"CHRIS:" "At the end of the school year, I was going to graduate from Corleone Junior High." "My eighth-grade picture had a list of everything I'd accomplished, which so far, was nothing." "This was my last chance to make sure that didn't happen again." "Why aren't you filling out your yearbook-activities form?" "Because right now, the only thing I have to put under my picture is "human punching bag."" "How about, "First black kid at Corleone?"" "Actually, I wasn't the first black kid at Corleone." "( gun cocks, fires )" "I was just the first one that made it into the building." "Okay, so I might be the first." "But until now, that hasn't meant a whole lot." "But you tried out for the basketball team." "And you ran for class president." "Yeah, but I failed." "Nobody remembers failure." "I thought about other black people who were first at something, and what it would be like if they had failed." "Thanks for showing up." "This black guy was in here, uh, Robinson." "You know, I was gonna break the color line for him." "He showed up 20 minutes late." "Claimed he couldn't get a seat on the bus." "Now you, kid, you can't hit." "You can't run." "You can't throw." "But you show up on time." "It's not too late." "You can still get involved in an activity." "Like what?" "I don't know." "Something that plays into your strong suits." "Problem was, all I had were weak suits." "Choir." "CHRIS:" "I can't sing." "GREG:" "Glee Club." "CHRIS:" "I can't sing." "GREG:" "The debate team." "You can talk, can't you?" "Yeah, but that's full." "Well, it looks like the only thing left is the Chess Club and Journalism staff." "I thought about joining the Chess Club." "Go." "( applause )" "Extra, extra!" "Dummy joins newspaper." "School newspaper, here I come." "Because failure is not an option." "( funky hip-hop theme playing )" "¶ Oh, make it funky now ¶" "School newspapers are different in white neighborhoods." "For one thing, there's no obituary column." "So, what do you want to write about?" "Politics." "No." "I write about politics." "Okay, then sports." "No, Ping does the sports column." "Mostly covers Ping-Pong." "Okay, then entertainment." "Like, uh, movie reviews and stuff like that." "This isn't Jet magazine, this is a newspaper." "I like Jet." "Okay, then what do you want me to write about?" "I don't know." "Something that you know about." "She doesn't have the guts to suggest a fried-chicken column." "Like what?" "I don't know." "Something that's unique to you." "You know, something that's unique to you, blackety." "While I thought about what to write, my father thought something was wrong." "Re-elect Lamar Johnson?" "Why are you campaigning for this guy?" "Because my daddy supported his daddy when he was city councilman, and now I am just carrying on the tradition." "But you're hardly home as it is." "Who gonna take care of the house?" "That look means, "Ain't you got two hands?"" "Baby, don't worry." "The campaign will be over soon." "And then everything will be back to normal." "I don't know why you want to be involved with this guy." "He's nothing but a crook and a womanizer." "Julius, would you quit being jealous." "He is not a crook." "I've know him since I was a teenager." "So?" "Even Saddam Hussein had friends." "( knock at door )" "Could you get that?" "( knocking persists )" "Thank you, baby." "Julius, ha, ha." "Good to see you, my brother." "Hope you plan to vote next week." "Yeah, I" " I do." "Hope you plan to lose." "Hi, Lamar." "Rochelle, how are you doing?" "Good to see you." "Look at you." "Oh, good." "Rochelle, I want to thank you for volunteering to help our campaign." "Oh, not a problem, Lamar." "You know you are like family to me." "Like play cousins." "( laughs )" "My mother saw a councilman, but my father saw this:" "( funky theme playing )" "Rochelle, baby," "Daddy needs you to get on out there with your fine self and get Daddy them votes." "Aw." "But Daddy, it's raining cats and dogs out there." "Cats" " Heh, heh." "Girl, you better get on out there and go on that campaigning." "Get on out there." "Vote for Daddy." "Vote for Daddy." "Uh, so can I pick these up later?" "Oh, yeah." "You know what?" "I'll get started on them now." "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute." "What about dinner?" "Oh, baby, can't we order Chinese food?" "Well, who gonna pay for this Chinese food?" "Uh, I can pay you with my undying gratitude." "Well, can you pay me back with $13.43?" "( mumbles ) ( laughs )" "( laughs )" "Julius, you funny, man." "Yeah." "No, you funnier." "No, you funny." "No, you really funny." "And you lucky." "I mean, you got yourself a fine woman right here." "Yeah, yeah." "( giggling ):" "Stop" "Don't worry, baby." "I'll cook." "( coughs, sniffs )" "Uh, I was going anyway." "Listen, uh, don't forget to vote." "Oh, I won't." "Oh, he won't, but not for you." "( sighs )" "( button clatters )" "Oh, Julius." "Yuck." "What's the matter?" "My peas are touching my mashed potatoes." "So what?" "I just hate when one food touches another." "Baby, that's what mashed potatoes are for." "They're like little clumps of glue that you use to pick up your peas." "That's disgusting." "I could only imagine what would've happened if I had tried that." "I can't eat this." "My peas are touching my mashed potatoes." "Are they separated now?" "Mm-hm." "Chris, put that paper away." "You're just like your daddy." "You know better than to read at the table." "Sorry, Ma." "It's just that I'm writing an article in the school paper and I'm looking for ideas." "Oh, well, why don't you write about Councilman Johnson, and all the wonderful things that are happening in the neighborhood?" "Like crack?" "You know what, as a matter of fact," "I think we all should help." "Drew, you can help me put up posters, and Tonya, you can hand out buttons." "I've got homework." "Yeah, and I got to read an autobiography on Billy Ocean." "Don't even look at me." "You know, that's a shame." "People marched and had dogs and hoses turned on them for the right to vote, and you guys can't even help." "Maybe you should turn dogs and hoses on them." "Okay, fine." "I'll do it by myself." "My mother had to do it on her own, and so did I." "How's school?" "Tough, I've got to write an article for the school paper." "Oh, you a writer now, huh?" "Well, it's just that this is my last year at Corleone." "I think people won't remember me unless I do something." "Good for you." "It's great to be a writer." "You can get your legacy started." "Legacy?" "Your legacy." "Like, what people remember you for." "Somebody should tell Bobby Brown about this whole legacy thing." "Only thing is, I don't know what to write about." "Well, then you happen to be in luck." "I got a lot you can write about." "But you're gonna have to tone it down a little bit, because it's juicy." "Really?" "DOC:" "Yeah." "You know, when I was young," "I was a real player." "I dated women wherever I could find them." "Oh, yeah, I was what you'd call a serial dater." "I went out with thousands of women." "They all cried when I left." "But they'd all take me back in a second." "You know, I didn't know that." "I dated all the pretty women in Syracuse." "Both of them." "Then I dated all the pretty women in Albany." "Now we're up to three." "Then I dated all the pretty women in Pittsburgh." "Okay, we're back at two." "But I know it's hard to look at old Doc and think of me in that way, but I'm a real lady-killer." "I knew one thing for sure:" "Nobody at school was writing about this." "While I was getting my story down..." "Johnson." "...my mother was getting the vote out." "Vote Johnson!" "Johnson!" "You got it." "You got it." "Johnson." "( grumbles )" "Vote for Johnson!" "Vote for Johnson!" "Here, vote for Johnson, he's a great guy." "Vote for J" " Hey!" "Wait." "Wait." "Wait." "Wait." "Wait a minute." "Wait a minute." "What the hell are you doing?" "I'm trying to prevent the election of this evil individual." "Lamar Johnson is not evil." "You know that since this man has come into office, my business has dropped 35 percent?" "That's because the murder rate has dropped 35 percent." "The whole reason I moved to Bed-Stuy was because business was booming." "I couldn't keep a casket in stock." "They were literally flying into the ground." "You are sick." "That's why I'm gonna do everything in my power to get him re-elected." "I'm gonna do everything in my power to get him defeated." "What?" "Wait a minute now." "If you're not voting for Johnson, who are you voting for?" "Himelfarb?" "Abe Himelfarb who owns the pawn shop?" "With Himelfarb in office, everything will fall naturally into place." "Over my dead body!" "That would be tragic, but if it were to happen, you can rest assured" "I'll give Mr. Julius a nice discount." "You" " You just stay away from my posters." "Vote for Johnson!" "Vote for Johns--!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Wait!" "Stop that man!" "Stop him!" "Wait!" "Wait!" "When I turned in my story, Lisa read me the Riot Act." "You call yourself a writer?" "This is the worst story I've ever read." "I just wasted 20 minutes of my life." "Do you know how many trees died for you to write this?" "You're destroying the ozone layer." "People are gonna get cancer." "Okay, okay, I get it." "So, what's wrong with it?" "Everything." "Who wants to read about some crusty old ghetto Romeo?" "You told me to write what I know." "I know this guy." "Well, if this is the best you can do, maybe you should think about doing something else." "Like the Chess Club?" "Go." "( audience gasps ) ( applause )" "I wonder if there's a Checkers Club." "Lisa hated my story, so I showed it to Mrs. Morello, who loved anything black." "Lisa's right." "This isn't good." "What's wrong with it?" "Chris, there's nothing worse than racial stereotypes." "We've seen this a thousand times." "The tall, shirtless black man, his ebony pecs glistening with sweat from working in the fields." "His furrowed brow filled with savage lust." "( gasps )" "Where was I?" "I think you were talking about racial stereotypes." "Oh, right." "I want to read about the real black men who walk the gritty streets of the 'hood." "People like Super Fly," "The Mack, Black Belt Jones," "Truck Turner and Blacula." "Tell me the truth about the pimps and the hustlers, the violence, all set to a jazzy beat." "Oh, there's a jazzy beat" "I want to give her, right upside the head." "Everyone else hated my article, but I knew I could count on Greg for support." "It's horrible, dude." "I've only been to your neighborhood twice, and even I have more exciting stories." "Well, I don't know what to write about, because everything they're asking for doesn't exist." "That's the wrong attitude." "What do you mean?" "Do you want to be remembered for being something more than just a human piñata?" "Yeah." "Do you want to have something under your picture in the yearbook?" "Yeah." "Then give the people what they want." "( funky theme playing )" "I thought journalism was supposed to be about reporting the facts, but what I found out is that people don't always want the facts." "So I decided to give the people what they want." "I took Doc's story about being a lady-killer, and dropped the word "lady."" "OMAR:" "Who do you want to beat?" "CROWD:" "Johnson!" "OMAR:" "When do you want to beat him?" "CROWD:" "Now!" "OMAR:" "When I say, "Johnson," you say, "Fool."" "Johnson!" "CROWD:" "Fool!" "What is that noise?" "That's Mr. Omar." "He's having an anti-Johnson rally." "OMAR:" "When you wanna beat him?" "What?" "OMAR:" "When I say, "Johnson," you say, "Fool."" "Johnson!" "CROWD:" "Fool!" "ROCHELLE:" "Oh!" "J" "OMAR:" "Who do you want to beat?" "ROCHELLE:" "Tonya, tap your butt on downstairs and lock the door." "Go on, now." "OMAR:" "...You say, "Fool."" "Johnson!" "CROWD:" "Fool!" "Johnson!" "CROWD:" "Fool!" "ROCHELLE:" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Don't listen to that fool!" "Johnson is a good man!" "He's cleaning up our streets!" "Vote Johnson!" "What kind of councilman got people campaigning for him hollering out of windows?" "Vote for Himelfarb!" "How you gonna vote for somebody, and you can't even spell their name?" "Vote Johnson!" "We can't spell his name because Johnson ruined the schools!" "Vote for Himelfarb!" "When I say, "Himel," you say "Farb."" "Himel!" "Farb!" "Himel!" "Farb!" "Well, at least Johnson ain't locked out of his own damn house!" "When I say, "Locked," you say, "Out."" "Locked!" "CROWD:" "Out!" "Locked!" "Out!" "That's what he is." "Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait." "Where you going?" "Where you going?" "Come on." "For Himelfarb will open doors that's been shut!" "He will put a chicken in every pot!" "After I changed my story, everyone else changed theirs." "MORELLO:" "Oh, Chris." "Oh." "My brilliant little Alex Haley." "So did you like the story?" "Like it?" "I love it." "The Scissor Killer." "I wouldn't step foot in Bed-Stuy for all the money in the world." "That's how most people feel." "It was so frightening." "So real." "The truth leapt off the page." "The truth jumped off a cliff." "So are you gonna publish it?" "Are you kidding?" "After this story, no one at this school will ever forget you, Chris." "But that's just the beginning." "The Scissor Killer has got to be stopped, so I sent your story to a friend of mine at the Brooklyn Crier, and they published it too." "Look." "Because of you, they're going to bring this man to justice." "Because of me, they're gonna waste their time." "I wanted to be remembered, and this was something people were never gonna forget." "Brooklyn was paralyzed with fear." "There was fear in the beauty shop." ""Put the knife to her and..."" "( all gasp )" "There was fear in the barbershop." "There was even fear in the gutter." "There was only one man who was happy." "( laughing )" "Now that's what I'm talking about." "( wheezing laugh )" "TV ANNOUNCER:" "The Brooklyn Crier is working in conjunction with local authorities to determine the whereabouts of a man known only as the Scissor Killer." "The Scissor Killer was brought to the attention of the Crier by this Corleone Junior High School student after..." "Rochelle." "Good God, have you seen the stories?" "I just saw it on TV." "( stammering ):" "This is a d" "( stammering )" "Oh, this is a disaster." "Can you believe what this is gonna do to the community?" "I mean, why would you let your son Chris write a story like this when I'm trying to get re-elected?" "What?" "You're worried about being re-elected when my son is out there about to be snipped to death by a scissor killer?" "Is that what you saying to me?" "Uh, n-no, no." "CHRIS:" "Yes." "I'm saying, what would people think if I'm allowing a serial killer to roam the neighborhood?" "I hadn't seen spin like that since Usher battled Omarion." "I don't know if you noticed or not, but ain't nobody in the neighborhood except that killer and my baby!" "My story had pulled the wool over the community's eyes, but Doc's eyes weren't woolly at all." "Who keeps taking these posters down?" "Now, Chris, let me see if I understand this correctly." "The killer came over here and spontaneously confessed to you about his murderous past in Syracuse," "Albany and Pittsburgh." "Is that about right?" "Yeah, if by right, you mean wrong." "Yeah, kind of." "Oh, what part of that did I get wrong?" "The part about the killer coming out here." "Chris, you've got this whole neighborhood terrified." "Ain't nobody on the streets." "Ain't nobody out here." "Ain't nobody coming in the store." "I'm sorry." "It's just that I want to be remembered." "Chris, you can't base your legacy on lies." "Now, you got to go and tell somebody what you did." "( funky theme playing )" "Walking home, I couldn't help thinking that my street was usually filled with life, and now it was an empty wasteland, all because of me." "I felt worse than food poisoning." "Little dude from across the street." "Come here, man." "Man, what you doing out there?" "Don't you know there's a killer on the streets?" "Nah, I'll be all right." "Let me hold a dollar." "Be safe out here." "Did I just get mugged from a window?" "Not only was Brooklyn filled with fear, it was filled with reporters." "WOMAN:" "Today, the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant are deserted." "All of the murderers, rapists and black people who normally populate these streets are behind closed doors." "And yet, it is no safer, because of one man:" "the Scissor Killer." "There's the young man that" " That broke the story." "Let's see if we can get a word." "Young man, What we" " How--?" "Can you tell us any more about the killer?" "What kind of sweat socks did he use?" "( all shouting indistinctly )" "The thing I was most afraid of was telling my parents I'd made up the story." "I couldn't think of anything worse." "( indistinct chattering )" "Hello, worse." "Oh, my God, Chris!" "Where have you been?" "I was so worried about you." "Your daddy is on his way home." "This detective wants to talk to you." "If you're black, that's a sentence you never want to hear." "Listen, Chris, we need a description of the killer." "Give me a second to make one up." "Well, he's black, um, 5'2", light skin, uh, afro." "He stopped listening after black." "There he is." "On the floor!" "ROCHELLE:" "No, no, no!" "Hey." "Oh!" "Oh!" "You're gonna fry for this one." "ROCHELLE:" "You got the wrong person." "No, no." "That's my father." "He's not a killer." "How do you know?" "And if I didn't tell the truth, there was going to be an obituary." "Because there is no killer." "What?" "You better explain yourself, Chris." "I made it up." "When I handed in my story to the school newspaper, they said it was so dull that they wouldn't even print it, so I made the story a little bit more interesting to read." "I'm sorry." "There's a gun pointing at your daddy's head right now, and you're sorry?" "Lamar Johnson's campaign is falling apart, and you're sorry." "People are running around this neighborhood just scared to death, and you're sorry." "Boy, you don't know what sorry is." "I'm gonna ask you one more time, ma'am:" "Do you know this man?" "Yes!" "That's my husband, for God sakes!" "Son, you've got a knack for inventing evidence." "Might want to consider a career in law enforcement." "In a moment, I might need a cop myself." "( jazzy theme playing )" "All I did was stretch the truth." "Oh, that's a coincidence, because I'm about to stretch your behind." "Get upstairs!" "ROCHELLE:" "Get up!" "After my mother set me straight," "I had to set the story straight." "You made it up?" "Sorry." "I was just giving the people what they want." "Oh, this is just great." "All the real killers running around in Bed-Stuy, and you had to make one up." "That's just lazy." "What else did you make up?" "Is your real name Chris?" "Are you even black?" "Who knows?" "This is so disappointing." "You're the first black writer in the school's history." "I was the first black everything in the school's history." "You reach reporter status and you make up your story?" "What will your people think of you?" "( Caruso sighs )" "You just had to lie, didn't you, Aesop?" "Hey, dude." "So I gave the people what they want, and now look at me." "Sometimes people don't like what they want after they get it." "I wonder if he'll want my foot in his behind after he gets that." "I got the yearbook." "I learned a couple of important things from this whole fiasco." "Number one:" "I learned the word "legacy."" "Number two:" "People are suckers for a serial Scissor Killer story." "And C:" "Hey, I could write." "But best of all," "I finally did get something written under my school yearbook picture." "¶ Everybody hates Chris ¶" "( funky hip-hop theme playing )"