Scene 7.13 - Brother From Another Mother
EST: INT. Temple, Geronimo Bay Asylum, April 20, 1807
(MONTY is sitting cross-legged and barefoot; wearing silken robes. He is playing a reed flute under the marijuana tree in the temple's centre plaza, while burning some Nag Champa and occasionally pausing in his playing to toke on a small wooden pipe. The birds are chirping, the frogs are croaking, the sun is shining and everything is quite serene and peaceful. SADIE squats near him. MONTY is obviously startled. SADIE is smoking a long blunt in an even-longer cigarette holder. How does she move so quietly in those heels???)
SADIE
Well, look who's turned all that flabby flesh into rock-hard muscle! (Double-pumps his bicep. Nice! Snap-pulls a tight garter that was twisted slightly, and uncrosses her legs, sits on a nearby stone bench.) What, did I startle you, Young Student?
MONTY
(Does East-Asian music contain sharps and flats? Sweaty; winding-down from the adrenaline rush:) Between you, Mistress, and Master Poke, I need an extra set of eyes in the back of my head. I can hear mold grow; but I never hear either of you; ever...
SADIE
(Passes.) Shower-Lynn steps are light as a feather, yet strong, resolute. Every step of a priest's path is controlled, deliberate.
MONTY
(Stands. Bows. Hits, passes.) Mistress Conn, how may I learn to walk in such a manner?
(SADIE claps her hands. OLAF enters with a large roll of paper. He unrolls a portion of it.)
SADIE
Funny you should ask! Today I've brought something which can help teach you to do just that. When attending to your chores, move atop sheets of this hemp paper. When scrubbing a floor, replacing a lit candle, polishing Buddha's brass belly, or even crawling back to your cell at night -- lay paper upon your path when you wish to test yourself. If you can move upon the paper without tearing its surface, your steps and movements will not be heard; except, perhaps, by other Shower-Lynn priests who know what to listen for.
MONTY
(Deeply bows.) I am grateful, Mistress. Have you also come so I may finish your latest adornment?
SADIE
(Passes. Taps her backside.) The Phoenix tatt? Nah, one wing was painful enough; I'm still tender there; it's... pretty, tho -- we'll finish that in a couple of days. I've come to tell you to mentally prepare yourself for the next step in your education: Woman.
MONTY
Woman?
(Illustrates with her hands, one doing a circular motion, the other doing a striking/stroking motion.)
SADIE
Learn: Wax on, wacks off. Say it with me.
SADIE AND MONTY
Wax on, wacks off.
SADIE Show me!
(He does the hand gestures with her.)
SADIE AND MONTY
Wax on, wacks off.
SADIE
Yes! Faster!
MONTY
Wax on, wacks off, wax on wacks off, wax on-
(She stops him, taking his hands into hers, then retrieving her cigarette holder resting in her mouth, tokes, exhales.)
SADIE
Someone needs to teach you, and I'm the best. Demanding; yet giving. (Pause.) Don't just sit there blankly: Feel honored.
MONTY
Mistress? Do you mean, sex education?
SADIE
I mean exactly that. It's part of your program. Be in my office at eight P-M sharp, tonight. Walk through walls and all, cuz your cell stays locked. Rules are rules.
MONTY
Mistress Conn, I am young, but I am no virgin, I gave up my V-card to my one and only.
SADIE
You're a virgin in my book. You ain't loved nobody until you've loved Aunt Sadie. Poke can shore teach you how to fight and how to lick a foe, but only I can teach you how to f-
MONTY
I'm not sure how to take this; I've made wedding vows to another! She was my one, and only...
(He touches the necklace close to his heart. SADIE puts her hand over his. He regards her. Unlike MISTY, she wears heavy make-up, well applied. Yet like MISTY, she smells really, really, really, really, really, really, really good; like, all the time.)
SADIE
(Regards necklace.) Okay, your heart belongs to another; that's cool enough. But while you're here, your ass belongs to me. I don't want your love, I just want your genitals. Those are my genitals. I want them close to me; where I can keep tabs on 'em.
MONTY
Do you... do this sort of thing often?
SADIE
(Smacks him.) Wise up, Bureaucrat! I ain't been laid since I came to this rock and my wooden dildo's been whittled-down to a frickin' toothpick! Your choice: Either you're gonna learn how to please a woman, namely me, the right way, or you might as well tie it in a knot. Your wife will hafta fake it if you can't go the distance. No girl wants a man who doesn't go downtown, and I'm willing to show you how to go the extra mile and then some, and all I'm asking that you make me feel a little special, too; while you learn it all.
(She opens her vest, tokes, and crosses her legs, showing lots of thigh. She bends over toward him and she shotguns him a hit.)
MONTY
Since you've put it that way, Mistress Conn, I can find no moral objections to why I cannot pursue this new field of study.
SADIE
Not so new; but new to you -- which is just the way I like it. Young men still find time to... improvise a little. Eight P-M sharp.
(She exits, hips swaying.)
CU: MONTY
(MONTY looks toward us. A mixed-blessing, perhaps. Excited; yet a bit shy. Sex. The kinky kind. The kind with the lights on.)
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. Temple - Minutes Later In A Nearby Room
(MASTER POKE is busy tending a Bonzai bush of Bolivian bud. MONTY, slowly tip-toeing, tries to sneak-up on him. POKE pretends he doesn't hear squat. Just about when a smiling and beaming MONTY is almost upon him-)
POKE
Grass-Burner, are you all done sanding my flagstones with them gravel-scrapin' toes? I need your finger here. (Pause.) Please, so I may tie this knot already -- I swear, this cute little knot that you've taught me takes four hands to complete-
MONTY
(Thought he had it; albeit sex with the Mistress, he thought he had the jump on his lesson plan for once, for he had overheard OLAF talking to himself earlier about getting the hemp paper roll and he was sure-) How?!?!?!? I hardly made a sound!!!
POKE
You made sound nonetheless. Finger. Here. Now. Yes, thank you. Just do the hemp-paper exercises as Mistress Conn has instructed you and you'll be floating above the ground in no time. But for now, your feet may as well be stuck within two buckets of water and pig slop. The path to becoming a Shower-Lynn priest is a patient one. Practice makes perfect! Prepare yourself!
(He throws forward a slap; MONTY blocks it. He tries again, and again, faster and faster. Until MONTY catches a fist coming straight at his face. They hold the grip. A struggle; both firm in action.)
POKE (Cont'd)
Excellent, Grass-Burner! You have come very far in so short of a time!
MONTY
Short time? I feel like I've been here forever! I just wanna get back home!
(They break the suspended hold.)
POKE
Let's us rest, and I will tell you a story about what it is to ponder forever...
MONTY
Will it take forever?
POKE
(Lights bowl.) Probably not, as the story is only half-finished.
MONTY
Okay, as long as that bowl ain't half-way finished.
POKE
When I was a young boy, I was left abandoned at an orphanage. The children were cruelly-treated there and I was no exception. One night I escaped and I found sanctuary at the Hunan Shower-Lynn Monastery. I became a Shower-Lynn Master, and learned much, to which today I impart to you freely.
MONTY
I'm thankful. (Hits. Passes.) Where's this going, Old Man?
POKE
I studied the Greats: Peter; Alexander -- I still had ambitions of great deeds of my own back then; I did not take pride in a simple day's work nor a safe trip to the market -- I could not be at one with The Universe while I was plagued with that burning desire.
MONTY
Desire?
POKE
I sought Roxanopolis -- The Lost City Of Alexander. I had read all the clues; I knew it existed; I was sure.
MONTY
Alexander The Great?
POKE
Yes! There were countless texts to suggest that the Great Library Of Alexandria, the one known to the world, lost to the world in a great fire -- some texts suggested that it was but a small book depository; a regional branch location of an even greater library-
MONTY
Huh?
POKE
Some obscure Macedonian texts suggest that Alexander did not die from Hellbore, and that a body double had instead made the journey West to Babylon, for he feared assassination -- I found strong evidence of a conspiracy meant to suppress the notion that Alexander did not die at age 32 as history suggests, and instead, that at age 33, Alexander took to the sea from West Africa with fifteen thousand of his most loyal phalanx accompanied by cultural advisors from Egypt, India, Persia, Europe and the Far East and secretly ventured here; to South America -- A New World. It was written across some obscure accounts detailing the expedition that he had conquered this continent within a year; yet I found no relics of this outside of some remarkable similarities of some latter Olmec artifacts and treasures of Asia and Africa. It was also suggested in some Roman codices that he had built a City of Gold; and made several voyages across the Atlantic, anonymous, believed to be dead, yet drinking from the known world's well of knowledge all the while. It is this era of his rumored life that interested me the most -- for he put more value on the sharpness of a mind over the sharpness of a blade. Inside this city of Roxanopolis, there was supposed to be a great Temple of Athena, built like a vault, the cornerstone dedicated to Aristotle, his mentor. It is rumored to be stocked with his best treasures from all his naval campaigns and many of his land conquests; relics beyond imagination. This legacy boasted of a large and comprehensive library, holding many centuries of great lost works and eons of knowledge lost to the rest of the world over time.
MONTY
You were charging windmills and chasing dreams. No such place exists, Old Man, explorers would have found it by now, surely...
POKE
I tell you such a place does exist, for I have walked its marble streets and have seen its gold-tipped statues -- I was blinded by ambition, and for that, I suffered Karma's absolution. I was blinded by my shipmates and left to die, alone, within a cell in the city. I was so focused on finding the treasure, that I did not use precaution when choosing my fellow adventurers. The greedy lot.
MONTY
What happened?
POKE
The infighting began immediately. Those who survived the infighting were killed by the natives; sometime before my escape.
MONTY
You escaped the cell, then?
POKE
(Lifts fists, showing-off cool burns of pot-leaf and and a peace symbol on forearms, tops toward fists.) Was that a question?
MONTY
Then what happened? Didja fight them natives? Didja get all lethal with them human-sacrificin' mongrels or what?
POKE
No. They saw my blindness and witnessed my sure step and their superstitions got the best of them; they kept their distance. I made to the shores, and then sailed to Cuba, where I had learned that I had a half-brother who was living there. He is a priest as well; from a Catholic mother, not a Christo-Buddhist one. I never found him; and I scoured every inch of Cuba barefoot, looking-
MONTY
I've seen him! The priest on Ire, he looks just like you! He could be your brother, yo! (Nod.) He was clean-shaven, and not blind.
POKE
Yes, on an island. I didn't check the other islands. Perhaps. Ire, you say?
MONTY
Yes.
POKE
Well it's something to say I've been a little side-tracked in that quest. Rumors that I found the Lost City eventually reached Cuba. How this was ever known is beyond me, but the Tome-apartists believed, and when I wouldn't produce a map, I was sent here.
MONTY
Terrible! Why do you not tell the government now? Those "Tome-apartists" are no longer in power, I can attest to that-
POKE
Anyone in power would be corrupted with such a find. It has brought nothing but death and misery with knowledge of its location, only greater ill could befall it and others if the city's location were revealed. It would be looted and reduced to rubble in months. Limestone would be sold, dams would be built in the name of progress -- it would befall the fate of many of the other Wonders of the World, nothing but sand in the eyes of apes. The City has tended to itself perfectly for two thousand years; it will survive perfectly on its own, without discovery. Who am I in my short lifetime to destroy what great men so painfully labored to craft?
MONTY
You got me, Old Man. I'm at a loss for words.
POKE
(Sparks a phatty.) That's my point; they can only lock me away for a lifetime -- a good secret can be kept well; for after death, the silence is forever.
FTB