S1.E1 Fresh Meat - Scene 6

Ritual S1 - Episode 1 - Scene 6

Mike walks home alone

Characters in this Scene

Chaz Bono as Mike Maguire

Rod a cop

Jerome a henchman

The girl

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It's early evening, and Mike Maguire is finally finished for the day. He waves a good-bye to the desk cop at the front of the LAPD building. He is wearing jeans, trainers, and a navy sweat shirt emblazoned with LAPD. It helps identify him on the street when he isn't in uniform.

"Car still at the shop Mike?"

"Yeah, looks like I gotta foot it again tonight, Sam."

Mike ambles down the street with his sports bag slung over his shoulder, he reaches the corner and a mustard-yellow sports car with a black GT stripe down the bonnet pulls up beside him. Two men are inside.

A man calls out to him from the driver's seat "Hey Mike! You wanna ride home?" He has a ridiculously long moustache and an oiliness about him, Mike thinks he looks more like a porn star than a cop.

"Nah, I'm OK thanks Rod," Mike's eyes trail in admiration across the car, a Ford Mustang. "That sure is a sweet ride though. So, tell me, how does a cop on the city payroll afford something like this?"

"Fringe benefits," laughs Rod. His partner sitting beside him sniggers.

"You should get with the program Mikey boy!" the other man calls out as the car roars off, the sound of the V8 engine reverberating in the night. Mike waves, fuck you, assholes he says through gritted teeth framed with a fake smile. He shoulders his sports bag and continues across the west neighbourhood to the small but tidy bungalow he shares with his wife and teenage daughter. The thought of seeing Brenda's disapproving face when he walks through the door, late again, gives him mixed feelings. He doesn't know whether to start jogging or drop in at Murphy's Bar and just not bother coming home at all. His thoughts are interrupted by a lanky dark man in striped flares and a suede fringed jacket, who approaches him from behind. The man casually falls into step with Mike.

"What do you want Jerome?"

"Dulcie wants to see you." The man's voice is low and musical.

"You can tell your boss, that I don't want see her," growls Mike.

"Now Mikey boy, that aint polite," Jerome chides. He steps in front of Mike, blocking his path and forcing him to stop walking. He is wearing sunglasses despite it being evening.

"Tell her she's barking up the wrong tree." Mike shoulders past him and continues on.

"You'll come around Mikey boy, you know you will!!" calls out Jerome after him.

Mike picks up the pace trying to put as much distance between himself and Jerome, who is standing on the pavement, watching him from the shadows. He takes a sharp turn and heads to the downtown area. Neon signs beckon down dark alleyways where streetwalkers try to entice patrons. Movie theatres showing the latest skin flicks and shops peddling carnal fantasies line the streets. Mike feels dirty just walking past this place, he shudders involuntarily. He puts his feelings down to his strict Catholic upbringing perhaps, but even more so he doesn't like the idea of exploitation surrounding the sex industry. There are those out there that prey on the weak and vulnerable for profit. People like Sol Goldblum, the so-called porn king of L.A. have grown rich off it, other people have become famous off it like Linda Lovelace, but to Mike it just seems like a recipe for misery.

He rounds a corner and passes by an alley when something in the shadows catches his eye, a movement. He sees a young woman, standing alone and shuddering violently in the half-dark. Something about the girl is unnerving. Mike takes a breath, he knows better than to tackle anything off duty and without a partner, but he reasons that she could genuinely be in trouble. "Miss, are you ok?" he calls out to her from the entrance of the alley. The girl is making a keening sound, creepy, thinks Mike. He figures she might well be a fucking junkie, another tragic piece of handiwork thanks to Dulcie Brown and her boys. Against his better judgement he approaches her.

"Miss, it's not safe to be on the streets alone at night," cautions Mike. The girl continues to ignore him. His senses are tingling; something is definitely not right about his girl. He rummages in the sports bag for his gun and places it in the back of his jeans, underneath his sweatshirt. He approaches her slowly with his hands up. "Look, I'm a police officer, would you like to come with me, I can take you somewhere safe."

"He is coming," she rasps.

"What, your boyfriend? Your dad? Is someone coming to pick you up?" Mike inches closer. The girl suddenly turns around and gets right up in Mike's face, her mouth contorting into a scream. She shoves him in the chest with surprising force for someone with her slight frame. He staggers backward into a row of trash cans knocking them over in a clanging cacophony. Putrid garbage spills out onto the alleyway and over the leg of Mike's jeans. The girl laughs, a sound as disconcerting as shattering glass.

"Ugh," disgusted Mike brushes down his pants which are now crawling with maggots. "You crazy junkie shit-bird!" he yells at her. He backs away warily and when he rounds the corner of the alley, he cranks up the pace, breaking into a jog. It was not so much the push that shocked him, but the smell of her breath. Mike knows that smell. It is forever ingrained in his memory. It is the same smell of that house in the summer of 1972, where he and his partner had discovered a month-old murder scene. It was unmistakably the stench of rotting flesh. He can still hear the girl's laughter coming from the alleyway, even though he is more than halfway down the block. Somehow, coming home to Brenda didn't seem so scary anymore.

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