HE DASH COOGAN SHOW

Episode One

EXTERIOR. TEXAS DIRT ROAD—LATE AFTERNOON. AS THEME MUSIC/CREDITS ROLL...

A battered pickup truck shudders to a stop, steam rising from the hood. CLOSE ON worn pair of cowboy boots emerging from cab. Boot kicks tire then walks around side to back and pulls out saddle. A second pair of boots emerges from the cab, this one small. Together, they begin walking down the flat Texas road, their heels kicking up puffs of dust. Smaller pair occasionally takes two steps to keep up with larger pair. As theme music ends, we hear voices:

JANIE'S VOICE

Promise me you'll try this time, Pop. Promise me you won't quit after two days like last time.

We need a home, a place to settle down.

Both pairs of boots stop in front of a picket fence gate with peeling white paint.

DASH'S VOICE

Nobody likes a nagging woman, Janie. When you gonna learn that?

JANIE'S VOICE

I'm not a woman. I'm thirteen.

DASH'S VOICE

You're a thorn in my side is what you are.

JANIE'S VOICE

Do you really mean that?

DASH'S VOICE

(softening)

Naw.

ANGLE TO DASH. CLOSE on his rodeo champion belt buckle. WIDER ANGLE to Dash and Janie. They look hot, thirsty, and tired.

EXTERIOR. FRONT YARD OF PDQ RANCH.

Dash opens gate. They begin moving up sidewalk to dilapidated ranch house.

DASH

I'm a rodeo rider, Janie. Not a ranch manager. And this spread isn't even respectable. It's a dude ranch. I still plan on tanning your hide for forging my name on that job application.

JANIE

You used to be a rodeo rider, Pop, but you're not anymore. You heard what the doc said. No

more broncs unless you want to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.

DASH

At least I'd have something underneath me that moved.

JANIE

What about that cocktail waitress in El Paso?

DASH

Janie?

JANIE

Yeah, Pop?

DASH

Remind me to tan your hide.

EXTERIOR. PDQ RANCH HOUSE FRONT PORCH

ELEANOR CHADWICK steps out looking harried. She is beautiful, perfectly coiffed, and too stylishly dressed for her surroundings. She speaks to someone still in the house.

ELEANOR

I don't care if we do have a horse foaling. Dusty can call an obstetrician. I'm going into Goose Creek and see if there's anyone in that godforsaken town who knows how to give a cucumber/ Grand Marnier facial.

She spots Dash and Janie.

Oh, Lord, what now?

Dash and Janie stop at the bottom of the stairs. Dash sets down saddle. He and Eleanor take each other in. He is a handsome man, and she can't help admiring him. On the other hand, she hates everything about the West, including cowboys.

ELEANOR

My, my. If it isn't Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kidette.

Eleanor's sarcasm doesn't go over well with Dash. Although he has a weakness for beautiful women, her patronizing attitude sets his teeth on edge. Janie knows her father too well and quickly intercedes.

JANIE

Howdy, ma'am. My name's Janie Jones. This here is my pop, Mr. Dash Jones. He's your new ranch manager.

DASH

I'll do my own talking, Jane Marie.

ELEANOR

(taking in Dash)

They certain do grow them big out here in the West. It must be from smoking all that sagebrush. You're late, by the way. You were supposed to be here yesterday. If you're going to work for me, you'll have to be more reliable.

DASH

(resting one boot on the step)

Well, you see ma'am, that's just it. I'm not going to be working for you. I just remembered that I

got a better offer from this fellow who runs a rattlesnake ranch right off the interstate. All he wants me to do is hand-feed those critters. The way I figure it, the company'd be more polite.

ELEANOR

(indignantly)

Of all the gall. You're fired, do you hear me? I wouldn't have you working for me if you were the last ranch manager in Texas.

DASH

That's just fine with me, ma'am, because from the looks of this place, you won't be in business much longer.

Janie's eyes dart from her father to Eleanor and back ogain. Realizing she has to do something, she clutches her stomach and falls down on porch, groaning loudly. Eleanor looks alarmed and runs to her side, fussing over her.

ELEANOR

What's wrong? What's wrong with her?

DASH

(impervious to Janie's dramatic groans)

I'd watch yourself there, ma'am. When she gets like this, she has a tendency to upchuck, and I don't think the color scheme would coordinate with those nice clothes of yours.

Janie's groans intensify. Eleanor becomes more alarmed. She continues to fuss over Janie.

ELEANOR

Do something, will you! What kind of a father are you to let your child suffer like this?

DASH

It's probably just another busted appendix. She gets them all the time. I wouldn't trouble yourself.

With that. Dash picks Janie up and throws her over his shoulder.

ANGLE TO SIDE OF HOUSE WITH BARN IN BACKGROUND

BLAKE CHADWICK comes running toward the house. A handsome and charming young man, he's dressed in jeans and a work shirt, both obviously new. But even though he's a city slicker, Blake likes the PDQ Ranch, and he wants to make a go of it.

Janie's screams stop as she spots Blake. She stares at him open-mouthed. He's the handsomest man

she's ever seen, and at the age of thirteen, she falls in love for the first time.

BLAKE

Mom, Dusty says the foal's not turned right. We're going to lose both the foal and the mare if that vet doesn't get here soon. And the trail party that left this morning should have been back hours ago. I'm going to have to go after them.

ELEANOR

That's impossible! You don't know the trails, and you'll get lost yourself. Where is that vet? How could he do something like this? If your father weren't already dead, I'd kill him for leaving me this awful ranch in his will. I swear, I'll sell it to the first person who makes me a decent offer. If it weren't for this horrid place, I could be lunching at the Russian Tea Room right now with Cissy and Pat and Caroline!

Pushing up the sleeves of her expensive suit, Eleanor sets off purposefully toward the barn, her head high, her spiked heels sinking deeply into the dirt.

Dash stares after her. Janie, still upside down over her father's shoulder, stares at Blake. Blake notices them and walks toward Dash, his hand extended.

BLAKE

Hi, there. I'm Blake Chadwick. Welcome to the PDQ.

DASH

Dash Jones.

BLAKE

The new ranch manager! Am i ever glad to see you.

DASH

Ex-ranch manager. I'm afraid your ma and me didn't hit it off too well.

JANIE

(still upside down)

Could I say something?

DASH

No.

Dash stares thoughtfully toward the barn.

Your ma doesn't look like she knows too much about horses.

BLAKE

(fondly)

She's not too crazy about any animal that can't be made into a coat. She tries, but this has been hard on her.

A beautiful buxom female appears in the background near the barn. She is dressed in jeans and a tight gingham blouse and calls out Blake's name.

BLAKE

I'll be there in a minute, Dusty.

BLAKE turns back to Dash, who has picked up the saddle with his other arm.

Are you sure you won't change your mind, Mr. Jones? We could really use some help.

DASH

I'm afraid not, son.

BLAKE

(with resignation)

Yeah, you look like a man with good sense.

Blake heads toward the barn without having acknowledged Janie's presence.

Dash stares after Blake and slowly lowers Janie to the ground. Reluctantly, he puts down the saddle.

DASH

Janie?

JANIE

Yeah, Pop?

DASH

Remind me to tan your hide.

Grimly, he sets off toward the barn.

"And cut," the director called out. "Print it. Good work, everybody. Let's break for lunch."

It was the last week of July and their final day of shooting the pilot episode. They hadn't been filming the show in order, and they were just now doing the opening scenes. It was a confusing way to go about things as far as Honey was concerned, but then no one had asked her opinion. They didn't ask her about anything, in fact. They just told her what to do.

She gazed around her at the set for the PDQ ranch. They were filming all the exteriors at a former chicken ranch near the Tajunga Wash, an area in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Pasadena. The rugged slopes of the San Gabriels were covered by chaparral at the lower elevations, giving way to pine and fir as the peaks rose. Just that morning she had glimpsed desert bighorn sheep as well as a golden eagle soaring on the thermal updrafts. Most half-hour television shows were videotaped, she had learned, but since so much of The Dash Coogan Show took place outside, it was being filmed, instead, like a movie.

"Good job, Honey." Jack Swackhammer, the director, patted her on top of her head just as if she were some damn poodle dog. He was young and skinny, and he hopped around a lot. All week he had looked as if he was getting ready to have a nervous breakdown.

As he walked over to talk to his assistant, Honey looked after him with disgust. Everybody was treating her as if she were really thirteen. She shouldn't have been surprised, she supposed, considering the fact that those stupid writers kept taking her into their conference room and raping her mind.

The first time the writers had called her in, they'd been so nice, explaining the new concept for the show and asking her opinion about everything under the sun. Since there was nothing she enjoyed more than talking, she'd been pulled in like a fool. She had sat there sucking on the can of Orange Crush they'd offered her and talked, talked, talked—too stupid to figure out that all of her opinions would become Janie's opinions, that her feelings would become Janie's.

They had stuck her need for a home in the script, right along with all her secret feelings about Eric Dillon, although how they'd figured that out, she had no idea, since she certainly hadn't come out and told them. Maybe it wouldn't have been quite so humiliating if they had made Janie a mature, self-sufficient sixteen-year-old like herself, but instead they had turned her into a puny little thirteen-year-old retard.

She still got indignant whenever she thought about it.

As the director ended his conversation with his assistant, she approached him. "Mr. Swackhammer—"

"Please, Honey. Call me Jack. We're all family here."

But they weren't her family. What should have been the most exciting time of her life was being ruined because Sophie refused to leave the park to come to California and Gordon Delaweese spent all his time at the new apartment she and Chantal had moved into. With Chantal paying so much attention to Gordon and with Sophie still in South Carolina, Honey was feeling all jangly, as if she didn't belong anywhere.

Working on the television show wasn't like she'd imagined it, either. After having been so nice to her the day they had met, Dash Coogan had gradually changed. He'd been real helpful to her at first, but then it seemed the friendlier she got, the more he backed off. Now he barely spoke to her unless they were on-camera together. And the only time Eric Dillon had sought her out was to ask her if Chantal would be coming around.

The director looked back down at his clipboard. She remembered her most pressing grievance. "I've got to talk to you about this haircut."

"Shoot."

"It's embarrassing."

"What do you mean?"

"It looks like somebody put a dog's dish on top of my head and cut right around it." The sides were cut high over her ears and the back formed a straight line two inches above her nape. Her bangs fell long

and fine past her eyebrows, making the whole thing look off balance.

"It's great, Honey. Perfect for the part."

"I'm going to be seventeen in December. What kind of haircut is this for a girl who's almost seventeen?"

"Janie's thirteen. You have to get used to thinking younger."

"That's another thing. I saw that press kit you sent out, and it gives my real age as thirteen."

"That was Ross's idea. Audiences don't like it when they find out kid actors are lots older than the part they're playing. You're small, and you're an unknown. Ross wants to keep you away from the press for

a while until you get your bearings, so it doesn't really make much difference, now, does it?"

Not to him, maybe. But it certainly did to her.

"Jacko! Honey! You're doing great, sweetheart. Just great."

One of the older network executives, a nervous-looking man in his late fifties, popped a little white pill in his mouth as he came up to them. She stepped back before he could chuck her under the chin as he'd done that morning.

"I think we've got a hit in the making here," he said with too much heartiness. Even without his eyelid twitching, she would have known that he didn't believe a word he was saying. The network was nervous because they said the new concept for The Dash Coogan Show wasn't really situation comedy but it wasn't quite drama either, and they were worried about confusing the audience.

Honey didn't see what the big deal was. The show was funny in some parts, sad in other parts, and pretty sentimental a lot of the time. What was so hard to understand about that? The American people might be getting ready to vote another Republican into the White House, but that didn't mean they were stupid about everything.

He smiled at her, displaying teeth too big and white to be real. "You've got star written all over you, sweetheart. She's the real thing, isn't she, Jacko?"

"Uh— Thanks, Mr. Evans."

"Call me Jeffrey, sweetheart. And I mean it. Really. You're going to be another Gary Coleman."

He started raving about all her natural talent and carrying on like she was the second coming. Her stomach began to feel queasy. She told herself it was from spending so much time upside down over Mr. Coogan's shoulder, but it was really because she didn't believe him. All of them knew that she didn't understand the first thing about acting. She was nothing more than a little redneck girl from South Carolina who had jumped into water that was way over her head.

The executive excused himself to corner Ross. Honey was getting ready to argue some more with Jack about her haircut when Eric Dillon appeared from behind them.

"Jack, I need to talk to you."

Honey hadn't heard him coming, and, at the sound of his voice, an achy sense of longing came over her. She was painfully conscious of her scruffy jeans and dog-dish hair. She wished she were beautiful and sophisticated like Liz Castleberry.

As Eric closed in on the director, his eyes darkened with an intensity that sent a shiver through Honey. "I'm not happy with the pacing, Jack. You're rushing me through lines where I need to take my time.

I'm not driving a race car here."

Honey looked at him with admiration. Eric was a real actor, not a pretend one like herself. He studied with an acting coach, and he talked about things like sensory awareness. She, on the other hand, just did what people told her.

Jack glanced uncomfortably toward Honey. "Why don't we take this up in private, Eric? Tell you what. Give me five minutes, and then meet me in the production trailer."

Eric gave a curt nod. Jack walked off, and she tried to think of something intelligent to say before Eric left her side, too, but her tongue was paralyzed. The worst part of the way the writers had raped her mind was the fact they she had to act like a lovestruck ninny in all their scenes together. As a result, she had no idea how to act when they weren't on camera.

He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and stared off into space as he lit it.

She stared off into space, too. "You—uh— You're real serious about acting, aren't you, Eric?"

"Yeah," he muttered, not bothering to look at her. "I'm real serious."

"I heard you talking about that sensory awareness stuff with Liz. Maybe sometime you could explain it to me."

"Yeah, maybe." He took off for the production trailer.

Feeling discouraged, she watched him go. As her spirits dipped lower, she told herself she was acting like a spoiled brat. In less than a month, she would have earned more money than the Silver Lake Amusement Park had made in gate receipts for the entire winter. She didn't have any reason to be unhappy. Still, she couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that nothing was going right.

It was eight o'clock that evening before shooting was finished and Honey had climbed out of her costume jeans and into her own jeans. By the time she reached the apartment she shared with Chantal and parked the racy little fire-engine-red Trans Am her agent's secretary had helped her buy, she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

The building was the nicest place Honey had ever lived—a vine-covered white stucco quadrangle with a red-tiled roof and a small courtyard in the center. The apartment itself boasted comfortable furniture, a little patio, and museum posters on the walls. It had everything she could want except Sophie. And one thing she didn't want— Gordon Delaweese.

As soon as she unlocked the front door and stepped into the foyer, she knew something was wrong. Usually when she came home, Gordon and Chantal were propped up in front of the television eating Hungry Man dinners, but now everything was dark.

A twinge of alarm shot through her. She flipped on the overhead light and dashed through the kitchen into the living room. Snack wrappers and ashtrays littered the coffee table. She rushed upstairs. Her heart pounding in her throat, she pushed open Chantal's bedroom door.

The two of them were lying naked in each other's arms, sound asleep. All the blood rushed from Honey's head. Her hand shook as she flipped on the overhead light. Chantal stirred and then blinked. Abruptly, she sat upright, pulling the sheet up over her breasts.

"Honey!"

"You Judas," she whispered.

Gordon struggled awake. A few strands of dark hair hung like ravelings at the center of his bony chest. He looked uneasily back and forth between the two women.

Honey shoved the words out through a small tight space in her throat. "You swore on the Holy Bible. How could you do this?"

"It's not what you think."

"I'm not blind, Chantal. I know what I see."

Chantal pushed her dark curls back from her face. Her red mouth grew soft and pouty. "You made it so hard on us, Honey. Maybe if you hadn't forced us to swear on the Bible, me and Gordon could have just done what came naturally and waited for the rest. But after you made us swear..."

"What are you talking about? What do you mean 'waited for the rest'?"

Chantal bit at her lip nervously. "Me and Gordon. We got married this afternoon."

"You did what?"

"It's not a sin now. We're married, so we can do whatever we want."

Honey stared at the two of them huddled in the bed, and she felt as if her whole life had just fallen apart around her. They were pressed together, already excluding her. Chantal, the person she loved most in the world, now loved somebody else more.

Chantal bit at her bottom lip. "Me and Gordon getting married doesn't make any difference, don't you see? Since you got the part on the TV show, we don't have to depend on me anymore. Now you're the one who can do great things, Honey. I can just be a regular person. Maybe learn how to do hair. I don't have to be anybody special."

Honey's jaw set into a hard line. "You Judas! I won't ever forgive you for this!"

She raced out of the room and down the steps. When she reached the front door, she threw it open and ran out into the night. She heard a roaring in her ears, the sound of Black Thunder hurling her through time and space. But Black Thunder was too far away for her to feel reassured that everything would be all right again.

She stayed in the courtyard by the fountain until she was shivering, as much from emotion as from the chill air. Then she went back inside and, sealing herself in her bedroom, called Sophie.

"Sophie, it's me."

"Who?"

Honey wanted to scream at her aunt, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. "Sophie, you can't put off coming to California any longer. I need you. Chantal married Gordon Delaweese, that boy I told you about. You got to come out and help me."

"Chantal got married?"

"This afternoon."

"I missed my baby's wedding?"

"I don't think it was much of a wedding. Now write this down. I'm going to send you some airplane tickets for next week through that Federal Express mail. You're going to fly to L.A."

"I don't think so, Honey. The bank said I could live in the trailer for a while."

"Sophie, you can't stay there. It's not safe."

"It's safe. They hired Buck to stay around as caretaker and keep an eye on things."

"Buck can hardly keep an eye on himself, let alone you."

"I don't know why you're always so nasty about Buck. He gets my groceries and watches my soaps with me and everything."

Honey refused to let herself get sidetracked. "Listen to me, Sophie. Chantal just got married to a boy she hardly even knows. I need your help."

There was a long silence, and then the sound of Sophie's weary voice, no stronger than a sigh. "You don't need me, Honey. You'll take care of everything. Just like always."