EXT. KIRKWOOD — AFTERNOON

Leo swings into the parking lot on Dunn Street, just off Kirkwood, and parks his Saturn in the first empty spot. The parking meters are all old things that take quarters, and a momentary hunt for change commences. At last, Shelly finds three quarters — enough to last about an hour. Dirk, Leo, and Shelly step out of the car, Leo puts the quarters in the meter with a metallic clink, and they all walk down a nearby alley towards the fried-wing and hot sauce smells wafting out of BuffaLouie’s.

LEO

(genuinely impressed, maybe

whistling in admiration)

Purses are amazing! Really — I could

never fit that much change inside my pants.

SHELLY

Then what’s stopping you from carrying one?

DIRK

Guy’s purses aren’t as pretty.

LEO

Unfortunately…

So they walk towards the restaurant, which sits across from Indiana University, while they get hungrier and hungrier and their conversation becomes more and more distracting. They walk up a quick alley past Starbucks together and turn right into BuffaLouie’s.

INT. BUFFALOUIE’S

The inner workings of Bloomington’s finest hot wings haunt are covered in wood — wood chairs, wood table, wood walls, and wooden floor — and decorated in IU sports memorabilia. There is a small stage to the right, where old posters occupying what space is left on the wall promise performances to come, mostly jazz — performances which you can imagine neither Leo or Shelly or Dirk has ever seen — and remembering performances past.

Most of the tables are full. People sit watching a late-season Cincinnati Reds game absentmindedly while they munch on piles of wings and curly fries, all lathered in various shades of orange and brown sauce. Dirk takes the lead, walking past Shelly to the counter opposite the front door. A man behind the counter, WINGS GUY, watches Dirk from behind the cash register like an infantryman crouched behind a trench.

WINGS GUY

(apprehensively)

Can I take your order?

DIRK

Yeah —

LEO

(from over Dirk’s shoulder)

He’ll take

a TNT basket of barbecue.

Dirk turns to give Leo a look, and Shelly, half-hidden behind Leo, flashes an embarrassed smile as if she was one who interrupted.

LEO (CONT’D)

(laughing)

It’s what you’d order anyways.

Dirk turns back to the Wings Guy, who seems even more nervous than before.

DIRK

(after a pause)

To go.

WINGS GUY

(talking to the rhythm

of each button he pushes)

A hot basket of bbq, then…

Dirk steps back while Leo and Shelly tell Wings Guy what they want to eat. When everyone is finished ordering, and once everyone gets their drinks from a soda fountain nearby, Leo leads the way to a recently evacuated table. They sit waiting around the chicken graveyard and cups of unidentifiable soda left by the last customers until a woman brings their food to them in plastic bags.

When they get their food, Leo, Dirk, and Shelly head outside.

EXT. BUFFALOUIE’S

Dirk jaywalks across the street, stopping a car. Leo and Shelly follow after the car drives away. After balancing their paper baskets of wings and their sodas on the low limestone wall dividing IU from the rest of Bloomington, the three of them sit together on the cold stone and eat their lunch.

The whole afternoon is beginning to seem uneventful, even innocent, and it might even be uneventful, or possibly innocent, despite Leo’s back-mirrored smiles, if the people who collided just off campus, a PROFESSOR in stereotypical tweed and a MISSIONARY in a white button down and black tie, did not come walking by the little group of wayward students sitting on the limestone wall.

Leo is the first to see the Professor and the Missionary, now trapped in a heated argument, walking towards them, but he doesn’t say anything. Typically, Leo likes to argue — it’s loud, competitive, and fun — but he doesn’t look like he wants to get into the type of conversation that the Professor and the Missionary are having. Perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t want his friends to get into the conversation, since that would necessitate his eventually commenting on it. That might be a difficulty, though, because the Professor and the Missionary are quickly getting louder as their conversation heats up. The Missionary seems to have assaulted the Professor with a question about the theoretical implications of Hereafter, the circumstances of which are becoming apparent as the pair walks closer to Dirk, Leo, and Shelly, who is starting to take an interest.

MISSIONARY

…do not rejoice that spirits submit to you.

PROFESSOR

I’m not rejoicing. Who here is rejoicing?

I just suggested, in that article,

which wasn’t supposed to be a response to you

by the way, that what Hereafter

really shows — if you believe the study

Brown et. all just published — is that,

even more than some true thing about

a person, some objective thing we call

that person’s self, or what you want to call it,

what really matters is all the little things

that let the people who surround a person,

their friends, their family, their enemies,

etc., construct a shared idea of

a given individual. That human

construction is what we put into Hereafter —

that collective thought is what you people worship.

MISSIONARY

But about that place or hour nobody knows.

What’s most condemning is your confidence —

symbology can be holy, too.

PROFESSOR

The whole thing is

written in C-sharp!

MISSIONARY

I don’t know what

you mean by that, when the gospel comes to people

in many different languages?

PROFESSOR

What I mean —

and don’t you think I didn’t notice how you hid

that statement in a question — is that the symbols

you’re calling holy are nothing more than math.

Equations, numbers, and variables is all

it is, and nothing more. It’s all as real

as the thought you think when you stub your pinky toe.

The Professor and the Missionary are close enough now that Dirk can reach out and touch them — if he wants. But he sits frozen, maybe nervous about the way Shelly seems to coil before springing her thoughts on the passersby.

SHELLY

(pointing at the Missionary)

He’s right. Hereafter’s more like a religion.

But that’s the problem, too. It doesn’t matter

if it’s real. People want it to be real.

The Missionary pauses, grabbing the Professor’s arm. Leo pulls pinkish meat off the bone of his last chicken wing. The Professor looks from the Missionary to Shelly and back again.

MISSIONARY

(jokingly to the Professor)

He always prepare a place for us.

The Professor pulls his arm out of the Missionary’s hands.

PROFESSOR

(finished with the game)

Who cares?

All I really want right now is dinner,

and I don’t need these students thinking that

I’m caught in all your dangerous ideas.

The Professor walks off alone, following the stone wall. He turns back onto campus as soon as he can and disappears into the trees. After standing there for a moment as if he might say something else to Shelly, the Missionary walks off, too. He heads in the opposite direction, towards Kirkwood. Dirk, Shelly, and Leo sit silently until Shelly offers Leo the rest of her wings.

Leo takes the half-empty basket of wings and starts to eat. Dirk seems irritated by something. He fidgets like small dog in the cold until Shelly turns to him.

SHELLY

Is everything OK?

DIRK

(almost as if spoken

to someone no one can see)

What that professor

really meant to say was, “Do you think

people care if you’re real?” At least that’s what

it sounded like.

Dirk crumples the paper basket in his lap around the mound of hot-sauce soaked fries left from his meal and goes back into BuffaLouie’s to throw his trash away. When he is gone, Leo turns to Shelly.

LEO

(teased like a secret)

I don’t know what Hannah sees

in him.

SHELLY

I still don’t think she does.

LEO

And did

you hear his phone buzzing the whole drive up?

I almost asked him to toss it out the window.

SHELLY

(admittedly)

I told him yesterday to put his phone

on silent.

LEO

And so…you really think…?

SHELLY

That it’s

the girl from school?

LEO

The one he killed in that wreck

last year?

SHELLY

It was an accident.

LEO

But you

still think it’s her?

SHELLY

He’s always talking to

his phone at home, but he keeps his headphones in,

and I don’t know who’s talking back. I saw

the screen once, though. He left his phone behind

after dinner, and it looked like her —

like her pictures in the paper.

LEO

(whistling)

That’s wild…

Leo looks at the door of BuffaLouie’s, maybe to see if Dirk is on his way back yet.

LEO (CONT’D)

…but why are you so worried about

him and Hannah…?

SHELLY

They’ve both been acting weird. I know they can’t

be dating, even though I saw them out

when I was with my parents the other week.

But still, you know?

LEO

And that’s enough to stalk them?

Shelly stands up and glares down at Leo.

SHELLY

Dirk hasn’t been the same since he was kicked

out of school. And Hannah needs a friend,

not a mess that’s already wrecked the life of

another girl. I don’t want him to hurt her.

LEO

(giving in)

Alright! Alright. I promise I’ll be there later.

The door to BuffaLouie’s opens and Dirk walks out. He waves to Leo and Shelly from across the street before walking over.

DIRK

(awkwardly)

Sorry, I had to run to the restroom.

LEO

(while reminding Shelly

with his eyes that loose

lips sink ships)

Nature calls when it calls — am I right?

Leo laughs at his own bad joke and heads back across the street and down the alley to where he parked his car. Dirk and Shelly follow. They all get into Leo’s car, and Leo drives them off to some other part of Bloomington.