Screenwriting rick.morgan

A Sobering Spring Break

Rick Morgan

9/16/09

The story begins on the balcony of a hotel overlooking LA.  Our protagonist, a 21 year old college student from Berkley, is staring out at the city with his 19 year old girlfriend.  They are both students at the University of California.  He is a junior, she is a freshman.  He is somewhat tall and handsome, she is a little on the short side but still very pretty.  They met through a meeting for all of the staff writers for a campus newspaper.  She writes pieces about art and student performances, he writes opinion pieces.  She found him attractive immediately, and she also appreciated his intelligence and ambition in life.  He pretends that he likes her for her intelligence, but his heart of hearts knows that is not the case.  It pleases him that she comes across as bright and does well in school, but only because it helps his appearance to be dating such a sharp and outgoing girl.  In reality, he finds her naïve and even simple, albeit very motivated.  With this girl he doesn’t ruin his reputation by dating some bimbo, but at the same time he can feed off of that feeling of intellectual superiority that helps him sleep at night.  This misguided couple is on a road trip to Tijuana for spring break.  They spent the previous night with a couple of friends at USC, but decided to sleep in a hotel room in order to avoid inconveniencing anyone. 

As they look out over the city of LA, the boyfriend notices that they are just down the street from a local dog pound.  He has always found dogs amusing and fun companions (similar to the way he views his girlfriend), and he decides it would strengthen their relationship if they saved a dog from the pound.  She, however, is clearly opposed to the idea.  She thinks a dog would be a huge burden on a trip like this, and the animal would remain just as cumbersome once they got back to school.  Despite her arguing, he fails to see a problem with the idea.  She knows that once he gets and idea like this into his head, there is no stopping him.  The argument becomes an insight into the nature of their relationship, as it takes on a form of something much more significant than simply the dog.  “I wish there were some way I could just once feel that my giving in meant anything to you.  I wish you knew how to be gracious about it,” she says.  During the conversation, she also lets slip that road tripping through California and staying in shabby hotel rooms is not her idea of a fun spring break.  He makes some petty offers to not do anything that will upset her, but the end result is inevitable.  He goes to the pound, picks out an adorable puppy, and brings it back to the room. 

After he puts the puppy in the room, he decides to go out for a stroll around the neighborhood.  It is a scorching hot day in southern California, and the smog darkens the view of the distant hills.  Two blocks from the hotel room, the man comes across a busted fire hydrant.  Children are running around and playing in the spraying water.  A few women have come outside to wash off some of the towels from their apartment.  The man pulls out a leather notebook that he has conveniently tucked into his front pocket.  In it is already written, “Recipe for dissolving the impression of hideousness made by a thing: Fix the attention on the given object or situation so that the various elements, all familiar, will regroup themselves.  Frightfulness is never more than an unfamiliar pattern.”  After lighting a cigarette, he writes, “More than anything else, woman requires strict ritualistic observance of the traditions of sexual behavior.  That is her definition of love.  Modern, that is, intellectual education, having been devised by males for males, inhibits and confuses her.  She avenges…”  A couple of neighborhood kids come sprinting through the fire hydrant and pass the man.  His pants are a little wet, but he smiles and tries to say something along the lines of “Be careful!” to the happy children. 

Back in the hotel room, the girlfriend is lying down on the bed with something of an impatient and unsatisfied look on her face.  The couple has decided to stay one more night in LA and then head out tomorrow.  The man suggests that she doesn’t lie on her side like that because it is bad for her spine.  After this unnecessary display of arrogant intelligence, the girl asks where he stored the bottle of rum they bought for the trip.  Her boyfriend shows signs that he disapproves of her solitary day-drinking.  He suggests that she just wait until the evening when they were planning on meeting with some friends, but she doesn’t seem to care what he thinks.  She leaves him alone in the room and goes out on the balcony to enjoy her drink.  With such awkwardness ruining his reading, the man decides to go out to the balcony and talk to her.  Once he gets out there, however, he can’t bring himself to say anything comforting.  He goes back inside only to find that the puppy has taken a piss on the book he was reading. 

After a long drive down to Mexico the following day, the couple checks in to yet another decaying hotel room.  The girl goes to a bar for a drink or two, and she instantly notices that her boyfriend shows know concern at the thought of her walking by herself through a disreputable town in a foreign country.  When she comes back from the bar, the entire room is in even worse shape after being terrorized by the puppy.  The man tries to make light of the situation, but once again the puppy sets in motion an argument that shows both of their true feelings.  “He [the puppy] can’t help being a little horror, but he keeps reminding me that you could if you wanted,” she explains to him.  The man refuses to show any signs of anger, and he even offers to get rid of the puppy.  Once again, she lets him know that the puppy is not the issue.  They go to sleep in silent agitation. 

The next morning, the girl wakes up much later than her boyfriend.  She presumes that he has gone out on the hotel porch to eat something they had bought from the grocery store the day before.  She finds him smoking a cigarette on the porch.  He tells her that he gave the puppy to the man at the check-in desk.  The man at the desk couldn’t be happier with the puppy, seeing as his son’s birthday is coming up and he has always wanted a dog.  She tries unsuccessfully to hide how thrilled she is to be free of the puppy.  There is a brief moment on the porch when they both seem to be happy with one another. 

In the spirit of this fleeting sense of satisfaction, the couple decides to switch hotels.  They leave their current hotel, which is on the outskirts of town, and check in to a hotel located right in the thick of downtown.  While this new hotel is a little cheaper and more run-down, it is much closer to all of the bars and clubs where everyone spends most of their time.  After they find their room, the man decides to see if he can find a hotel employee to speak with.  He soon realizes that the hotel is very crowded and he doesn’t have much of a chance of finding anyone.  When he makes his way back to the room, his girlfriend makes it clear that this new hotel doesn’t even come close to reaching her standards (which are not unreasonable).  He comforts her by reminding her that tomorrow they are going to push on further south to some of the nicer parts of Mexico, away from the cesspool of Tijuana.  She cheers up temporarily, and they decide to go out into the town.  Tijuana is bustling with people.  There are young people from all over America out and about for a night of drinking, drugs, and debauchery in a foreign land.  Almost every bar is full of people.  Men and women stand outside the crowded clubs.  Most of them are trying to hail a cab so they can leave with the stranger they picked up inside.  Shady characters look to sell drugs to anyone with a pulse.  Some wait for you to come to them.  The more ambitious types will approach anybody who looks like they’ve even thought of taking drugs before.  The girlfriend is clearly overwhelmed.  The entire scene is just too much for her, and she even goes so far as to call it a “nightmare.”  Her boyfriend accuses her of not trying whatsoever to enjoy herself.  He tries to convince her to come in to a club with him, but she outright refuses.  This doesn’t stop the boyfriend from trying to enjoy himself.  He continues on into the club while she heads back to the hotel. 

In the club, the music is playing incredibly loud.  People are everywhere.  It takes the boyfriend a solid five minutes just to get from the door to the bar.  Men and women are dancing to the sound of pulsating techno.  The locals that happen to be at the club stick out like a sore thumb to him.  More than anything, it is there crooked teeth that catch his attention.  He attributes this trend to some sort of deficiency in the water.  Across the bar, he notices a young Mexican man wearing a polo t-shirt with a hotel name over the pocket.  The boyfriend recognizes this hotel to be the one where he is currently staying.  He approaches the young native and asks him if he can pay the hotel fee right then and there at the bar.  The hotel employee agrees to accept the payment, but the boyfriend suddenly realizes he doesn’t have the money on him.  He tells the employee to go to his room in a half hour and he will pay the fee then.  The employee complies, and even says that he will spray the room to get rid of the mosquitoes, which can apparently become quite a nuisance late at night.  After the employee leaves to take care of business, the music in the club stops for a few minutes.  Through eavesdropping on the young couple sitting next to him at the bar, the boyfriend finds out that this isn’t a regular night at this specific club.  Tonight is what they call “DJ Mix Up Night,” where the club hosts a competition amongst amateur DJ’s and names a winner at the end of the night.  While most of the young partiers are disappointed by this unexpected turn of events, the boyfriend is slightly intrigued.  After a few drinks and multiple cigarettes, he really begins to feel the music flowing through his body.  A stranger at the bar offers him a hit from a blunt, which he casually accepts.  He usually hates pumping techno music, but something about the atmosphere of this night puts him in a transcendental state.  The music cascades through his body like he’s never experienced before.  Who knows what kind of chemicals were laced in that blunt he smoked?  The feeling inspires him to make another journal entry.  “We are moving through the blood stream of a giant.  A very dark night,” he writes.  A sudden sensation of lightheadedness swarms over him, and he decides to take a nap with his head on the bar.  He dozes into a drug induced slumber. 

After a couple of hours, the man wakes up and realizes that it is well past midnight.  He heads back to the room through the throngs of people in the streets and in the hotel.  Upon entering the room, he finds it to be completely dark.  When he hears a cough, he decides to ask, “How are the mosquitoes?  Did my monkey man come and fix you up?”  Not receiving any kind of a reply, he explores the room with the aid of a match.  He finds that she isn’t in her bed, and his bed has a can of insecticide on it.  Worried and annoyed, he looks through the room in the dark.  After rummaging through the suitcases, he notices that the two bottles of rum bought for the trip are nowhere to be found.  Even though he knows he could probably find his drunken girlfriend relatively easily with a little effort, he instead decides to pass out in his bed.  He finishes a half full bottle of beer lying on the ground and tries to doze off.  Sleep, however, doesn’t come as effortlessly as he would like.  He sees a group of young Americans stumbling outside of his window, and it makes him uncomfortable to think that his girlfriend is carousing around without him.  Despite his embellished feeling of intellectual superiority, she is still important to him.  The music from a nearby club suddenly doubles in volume, and he finally settles down.  He quietly says to himself, “Now I shan’t hear her when she comes in and bangs around.”  Sleep finally smothers his body. 

A distinct high-pitched sound eventually interrupts his sleep.  He gets up and goes to the window in order to investigate the source of this noise.  Outside of the screen in his window he sees a massive clump of wings that can’t be anything but mosquitoes.  The irritating buzz from these insects is enough to drive him crazy.  He has never seen mosquitoes in this capacity before, and he finds the sight absolutely stunning.  The small space left between the screen and the top of the window frame concerns him.  With the help of yet another match, he searches the room.  His girlfriend is still nowhere to be found.  The insecticide has leaked all over his bed, which makes him furious.  In this fit of anger, he tries to fix his screen window and close the crack at the top.  He is too forceful, however, and the screen falls out into the street.  There are suddenly mosquitoes everywhere, and their incessant buzzing around his head is too much for him to handle.  He runs out into the hallway to escape the mosquito horde.  Finally feeling safe, he observes the scene in the hallway.  People are passed out all over the corridor.  Most important to the boyfriend, however, is that there aren’t any mosquitoes.  He finds a spot next to the wall amongst all the exhausted partiers.  Although he is clearly uncomfortable, he forces himself to fall asleep.

When he awakes, it is very early in the morning.  The sun is just coming up, and most of the people who slept in the hallway have dispersed to other parts of the hotel and city.  He goes out on the small, crowded, and probably unsafe hotel porch to observe the break of dawn.  He takes a look at his watch and sees that it is 5:30 in the morning, and he remembers that he planned on hitting the road with his girlfriend in an hour and a half.  In his pocket are two bus tickets.  Just to make sure, he takes them out and looks at them.  They are scheduled to depart at nine that morning from the city of Ensenada, which is at least an hour away.  They need to get packed relatively soon, as missing this bus out of Ensenada would almost certainly ruin their plans for the remainder of the trip.  His missing girlfriend is now a source of unbearable anxiety for him.  If he doesn’t find her within the hour, the timing of their travels would become rather dicey.  Assuming that she drank herself silly and went out to get into trouble in Tijuana, he begins a thorough search everywhere he can think of in the city.  He has called her cell phone three times but to no avail.  The calls go straight to voicemail, which leads him to believe that her phone is either turned off, dead, or destroyed.  He starts his search by wandering through the various clubs and bars within walking distance of the hotel.  Everything is closed or empty, and there is certainly no sign of his missing girlfriend.  The only place that seems to have some life this early in the morning (or late at night depending on your perspective) is the filthy strip club four blocks away from the hotel.  At first the boyfriend doesn’t even check inside.  He refuses to believe that she would ever even look at such a place.  The mounting sense of terror in his soul has grown so powerful, however, that he puts his pride in his back pocket and checks inside.  Much to his simultaneous dismay and relief, she is not inside there either.  In the streets, all sorts of characters have decided to get an early jump on the day.  In back alleys, there are circles of people betting on cockfights with crumpled up money.  Americans and Mexicans alike stand outside of storefronts and gamble on dice and card games.  After searching every place that she could conceivably have ended up, the boyfriend decides to go back to the hotel and see if she has returned.  On his way back, he notices a bottle of rum outside of a small shack near the hotel.  It is a bottle of the same type of rum that his girlfriend took from their suitcases the night before.  He goes inside the shack and almost instantly sees his wife lying on a floor mat with the hotel employee he met at the bar the night before.  They are both sleeping almost completely naked.  The entire room reeks of booze and sweat.  Without thinking twice, he goes immediately back to his hotel room and begins to pack all of the bags.  To the untrained eye, he shows no signs of despair after witnessing such a scene.  But if you look close enough, you can see that he is tightening his lips in order to hold something in.  After packing the bags, he gets dressed, puts on his hat, and heads outside.  

Outside of the hotel, the boyfriend heads to the neighboring parking lot where his car is located.  Two young Mexican boys are standing around the lot, waiting for travelers to come by.  When they see the boyfriend walking through the lot with all of his suitcases, they eagerly rush to offer him some assistance.  While they argue with each other over who gets to help him, the boyfriend informs them that he could use both of their help.  He lets the two boys carry some of the luggage to the car, and he tips them very generously.  After the car is loaded up and ready to go, he turns on the ignition and begins to leave the parking lot.  As he makes the turn on to the main road, he finds himself constantly glancing in his rearview mirror.  In this mirror he has a clear shot of the entire street, including his hotel and the shack where he found his girlfriend.  For about a hundred yards, the street looks quiet and deserted in the mirror.  But after a few seconds, he notices what looks like a woman dressed in white sprinting after the car.  Rather than turn around or even slow down, the man pushes even harder on the gas pedal, leaving the running woman in white permanently out of view.  While driving, he takes his notebook out of his pocket and tosses it on the passenger seat.  A smile creeps across his face, and he leans back comfortably in the driver seat.