Tom Hanks - Uncommon Type - Some Stories

In two chairs, dual places of honor, sit Phil and Bea, who both have To Tell the Truth –style blindfolds over their eyes.

Oh, I’ve missed that man and his ’cordine!

From the way things sound, we’re gonna see a circus when we take these things off.

As Bea sways to the Mexican melody, a Foreman, COLLINS, comes over and whispers something to F.X.R., who then smartly dismisses the architects.

Ms. Mercury! We’re ready.

(turning that jump rope)

Who is Ms. Mercury?

Oh. Sorry. Old habit.

(tries again)

Diane! We’re ready!

Okay, F.X.! Be right there!

(to Tommy’s daughter)

Come on, Lizzie. Let’s go see the show!

Jesus concludes his music with a flourish. There is applause for the band.

F.X.R. goes to Phil and Bea.

You guys peek? Tell the truth.

No!

You aren’t lining up a firing squad, are you?

Diane, is it dark enough?

I say yes.

Okay. Collins!

Collins is at the main power switch.

Shutting down!

Collins shuts OFF all the lights in the motel lot. The place is dark now.

Okay. You may remove your blindfolds.

They do. All is dark.

Hell, I can’t see a thing.

Where am I supposed to look?

Where’s the bloody circus?

(a shout)

Let there be light!

Collins throws another switch. The parking lot, and all the people in it, are suddenly bathed in… shades of red, blue, and golden neon light.

Ms. Mercury’s face sees something so very beautiful. Tommy Boyer is with her, holding his daughter.

Wow…

The guests, every one of them glowing, look up in awe into the sky.

Oh, lord! What a heavenly light!

CLOSE ON: Phil and Bea, the lights playing across their faces like a magic show in the heavens, are silent…

THE SIGN

Big Phil and Big Bea, illuminated in colors brilliant and bold, greet the world like twin giants in the nighttime sky. “Stay with us!” they say, arms raised, bright, hospitable, young.

The sign is beautiful. Truly beautiful.

Bea reaches out and takes her husband’s hand. They look into each other’s eyes.

It’s like we’ll live here forever…

F.X.R. hears this. He looks up at the sign. The colors play on his face, too.

EXT. MOTEL OLYMPUS—THE WHOLE PLACE—SAME

The sign dominates the vision of the Motel Olympus.

And then…

The landscape slowly TRANSFORMS into that of a…

BUSTLING CROSSROADS.

The empty desert becomes filled with neatly ordered buildings, each an architectural gem.

The OLYMPUS SOLAR ENERGY COLLECTION FIELD has been built, stretching far into the distance.

Phrygia has grown into a lovely small city…

Around that landmark of a sign…

Around Bea and Phil, who will, for generations, bid all who pass by to Stay with us .

Ibrahim had been true to his word. For the price of one bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label, he had provided Assan with two, most certainly stolen but that didn’t matter to either of them. In those days, American liquor was more valuable than gold, even more valuable than American cigarettes.

With both bottles clanking in his knapsack, Assan, dressed in his nearly new blue pin-striped suit, searched the many tavernas of the port city of Piraeus, looking for the chief of the Berengaria . It was known that the chief savored the taste and effects of Johnnie Walker Red Label. It was also known that the Berengaria was taking cargo to America.

Assan found the chief at the Taverna Antholis, trying to enjoy his morning coffee. “I don’t need another fireman,” he told Assan.

“But I know ships. I speak many languages. I am good with my hands. And I never brag.” Assan smiled at his little joke. The chief did not. “Ask anyone on the Despotiko .”

The chief waved to the waiter boy for another coffee.

“You are not Greek,” he said to Assan.

“Bulgarian,” Assan told him.

“What is this accent of yours?” During the war, the chief had done a lot of business with Bulgarians, but this one talked in an odd cadence.

“I’m from the mountains.”

“A Pomak?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

The chief shook his head. “No. Pomaks are quiet and tough. The war was hard on the Pomaks.”

“The war was hard on everyone,” Assan said.

The boy brought the chief his other coffee. “How long have you been on the Despotiko ?” the chief asked.

“Six months, now.”

“You want me to hire you so you can jump ship in America.” The chief was no idiot.

“I want you to hire me because you have the oil fuel. A fireman checks the bubble in the tube is all. He doesn’t shovel the coal. Too long with a shovel and it becomes all a man knows.”

The chief lit a cigarette without offering one to Assan. “I don’t need another fireman.”

Assan reached into the knapsack between his feet, pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label in each fist, and set them on the table beside the chief’s morning coffee. “Here. I am tired of carrying these around.”

Three days out, some of the crew began giving the chief troubles. The Cypriot steward had a bad leg and didn’t clean up after meals fast enough. The seaman Sorianos was a liar, saying he had checked the scuppers when he had not checked the scuppers. Iasson Kalimeris’s wife had left him—again—so his hot head was even faster to flare. Every conversation with him turned into an argument, even over dominoes. Assan, though, caused no worries. He was never idle with a smoke in his lips, but was always wiping down valves or taking a wire brush to the rust. He played cards and dominoes quietly. And perhaps best of all he stayed away from the eyes of the captain. The captain noticed everything, the chief knew. But he did not notice Assan.

Past Gibraltar the ship met the heavy seas of the Atlantic. At sea, the chief rose early every morning, to wander the Berengaria, looking for possible headaches. This day, as usual, he climbed up to the bridge for the coffee that was always there, then worked his way down. He found all was well until he came to the fuel station and heard Bulgarian being spoken.

Assan was on his knees, rubbing the legs of a man leaning on the bulkhead, a man black with oily grime, his damp clothes sticking to his skin.

“I can walk now, let me stretch,” said the filthy man, taking wobbly steps back and forth on the steel deck. He, too, spoke Bulgarian. “Ah. Feels good.” The man drank deep from a bottle of water, then wolfed down a thick slice of bread from a wrapped bandanna.

“We are in the ocean now,” Assan said.