Carry On S1 E12 • Governmental

FADE IN

INT. ADMINISTRATIVE SHOP- DAY

SUCHIN and BARTHOLOMEW go over tax files. They ensure that the shop remains tight and everything is decent and in order.

SUCHIN

You have a wife.

BARTHOLOMEW

Yes.

SUCHIN

So whatever you’re trying to work on me is only hurting yourself. There’s an article for this….

BARTHOLOMEW

Article 134. The penalty is dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay, and confinement for up to one year.

SUCHIN

So you do know but you continue to pursue me. Awww…you’re willing to wreck your whole life on my behalf. [flatly] Goddamn. I’m touched.

BARTHOLOMEW

I’m serious. I can end my marriage to Isabella and we can renounce your commission and I can get out early, too. I’m focused on the two of us being together.

SUCHIN

You also know that I’m a lipstick lover.

BARTHOLOMEW

That’s okay. Jesus can handle that. All you have to do is pray away all of your sin and create yourself as something whole. Whatever you did in the past can be washed away and everything can become new.

SUCHIN [she shifts her weight]

That’s probably going to interfere with my atheist stance so there will be no praying to Jesus coming from me.

BARTHOLOMEW

Now you sound like my daughter.

SUCHIN

She interested in girls?

BARTHOLOMEW

No, no, no. At least I think not. Anyway, I’m talking about your aversion to praising our Lord and Savior. What woke you up this morning?

SUCHIN

My phone’s alarm clock.

BARTHOLOMEW

No, no. God did. Who put food on your table for breakfast?

SUCHIN

I try to skip breakfast. Keep my figure in line for the day and all. Especially before PT run. You know I’ve never fallen out on one? Not even in OCS.

BARTHOLOMEW [Growing exasperated]

I’m just thinking about you and me. What we could do together. What we could be. [he inches closer to her. She rebuffs]

SUCHIN

This is wrong. This is wrong. I don’t want to have to get Finney in on this. He already knows about your advances. If you want to be dressed down by a major and the CO of this outfit, by all means. But I think it can save us both the trouble and have you stay with your wife.

BARTHOLOMEW [he darkens]

I—I never wanted to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted to advance some sort of affair. I don’t know. My wife loves me, my daughter hates our guts that causes us to fight. With you, we smoke and joke and it’s like my world is set right again. Everything is at ease.

SUCHIN

Everything is not, though. I’m a junior grade officer in the United States Marine Corps. You are a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer in that same Corps. What we have between us is just business. We come to work, get all of it squared away and then we go home. That’s it. There is no togetherness outside of this business relationship.

BARTHOLOMEW

It’s all business, huh?

SUCHIN [shuts her eyes. She turns around to face BARTHOLOMEW]

That’s all this will ever be. Once we discover the fact we work well together and accomplish goals like a team, then we can realize that it would be futile to explore a romantic relationship.

BARTHOLOMEW [he looks down and then up again]

If that’s the way it’s going to be, we’re going to have the best of times! We should be able to have the tightest shop on this base. The airmen won’t know what to do with themselves. They’ll so surprised that an officer and an enlisted Marine could do the job of five or ten people.

SUCHIN [she smirks]

When you’re not being the local horn dog chasing after someone that doesn’t want you, you’re alright Lonnie. And I’m going to keep calling you that not because I think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend but because the informality may prove to be even more beneficial. You don’t have to call me Captain Zhang. Just Suchin like the major calls me. I’ll tell him that we discussed the parameters of this relationship.

BARTHOLOMEW brightens. He looks at SUCHIN for a long time. He turns around and picks up a stack of papers from off his desk. He completes a one hundred degree turn in the conversation.

You know, they think they’re slick. They get you all gassed up for Christmas for four months and then when they get to it, they drop the hammer. Pay your taxes, bitches. It’s wild.

SUCHIN laughs for the first time that morning.

That’s right. Until we get some reform where there are no income taxes and only payment to the government for the cops, judges, and us, we have to put up with all of this. It’s draconian. We win battles and come back and still have worry about Uncle Sam reaching into our pockets. If we can have tax free combat pay, why can’t we just have no taxes except on contracts and some consumer goods and services? I don’t get it. I don’t get it.

BARTHOLOMEW

And even then, they want you to pay up for Social Security and Medicare.

SUCHIN

This is true.

BARTHOLOMEW

What I don’t understand is how come the politicians…I mean it wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket…but just the gesture of them saying they’ll pay for the taxes out of their own salaries. Some of them know about manipulating the stock market to their advantage. Why aren’t those bastards giving up their duckets in order to pay for the proper agencies of the government?

SUCHIN

My gripe is with them as well. The wizards of monetary policy haven’t a clue what it means to actually allow the market to be hands- off and free from all regulations and controls. I wouldn’t worry about paying for governmental services if the economy was actually liberated.

BARTHOLOMEW

Instead, they’re too busy sending us off to goddamn hell holes and expecting us to do the dirty work and look at what we get in return. [he holds up a report of the fallen Marines for the last quarter]

FADE OUT