Three Claps
INT. GARAGE - DAY
"FRANKIE" is an older, slightly greying Italian man, who looks like a mobster and has the inflection to back it up. This is because he *is* a mobster.
JOEY, an "associate" of his, is a bit more the nervous type, oftentimes citing his lack of experience for his cautious disposition. Both sport Italian accents, but Joey's isn't nearly as obnoxious.
Both are sitting around a battered wooden table in a concrete garage with little else in the room, except for a few tools hanging from hooks in the walls. The table looks as if it's been used for activities other than eating from it... small, red splatters verify this claim...
What's left of dusk's light streams through the clouded windows of the garage, illuminating JOEY and FRANKIE's faces, casting them in a 'light' of foreboding melancholy.
(Obviously for the sake of a single minute play, nothing's really needed- not even chairs or the table. Work with what you have, etc, etc.)
JOEY:
Man, I-(pauses real real quick) I hope this goes well.
FRANKIE:
"Well"??
JOEY:
Ya..ya know, (stammering, slightly, obviously nervous) as... as planned...
FRANKIE:
What do you mean you 'hope'? In this business, there ain't no such thing as 'hope'. You *know* this thing going down is going down "well", or you shouldn't be a part of it at all.
JOEY:
Business? We kill people, Frankie. I don't exactly think we're traded on the 'en-why-es-ee'.
FRANKIE:
You miss the point, my friend.
JOEY:
Well, forgive me for trying to conjure up some much needed optimism-
FRANKIE (quizzically):
Opti-what?
JOEY:
Optimis-
FRANKIE (holds hand up, to stop him):
Let's keep it to tree claps
JOEY:
Three... ...claps?
FRANKIE:
Yeah, like when you was in grade school... And you had that fat broad who'd stand up front-
J (interrupting):
The.. teacher?
FRANKIE:
Yeah!, da teacha.
JOEY:
(Stammering, very slightly) My... my grade school teacher wasn't fat.
FRANKIE:
For the sake of dis here an-ec-dote (he claps the syllables to 'an-ec-dote'), she was
JOEY:
But she *wasn'*-
FRANKIE:
(punctuated, quickly interrupting) She's fat. She's a broad. (makes vague case-closed hand motion) Leave it. What, you don't remember how she'd clap the words out... She'd clap for each of dhose... whaddaya call 'em... syll...
JOEY:
Syllables?
FRANKIE:
(claps again to:)Sizz-a-bles, yeh. So when I say keep it to tree claps, don't go usin your words with the four claps, ya follow?
JOEY:
Sure, I get it. Three claps.