Ext. Boo Radley’s House

[SCOUT, DILL, and JEM are spying.]

SCOUT
Is he in there?

DILL
Who?

JEM
Boo.

DILL
Boo who?

JEM
Why are you crying?

SCOUT
Boo Radley.

DILL
That’s a funny name, Boo.

SCOUT
It’s a nickname. His real name is Arthur.

DILL
Arthur?

JEM
Arthur. That’s like a butler’s name.

DILL
Or the name of drunken billionaire playboy who likes to take baths.

SCOUT
They call him Boo because he never comes out. He’s like a ghost. But he’s real. And he’s strong. Strong as a dam built by the WPA. That’s a historically accurate metaphor.

DILL
Got it.

SCOUT
I’m going to be strong like Boo Radley someday.

JEM
Scout, you’re just a girl. Girls don’t have to be strong. They have to be ladies.

SCOUT
When you see the washerwoman walk down the street with 40 pounds of shirts on her back, is she a girl? No. But she’s stronger than you’ll ever be. Was Susan B. Anthony just a girl? Was Louisa May Alcott just a weak girl? Was Harriet Tubman? No. They were strong. What about Eleanor Roosevelt, is she a girl?

JEM
Not really.

SCOUT
Why am I a girl, anyway? Because I have a vagina? Well, you know what comes out of vaginas, mister?

JEM
Pee?

SCOUT
Babies. Big, fat howling babies. And you think that doesn’t hurt? Oh, girls are strong, buddy, stronger than anything you’ll ever be able to handle. You try squeezing a fat, howling monster through a quarter-sized hole in your crotch, and then you’ll see what it means to be a girl.

JEM
OK, OK. You’re not a girl.

SCOUT
I will never have a baby. Women can vote! We can own property! We can fly planes. We can do it! In fact, I’m going to live to see the first female President. Or I’ll ironically die right before the first female President gets elected.

JEM
Don’t be stupid, Scout. Women can’t be President. Just like they can’t run media companies or be named American Ninja Warrior.

DILL
I’m a stand-in for Truman Capote, who ended up being a genderless socialite who everyone hated.

- - -

Int. Courtroom

[ATTICUS speaks.]

ATTICUS
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Tom Robinson is innocent of this crime. I’ve going to prove that beyond any reasonable doubt. But you are going to find him guilty anyway. You know why?

FOREMAN
Why?

ATTICUS
Because he’s black. And you’re white.

FOREMAN
What?

ATTICUS
And because justice is bullshit. Do you think we have a justice system here in the state of Alabama? There are people alive today who the census used to call two-thirds of a person. Were those people missing their legs? No. They were black. They were whole people.

Where’s the justice when black families can’t eat at the same restaurants as white families? When black kids have to attend their own schools? Live in their own neighborhoods? Or crap in their own public toilets? You think that’s justice?

Is justice going to be served here today? No. I don’t see justice. All I see is racism. John Birch Society, know-nothing racism. Hitler is rising in Germany, Mussolini is coming to power in Italy. Do you think America is better than that? It is not. You say that America is the greatest country in the world. Well I’ll tell you this: We’re as fascist as anyone else! That’s right. And I have the statistics to prove it, which I constantly rattle off during seemingly casual conversations.

AUNT ALEXANDRA
Atticus! Enough!

ATTICUS
You say you want justice. You can’t handle justice!

JUDGE
Thank you for your opening statement, Mr. Finch.

ATTICUS
And another thing!

- - -

Int. Finch House.

[SCOUT enters. ATTICUS is sitting by JEM’s beside.]

ATTICUS
Where were you?

SCOUT
Out.

ATTICUS
I was worried.

SCOUT
Boo Radley escorted me home like a gentleman, Dad.

ATTICUS
Sure, Boo Radley got away with killing Bob Ewell because he’s a weirdo shut-in. But at the end of the day he’s still a murderer.

SCOUT
It was hardly a nightmare scenario.

ATTICUS
The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is that a man takes you to a honky tonk. And you get up and you go to the restroom and somebody comes from behind and puts his hand across your mouth and drags you out the back door. Then it’s an hour and a half before I get a phone call saying I want $10,000 in unmarked bills and I will kill your daughter unless you stop trying to convict my racist brother of murdering three black people. So now we got a new problem because this county no longer has a crusading anti-racist lawyer, but a father going out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in the middle of Alabama with a gun to her head! Do you get it?

SCOUT
Yeah.

ATTICUS
Yeah?

SCOUT
Yeah.

ATTICUS
Yeah.

SCOUT
Good night, Atticus.

ATTICUS
Good night, Scout.

[Scout falls asleep.]

ATTICUS
Sleep well, girl. Because the original author of the text is sadly gone. I’m in charge of this story now. And tomorrow we have to kill the mockingbird.