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Billy drops the legal pad onto the coffee table as if he were submitting a dissertation. Stu is less than impressed.
“What’s this?”
“Paper,” says Billy, “You write on it.”
“Hey,” his hackles go up, “I didn’t sign up for more homework.”
“Don’t be a dumbass, Stu,” Billy cocks his head to the side, affecting a gravelly undertone that he thinks makes him sound like Al Pacino (it does not), “Can you do that? Can you not be a dumbass? I don’t want dumbasses in my organization.”
“Then put out an ad,” Stu grins obstinately; they both know he isn’t going anywhere. Billy rolls his eyes, sitting on the edge of the table, which is probably a very expensive bit of furniture, but who cares? It’s not his house.
“Look, I know this is all fun and games and ‘Woohoo, let’s kill some chicks’...”
“Uh, volume ?” Stu spreads his arms as if to ask ‘ Now who’s being a dumbass?’ Billy will never concede the point, so he just gives him the finger and continues.
“We can’t just run into this blind. You need a plan.”
Stu looks at him as if he just started speaking Hungarian. Billy resolves that the stupid motherfucker would’ve imprinted on Goebbels in a second, so it’s a good thing his ambitions are considerably narrower. Call it his own little favor to society.
“These things need structure, alright? You have to have an outline, or else...”
“You get caught?” Stu asks lazily.
Billy had been going to say ‘Or else the story falls apart’, but this is largely the same thing, “So we have to be smart . Which is why you and me are gonna sit here and work on,” he gets a pen out of his pocket and raps it sharply against the pad, “The beat sheet.”
Stu snorts; Billy suppresses the urge to claim his first victim early.
“What’s so funny?”
Stu purses his lips shut and shakes his head like a mentally challenged child. Billy narrows his eyes, “Is it because it sounds like ‘beat meat’?”
Stu reddens, actively choking on his own spit from the look of it.
“Is that it? It sounds like beating your meat?”
Stu purples.
“The euphemism for jacking off?”
He may be steps away from expiring on the spot.
“Otherwise known as masturbation?”
Stu explodes into an obnoxious peal of laughter. Billy almost whacks him with the legal pad, but he stops away and just slaps it against his own face.
“Sorry!” Stu insists through his jubilant wheezes, “S-sorry, man, it’s just...you said ‘beat sheet’ and you gotta know how that sounds, and...”
“Am I the only person taking this seriously? Jesus fucking Christ, man, have some respect. These are matters of life and death and you’re acting like some fucking toddler w-with poop in his diapers and...” he lost track of the metaphor, “Fuck.”
“Fine! Fine,” Stu wipes tears of mirth from his cheeks, “Sorry, Dad .”
Billy winces, “Yeah, don’t do that again. So, the beat sheet ...”
Stu spasms with more ill-intended laughter, “Y-you should...you shouldn’t call it that, Billy. I’ve got a sensitivity.”
“Fine. The B.S.”
Stu howls.
“ The fucking serious thing we’re doing ...” Billy raises his voice to impart the gravity of the situation and also how pissed off he is, “Is an important tool for telling a story.”
Stu immediately assumes a position of mock seriousness, crossing his legs at a 90 degree angle and propping his chin up on his fist.
“Basically, you rattle off all the big moments in the story in a list, and the things in the list are called beats . So, you see, it’s got nothing to do with fucking yourself.”
Stu makes an obnoxious face, sticking his tongue out through two fingers. Billy blinks, “There’s still time for me to find another impressionable idiot to help me with this.”
“No, there’s not. I’m the only impressionable idiot you know.”
Billy scowls, but he can’t deny Stu is right that his social circle has significantly narrowed since his parents split: yet another indignity to lay at Maureen Prescott’s door.
Which was as good a place to begin as any.
“Alright, so a beat sheet has sections, you know? Like categories.”
“Did you steal this from a book?”
Billy gives Stu the most withering look he can manage, “You don’t steal from books, you moron; you learn from them.”
“You read a book about how to kill people?”
He whacks Stu about the shoulder, “I read a book about making a movie.”
“We’re not making a movie, Billy. We’re killing your girlfriend’s whore mother,” he says this in a plummy English accent, which Billy can’t decide is a direct dig at his own admittedly melodramatic monologuing on that subject.
“We are telling a story,” Billy explains tersely, “I’ll be damned if I tell a shit story.”
Stu looks unimpressed, but he shrugs all the same, “Okay. So who are we beating first?”
“Maureen,” Billy answers immediately, realizing only too late that he’d walked right into it. Stu’s shoulders are shaking like he’s about to go into extremis. Billy narrows his eyes and he stops, with great difficulty.
“S-sorry, man. Look, I’m trying, here!”
“Trying to induce a fuckin’ murder-suicide at this rate.”
“That was not in my contract!” he waggles his finger under Billy’s nose and he hates himself for smiling. Stu, given an inch, takes a mile, but he doesn’t override Billy as he goes on.
“So, yeah, Maureen goes first, which makes her the CATALYST.”
He writes the word, in appropriate all-caps, on the legal pad, with Maureen’s name beneath.
“What does that mean? She’s easy or something?”
“It means that killing her is the exciting thing that needs to happen on the first page of the script,” Billy pauses, “So something really good that’s over right away. I guess you’re right.”
“Ha!” Stu fist pumps, “See, I’m learning.”
“Don’t push it. So we kill her, frame that that douche-looking creep she’s been slamming while her husband does his needlepoint. Everyone thinks the story’s over, and then...”
“Part 2, baby!” Stu interjects with unnecessary enthusiasm.
“No, it’s not Part 2. We’re still in Act 1. Maureen’s like the cold open.”
“Openin’ can’t be that cold, man, I’m just saying...”
“ Time passes , Maureen’s man-of-the-month gets carted off to the slammer, everyone thinks it’s over, and then we begin the real shit...” he snaps his fingers, “Sid’s Dad snaps and starts killing pretty teenage girls.”
“Sweet.”
“This is where your old flame comes in...”
He writes THE BIG EVENT on the pad, adding the name CASEY beneath. Stu purrs, which is a noise Billy doesn’t want to have to hear ever again. He thinks he has goosebumps.
“I get to kill her, right?” Stu asks huskily.
“Do you want to sign a document to that effect?”
“I’m serious ...I get to kill her, right?”
“We kill her together and we give each other an alibi . That’s important. Then I set myself up to look really bad to fuck with everybody’s expectations, because why would I want to kill the stupid bitch?” he looks at Stu, “Are you keeping up?”
“Sure, sure,” he looks kind of faraway, “Why does all this sheet beat shit sound dirty?”
“Because you’re a depraved little fuck, Stu, how’s that?” he sighs, “The Big Event is t-the big event, alright? It gets the guy going on his quest.”
“Who’s the guy? You?”
Billy winces, “What? You got a problem with that?”
“Well, why can’t I be the guy?”
“You get to kill your cunt ex-girlfriend, what more do you need?”
“I’m just sayin’, I think we’re both puttin’ in work: we should both be the hero.”
Billy is at his wit’s end here, so he decides to abandon his planned speech about how he debated whether or not Casey’s murder even counted as the Big Event or not, compared to the later attack on Sidney that was supposed to get him arrested. Deciding he may as well fuck around at least half as much as Stu is, he turns to him and asks, “Tell me something, Stu...you gonna feel heroic putting the knife in Casey’s heart?”
Stu scowls, “I’m gonna feel something .”
“Yeah, I bet. Holding her down, one hand over her mouth to keep the screams from coming out, dangle the knife right over the eyeline so she can see it coming...” he leans in, punctuating every word with a tightening grip on Stu’s arm. Stu, noticeably taken aback, regards him through wide eyes.
“Pretty Big Event, right?” Billy notes the impossible-to-miss bulge in Stu’s jeans. Stu turns a bright vermilion, his brow already slick with sweat, “Lay off, man!”
“I wasn’t aware I was collaborating with a weird little sex freak.”
“You made it a sex thing, man! I was just talking about killing her.”
“And getting nice and worked up too,” Billy relinquishes him, “Look, I’m just saying, no self-service at the crime scene. That’s how they got O.J.”
“They didn’t get O.J. and now I have a boner I can’t get rid of. Thanks, man.”
“You’ll figure something out,” Billy returns his attention to the beat sheet, “Now, next up, we have the Pinch...” he writes the word to similar effect, “Which is, like, the midpoint of the story. I sham an attempt on Sid’s life. Her Dad’s already MIA, but I make sure I get caught immediately so it’s more surprising when it turns out I had nothing to do with it.”
“Why is it called the Pinch?”
“What, you care now?”
“I dunno, maybe if you’re really boring, this hard-on will go away.”
“Maybe if I pinch you in the solar plexus, I’ll get the same result,” but he sighs, “It’s called ‘the Pinch’ because the hero is in a pinch and he’s got nowhere to go but forward. It’s the point of no return.”
“Because you’re getting yourself caught?”
“So I can come back better than ever in the next act and why the fuck are you touching yourself ?”
Stu froze, hand still halfway down his pants, “Look, man, you did this. I’m just taking care of it.”
“In front of me ?”
“Oh, like you haven’t been jacking yourself off this whole time with your stupid beat sheet and your plans and...”
“You mean my plan to make sure we get away with fucking murder ?”
“Tomato-tomahto, man! Now, shut up; your voice kills my buzz.”
“I’m not stopping so you can get yourself off!”
“You think you can talk about Casey and I won’t need to jack off?”
“You are a sick fuck.”
“You’re a sicker fuck!”
“Stu, for Christ’s sake...” Billy grabs Stu by the arm, “Knock it off.”
Stu grins like an asshole (the only way he knows how), “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Do you want me to kill you?”
“You’re not killing me, Billy-Boy,” he whispers, his hand still working despite Billy’s best efforts, “You need me for your beat sheet, hero.”
“I can always rewrite the script,” his voice is tight from anger; he considers reaching down further, hurting Stu down there in a way he can’t just laugh off, but he can’t bring himself to do it, which only makes him angrier. There’s always the fear that Stu will prove to be just as dangerous as Billy knows he can be.
He confides in him for a reason, after all. They understand each other...hate each other sometimes too, to a point. Billy likes to think he knows Stu’s limits, but he barely knows his own, so how can he take his own testimony?
“Stop it,” he tries again, but Stu doesn’t listen, “Stu, listen to me.”
“You getting angry, Billy? I touch a nerve?” he chuckles deep in his throat, “Look, just keep beating your sheet and I’ll keep beating my...”
“Fuck. You. Stu.”
He half sits up, brushing his cock against Billy’s arm. He lurches with disgust, at the same time as he feels another white hot surge through him.
“Jesus!”
“Got your blood going, huh? C’mon, man,” Stu leers, “Live a little.”
“Crisis,” he chokes the word out.
“What’s that?”
Stu’s put-upon obstinance has an emboldening effect, “ Crisis ,” Billy almost yells the word, pushing against Stu so he’s pinned against the sofa, “Next beat.”
“What are you doing?” Stu rasps out, evidently genuinely freaked out, which is (considerably) more gratifying than Billy had expected.
“What you suggested,” he speaks through the alarming flush that has overcome him, “Beating my sheet.”
“B-Billy...”
“Keep going,” he nods, “C’mon, don’t let me stop you.”
Stu hesitates, his hard-on now exposed over the lip of his jeans. Finally, he nods, continuing to stroke it.
“The Crisis,” Billy continues, locking eyes with Stu, “All is lost. The hero has failed. There’s no way out.”
“S-sounds pretty shit.”
“It’s the most shit,” Billy agrees.
“Why are we putting that in our movie?”
“Because the hero comes back ,” Billy grabs Stu’s cock in one hand and he moans. He can’t deny he’s hard now too: from proximity, from tension, from the sheer rush of imagining his revenge, his campaign, his fantasy come to life.
“They think I’m dead... Sid thinks I’m dead...killed. She was wrong about me, they were all wrong about me...”
“Billy...” Stu protests, “Billy, I-I’m gonna...”
“No,” he shushes him, “Movie’s not over yet, it’s a false defeat.”
“ Billy !”
“Hold on!” Billy snaps, “Hold on for me.”
Stu bit his lip, “N-now who’s the sick fuck?”
“Shut up,” Billy orders, and Stu shuts up.
“Sidney thinks I’m dead...meantime, ’tween you and me, we trim the herd a little more.”
“More work for me, sounds like.”
“Builds character.”
“Fuck, Billy...”
“Don’t,” his muscles tense, “Don’t say my name.”
“W-who kills Sid?”
“ I kill Sidney,” he says softly, “She deserves that much. That’s the Showdown. Conflict between forces. Good and evil, light and darkness...”
“Man and woman?” even trapped on the brink of release, Stu still has the capacity to be a tiresome shithead.
“I kill her. Her Dad gets it too, but we make it look like it was self-defense. He has to take the rap for everything or else it all falls apart.”
“Talkin’ of fallin’ apart, man...”
“Don’t...”
“Billy, I can’t...”
“Stu...”
“Fuck you!” he screams as he comes all over Billy, who reels back with a short scream of disgust, falling from the couch and into the coffee table.
They both sprawl out in their respective positions of defeat, panting and disgusted with themselves.
Or, at least, Billy is disgusted with something . He isn’t sure what Stu is feeling, besides spent.
“Got it out of your system?” he asks heavily, hatefully. Stu, naturally, laughs, which only pisses him off more, “What’s so fucking funny?”
When Stu finally regains enough of his composure to speak, it is to pant out, “G-good movie, man. Totally getting tickets for the sequel.”
Billy aims a punch, but Stu catches it, looking at him upside down from the edge of the sofa. They look at each other for an uncertain amount of time, Billy feeling his friend’s spunk drying on his skin and shirt.
He laughs; Stu laughs with him.
They never get around to plotting the last beat in the sheet: the Denouement, when all loose ends are tied up and the story can come to a comfortable conclusion.
Billy figures he can work out that stuff once they get to it. Anyway, the exercise was somehow less fun now that Stu had exhausted himself.
Not that he’d ever admit it.