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DAVID LESTER ART

Normal History Vol. 45: The Art Of David Lester

LesterNormalHistoryVol45Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 26-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

FADE IN:

EXT. A 1975 BABY-BLUE FORD PICKUP TRUCK IS AT A STOPLIGHT AT A DESERTED INTERSECTION IN A QUIET INDUSTRIAL AREA—NIGHT

The driver of the truck—CHAD, a well-built, 40-year-old man with curly blonde hair sticking out beneath his cowboy hat—reaches in front of VERONICA—an unhappy-looking woman in her 40s with long straight brown hair—and tosses an empty Budweiser beer can out the passenger side window. CHAD impatiently turns left before the light turns green. He pulls up in front of VERONICA’s building, beside an orange-juice factory, slams the truck into park and continues to look straight ahead, engine running.

CLOSEUP OF VERONICA LOOKING AT CHAD.

VERONICA
(tentatively)
It’s late so I’m not going to invite you in.

CLOSEUP OF CHAD LOOKING STRAIGHT AHEAD.

CHAD
(hands gripping the steering wheel tightly)
OK. It’s late. Fine.

CLOSEUP OF VERONICA LOOKING AT CHAD. Two beats. VERONICA opens the truck door, gets out, closes the door and looks at CHAD through the open passenger window.

VERONICA’s POV. CHAD keeps looking straight ahead.

VERONICA
(softly)
Good night.

VERONICA’s POV. CHAD pulls a U-turn, tires chirp.

SHOT OF VERONICA walking across the parking lot. VERONICA stops and turns.

VERONICA’s POV. SHOT OF THE TRUCK SITTING AT THE STOPLIGHT.

CLOSEUP OF VERONICA.

CHAD
(VOICE OVER with echo)|
A gentleman doesn’t just drop a lady off my dear; he walks her to her door.

BACK TO VERONICA’s POV. SHOT OF THE TRUCK GOING DOWN THE STREET AND OUT OF SIGHT.

VERONICA
(under her breath)
What an asshole.

SHOT OF VERONICA walking to the door of her building.

FADE OUT.

If you want to say that you don’t drive a baby-blue truck, that you don’t wear a cowboy hat, that I don’t live in a warehouse district—that it wasn’t like that, that you weren’t irritated when you dropped me off—you would be right, but some tiny part of you dropping me off after the opera on that icy winter night informs this scene. I know you were concerned about driving slippery streets in your sports car, and that you were pre-occupied with getting home—that’s why you didn’t wait to make sure I was safely to my door. You were thinking about getting yourself home safely, but I can twist and turn that incident however I want and make it part of a whole other scope of meaning.

Are you beginning to accept that I can write a screenplay that is not simply a thinly veiled version of me? It is insulting that you persist in assuming that I simply change “I” to “Veronica” and call it fiction.