Breaking Bad – Transfer Window Special

BREAKING BAD – Written by Vince Gilligan. Adapted by Poznan.

Deep blue sky overhead. Fat, scuddy clouds. Below them, black and white cows graze the rolling hills. TILT DOWN to a fat, round PATTY of cow shit, drying olive oil drab in the sun. Flies buzz. Peaceful and quiet. until •••

ZOOOM! WHEELS plow right through the shit with a SPLAT.

AN RV Is speeding smack-dab through the pasture, no road in sight. A bit out of place, to say the least. It’s an old 70’s era Winnebago with chalky white paint and Bondo spots. A bumper sticker for the Good Sam Club is stuck to the back. The Winnebago galumphs across the landscape, scattering cows.

It catches a wheel and sprays a rooster tail of red dirt.

Inside, the driver’s knuckles cling white to the wheel. He’s got the pedal flat. Scared, breathing fast. His eyes bug wide behind the face-plate of his gas mask.

Oh, by the way, he’s wearing a GAS MASK. That, and white jockey UNDERPANTS. Nothing else.

Buckled in the seat beside him lolls a clothed PASSENGER, also wearing a gas mask. Blood streaks down from his ear, blotting his shirt. He’s passed out cold. Behind them, the interior is a wreck. Beakers and buckets and flasks — some kind of ad-hoc CHEMICAL LAB — spill their noxious contents with every bump we hit. Yellow-brown liquid washes up and down the floor. It foams in a scum around •••. Two DEAD BODIES – the Scareer Brothers. Two freshly deceased bad-looking hombres tumble like rag dolls, bumping into each other.

Completing this picture is the blizzard of MONEY. A Von’s bag lies leaking twenties.

Seventy or a hundred million in cash (accounts differ on the exact amount) wafts around in the air or floats in the nasty brown soup.

CLOSE on the driver’s eyes. He’s panting like a steam engine. His mask FOGS UP until finally he can’t see.

2. EXT. COW PASTURE – CONTINUOUS

The Winnebago comes roaring over a berm and down into a deep gully. Too deep. BAM! The front bumper bottoms out, burying itself. WAAAAAAHI The rear wheels spin air. The engine cuts off. Silence again. The Winnie’s door kicks open and out stumbles underpants man.

He yanks off his gas mask, lets it drop.

He’s forty years old. Fully receded  hairline. A bit pasty.

He’s not a guy who makes a living working with his hands.

He’s not a guy we’d pay attention to if we passed him on the

street. But right now, at this moment, in this pasture?

Right now, we’d step the fuck out of his way.

Underpants man looks at the RV. End of the line for that. He listens hard. Out of the silence, we hear .•• SIRENS. They’re faint, a few miles off — but growing louder. Our

guy knows he’s boned with a capital B. He HOLDS HIS BREATH and leaps back inside the RV.

INT. WINNEBAGO – CONTINUOUS

A chrome 9mm is clutched in the hand of one of the dead hombres. Underpants grabs it, tucks it in his waistband. His unconscious passenger, still strapped in his seat, lets

out a groan. Underpants leans past him, yanks open the glove box. He comes up with a WALLET and a tiny Sony CAMCORDER.

EXT. COW PASTURE – CONTINUOUS

Ducking outside, he starts breathing again. A short sleeve DRESS SHIRT on a hanger dangles from the Winnebago’s awning. Underpants pulls it on. He finds a clip-on tie in the

pocket, snaps it to his collar. No trousers, unfortunately. He licks his fingers, slicks his hair down with his hands. He’s looking almost pulled together now — at least from the

waist-up. All the while, the sirens are getting LOUDER. Underpants figures out how to turn on the camcorder. He twists the little screen around so he can see himself in it.

Framing himself waist-up, he takes a moment to gather his thoughts .•• then presses RECORD.

UNDERPANTS MAN

My name is Arsene Alfonsus Wenger.

I work at Highbury House, Islington.

I am of sound mind. To all law enforcement entities, this is not an admission of guilt. I’m speaking now to our supporters and employees now. (swallows hard)

Pat .•• you are ••• the love of my life. I hope you know that. Dick Law, You’re my big man.

I should have told you things, both of you. I should have said things. But I love you both so much. And our unborn child. And I just want you to know that these .•• things you’re going to learn about me in the coming days. These things. I just want you to know that •.• no matter what it may look like •.• I had all three of you in my heart.

3.

The sirens are WAILING now, on top of us. The underpants man, turns off the camcorder. He carefully sets it on a bare patch of ground by his feet. Next to it he sets

his wallet, lying open where it can be seen. CLOSE ON the wallet — a photo ID card is visible. Arsene’s smiling face is on it. It identifies him as a Supreme Pontif of Arsenal Football Club.

Arsene pulls the chrome pistol from the back of his waistband, aiming it across the tall weeds. It glints hard in the sun. Flashing red LIGHT BARS speed into view, skimming the tops of the weeds. Heading straight for us.

Arsene stands tall in his underpants, not flinching, ready to shoot the first cop he sees •••

Then in the space of 24 hours events unfurl towards a desperate denouement. Of the 2 dead bodies, it transpires than one of them can still transpire. This is not good news at all. This is the worst news. One of these bad hombres, one of the Scareer Brothers is clinging on desperately for life. The other Scareer is dead. Utterly beyond hope. Through an unlikely series of events, they – Ivan and Arsene – the two gas-masked fugitive Winnebago pilots have gotten the clapped out old van with its bodies, chemicals and sodden money back to Arsene’s house.

Now they argued, fought, about who would take career of which Scareer Brother. Who wanted the live one, who wanted the dead. They fought like men who knew they were both fucked, who knew time had already run out, and events had surpassed them.

They fought like men out of their depth, in a business they didn’t understand.

And they solved their biggest decisions, life-changing decisions, like 8 year olds. “We will toss for it.”

Another mad inexplicable choice in a long series of them. Underpants man was now finally wearing clothes. Now he was Arsene again. But Ivan still couldn’t answer himself as to why he had signed up for this crackpot scheme of Arsene’s.

“What is better than buying players?” Arsene had asked.

“Developing them?” Ivan answered sheepishly.

“Bien!” said Arsene. “And what is better than developing players?” he followed up.

Ivan had not the remotest idea.

“Zut! Why… We MUST develop them through In Vitro by the mixing of the greatest sporting DNA in the world. Ahaha haha ha haha ha!” Arsene had screamed while smashing his fist on the table repeatedly, fueled by crazed logic not witnessed since the days of theNazi genetic scientists.

Arsene could rationally talk Ivan into any of his lunatic schemes given a fancy French dinner and 2 bottles of Petrus. But what of the objections about morality, or legality, or even logistics and facilities? What of those?

Indeed. Days later, there they are helter skeltering through a desert in a Winnebago with a chemistry lab, slushing compounds, 2 dead Scareer Brothers and 70m quid sloshing around in the back.

Things had not gone to plan. At all. Arsene had delayed buying the chemicals and equipment believing there would be an end of summer sale but…

So, here Ivan stood, in the basement of the house towering over Crazy 8 who was handcuffed to the piping in the center of the floor. Crazy 8 was the oldest Scareer Brother, and Ivan stared at him, trying to work up the courage to take that pistol and blow his brains out. But instead, Ivan sought a way out. He sought to understand his victim.

“What kind of a name is Crazy 8, Crazy 8 Scareer?” Ivan demanded.

“It is not my real name of course, but Arsene is no name for a dangerous criminal,” he rasped. Ivan’s blood ran cold.

In another part of the house, Wenger wrestled the body of the other Scareer Brother into a bath tube, ready to pour Hydrofluoric acid on it, to literally melt him away (and the bath tub bottom. And the floor.) As he loaded the body into the tub its wallet fell from the pants pocket and flipped open. A picture on a driver’s license stared up at Wenger with the name “Ivan Scareer” printed on it. Wenger’s hands began to shake uncontrollably. A shot rang out from the direction of the basement.

Too late for both of them now.