to
"THE THROBBING HEART OF A SILENT EAR"
A Romantic Comedy Drama
(OUTLINE)
FADE IN:
SHASTA WINTERS and her mother-in-law, GERTRUDE WINTERS stand at
the cemetery site of Gertrude's son and Shasta's husband,
watching his casket being lowered into the ground.
Later, at home, Gertrude apologizes to Shasta for their now
impoverished condition, and tells her to take the little money
they have left and to find herself a place to live.
Shasta, in American Sign Language, says that they will stay
together, and that she will earn a living for the two of them.
"Even hearing people can't find a job that fast," Gertrude warns,
but Shasta is adamant. She jumps on a bus and heads downtown
to find work.
Sitting alone in the back seat by the door, Shasta lifts her
head when a spectacular man in his thirties, CRAIG MCCLURE,
walks through the back door and flashes his pass to the driver.
He turns and looks for a place to sit when he notices beautiful
dark-haired Shasta. He takes a seat across from her, and
captivated by her beauty, just sits and stares.
Shaken, she's torn between conflicting emotions, the accelerating
pace of her heart. Is it caused by fear or ecstasy? The
irony of war between beauty and brutality. In her mind she gets
them confused. Her hearing ended with a stinging slap from a
brutal and gorgeous father.
She fidgets until he gets off the bus, and then slightly turns
her head to take a second sneak peek when her eyes meet his
staring back in the window at her. She's so embarrassed, she
blushes and turns back around.
Knowing he has her attention, and she definitely has his, he
runs to the underground parking lot, gets his convertible
mercedes and catches up with the bus.
He follows her home, and asks a NEIGHBOR what her name is.
The neighbor explains that she's just lost her husband, lost
everything, and that she and her mother-in-law are about to be
homeless.
Craig gives him a card to give them with the address of an
apartment building he owns, and tells him to tell them that it is
rent supplemented for the low-income, but not to reveal who he is.
Another day on the bus, Shasta spots Craig about to board the
bus, and feeling intimidated and not wanting to be bothered,
puts her things in the empty seat next to the window beside
her. Craig stops, bends over, and speaks, but as he does,
passing passengers push him into her lap. Off balance, he
steps on her foot, then apologizing, he kicks her shoe down the
aisle. She never moves her things so he can sit down, even
though everyone on the bus has a seat but him. But when an
extremely heavy man gets on board and waddles down the aisle,
she moves her things so that he can sit down. Craig gives a
little frown, feeling cheated.
Now at the downtown park, Craig, accidentally, on purpose, bumps
into Shasta as she stands and watches a band play. He invites
her to brunch and points to a nice restaurant down the street.
Later Shasta goes to the nice restaurant, but without Craig.
She's incensed, though to see Craig there with another
businessman, JOE DIAMOND. What's the use! the only open table
is near them, so she takes a seat, lipreading their
conversation, and missing some parts when they turn their
heads, etc.
Because Shasta was very friendly with a little homely man in
the park, CHARLES MAREN, Craig has figured out by now that the
reason she doesn't like him is because of his looks. He can
sense that she's prejudiced against him because of his good
looks, and he wants her to see how that feels. So he decides
to get even, since he knows she's looking for a job, and talks
to his friend, JOE, about a job vacancy with good pay and
benefits, but he makes sure to stress that it is for only
unattractive women. Only the homely can apply.
Shasta goes home and asks Gertrude if she's homely. When
Gertrude says that Shasta is beautiful, Shasta devises a plan.
Looking out his office building, in a downtown skyscraper,
Craig notices Shasta looking across the street at his building
from the restaurant. He figures that Shasta is coming to try
and apply for the job he talked about. So he runs into his
secretary, SHEILA'S, office and tells her that if a beautiful
dark-headed woman comes to apply for work to give her a hard
time but to hire her.
In the meantime, Craig goes to get his car to go to an
appointment, when he sees Shasta walking across the street, in
a direction opposite his building. Sirens blast and police
cars careen around a corner, and people hold back from crossing
the street, but Shasta acts as though she doesn't hear the
approaching cars that may hit her. Several cars away from the
intersection, Craig waits in his car, on the eastbound side of the
traffic light, waiting for the light to change, and to see what
the sirens are about. When he notices that Shasta, on the
westbound side of the street, doesn't notice the noise, he jumps
out of his car and makes a mad dash towards the intersection where
she is, but before he can get there, the cars have turned the
corner, and barely missed Shasta.
He goes back and sits in his car, then pulls it over to the
curb, sitting and thinking, as Shasta goes into a costume shop,
and comes out with a shopping bag, and goes into the
restaurant. He sits there pondering things when a heavy
redheaded woman comes out of the restaurant. Observing she's
rather hard on the eyes, he blinks, but notices that her purse
and shoes are just like Shasta's. He zooms his car around to
the back of his building and runs up the back way to his
office. Rushing into his secretary's office, he tells her to
forget about the beautiful dark-haired woman and to hire a
hard-on-the-eyes, pudgy, deaf, redheaded woman, and not to tell
her who he is.
Shortly after Shasta starts working for Craig McClure, he loses
his parents and sister in an automobile accident. Devasted, he
stays locked up in his apartment, and goes into a deep
depression, unable to even feed himself.
Gertrude overhears Craig's secretary and friend discussing his
situation one day when they are coming out of his apartment and
she is going into hers. She has no idea who Craig is, but
compassion causes her to invite herself over, feed him, tuck
him in bed and clean up his place.
One day, she sends Shasta ahead of her to care for him. Shasta
immediately remembers him, and their eyes widen with interest
when they see each other. Shasta cuts his hair, shaves and
feeds him, and he is feeling and looking much better. They
even watch TV together as Shasta folds his clothes she's
washed. But when asked his name, Craig says his name is Steve.
Craig is back to work now, and Shasta still hasn't seen her
boss. She's become friends at the park with the little frail
man she has lunch with everyday, Charles Maren. Charles has
invited her to an annual charity event for business people in
the area. Shasta, still in disguise, agrees to go.
At the Ball, beautiful women can't understand why Craig prefers
pudgy redheaded Shasta to them. Craig figures out a way to
make Shasta like him. Since she goes for the frail, sickly
type, he goes home and returns disguised as an unattractive,
hay-fever suffering, nose-blowing, asthmatic.
Dancing with him, Shasta notices that his black hair is showing
from under his wig, and that the watch he wears on his arm is
one she's seen on the dresser at Steve's house. So when Steve
has a fake coughing spasm, she hits him on the back so hard his
wig goes falling off the balcony, down below to the ground.
She insists that she get it for the sickly man, and drags it
through the Koi fish pond and through the mud.
She plays along with Craig, who she thinks is Steve, and gives
him her number for a future date.
At work one day, Joe comes in with a newspaper article about him
and Craig, and shows their picture to Shasta. Realizing that
Craig is her boss, and that he owns the building they live in,
Shasta quits and agrees to work for Mr. Maren's antique shop.
That night when Craig goes over for dinner with Gertrude and
Shasta, Shasta keeps her work disguise on, and when Craig
enters the apartment he knows that they know his name is not
Steve and who he really is. Gertrude loves Craig even more
than before, but Shasta stops speaking to him.
Desperate to be with Shasta no matter what, Craig remembers
that at the Ball, Shasta agreed to go on a date with him when
she thought he was someone else. He doesn't know that Shasta
knew he was Steve, and now she knows that he is also Craig. He
still thinks that she thinks he is a stranger, Mr. Oscar George.
So he calls her house and asks Gertrude to ask her to go on a
date with him.
Shasta agrees to go on the date. So she dresses up in her
pudgy redheaded disguise and goes to meet Craig/Steve/Oscar George.
At the restaurant, when Steve goes to the men's room, she puts
ground red pepper in his food, cayenne pepper in his Bloody
Mary, and black ants in his seat. Then she proceeds to tell
him an experience she had one day, while cleaning house, when she
left her candy bar on the xylophone, and went back to eat it later,
and it was swarming with ants, and she put it in her mouth and was
chewing ants before she realized it. Craig is slapping at his face and
neck all the while she tells her story. When he pinches an ant
off his face, she says, "See they're everywhere!"
The red peppers start kicking in, and Craig grabs his Bloody
Mary to cool his tongue, but it's laced with more pepper.
Feigning concern, Shasta offers him water, tells him to open
his mouth and throws it in his face. Now he's choking. She
does the Heimlich Maneuver, throws him on the floor and jumps
on his stomach.
The rest of their date ends on the beach where she promises to
give him a massage and body wrap and wraps him up and leaves
him tied up alone, in an isolated place, at night, with his
feet dangling off the pier.
Shasta learns that she's expecting, and when she sees the
disappointed look on Craig's face, she turns down his marriage
proposal and tells Craig that her dead husband's baby belongs
to Charles Maren. He takes it pretty hard.
After that Craig tells her that he's not going to chase after
her anymore, and that he's going to be gone out of the Country
on business for several months.
In the meantime, she has the operation, that she couldn't
afford, to restore her hearing, that she doesn't know he's
paying for. She also has her baby.
Craig's been out of the Country for months now. The newspapers
announce he's home--with his fiancee. Shasta's had time to
miss Craig. She learns that his fiancee is a gold digger.
Gertrude gives Shasta a pep talk, "Who gave you a job? Who got
you a place to live? Who paid for all your baby's things? Who
are you in love with?" "Craig!!" Shasta responds, surprising
herself. "Then go get'em, Girl!" Gertrude declares, "She's got
your man!" Earlier they tried to drug Craig so he'd miss his
wedding, so Shasta responds, "Before or after they pump his
stomach?"
It's just hours before the wedding and Shasta has no idea how
to stop it, since drugging him didn't work. Craig's fiancee
stands before the mirror in Craig's room admiring herself,
while Craig, his best man, and his AUNT JESSIE, stand in the
kitchen talking to reporters. There's a knock at the door.
Suddenly Shasta rushes in carrying her baby in a hand carrier,
which she plops down on Craig's kitchen table. "This is his
baby, and I'm suing him for child support!" she says. "Huh?"
Craig responds. The reporters whip out their pads and start
writing.
Shasta leaves her baby and takes off across the hall to her and
Gertrude's apartment, with Craig following after her, screaming
her name, while reporters ask questions such as, "Does your
fiancee know you have a child?" Are you willing to take a
paternity test? Is the wedding still on?"
"I don't have a child!" Craig retorts. "Look, if I
can get her to answer the door, you can ask her mother-in-law,
and all of this will get cleared up."
"Mother-in-law?" a reporter asks, "You have a child
by a married woman?"
"How could you deny this cute little baby, Craig?"
Aunt Jessie says.
"He's not my baby, Aunt Jessie!"
"Well, is the mother deranged?" asks a reporter.
"Yes, she is! She's deranged!" Craig responds.
"Well, are you going to call the police?" a
reporter asks.
"Police?" responds Craig.
"Yes...if the woman has abandoned her baby, the
authorities have to be notified, and the baby will placed in
the hands of the Child Welfare Department, and sent to a foster
home, while the mother is evaluated."
"Foster home?" Craig mumbles.
"Yes," a reporter says, "Unless the baby is yours.
Is the baby yours or not?"
"No...well," Craig says, "I mean...yes!"
Craig's Fiancee, shocked, takes the top tier of the wedding
cake and slams it into his face.
"Cad!" she shouts, as she and her brides' maids rush
out the front door.
For weeks Craig can't find Shasta and Gertrude. They've gone
on the vacation Gertrude told the reporters Shasta needed.
Now it's Craig's turn to keep "his" baby. Funny thing, after
watching him for two weeks, Craig's beginning to feel like he
is his baby. Even though the baby belongs to Shasta's dead
husband, Craig still thinks it belongs to Charles Maren.
Now Craig bangs on Shasta and Gertrude's front door, insisting
that they come take care of the baby. He gets the manager to
open their apartment. Shasta isn't there, but Gertrude is laid
out on the floor, unconscious. Loving Gertrude like a mother,
he leaves a note for Shasta, and rides in the ambulance with
Gertrude.
In the recovery room, Gertrude begs Craig to straighten things
out with Shasta before her bad heart gives out. She wants to
see them happy, so she makes Craig go search for Shasta.
While Craig is out looking for her, Shasta arrives at the
hospital, and she gets the same sob story from Gertrude.
Actually, the only thing that's wrong with Gertrude is she's
recovering from an appendectomy.
Now Shasta tearfully mopes through the park, at night, obeying
Gertrude's wishes to look for Craig. She and Craig both
separately call the hospital inquiring about Gertrude's
condition, when they learn from Gertrude's doctor that
Gertrude's never had a heart condition. She's as strong as an
ox.
Not finding Craig, Shasta, wearing her spaghetti-strapped dress
and ballerina shoes, she ran out of the apartment in, stands on
the small bridge in the solitary park, staring over the water
at an orange glow coming from a boathouse restaurant, and
listens to the pulsating music coming from it.
There in the lonely night, she dances what she feels in her
heart, in the language that she's so use to, signs. Anita
Baker's song, "No One But You" rings in her ears, as she
skillfully and elegantly translates it's essence into her
dance.
In the distance, Craig appears where he waits and watches
Shasta all alone in the park, bearing her soul, a lovely image
against a backdrop of beautiful scenery and song. In the
twilight of the evening, Shasta sparkles like a glittering
jewel. Her delicate fingers form the words of her heart, and
we see and hear the pulse of the mood and the translation of
those words upon Craig's lips as he reads what she signs: "My
love is like a tree that starts small and grows bigger and
bigger and goes on and on forever and ever. And no matter
what I do, it follows me wherever I go. It won't let go. It
haunts me. It taunts me. It defies me. It divides me. It
blinds me. It defines me. It's name is Craig."
Turning, she spots Craig, in the distance, staring at her.
Suddenly, she stops, not knowing exactly what to do. But then
all inhabitions vanish, and all she feels is the need to
run into the arms of the man she loves, her man, the man who
loves her back and has proved that to her from the day he first
saw her. She runs and leaps into Craig's arms, as he spends
her in a circle of elation. She removes the silver chain from
her neck that holds two rings she's bought for Craig. She signs
will you marry me? The surprised smile on his face and the gleam
in his eyes answer. She fastens the necklace around his neck, and
stares down into the face of the man she will marry and spend her
life with. Now it's her turn, her turn to prove that a throbbing
heart simmering with love for Craig has risen above and beyond
prejudice and silence.
FADE OUT:
THE END
Copyright--2000--Boulet
DISCLAIMER
These songs selected for your entertainment in reading, they enhance the scenes, and the scenes give the songs a renewed exposure and greater meaning. They are not sold here or given away. If there are any of these songs that you like, please purchase them at your local record store or at an online store. Thank you.
