Sirena's Scenes: Enter the Van
Act I, Scene 6 + Build with your neighbors, not the empire
These dispatches are part of a “Sirena’s Scenes,” a special BQE section with installments of our slacker film script accompanied by interesting pieces of antiwork-adjacent content.
Previous scene
Sirena’s journey into the land of opportunity has reached the end of Act I, meaning that by the end of today’s installment, we’ll be done with any major character or setting intros and everyone should now have a “goal” that they’re chasing, with clear “stakes.”
I say the above with quotation marks because a signature of slacker films is that they don’t tend to have stakes that feel very high, and have characters that seemingly don’t have goals. Whether that’s fully true or not is a matter of deeper analysis, but nonetheless this is a balance that I’m trying to strike with Sirena.
THE SCENE
INT. Sirena and Matilde’s room. Night.
SIRENA lays against some food boxes, their flaps making a bit of an awning over her, looking into her phone. She’s face-timing TITA, 20s, a peppy Latina face on her screen.
SIRENA (Spanish) I hate it here. Everyone’s always rushing. They don’t even stop to say hi.
TITA (Spanish) Not even a hi?
SIRENA Unless it’s “can I take your order?”
Tita giggles.
TITA It can’t be that bad. Why don’t you take a road trip? Don’t they like to do the little house on wheels thing over there?
SIRENA Van life? I thought so. But it’s not really like that.
She stares wistfully at the screen.
TITA Come home. You’re a mess without us. I’ll have a coffee ready for you to sip with me at the plaza.
SIRENA You know how people drink coffee here? They guzzle it while running to work. It’s dystopian.
TITA Do they not eat snacks with it?
SIRENA Not at all. I don’t blame them though. The food here blows.
TITA Well, help them! Did you steal my crockpot for no reason?
Sirena stammers, embarrassed.
SWOOSH--the boxes around her clear and she jumps. GRIZZIE stands over her, PACO behind her.
GRIZZIE Here you are.
Sirena squints at the harsh light of the back-rooms fluorescent bulbs. She turns to her phone.
SIRENA Gotta go Tita, talk later.
She hangs up.
SIRENA What about a little privacy?
GRIZZIE Get up. It’s volunteer day.
SIRENA Hard pass.
GRIZZIE It’s not voluntary.
SIRENA Volunteer is literally in--
GRIZZIE It’s mandated by my mom. Feel-Good’s delivering to the local pantry.
Paco offers his hand to help Sirena up. She takes it.
PACO Nothing like giving back for a reset...
He smiles a little.
PACO ...and some team-building.
Sirena lets go of him and wipes her hand on her uniform.
The PHOTOGRAPHER comes in.
PHOTOGRAPHER You all ready to go?
GRIZZIE (beat) Photographer’s coming for socials.
Sirena groans.
EXT. Community Park. Day.
An outdoor community park with kiosks and people gathered. Across the street from the park, a warehouse “COMMUNITY PANTRY” window hands out food. A banner reads “FEEL-GOOD DONATION DAY”, with rainbows and hearts.
Grizzie, Sirena, and Paco hand out food from the window.
The Photographer snaps pictures.
A PANTRY WORKER emerges with more food. The Photographer waves him toward Paco.
PHOTOGRAPHER Get together for a video. Paco, take his box and say the line.
Paco hefts the box and beams toward the camera.
PACO Every bite is a revolution!
The photographer looks at the Pantry Worker, expectant.
PANTRY WORKER Ah, ya. (coughs) And thank you Nutrivance for the support!
PHOTOGRAPHER Perfect. One more for stories. Turn the label out.
Sirena rolls her eyes and turns to Grizzie.
SIRENA How does debasing ourselves for these brats build character?
GRIZZIE It builds our mettle so that later we can go further than them.
SIRENA Is that how your mom did it?
GRIZZIE (offended) It is, actually.
Grizzie forces a smile as she hands someone else their food. She rubs her eyes.
SIRENA You’re so trained. Always tired, but thankful instead of mad about it. You don’t even need a boss.
LIONEL--19, long scraggy hair, way too many bracelets on his wrists--drifts over.
LIONEL (English, Spanish accent) Five boxes please.
GRIZZIE (outraged) Five?
LIONEL I need it for my comrades.
FOOD PANTRY WORKER Lionel!
He comes out and pats Lionel on the back.
FOOD PANTRY WORKER El Club still grinding?
He points at a makeshift table stand with a sign that says (in Spanish) “FRESH SMOOTHIES by EL SUEÑO AMERICANO,” with a handful of people as scraggly as Lionel lounging around it.
Grizzie looks skeptical.
FOOD PANTRY WORKER (to Grizzie and the gang) Try their smoothies. Life-changing.
Sirena looks intrigued. Paco and Grizzie furrow their brows.
CUT TO:
By Lionel’s smoothie stand, the gang has their smoothies. Sirena basks in the sunlight, relaxed, sipping on hers. The only one not drinking is Grizzie, who holds hers while looking away with apprehension at:
Members of “El Club” happily go about their business. Some are helping people fill out a form. Others are fixing someone’s bike.
Grizzie focuses on Lionel, who gives someone a bag of clothes.
She looks at her smoothie and takes a sip.
GRIZZIE (pleasantly surprised) Mmmmmmm.
LIONEL (noticing Grizzie) Courtesy of our mutual aid group: El Club del Sueño Americano [“The American Dream Club”]
He takes a proud sip of his own smoothie.
LIONEL (Spanish) Because we like to help our people enjoy and echarse un buen sueño. [“take a good nap”]
SIRENA Now that’s speaking my language. (gestures at photographer) How about a picture with them?
She cheeses with her smoothie, in front of El Club, who looks at her puzzled.
The photographer looks through her lens at Sirena and El Club’s shabby setup, then puts her camera down, shaking her head.
PHOTOGRAPHER Doesn’t fit Zoe’s brand guidelines.
LIONEL Hey, we earn our naps, and we deserve to be here. We’re the most hardworking community. A lot of people don’t know that.
Sirena’s face loosens into disappointment.
LIONEL (to Grizzie) How about that smoothie!
GRIZZIE Omg it’s so good!
LIONEL Our signature foraged fruit mix.
GRIZZIE Foraged fruits?
LIONEL And discarded ones from dumpster dives.
Grizzie cough-spits, mortified. Laughter. Sirena wheezes.
LIONEL It’s not where you find it, it’s the sweetness inside.
He smiles at Grizzie. She blushes.
CUT TO:
Sirena, Grizzie, and Paco sit on the curb, watching “El Club” break down their smoothies station.
Grizzie watches them.
GRIZZIE (to no one in particular) They seem like a fun, laid-back bunch.
SIRENA I thought so too until it turns out we have to “earn” our naps.
A cheap Bluetooth speaker wheezes lo-fi cumbia. Sirena looks up, and her eyes go wide. A rattly VAN coughs to the curb—Lionel driving.
She walks up and peeks inside: zines, chargers, mismatched pillows--along with boxes of food.
She spots a PS5 wedged above a milk crate.
SIRENA A gaming setup… (to herself, dreamy) It’s one of those van life vans.
LIONEL (unenthused) It was more of a homeless life van. (more proudly) Now it’s how we spread food around.
His expression sours, noticing the dash.
LIONEL Oh, come on.
A bright orange ticket flaps under the wiper. He yanks it off.
LIONEL “Unpermitted food distribution.”
He crumples the ticket and throws it.
LIONEL They make it impossible to feel at home in this country.
SIRENA (to herself) Better to make a home...that can leave the country.
She turns to Lionel.
SIRENA How much?
Lionel looks at her, surprised.
LIONEL For the van?
SIRENA For the van.
LIONEL Well, you know, it’s very sturdy. Loaded with history. Er, three grand.
SIRENA Two grand.
LIONEL Deal!
Grizzie jumps up.
GRIZZIE Deal?! You don’t have two grand.
SIRENA I can get it. Isn’t that why we have jobs?
GRIZZIE (Ponders) Not sure about our jobs.
Sirena taps the van like a horse.
SIRENA Hold it a few weeks for me. Don’t sell.
Lionel gives her a sloppy salute. Sirena nods, satisfied. Grizzie looks concerned.
SCENE NOTES
This scene marks the end of Act I, which means we’ve introduced Sirena’s world and given everyone something to chase.
Sirena is enamored with that van (more on this later)
Grizzie is introduced and intrigued by Lionel and his Sueño Americano gang.
By now, we’re also well-aware of Zoe’s migrant achiever program and the stakes she feels around that.
Same with Matilde’s desire to get a foot into Nutrivance.
Act I also usually ends with an “inciting incident” where the main character gets forcibly shoved into an adventure they can’t get out of. This is where slacker films tend to be softer–they don’t tend to have clear inciting incidents. You could also argue that Sirena got shoved into an adventure she didn’t want before the film started, when Matilde roped her into coming to America.
More or less, no element of huge emotional importance should be generally introduced after act I. The later in a story an element is introduced, the more random or arbitrary it seems. The adage of “a gun shown in act I should go off in act III” has the corollary of “A gun shown for the first time late in act II sticks out as a convenient solution.”
This is also why this scene is carrying a lot of freight: the van, Lionel, El Club, Grizzie’s curiosity, and the food pantry all need to enter the story before Act II starts pushing them around.
Speaking of which: I’ve gone back and forth so many times about a van being Sirena’s driving engine/desire for everything she does in the next act.
On one hand, a van is very cliché, already used repeatedly in slacker and road-trip films alike.
On the other, a cliché can be a good thing if we do something different with it, perhaps as a symbol to comment on the slacker genre. I like that using a van plays with a tried-and-true archetype of freedom and adventures, not only in American movies but also social media fantasies.
After much thinking, I realized what bothered me about the van wasn’t so much that it’s cliché, but that it barges in kinda out of nowhere at the end of act I to immediately become the main driving force for Sirena in act II. Happily, because we can update these blogs in perpetuity, I not only seeded it at the beginning of today’s sequence, but also at the end of the earlier processing center scene.
A final thing I noticed about these scenes in the previous draft is that they all took place in random outside places (“EXT. Street.” and didn’t feel grounded in a physical world the way the river, processing station, or cafe scene.
So as a final adjustment, I’m seeing what it’s like to set them in a neighborhood park that can anchor the food bank (which will figure again later) and Lionel’s mutual aid club–making the space feel recognizable when we revisit it and helping it give everything a sense of “world.”
Antiwork piece of the week:
build with neighbors, not the empire
Since this scene makes fun of performative altruism and because I’m still learning how to depict mutual aid groups without turning them into either saints or punchlines, Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.’s “The revolution starts by building with poor folks in your own backyard” is an apt companion piece.
It also contains great actionable advice for anyone who cares about activism. One of my favorite mantras from Russell Smith is “start where you are,” and I think this piece embodies it.
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