WITNESS

by Robert Healy

INT. CAR - MID-MORNING

DREXEL

Addiction saved me, man. I'm telling you, if it wasn't for addiction I wouldn't be here.

MULE

Now you must think of addiction as a force and you as its pawn. You are not saved. You are anchored.

DREXEL

How can one be the pawn of his own predilection?

MULE

By promoting the idea that one's predilection is impartial, or, that one's predilection is a part of who one is—that the addiction is a principal in the formation of one's identity. This cannot be. The addiction is nothing but the identity's exponent, it is a symptom of weakness. Identity itself can be composed of addictions, but the identity forms the addictions; an addiction is always an effect and never a cause. You seek the effect and create causes which will take you there.

DREXEL

My identity allows for a certain amount of addiction. It makes me feel good on a quiet fall morning.

MULE

Your addiction manifests as action. It originates as a thought. A repeated traveler in your mind that has built itself into a golem and bears a chameleonic ability to shapeshift away from any identification as detrimental. You mark this traveling thought as a muse, or a singular whim which once taken care of will not return. And you kill it, this thought towards action, with your own hands, by following its directions. You commit to this addiction while crushing its messenger.

DREXEL

Patience calls-

A phone rings; Drexel's. Drexel answers.

DREXEL

Hello, boss.

CALLER

Have you taken care of it?

DREXEL

On our way now.

CALLER

'Our?' Is Mule with you?

MULE

Hi, Fred.

CALLER FRED

It's... Drexel, these jobs are meant to be done discretely. I don't want extra eyes on this one.

DREXEL

Gotcha, boss. I'll leave Mule in the car.

Mule looks indignantly at Drexel.

FRED

Good. Call me when it's done.

*CLICK*

MULE

What'd you have to say that for? It's about time I received a real opportunity from him.

DREXEL

Do not tire of waiting, for waiting is all we are.

MULE

At least roll down the windows for me.

The two men drive into a neighborhood. Streets are quiet and free of cars. It is noon. Drexel drives to a home at the end of a cul-de-sac and pulls into the driveway. He reaches across Mule and opens the glove compartment, revealing an assortment of items.

A very used copy of Roberto Bolaño's 2666, an essay on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, a Glock pistol, a Fiber One bar, Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, a book of logic puzzles, a pocket Rumi, a box of surgical masks, and a box of nitrile gloves.

Drexel withdraws a pair of gloves, a mask, and the Glock. Upon donning the gloves Drexel begins to handle and load the gun.

MULE

You treat that thing like a woman.

DREXEL

Better.

MULE

Can I come in with you?

DREXEL

No.

Drexel pulls the surgical mask above his nose.

DREXEL

I'll be back in a minute.

Drexel rolls down the windows and leaves the car on. He steps out and walks around to the back of the house, lost from view.

Mule sits, somewhat impatiently, and fiddles with his window.

From the corner of his eye to the rearview mirror to the driver's side windows he follows a squirrel as it journeys across the sidewalk. From inside a quiet bang can be heard.

Mule pulls down his sunshade. Two more bangs.

Drexel steps out through the front door and returns to the vehicle, depositing three spent bullet casings into a cupholder. He pulls the car out of the driveway and we are left in the mid-day silence of suburbia.

--

INT. CAR - EARLY AFTERNOON

MULE

I saw a squirrel.

DREXEL

When?

MULE

When you were in the house. I think it looked at me.

DREXEL

Like a 'welcome to the neighborhood' look or an 'I know what you're up to' look?

MULE

I think it was an Oliver Twist look, like I had something it wanted and only the right amount of tact could acquire it.

DREXEL

What do you have that the squirrel wanted?

MULE

I don't know. A soul, perhaps? Access to a car? A state-issued identity?

DREXEL

Hmm.

MULE

It also witnessed a murder. Or at least witnessed an individual waiting on a murder to be committed in order to eat.

DREXEL

Let me call Fred and then we can eat.

*LINE RINGING*

FRED

Yes.

DREXEL

It's done.

FRED

Good. Any notes?

DREXEL

No. Clean and complete.

FRED

Thank you. We'll talk later.

*CLICK*

--

INT. DINER - AFTERNOON

MULE

Have you ever had such good brisket?

DREXEL

I think I left someone in that house.

MULE

What?

DREXEL

I heard a noise as I was leaving. The job was three but I think I missed one. A witness.

MULE

You wore a mask. You completed what was ordered of you. A witness means nothing unless you refer to yourself. How can you allow a thought like that to invade your lunch?

DREXEL

I mean I left a fucking trail! I left a loose end that will unravel the whole operation.

MULE

All things are loose ends. Loose ends are what we travel upon—the loose ends of our life.

DREXEL

Shut up. I need to call Fred.

MULE

No, you need to take a deep breath. What will Fred do in this situation? He will distance himself. He will remove all associations he has with you, a murderer, and claim to be receiving calls from a crazed killer. Fred will be no help to you. What is the condition which places the proletariat in the state of mind to believe their superiors care about them? This is the true trick of the ruling class. Almost a panopticon of sorts, the conscience. By imposing a system of artificial sympathy the ruling class leaves the work of confession to the criminal; let the guilty come to us for punishment, the ruling class states. The poor must handle their own investigations. Either that or be replaced, never to be missed or wondered about. You are a flawed character to Fred, and you are his underling. What makes you think he will help you?

DREXEL

My worry is of dismissal. A living witness poses problems. Three murdered and a fourth to watch, it's perfect for the nightly news. Fred will find out and I will be the next to die.

MULE

Not if you turn the tables. Why do you involve yourself with the psyche of your superiors?

DREXEL

He's not my superior!

MULE

He's the one who pays you. That is a form of belittlement.

DREXEL

I don't want Marxism I want to find a solution.

MULE

Oh, but this is not a problem. Not that there ever really is such a thing. A living witness is an opportunity for lies. Evidence on its own tells no lies but a witness can do wonders. A witness only sees a violent crime through the lens of survival. Their survival positions them as a superhuman in some sense, still living in the face of such evil, but also as an aider and abettor. They witnessed and yet the crime continued. Their view changes nothing of the criminal's actions. In this way their testimony must be self-interested, as a deer in headlights: They had the opportunity to intervene or to watch, and they chose to watch, if only for the preservation of their perspective of events.

DREXEL

What does this mean in practice?

MULE

It means the surviving witness is a symbol of luck and grace and, really, is unnatural. If you undermine the witness as a symbol then their testimony will mean nothing.

DREXEL

So I make it known that leaving a witness was intentional. The witness, if there is one, is an aider and abettor of the criminal by the very fact that they were allowed to live. You are saying that the acknowledgement of a witness by the criminal turns a crime into a scene in which the witness is in full participation. An actor, in effect.

MULE

Yes. Turn the witness into an actor. The criminal is the director of the crime—the scene—and the actors, once acknowledged and involved in the production, can offer no criticism. The criminal is an auteur. This is the exercise of crime as drama, which it very much is. The perspective of the witness is shallow and forced, in that they have not the perspective of the auteur, and they have not been cast in the role of a victim.

DREXEL

I need to find this witness, then.

MULE

Think about what they might want. It's been an hour.

DREXEL

I'd like to call Fred.

MULE

No! You can do this yourself. Together with me.

DREXEL

We can't go back to the house. If there is a witness they would already be gone and police would be everywhere. If there isn't a witness it would invite suspicion for us to be snooping around.

MULE

Your car has already been in the driveway. Your actual car.

DREXEL

I know what to do. I'm going to send a message to the police. I'm going to create doubt. I'll put up a poster at the police station:

MULE

No. This poster implies knowledge of the crime. The police would instantly focus on finding the poster's creator. Focus on the witness as an entity in the retelling of a crime, as an appartus through which evidence is interpreted.

DREXEL

I want to disrupt the connection between witness and detective.

MULE

Yes, but see, there are interesting forks in the road here. The witness plays separate roles in the solving of the crime and in the prosecution of the crime. Your wish, far more than to be found not guilty, is not to be found at all. Therefore you must focus not only on the unreliability of the witness, but the willingness of a detective to use a witness in the first place. You want this witness to be disregarded.

DREXEL

One of the issues in this particular circumstance is that I know nothing of the witness beyond their existence, and even that fact is tenuous.

MULE

So attack the symbol. Abhor the very principles witnessing is composed of. The senses alone do not create truth.

DREXEL

Tampering. We portray the witness as being inherently tampered.

MULE

You must engage the idea that a single perspective provides no truth. That a single perspective can only lie.

DREXEL

I must question the witness directly, and by doing so negate their power. I must make the witness wary of their own understanding.