The Good Inn Read online

  Above the chaotic scene, which now has collected many curious onlookers, Eiffel’s tower looms. The newborn baby peers up toward the sky as another scene is unfolding at the top of the tower. A small group of well-dressed men are gleaming down at all of Paris.

  SOLDIER BOY (voice over image): Monsieur Reynaud invented a little machine called the praxinoscope (successor to the zoetrope), which was a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a cylinder that when spun created the illusion of movement through light on a curtain. Edison returned to the Americas and immediately embarked on the realization of the kinetoscope. He hoped to add moving pictures to the sound of his phonograph, effectively stealing Reynaud’s progress and simultaneously rendering it obsolete. I imagined them almost as strange angels looking down at me from the sky, as they were, standing above the clouds, hovering over Paris, on the brightest night this city of light has ever seen. The whole world anxiously waited at Paris’s doorstep, and imaginations were salivating with anticipation at the thought of previous impossibilities coming true—anything impossible suddenly seemed possible. Most of these promises never would come true, not in my lifetime anyway, but a few of these amazing promises . . . did.

  CUT TO BLACK

  ACT I: Guncotton

  You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.

  —LUIS BUÑUEL

  CHAPTER 1

  The Guncotton Investigation

  EXTERIOR/TOULON SHIPYARD/DUSK (in color)

  The afternoon sun sparkles off of the beautiful Mediterranean seaport of Toulon. A lanky soldier, in the springtime of his life, with closely cropped dark brown hair, stands next to his square-shouldered superior, side by side with him. The more innocent and fresher of the two is called SOLDIER BOY. Whether his peers began calling him this to be cruel or as a term of endearment is no longer pondered by his fellow soldiers, his commander, or even himself.

  SOLDIER BOY (voice over image): Eighteen years on and today is the last day I will be sharing a post with my friend and commanding officer, Roussou. To celebrate his retirement, Roussou thinks we should find les putains after our watch, but he is just being nice. The girls always find Roussou first.

  ROUSSOU, a glorious soldier with guts to match, gives Soldier Boy a strong pat on the back as they stand on an empty pier beside the Iéna, the giant warship that they are charged with watching over. The metal hull glints against the ocean, reflecting its deep blue sparkle.

  ROUSSOU: She is magnificent, isn’t she?

  The two stand in awe in the most serene moment imaginable for navy men.

  ROUSSOU: I have a small gift for you on this special day.

  SOLDIER BOY: A gift for me? But it is your day, Roussou!?

  ROUSSOU: I know how you appreciate little trinkets like these. Something to remember me when I am gone.

  Roussou holds up a small, round device, the inside of which contains pictures on a wheel that lines the sides. Each image appears slightly different from the next. Roussou spins the wheel inside and the images come to life, creating a continuous motion.

  SOLDIER BOY (excitedly taking it): It’s a zoetrope!

  ROUSSOU: If you say so.

  SOLDIER BOY: It means “wheel of life.” This was the precursor of the praxinoscope, which is the machine that first turned pictures into light!

  ROUSSOU: It amazes me sometimes, how little you say, and yet when you do, how much it sounds like you know.

  SOLDIER BOY: My aunt took me to see a show called Le Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin in Paris when I was very young. It was the most wonderful thing you could ever imagine. A moving picture conjured by light. It was as if all the lights of Paris had been harnessed and sent through this little hole, turning light into life. On display were these little machines that inspired its inventor’s creation. I haven’t seen one of these since then.

  ROUSSOU: I won it off a trader from the Far East. He seemed quite upset to have to give it up, but I had to have it for you. These little pictures are the one thing that always seem to get you excited.

  SOLDIER BOY: Thank you, Roussou. It is a wonderful gift. Did you know that Edison—

  His words are interrupted by a harsh white light that blasts onto Soldier Boy, pushing his face and hair strangely backward, as if by an explosion.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/INTERROGATION ROOM/NIGHT (in black and white)

  Sitting on one side of a metal table is NAVY MINISTER GASTON THOMSON. On the other side is a very dazed, banged-up, and distracted Soldier Boy.

  GASTON: Shall we begin again?

  SOLDIER BOY: Fine. Yes.

  GASTON: You were about to explain the events of . . .

  SOLDIER BOY: I can’t quite remember. What is there to explain?

  Soldier Boy touches his head, feeling a tightly wound bandage for the first time. Blood has seeped through it.

  SOLDIER BOY: Why am I wearing this ridiculous hat? It seems to be leaking.

  Gaston sighs disparagingly as he turns to recounting the facts that Soldier Boy should already know.

  FADE INTO:

  EXTERIOR/TOULON SHIPYARD/NIGHT (in color)

  (As Gaston recounts the details we witness the entire sequence unfold.)

  All is quiet on the harbor. Roussou and Soldier Boy stumble down the dockside, each holding the other upright, clearly returning from a night of celebration. All around them, lights flicker and bob up and down on the dark waters from dozens of boats docked around the bay. It is so very serene. They laugh as they continue their feeble attempts at holding each other up and walk forward at the same time.

  GASTON (voice over image): On March 12, the Iéna was dry-docked at Toulon’s Missiessy Basin for hull maintenance. A series of explosions began in Iéna’s port-number-five one-hundred-millimeter magazine, which began at one thirty-five a.m. and continued until a quarter past two.

  Suddenly, a small explosion can be heard from inside the Iéna. Then another. Then ten, or a hundred more, maybe even thousands, all in rapid succession like the popping of monstrous angry champagne corks. And then, much like the finale of an epic fireworks display . . .

  BOOM! The sky lights up, and a massive force sends out a shock wave so strong that it knocks the two soldiers to the ground and illuminates the harbor in an apocalyptic daylight glow.

  The Iéna begins to shred herself apart, her bow tilting forward toward Soldier Boy in salute.

  Roussou jumps to his feet and shouts out to Soldier Boy, who has gone momentarily deaf from the sound of the blast. All he can make out is Roussou pointing to another ship down the dock, and then pointing to giant floodgates that hold the Iéna at bay, protecting it from what are now lifesaving waters.

  GASTON (voice over image): It was then that De Vaisseau Roussou ordered you to deliver a message to the commanding officer of the Patrie, water-docked some fifty yards away. The idea was to fire a shell into the dry-dock gate, releasing the water to battle the flames but, due to either your incompetence or bad aim, it failed to properly land on its mark.

  As the fire burns out of control, human bodies fall from the ship in flames, attempting to land in the nearby water. Some succeed, while others do not. Soldier Boy stumbles forward toward the nearby ship, shouting up to its captain, trying to hear his own words over the ringing in his ears.

  GASTON (voice over image): Roussou managed to release the gates by hand and then ran into the fire to rescue his men.

  As the water gushes through the floodgates, Roussou runs past a dazed Soldier Boy into the fiery hole in one side of the Iéna.

  Another gigantic explosion and the sky turns to day. Soldier Boy looks up, mesmerized, into the white that blankets the sky.

  SOLDIER BOY: Ah, Paris!

  The w
ater builds into a furious, towering flood that washes over the side of the Iéna, snuffing out its flames. It then recedes backward, into a wall of water that bursts onto Soldier Boy while carrying the charred debris of the Iéna, bodies, and, finally, the memory of the moment. Once the water recedes again we return to . . .

  INTERIOR/INTERROGATION ROOM/SAME

  (in black and white)

  Gaston slams his fist against the table in order to regain Soldier Boy’s attention, which has turned to a small hole in the distant wall. Light from the adjoining room is traveling through it.

  GASTON: In total one hundred and seventeen soldiers, including two civilians, died.

  SOLDIER BOY: Roussou is gone?

  GASTON: Mostly, yes.

  SOLDIER BOY: Mostly?

  GASTON: Yes.

  SOLDIER BOY: And the others?

  GASTON: Personally, I’d be more concerned with what is to become of you. What should we do with you, Soldier Boy?

  SOLDIER BOY: Me? I didn’t do anything.

  GASTON: Non, bien sûr que non. Someone’s going to take the fire for this. You would prefer it to be me?

  Frustrated, Soldier Boy presses his fingertips against his temples in an attempt to replay the preceding events in his mind.

  CUT TO:

  EXTERIOR/TOULON SHIPYARD/DUSK (in color)

  Soldier Boy stands together with Roussou again, watching the vivid sunset as the water sparkles on all sides.

  GASTON (voice over image): You’ve heard of nitrocellulose-based Powder B in training, of course. Guncotton? Almost eighty percent of the Iéna’s magazines contained it.

  A BLAST! Everything around Soldier Boy disappears. He and Roussou are standing on the deck of the ship, but there is no ship. It has been entirely replaced by whiteness.

  SOLDIER BOY: Where did the ship go?

  ROUSSOU: Blown to bits!

  Soldier Boy turns to Roussou, whose head has vanished, only to be blotted out and replaced with a white HOLE. In the hole are moving scratches, like the end of an old film reel running through the projector’s light.

  SOLDIER BOY: Where did your head go?

  ROUSSOU: Lord! Blown through the roof!

  The hole making up Roussou’s head begins to expand, engulfing Soldier Boy and everything else around him.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/INTERROGATION ROOM/DAY (in black and white)

  Soldier Boy sits, slumped in another cold, nondescript concrete room, or possibly the same one as before. A softer, almost sympathetic official taps his foot, bringing Soldier Boy out of his daze. The official’s uniform is slightly disheveled and a patch of food stains his collar.

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: Don’t look so glum. The rest of the survivors are being dispersed as well. It’s not just you. Actually, consider yourself special.

  SOLDIER BOY: Special?

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: Sure, special . . . You were almost killed! A terrible blast, kaboom! A deathly light came for you and it meant to destroy you. It meant to feed off of you so that it might burn brighter, but you escaped it!

  SOLDIER BOY: I escaped the light?

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: You have been given a freedom the others can’t enjoy. Their reassignments are permanent stations. You can go where you please. Look at it as if you are on a special mission.

  SOLDIER BOY: A special mission to . . . ?

  Lieutenant Louise gives Soldier Boy an uncomfortable look as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, devising a decent way to cut the conversation short.

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: Look, Soldier Boy, go to Paris. See a show. Find a nice girl and have her, or don’t have her. Maybe she won’t be pretty enough for you? Ce n’est pas grave.

  SOLDIER BOY: Who will I be reporting to?

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: All in good time.

  Soldier Boy places his heavy head down onto the table. A driving force pounds against the back of his eyelids, making him feel nauseated. He grinds his teeth, forcing himself to sort through his thoughts. He looks up pleadingly to Lieutenant Louise.

  SOLDIER BOY: You’re just a blur. I am having trouble remembering why I am even sitting here in front of you. If I wanted to, it feels like I could make you disappear completely.

  The lieutenant closes his dossier and looks up at Soldier Boy with empathy.

  LIEUTENANT LOUISE: Perhaps, my friend, that would be best.

  The lieutenant begins to rapidly twitch and blur out of focus. Darkness blows out from his center and transforms into a hollow tunnel. Out of the tunnel, a train pushes through, steam lubricating it, and comes to a stop at a dark station. Above, the sky is a starless black.

  CHAPTER 2

  Wandering

  The explosion of the Iéna in the suburb of Pont du Las triggered what came to be known as “the Gunpowder Scandal.” With casualties of over one hundred soldiers, Navy Minister Gaston Thomson ordered the surviving servicemen to be honorably discharged. One soldier, however, received different orders: only Soldier Boy had seen what had actually occurred on the dock in Toulon, and Minister Thomson did not want him appearing before any inquiry board. Many people had just died, and someone was going to have to be responsible. Despite Gaston Thomson’s best efforts, he was eventually forced to resign and Soldier Boy nearly missed his train.

  EXTERIOR/TRAIN STATION/NIGHT (in black and white)

  Soldier Boy runs to catch the train as it huffs, puffs, and blows off steam.

  INTERIOR/TRAIN CAR/NIGHT

  Soldier boy sits alone in a train car. The night is so dark that nothing can be seen through the windows. It’s almost as if the car isn’t even moving in time.

  A CONDUCTOR walks through the car, shouting out announcements, oblivious to the lack of seated bodies on the train.

  CONDUCTOR: Next stop in fifteen minutes, and then nothing for a while. It’s dark outside, so there is nothing to see. Good time to sleep. Good time to dream.

  The train car SCREECHES without impact, but Soldier Boy is thrust to the side as if it has.

  CONDUCTOR (shouting again to the empty car): We just turned into the mountainside and are hugging it now. We will be for some time, until we aren’t anymore.

  The Conductor checks his watch and walks out of the car, and in through the other end.

  Soldier Boy looks out the window into the blackness.

  A voice behind Soldier Boy speaks. Soldier Boy, entranced by the black hole outside the window, stares into it deeply, getting lost and swallowed up in it. He passively listens while a man in the row opposite him looks out his own window.

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE: They say that everything moves forward due to momentum. Once you’ve gained speed, you can’t help but move forward. Some say that a train like this one does just that. Others believe in a theory based less on gravity and more on evolution. Have you heard of the theory of relativity? It is the latest thing, or at least it will be. Others say that time and space move forward with leaps and bounds due to cataclysmic events completely out of our control. Do you see?

  SOLDIER BOY (turning to the man): Are you speaking to me?

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE (turning to Soldier Boy): I don’t know. Maybe. Could be. It’s not impossible. I wouldn’t be surprised. I speak to myself and hope that others will listen. Sometimes, though, I wonder if what I think out loud would be better left unheard.

  SOLDIER BOY: I don’t really understand, I guess.

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE: This train moves by momentum, only possible because of gravity, but begins to move by a small combustion inside the belly of this beast, that WE IGNITE. It moves because we make it move, but it wouldn’t move if the elements did not allow it to. Do you see?

  SOLDIER BOY: I guess. Are you headed to Paris?

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE: No. Why would you think this?

  SOLDIER BOY: That’s the direction the train is heading.

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE: Ah, yes it is. At this moment. I’m going to a conference in Toulon to present my latest theory.

  SOLDIER BOY: B
ut that is the other direction.

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE: For now, but that could change. Do you see?

  Soldier Boy returns to looking out his window.

  From the center of Soldier Boy’s black abyss, the window fills with words, like in a silent film. It appears to read: “GASP!”

  The man now stands over him, looking down on him quite intensely yet patiently. Soldier Boy turns to look up at the man; his eyes first pass over the label on his briefcase: “Gaston Patents.”

  As Soldier Boy looks up at the oddly friendly and warm face of the man, the train SCREECHES around another bend and the man topples over, and as he does so, he cries out . . .

  MAN WITH THE BRIEFCASE:

  GASP!

  On cue, the Conductor rushes through the car again, stepping over the fallen man and out the door toward the opposite end of the car while shouting.

  CONDUCTOR: Another screech, another bend, around we go, watch your step, watch your footing, a standing passenger has fallen over in car two! Whoopsie daisy!

  The train is dead silent and motionless once again. Soldier Boy stands and offers his hand to the fallen man. As Soldier Boy tries to help the man up, the man panics and swats at the air in front of Soldier Boy. The man is acting almost as if he is blind.