Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Read online

  MILDRED

  Hey, baby. Yep, still no arrests. How come, I wonder? Cos there ain’t no God and the whole world’s empty and it don’t matter what we do to each other? Ooh, I hope not. (Pause.) How comes you came up here outta nowhere, looking so pretty? You ain’t trying to make me believe in reincarnation or something, are ya? Well, you’re pretty, but you ain’t her. She got killed, and now she’ll be dead forever. I do thank you for coming up, though. If I had some food I’d give it ya, but I’ve only got some Doritos and I’d be scared they’d kill ya, they’re kinda pointy. Then where would we be?

  The fawn finally decides to amble away, off towards the hazy sunset horizon. She almost cries but doesn’t quite.

  MILDRED

  Oh Mildred.

  INT. WELBY’S OFFICE – DAY

  Mildred sitting at desk, Welby idling shiftily by the window.

  DIXON

  Yeah, so I, uh, just happened to be looking over our contract we drew up back that time, and what I realised was, I realised that although payment is to be made on the first day of each month, uh, the first payment you paid was actually a deposit, wasn’t it, like we said, so actually, in point of fact, you’re actually behind in your payments now, by, yeah, a month.

  She gives him a look.

  Yeah. That’s, uh, what the contract says. Looking it over an’ all. The lawyer says so too.

  MILDRED

  When do you need this next payment by, Red?

  DIXON

  Uh, well, now, really.

  Another look.

  Or Fuh— uh … Friday?

  MILDRED

  Wow. When you can’t trust the lawyers and the advertising men, what the hell’s America coming to, huh? (Pause.) Who got to ya? Willoughby?

  RED

  Nobody got to me.

  MILDRED

  My fat fucking ass!

  RED

  He’s dying, Mildred.

  MILDRED

  We’re all fucking dying!

  Pamela knocks at the door.

  PAMELA

  Red?

  RED

  Oh, hi Pamela! Um, we’re a little bit busy, at the moment, Pam, if that’s okay.

  PAMELA

  Oh Red, I know, and I know you were real anxious about talking to Mrs Hayes this morning and all …

  RED

  Anxious? No.

  PAMELA

  But that’s the thing, there’s no need to be, cos you won’t believe it! A little Mexican delivery boy just dropped in with this …

  Pamela hands Welby an envelope, full of banknotes.

  RED

  What the hell’s this?!

  PAMELA

  I know! It’s five thousand dollars! And guess what the note says? It says it’s to pay for the rental on Mrs Hayes’ billboards! Can you believe it? That’s why I butted in!

  RED

  Well, who’s it from?

  PAMELA

  Well, it doesn’t say.

  RED

  Well, where’s the delivery boy?

  PAMELA

  Well, he went.

  RED

  Well, did you see what company he was from?

  PAMELA

  Well, no.

  RED

  Well, what kinda uniform did he have on?

  PAMELA

  Well, he just looked like one of those fat little Mexican boys. (Pause.) On a bicycle? (Pause.) Did I do something wrong?

  RED

  No, Pam, you did good.

  MILDRED

  Yeah, Pam, you did real good.

  PAMELA

  Did I? Great! Ain’t life crazy?

  Pamela smiles, gives Red the thumbs-up, leaves.

  MILDRED

  What’s the note say?

  RED

  Says, er, ‘This here money is to go towards the fund for Mildred Hayes’ billboards, cos she ain’t the only one round here who hates the pigs. Signed, a friend.’

  MILDRED

  Jeez, I guess ya can’t be picky who your friends are these days, huh? (Standing.) Um, be good to get a little receipt off ya, Red, y’know, saying the price of next month’s is paid in full an’ all.

  RED

  Oh. Sure, Mildred, sure.

  MILDRED

  Yeah. Like, now.

  RED

  Oh! Sure!

  Welby hurriedly writes one out.

  INT. WILLOUGHBY HOUSE – NIGHT

  Willoughby tucks the kids in as they giggle.

  JANE

  Is Mommy drunk, Daddy?

  WILLOUGHBY

  No, no, she’s just got a little migraine, that’s all. A little Chardonnay migraine, now no more chit-chat out of you two, okay?

  JANE

  Can we stay home from school again tomorrow, Daddy?

  WILLOUGHBY

  We’ll see what your mommy says in the morning, darling …

  JANE ⁄POLLY

  Aww!

  WILLOUGHBY

  Now eyes closed and get some sleep, okay?

  He kisses them goodnight, switches the light off.

  INT. WILLOUGHBY LIVING ROOM – CONTINUOUS

  Anne is lying on the couch, a small wet towel over her eyes. Willoughby sits in beside her and kisses her.

  WILLOUGHBY

  You don’t smell of puke. Which is good.

  ANNE

  Aquafresh. Trick I learned.

  WILLOUGHBY

  Women, huh?

  ANNE

  Oh yeah. Resourceful.

  WILLOUGHBY

  It’s still your turn to clean the horseshit outta the stable, y’know?

  ANNE

  Oh those fucking horses! They’re your fucking horses! I’m gonna have those fucking horses shot!

  WILLOUGHBY

  I’ll do it, you lazy bitch.

  ANNE

  Thank you, Poppa. (Pause.) That was a real nice day. And that was a real nice fuck. You got a real nice cock, Mr Willoughby.

  WILLOUGHBY

  Is that from a play, ‘You got a real nice cock, Mr Willoughby’?

  I think I heard it in a Shakespeare one time.

  ANNE

  You dummy. It’s Oscar Wilde.

  She puts the towel back over her eyes as he laughs.

  INT. WILLOUGHBY’S STABLE – NIGHT

  The horses watch as he finishes shovelling the shit, lays out fresh hay, gives them a pat, thinks about the day, smiles.

  WILLOUGHBY

  ‘Oscar Wilde.’

  He smiles again, then picks up a black hood, on the outside of which he has pinned a note that reads ‘Don’t open the bag. Just telephone the boys.’

  He places the black hood snugly over his head so the note is visible, cocks a large hand gun, raises the gun to his temple, and shoots himself through the head. His dead body falls heavily to the ground, the hood concealing all the mess.

  INT. WILLOUGHBY HOUSE – CONTINUOUS

  Anne pulls the towel off her eyes, having heard something. She gets up and we go with her, camera on her face, as she moves all the way through the house to the kitchen, where she stops suddenly, and her face falls …

  ANNE

  No. No. No …!

  We see what she sees – a plain white envelope propped on the bare kitchen table, the single word ‘Anne’ dead centre of it.

  No! No! No! No!

  She breaks down crying on the cold kitchen floor.

  We hear Willoughby’s note over the following silent images:

  INT. WILLOUGHBY HOUSE – NIGHT

  Polly and Jane framed in their dark doorway, as their mother cries on the floor;

  EXT. WILLOUGHBY’S STABLE – NIGHT

  The horses bemused in Willoughby’s garden, as Anne stands drained in the doorway of the stable, the crescent moon above it. She slowly trudges back to the house;

  INT. WILLOUGHBY HOUSE – NIGHT

  Anne lying on Jane’s bed, hugging Polly and Jane to her, all eyes open, numb, as a uniformed cop stands guard outside the room and other cops mo
ve through the house;

  EXT. BEAUTIFUL MEADOW BESIDE LAKE – NIGHT

  The beautiful lakeside in the moonlight, and the one teddy bear laying there that they missed, its grumpy little face;

  EXT. WILLOUGHBY’S STABLE – NIGHT

  Flashing lights, the cops and ambulance people at the stable;

  Blood seeping along the ‘Just telephone the boys’ part of the note (so only the words ‘The Just’ aren’t blood-covered). The Desk Sergeant winces as he opens the hood.

  INT. WILLOUGHBY HOUSE – NIGHT

  Willoughby quietly finishing the note at the kitchen table, Anne’s drunken feet, in fun socks, visible on the distant couch. He puts it in an envelope marked ‘Anne’, gets up, and quietly leaves the house;

  WILLOUGHBY

  (voice-over)

  My darling Anne. There’s a longer letter in the dresser drawer I’ve been writing for the last week or so. That one covers us, and my memories of us, and how much I’ve always loved you. This one just covers tonight, and, more importantly, today. Tonight I have gone out to the horses to end it. I cannot say sorry for the act itself, although I know that for a short time you will be angry at me or even hate me for it. Please don’t. This is not a case of ‘I came in this world alone, and I’m going out of it alone’ or anything dumb like that. I did not come in this world alone, my mom was there, and I am not going out of it alone, cos you are there, drunk on the couch, making Oscar Wilde cock jokes. No. This is a case, in some senses, of bravery. Not the bravery of facing a bullet down; the next few months of pain would be far harder than that small flash. No, it’s the bravery of weighing up the next few months of still being with you, still waking up with you, of playing with the kids, against the next few months of seeing in your eyes how much my pain is killing you; how my weakened body as it ebbs away and you tend to it are your final and lasting memories of me. I won’t have that. Your final memories of me will be us at the riverside, and that dumb fishing game (which I think they cheated at), and me inside of you, and you on top of me, and barely a fleeting thought of the darkness yet to come. That was the best, Anne. A whole day of not thinking about it. Dwell on this day, baby, cos it was the best day of my life. Kiss the girls for me, and know that I’ve always loved you, and maybe I’ll see you again if there’s another place. And if there ain’t, well, it’s been Heaven knowing you. Your boy, Bill.

  EXT. POLICE STATION – DAY

  Early morning on Main Street. Dixon can be seen through his window, iPod earphones on.

  INT. POLICE STATION, MAIN ROOM – DAY

  Dixon at his desk, first one in, singing along quietly to Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’.

  Cops start coming in on the other side of room, and the ones who aren’t in tears are when they’re told. Dixon is oblivious to all this, and because we’re with his music, we don’t hear the sound of it either.

  Dixon looks up and finally notices something is amiss when he sees a fellow cop smashing a chair to pieces and being restrained by the Desk Sergeant and two other cops, as he breaks down in tears. Dixon takes his earphones out.

  DIXON

  (laughing)

  What the hell’s going on around here?

  All the cops turn and look at him.

  What?

  INT. POLICE STATION, TOILET – DAY

  Desk Sergeant holds Dixon up at the sink he’s slumped at, nose streaming, crying quietly, dizzy.

  DESK SERGEANT

  Can you stand now?

  DIXON

  I can stand, I can stand …

  DESK SERGEANT

  I’d better get out there, say something to ’em. You ain’t gonna faint again, are ya?

  Dixon shakes his head. Desk Sergeant goes out. Dixon cleans himself up, looks at himself in the mirror, breathes deeply, exits.

  INT. POLICE STATION, MAIN ROOM – DAY

  Dixon pulls on his jacket and looks out his window as the Desk Sergeant speaks …

  Point-of-view: out of window. In his second-storey window, Welby sits at his desk, chatting with Pamela, who laughs at a joke he’s made. End point-of-view.

  DESK SERGEANT

  … that the best thing, the only thing, to honour that man’s memory right now, is to go to work. Is to be a good cop. Is to walk in his shoes. Is to do what he did, every day of his life. Help people.

  Dixon straps on his belt, picks up his night stick and walks out of the station. We track him in one continuous shot …

  EXT. POLICE STATION – CONTINUOUS

  … as he walks across the street, cars screeching to a halt, to Welby’s building. He smashes its glass door with his night stick and carries on through it, and we continue tracking him …

  INT. WELBY’S BUILDING – CONTINUOUS

  … as he walks up the stairs to the second floor, to Welby in the office, startled at the glass smashing. He backs away from him …

  RED

  What the hell’s going on, Dixon?

  Dixon clubs Welby in the face and Welby goes down, Pamela screaming. Dixon continues calmly to the window, smashes it with the night stick, picks Welby up and shoves him out of it.

  Welby disappears out the window, his screams remaining for a second till they’re ended with a sickening thud.

  PAMELA

  You fucking pig! What the fuck are you doing?!

  Dixon clubs Pamela across the face, breaking her nose. She collapses, and he walks all the way back downstairs and into the street, and we continue to track him, as …

  EXT. MAIN STREET – DAY

  … he comes out, sees Welby, broken ankle/arm/hand, trying to get up and crawl away. Dixon comes up behind, clubs him back down …

  DIXON

  See, Red? I got issues with white folks too …

  Dixon calmly walks back into the police station, passing a well-dressed black man, Abercrombie, on his way.

  DIXON

  The fuck are you looking at?

  Dixon enters the station. Abercrombie lowers his coffee, and we see his cop’s badge as he takes in the carnage on the street. End of tracking shot.

  INT. MILDRED’S HOUSE, KITCHEN – DAY

  Mildred and Robbie, fixing cornflakes and coffee, TV on in background. The local news flashes back on, an image of Willoughby, the Anchor announcing …

  ANCHOR (TV)

  Reports, sadly, have come in overnight, that Chief William Willoughby of Ebbing, Missouri, took his own life early this morning …

  Mildred reacts like she’s been punched …

  … in the grounds of his home. This report just in from Gabriella Forrester.

  TV cuts to Gabriella (who interviewed Mildred weeks back) outside the Willoughby home, yellow cordon tape up, etc.

  GABRIELLA (TV)

  Tragedy came calling today upon this quiet family home outside of Ebbing, Missouri; a home belonging to Chief William Willoughby, his wife, Anne, his two young daughters, Polly and Jane. What appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound brought life to an end for Chief Willoughby, a man highly-respected in Ebbing for his diligence and his service to the community, a service that lasted more than twenty-five years. What led him to take his life in the early hours of this morning it is too early to speculate; there were rumours of illness; could it simply have been the pressure of the job; or could it have something to do with a story we ran here just two weeks ago, of these billboards, and the woman who put them there, Mildred Hayes …

  Mildred flips the TV off with the remote.

  EXT. SCHOOL – DAY

  Robbie gets out of the car as a group of two boys and one girl stare over at Mildred. Suddenly a can of Coke hits the windscreen, from their direction. Mildred looks at the fizz.

  ROBBIE

  Don’t.

  Mildred gets out of the car, walks over to one of the boys.

  MILDRED

  Say, do you know who threw that can?

  BOY

  What can?

  Mildred kicks him hard in the crotch. He goes down. She turns to the girl next to hi
m.

  MILDRED

  How about you, honey? Do you know who threw that can?

  GIRL

  Uh, no, I didn’t really see …

  Mildred kicks her hard in the crotch. She goes down. She stares at the other boy, who kinda shudders. She goes back to the car, gets in, speeds off.

  ROBBIE

  (under breath)

  Thanks, Mom.

  INT. POLICE STATION, MAIN ROOM – DAY

  Dixon’s fellow cops slap him on the back in praise, as Abercrombie quietly enters and walks up to the Desk Sergeant.

  DESK SERGEANT

  And what can I do for you today, sir?

  ABERCROMBIE

  What’s your name?

  DESK SERGEANT

  Name’s on my tag, man. You hard of reading?

  ABERCROMBIE

  Hard of reading, no, no. That’s good, ‘hard of reading’. It’s kind of like ‘hard of hearing’, but it’s actually ‘hard of reading’, it’s like a play on words or something.

  DESK SERGEANT

  What do you want?

  ABERCROMBIE

  Uh, I’ve been sent down to uh, take over from Chief Willoughby, in light of last night’s unfortunate event.

  DIXON

  (from back of room)

  You have got to be fucking kidding me!

  DESK SERGEANT

  Do you have any documentation to prove that, sir?

  ABERCROMBIE

  You really wanna see my documentation, fucker?

  Abercrombie stares at him, cold as ice.

  DIXON

  Yeah, see his documentation!

  Desk Sergeant backs down. Abercrombie strolls up to Dixon’s desk, all the other cops watching.