Friday, September 21, 2012

National Sketch Writing Month Sketch #20

Previous Sketches


Omar Listenin’
by Colin Fisher

INT. RADIO STUDIO

There are no windows, but it feels like it’s late.  OMAR LITTLE, from The Wire, played by Michael Kenneth Williams (because for the sake of this sketch we have the budget to hire him), sits in a comfy chair at a mic, with headphones on.  

OMAR
Welcome back to Omar Listenin, the radio advice show hosted by me, Omar Little.  We’re listenin’ to Sam, who says he’s having trouble with his wife and thinks she’s cheating on him.  

VOICE OF SAM
That’s right, Omar.

OMAR
Sam, you said you don’t have no evidence, just a feeling.  How’s things at home?

VOICE OF SAM
Awkward.  Kind of dull.  She feels closed off to me.

OMAR
She still givin you that Honey Nut?

VOICE OF SAM
Is that...is that a sex thing?

OMAR
No, man.  Cheerios.  She feedin you?

VOICE OF SAM
Oh.  Yeah.  Yeah, we eat at the dinner table every night.

OMAR
She take from your stash?

VOICE OF SAM
Stash of what?

OMAR
I don’t know, what are y’all into?  Crack?  Meth?  Heroin?

VOICE OF SAM
We don’t use drugs.  Just a glass of wine on the weekends.

OMAR
She ever stab you?

VOICE OF SAM
Oh god no!  She would never do a thing like that.

OMAR
Well man, what are you complaining for?  Let the lady do her thing, you do your thing, you eat your dinner together and drink your wine.  You got a nice little life together.  Talkin about awkward and dull.  Get off my phone.  Next caller.

VOICE OF KATE
Hi, Omar?

OMAR
Oh indeed.  Who are we listenin’ to?

VOICE OF KATE
Hi, this is Kate.  First time caller long time listener.

OMAR
What’s on your mind Kate?

VOICE OF KATE
Well, it’s a work thing.  My relationship with one of my coworkers is becoming very tense.  I like her well enough, but it seems like she has a problem with me for some reason.  She’s antagonistic, she doesn’t like my ideas but never explains why, and I feel like she’s talking to people behind my back.

OMAR
I see.  You talk to her about any of this yet?

VOICE OF KATE
I’ve tried to, but she just plays it off and keeps acting the same way.  It’s getting so that I just dread going into work.

OMAR
You think about rolling up on her with that double-barrel?

VOICE OF KATE
Double-barrel, like a shotgun?

OMAR
Yup.

VOICE OF KATE
You want me to brandish a gun at one of my coworkers?

OMAR
No.

VOICE OF KATE
Oh, haha, OK.

OMAR
I want you to use a gun to blow that bitch’s knees out.

VOICE OF KATE
Oh god!

OMAR
You don’t kill her, see.  No need.  But you make your point, you let everyone see you make your point.  And that’s the last time you have to make that point.

VOICE OF KATE
OK.  Um, I feel like that’s really...illegal?  And I’d like to settle this diplomatically.  This is a person I have to see every day, after all.

OMAR
Alright.  I respect that.  Man got to have a code.  You could get her strung out on something.  Giver her a little taste of that rock, problem’s gonna take care of itself pretty quick.

VOICE OF KATE
You think I should get my coworker addicted to crack?

OMAR
Yup.

Click, then dial tone.

OMAR
Kate?  Man, y’all some punks.  Calling a man whose only games are guns and drugs, and he talks guns and drugs and you get scared and hang up.  Next caller.

VOICE OF JIM
Hi Omar.

OMAR
‘sup?

VOICE OF JIM
This is Jim.  I called a couple weeks ago?  I thought my cousin was maybe stealing from me?

OMAR
Oh, yeah, yeah, how’s that going Jim?

VOICE OF JIM
I don’t know, Omar.  I think I’m in too deep.

OMAR
We all in it deep, Jim.  So just play or get played son.

VOICE OF JIM
Well, I took your advice.  I snuck up behind him one night, and knocked him out, and tied him up in my basement.  He woke up and I had a gun on him, and I started asking him about the money.  He wouldn’t talk so...I hit him, pretty hard.

OMAR
Good man.  He gave up, right?

VOICE OF JIM
Well, not really.  He has really bad asthma, and he was freaking out and I think I broke his nose, so I had to take him to the hospital.  And it turned out I found the cash under my car seat, but he told his mom and she told my mom and now the whole family is really worried and I think there’s going to be an intervention tomorrow.

OMAR
Intervention?

VOICE OF JIM
Yeah, like they all want me to come to my cousin’s apartment tomorrow for something, and I’m pretty sure they’re planning something like that.

OMAR
Go ahead to this thing, but if you feel like you’re trapped you can always jump out the window.

VOICE OF JIM
What, you mean like metaphorically?  Like, I can always pick up and move or something?

OMAR
No man, jump out the window of the apartment.  Lay low for a while, you’ll probably end up breaking a leg.  Let that heal up, then start taking them out one by one.  Probably won’t have to get through two or three before the rest get the picture and back up off you.  

VOICE OF JIM
I don’t know, that seems really extreme.  That’s kind of what got me here in the first place.

OMAR
I don’t know man!  Then just go to this meeting and tell them what they wanna hear!  Y’all make up your minds.  Tryin’a run with wolves but y’all a bunch of puppies.  That’s it for tonight.  Tune in next week, I’ll tell you how to take down a kingpin.  Omar leavin.

Fade out to the theme song of The Wire.

END

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