Sharkey's Place: Glenn Dreams of Mars S1 E3 By Rick Regan INT. SHARKEY’S PLACE - EARLY LUNCH It is mid October and the rain from the morning has cleared and the day has brightened up. The place is getting busy with take out orders, walk ins and regulars for lunch. Glenn is in the corner, working on a laptop, having soup and drinking coffee. Myra is in the kitchen and Sandra is helping customers. Kirini is directing the show and running the register. SANDRA (to customers) Looking better and better out there. KIRINI A little sunshine and the place fills up. SANDRA I like it busy, keeps me moving. It’s no fun with no customers and no tips. I’ll take this any day. KIRINI Keeps the register ringing too. Aiden and Caiden come in. They are fry cooks from the Inky Squid down the road, in town. SANDRA Morning guys. Got you a table right here. CAIDEN Thanks, Sandy. AIDEN Finally dried out. CAIDEN Little bit of sun. AIDEN I’ll take it. CAIDEN What’s good today? SANDRA What’s good? The soup. You gotta have it. AIDEN What is it? SANDRA Potato soup. CAIDEN Potato soup? AIDEN I don’t know. She make any chowder? SANDRA Oh, No, You have to try the soup. Trust me on this. AIDEN Just thinking that there’s not much to potato soup. CAIDEN It’s just a mashed potato in broth. I don’t know. AIDEN Is there another option? CAIDEN Like meatballs? SANDRA Yes, but not today. Today is potato. Tomorrow is meatballs. CAIDEN Maybe we should wait for the meatballs tomorrow. AIDEN I love her meatballs. SANDRA Boys! This is Myra’s soup. You’re telling me that you wouldn’t eat anything that she put in front of you? You know she’s the best. CAIDEN She’s the best.. AIDEN The beast! CAIDEN Alright, I’m stah-vin. AIDEN I’m the Hungah Monstah! CAIDEN Bring the soup! AIDEN And a Harpoon Light! CAIDEN Hot coffee for me. SANDRA Coming right up! She goes to get the order. SANDRA (to Kirini) Kiri, a Harpoon Light and a coffee for the boys. KIRINI Coming up. She gets the drinks ready and puts them on the table. KIRINI You boys busy last night at The Squid? Lotta rain. Kept things quiet here. CAIDEN We did OK. AIDEN The rowing team from the college stopped in. CAIDEN The coach called ahead. AIDEN We were slammed. CAIDEN But they were pretty much it. KIRINI Did they win the regionals? CAIDEN I guess so. AIDEN They ate like gorillas. CAIDEN Stuffed themselves. AIDEN Don’t get me wrong... CAIDEN That’s what we’re there for AIDEN But them fellas packed it in. CAIDEN Shoulda seen it. AIDEN It was lucky really. CAIDEN That we didn’t have more customers. AIDEN They filled the place up when the bus pulled in. CAIDEN I’m glad he called. AIDEN Cause we were ready for ‘em! Sandra comes with the soup. Each bowl has one perfectly cooked white potato, in perfect spheres, surrounded by a dark broth. There is a sprinkle of saffron dusting the top of the potato. CAIDEN What’s this? AIDEN Potato soup? It’s just one potato. CAIDEN That’s not soup. SANDRA Trust me. Hey, trust Myra! Caiden and Aiden each take a spoon of the broth. CAIDEN Awwww! AIDEN Come on! The slam down their spoons. CAIDEN That’s not fair. AIDEN It’s too good! CAIDEN What is this? It’s like the best steak of my life! AIDEN And the perfect potato! CAIDEN Myra! Myra! AIDEN Hey, Myra! Come out here. Myra pokes her head out of the galley kitchen, sees Caiden and Aiden. She smiles and comes to the table. SANDRA Didn’t I tell ya? KIRINI Trust Myra with the soup. MYRA So? What do you think? CAIDEN Myra, why do you do this to me? AIDEN You show me what a lousy cook I am. CAIDEN I taste this and I realize..; AIDEN I got no skill. CAIDEN No taste. AIDEN No ability. CAIDEN This is amazing. AIDEN Tell me the secret. CAIDEN How’d you make this? MYRA Well instead of chopping up the potato into mush, I thought, you know, these are seasonal, right out of the ground. I wanted to really hold onto the, you know, potato-ness. CAIDEN Of course! AIDEN That’s it! CAIDEN Honor the season. AIDEN Taste the place. That’s it. CAIDEN But this broth? It’s so... AIDEN Meaty. CAIDEN How’d you do it? MYRA It’s a French method of roasting beef bones, then simmering them. It’s in Julia Child’s first book. CAIDEN I think we have that one. MYRA But there are a lot of bones. CAIDEN How many? AIDEN Like a dozen? MYRA Two hundred. AIDEN Two hundred bones?! CAIDEN That’s crazy! Where’d you get that many bones? MYRA Sam the Butcher. He saves them for me. CAIDEN Yeah, we know Sam. AIDEN Good guy, Sam. MYRA Sure. But the soup, it’s good, right? CAIDEN Amazing. AIDEN You’re the best. CAIDEN The beast! The both dig into the soup, savoring the rich perfection. KIRINI Myra, you’re the best. SANDRA OK. Let’s keep it moving. They all go back to their stations and keep working. More customers come in, others go out. Myra goes back to the kitchen and is carefully scooping meatballs, measuring the weight and size of each one. She has tray after tray of perfectly shaped meatballs, some going into the oven, some just out. INT. SHARKEY’S PLACE - LATE EVENING Glenn is sitting at the bar now. The place is really a tavern now, with people drinking and talking. SANDRA Glenn, you alright there? GLENN Could do with some ice. SANDRA Be careful you don’t chip a tooth. GLENN I guess it’s a nervous habit. SANDRA You grow up as a nervous kid? You get bullied in school? GLENN They didn’t call it bullying then. You got ‘picked on’. And, yeah. SANDRA You get in a lot of fights then? GLENN No, I never got in any fights. SANDRA That’s why the picked on you. They know you would just take it, and never dish it out. GLENN I wish I knew that then. SANDRA Nobody told you? What about your old man? He didn’t teach you to look out for yourself? GLENN He died when I was pretty young. I remember him, but I don’t think I really knew him. SANDRA How old were you, like six or seven? GLENN Twenty two. I was out of college and in California on assignment. SANDRA You were twenty two and you still didn’t know your dad? GLENN He worked a lot. SANDRA Come on. There’s more to it than that. GLENN He was, I think, disappointed in me. He wanted me to go into the Navy, be a Marine. But I never wanted to do that. SANDRA He saw you as the little soft boy, huh? That’s a tough break. GLENN He was career military, in the Navy. I learned a lot about ships though. SANDRA You were trying to impress him? GLENN Get his approval. But he never did. SANDRA See, I was going to make a crack about how that’s why everybody still treats you like a doormat, but I’m not going to now. I just feel bad for you, in a pathetic way. GLENN Gee, thanks... SANDRA No trouble at all. Sandra goes off to serve other customers Gordon the Lobsterman comes in. GORDON Friends. KIRINI Hey, Gordon. Good to see you. First one’s on me. GLENN Hiya, Gordo. GORDON Kiri, you got any cold beer? KIRINI Got a Harpoon on ice waiting for you. She uncaps the bottle and puts it in front of him. Glenn comes over and sits next to Gordon. GLENN Gordo, you on the water today? A right mess this morning. GORDON But it cleared. Got a good haul. The boys just got finished unloading. Good day in the water. KIRINI That’s good to hear, Gordo. GLENN Way to go. GORDON Nice to have a day when it all works, you know? KIRINI Yep. Some days it all comes together. Say, you want some soup? Myra made some beautiful potato soup. GORDON That would be great, thanks. KIRINI Coming right up. Kirini goes into the kitchen for some soup. GLENN You know, I had a funny thought this morning. GORDON In the rain? Hard to do much thinking in the rain. GLENN You ever wonder about space travel? Like going to the moon or going to Mars? GORDON Like in the movies? Naw! The world of the sea is strange enough for me. And as dangerous too. GLENN Well, you know how they are planning to send people to Mars, like the moon landing back in the Sixties? GORDON Yeah, damned fool project. Rich boys with stupid toys. GLENN So I was thinking about your lobsters this morning, in the rain. GORDON Ya don’t say. GLENN I was thinking that those lobsters are specifically evolved to live and thrive in that particular, specific environment. Cold water, rocky shoreline. They eat what is available and adapt to the seasonal changes. GORDON I’m going to need some more beer for this story. GLENN And I thought, you know, humans are like that. We are specifically and particularly adapted to life on Earth. So what’s going to happen when we get to Mars? GORDON Evolve, you mean, as a species? GLENN Right. GORDON Not enough time. They will run out of air and water, or have some catastrophe and they will all die. GLENN Woah! GORDON With lobsters, you could have an event, like a squall maybe, that wipes out a bunch of ‘em. But not all of ‘em. And them that are left keep going. We couldn’t do that on Mars. They’ll just die up there. That’s it. KIRINI (brings soup) This will warm you up. GORDON You warm me up, just seeing you. Gordon begins eating the soup. KIRINI Good, huh? GORDON Mmm! This is amazing! Can I get another beer? Glenn is talking my ear off about going to Mars. KIRINI You two, going to Mars? GLENN No, people in general. You know, with the rockets and stuff. Kirini pulls up another beer. KIRINI If they had water up there, maybe they should send lobsters. Ha! GLENN Lobsters? Hmmm. You know, maybe we should move further down the food chain. Like shrimp. GORDON Go all the way back, to algae. KIRINI Algae? Why algae? GORDON You see, an algae or primitive slime, can survive in all kinds of conditions, even on the surface of Mars. And it is the first step in the evolutionary chain. GLENN So, send a Rover, and have it squirt slime? GORDON The engineering would be tricky, it’s true. But squirt some slime on Mars, wait a billion years and you’ll have whatever creatures will evolve and survive. The miracle of life on Earth is not humans, it is the multicell organism. GLENN Wait a minute, you want to seed the galaxy with slime? GORDON It won’t be any good sending humans. They’re going to die. Send slime and see what happens. If there is no life after a billion years, well, it didn’t work out. KIRINI But don’t we need to colonize other planets when the Earth becomes too hot? GORDON The Earth doesn’t care about humans. Just like it doesn’t care about the lobsters who get scrubbed away in a nor’easter. But the world keeps turning. GLENN Maybe Mars had people, or whatever, Martians, like two billion years ago and they sent slime to Earth. We would be sending it back. KIRINI You guys are both crackers. Kirini wanders away. GLENN But what does it all mean, Gordo? GORDON Life? I don’t know. What’s the meaning of a lobster? To get put in a steamer. GLENN I hope that’s not how I go. GORDON Nah, you’re too big for a steamer, but I could see you getting involved with a serial killer who chops you into pieces. Could steam the pieces, I suppose. GLENN Jesus! What?! A serial killer? GORDON I’m just thinking of the mechanics of it. GLENN I ask you about the meaning of life and you tell me I’m going to get murdered? How about, we’re here to make the world a better place? GORDON If that gets you through the night. GLENN I mean, we’re the only animals, probably the only ones, who understand death, who understand time and ideas and science. Shouldn’t it add up to something. GORDON Not for the lobsters. GLENN But they’re just bugs. GORDON Tasty bugs. GLENN Agreed. But why do you go out on your boat everyday? Just to catch lobsters? GORDON You mean, do I find value in my work? That’s what you are asking yourself, not me. Sort it out. GLENN You know, I write these columns for the paper, Global Shipping, but I feel like I just send them into the void. Like there is nobody on the other side. Then that Dutch woman came in. GORDON Yulia. GLENN Yeah, Julia. And she said she reads the columns and even knew my specialty. I never had anybody that said they actually read the Global Shipping News. Now when I sit down to write the report, I can’t get her out of my head. GORDON Me neither. GLENN And I get all blocked because I’m worried that I’m going to screw it up and she’ll read it and think, that guy is a big dope. GORDON Ah, she had a loving heart. She liked you. GLENN But you even more. GORDON Well, of course. I’m a captain. Sandra approaches. SANDRA You two still mooning over that Euro-trash chick? GORDON Don’t say that. She is a good captain. SANDRA Sure she is. But did you ever think that maybe there was something odd, or even suspicious, about her dropping by this place, way out here? Didn’t that strike you as even a little bit weird? GLENN Ugh, No, Why should it be weird? SANDRA Maybe she just wanted to scope out this little section of the coast. GLENN Uh-huh. SANDRA And find some sap who she could latch onto and get her feet on the ground here. GLENN But she had a whole life in Amsterdam. SANDRA Sure she did. Sure. Geez, you guys are such dopes. You don’t know anything about women. Sandra moves away. GLENN She’s right about that. GORDON Too true. Myra comes over with a beer in-hand for herself. She sits between Gordon and Glenn. GORDON Myra, your Glenn here is wrestling with his meaninglessness. What do you think? GLENN Wait! That’s not fair. MYRA I think the both of you are bums for sitting here, night after night. You should be home in bed. Get a good night’s sleep. Then get up early and get to work. GORDON The lobsters don’t care what time it is. MYRA OK. So Glenn, what’s your excuse? GLENN Myra, I know I’m not a good dad. I know I wasn’t a good husband. I’m sorry. But what do you want from me? You want me to leave, is that it? MYRA Could you? GLENN What? MYRA Could you, if you wanted to? GLENN I don’t know. MYRA Could you find a job that made some real money, in a city that had more than one tavern? Then maybe you could get caught up on the alimony and child support. I’m just saying. GLENN What are you saying? MYRA I’m saying you are a grown man but you are stuck in your own head like an adolescent. And you cripple yourself with gin in the hopes that it makes you interesting. GLENN It used to work. MYRA But look at you. You think you can do another ten years of this act? I don’t think you’ve got another ten months in you. GORDON Myra, lay off. He’s in a down place. We all get there sometimes. MYRA Gordo, really? A down place? He’s like a lame horse that should have been put down, years ago, for mercy sake. GLENN For chrissake, Myra. You want me gone, or you want me dead? MYRA Does it matter? Either way the real you has been gone a long time. Myra puts her empty beer bottle on the counter. She walks to the door, puts on her jacket and goes, without saying goodbye. GORDON Jeez, what got into her? GLENN I don’t know, but what do you think? Should I skip town, go back up to Bangor? GORDON You could go to Portland, send your shipping reports from there. GLENN You really think I should go? GORDON No, I don’t. You know why? Because I’d miss ya. None of these chuckleheads around here even read books, let alone write ‘em. GLENN Hmmm. GORDON But, I do think she’s got a point. You’ve been here, maybe too long. Not making any progress. Not making any new ideas. Maybe a change up, a mix up with more people, would get you going again. GLENN I suppose I could get an apartment. I could keep my place here. It doesn’t cost much. Come back on the weekends. GORDON Maybe find another rag to write for. GLENN I wish it was that easy. It’s hard to get a writing gig. GORDON So drive a bus. Stack groceries. Take tickets at a theater. Just do something. It’s people you miss. GLENN Thanks Gordo. I’ll drive down to town tomorrow. I should call it a night. GORDON Good luck to ya, Glenn. GLENN You too. Glenn gets up and leaves. Kirini comes over and sits next to Gordon. KIRINI What was that all about? GORDON Ah, Myra got into him about paying the alimony. KIRINI Is she stretched for cash? She didn’t say anything to me. GORDON I don’t know. KIRINI Maybe the meatballs didn’t come out right. GORDON Maybe that’s it. But she was at him so hard I was afraid he was going to grab my flare gun. KIRINI And do what, shoot Myra? GORDON No, he loves her. He’d never shoot her. But she had him so down, I had to say something. KIRINI You’re a good friend to him. And he doesn’t have many of those. GORDON It’s part of the code of being a Lobsterman. KIRINI Code? GORDON It takes a long time to learn and you only hear it in bits and scraps from the other captains. You have to respect the water. You have to respect the sky. You have to respect the fish. And you have to respect your crew. KIRINI And Glenn? GORDON He’s part of my crew. Not on the boat but deep down, he’s a decent man. I respect that. KIRINI You’re a decent man, Gordon. GORDON In my way, I suppose. KIRINI Gordon, kiss me. GORDON Kiri, I can’t. KIRINI Can’t or won’t? GORDON Both. I respect you too much. You deserve better. KIRINI How about you respect me a little less and kiss me a little more? GORDON Well, if it is a desperate situation, I’ll do what I have to do. Gordon stands up and Kirini presses herself into him. He puts his arms around her and they kiss for a long time. Then, she pushes back and looks up at him. KIRINI Thanks for that. After today, I needed that. GORDON You are a beautiful woman, Kiri. But that’s going to have to hold you for a while. KIRINI Harpoon? GORDON A cold one? KIRINI Coldest in town. GORDON That’s not saying much. KIRINI Ha! She goes behind the bar, puts a beer on the counter and walks back into the office. GORDON (sips beer) Good luck, Glenn. Gordon sips the beer. After a while Kirini comes out, waves that it’s closing time. He finishes the beer and tosses it in a trash can. The go out the door together and she locks the door. END