRANK
Of course she gets the picture, don't you dear? It's a
nice repo man asking you to foresee his HAPPY future!

He stresses "happy" so strongly that the man appears to be suspicious. Mara lowers her head
towards the crystal ball

MARA
Be quiet, please.

She begins to breathe more quickly. The man leans towards her.

MARA
I see...yes...I see a person who is causing you to
stumble.

REPO MAN
Yes, yes. It's that bastard judge, "The Not-So-Honorable
Mr. S.O.B." Should I stay in the game?

MARA
He's giving you a push.

REPO MAN
Yes! That's exactly what he promised me. A push, you know,
a big boost in my career...and...if I...hey, how do I end up?

FRANK
How do you end up? With happiness, good fortune, wealth!

MARA
I see that you will take a fall.

The repo man sneers, puts on his glasses and gets up.

REPO MAN
He would do that, the S.O.B.! That bastard's capable
of getting me into all kinds of trouble, setting ME up
to take the fall. I do what I agreed to do, then he
frames me and I take the rap. Right! You want to frame
me, Your Got-No-Honor? I'll frame you instead, and then
YOU can take the fall!

He races out.

FRANK
My dear Mara, how stupid can you be.

MARA
I only told him he would fall.

EXT. - BASEMENT APARTMENT STREET - EVENING

The repo man runs out the front door. A little boy accidentally stumbles against him, and he
falls and hits his face against the window grille of the basement apartment.

INT.- BASEMENT APARTMENT- EVENING

Crushed against the grille, dark glasses broken, the man's nose is bleeding.

REPO MAN
I think I broke my nose!

He peers at Frank through his broken glass crashes into Goldfish's oncoming
limousine.

Money is floating through the air while passerbys scramble to get a handful. Frank, jumping
up and down and engulfed by the crowd, tries to reclaim his money.

FRANK
That's my money! Help! Take your hands off my money!
It's mine! You thieves! Call the police! Help! Help!

A siren is heard. The two thieves run away, as do the two kidnappers after trying to restart
the limousine. Jerry's corpse lies rigid in the back seat.

POLICEMAN
What's going on here? All of you keep quiet! Whose money is this?

FRANK
It's mine! I had seven thousand five hundred dollars
in my briefcase and those two bastards tried to steal
it from me. My briefcase...

POLICEMAN grabs Frank

FRANK
What are you doing? Why are you arresting me? Stop those
thieves! All these people are thieves!

ANOTHER POLICEMAN leans over Jerry's corpse

ANOTHER POLICEMAN
Are you all right gentleman?

The corpse collapses, revealing the large blood stain on his back.

ANOTHER POLICEMAN
There's a wounded man over here!

From the trunk of the limousine, the policemen hear a thump. Frank frees himself from the
policeman

FRANK
I think there's someone in the trunk.

He opens it and finds Goldfish, tied up and gagged. Frank pulls off the gag and Goldfish breathes
deeply

GOLDFISH
Thank goodness you came. I was suffocating in
there.

SPLASH CHAIRMAN
Mr. Goldfish! What are you doing in there?

The policeman cuts Goldfish's ropes

GOLDFISH
I'm interviewing the baggage, you idiot! They
kidnapped me! Who's the one with the briefcase?

FRANK
That would be me. Those two bastards tried to
rob me. I fought against them and they crashed
into your limousine. It's not my fault.

GOLDFISH
Fault? This was a kidnapping, my friend. Merciless
gang, look at what they did to my poor driver. My
only chance was to give them twenty million.

SPLASH CHAIRMAN
Twenty million dollars, Sir?

GOLDFISH
No,twnty mllion peanuts! Would you have asked less
an that for my ransom?

SPLASH CHAIRMAN
I would not even dare, Sir.

Frank grabs Goldfish, who is weak and about to collapse

GOLDFISH
I can't walk. You, Chairman, remove two seats
from the limousine

SPLASH CHAIRMAN
Why two, Sir?

GOLDFISH
Don't question your boss when he gives you an order!
Move it! I want to chat with the courageous hero who
saved my life.

Frank gives the Splash chairman a revengeful smile

GOLDFISH
You know, my friend, you probably saved my life. I
have a wife who isn't too happy with all my mistresses
and wouldn't have paid a penny for my ransom.
Criminals are idiots: you want money from the king and
you kidnap the king himself?

"uno tanto pił sa quanto pił sa che non sa niente"

Last modified on Monday 5 May 1997