Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Once upon a time there was a struggling art director… he was writing the story in his head as he wandered the housing commission looking for the kid he needed. A poor kid, a really povo kid, he needed to look like Billy Elliott at the start of the film. Malnourished for a start, dirty would be perfect and threadbare shoes were a necessity. The visibly poorer the better.
Where the fuck was he? There didn’t seem to be a single child without brand new fucking trainers and smacky trackies on. He blamed China and their obnoxiously cheap stupid sneakers under 10 bucks. And the culture of buying new instead of fixing the old. And sneakers, for fuck’s sake. How was he going to get the shot he needed, the one that would win him awards, with a kid truly grateful for a new pair? They probably nick them anyway. No one wants a new pair of leather shoes when they’re a kid, he could remember deliberately scuffing up his new school shoes as soon as he got them to his mother’s outrage. He certainly didn’t revere them, or know that they were his last new pair til he was an adult. Not that he’d grown up poor. Sure they had a Nimbus but not because his parents were thrifty, his dad just always got bad advice. Like buying a Betamax.
Every day for a week he’d lurked around the housing commission staking out potential subjects. There had to be a recipient worthy enough, poor enough, someone who would show him some genuine heartfelt gratitude because their shoes had died in the arse weeks or months before and been repaired so many times they may as well have been walking barefoot. Honestly, there had to be someone in that state in this country. Preferably in this particular block of flats.
One day he found him. His perfect ragamuffin. Dirty, disheveled, looking forlornly over the concrete of the estate, he was fucking perfect. He was wearing what might have been trainers once but they were unrecognizable. You couldn’t really have fucked them up more in the studio. He could practically taste the champagne at the awards, he swallowed at the thought of the coke at the after party. He started writing the acceptance speech in his head as he approached the boy, who promptly ran off screaming.
Fucking stranger danger bullshit brainwashing. Every child programmed to believe a man they don’t know is probably trying to rape them, every man by themselves in a place with children is suspect.
Because of that utter bullshit, his target was lost. He briefly considered following him home and approaching the parents, parent? Who knew in this sort of hole? And why would he want to have sex with a child? The only children he’d met were fucking annoying little shits, the idea that that would somehow turn into lust was alien to him.
He was going to have to hire someone. Some annoying little snot whose parents were so obsessed with their child’s looks they couldn’t help but share them with the world. Putting all the money into little Crispin’s uni fund even though Crispin would probably get a scholarship and inherit all his parents money after failing to look after them in their old age and wouldn’t even need the money after landing a plum job in a firm and retiring early after a brief but illustrious career.
Seething with the injustice of Crispin’s perfect fucking life, he wandered back to the car. Still carrying the brand news shoes he’d planned to present to his subject, he started art directing the shot in his head. Wanted: Billy fucking Elliot at the start of the film. Willing to get dirty. He could see the finished shot. He could taste the champagne already.