The Funeral

this one i have been writing myself, at or around the same time as "Good Movie" but i abandoned it due to the fact that i got really busy, however it's definitely really classy material that's sure to raise some funny eyebrows (i am really funny)

A story about a kid working at a funeral home

He is best friends with the son of a mafia don, accepted as part of the family

Fine pressed suits by day, indie kid by night

(start in blackness, gong of the church bells, shot from directly above the casket showing a man with a content smile on his face, fade to black again begin music by The Colour – Chariot of Gold – show Danny waking up at 6 a.m. and falling out of bed, throwing his suit on)

Danny: Not many people can even imagine the life that I lead …Well, let me rephrase … It’s not that they don’t know people like me exist, I think it’s more that they don’t want to think that people like me exist.

(begin showing sky shot of New York, insert a slow moving pan shot from right to left of a grieving family, begin low aerial filming across rooftops of an old neighborhood - Bronx, Brooklyn – insert filming of a church funeral service, pan at back of church from right to left, everyone dressed in black, family sobbing, freeze to sobbing woman)

Danny: Now, see people like that woman there? Those kind of people just really piss me off. I know it’s harsh. But in my profession you become calloused, desensitized. You have to. I see death everyday and it doesn’t bother me anymore. Sure, at first it was pretty gross, but after a while, you just don’t care. I mean, if you actually cared, hell, you wouldn’t last a single minute in this job. (show Danny and another man playing with a dead body, dancing to techno while embalming the body and making the body do “the robot”)

(return to filming of neighborhood, closer this time if possible, showing people on rooftops – woman drying clothes on a clothes line, old man fiddling with a bird cage, return to the end of the church service, slow motion close up on the hands grabbing the casket, move back to show only the torso up the chest and below to the feet which are all moving in unison, shot from outside the church, see kids run across along the sidewalk as the casket exits the church with crowd in tow, see the upper bodies of the men put the casket into the back of the hearse, shot of Danny walks out of the house at dawn, see him look at his neighbor’s flower garden, look on, then walk into the yard and pick a white flower and place it on his chest, back to the funeral procession going through town, aerial footage as the procession goes through red lights, shot from the hood of the car showing the front end of the car but still showing the red light. However, the hearse goes through the light, in doing so, another car slams into the front of the car, spinning the hearse out, shot from inside the car as it’s spinning and the casket slams against the back doors of the hearse and opens up, shot from outside the car showing the open doors and the spinning car, screeching tires, the casket slips out the back, add bell sounds as the casket rolls on the ground, breaking the casket open, landing face up, showing the face of the dead man with a frown on his face)

(show the funeral now, laying the body to rest in the earth, the family is seated and standing to the left, same woman weeping even harder because of the car accident, the priest is ridiculously old and has enormously thick glasses which enlarge his eyes, however, he still has problems seeing. Al is the older black partner to Danny’s father, who owned the funeral parlor. Danny’s father died when he was 10 and Al now is a part owner with Danny, however Al runs most of the business. Danny and Al are standing back from the ceremony, waiting for it to finish, the priest is delivering his condolences and about to read a passage from the Bible.)

Danny: Jesus H. Christ. Who the hell was this guy? Everyone looks stunned or weeping like a little bitch.

Al: Didn’t you hear? Look at the front end of that hearse man.

Danny: Hot damn. Was it a roller?

Al: (smiles slyly) Oh hell yes, boy. That casket rolled a good twenty feet in the middle of an intersection.

Danny: Hmm, that’s almost a record isn’t it?

Al: Nope, not even close. In the summer of 87’, the year before your father died, the hearse driver, Trashy Ted we called him. (cut to the late 80’s, showing the scene described below) Whenever the parlor business slowed, he’d collect garbage and cans and return ‘em for extra cash. Anyway, he was in a hurry to get to his wife, see. Big date. So, he decides to take the procession onto the interstate and go seventy. I mean, ol’ grannies were getting lost in the traffic, people were just dropping like flies. Ted didn’t give a damn as long as the body got to the cemetery. Well, in the midst of a three lane change he cut off a semi driver and happened to clip the front of the truck. The hearse spun out and the casket became a seventy mile an hour projectile, this poor guy in the casket was ejected over the bridge, took a seventy foot fall, then rolled for a good thirty feet before coming to rest in the side panel of a Cadillac.

Danny: (return to cemetery where conversation is taking place) Objects in motion stay in motion until acted upon by an equal or greater force.

Al: Damn straight. (the two of them look at the funeral service with awkward faces)

Priest: First letter of Paul to the Semenites. (wife and family pause from their crying for a moment and look at the priest strangely)

Danny: (with a smile) Huh, never heard of that one.

Al: Must be the unabridged version.

(moment of silence just showing the Danny and Al looking on)

Danny: What’s that thing on top of the casket?

Al: Oh, back in the old superstitious days they would put a bell on the casket in the event that they came back to life or were simply confused for sleeping. The bell has a string attached to it which can be pulled from inside. So, some poor bastard who had been drinking heavily the night before and mistaken for dead could wake up, ring the bell, and be taken out of the casket. Easy as pie. Don’t see those too often these days. Must have been the dude’s last wishes.

Danny: No shit. Looks like it’s rigged with an intercom though.

Al: Must be a new age thing, just in case someone doubts the bell you can ring up and say …

Danny: (interrupting) “Save me, bitch!” (both men laugh)

Al: (still chuckling) Not what I was thinking, but close enough.

(another moment of silence)

Priest: And now we lower the Martin Wood to rest, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

(the workers begin to lower the casket but the machine breaks down and starts smoking, one of the lowering wires snaps and the casket falls and hits the sides and thuds to the bottom, the wife lets out a terrified wail)

Danny: Tough day, Martin. Tough day.

a mobster had bet his left nut and the debt collectors came to pay him a visit, causing a heart attack