THE RUNNER/SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

HOME-EVENING

Jerome told his brothers and mother about the game had played it in New York, but had never won and he told them of his conversation with Davo. Jerome explained how the game worked and suggested they open up a policy station. After the family discussed Jerome’s proposal, Harriet agreed to bankroll the station with the stipulations, the game be honest and no cheating. In December 1958, Jerome rented a vacant basement apartment at 4323 South Indiana Avenue and launched the McLemore’s first policy station. The brothers printed up handbills advertising their station as being honest with guarantied payouts. Edwinna Johnson an attractive black woman in her late forties and always neatly dressed her hair and makeup perfect was experienced in writing policy and had written for some of the largest policy stations on the southside and she knew all the ins and outs of the game Jerome hired her as his first policy writer and manager.


EDWINNA
The opening of a policy wheel required a large financial investment; runners and field men had to be hired and sometimes the owner had to “front” or loan the money for the men to purchase vehicles. The owner had to rent apartments; one to be used as a money office, one to be used as the paper office and one to be used for the “Can” or wheel, where the winning numbers were drawn. They had to rent another apartment for the printing press and they had to hire a printer to print the drawings. Additionally, they had to purchase the paper used for the drawings. All of these people, except the owner of the paper company are employees of the wheel and salaried. In addition to these expenses, there are the police and political payoffs for protection against police raids and favorable legislation. You keep your customers happy by treating them with dignity and respect. Most of your customers are older people and housewives who played policy for so long, that they think its legal, but you will also have schoolteachers, ministers, area businessmen and local politicians as your customers, all hoping to hit the big payout.

EXT. POLICY STATION –EARLY MORNING

A “FOR RENT,” sign posted prominently in the window-helped camouflage the station and when the red light over the back door was on the station was open for business.

INT. POLICY STATION-EARLY MORNING

The policy station contained a large table with pencils and slips of scratch paper, which the bettors used to record their wagers. Unlike so many other policy stations, Jerome’s was always clean, comfortable and the bettors felt at ease. On one wall was trough like racks, which held the policy slips, or drawings, that contained the winning numbers, for the four policy wheels the station wrote bets for. There was a sign painted underneath each opening in the racks,” AM,” “PM” and “MIDNIGHT,” on top of each opening was the name of the wheel: the Honey Babe and Twin; the Baltimore, Ohio and New York; the Windy City, Michigan and Chicago; and the Mississippi, New Orleans and Texas. A small blackboard sat beside the racks that contained the lucky or hot numbers and a dream book, which an alleged fortuneteller dreamed up. The dream book would tell a player what number to bet based on his or her dreams. The bettors used the dream book to translate dreams, bodily functions, names and events into a set of three numbers. On another table were four worn large black scrapbooks that contained the glued drawings for the last thirty days for each wheel. The drawings were for references and used by patrons in determining their daily plays, Edwinna and Luella sat behind a barred cage resembling a bank teller window. Edwinna hired Luella Jones another experienced writer. Both of the women, Edwina and Luella, were paid a straight salary of fifty dollars a week, good money for a four or five hours a day job. Both women lived in the neighborhood and could walk to work. There were no windows in the station but during the summer, they kept the back door open to catch the cool breeze coming off Lake Michigan and there were two big fans. The policy station was a meeting place for the older people in the neighborhood who would hang around drinking coffee, eating donuts provided by the station and gossiping after placing their bets. Most policy players were unemployed and received some type of welfare check. The merchants and the currency exchanges charged a fee for cashing the check but Jerome would cash the welfare checks of his players, free of charge, he knew that they would probably play most of in his station.

INT. POLICY STATION-LATE MORNING

One morning Jerome was at the station drinking coffee and eating donuts with the players when a young man, maybe twenty sat alone in one of the chairs weeping.

JEROME
What’s wrong?

YOUNG MAN
My mother is very sick and she needs medicine but the prescription cost two hundred dollars and I don’t have the money without the medicine she will probably get worst or possibly die.

Jerome reaches into his pocket and took out a roll of bills but it was only a hundred and fifty dollars.


JEROME
Edwinna could you loan me a hundred bucks?

Edwinna gives the money to Jerome and he gives it to the young man.

YOUNG MAN
I only needed two hundred.

The young man hugged Jerome warmly and hurried out of the station.

The McLemore’s station was averaging over a $3,000 a day in bets and on a good day, they could write over $4,000. The McLemore family received twenty five percent of the bets made and the rest went to the policy wheels that were responsible for paying any winning gigs. Before the station opened the runner for each policy wheel would deliver the wheels “Drawing Slips,” that contained the winning numbers. The runner delivered the drawing often bungled and thrown out of his car window to the stations. When the policy station opened, the bettor could check the drawing to see if his gig had came out, and he had won. If he won, the runner would give the winning money to the writer who paid the bettor. Business was good the McLemore’s purchase three more livery cabs and hired additional drivers. The cabs were making money as well as their policy station. Between 1959 and 1962, the McLemore brothers opened up five more policy stations in “Bronzeville.”
Bronzeville is a neighborhood located on the South Side of the City. In the early 20th century, Bronzeville was known as the "Black Metropolis," one of the nation's most significant landmarks of African-American urban history. Between 1910 and 1920, during the peak of the "Great Migration," the population of the area increased dramatically when thousands of African-Americans fled the oppression of the south and immigrated to Chicago in search of industrial jobs. 47th Street was and remains the hub of the Bronzeville neighborhood. Grand Boulevard (later changed to South Parkway and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive) with trees and grass. The Regal Theater located at 47th South Parkway Boulevard was a lavish Byzantine edifice with its tall columns, plush carpeting and velvet drapes and hosted some of the most celebrated black entertainers in America. Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington performed there frequently. Chicago’s Eighth Regiment Armory on Giles at 35th Street and the Annual Bronze Beauty Pageant and the magnificent greystones building and mansions on Grand Boulevard and Provident Hospital, located at 51st and Vincennes Avenue was where the first successful open heart surgery was performed by a black, Doctor Daniel Hale. Fine restaurants and taverns that served mainly soul food, but many of the restaurant also served gourmet foods, fine steaks and chops. Clothing stores, barbershops, gambling dens, taverns, storefront churches and poolrooms lined 475th Street. It was a thriving, vibrant and self-contained Mecca of political and economic power seated in Chicago’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th Wards but times were hard for black people living in Bronzeville. The physical world of Bronzeville lower class is the world of storefront churches, second hand clothing stores, taverns, cheap movies theaters, depilated houses and overcrowded kitchenettes. The people were poorly educated and financially insecure. Bronzeville had a higher rate of sickness and death than the rest of the city and the lowest average income. Over fifty percent of the blacks living in Bronzeville were receiving some type of public aid. Twenty percent of black boys between the ages of 10-16 were classified as delinquent and did not attend school. They spent their days shooting dice and playing basketball, and over fifty percent of the births were illegitimate. Nineteen percent of the black population was unemployed compared to the four percent unemployment rate for foreign-born citizens. Bronzeville was desolate and isolated. A place where black mothers and their kids slept on the streets or in abandoned cars, where eleven and twelve year-olds were drug addicts. To Chicago’s ethnic whites, the area bounded by 31st and 51st Street north and south, the Rock Island Railroad tracks and Cottage Grove Avenue to the west and east, they alternately referred to as the “Black Ghetto,” “Darkie Town,” or the “Black Belt.” All of these derogatory terms carried overtones of poverty and suffering, of exclusion and subordination. White civic leaders often used the word ghetto when they wanted to shock government complacency into action, but most of the blacks simple referred to the area as the “Southside or Bronzeville.”

FADE-IN.

The Policy Kings were the affluent men in Bronzeville. They drove their finely dressed girlfriends and wives in late model cars as they went to the blues clubs or dinner. The hustler ruled the strip, the policy men, gamblers and pool sharks all called 47th street home. The residents living in Bronzeville believed that you could get anything you wanted on 47th street from girls to drugs, which was mainly marijuana and heroin. Welfare programs guaranteed food and clothing, but there was a high infant mortality rate, high incidence of life-threatening diseases and hazardous work all operated to shorten the life span of the blacks in Bronzeville but the people of Bronzeville never let poverty; disease and discrimination “get them down.” Its people enjoyed going to the movies and stage shows at the Regal Theater, dancing, drinking, card playing and the other recreational activities, which a big city life offers. Having a good time was a mean to escape from the monotony of their lives and an escape from the tension of contact with white people. Their participation in enjoying life was an adjustment to their separate, subordinate status in American life and the people of Bronzeville treasured their right to pursue happiness. The McLemore brothers were quickly becoming one of Bronzeville most respected sons, mainly because of the honesty of their policy stations and Jerome’s engaging personality. Jerome was a man of respect his workers and customers revered and loved him. They knew that if they needed food or clothing he was always there for them, their problems became his problems and he expected no payment, only their friendship. The policy station also provided employment for the black people who lived in the community and he paid a good wage. Jerome hired a bevy of beautiful women to operate his policy stations that drew more than a 1000 people a day. Blackjack, craps, Georgia skin and other forms of gambling served as added attractions. Jerome opened the Golden Tavern at 504 E. 47th Street where he operated a racehorse book, a crap game and a Keno operation. Jerome McLemore eventually became the spokesman and “Bagman,” for the other black policy wheel owners operating in Bronzeville. The protection fee for the dozen or so policy wheel owners was $250