Crash Monologues

Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.

Fucking black people, huh?

I mean, I know all the sociological reasons why, per capita eight times more black men are incarcerated than white men... Schools are a disgrace, lack of opportunity, bias in the judicial system, all that stuff... But still... but still, it's... it's gotta get to you, I mean, on a gut level, as a black man. They just can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

Actually, we were thinking of you until we saw that. It's your brothers file. Twenty something years old and already three felonys. Three Strikes Law, the kid's going away for life for stealing a car. Christ, that's a shitty law. There's a warrant in there. But still, he had every opportunity you had. Fucking black people, huh?

What are you? The fucking Defender of All Things White? We're talking about a white that shot three black men and you're arguing with me, that maybe we're not being "fair" to him? You know, what? Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. Maybe Lewis did provoke this. Maybe he got exactly what was coming to him. Or, maybe, stoned or not, being a black man in the valley was enough to get him killed. There was no one there to see who shot first, so there is no way way to know. Which means, we could get this wrong. Maybe that's what happened with your brother. Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe Lewis isn't the only one who deserves the benefit of the doubt. You're the one closest to all this. You need to tell us. What does your gut tell you?

The D.A's squad loses its lead investigator next month. Rick is quite adamant that his replacement be a person of color. It's a high profile position, and he wants to send the right message to the community.

Internal affairs says Conklin has two suspicious shootings on his record both black men, both times he was cleared because he cited self defense. Detective Lewis makes black man number three do you know any reason we should investigate further?

So it wasn't Lewis's car he might not have even known the money was in it.

we have attorneys for this slain police officer camping in our offices. We have his mother and half a dozen men of "the cloth" who swear that Lewis was one of the twelve apostles of Christ. We have two black city council men and a Congresswoman who called on the hour every hour demanding what the district attorney intends to do about this and you want the DA to walk into that press room and tell them all that the situation is "complicated"? Who knows about the money?

There's only two people in this room

I guess I don't see a problem here as it wasn't Lewis's fault the money isn't evidence of any wrongdoing and even if it was we aren't going to prosecute a dead man which means the money Internal Affairs is holding can't even be considered evidence.

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

Mom, I can't talk to you right now, okay? I'm having sex with a white woman.

Oh, shit. Come on. I would have said you were Mexican, but I don't think it would have pissed her off as much.

OK, I was raised badly. Why don't you take your clothes off, get back into bed, and teach me a lesson?

Ah. Well then I guess the big mystery is, who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them all how to park their cars on their lawns?

So, uh... all I need to do to make this disappear is to frame a potentially innocent man.

It's more complicated than we originally thought. We found three hundred thousand dollars in the trunk of the car Detective Lewis was driving. The car is registered to a Cindy Bradley. We haven't been able to get in touch with because she apparently left town.

You really think you'll be able to make that fly?

We can do this whole dance if you want to but I'm willing to bet when the coroner's report comes back tomorrow it's going to say that Lewis was coked out of his head.

Well, fuck you very much. But thanks for thinking of me.

I swear to you, Mom. I'll find whoever killed him.