THE RUNNER SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [phonics reader .TXT] 📗

voodoo, the spirits and she suggested that Jerome talk with Marrieta, the head reader at the Magic Shop. Jerome wondered how his mother knew about the Magic Shop and Marrieta, but he did not ask. Harriet was Jerome’s Consigliore, he often marveled at her range of knowledge that came from her constant reading of classics, fiction and non-fiction books. Jerome McLemore sat in his mother’s kitchen and they had just finished breakfast.

JEROME
Well, what you think about Madame Bourneis?

HARRIET
She is without a doubt the most beautiful women I have ever seen,” his mother answered.

JEROME
Yes she is, but I also get this eerie feeling whenever I’m around her and sometimes it scares me.

Harriet told her son of the tales her grandmother had told her about voodoo and the shift changer.

JEROME

Mockingly, Jerome made a face.

You mean like the “Wolfman,” in those old Lon Chaney movies, where this otherwise nice guy who was tormented and cursed became a bloodthirsty werewolf when the moon was full, gobbling up the little children and old ladies.

Harriet merely smiled at her sons mocking.

HARRIET
You should have been an actor; you would have made a good, Wolfman.” Anyway This Diablesse would come to the aid of people in trouble; tribes that was going to be sold to the Arab slave traders, or were going to be enslaved by other tribes. The story goes that she would suddenly appear out of nowhere and would protect the weaker tribes, by the way were you beaten by the kidnappers?

JEROME
Yes, I was and I’m sure my nose was broken and my eyes were swollen shut. Nevertheless, what is amazing is after I was rescued, and it had to be by Madame Bourneis and Marque, when I got home all of the wounds were healed, I have tried but I can’t figure that out. The only thing I remember was that in the ride home I was in the backseat with Madame Bourneis and Marque was driving, I remember her putting a warm towel over my face and I passed out. Do you believe those old stories, mother?


HARRIET
I don’t know if I do or don’t, but one thing is for sure, there is something very special about your new friends, whether she is the Diablesse or not only time will tell. Did you notice when I asked where she was born, she never answered?

JEROME
Not really.

HARRIET
Well, everyone has got to be born somewhere unless…

JEROME
Unless what?

HARRIET
(looking out the window)
Unless you are a spirit, but whatever or whoever she is, I am glad she is on our side.

Jerome and his mother sat quietly and drunk their coffee.

Beautiful Orange orchards form deep caverns throughout the island of Sicily and splashing water flowed out of ancient stones carved before Christ. Tall mountains on all sides escaped into the brilliant blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Flowers, groves of almond and olive trees, all blooming colored the land. The cities of Sicily basked in the rays of the noontime sun, rays of red light struck the earth and the sunrays bathed the stately Greek temples, Moslem Mosque, Spanish cathedrals and ancient Norman castles. Far overhead, countless tiny red hawks darted across the deep blue sky and in the improvised towns, weather-beaten mules pulled the brightly painted peasants carts that carried in most of the fresh vegetables and fish. On some carts were badly drawn portraits of the favorite saints. On every house the last name of the owner was painted in bright colored letters.


INT. OLD HOUSE PALERMO, SICILY 1912-DAY

Vito Paligreno born May 12, 1915 in Palermo, Sicily was the son of the local “Caporégime” or mafia head. When Vito was ten years old, Italian gangsters killed his father and according to the Sicilian gangster code, his son had to be killed, to avoid retribution. Vito’s mother, Androsia, concerned for Vito’s safety, left Palermo and immigrated to Chicago in 1925 and settled in the “Patch.”

CUT TO: THE PATCH

The Patch lies within Chicago’s West Town community. Its formal name comes from the city park on its south border. Bounded by Chicago Avenue (800N) on the north, Grand Avenue (550N) on the south, Western Avenue (2400W) on the east and Washtenaw Avenue (2700W) on the west; the majority of the neighborhood sits within Chicago's 26th Ward, with a small portion a part of the 1st Ward. Originally settled by Sicilian immigrants who moved west from the "Little Sicily" area on Sedgwick Street, near where the Cabrini–Green housing projects were built, and from the Italian neighborhood along the Grand Avenue corridor, it is a very old community with many families that have lived in the neighborhood for over six generations. Disease carrying mosquitoes hatched in the foul river surrounding the patch attacked after dark and the bloated bodies of dead dogs and rats floated down its polluted waterways. Oily streetlamps glowed yellow on the backs of large cockroaches that lumbered in the underbrush attempting to avoid the hungry frogs and birds that hunted them. Packs of feral looking cat roamed the streets their dark eyes under cars, in the fetid alleys clogged with the pungency of rotting garbage they hunted the many rodents scurrying between the buildings.

INT. VITO’S BEDROOM- NIGHT

We see Vito and his mother in a diminutive bedroom of a three-room dark tenement apartment she is asleep on a rollaway bed and Vito is asleep in a chair. The room contained a radio, table with a lamp, that didn’t work and his mother had lined knickknacks she had brought from the old country on the windowsill. She covered the bare walls with pictures of saints and her husband. Angelina, Androsia aunt and her five kids and husband relatives are asleep in another room. The family was so poor that any clothing, usually hand-me-downs from relatives they considered a luxury

CUT TO: VITO’S APARTMENT BUILDING IN THE PATCH
The apartment building housed over 64 people and had no heat, hot water, electricity or bathroom. The families in the building relived themselves in a “Slop bucket,” a two-gallon bucket they kept under the bed.

Ambrosia’s worked in a women clothing factories sweatshops and Vito terrifying the furry little beasts that roamed the streets and alleys pelleting the harmless little animals with any rocks, beer bottles or anything else.
Vito and his mother meals usually consisted pasta, cheese and fruit, and that was all they could afford after paying her aunt $5.00 a week for rent.

Vito while in the fifth grade knocked out one of classmates after he refused to pay him for protection and was taken to MR. HAYES the principal’s office.

INT: SHOOL’S PRINCIPLE’S OFFICE-DAY

MR. HAYES
I tried to contact your mother but couldn’t, your teaches have told me that you are constantly disruptive in class and picks on the younger students. Because of your behavior I’m putting you out the school and will notify Human Services, maybe they can get you some help.

VITO
Fuck you and this shit ass school up the ass.

Mr. Hayes called security that escorted Vito out.

Vito roamed the streets and at thirteen was caught stealing apples and the authorities sent him to St. Charles Reformatory School for six months. While at the school his mother died and Vito seemed to have lost his only ally, he was alone and bitter. When Vito returned to the Patch he somehow managed to survive in the neighborhood’s harsh environment. He performed odd jobs for the tavern owners and became a bocce-ball hustler. He wandered the streets and stole bananas and peaches from the peddler’s carts and slept mostly in abandoned cars and buildings or beneath back porches. Thus, it was inevitable, as he roamed the streets that he would finally find a home in a gang. Vito began running with other Italian immigrant boys and formed a gang known as the Taylor Street Boys an assortment of screwed-up neighborhood toughs and sociopaths who limited source of role models consisted of either, harden criminals or celibate priests. Vito and his gang robbed drunks, stole clothes from lines around the neighborhood and sold them on street corners. Vito learned how to use a bat, not on the playground baseball field, but on any Irish copper caught unaware, or an Irish punk that wandered into the no-man’s-land west of Halsted Street.

Clashes with the Irish gangs, called “Rumbles” could occur if a gang member invaded a rival gang’s territory. Vito and his gang had no respect for anybody or anything. Vito envied the well-dressed men, known as the “Amici,” or Men of Respect who sat at the outdoors cafes sipping espresso. To Vito these men had power, money and women-men to whom the uneducated Italians living in the Patch bowed to in respect. The men of the Amici were honorable men who believed in solving their own problems and never sought help from the authorities. Vito’s gang became a caricature of his heroes. When bored, the Taylor Street Boys hung out at Luigie’s Delicatessen drinking coffee or Milo’s Pool Hall. For fun, they turned to the sport of bludgeoning the numerous stray cats and rats that slinked through the neighborhood’s alleys. For sexual release they gang raped the non-Italian girls and women who wandered into the Patch or engaged in “Pulling Contests,” masturbatory challenges to determine who could ejaculate first or the farthest. The Taylor Street Boys incited terror for profit and innocent fellow immigrants became their chief prey and provided the funding for their expansion. The gang cared little for their own people and not a single thing mattered to them except making money off their sadness and ignorance. When petty crimes lost it appeal, the gang turned to stealing cars left unattended, which they would either strip for parts or sell outright through shady used car dealers. The gang became “Padrones,” exploiters of Italian immigrants and sold the newly arriving Italian immigrants to businessmen who worked them long hours for little pay. Soon the gang turned to extorting and shaking down the street venders, gambling houses, whorehouses, and other businesses in the Patch. It did not take Vito long to realize that the Irish coppers and judges would put aside their racial prejudices for the right price. Charges dropped by the Irish police captain for a serious crime, like a murder, cost $500.00 and the cost for less serious crimes, like theft, depended on how much money the offender could raise. Vito learned early that if you controlled the cops you could control the neighborhood.

Life in the Patch dictated a different survival code. To Vito all that separated cops from robbers were a few dollars. Legitimate businessmen in the Patch soon began to take note of the Taylor Street Boys street-gang tactics, viewing them as a resourceful means to further their own enterprises and hired them for security or to influence potential customers. Vito had a violent temper and quickly retaliated against the any perceived slight. If a storeowner refused to pay the extortion or said anything disrespectful toward the gang he risked getting all his windows broken and the street vender risked having their carts burned and their animals killed. The whorehouses and gambling joints risked having their customers robbed or beaten and the whores risked having their faces slashed. Before long Vito and his gang developed a reputation as the meanest, most vicious young dagos anywhere. Although there probably never were more than twenty members of the gang at any given time-someone was always getting killed or sent to St. Charles, the gang flourished. Several of