"DENNIS:" "Well, okay, what would you do, Dee?" "SWEET DEE:" "I'm saying that if I were a cop, I would have an Uzi." "Well, but I'm saying that the police force would never issue you an Uzi, so now what?" "CHARLIE:" "That's not her point, though." "That's not what we're talking about, that's not my..." "Thank you, Charlie." "Listen, if you had the choice, would you choose to carry one gun that shoots one bullet or would you choose to carry an" "Uzi-- one gun that shoots a thousand bullets in one second?" "Yeah, you're shooting bullets everywhere." "FRANK:" "I agree with her 100%." " Right?" " I mean, she's absolutely right." "Got people coming at you from every angle." "Frank, honestly, if you're going to join in the conversation, will you swallow your food and then speak?" "It's disgusting." "MAC:" "Yeah, hey, Frank, what are you eating over there?" "A hoagie." "You are not eating a hoagie." "You are just jamming meats and cheeses inside of your mouth." "I like to make it in my mouth." "It tastes better." "Frankie?" "Gino?" "You piece of shit!" "GINO:" "You son of a bitch!" "(both grunting)" "I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you!" "Now, this is interesting." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Now, do we break this up?" "No, no, n-no, d-don't break it up." "I want to see how this whole thing plays out." "(grunting continues)" "Oh!" "Okay, well, that seemed to settle it." "Yep." "Okay, all right, okay, all right." "Jesus Christ, Frank, who the hell is this man?" "My goddamn brother." "(Frank growls)" "Frank, I had no idea you had a brother." "Yeah, what gives, Frank?" "You told us your brother was dead." "Yeah, you said that he had his guts sucked out of his asshole through a hot tub drain." "You told that to my own niece and nephew?" "Uh, well, technically, sir, he's not our father, which would mean you're not our uncle." "Yeah, we thought he was for a long time, and then as it turns out..." "You know what?" "It's a whole thing, so..." "Yeah, let's not get into it." "How could you do this to me, Frankie?" "Do what, Gino?" "You know what I'm talking about." "You're trying to steal her from me." "She's my woman." "You stole her from me first." "Well, you stole her back." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who the hell are you guys talking about?" "BOTH:" "The love of my life." "Well, this just got more interesting." "I'm gonna pull up a seat and get into it." "This just got very interesting, Frank." "Why don't you walk us through this?" "No, I'm not dragging this shit up again." "This is ancient history." "No, no, no, I think they need to hear this." "I think they need to hear what a liar and a cheat their father is." "Let me start at the beginning." "It was back in the '60s." "I'm gonna jump in for a second 'cause it sounds like you're about to launch into a whole thing." "Is it going to take a long time?" "My attention span is very short." "That's a valid concern." "It'll take as long as it takes." "Ah... okay." "Well, we might pop in and out mentally." "Yeah, you know, our generation-- it's like..." "Yeah, you want to make it funny or something?" "Give it some flair." "Okay, it was in the '60s." "(jazz playing)" "If you were looking for me, you'd find me at a happening little jazz club on the north side of town." "It was an all-black joint." "Blacks played the best music." "Not that I gave a shit" " I got a tin ear." "It all sounded like a bunch of noise to me." "See, I was running numbers as a bookie for the club." "I'd take bets for the owner Reggie." "REGGIE:" "Yo, Gino." "He had a temper." "He also had a weakness for betting horses and a strength for losing those bets." "You see, Reggie owed me money, and when he came up short, I called in a favor." "I need you to hire someone." "I ain't hiring another one of your bimbos, Gino." "This bimbo is my little brother." "He's here every night for the music." "He's more Negro-ish than anybody else in this club." "Frankie." "Gino." "(Frank humming)" "How would you like to work here?" "Would I ever?" "I love the music, sir." "He's just a kid." "How old are you, boy?" "Nineteen." "Shit, you don't look a day over 12." "I'll do anything." "I was looking out for my younger brother." "I was keeping him out of trouble." "I got Frankie a job and he loved it." "That was a shit job." "I was mopping up puke, I was busing tables and washing dishes." "It stunk." "♪ So far, so good... ♪" "But at least I had that sweet music to keep me going." "♪ So far, so good... ♪" "And then one night I heard the voice of an angel." "No, not her." "♪ So far, so good ♪" "♪ So far, so good ♪" "Keep going." "♪ I thought by now You would be long gone... ♪" "That's her." "♪ So far, so good... ♪" "Boy, she was the cat's meow." "That was Shadynasty." "Got to stop you." "Good time to stop." "Okay, so..." "The love of your life was a black woman named Shadynasty?" "Yeah." "So what's wrong with that?" "Well, th-th-there's nothing wrong with it." "Lots of things." "It's strange, it's strange." "It's just unexpected." "Yeah, that's strange." "Shadynasty." "Well, go on, though." "All right." "All right, so it was late one night, I was cleaning up, doing my usual routine." "(glass shattering)" "Are you out of your goddamn mind?" "SHADYNASTY:" "I saw you with her." "Bitch, if I want to be with another woman, I'll be with another woman." "Hey, hey, hey, relax." "(overlapping shouting)" "Relax, relax, be cool, daddy-o, be cool." "Gino, get this bitch out of my sight." "You just be cool, man, don't blow your top." "Breaking my dishes, bitch, goddamn." "Hey, Frankie here is gonna take you home and I'm gonna talk to Reggie." "He old enough to drive?" "Sure." "For a while, we drove in silence until I finally got the nerve to speak to her." "You got a huge set on you." "Excuse me?" "Pipes-- you got a great voice." "Oh, thank you." "You like black music?" "Do I?" "I'm gonna open a jazz joint of my own someday-- an integrated place where blacks and whites can get along." "No Orientals, though." "You got to have a dream, I guess." "And you're going to be my star attraction." "Child, I ain't nothing but a backup singer." "Oh, no, you're the real, true star, Shadynasty." "You just need a sky to shine in." "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were flirting with me." "White man." "Get down." "Whoa, why were you shoving her head down?" "You did not want to be caught out in the street in those days with a Negress." "They'd tear you apart." "Negress?" "What?" "Whatever the proper word was." "Well, it's not that, it's a different word." "It wasn't that." "We're talking '60s terms." "Okay." "Okay." "Okay, you used those terms." "You shouldn't have." "Did you open the club or what?" "You bet your ass I did." "With hard work and perseverance." "Bullshit." "We opened the club with my gambling money." "And that's when we became business partners." "The point is, we opened the club, and we named it after our star attraction." "Shady-nasty's?" "Shadynasty's, asshole." "Whatever." "He's out of here." "Is that how you spell it?" "So business was booming." "♪ Like fire needs the air to breathe... ♪" "Shadynasty was a star." "♪ Desire's coming over me I wanna please you, babe... ♪" "And every night, it seemed like she was singing to me." "♪ Oh..." "sometimes it gets me... ♪" "'Cause she was." "Frankie's dreams were coming true." "Mmm..." "But sometimes dreams come at a price." "Well, well, well." "Ain't this some shit." "Hi, Reggie." "How you doing?" "Not good, Frankie." "No?" "I gave you everything." "Then you go and take my best bitch." "I'm not anyone's bitch." "I left you, Reggie." "I'm with Frank now." "Oh, you with her now, huh?" "Yeah." "I guess that don't leave me with no choice but to be a mature-ass adult about this shit." "I'm working on my temper." "But know.." "that I strongly disagree with this!" "She's your problem now." "Good luck, Frankie." "Gino, what are you doing?" "Saving your life." "Run, Frankie." "(siren wailing)" "No, don't..." "The police carted off me and Reggie." "I got two years in the slammer and Reggie got six." "Wait." "Why did Reggie get more years than you?" "You beat the man half to death." "He was black." "Those were the days." "You sound like you yearn for those days, Frank." "No." "I'm just saying those were the days." "Huh." "Mm-hmm." "Okay." "Anyway, by the time I got out of prison, the '70s had arrived." "♪ I was searching for someone to love me Hold me close and put no one above me... ♪" "Ah, bro, so good to have you back." "My brother." "I missed you, Frankie." "I really missed you." "Oh, I missed..." "What the shit is that?" "A little bump of coke." "Since when do you do drugs?" "Prison." "It's the '70s, Frank." "Everybody does drugs." "Gino, Gino, Gino, Gino, not, not..." "not in my club." "No, no, no." "No, drugs are trouble." "I don't want no trouble." "Relax." "I got a gun for protection." "Wait!" "What are you doing with that gun?" "!" "You take a gun out?" "No drugs, no guns..." "No trouble." "Hey, I could eat." "Give me something." "Help yourself." "Make a sandwich in your mouth." "It tastes really good." "I know how to do it." "I'm the one who taught you to do it!" "Oh, God." "This is insufferable." "Oh, my..." "Please, just continue." "I just wanted to make an honest woman of Shadynasty." "Settle down, start a life together." "I was building up the nerve to ask her." "I want those peas." "Let me see that." "Okay, all right..." "While I was busting my ass running the club, saving money wherever I could, Gino was just having one big party." "(cheering)" "No, no, I never danced with no guys." "Maybe you did, maybe you didn't." "No-no, no-no-no-no." "I'm going to tell you how it went." "First off, I was banging babes left and right, left and right." "(moaning)" "(sighing)" "But my past came back to bite me." "Get lost, bimbo." "Gino." "Reggie, you're out of prison." "It ain't Reggie no more." "It's Hakim Mohamed." "What's with the getup?" "Prison changed me." "I'm a Black Panther now." "We strong black men; we don't take kindly to you slingin' dope in our hood, you dig?" "Are you threatening me?" "You bet your ass I am." "But maybe this will change your mind." "(gunshot)" "Ah, shit." "It's a goddamn petition!" "What the hell?" "!" "I thought he was pulling a gun." "All right, I'm going to take care of this, Frankie." "You got to disappear for a while." "Disappear?" "Where am I going to disappear to?" "We're going to get you to South America." "I got connections." "South America?" "What about Shadynasty?" "I'm gonna look after Shadynasty." "Frankie!" "Shadynasty!" "Frankie!" "No!" "Shadynasty!" "(sobbing)" "That's when I started my new life." "Colombia." "What a dump." "Gino scored me a job all right." "I was quality control for his Colombian cocaine connection." "I'd become everything I hated." "The only thing that kept me going was writing letters to Shadynasty." "I wrote her every night." "But I never heard back." "(echoing):" "Shadynasty!" "I occupied my mind immersing myself in the culture." "Taking in the cuisine." "But mostly doing cocaine." "(snorting)" "(yelling)" "Ah!" "That part was a blast actually." "(yelling)" "Weeks turned into months, and months turned into years." "(yelling)" "But I had to wean myself off." "I was living life just going through the motions." "I knew I had to get back home." "(woman moaning)" "Back to Shadynasty." "Yes!" "You shouldn't be calling." "It's too risky." "The little birdie wants to fly back to the cage." "It's too close to the stove." "There's too much heat." "The little birdie can stand the heat." "He wants to migrate home." "The little birdie can't come home on account of the attempted murder!" "Why'd you say that, Gino?" "!" "You used my name." "I'm going to hang up now." "And don't come home, Frankie." "Now you used my name!" "(sputtering)" "(dial tone droning)" "♪ Please don't talk about being true... ♪" "I had to get back." "So I snuck into the States." "And what I saw when I got home made me sick." "♪ Please don't talk about all the plans we had... ♪" "What was once a clean, respectable jazz club had turned into a drug-filled disco shithole." "♪ I want some action I want to live!" "♪" "And that's when I saw my brother." "♪ I want to give it I want to get some, too... ♪" "With Shadynasty." "(retching)" "♪ I love the nightlife I've got to boogie On the disco round, oh, yeah" "Oh, I love the nightlife... ♪" "I'm sorry to bust up your party!" "What?" "I said I'm sorry to bust up your party." "What are you doing here?" "I was homesick." "But now I'm just regular sick." "Why?" "!" "You were gone!" "He was here!" "What?" "She said that you were gone, and I was here." "Oh, to get you hooked on drugs?" "Shadynasty, you have a choice." "You can live a life with me, or you can live a life with him, and with drugs." "What's it going to be?" "Drugs." "Huh?" "I choose drugs." "Drugs?" "Drugs!" "She said drugs." "You know, it's the way things go in the world." "You understand." "You son of a bitch!" "Frankie, no..." "You son of a bitch!" "Stop it!" "Stop it!" "(yelling)" "You bald son of a bitch!" "I was bald before you were bald." "You son of a bitch!" "(all yelling)" "Break it up." "You could have had any girl you wanted." "She was my one and only." "You stole her from me." "You're stealing her from me." "I found the new love letters you've been writing to her, Frankie." "Talking about meeting up again and running away." "What are you talking about?" "I haven't written to her in years." "Bullshit!" "They're all signed, "Love, your one and only."" "I should have destroyed these, like I destroyed the letters from Colombia." "What?" "You destroyed the letters I wrote to Shadynasty?" "I intercepted and I read every one of them." "They were poetry." "Each one was more beautiful than the last." "Too beautiful, though." "I couldn't let Shadynasty read them." "Not if she was going to stay with me." "But these letters-- these are smut." ""I want to be in you." "My dick is a raging bull for you."" "And this one, here, "Meet me at the airport, Friday, at 5:00, Terminal C." "Love, your one and only."" "You are trying to steal her from me, Frankie, and I ain't gonna let you." "Gino, Gino." "That's not me." "I'm telling you, I never wrote those." "What?" "I'm putting something together here." "She's at the airport right now meeting some dude." "So, like, if you want to try and get her back, you got to move." "Guys, it's almost 5:00." "Now I'd like to see this whole story play out." "It's appealing to the romantic in me." "I feel like I want to see it." "Come on, man." "Let's go to the airport." "Let's do it." "All right, go." "This is the gate." "I don't see a black woman anywhere." "No." "I mean, there's her, but..." "That's her!" "What?" "Really?" "That is not at all what I was picturing." "No." "No, right?" "Shadynasty." "Frankie!" "Oh, my word!" "Oh, you're still as beautiful as ever." "What are you doing here?" "Oh, you know, I wrote to you every single day from South America." "I mean, I really feel like we could still be together." "There's still a chance for us." "Shadynasty, I'm sorry for whatever I did." "Please, don't go." "Don't choose Gino, choose me." "No, no, no, you choose me." "I have loved you all my life." "No, pick me." "No." "Our love was strong." "We were together." "Pick me, pick me." "Pick me, Shadynasty." "I'm sorry, but I pick him." "Ain't this some shit." "Reggie." "Reggie?" "Whoa, everyone's a lot fatter than I was expecting them to be." "Yeah." "Last time I saw you, Frankie, you had me sent to jail." "But I forgive you." "That's all in the past." "Reggie is your one and only, huh?" "He was all along." "But because of you two, he was always in jail." "I could never be with him." "Excuse me, Mr. Mohamed?" "Yeah?" "Your name came up on a no-fly list." "I need you to come with us." "Oh, hell no." "I'm supposed to be getting on this flight." "Sir, please cooperate." "Listen, I'm getting on that plane with Shadynasty." "That's it." "Let's take him down." "Wait!" "Oh, hell no!" "Times have changed!" "It can't still be like this!" "Leave him be." "Reggie?" "!" "No!" "Did you call that in?" "No, that just happened." "Oh..." "Guess times kind of haven't changed much, huh?" "If I'm being honest, she looked like shit." "Mm." "Yeah." "She did not age well at all." "No." "Did she ever look good?" "She was never attractive." "I guess black can crack." "That's still..." "still kind of racist." "Yeah, that's racist." "Is anybody hungry?" "Yeah, I'm hungry." "I'm starving." "Well, let's go eat." "Hey, did Frankie ever tell you about the time that I threw him off the John Wanamaker Building?" "You son of a bitch." "He told us about that." "I can't" " I can't listen to another goddamn story." "I don't want to hear that story."