It's a Fungible Life

FADE IN:

NIGHT SEQUENCE

Series of shots around one of those $500-a-night resorts in Sea Island, Georgia, an empty swimming pool, an empty beach, an empty golf course, lit rooms seen from outside. It’s Christmas Eve, 1999. Voices over uttering prayers.

REVEREND DANFORTH:

Please, dear Lord, watch over my troubled young friend Clarence!

FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH:

He was the only nomination I got, Lord! Protect him!

LEOLA:

He’s a good boy, God, just a little moody.

CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST:

Jesus Christ, that Clarence is out of his mind!

VIRGINIA:

I love him so much! Hail Mary, full of grace…

MARK:

Please, God, what’s wrong with Great-Uncle Clarence?

Camera pulls up and back into the starry night sky, through which a Gulfstream G650 plows its way on some heavenly errand, and the voices coming from within the plane are those of guardian angels.

LEO:

What’s up, Paoletta? You’re looking disturbed.

PAOLETTA:

Oh, Leonard, it’s Clarence Thomas. He’s the subject of a bunch of prayers. People pretty anxious.

---

LEO:

Oh hell, I forgot this was coming out. Put somebody on the case right away.

PAOLETTA:

I would, but there’s nobody available except that Nazi memorabilia collector.

LEO:

Who, Crow? That’s a nice place he has up in the Adirondacks, though. Send him in, I’ll try to get him ready.

Break, then Crow’s voice, a little out of breath.

CROW:

You wanted to see me, Leonard?

LEO:

It’s about Clarence Thomas.

CROW:

What, the Supreme Court justice? The colored one? The one in the high-tech lynching?

LEO:

Well, Supreme Court justice for the time being. According to the prophecy, he’s quitting the job. Tonight, just before midnight.

CROW:

Good God! And giving that sleazy bastard Bill Clinton a chance to name some communist to replace him?

LEO:

That’s how it looks, Harlan. You think you can handle it?

CROW:

But why on earth would he do something like that?

LEO:

Well, Harlan, it’s a long story….

***

A little over an hour, to be exact, of vignettes from the justice’s life, with voice over commentary from Leo and Crow, from the dire poverty of his beginnings in the shack in Pin Point, the shock of his move to his conservative grandfather’s house in Savannah (indoor plumbing, three meals a day, and regular beatings), the painful mastery of English replacing his mother tongue Gullah, his career as an undergraduate activist in the Black Student Union at Holy Cross, the shock at Yale Law School when preppy conservative white students treated him with contempt as an affirmative action baby, the inability to find a job in a private law firm in spite of the Yale degree—he blamed that on affirmative action too—reducing him to the fate of always working for the detestable government, at salaries that were always below average for a lawyer, even when they named him to the Supreme Court, and the years of penury, climaxing with that terrible moment when he had to borrow $267,230 just to buy himself a simple RV, which is where Act 3 begins in real time.

INT. - RESORT LOBBY - NIGHT

Christmas tree, blazing fireplace, and young Mark playing carols at the lobby grand piano—”Angels We Have Heard on High”—when Clarence, holding a ten-page sheaf of papers, and Virginia enter at the center of an entourage of white conservatives in cruisewear. Clarence in a foul mood.

CROWD MEMBER 1:

Great speech, sir!

CROWD MEMBER 2:

Bravo!

CROWD MEMBER 3:

Can I trouble you to sign my program, sir? It’ll be such a thrill for my wife!

CLARENCE:

The hell I will.

VIRGINIA:

Clarence?

CLARENCE:

They won’t let me charge for it. Call this a capitalist country and they expect me to give speeches for free. Can’t even sell a little autograph. So-called ethics. I tell you I’m fed up with this shit.

VIRGINIA:

Clarence!

CLARENCE:

Kid, will you stop playing that stupid song?

He storms out toward the entrance. Virginia hesitates, then runs to follow, while the others look on, aghast.

EXT. - DRIVEWAY - NIGHT

Clarence tosses his speech text into a trash can, strides ahead, Virginia catches up, panting.

VIRGINIA:

Clarence? What’s wrong with you, dear? You’ve been so strange all evening! Do you want to get something to eat? Do you want to go upstairs and cuddle?

We hear Crow, voice over in a whisper, addressing us.

CROW:

Oh, no, Mrs. Thomas, you’d better leave him to me.

CLARENCE:

How about a ride in my new car? Let’s go camping! Let’s go camping in the Walmart parking lot! That’s good enough for me, I can’t afford to spend the night in a place like this.

Crow appears in the background, watching from behind a pillar.

VIRGINIA:

You got a new car?

CLARENCE:

Marathon, Mirage XL. Bought it off a guy I met, 265 thou.

VIRGINIA:

Clarence, we don’t have that kind of money!

CLARENCE:

So I borrowed it off somebody, what do you want to do about it?

VIRGINIA:

How are you going to pay them back? We’re already in debt up to our ears!

CLARENCE:

Honey, I’m quitting. I’m quitting that stupid government job and going someplace where they appreciate me.

Crow comes into the light.

CROW:

Please, Mr. Thomas, don’t say that!

CLARENCE:

Who the hell are you?

CROW:

You might say I’m a kind of guardian angel. Mrs. Thomas, would you kindly go back inside and tell everybody Mr. Thomas is fine? He just met up out here with a friend.

Virginia makes as if to reply, but a look from Clarence sops her, and she leaves.

EXT. - POOLSIDE - NIGHT

Crow and Clarence walking by the pool. Laughter and glass breaking echo from the bar inside. Clarence is deflated from his recent outburst.

CLARENCE:

Here, what’s this all about?

CROW:

Name’s Harlan Crow. I’m a businessman. I just wanted to say how much I agree with what you were saying just now. You deserve so much more than you’re given.

CLARENCE:

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m nothing but an affirmative action baby after all, just like all those Yale boys said.

CROW:

Why, what do they know? The services you perform for your country are invaluable! Maybe it doesn’t seem like much now, when it’s so often you and Scalia against the whole world, but sooner or later you’re going to be in the majority, and then there'll be a thief who gets 25 to life for stealing a couple of golf clubs and it sticks because of you; there’ll be a hippie kid who has to face a drug test because some cop doesn’t like his face and you made it happen; there’ll be fornicating women forced to live with the consequences of their unbridled lusts—

CLARENCE:

Easy, fella—

CROW:

Oh, I’m always too passionate, but what I wanted to say is, you should be getting more money for it, and my friends and I are ready to see that you do.

CLARENCE:

But how—?

Crow pulls a paper out of his pocket.

CROW:

Here’s a receipt for the money you borrowed to buy the camper.

CLARENCE:

But what—?

CROW:

And there’s so much more where that came from.

CLARENCE:

But when—?

CROW:

Did I tell you I’m a member at Bohemian Grove?

CLARENCE:

But Mr. Crow, this is like an answer to a prayer! It’s like a Hollywood movie!

CROW:

God bless us every one.

CLARENCE:

Not that movie.

INT. - LOBBY - NIGHT

Clarence and Crow returning to the lobby, where the rest of the cast is striking up the chorus of “Angels We Have Heard on High”. Clarence hoists Mark into the air and sweeps Virginia into his embrace, and they all look like they’re going to dance till they drop. Closeup on Crow’s lapel, where you notice for the first time a little pin with a set of airplane wings.