GE 1996-7 Season 3 Episode 13: Complete Script
Note: this is not a transcript, but a working draft of the script, so there may be differences in the aired version.
PAUL: It was December 19, 1960.
Last day of first term. Grade
Six.
We were all watching the
clock, counting down the
minutes, waiting for that most
joyous of Christmas bells -
the one releasing us from us
from the pedagogical prison,
the gulag of learning that was
St. Matthew’s Elementary.
Just as the glorious bell
peeled, our teacher Sister
Mary Ursula asked that I
remain in my seat.
My buddies, Rube Snow and Cy
Hibbs, charged off to freedom,
downtown to the raffles or the
shop windows, or up to Nagle’s
Hill with a toboggan in tow.
While I sat at my desk
wondering what I’d done this
time.
Sure I got in a little trouble
in school. Minor mischief,
nothing serious like the stuff
Rube and Cy used to get up to.
And I was good student.
Jeez, this was Rube’s third go
at grade six. Why me? And
why now?
But Sister Mary Ursula made me
wait, and wait, and wait ...
sitting there writing in her
Teacher’s Planner in that
cramped sexless hand of hers.
I started to daydream, looking
out the window onto the frozen
grounds of St. Matthew’s, a
gentle snow filling in the
tracks of my departed
comrades, erasing ...
AND SUDDENLY SHE POUNCED! IN
ONE MOVEMENT, A GREAT BLACK
CURTAIN IN MY PERIPHERAL
VISION, AN IVORY CLAW AT THE
END OF A MONSTROUS BAT’S
WING, SNATCHING ME UP OUT OF
MY SEAT BY THE HAIR, THROWING
OPEN MY DESK and finding ...
her shoes.
Who knows why I took them ?
Simply to rebel?
I had been irresistibly
compelled to pilfer the
sensible brogues back in
October. I didn’t display
them to my buddies like a
trophy, didn’t flick them in
Rennie’s River in an act of
defiance. I just liked
looking at them on occasion.
Liked running my fingers
across the pared leather.
Liked ....
And what was to be my
punishment for this ...
violation? Sister Mary Ursula
said I’d know.
But when?
Five days later, it turned out
... when my Mother announced
that among the guests coming
over for a light Christmas Eve
supper was none other than
Sister Mary Ursula.
I could serve a year’s
detention, I could take the
strap until my hands were
swollen to briefcases, I could
have a dunce cap welded
permanently to my head, but I
could not have Dad hear of my
... disgrace.
Well, by the time Sister
Ursula was sipping her tea and
eating her Christmas cake, I
was in quite a state. Why was
she tormenting me ? Why not
just out with it ? Why not
offer me up to the wolves,
throw me at Dad’s doubtful
mercy.
By the time the adults got to
the end of the second cup, I
couldn’t bear it. I was ready
to confess my sin.
And then, time to leave for
Midnight Mass.
She thanked my Mom and blessed
herself. In the vestibule,
she stepped into her plastic
translucent galoshes.
Reaching for the front door,
Sister Mary Ursula looked back
at me.
“Goodnight, Paul,” she said,
“and Merry Christmas.”
MUSIC:
Town, finis 1979 -- exeunt
decade right.
There hadn’t been any snow --
just freezing rain through to
the third week of December.
I left the house for the Old
Gob Hall to pick up some of
the props I’d borrowed from
Mom. The revival of “Country
Matters” was closing early
after depressing houses and
reviews.
A smash hit in 1976.
What had turned critics and
public against my work ? How
had I gone from “wry and
restlessly young” to
“overwrought and drenched in
pathos” in three short years ?
And without changing a single
word of text ?
I turned up my collar and
bumped into the postman at the
corner. He cursed and handed
me ... the letter.
The letter I’d waited so long
for I’d forgotten I was
waiting.
Expensive stationery. Upper-
left corner. Embossed, hot-
pink, mod letters: “Shirley
Productions”.
Here it is, the tattered
shreds still ... tattered
where I ripped it open all
those years of mornings ago.
[picks up letter]
“Dear Mr. Moth, We here at SP
were thrilled with your
“Cinderella” sequence; Shirley
thought it was really
happening, too. I quote, “the
script fits me like the glass
slipper.”
Not only would we like to
purchase the concept, we are
prepared to offer you a staff
writer’s position with SP on a
trial basis. Unfortunately,
because of our production
schedule, we would need you to
be in LA almost immediately,
holiday season
notwithstanding.
Very impressed. Look forward
to meeting you.
Andy Stegg, Executive
Producer, Shirley
Productions.”
And then, a hand-written p.s.
from the Diva herself. “Paul,
surely you’ll come ?
Shirley.”
What do you do when you get an
offer like that in the mail ?
You go for the big walk.
By the time I’d read it the
tenth, the eleventh, the
hundredth time, I was in the
heart of the old city, and
starting to get a little tired
of the syntax, a little sick
of the kitschy pink lettering,
a little wary of what
Shirley’s tidy school-girl
script and silly sense of
humour might hold in store.
Sure, I had an overwhelming
sense that I’d squandered the
entire decade in this little
burgh, trying to ignite some
cultural fire with rotten, wet
tinder.
Sure, I was persona non grata
in most theatre and social
circles.
Sure, the weather was
miserable and the outlook
provincial and the restaurants
lousy and the politics corrupt
and the general mood
unrelentingly bleak and
despairing --- but it was
home.
And just as that sank in,
magically, out of the rain,
there began to fall big juicy
flakes of snow.
Before my eyes, the streets of
the old port donned a look of
considerable yule.
Its bedraggled and besodden
occupants became brisk and
chipper and purposefully
Victorian.
My good old friends, scattered
now across the world, would
already be setting out on
their annual Christmas
pilgrimages -- coming home on
the great Townee Haj.
Did it really matter that we
had nothing left to say to one
another?
And my family, who’d soon be
filling Mom’s parlour with the
screeches of life new and old,
would put aside the lingering
resentments and festering
wounds over a big, stuffed
bird. My family...
(the music begins playing its
marching band opening segment
somewhere under here)
Down the way, the black and
red began to play ... the
Sally Ann Brass Band ... a
chill winter blast blew up the
street and under my sodden
wool overcoat ...
I was suddenly overwhelmed
with the sense that this was
my town, these pedestrians and
unhurried motorists were my
people. This was my place.
Could I abandon them on the
very eve of our Christmas
communion ? Could they just
be traded in for the random
pursuit of celebrity in the
City of Angels ? The glass,
the concrete, the toxic
warmth, the arrogant palms and
ersatz evergreens of LA, LA ?
The vapid nubile lubricious
vixens prancing on the beach ?
The mindless hedonism ? The
vulgar mega-stacks of money ?
The expense accounts ? The
perdiems ? The plush, the
soft, the easy ?
(pause)
“Taxi! Taxi! Airport. Step
on it!”
MUSIC: Jimmy Smith explosion.
We were en route from L.A.X.
to Pearson, flying LA to TO.
I was in the custody of U.S
Marshall Mitchell “Blue”
Brand.
He was executing an order for
my deportation from the United
States.
Toronto was completely socked
in. We were forced down in
Minneapolis.
The good Marshall rented a
Chevy Caprice. He loaded me,
shackled, into the passenger
side and headed north.
It was December 24, 1989.
We had gotten as far as
Hallock, Kittson County,
Minnesota. It had been
snowing for six days. The 80
to Canada was impassable.
I had eight hours to get out
of the country.
Impending trouble was a
standing bench warrant for my
arrest, issued in Pomona
County. That document had a
crafty and willing executioner
standing by at the US/Canada
border in Emerson, Manitoba.
If I didn’t make it across the
49th parallel by midnight,
Willard Agnew of the LAPD
would see me face charges in
the Golden State.
It was Detective Agnew who had
busted me. Who had, with a
bullet to my heel, put an end
to what surely must be one of
the most protracted and costly
binges in the history of
Tinseltown.
I was out of control friends -
Robert Downey Jr., Fatty
Arbuckle and Monty Cliff had
nothing on me.
Willard Agnew was incensed by
the deportation order. He
thought I was getting off
easy, like so many other show-
biz types.
What odds that I was a
Canadian citizen, my crimes
had been committed in the U.
S. Of A. That’s where I
should face justice.
And Willard Agnew was always
one step ahead of me. He had
arrived at Pearson Airport the
day before. Taking measure of
the leaden sky and the lake
effect snow, he reasoned that
our plane wouldn’t land in
Toronto, and that Emerson,
Manitoba would be our only
option.
He had vowed to get me, and if
I didn’t meet the terms of the
deportation order, he would.
With Hallock, Minnesota buried
under three feet of the white
stuff, it seemed to me that
all was lost. Agnew would get
his man ... me.
Blue Brand must have seen the
despair in my face. Must have
seen that I wasn’t, as Willard
Agnew reasoned, a bad man,
merely a starry eyed fellow
from a small town who had
gotten in over his head, a
soul who had lost his way.
“You know, Moth,” he said “I
did duty in Fairbanks,
Alaska.”
I wasn’t listening, I was
thinking of San Quentin
Prison.
“I did some mushing up there.”
he said.
Well, after an hour of
flashing his badge around
Hallock, he had put together a
dog team.
He had a husky in the lead but
the rest of the team looked
like they were leaving the
pound for the rendering plant.
There were two shamefully
groomed poodle crosses, a half
blind Lab, an obese shepherd,
three mangy mongrels, an
antique Rotweiler, a ratting
terrier with attitude, a
border collie with a criminal
bearing and a frightened Great
Dane.
Marshall Brand had a way with
the hound. He just grabbed
‘em by the snout and strapped
them in. They knew he was in
charge.
Well, sir, with seven hours
left we climbed aboard a
makeshift sled and headed out
over the snow covered fields
of northern Minnesota.
They may not have been the
strongest, or the youngest, or
the best looking of dogs, but
with Blue Brand their master,
they were the most determined
pack of mutts I have ever
seen.
The Marshall wielded a stern
but merciful whip. He sent it
snaking out over those curs
heads, cracking in their ears,
more setting time than
scolding them to action.
I could tell by the way he
handled the lash that while
Marshall Brand was a stern
man, he could not conscience
punishment for it’s own sake.
He knew I had learned my
lesson.
It seemed we had been mushing
an eternity when, with my
tightly bound extremities near
frozen, I saw it, through the
blizzard, the halogen glow of
the border crossing at
Emerson.
The sled pulled up to the
station. Willard Agnew was
there on the American side.
He checked his watch and then
reached for the revolver at
his ankle.
“Run Paul!” shouted Marshall
Brand.
And run I did, like I’ve never
run before. Through the snow,
my feet first slipping and
then finally striking
pavement, my strides sound,
building momentum until with a
mighty leap I was over the
border.
With one hurdle, out of a
backward militarist empire and
into a reasonable, though
shaky, welfare state. Out of
harm’s way and back safely
back in Canada.
I looked through the streaked
glass into the guard house.
There on the wall the clock
struck twelve. The radio was
tuned to CCCP out of Winnipeg.
And this song was playing.
Merry Christmas, Blue Brand,
wherever you are.
MUSIC: JONI MITCHELL
Page 19 of 20 PAUL’S CHRISTMAS TALES - # 13