SCENE 11
Day. Cemetery. GUY MANN is walking slowly through the rows of headstones. He's holding a brown paper bag concealing a bottle of liquor. MULDER pulls up in the gold MPV and gets out to follow him. He kneels down at a headstone to pick up a fresh bunch of flowers before carrying on over to where
GUY MANN is standing.
MULDER stops and kneels down at
an adjacent headstone, which reads:
In Memory of
KIM
MANNERS
January 13, 1951
January 25, 2009
"Let's Kick It In The Ass"
MULDER places the flowers at the base of the headstone before placing his palm on its face in a mark of respect. He stands, using his hand to brush the top of the headstone clear of dust and fallen leaves. GUY MANN is standing next to MULDER, his left hand atop a headstone. He notices MULDER and offers him the brown bag, but MULDER silently mouths "No" to politely refuse it.
MULDER: (turning to MANN)
Did you lose somebody recently?
GUY MANN:
Yeah. Myself. I know this sounds weird, but... until a few days ago, I didn't know we die. I mean, I always knew we could die. I instinctively knew to avoid death, but what I didn't know is... no matter what we do, eventually you end up in a place like this.
MULDER: It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, does it?
GUY MANN: It doesn't make any sense. (Waving his arms) Nothing makes sense.
MULDER: I don't mean to intrude, but you seem to have something weighing heavily on you. It might help to get it off your chest.
GUY MANN: You mean... to confess?
MULDER: If you have something to confess.
MULDER takes a step closer to GUY MANN.
GUY MANN: Well, I confess that... if life is nonsense... I just want this madness to end.
MULDER: But you're not thinking of doing anything crazy, are you?
GUY MANN: No. I'm just gonna (pause) kill you. (Excitedly) You ready?!
GUY MANN pulls the green liquor bottle out of the brown bag and smashes it on the headstone in front of him, before lunging at MULDER with it. MULDER ducks out of the way, before righting himself and attempting to draw his gun. GUY MANN tries to stop him by grabbing the gun, knocking MULDER to the ground in the process. The gun bounces away out of reach.
GUY MANN: No, not the gun, you fool!
MULDER hits the ground with a thud. We finally see the headstone that GUY MANN was standing in front of. It reads:
For
JACK
HARDY
JULY 16 1953
MARCH 24 2015
NOTHING SAYS THANK YOU
LIKE CASH
Now MULDER's lying on his back, unarmed. GUY MANN is looming over him with the broken bottle.
GUY MANN: You okay?
MULDER: (Confused) Huh?
GUY MANN: Oh!
GUY MANN theatrically stumbles, dropping the broken bottle right on front of MULDER.
GUY MANN: Oh, no! I've lost my weapon!
MULDER picks up the bottle and jumps to his feet. GUY MANN grabs the bottle and, with MULDER still holding it, tries to stab himself in the appendix, holding his shirt up with his free hand.
GUY MANN: Here!
MULDER pulls the bottle out of GUY MANN's hand. Suddenly MANN puts his hands around MULDER's neck, but MULDER puts up no resistance.
GUY MANN: Come on, defend yourself!
MULDER: I know what you're trying to do. The green glass, the appendix. But I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna kill you. I want to help you.
GUY MANN looks disheartened.
GUY MANN: The only way you can help me, mister, is... by killing me. (Pleading with MULDER) Please. Just put me out of my misery.
MULDER: Okay. I'll do it. I'll kill you.
GUY MANN: Thanks, Mister! You're, like, the only nice person I've ever met!
MULDER: But first I want to hear how this happened to you.
GUY MANN sighs deeply.
GUY MANN: Oh...
MULDER: The whole story.
GUY MANN: Okay.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a new, unopened bottle of liquor.
GUY MANN: But you're gonna need this. (He pulls out the stopper and offers the bottle to MULDER.) It's a shocker.
MULDER looks at the bottle and sighs.
SCENE 12
Night. Forest. A bright full moon hangs in the sky shrouded by clouds. We're in flashback to the events at the beginning of the episode, but from GUY MANN's perspective.
We see GUY MANN in were-lizard form, relaxing in a forest floor clearing, lying back with his hands behind his head and a grass stem in his mouth. We hear a twig snap close by and a man cry out. He suddenly sits bolt upright, looking around.
MAN: Stop! No! Aah!
Two men wrestling each other crash through the nearby branches. GUY MANN drops to the ground, turns over and lies face down in the earth, trying to disappear and not be noticed by the two men who are still locked together and writhing on the ground right next to him. We see PASHA, the animal control officer, in control of the other man. He pins him down, leans over him and bites his neck. GUY MANN notices and jumps to his feet. He roars at PASHA to try and stop him. PASHA jumps to his feet and starts to grapple with GUY MANN, still in his were-lizard form. PASHA grabs him around the shoulders and cranes his neck around GUY MANN's horny face and bites him on the side of the neck.
GUY MANN: Aah!
After the attack, GUY MANN fends off PASHA who is thrown to the ground. GUY MANN stands there with is hand on his neck, whimpering and waving his arms around in panic, before running off, straight at the two STONERS we saw earlier. They see him coming just as he leaps through the middle of them and makes his getaway through the forest.
MALE STONER: Dude...
Cut back to MULDER and GUY MANN in the cemetery.
MULDER: Wait. I'm confused already. You said you were going to start at the beginning.
GUY MANN: I am. That's how the whole thing started. I should have stayed still, but I panicked. I tried to scare off that predator. Of course, that only made him more rabid. I didn't even get a chance to shoot blood out of my eyeballs.
MULDER: So you're saying a man bit you? (GUY MANN pulls his shirt collar down to reveal the neck wound from PASHA. MULDER is decidedly unimpressed.) That looks like a hickey.
GUY MANN: Well, it looks different when I'm normal.
MULDER: Is this what you look like when you're "normal"?
MULDER pulls out the three-eyed lizard creature sketch. GUY MANN is incredulous at the likeness.
GUY MANN: What!? Three eyes!? (Deadpan) But yeah, that's actually quite close.
MULDER: So wh... when did you... first transform?
GUY MANN: Oh, that didn't happen till the next morning...
Flashback to the forest on the morning after the attack. GUY MANN is lying along a tree trunk. He's in human form, and he's naked. He opens his eyes and looks up. He holds his hand in front of his face, trying to understand what has happened to his body.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) My transformation wasn't just physical but mental. I heard a voice in my head. My voice. I became conscious of my own self-consciousness and then I had my very first thought: "I'm naked!" I became overcome by some irrational need to cover up.
Sitting up on the tree trunk, he looks around and see the bodies of three victims lying in a depression under the large unearthed root ball of a fallen tree.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) For some unknown reason, there was a bunch of dead bodies lying around...
He walks over the bodies. We see one of the victims with a large wound to his neck. He's wearing the familiar shirt, jacket, trousers and Fedora.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) Now, I had never worn clothes before, but through some primordial instinct, I... I knew how to put them on. (He takes the clothes off the victim's body and puts them on.) Once clothed, I became... possessed. I fought against it as much as I could, but I lost control. I had to go on a hunt. I had to hunt down a... a...
MULDER: A human victim?
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) No, a job...
MULDER: Uh...
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) My craze wouldn't be satiated until I found steady work. So I walked straight into town and rather tragically I... I found something right away...
Cut to the "smart phones ...is us" store on GUY MANN's first day. He's talking technobabble to a female customer.
GUY MANN: (talking to customer) Now, this model comes with 3,000 gigabertz of pixelbits...
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) It's perfect for me. I have no idea what I'm saying, and neither do my customers.
GUY MANN: (to customer) You can see from the shape of it that it's quite rectangular...
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) By the end of the day, I was the manager.
Back to the cemetery.
MULDER: Putting aside the logistics of no Social Security number, no references...
GUY MANN: I don't need any of that stuff. You see, now I possess the one Darwinian advantage that humans have over other animals: the ability to B.S. my way through anything! (Smiling) I mean, it's better than camouflage!
MULDER: You wouldn't happen to be, uh, B.S-ing me right now about all this, would you?
GUY MANN: I don't know. Maybe? I don't understand half the things I'm telling you.
MULDER: I find that... disconcerting.
GUY MANN: What's even more disturbing is what I did after work that first day. I was so exhausted, out of my mind, I... (looking despondent) I committed a murder...
MULDER: Who did you kill?
GUY MANN: A cow.
(Cut to GUY MANN standing in an Andy's drive-thru queue, ordering food at the intercom.
GUY MANN: I'd like a double cheeseburger and a large order of fries.
FEMALE CLERK: Sir, if you're not in a car, you have to come inside to order.
GUY MANN: (As if this simple request makes absolutely no sense) Why?
Back to the cemetery.
MULDER: In your natural state, you're a vegetarian?
GUY MANN: No, an insectivore. But no one likes insects, not even other insects. Anyway, I-I took my kill, checked into a motel, and then I just spent the rest of the day helplessly watching... porn.
Porn music is playing. GUY MANN is lying on the bed in the motel, eating his take-away. He leans over to the bedside table where his large drink is standing. He puts his face right over the open cup and starts to quickly flick some of the liquid into his mouth with his tongue.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) But then, sometime during the night, a change occurred.
He reaches down on the bed to grab up the remote, but when he picks it up to change channel he notices that his hand has turned into that of the were-lizard. He looks at his other hand, still holding his cheeseburger. That has also changed. He leaps off the bed excitedly and races to the mirror. He stares into the mirror, expectantly. Moments later, his face starts to transform into that of the were-lizard. He grins jubilantly.
GUY MANN: Yeah, all right!
He excitedly peels off his shirt. His chest is scaly. He pulls off his trousers to reveal his scaly green legs and pristine white underpants. He jumps onto the bed, whooping and hollering as he bounces on the mattress.
GUY MANN: Come on!. Whoo, yeah! I'm back, baby!
He drops onto his chest on the bed. We see his fully transformed red eyes and horny face.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) I was myself again. And everything was fine... until the next morning.
The next morning in the motel. GUY MANN is woken by his alarm clock. He is still in were-lizard form. He leans over to the bedside table. He smacks the alarm clock across the room angrily. He sits on the side of the bed, breathing heavily. He yawns. As he does so he starts to transform back into human form. We see his moustache has not quite reappeared fully. His puts a finger in his right ear and scratches. The missing moustache pops out. He yawns again as he gets to his feet and slowly lumbers over the coffee machine, groaning.
GUY MANN: Coffee. Need coffee.
He opens the coffee machine and pours in some ground coffee.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) Alas, I was human again.
He pours ground coffee into his mouth. He chews it a little before coughing it up.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) I went back to work. But now that I had a job, all I could think about was how much I hated my job.
Flashback to inside the "smart phones ...is us" store. It is empty. GUY MANN is leaning against one of the phone handset displays, fake-smiling to invisible customers. Suddenly he's had enough.
GUY MANN: Oh, that's it. I quit!
He flips the display over and handsets go flying across the store floor. He tears of his jackets and throws it at the wall in anger.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) But I was too overcome with human fear to quit. How would I pay my bills?
Calmed down, he gets on his knees and starts to pick up the handsets.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) Without a job, I'd-I'd never get a loan and start a mortgage, whatever that is. Already I was terrified I wasn't saving enough for my retirement.
He kneels back, sighing as he contemplates his future life. We cut back to the cemetery.
GUY MANN: And what else was I supposed to do? If I haven't written my novel by now, I'm never going to write it, you know? I just couldn't go on. So I... I visited a witch doctor.
Confused, MULDER starts to mouth the letter "W?".
GUY MANN: Psychiatrist.
MULDER: Ahh...
GUY MANN: But the medicine he gave me didn't cure me, it just clouded my thoughts. And as a result, I... I did something insane.
MULDER: (Interested again) You attacked and killed someone?
GUY MANN: No, I got a puppy! I named him Daggoo.
Flashback to GUY MANN in his motel room with a small white terrier. He's holding it up around its chest and talking to it, face to face.
GUY MANN: Daggoo! Daggoo! Daggoo!
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) And I quickly realized that the only way to be happy as a human was to spend all of your time in the company of non-humans!
He crawls along the floor excitedly after the dog. Later, he's transformed into the were-lizard and is still playing on the floor with the dog.
GUY MANN: We played all through the night. But the next day, when I came home from work...
The next day he enters the motel room bearing gifts and some large cuts of meat for the dog.
GUY MANN: Daggoo, I'm home! Daggoo? Daggoo!
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) ...well, I guess the maid must have accidentally let him out.
He races to the door, calling out for his dog.
GUY MANN: Daggoo!
Later he's walking around the parking lot, searching for the dog and calling out his name.
GUY MANN: Daggoo!
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) I searched everywhere. All night long. But it was hopeless. Because life's hopeless. A few fleeting moments of happiness, surrounded by crushing loss and grief.
He's at the edge of the parking lot, staring out into the mist-topped long grass.
GUY MANN: Daggoo! (Sobbing) Daggoo...
He drops to the ground, lying in the grass sobbing.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) Why bother?
Back to the cemetery.
GUY MANN: Just when I'd given up the search... I saw him.
MULDER: Daggoo?!
GUY MANN: No. No, the man who had bit me and turned me into a human.
Still lying in the grass, a pair of feet - PASHA's - walk straight past him. He looks up.
GUY MANN: Just catching sight of that son of a bitch made me even more human, because I was filled with the one thing that only humans can understand: revenge. I got up and I stalked after him. I just wanted to...
Back to the cemetery.
GUY MANN holds out his hands imitating strangling someone.
MULDER: Strangle him and eat his flesh?
GUY MANN: Yes!
MULDER: Now we're getting somewhere.
GUY MANN: But just as I was about to do that... I saw him do the same thing to someone else.
Flashback. GUY MANN is quietly following PASHA along the edge of the long grass. A man grunts and yells. GUY MANN stops, his hands over his mouth, disgusted at what he can see in front of him.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) I'd never seen such pointless brutality. I was so transfixed by the horror that I didn't notice the moon had come out.
PASHA is lying on top of the victim, chewing on his neck. The moon now out, GUY MANN has transformed back into his were-lizard form. He starts retreating, taking off his clothes as he does so.
GUY MANN: (Voice-over) But having caught a glimpse of what human nature was capable of, I wanted no more part of it. I decided to shed my clothes and return to the wild!
We see the tighty-whited GUY MANN walking through the parking lot, approaching ANNABELL from between the two parked semi trucks. ANNABELL notices him, screams and swings her large purse at him, clocking GUY MANN right in the face. Initially he's dazed...
GUY MANN: Man, she hit like a man.
Then he drops to the ground with a thump like a sack of potatoes. And not small potatoes. Back to the cemetery.
MULDER: That's because she used to be... uh, she once... She's transgender.
GUY MANN: (Disbelief) What? You can't transform into a different sex! That's nuts!
MULDER: It's not nuts. It's actually a very common medical procedure. You don't need the surgery, technically...
GUY MANN: (Grabbing at straws) Maybe that's what I could do! It's a cure!
MULDER: No.
GUY MANN: Well, I've got to stop transforming. I'll do the surgery.
MULDER: Completely different.
GUY MANN: (His mind made up) I don't care how much it costs, I'll do it.
MULDER: They cut off (nodding with his head towards GUY MANN's groin area) your genitals.
GUY MANN: (Thinking about it) Nah, I'll leave it. That's... that's a step too far, isn't it?
MULDER: Yeah.
GUY MANN: Okay. Well, anyway, I think she gave me a concussion. Rest of the night's pretty foggy. Some people chased me around a truck, and a man took a picture of me in the Porta Potti.
MULDER: That was me, actually.
GUY MANN: I thought I recognized you!
MULDER: But wait... how could you have changed back into a man? It wasn't morning yet...
GUY MANN: I don't know how it works. I'm not a scientist.
MULDER: I'm just looking for some kind of internal logic.
GUY MANN: Why? There isn't an external logic, to any of it. I mean, I went back to the motel, and a jackalope head on the wall started screaming at me. Explain that! And I'm creeped out by jackalopes, ever since a friend of mine got gored by one.
MULDER: Jackalopes aren't real. They-they were a hoax perpetrated by a Wyoming taxidermist in 1932. They... they don't exist.
GUY MANN: Well, I'd like to see you explain that to my dead friend, George! Anyway, I fled the motel, turned into a human again the next morning and went into work.
Flashback to the "smart phones ...is us" store. The bell tinkles and SCULLY enters. She walks over to the display where GUY MANN is standing.
GUY MANN: Welcome to Smart Phones Is Us. How may I help?
SCULLY: I'm wondering if I can ask you some questions.
GUY MANN: Mm-hmm?
SCULLY: (Aggressively flirty) I think maybe my phone isn't working right, 'cause guys don't send me pictures of their junk on it. I think maybe I'd like to... take a picture of yours.
Porn music starts playing. SCULLY peels off her jacket, and, giving GUY MANN come-hither eyes, disappears off into the stock room at the back of the store. She stops as she gets to the stock room door, unbuttoning her shirt and flashing some cleavage in his direction.
SCULLY: Come on. I want to make you say "cheese."
Cut to inside the stock room.
GUY MANN's trousers are around his ankles. SCULLY's shirt is off, her red hair down. They're going at it against a wall like in the porn movie he was watching earlier in him motel room.
SCULLY: (Moaning with pleasure) You're an animal! An animal!
GUY MANN: (Not believing his good fortune) This feels good!
SCULLY: (Still moaning with pleasure) Oh, don't stop! Don't...
Back to the cemetery.
MULDER: ...Stop!
GUY MANN is still in the moment physically, pretending he's still embracing SCULLY in the store.
MULDER: (Shaking his head)
That... did not happen.
GUY MANN:
I know it's hard to believe, but,
apparently I'm terrific in the sack.
MULDER: You made that up.
GUY MANN: Oh... (long pause, straight face)
all right, you got me.
Ever since I became a human,
I can't help but lie about my sex life.
But that's the only untruthful bit
in the whole story.
MULDER, feeling like he's heard enough for one day, leans back against the gravestone, staring up in to the sky.
GUY MANN: So please... will you kill me now?
MULDER closes his eyes. He looks pained.
GUY MANN: (Disappointed) You don't believe me, do you?
MULDER:
I was going to believe you,
but it's all... it's just too...
fantastic.
GUY MANN:
It's not fantastic. It's tragic!
MULDER:
No, I mean it's just... silly.
GUY MANN:
That's my life you're talking about.
MULDER:
It's my life, too. You and me, we're the same, Guy.
We both want to believe in things that aren't real -
or even possible.
GUY MANN: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, than are dreamt of in..."
TOGETHER: "...your philosophy."
MULDER: I know that.
GUY MANN: Ah, but did you know the First Folio version reads: "than are dreamt of in our philosophy"?
MULDER: So Hamlet is not just calling Horatio an ignorant idiot, he's calling us all ignorant idiots?
GUY MANN: It's a comforting thought, isn't it? Because if there's nothing more to life than what we already know, then there's nothing but... worries, self-doubt, regret and loneliness.
They're both thinking about the words. GUY MANN sighs heavily. He walks around in front of MULDER and grabs him by the lapels, pleading with him.
GUY MANN: Fox, man, you've got to put me out of my misery! I don't want to wake up tomorrow and have to go to work!
