Growing up Gorman
Growing Up Gorman 1
An Original Screenplay Written By Eric Goren
Song Playing: No Sleep Till Brooklyn- Beastie Boys
EXT. Panoramic view of New York City skyline-day–fades into the Long Island Expressway; then pans off an exit into typical Long Island suburbia-glimpses of suburban sprawl-strip malls, houses. Camera pans down a typical suburban block, to the typical suburban house Gorman lives in. The house is a split level one car garage with a nicely manicured front lawn.
Opening credits roll Song playing: Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses
Car pulls up into the driveway-pan into the interior of car. A hand touches the Sirius Satellite radio and song changes to Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses. You see 36 year old DEREK GORMAN playing with his satellite radio and he mutters to himself something inaudible. The car is a late model Japanese brand four door sedan.
INT. Gorman’s Car-Day
Derek Gorman is thin, dark haired (with a spiky look gelled up), man who is a teacher in Brooklyn. He is dressed in a black Polo Shirt, black shoes and Tan Khaki pants. He is stylish for a man in his mid 30's. Gorman comes across as an intelligent, eager, comical, yet hyper man.
GORMAN
I love this song.... “Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.. Oh, won’t you please take me home....yeah yeah..” Wow, I can’t believe this song came out almost twenty years ago....Holy shit. Man, am I getting old.
EXT. Gorman’s front lawn-Late Afternoon
Gorman gets out of car and sees his next door neighbor who happens to be his long time childhood friend, CRAIG SCHWARZBERG. Craig is a middle age man who is has thinning blonde hair. He 5'11 and has blue-grey eyes. He is wearing Jeans, black Nike Airs and a neutral color T-Shirt. Craig is mellow and focused as a computer technician and has a more laid back attitude.
GORMAN
What a long day at work. My students were going nuts today. It’s
almost the end of the year and as you remember even when we were in school, we would go fuckin’ crazy.
CRAIG
(mellow)
Work sucks. I got off early today and I took the 3:45 from Penn Station. If I have to look at another computer I’m gonna scream.
2
GORMAN
Hey, you’re not going believe this.
CRAIG
What is it?
GORMAN
Patricia is......
CRAIG
What, man?
GORMAN
(extremely happy)
My wife is pregnant, we’re finally havin’ a kid.
CRAIG
(surprised) Holy shit, man, that is incredible news. Let me go inside and tell Cathy. She’s gonna freak out.
GORMAN
(pondering)
I can’t believe that we’re married, working stiffs, and to boot I have a child on the way....It seems like just yesterday that we were in high school and doing our stupid shit..... Life’s amazing.....I’m 36 years old and I still feel like a kid today.
CRAIG
Yeah, I remember 1988 so well....The images, our high school, our friends, even our enemies, playing the music...Man, those were the days...... No family, no cares, no bills, no worries.....We’ve come a long way since then, don’t ya think?
GORMAN
Have you heard from Sanjay or Jerry lately?
CRAIG
(pauses)
Yeah, I spoke to Sanjay a couple of months ago. Can you believe he is engaged to a twenty one year old Australian chick?
GORMAN
(looking surprised)
No, I always though he was gay! I’m really happy for him and (pulling out his cell phone) I will give him a call.
PATRICIA, Gorman’s wife, comes out of the house and walks towards Derek and Craig. Patricia
3
is a petite blonde , blue eyed lady who is in great physical shape. She is also a teacher (elementary 5th grade) in Queens. She is wearing a light blue tank top
with a flowered mini skirt and open heeled sandals. She is very attractive. She is a great complement to Gorman’s character. Patricia is calm and thoughtful.
PATRICIA
Hey honey, how was work? (Gives Gorman a kiss). Hi, Craig, how are you? (They hug)
CRAIG
Congrats on the baby on the way...... It’s wonderful news.
PATRICIA
Thanks, why don’t you and Cathy come over for dinner in a few minutes so we all can talk, celebrate, and chill out.
GORMAN
That sounds like a plan. Work was...OK....I’m glad to be home now. The traffic sucked on the LIE but that’s life in a nutshell.
INT-Gorman’s dining room-Early Evening
Gorman and Patricia go inside their house and begin setting out the food. They have platters of Boston Chicken and sides from Boston Market. In the dining room there is a table that seats 6 people. The flooring is hard wood. It has a light and airy feel. The room is mid sized and leads into the kitchen which is modern and updated.
Moments later, Craig and CATHY come inside the Gorman’s home. Cathy is Craig’s wife. She is dressed in tight jean capris and a white tank top and open toe sandals. She is also mellow and attractive. She did not grow up with Craig, Gorman, or Patricia and is a bit out of the loop on events and happenings in their youth.
CATHY
I heard the great news, congratulations guys (she kisses both Gorman and Patricia). How does it feel to have a baby on the way?
PATRICIA and GORMAN
(looking lovingly at each other)
Fantastic!
PATRICIA
Everybody dig in, we got plenty of food.
4
CRAIG
Man, in high school we lived on this stuff....KFC, Taco Bell, Big Macs, Whoppers, Slurpees. The better the food tastes, the bigger my gut gets...Now I eat tasteless salads and tofu....Yummy (Craig gets a huge plate of food and starts eating).
GORMAN
(taking a plate of food as well)
Hey, Craig, at least you’re not a big fat pig like most of the thirty something crowd we deal with. Can you pass the potatoes?
Cathy and Patricia also grab plates and start eating at the table.
PATRICIA
(looking at Craig and Cathy)
How long have you guys been married? (Pause) Is it eight years yet?
CRAIG
No, it’s been 7 long years...Is my sentence up yet? (Laughs)
CATHY
Almost 8....How bout you? I forget... (looks at Patricia and Derek)
PATRICIA
Twelve years!
GORMAN
And hotter than ever....Oh, baby, what I would do to you if the Schwarzbergs weren’t here.....(licking his fingers).
CRAIG
Hey, you guys have known each other a lot longer than 12 years. Didn’t you meet in like 1988 or something???
CATHY
Wow!!!
PATRICIA
Two decades and counting....It’s been over twenty years since our first um date! I guess you can call it that.
GORMAN
What do you mean, you guess you can call it that. I rescued you from that asshole you were going out with before you met me...Jake Prouty.
5
CRAIG
Wasn’t he on the football team? He had a lot of friends, didn’t he? He and his friends really tormented you?
GORMAN
Well, they kind of abused our little group, but I got the last laugh....
Gorman looks extremely sad and starts thinking and pondering.
PATRICIA
Baby, are you OK, Craig was only kidding. You weren’t abused. It wasn’t that bad.
GORMAN
(pondering look)
It’s been almost twenty fuckin year since then. Life
just jets by. Jeez!
CRAIG
Do you remember twenty years ago? I loved the 80's-the music, the styles, the absolute cheeziness of the decade.
PATRICIA
(smiling)
Yeah, Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order, U2, Erasure, Simple Minds. And my favorite group-When In Rome-I just loved that song The Promise.
Gorman, remember when you serenaded me with that song?
GORMAN
Yeah, I do.
CATHY
I was more a Material Girl- Madonna was so hot- I dressed like her in high school. Today, if I wore those outfits, people would think I was a hooker. (laughs)
CRAIG
You’re not a hooker. Hootchie maybe....Damn.
GORMAN
(looking at Craig, Craig looking at Gorman)
Forget about that girls, Cheese metal was all the rage. It was the fuckin best.
We loved that shit.
6
CRAIG
(excited)
Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, RATT.
GORMAN
(Very excited)
The Crue, GNR, Cinderella, Poison, Warrant, Great WhiteSnakelion.
CRAIG
(Laughing hard)
Dokken, Skid Row, David Lee Roth solo, Van Hagar.
GORMAN
(laughing)
Slaughter, Britney Spears.... no Britney Fox, Faster Pussycat, those Bible Busters Stryper....(singing like all in the family) Those were the days. If we only had IPODS back in the 80's...My IPOD is full of the glam metal bands.
CRAIG
They were so cheesy with their Spandex pants, the Aqua Net big hair, lipstick, all of the chicks they banged. You know, this conversation reminds me when we were hanging out in Jerry’s garage. We would create all sorts of scenarios and discuss useless information. Whose the best Cheese metal band? Who was the hottest girl in school?
GORMAN
(looking at Craig)
Craig, I figured out the theory for success as a
cheesy glam metal band of the late 80's: Put out a crappy slightly hard rockin song for the guys and then the next single would be the slow sappy power ballad for the chicks. I should have been the CEO of SONY or Warner Bros. That was the formula for success. We should know all to well.
(Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer plays in the background).
PATRICIA
You remember the band you guys started and the stir it caused at the high school. You were real geeks....But I dug you Derek from the moment I saw you (looking lovingly at her husband).
GORMAN
When was the last time you strummed your bass?
7
CRAIG
A very long drunk, and stoned time ago..The last time I played was in my senior year of college in Binghampton. How bout you?
GORMAN
Believe it or not, it was with my crappy metal band at NYU in 1991. Right before Nirvana killed the heavy metal star.
CATHY
A while ago you guys were talking about dating and high school stuff. What happened in high school that changed your lives?
CRAIG
Cathy, you know that Gorman and I were best friends in high school and Patricia and Gorman dated throughout their senior year.
CATHY
I know! We’ve talked about this so many times.
GORMAN
I’ve got to go to upstairs. I gotta get something. Excuse me.
INT. Gorman’s bedroom-Early Evening
Gorman walks away from the table and goes into the den towards the bathroom..turns back. He looks at some pictures of his past- a picture when he was a
teenager with his parents and sister, a picture of Patricia and him on their wedding day, college graduation picture. He then walks into the bedroom and shuts and locks the door and pulls out the drawer next to his bed. The bedroom has a great big king sized bed in the middle, two night stands, a plasma TV, DVD/CD player, a skylight in the ceiling making the room light and airy. There is a big closet in the bedroom. The bedroom has neutral colors tan and brown.
INT: Dining room-Evening
Pan back to Patricia, Craig, and Cathy. They are still discussing the past.
INT: Bedroom-Evening
Pan back to Gorman in his bedroom.
Gorman is sitting on his bed and empties the drawer of stuff onto the bed...Pictures, papers, bills fall onto the bed. He rifles through the drawer.
8
GORMAN
(Softly)
Jesus Christ, I forgot that I had this stuff. I haven’t looked through this in years.
Camera pans to a close up of his high school yearbook-blue exterior with gold writing 1988. He pulls out an old high school year book, flips through it, laughs, and a picture of Gorman, Craig, Sanjay, and Jerry falls out. Gorman picks it up. The four boys are dressed in their heavy metal Cheese band outfits ). Gorman flips the picture over and it is dated June 3, 1988 and title “Battle of the Bands”.
GORMAN
Shit, I remember that....Check out those mullets and the ripped acid washed jeans.....Unbelievable.
Gorman continues flipping through the yearbook and nestled at the end of the yearbook is a flyer advertising the battle of the bands from twenty years ago. Gorman takes it out and holds it. He then goes to the closet and sifts through the closet until he pulls out a beat up old red and white electric guitar (it looks like the one from the Van Halen video “Jump”-camera pans to the guitar).
GORMAN
(Softly)
Cool!
He then starts strumming the chords to Talk Dirty to Me by Poison
Screen begins to fade out.
Fade out 2006, fade in 1988 (song is still playing).
INT: Gorman’s bedroom-evening
Scene opens up in Gorman’s bedroom in 1987. Radio is blaring from where Gorman left
off ....Talk Dirty to Me.....GORMAN has his shirt off, torn jeans on and is singing along to the song looking in the mirror. Gorman is a skinny, nerdy kid with curly, long black hair and dark eyes. His hair is shorter in the front and longer in the back. He loves his music, isn’t popular at all, is quite hyper, and lacks confidence.. The room is typical late 80's style 17 year old male teenager. There are album posters everywhere-Def Leppard, Guns’N Roses, ACDC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Ratt, and others. A single bed contains a black comforter but the bed is not made. There is a desk with schoolbooks and a phone on it. There is also a small stereo system with small speakers set up in the room. All around the room are cassettes and albums of heavy metal, pop, and rock music of the 80's. A mirror stands near his bed. The room is slightly messy (overflowing garbage pail, some clothes on the floor).
As Gorman is singing and looking in the mirror, mom and sister enter the room.. His MOM is 45 years old and is wearing a black vest over a button down shirt and mom style jeans. Mom wears