Sample Only
This is an excerpt from the opening of a much longer screenplay. What you're reading is one scene of many. The full script is available upon request.
FADE IN:
INT. LIVING ROOM — NIGHT (1996)
A small living room, too many bodies for the space.
The TV glow paints everyone in cold blues.
On-screen: LOCAL NEWS. Grainy footage. A headline bar.
ELDERLY BLACK NEWS ANCHOR
Saturday's shooting to rapper and hip hop sensation, Tupac Shakur has been reported to be fatal. Sources say as of this morning he was pronounced dead at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada at just the age of 24. Sources close to the scene say the shooting was a major surprise to Tupac and his immediate circle, and investigators are still yet to identify —
KENDRICK (9) sits cross-legged on the carpet, facing right in front of the TV.
His eyes do not blink.
FAMILY MEMBERS clutch each other, wailing.
An UNCLE's hand shakes as he lights a cigarette.
His mother crying on his father's arms with a coffee table full of dominoes in front of them.
Smoke gathers at the ceiling, then sinks.
MOM
THEY DONE KILLED PAC
A sob turns into something uglier. The room tilts into panic.
Kendrick's younger SIBLINGS cry because everyone else is crying.
A cigarette passes. A drink passes.
None of it is hidden from the kids.
Kendrick looks at the adults like they have just become strangers.
The TV keeps talking.
Kendrick stands and walks out of the house.
EXT. FRONT PORCH / STREET — CONTINUOUS
The door opens.
The NEWS AUDIO bleeds with him, tinny at first, then swallowed by the outside.
Out here, the neighborhood is awake.
Men posted on corners aren't posting.
They're crying.
Someone coughs hard, then laughs once, then coughs again.
Smoke is everywhere.
Kendrick steps down onto the sidewalk.
A group of KIDS gathers near the curb.
One of them, EYE PATCH KID (9), has an eye patch strapped on tight.
Another kid sparks something up, hands shaking like a grown man's.
OLDER KID
Hit this shit K
Kendrick looks at it.
Then looks at the faces around him.
He shakes his head.
Kendrick stays anyway.
Close enough to belong.
A car rolls by too slow.
Music is low. Bass like a heartbeat.
From deeper in the block, a GANGBANGER (50s, bald, tear drop tattoo under his eye, shirtless with thug life tattoo on his stomach) steps into view.
Not strutting. Just a man with wet eyes trying to hold a neighborhood together with words.
GANGBANGER
What the fuck is wrong with y'all niggas. We a collective, a family, a tribe, we don't kill our own, we only kill niggas who try to fuck with our own. That's been law since mother fuckers started crossing these streets. The code might be fucked up, but that don't mean we got to be. Pac was one of us, and there's nothing he wanted more than for us to band together and rise up against the police, the institutions, and the mother fucking system. So starting tomorrow, unity over everything.
Kendrick watches the adults nod like they believe it.
The gangbanger's voice cracks on the last word.
He turns away fast so nobody sees.
Kendrick and his friends go their separate ways. As he walks up the steps of his house he trips on his own shoelace and lands face first.
He's on the ground crying for a few seconds but his cries are drowned out by the even louder collective cries of his family members still distraught and inebriated in his living room.
He eventually gets up and goes to his bathroom. Only one ply left on the roll. He uses his shirt to swipe the blood off his mouth.
He looks himself in the mirror and begins to cry again.
He walks to his bedroom and picks up a vinyl of 'Me Against the World' and plays it on his record player.
Song: So Many Tears by Tupac
He lays in bed staring at the wall. Eyes drowning in tears. He eventually sleeps and the screen goes black.
CUT TO:
EXT. BLOCK PARTY — NIGHT (FRIDAY)
Much More Written
This is only the opening scene. The full screenplay follows Kendrick through Compton, tracing how music becomes the only door out. Available upon request.