FADE IN: 

INT. BAR – NIGHT

GRIGOR (30s, Slavic) works behind the counter at a neighborhood bar.

JEROME (20s) sits among the OTHER PATRONS and nurses a drink.

JEROME

Grigor, it’s tough. They ordered more tests. It costs more money. Yet none of them have a clue what might be wrong with me.

GRIGOR

I had major digestive trouble as child. I vomited nearly daily until I was eighteen. The doctors, they know nothing to help.

JEROME

That is awful.

GRIGOR

My teeth nearly rotted out of skull from the stomach acids.

JEROME

(a bit uncomfortable)

Okay.

Meanwhile, CLAUDE weaves in towards the bar.

CLAUDE

I can’t believe it! I can’t fucking believe it!

JEROME

Oh dear.

CLAUDE

Proof! Proof the bitch has been cheating on me the whole time!

JEROME

Sorry to hear that.

Grigor pours Claude his usual.

GRIGOR

I was cheated on once. My wife was with three other lovers. I only learn this when I catch venereal disease that makes me temporarily blind.

CLAUDE

Dammit. Women.

GRIGOR

For three weeks, I bleed from the eyes, and now I can never make sex to people again. And also my manhood stenches like a fetid corpse.

JEROME

Um...

CLAUDE

Well. Uh. I guess this shit’s not as bad as that, Grigor.

GRIGOR

I wanted to cry, but lachrymal glands gave the shooting pain until I pass out.

CLAUDE

Yeah, I got the idea, Grigor --

Meanwhile, ANNA sidles up to the bar.

ANNA

Grigor, I need to get so drunk tonight.

JEROME

Oh, they didn’t --

ANNA

Yup. They fired me.

CLAUDE

Those motherfucking --

GRIGOR

I was fired once. I work as spy in my country.

JEROME

I’m not absolutely certain this is relevant, Grigor --

GRIGOR

Without government protection, the Japanese mafia discover my identity, my where I live, my family. They put out hit on everyone, send assassins with long blades.

ANNA

Wow, I never knew --

GRIGOR

They capture and torture me. I only escape by doing things no man should ever, ever do, and --

ANNA

Okay, forget I said anything.

PATRONS #4, #5, #6 wander up, talking among themselves.

PATRON #4

Yeah, my mother keeps bothering me to --

GRIGOR

My parents are dead!

PATRON #5

Um. Anyway, my shrink says that --

GRIGOR

I am tormented night and day by the disembodied voices of the damned!

PATRON #6

That’s nothing -- my dog just pissed all over my --

GRIGOR

My dog was abducted by the Yakuza and SENT BACK TO ME IN PIECES!

Beat.

GRIGOR

Every night, I hear your pissy, first-world complainings! You do not know pain until you have --

He is interrupted by a loud Japanese voice.

YAKUZA (O.S.)

Grigor Razovich!

GRIGOR

Dammit. Yakuza.

The bar clears a path between Grigor and the YAKUZA assassin, who pulls out two long blades and strides towards the bar.

Grigor pulls out a --

GRIGOR

Bartender smoke bomb!

-- which explodes in a cloud of smoke.

Everyone COUGHS but suddenly, Grigor is nowhere to be seen.

YAKUZA

Aw.

The assassin leaps over the bar; looks around.

YAKUZA

This always happens. I am bringing shame to the Japanese mafia. They will probably fire me.

CLAUDE

Wow.

JEROME

That sounds like a very... reasonable, normal problem.

ANNA

Right there with ya, mister.

PATRON #4

He should be the new bartender!

A chat rises up.

ALL

One of us! One of us!

YAKUZA

Really? I could?

JEROME

Just don’t tell us about any disgusting or horrifying problems in your personal life, and we’re good.

FREEZE FRAME on Jerome and the Yakuza shaking hands.

FADE OUT.