Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

The woman gives an earnest nod.

“You don’t think sex can ever be okay?”

The woman stares at her for a second, smiles and says, “Not with a man.”

Sylvia nods because she doesn’t know what else to say and they both turn their attention back to the balcony as Paige Beatty relights the head of her candle with a pocket butane, brings up the bullhorn one more time and says, “Now let’s burn down their filthy constitution and let the flames ignite our war.”

The train lot behind Gompers Station looks like a ridiculously gritty set from something filmed in a ruined city near the end of a particularly vicious war. Gompers itself seems unreal, this crumbling, graffiti-obscured hulk of broken white marble, toppled Ionic columns, charred rosewood, and thousands of splinters of stained glass that once, combined, depicted an idealized tour of the industrial age. It’s almost as if the ruined building was really just a one-dimensional fronting propped up by plywood struts, or maybe worse, an intricately detailed matte painting that could be broken through by a speeding car or a rain of bullets.

The only lighting comes from the moon and the red bugeye spots near the junction of two freight lines. The ground is a brittle carpet of cinder and ash and gravel. And the temperature has dropped, triggering Jakob’s asthma and causing wisps of steam to gust from his mouth with each struggling exhale.

He tries to ignore his lungs, huddles inside the boxcar and looks down on his notebook.

EXT. LOWENSTEIN ROAD — NIGHT

The Doomed Man emerges from an alley in a stumbling lope. Stops to steady himself in front of LASZLO’S CAFE. Falls to one knee. Places hand against storefront window. Looks in window at display shelf to see freshbaked rolls. Looks from rolls to his own vague reflection.

EXT. LASZLO’S CAFÉ

Focus change to show a customer within the café notice the Doomed Man framed in window. Attention of all patrons turns to the window. Slow zoom through window to WAITRESS who lifts head from order pad. widens eyes, lifts arm, points finger and mouths words, “It’s him,” though we can’t hear her.

TIGHT SHOT — FACE OF DOOMED MAN

realizing he’s been spotted.

WIDE SHOT — EXT. LOWENSTEIN ROAD

Doomed Man turns and begins a pathetic, limping run down narrow, curving Lowenstein. Waitress emerges from door of Lazslo’s, runs into middle of street.

WAITRESS

(cupping hands to mouth, yelling)

It’s the killer. The killer is here.

Doors open up and down Lowenstein. PEOPLE emerge pulling on coats. Confusion as they all approach waitress at once. Slowly they begin to form into an ANGRY MOB. Din of cries and curses fills the air. Mob overturns trash cans. Arms itself with rocks, broken bottles, iron bars, baseball bats. Whistles are heard. Barking dogs are heard. Police sirens are heard in the distance. Mob begins pursuit.

EXT. THE TENDERLOIN

The Doomed Man hears the commotion behind him. Dashes from street lamp to mailbox to doorway, bumping into and off of drunks and seedy thugs who populate the area. Doomed Man emerges to an open square where there is no place to hide.

TIGHT SHOT — FACE OF DOOMED MAN

as he turns and sees the bulk shadow of the mob moving forward through the tenderloin. Panicking, blinking eyes. Blood, seeping from forehead, obscuring vision.

CRANE SHOT — EXT. OPEN SQUARE — LIT BY HARSH HALOGEN SPOT

The Doomed Man turns around and looks across the square toward the Train Station, where he began this odyssey. He runs toward the Station, falls on his face in middle of square. Sound of the angry mob increases. Doomed Man gets to his feet and desperately runs to the train yard.

“Cuz.”

Jakob looks up, unsurprised, unruffled, and smiles.

Felix leans his elbows onto the lip of the car, peers inside.

“We’ve been worried sick about you,” Felix says. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Jakob closes his notebook. He cradles the Seitz and climbs outside to see all of the Grey Roaches waiting for him.

“I couldn’t visualize a scene,” he says, “I had to come out here. Look at it again. Up close.”

Felix smiles and shakes his head, throws an arm around his cousin’s shoulder. “The things you do for your art, huh?”

“What are you doing here?” Jakob asks, staring across the yard at Huck Hrabal who flinches and looks to the ground.

Felix turns to Jakob so they face each other, then he begins to brush down Jakob’s lapels like some compulsive valet.

“Well,” he says. “It was supposed to be a surprise. Huck had an idea where we might find you. We wanted to have a little party back at St. Vitus—”

“A surprise?”

Felix takes a deep breath, shrugs his shoulders a bit.

“I’ve talked to your father, Jakob. And it’s clear to both of us. Finally. Our way just isn’t your way, cuz. You’re an artist. You can’t help yourself. We’ve all seen the light. Gustav has even found a way to funnel income to underwrite your career. You are in business, cuz. You can make your movie. And we’ve got a present for you.”

Jakob looks over Felix’s shoulder at Vera Gottwald who gives nothing away.

“It’s good you brought your movie camera,” Felix says. “We should record it all from the start. Some day the archivists will want to look back at everything. Hugo Schick is meeting us here. He’ll be turning over the deed to the Skin Palace. To you, Jakob. It’s yours from this night on, cousin. Your own studio. Your own stable of actors. Your own crew. Your own theatre. The whole thing is yours.”

“But Papa—”

“Your father is a very wise man, Jakob. In the end, he always knows what’s best.”

The cousins stare at each other, the space between their faces filled with the white clouds of their breath. There’s a minute of silence until Felix says, “You don’t look very happy, Jakob. This is what you’ve always wanted. I thought you’d be delirious.”

Jakob stares down at the ground, at the crumpled remains of dozens of Jenny Ellis posters.

“It’s just …” he begins and breaks off.

Then starts again, “It will be awkward. Mr. Schick has been very good to me.”

“Well,” Felix says, shaking his head, tossing his arms out to the side and making a hand signal that the Roaches note and act on, spreading into a circle around the two Kinskys, “everyone has been good to you, Jakob. Haven’t they?”

Jakob lifts his camera to his shoulder, pans across the faces of the Roaches and says, “We’ve all been fortunate, Felix. America has been very kind to our family.”

Felix squats down and starts to trace something in the ash with his finger.

“Still,” he says, “I lost both my parents in the July Sweep.”

Jakob moves the camera to Felix’s face, zooms in.

“I know that. And I’m sorry about it every day.”

Felix smiles for the camera.

“Yeah, well, like that prayer says, life’s a bitch —”

“And then you die,” Jakob finishes for him. He pans to the left and sees Vera Gottwald take a section of rubber hose from an inside fold of her suitcoat. He turns slowly, keeping the Seitz running. He does an even 360, frames each Roach extracting saps and blackjacks and brass knuckles from their clothing.

“It looks like Mr. Schick is going to be late for our meeting,” Jakob says.

Felix lets out a laugh.

“Aputz to the end, eh cuz?”

“Mr. Schick isn’t coming, is he Felix?”

“No, Jakob, I’m afraid Schick won’t be joining us tonight.”

“This is suicide, Felix.”

“Put the camera down, Jakob.”

“You are out of you mind. Do you have any idea what Papa will do to you? There’s no way you can pin this on one of the other gangs.”