X-MAN SCREENPLAY by BRIAN R. LUNDIN (ereader for comics txt) 📕

and sat them on the island as Monique placed the containers in the microwave and swayed to Miles version of “Summertime.” She took another sip of wine and retrieved two scented candles from her bag, melted the ends and placed them in candle holders. The microwaves timer went off and she removed the containers. Ringo topped off their wine glasses and they stared each other through the light of the flickering candles.

MONIQUE
Dinner is almost ready, ready to eat?”

RINGO
Hm, something smells real good.

Monique placed heaping amounts of food into their plated and sat. After dinner Ringo cleared the table and they went into the living room. Ringo positioned some large soft pillows next to the large window as Monique brought in the candles as they stood looking out the window. The weather was warm and the bright moon caste an eerie glow on the dark waters of the lake. Muted voices could be heard drifting up from the sidewalk and a sailboat could be seen in the distance.


MONIQUE
How you doing John?

RINGO
Ok, but this X-Man thing is starting to get to me. It’s been a hellava year, all those young women in the prime of life cut down by a damn maniac.

MONIQUE
Yes, it has, and frankly, I’m concerned about you. Lieutenant O’Shea is struttin’’ around like a chicken with its head cut off and getting on everyone’s nerves.

RINGO
I and O’Shea can’t get along and we didn’t like each other, I had made hundreds of felony arrest in my career and he has never made an arrest, period. He also don’t t like the fact that I had been invited on numerous occasions to be the featured speaker at Criminal Justice Programs at various colleges throughout the country and is considered a homicide expert by the courts and he never received an invite or was considered an expert in anything, except kissing ass. I know that if the killings continued O’Shea will save his ass by throwing me to the wolves.
MONIQUE
I know, so many unanswered questions that’s what making being a cop so hard. So many unanswered questions, so many unsolvable cases, so many seemingly stupid tragedies. In my profession we seek reasons for a person’s actions, the why-fors for their behavior, we need completion just as police officers do and too many incompletes in one’s life and the stress and tensions can become too much to bear.

Ringo sat on a pillow and Monique joined him.

RINGO
I’ve isolated myself, being a cop is all I ever wanted to be, but being a cop consumes you, entirely, slowly but surely. It has taken everything out of my life, when I found out that my ex-wife was having an affair, I was devastated and angry, and I kept asking myself why. When I confronted her she told me that I was married to the job not her, and when I think about it, she was right. The long hours, the coldness and aloofness that comes with being a police officer must be hard on any relationship; I am beginning to resent all that being a cop have taken from me.

MONIQUE
That’s understandable.

RINGO
What about you, how did you get involved in police work?
MONIQUE
After graduating from the University of South Carolina I opened a clinic in my home town and most of my patients were neurotic, old white women and court referrals. One of these referrals was an eighteen-year-old black girl name Jean. Jean was abandon when she was three and was placed in a foster home when she was five. Her foster parents worked and she was left in the care of the foster mother father who was in his late seventies. From the time she was five until she was thirteen he sexually molested her. At first he made her give him blowjobs while he fondled her and masturbated, as she got older it was intercourse. As strange as it seems for her to get pregnant by such an old man, she did when she was fourteen. When she told the foster parents who the father was, of course they didn’t believe her and the foster mother aborted the baby, herself. After that, the girl became insolent and hard to handle; she started staying out and was gang raped by a group of young boys when she was fifteen. Finally, the foster parents went to court and she was sent to an orphanage where two elderly attendants raped her. When I got her she was all screwed up and angry, and I believe she was schizophrenic. I considered recommending she be institutionalized, but I thought I could help her, big mistake. She attended counseling for about two years and then she stopped coming. About a year later she had entered a nursing home and killed three old men and was subsequently killed by the police. I felt guilty, I made a mistake that caused the life of four people, and she should have been institutionalized.

RINGO
There was no way for you to know what she was going to do.
MONIQUE
But I am a professional, I should have seen the signs, but I didn’t. After that I started researching how police departments dealt with people with mental problems, and to my surprise most of them didn’t. Their answer to dealing her with a mentally handicapped person who was violent was a bullet in the brain.
Monique took another sip of wine and Ringo noticed the tears. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed away the tears. The lights were low and the CD player changed to Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain. Monique lay back on the over sized pillows and pulled Ringo on top of her. She started unbuttoning his pants as he unbuttoned her blouse. She wiggled out the blouse and exposed her small breast. Ringo moved down her body, kissing her stomach and thighs. She removed his pants and he raised her skirt and pulled down her panties. Ringo felt her body become rigid and arc beneath him and could feel her stomach muscles tense and ripple as he entered her. Her moans merged with the size of the waves on the beach as they collided with the rocky shore. Ringo kissed her lips. Monique rolled Ringo over on his back and straddle him making his erect penis go deeper. She moved steadily above him and kissed him hotly. Ringo tongue found her erect nipples and he gently sucked them. The timing of their exhilaration and efforts increased and Ringo encouraged her to join him in their release. Suddenly her ripping contortions directed his senses to the depths of her being. Feeling her heat Ringo released into her and she cried out softly and held me tightly. They both moaned in total ecstasy and climaxed together, and then they were both still. Ringo kissed her lips as he withdrew and she rolled off and lay beside him. One of her legs flung sideways across his chest as they listened to the sounds of our breathing even out and the haunting melody of Miles. The scent of sex lingered, but the breeze through the window was chasing it from the room, the currents of cool air felt good as she rubbed Ringo’s naked chest and stomach. Perspiration dropped from his body onto hers and Ringo kissed it off as it disappeared along her neck and breast.

MONIQUE
(whispering)
John I like you a lot, but let’s take it slow Ok.

RINGO
Ok.
Ringo felt the rising again in my loins and they made love again and when Ringo awoke, she was gone.


INT. MOTEL ROOM 14 APRIL 2008-MORNING
The little man had watched the reverend interview and was incensed.
ESAU
Who the hell he thinks he is calling me a monster and a coward. I’ll show them who’s a fuckin coward.

INT. FIRST CHURCH OF DELIVERANCE-14 APRIL 2008-EVENING
MARIAH WOODBERRY was quietly laying down in the pew on the far north side of First Church of Deliverance her head in her arms, she was tired and needed sleep but she was there waiting for Reverend Wilson, he had urged her to come so he could help her and her five children find a place to stay. Fortunately, he had arranged for the children to stay, at lease for the night, with a single female member of the church. She was glad that he told her to meet him after he finished his rounds in the senior building she didn‘t want anyone to see her.

Esau Sneed had the cab driver drop him in front of the church. The church occupied the entire west side of the street, attached on the north was a day care center and to the south a three flat senior citizen building. A sign on the well manicured front lawn read, “OUR DOORS ARE ALWAYS OPEN” and a large parking took up the entire east side of the street. Esau entered and noticed three people, one man was dosing and another man was deep in meditation. Mariah watched as the little man entered and sat beside an old woman who was praying. There was utter silence in the large church and she saw the old woman close her bible and heard her say “Amen,” and then she heard he say, Welcome brother, can we pray together? Mariah watched as the woman handed the man a gold trimmed bible and touched his hand.

ESAU
Yes, I would like that.

Mariah sat in total silence and watched as they both lowered their heads as she read a scripture, in a few minutes she stopped and patted Esau hand again.
WOMAN
Are you new to our church?
ESAU
Yes, I’m new to the city and I am looking for a good church.

WOMAN
Well, you’ve found one.

ESAU
Who’s the pastor?

WOMAN
A wonderful man, a true man of God, his name is Reverend Wilson.

ESAU
Is he here now?
WOMAN
No, he’s generally administering to the seniors until nine, and then he comes in for nightly prayer.

Esau checked his watch, it was eight -forty five, and the woman got up.
WOMAN
I’ve got to go, hope I see you for Sunday Services.

Deep dark shadows covered Mariah as she watched the praying man and the woman leave the church, the dozing man was snoring loudly. She watched Esau quietly got out his seat and walk over to the man who smelled of cheap wine and unwashed body. She didn’t see the man open his bloodshot eyes and give Esau a lopsided grin and closed his eyes again, but she did see the little man pop open a switchblade knife and slowly cut the man’s throat and returned to his seat. Mariah held back a scream and slouched further down in the pew as a patch of moonlight came through three tall stain-glass windows. She heard the outer door of the church open and she turned to see Reverend Wilson enter, smiled at the little man and briefly looked at the dead man whom he thought was asleep as he walked to the pulpit. Mariah slid further down in the pew and watch the little man get up paused, and looked to his right and left before walking to where the reverend was standing. Silence and dark shadow covered her and she was a part of them, she felt a cool breeze and pulled her tattered coat tighter.

WILSON
Welcome, my son, are you ready to be saved?

She watched the little man smile, lower his head, nod and say “Yes I am, but could I