Mark Leyner - The Tetherballs of Bougainville

“ ‘Dad, do you know when I first realized how much I really love you?’

“ ‘When?’ signs Polo.

“ ‘When you danced for me and Felipe at The Carousel. Maybe you don’t really appreciate your father until he has huge tits.’

“ ‘Y’know,’ Polo signs, embracing his son, ‘maybe you’re right.’

“Passengers and flight attendants break into applause, stanching their happy tears with cocktail napkins.

“The music swells (Offramp Tavanipupu’s searingly unapologetic cover of the Jim Nabors’ elegiac smash classic ‘Oh My Papa’) as the plane disappears into the distance, and credits roll across the azure screen.

“To me, this ending represents something of a squandered opportunity. We have the protagonist Mark — who, having spent most of the movie shunning his father out of fear for his own safety, has been as much a target for the audience’s opprobrium as he has for its sympathy — finally redeemed by his passionate and courageous courtroom advocacy. We have the ancient archetype of the hero reckoning with his patrimony — going through a series of ordeals culminating in a crisis in which he and his father are atoned. And we have five million years of hominid evolution telescoped into two generations. And the best they can come up with as a conclusive, overarching declaration is ‘Maybe you don’t really appreciate your father until he has huge tits’?

“This is all the more perplexing, in light of assertions by individuals with intimate knowledge of the movie’s genesis, that this very line—‘Maybe you don’t really appreciate your father until he has huge tits’—is the end product of a succession of extravagantly expensive rewrites by script doctors including Richard Price, Callie Khouri, and John Gregory Dunne, each of whom purportedly received a seven-figure paycheck for tweaking this single sentence of dialogue.

“But that line is, in essence, The Tetherballs of Bougainville . This is a movie that consistently subordinates meaning to titillation. And it is a movie that perpetually teeters between puerile perversity and puerile sentimentality.

“But between the perversity and the sentimentality, like a gleaming sliver of light emerging from between abutting slabs, there is — dare I say it — an element of grace .

“The Tetherballs of Bougainville is rated PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned). Although it contains incessant profanity; graphic and extraordinarily gruesome violence; explicit heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, and hermaphroditic sex; and constant on-camera drug use; the only scene which teenagers may find disturbing is the ‘klezmer orgy,’ which, although brief, is unusually intense.”

CLOSE SHOT of MARK meticulously folding review back into compressed rectangle. (When he’s finished, this rectangle should be exceedingly tiny, almost an origami microchip.)

MEDIUM SHOT of WARDEN emerging from steamy bathroom with one towel wrapped turbanlike around her head and another wrapped around her torso.

MARK

So, what did you think of the review?

WARDEN

Unfortunately, I had trouble hearing a lot of it because of the shower.

MARK

Well, what parts did you hear?

WARDEN

Basically, the part about something emerging from between two abutting slabs.

MARK

That’s it?

The TELEPHONE RINGS on Warden’s desk.

The WARDEN answers.

WARDEN

(covering receiver with hand)

It’s for you.

MARK takes phone.

MARK

(into telephone)

Hello? Dad? Your voice sounds kinda funny. (Covers receiver, whispers to Warden) He’s dusted. (Back into telephone, to father) Where are you?… Uh-huh. (To Warden) Where’s the Princeton Marriott?

WARDEN

The Marriott? It’s only about ten minutes from here.

MARK

(into telephone)

Dad, don’t you think it’s sort of, like, dangerous for you to be so close?… Uh-huh. OK. I know it’s due tomorrow. I will, Dad. I know I should have started it earlier. I will. I’m gonna go home soon. OK. OK, ’bye.

WARDEN

Your father cares very much about you, doesn’t he?

MARK takes the WARDEN’s hand and playfully tugs her away from the desk, to the far end of the room, across from the windows affording a view of the gazebo.

Standing directly under one of the suspended speakers (from which we now hear Offramp Tavanipupu’s “Mi Laik Kai-Kai Dim-Dim,” as sung by Vanessa Williams), they embrace each other in an oblique column of moonlight.

MARK

Listen, if I’m going to win that award, I guess I better get going pretty soon and start working on this screenplay. I just wanted to tell you that this afternoon and this evening — hanging out with you and everything — it was really, really great. Really . And … I want you to have this.

MARK removes the ring from his finger — the oval Burmese sapphire flanked by heart-shaped diamonds that his father had given him just prior to the abortive execution attempt — and he slides it on the WARDEN’s left-hand ring finger.

EXT. THE SKIES OVER THE PRINCETON MARRIOTT

Three NJSDE F-117 stealth bombers swoop down over the hotel, each delivering a 2,000-pound, laser-guided bomb.

Several moments later, from high altitude, an NJSDE B-52 Stratofortress delivers its devastating 70,000-pound bomb load on the Marriott.

We HEAR the THUNDEROUS, EAR-POPPING BOOMS of the shells hitting the hotel and its environs.

Towering black plumes of smoke and shafts of brilliant orange flame shoot into the sky.

INT. WARDEN’S OFFICE

Shock waves from the NJSDE air strike on the Princeton Marriott are causing the prison to shake violently.

The gigantic Meridian DSP-8000 speaker is swaying back and forth over MARK and the WARDEN, who are kissing passionately and feverishly caressing each other.

Suddenly, THE FOUR LENGTHS OF OSHIMITSU SYNTHETIC SPIDER-SILK SPEAKER-SUSPENSION LINE SNAP, IN RAPID SUCCESSION, WITH FOUR DISTINCT TWANGS —a grotesque pizzicato comprising the first four notes of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

The 300-pound SPEAKER PLUMMETS to the ground, CRUSHING the WARDEN and MARK.

The WARDEN is killed instantly.

MARK has suffered massive head trauma and internal injuries.

SOFT-FOCUS CLOSE SHOT of NAKED, HEMORRHAGING MARK lying pinned beneath the huge speaker.

MARK

Yo — what the fuck …?

He dies.

FADE TO BLACK

ROLL CREDITS OVER BLOOPER OUTTAKES