East / West

by Carter Maddox

1 INT. CAR – SUMMER – DAY

SPENCER and CODY drive on a windy, rocky road. They are silent as they pass a glass marijuana pipe between themselves. At the same time, SPENCER glances through a brochure entitled “The German Experience.” CODY coughs. He can’t stop coughing.

SPENCER (searching the car): Cody do we have any water?

CODY, still coughing, shakes his head as SPENCER keeps looking.

2 EXT. RIVER – DAY

SPENCER and CODY park upstream of a nearby river. They get out of the car, both slam their doors and begin walking toward their place: a small peninsula of limestone which juts toward the river. Behind the peninsula is a limestone wall. It’s old and dry, flaky. It’s so old it looks as if it’s just earth, not stone at all. They lie on the peninsula, and CODY wraps one leg around SPENCER’s. They are both high. They stare straight into the sky.

3 EXT. RIVER – EVENING

Both boys are asleep. SPENCER wakes up and untangles his legs from CODY’s. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and retrieves and lights one. CODY rouses at the sound of the lighter. SPENCER walks to the limestone wall, reaches to it delicately and scrapes at it with a fingernail. Pieces of rock crumble and fall.

CODY’S VOICE: What are you doing?

SPENCER, rubbing his finger, turns to face CODY, rubbing his finger.

SPENCER: Nothing. Looking at the rock.

CODY: You okay?

SPENCER (turning back to the wall): I’m fine. Just looking. This is limestone, right?

CODY rolls his eyes a little. He scratches at the peninsula.

CODY: Yeah.

SPENCER: How is this vertical when the riverbed is flat? Grand Canyon effect or something?

CODY: Yeah. The river used to be wider and it cut a canyon out of the wall.

CODY gets up and walks to SPENCER, looking at him solidly. CODY reaches out and scratches the wall. More pieces of rock fall.

CODY: Limestone’s so porous. I guess it dries out easy if it doesn’t get wet.

SPENCER: Easily. Don’t they build with this stuff? How can they build with it if it just cracks like this?

CODY: I didn’t know it got this dry. There must be some way to laminate it to make it stronger. I don’t know how they do that, though. If they can.

CODY grabs SPENCER round the shoulders. He begins to lead him downstream.

CODY: Let’s walk downstream. Get away from this rock before it all falls. You don’t know how strong it isn’t. We’ve never been down here.

SPENCER nods. He is upset. They start to walk along the riverbank in the distance. SPENCER stops and turns to CODY.

SPENCER: I’ll miss you.

CODY: I’m only gonna be gone for a month.

SPENCER: It’s a long way away.

CODY: Not too far. Just halfway around.

SPENCER: Send me a postcard?

CODY: I will. Definitely. I think I’ve already got about twenty people I’ve promised to send cards to.

SPENCER: Who’ll be the first? The first you send to, I mean.

CODY takes his arm off SPENCER and leans his head toward him. He kisses SPENCER.

CODY: You.

SPENCER pulls away from CODY and makes his way back to the limestone wall. CODY follows him.

CODY: You know I think what I’m excited about most is seeing the wall. In Berlin. How cool will it be to stand there? Where the great Iron Curtain was? The dividing line. The separation point.

SPENCER: There’s not much of it left. Just pieces. Perestroika and glasnost happened, remember?

CODY: I know that.

SPENCER’S by the limestone wall again, almost so close to it he’s leaning on it for support.

CODY: It’ll just be…I dunno…Awe-inspiring or something to stand there. At the place where people were cut off. That kind of separation…I mean I guess it’s happening in Korea now, no, Jerusalem more like it, but that’s the only other place I can think of. People just aren’t cut off anymore.

SPENCER: They aren’t? Huh. Forced separation, though. (struggling to say the words) That—that—very.

CODY (not noticing SPENCER’S inability to speak): And Auschwitz … that’ll be a good one.

SPENCER: Oh that’ll be a blast! I’ve heard the ovens still smell.

CODY: Can’t testify to that one.

SPENCER: You know they used to kill us in the camps too? It wasn’t just Jewish people.

CODY: The pink triangles. I’ve heard. You gonna stand there all night? Or talk to me?

SPENCER: We’ve got all night. There are blankets in the car. I’m hungry. Didn’t we bring some hot dogs?

CODY: Right.

Pause. SPENCER turns to the wall and scratches at it. CODY turns and walks to where the peninsula juts from the bank of the river. He puts his hand in the water, and then pulls a handful of water to his mouth and slurps it down. SPENCER starts picking larger chunks of the wall off than before and tosses the pieces behind him. CODY turns back around. He stands up and rushes to SPENCER. He grabs SPENCER by his neck.

CODY: Easy! Don’t you know how avalanches work?

SPENCER: There’s no snow here.

CODY: Any kind of landslide, then. Something gets disturbed and then the land falls.

SPENCER pulls from CODY’s grasp.

SPENCER: This won’t fall.

CODY: You don’t know that. There are boulders up there on top of the hill. Have you ever seen them? If they fell—even if we got out of the way they would maybe roll.

SPENCER: They won’t fall. This isn’t like Berlin. This isn’t political. This one’s land. God-made, not man.

CODY: It can still fall, Spencer.

SPENCER: No it won’t. If there’s supposed to be a wall there will be. Like this. Some walls are needed. Why? Different reasons. The one in Berlin—that wasn’t supposed to be there. So it fell.

CODY: Spencer… A wall is a wall.

SPENCER: People tore it down. This one is supposed to be here. People can’t tear it down.

CODY: It doesn’t matter what kind of wall it is, it can fall no matter what.

SPENCER grabs one last chunk of rock off the wall and tosses it—hard—aside. He looks are CODY as if he’s making a dare. CODY hesitates. He tries to kiss SPENCER.

SPENCER: I’m not in the mood.

CODY: What’s wrong?

SPENCER: Nothing’s wrong. It’s just me nothing’s wrong.

SPENCER turns and begins to walk away.

CODY (patiently): Don’t say that.

SPENCER (nonchalantly): It’s not bullshit. It wouldn’t be if you’d listen to it.

CODY (more lividly): Listen to it listen to what? To you talk uninformed about how rocks fall?

SPENCER: Walls, Cody. Walls. There’s a difference between a wall and the stone it’s made from.

CODY: What differences?

SPENCER: Their purpose. Their placement. whether they’re there naturally or whether they’re put there by people. We’ve got a wall.

CODY: What?

SPENCER: Between us. The Iron Curtain. The Atlantic Wall, there, that’s more metaphorical. Whatever you wanna call it. It’s there.

CODY: Huh?

SPENCER leaves his safeguard by the wall and approaches CODY as he makes his next statement.

SPENCER: You’re leaving tomorrow for a month to go to a country you’ve never been to with people you don’t know. Who are you?

Pause.

CODY: What does that mean?

SPENCER: It means I’m worried. I’m worried my postcard will come with a picture of you and some guy named Fritz or…or Friedrich or Rolfe or something on it and the note will say “Sorry Spencer, found someo–

CODY: Shut up.

SPENCER: You know it could happen. These types of relationships aren’t made to last.

CODY: Types of relationships what types of relationships? No. No. Shut up. Shut the hell up.

SPENCER complies. He walks back to the rock wall and picks at it some more.

CODY: I hope it falls. I hope it falls on you.

SPENCER: I’ll do it myself if I have to.

CODY: You’re so dense. You know that?

SPENCER (melodramatic): Shut up. I’m tearing down this wall. Only way to do it. Wall won’t come down ‘til you make it come down. Got to want it to happen and then you make it.

CODY (overlapping a little): I’m going to leave you here if you don’t get away from the wall.

SPENCER: Tell me you won’t do anything while you’re there.

CODY: I won—

SPENCER: Tell me if you do you won’t tell me.

CODY: I won’t prom–. I can’t promise that.

SPENCER stops picking at the rock wall. He faces CODY.

SPENCER: See? Not made to last. Man-made, not God. You see what we’re doing? You see what men do?

CODY: I won’t promise anything.

SPENCER: Won’t promise what? That you won’t tell me? That you won’t even do anything? I’m guessing the former.

CODY: Okay. I’m not saying that to hurt you.

SPENCER: I didn’t think so. I can see past the peace treaty.

CODY: I’m telling the truth.

SPENCER: So I’m free for whatever too? I won’t do anything. I’ll be damned if I’m the one to perpetuate—

CODY: You think of yourself as a fucking martyr and you’re not even dead yet.

SPENCER: Martyr?

CODY: Yes. Martyr.

SPENCER gives no reply. Instead, he turns back to the wall and picks at it, throwing chunks on the ground. CODY stares at SPENCER. Then, CODY turns to walk away.

THE END