When I was 20 I had, in collaboration with a friend, written nine scenes of a screenplay. The plot was based on three unusual outcasts from our sleepy suburb in Michigan. Gil, a shaggy Vietnam veteran, rode his rusty bike everywhere overstuffed with his belongings, even in subzero weather. And Tony, a janitor with black teeth, hung around the tennis facilities waiting to fetch balls that strayed from the courts. The last guy, Tim (Barfight), we had been most fascinated with. He was a recovering drug addict who wore a cowboy hat, and lived behind a hardware store. He told the same story over and over: his mom "got his back" in barfights. Joe and I wanted to humanize these characters through their various friendships with a fictional teenage girl. We worked all summer on that script, but like any other original thing I've started, I never saw it through. Joe, however, completed his own screenplay in Los Angeles before he died in 2003.
I saw Stevie a few nights ago, whose bottom-of-the-barrel characters reminded me a lot like those men we had envisioned 4 years earlier. The director, Steve James (Hoop Dreams), reunites with his "little brother" after 10 years (of the Big Brother Program -- not by blood). Stevie is a vulgar rustic living in southern Illinois. He was raped as a child, abused by his mother, and lived in and out of foster homes. Everyone in his circle is white trash: one scene shows him conversing with the president of the "Aryan Brotherhood." Stevie's girfriend, Tonya, is semi retarded, and her best friend is fully blown retarded. Stevie himself is slow and stubborn, but there's a suffering and confused guy underneath the exterior.
Originally James wanted to film his rendezvous with Stevie for himself, but something worthy of a documentary happened along the way: Stevie was charged with molesting an 8 year old. The bulk of the film shows Stevie and his family's reaction to an impending prison sentence. Eventually Stevie's abusive mother comes back in his life, whom Stevie is reluctant to welcome back. On his birthday, she gives him a card that says "I love you," but Stevie attack back with an "up yours, bitch." Stevie was adopted by the very elderly Verna Hagler, and he intends to keep it that way. It's always fascinating to peep in on the lives of people completely opposite of our own. Roughnecks can enlarge a world view, too.
6 months ago, Joe's mom gave me the only screenplay he had written: a tale of a depressed professor who befriends a black hooker. "Vanilla Twist," as her nickname was, was every bit a misfit in the world as a Gil or a Stevie or a Barfight. Sure, they're not always sympathetic people, but to be able to recognize that these downtrodden folks might've turned out differently were it not for stronger forces is always a noble pursuit.
