GO DOG GO

A short film concept

By Garrett Gilchrist

INT. LIBRARY - EVENING

The children's section of a library, recently opened. JIM, a sloppily-dressed man in his early thirties, his face folded moustachioed and barely-shaven, opens the glass door that partitions this section from the regular library and enters, carrying a broom and dustpan. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the room. On the back wall he sees construction-paper bunnies, newly-pasted to the wall to decorate it, surrounding the painted words ìKidsí STORYTIME.î He almost laughs at how silly it looks. He isn't accustomed to being around kids' things.

He closes the door behind him and starts to sweep the floor, of dust and crumbs and bits of string and paper and clothing left behind by playful kids. He sweeps along the side of a toychest covered with new-looking stuffed animals, and knocks over a teddy bear. he picks it up, and tosses it back onto the chest, the way one would throw a softball. It bounces, and falls off again. JIM gives an annoyed look. He yanks the bear off the floor and pushes it violently in with the other stuffed animals. As he does so, two more bears fall off. He grabs them and drops them on top of the stack of stuffed animals, and half the stack falls off. He gives a sigh of frustration, pauses a moment in thought, and then puts them all back much more gently. They stay this time.

He returns to sweeping. After a moment we hear three little knocks on the door behind him. He turns around. He can see a little girl, LINDSAY, looking into the glass door. Her eyes are wide and bright. and she has a curious look to her face. She has playfully uncombed yellow hair and is wearing a dirty Mr. Toad t-shirt. She is no more than six. JIM shakes his head at her, no. She knocks on the door again. He sighs and walks over to the door, pointed at the "CLOSED" sign.

For a moment, we see the door from her point of view. The sign he is pointing to, on her side, says "OPEN."

She smiles at him. He frowns, looks at the sign, and flips it around.

Her point of view. She looks at the "closed" sign quizzically, and then at Jim. She smiles, and after a moment takes a well-worn piece of paper out of her pocket, and presses it up against the glass so Jim can read it. It is the sort of grey, colorfully-lined paper one would find in elementary school. On it is written, in a child's handwriting, "go dog go."

Jim sighs, thinks a moment, and then opens the door. Lindsay comes jumping in, happy and full of energy. He shakes his head to himself but can't help but smile. She runs and skips around the room randomly, but he takes her by the hand and tries to lead her to the aisle where her book would be. She still skips all around, but he holds tight to her little hand.

She looks up at him. He is tall, dark, gruff. Her eyes are wide. She is not sure whether or not to be scared, so decides not to be. She smiles as she skips along.

Jim stops her at a specific point in one of the aisles, scans down all the books with his left hand (the one not holding onto Lindsay), and finds "Go Dog Go." He pulls the book out as Lindsay watches, and hands it to her gently. She smiles, opens up the book to the middle and looks at it cockeyed, smiling. She is looking at it sideways, and tilts her head to match. She then holds it upside down.

Jim stares at Lindsay with a blank expression on his face, and rubs his hand across his forehead. He kneels down to take Lindsay's book, flips it, and hands it back to her right side up. She looks at him and giggles. He sighs resignedly, but with a little smile.

Suddenly she runs, laughing, to the other end of the room. Jim is startled for a moment, and then walks quickly after her.

Lindsay runs with her book, laughing, and jumps up onto the little round wooden reading table. She stands with her book, and then hops up and down happily.

Jim sees this, a little shocked. He gestures, waving his outstretched hands up and down, motioning "get down, get down." She gives a little disappointed look for a moment, and then smiles again, hopping off the table and onto a chair. She sits, throws her book on the table closed, and looks at Jim. He walks over, turns the book so it faces her, and opens it to the first page.

She smiles at him. He gives a little smile back.

The camera pans upward to the wall that reads "Kids' STORYTIME."

DISSOLVE TO:

INT - LIBRARY, 10 YEARS LATER - EVENING

The image matches perfectly with the shot that preceded it, still holding on the words "Kids' STORYTIME." But now many of the painted letters have been scratched off the wall, or have faded or been covered over by stapples and construction paper. The wall reads ìids STOR T MEî now. Most of the pasted carboard bunnies are gone, and the few that are left have faded considerably. Other artwork has covered over and replaced them over the years, and now that too has faded. But the art kids have created with poster paint, construction paper, macaroni and felt shows this place has been lived-in well.

JIM, in his early forties, a bit better dressed now, his thinning hair graying a bit, no longer sporting a moustache, pushes a broom across the little walkway. He knocks a teddy bear off of the warped old toychest, picks it up and notices its fur is dirty at the tips, and it is missing one eye and its nose. He looks down at the toy chest itself, and we see that all the stuffed animals look like this, dirty and faded, with the exception of a few new ones, saturday-morning fad characters mostly, who are clean and new. He puts his broom down and walks to his little desk, cradling the bear in his arms like a baby. He sets the bear down on the desk and opens one of the desk drawers. Inside we see little brushes, sewing needles and thread, and a bunch of old buttons, along with other assorted junk. He takes out a little fine-toothed brush and brushes the dirt out of the teddy bear's fear, carefully but with strength, and it does begin to look better, He grabs a needle and a spool of thread, then roots through the little box of buttons to find just the right one. He looks at it, and at the bear's eye, and smiles, pleased at the similarity. With a surgeon's care he sews the button on in place of the bear's missing eye. He holds the bear up to look at it, and it is good as new.

We hear a knocking at the door. Jim puts the bear down and walks slowly over to see who it is. He can't see clearly through the smudged old glass, so he opens the door.

What we see first, because Jim sees it, is a baby being held by someone. Jim smiles at the baby and it gurgles at him. There is a glow in his eyes, being around the very young. He looks up, and sees that it is being held by a young woman. There are rings under her eyes, though it is hard to see since she covers all round her eyes with black eyeshadow. She also wears black lipstick, and has a sour look on her face from not sleeping. Her hair was once blonde and curly, but has been flattened straight and dyed purple, except for the roots. She wears a black oversized "CRIB DEATH AUTO" t-shirt. This is LINDSAY, sixteen years old, and her young daughter. JIM smiles wide, but then gets a hesitant look on his face. She looks at him sleepily, and hands him the baby, who begins to cry. JIM cradles the baby in his arms, and in a moment the baby is quiet again. He smiles, and then look at LINDSAY. She is fumbling in her overstuffed black leather purse, unable to find anything but makeup, receipts and junk, but eventually finds a twenty-dollar bill, which she holds up in her hand, and hands to JIM. He looks at her quizzically, and then looks at the aisles of books. She is already walking over there.

He walks a little briskly to catch up with her without disturbing the baby. LINDSAY is standing in the middle of one of the aisles of books, staring straight through it, dead-eyed. JIM looks at her, looks at the books and smiles a bit. He hands the baby back to her. She seems reluctant to take it. Looking quickly across all the books, JIM reaches out his deft fingers and pulls out "Pat the Bunny." He shows it to LINDSAY, a big grin on his face. She shrugs. He looks at her a moment, then at the bookshelf, from which he pulls out a couple of "Mr. Monster" books, and "The Cat in the Hat." He holds up his finger to say "wait a moment," and then runs off with the books in the direction of his desk. LINDSAY, left behind, rolls her eyes, puts the baby down on the floor and lights a cigarette.

JIM returns with a big plastic bag to carry the books in. He tosses the books he's already selected in it, and looks up to see LINDSAY smoking. His eyes open wide in shock. He looks down at the baby, and then back at her, accusingly. She gives him an angry look, and snatches the bag out of his hands. Not even looking at the shelf, she grabs three more books at random and tosses them into the bag. JIM is startled by this. LINDSAY looks at him a moment, hands him another twenty, picks up her baby and her bag and starts to go. JIM stares wide-eyed at her as she goes, shocked and disappointed. After a moment's thought he runs to the end of the aisle, grabs a book and runs after her. As she's opening the door to leave, she stops and looks at him, a blankly harsh look on her face. He hands her the book. "Go Dog Go." She looks at it with no expression at all, dumps it into the bag and walks out the door, Closing it loudly it behind her as she goes.

JIM just stands there, staring at the door, looking sad, powerless and crushed.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT - LIBRARY, 10 YEARS LATER - EVENING

A sign on the old glass door reads "We're Moving! Come see the Ridgefield Library at its new location ..."

Pan slowly from this to show the big, empty room that used to be a children's library. Almost everything is packed-up now, although no amount of cleaning will ever remove the staples and paint and constuction paper bits from the walls. JIM, in his early fifties, walks slowly and with difficulty across the center of the room. He coughs as he goes, walking with a stoop. His clothes, though once quite formal, are aged and worn, and now look sloppy. He wears glasses and has lost most of his hair. What he has left is mostly white.

Reaching the corner of the room, he picks up his old broom and dustpan - the broom has been repaired with duct tape - and pushes them randomly and inefficiently across the floor. His mind isn't on his work, and it would be hard to clean this place anyway - it looks like a warehouse. Halfway through, he nearly trips over something on the floor, and stops. He looks down at it. It is the warped old toy chest, locked closed with nothing on top of it. He pulls a set of gold keys out of his pocket, selects one and opens the chest. Inside are what remains of the old stuffed animals. A few are holding together, but there aren't that many left, and those that remain look shabby and diseased. He coughs again.

JIM walks over to the corner of the room again, grabs a black garbage bag and walks back. He grabs each stuffed animal out of the chest, far too tightly and with no delicacy or grace, and stuffs them into the trash bag, one by one. When he's done, he sets the bag down on the floor, locks the toychest shut again, and pauses a moment, stooped over it, staring at it for no real reason. After a few seconds he sits down on top of the toychest and begins to cry.

We hear a knock on the door.

JIM hears it, but ignores it. He doesn't want to deal with anyone at the moment.

We hear another knock.

JIM ignores it.

The door opens with a creak. It is unlocked. Slowly and hesitantly, a young woman of 26 years of age walks into the room. She is wearing the suit of a professional woman, and she looks clean, pressed, and well put together, carrying an oversized tan handbag. This is LINDSAY, grown-up and responsible. She looks all around her, but can't quite get her mind around it all, how empty the place looks. She bites her lip. Then she looks at JIM. He looks back at her. There is no joy in his face, no hope. He feels old and very tired. She looks at him, and feels a sudden sadness she can't understand.

She walks toward him slowly. Her heels clack loundly against the old wood floor. The sound reverberates all around the empty room. She looks all around her as she walks, and stops in front of the sitting JIM. He looks up at her. She reaches into her bag, and takes out a book. She holds it to her heart, and then hands it to him. He doesn't seem to want to take it, but she forces it into his hands. He doesn't look at it for a moment, and then holds it out in front of him and glances at the front cover. It reads "Go, Dog, Go."

His eyes well up with tears. He looks up at LINDSAY, who smiles at him. He then looks back down at the book, opening it. Inside, taped to the first page, is a little photo of Lindsay at six years of age, and at the bottom of the page, photos of Lindsay's daughter, at ages 1, 4 and 7. He stands up, straighter than we've seen him stand in this scene, staring at the photos of two beautiful children. Then he looks up, and looks into LINDSAY's wide, tear-filled eyes. She smiles at him, and gives him an enormous hug, as she cries on his shoulder.

He pats her on the back, his eyes sparkling with pride, as we pull slowly away.