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(Open on the barrel of a gun held by a young girl sitting before a college
professor's desk. The gun is pointed at the professor who sits before a
large collection of books, papers stacked in front of him on the desk.)
Mia: Tell me the Truth.
Prof: What do you mean ? The truth about what ?
Mia: For starters, tell me the truth about my writing.
Prof: You've seen my remarks on your papers.
Mia (cocking the gun): No bullshit. Tell me the Truth.
Prof: Ok. Just calm down. Your writing is good. Raw, but good.
You need to refine your style and gain some focus. Some perspective.
Draw upon your experience. Make it real.
Mia (aiming directly at his head): I said "TELL ME THE TRUTH!"
Prof: I, uh, I, well, i'm jealous and scared. Your work is alive.
With truth and confusion and life. With beauty and freedom and anger.
I'm a writer or at least suppose i am. You're using up the universe of
words at such an alarming and vibrant rate that i wonder if i'll ever
be able to write and if i do, what sense would it make anyway with your
work out there ?
Mia (dropping the gun slightly): So, i'm not just good - i'm
really really good.
(raising it back up): There's more. Tell me.
Prof:
Tell you what ? I've confessed. Your writing scares the shit out of me
What more do you want ?
Mia: This gun opens up holes in the lies. This gun reveals the truth.
Without the gun you'd just sit there and lie. Or, more likely, just
not speak the truth. Another form of the Lie. Now that you've got a
gun held to your head you can speak freely. Anything you say will be
excused later as "under duress". You can say whatever you like but you'd
better tell me the truth or you'll lose a lot of blood.
Prof: Ok. Ok. Whatever you say. What do you want to know ?
Mia: What about me ?
Prof: You ? You're crazy.
Mia: We're stuck here in this century in this city and we should
be copulating in a field of flowers. This gun is a teleportation
and time machine. You're free now to tell me the Truth.
Prof: I, I, ... I think i'm in love with you. The beauty of your words,
the depth of your feelings, the wild abandon with which you attack life.
I love you. I want you.
Mia (laughs scornfully): You? You're a dessicated husk of a man.
Go home to your wife and your pathetic life. Give me my papers.
(We see Mia reading a manuscript titled "Barrel of Truth". She crumples
it up and discards it, revealing another page entitled "My Life as a
Revolutionary Lover")
(Mia in camoflauge army outfit on her belly aiming a rifle. To her left
is Che Guevara, also in camo and shooting a rifle. Bombs and bullets
burst and whiz by. Smoke fills the air.)
Che: The Revolution _is_ Love. The Revolution _is_ sex. The Revolution is
Death and Rebirth. Freedom can only be found in the barrel of a gun
and the embrace of a Revolutionary Man.
Mia: I hate killing. Death is just death.
Che: Death gives life. Shoot not to kill. Shoot to give birth.
Mia: What the fuck do you mean ? It's too hot to think.
Che: Don't think. Don't talk. Don't kill. Shoot. Bullets will bring life.
Mia (shooting listlessly at nothing in particular):
No! I'll show you what brings life.
(She grabs Che by the hair, rolling around in a cloud of
dust and smoke, they make love as the bullets fly - soldiers and guerillas
falling about them.)
Che: And now i show you the Truth of Death
(holding Mia down he sticks his
pistol barrel in her mouth and pulls the trigger).
(Mia, holding a gun with the barrel inserted in her mouth,
stands before Hunter S. Thompson)
HST:
I didn't kill myself out of misery over the human condition or depression
or lack of sleep or not being able to write or anything like that.
I kill myself to end the physical pain i'm in. My life was
ecstatic and wild and wonderful. I never wanted the party to end.
Live and write and live some more. Then, after you've lived yourself
out and written all there is to write - then you can kill yourself.
Now, give me the gun.
Mia (handing Thompson the gun): You kill yourself ?
HST: Yeah. But not until after i've written the fuck out of myself.
The pen is mightier than the sword. That must mean my typewriter
is more powerful than a .44 calibre Magnum. What you got in that
shoulder bag - a tactical nuke ?
(Thompson takes the gun, inserts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger)
(We see a laptop screen. A young woman is writing about sex and death and
friendship and changes and lost children finding their way. Beside the
laptop is her gun sitting atop a manuscript titled "Fantasies of a Crazy
Girl with a Gun".)
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