A camera shop.
Wheeler repairs a camera. The shop owner, Michael. Anita performs business with the cash register, etc.
MICHAEL: The best time of my day is when I put my head down on the pillow at night and the worst time of my day is the moment my eyes open in the morning.
WHEELER: Christ, Michael, are you doing anything about that?
MICHAEL: About what?
WHEELER: Your depression.
MICHAEL: I’m not depressed. Maybe it’s objective truth. Maybe waking up really is the worst moment of my day.
WHEELER: That’s not objective. “Worst” is a qualitative judgment. You’re ranking the moments of your day and making a judgment that the first moment is the worst.
MICHAEL: I’m the only one experiencing all the moments of my day. I’m the only one qualified to make the judgment.
WHEELER: But that’s still not objective truth. Your opinion might be well-informed but it’s still just your point of view.
MICHAEL: But there is no other point of view.
WHEELER: That doesn’t matter. Just because you’re the only person with an opinion doesn’t make your opinion objective truth. Anita, please, weigh in on this.
ANITA: I haven’t listened to a word you said. And now you made me lose count. What are we talking about?
WHEELER: Say it to her.
MICHAEL: The worst moment of my day is the moment my eyes open in the morning.
ANITA: Sorry to hear that.
MICHAEL (To Wheeler): That’s really all I’m looking for.
WHEELER: Fair enough. But morning begins a new day . . . filled with chance, danger, hope. How you look at that is up to you. State of mind. Anita, you feel me? State of mind?
ANITA: State of mind. Don’t say “you feel me.”
MICHAEL: My mother thinks I’m suicidal. She hides things around the house I could hurt myself with, which is pretty much everything. She hid the fucking cheese grater. I said, “Mother, hiding the cheese grater is not an effective method of suicide prevention.”
WHEELER: Traditional cheese grater? Boxy metal thing with little flanged holes in it?
MICHAEL: Yeah. Oh yeah.
WHEELER: How would you go about that, you’d what, you’d—
MICHAEL: I would step on it and flatten it so the holes were running along the edge, and then I would sharply draw that serrated edge across my carotid artery. You open your carotid artery with a gaping wound, you could bleed out in three minutes.
But you can kill yourself with anything, I could kill myself with this fucking pen if I jammed it in my eye, I could kill myself with this Post-it note. I could kill myself with this money bag. I could kill myself with—
(Cell phone rings.)
Speak of the devil. (Answers) Hello, Mother.
(Michael exits.)
WHEELER: Should we be worried about that?
ANITA: I’m not.
WHEELER: Hey, check out this baby: Mamiya/Sekor 2000 DTL. Dinosaur. Good camera. This thing’s thirty years old. Shit, it’s older than that. It uses something we used to call “film.”
ANITA: You came in early to work on that?
WHEELER: I’m not sleeping so good in the new place. I’m scared someone’s going to break in and murder me.
ANITA: Who’d want to murder you?
WHEELER: Just, y’know, like drugged-out hippies.
ANITA: Hippies don’t murder people.
WHEELER: This is California. They write on the walls in your blood.
ANITA: You’re so weird, they have no motivation to murder you.
WHEELER: People with motivation aren’t coming after me. People with motivation have no beef with me. I’m not afraid of the tong. I’m afraid of joy killers eating chickpeas out of my skull.
ANITA: How’s the pool?
WHEELER: I haven’t gotten up the courage yet. The new middle-aged guy hanging around the pool, y’know?
ANITA: Man, if I had a pool, I’d be in there every day.
WHEELER: If I looked like you, I’d be out there too. (Pause) That didn’t sound right. That’s not how I meant it.
ANITA: It’s okay.
WHEELER: I mean nobody wants to see me limping around the pool in my shorts, with my bum hip and gray chest hair. I’ve got middle-age desperation written all over me. I don’t mean now, I mean that’s the reason I haven’t gone out to the pool.
ANITA: I get it.
(Michael reenters, now off the phone.)
WHEELER: Everything okay?
MICHAEL: She’s off her lithium, so . . . mixed bag. Will you open us up?
(Anita exits.)
Jesus, I could fuck that all night long.
WHEELER: That’s doubtful.
MICHAEL: Was I babbling a minute ago? I can’t even talk with Anita standing there in that fucking T-shirt. I jerked off last night thinking about those tits and I about hit the ceiling.
WHEELER: You paint a really grisly picture, Michael.
MICHAEL: Was I?
WHEELER: Were you what?
MICHAEL: Babbling.
WHEELER: I never know what the hell you’re talking about.
MICHAEL: My God, she’s not wearing a brassiere.
WHEELER: Yes, she is.
MICHAEL: I think she wants me to take her back in my office and fuck her little pussy.
WHEELER: I haven’t seen any indication of that but maybe you’re picking up on something I can’t see.
(Anita returns.)
MICHAEL: What’s your T-shirt say?
ANITA: It’s just an old Cal Poly T-shirt.
MICHAEL: “San Luis Obispo.” Did you go to college there?
ANITA: Just for a semester.
MICHAEL: You just like the T-shirt?
ANITA: It’s worn in.
MICHAEL: You just like the way it feels.
(Weird pause.)
I’m getting a Froyo. Anybody want anything?
(Wheeler and Anita mumble indefinitely. Michael exits.)
WHEELER: You told me you went to UCSD.
ANITA: I did. I also went to Cal Poly. I also went to College of the Redwoods. I also went to Pepperdine for five minutes.
WHEELER: You studied what again?
ANITA: Liberal arts mash-up. Civics. Religion. Japanese.
WHEELER: You going back to school or are you done with it?
ANITA: I’ve had enough for now.
WHEELER: You know what you’d like to be doing?
ANITA: It changes. Maybe teaching. I may not have the patience. I’d like to be of service.
WHEELER: Good for you. (Beat) That sounded patronizing. I mean really, good for you, I admire you for that.
ANITA: What about you?
WHEELER: Me, no, I don’t want to be of service. Sorry, I just mean I like my job. I don’t like my job. I’m suited for my job.
ANITA: What’d you do before this?
WHEELER: I was in Chicago, working for the Sun-Times.
ANITA: What were you doing?
WHEELER: Taking pictures.
ANITA: I didn’t know you took pictures.
WHEELER: I don’t. I haven’t taken pictures in a long time.
ANITA: Why not?
WHEELER: I’m not very good at it.
(She waits for more.)
My wife and I had a baby and her family’s here so I bagged the Sun-Times gig and came out. Turned out to be a smart move, since the Sun-Times shitcanned all their photographers a few years later cause nobody reads newspapers anymore. Which is weird if you think about it cause if people don’t read newspapers anymore, wouldn’t it make more sense to shitcan the writers?
ANITA: You didn’t answer the question.
WHEELER: I had a gift for documentary portraiture, but my gift was precocious, it didn’t develop, as we say in photography. There’s enough mediocrity in the world, I didn’t need to throw my pictures on the pile. It’s not a great mystery. Life is mostly disappointing.
ANITA: State of mind.
WHEELER: State of mind. Christ, it’s ten in the morning. This isn’t ten-in-the-morning conversation.
ANITA: What time of day does this conversation happen?
WHEELER: Just before dawn. (Pause) Want to hit the Lotus Express?
ANITA: I brought my lunch. Trying to save some money.
WHEELER (Beat): You like scallops?
ANITA: I like to eat them.
WHEELER: My virtual friends have a forum on the World Wide Web called Yelp and they inform me there’s a new spot in Bay Park with the best scallops in San Diego.
ANITA: Is that so?
WHEELER: Want to give them a try? After work?
ANITA: Ah, I can’t, this friend, she’s going through a breakup . . .
WHEELER: Oh, oh . . .
ANITA: Yeah, it’s not, I just need to spend time with her.
WHEELER: No, yeah, you should. Another night.
ANITA: Yes, definitely.
(They work in silence for a moment.)
No. Not another night. Not another night. I don’t have a friend. Sorry, I don’t want to lie to you. And I don’t want to have to come up with a bunch of excuses for different nights and hope you get the message. We don’t need to go through all that, do we?
WHEELER: No, we don’t.
ANITA: I don’t want to go out with you.
WHEELER: I’m getting that.
ANITA: I don’t have to explain why. I don’t owe you an explanation.
WHEELER: You don’t owe me anything. (Pause) It’s cause I’m old, right? You’re skeeved out cause I’m old.
ANITA: Yes. You’re too old.
WHEELER: Okay.
ANITA: You’re way too old.
WHEELER: Okay. I mean I’m not like the Crypt Keeper, am I?
ANITA: Oh my God—
WHEELER: Just tell me, do you think of me like the Crypt Keeper?
ANITA: What is the Crypt Keeper?
WHEELER: Oh, Christ, I’m old.
ANITA: I don’t care how old you are, I like you, Wheeler, I really do but . . . you’re a mess. And I don’t want to be a part of it. That’s not a criticism, it’s more about timing. I think we take turns blowing our lives up and right now it’s your turn. I’ve been a mess, not that long ago, a lot of shit, a lot of bad decisions, I’m, without going into too much detail, I’m in recovery and it’s really tenuous. But I’ve got it together right now and I’m just trying to keep it together. So let’s just be work friends and leave it at that.
(Wheeler nods, turns away.)
And don’t be weird with me cause Michael already makes this not the easiest work environment. Maybe don’t punish me or give me the silent treatment just because I turned you down.
WHEELER (Turns to her): Thanks for saying “mess” instead of “hot mess,” which is a phrase I cannot stand. And more than that, I appreciate you telling me the truth. You’re thoughtful.
ANITA: Thanks.
WHEELER: “And he was humiliated.”
ANITA: No, come on, it’s not like that—
WHEELER: I’m joking, I’m fine, of course we can be friends. We can even have lunch. I’m capable of sitting at the Lotus Express with my friend from work and not mooning at her or crying into my miso soup.
ANITA: You sure about that?
WHEELER: I’ll regale you with tales from my disastrous love life. They all end the same way: “And he was humiliated.”