Big Nothing

'My name is Charlie Wood...

'I think I made a big mistake.'

Higher...

I can't, sweetheart. Any higher, you're gonna hit the moon.

And get a bump?

That's right, smart girl, and get a bump!

Oh, hey! Emily, look who it is.

- Hi, Isabella. - Hi, Emilita.

- There we go... Hi, how are you? - Hey, great.

OK, I've got her lunch, an extra Thermos of apple juice,

her Elmo doll, Mr. Frizzles, 12 grapes in a bag...

I got it, Mr. Wood.

- Thanks. I'll see you at 5:00. - OK.

All right, sweetheart. Come here. High five...

First the Wyoming Widow, now the Oregon Undertaker.

They just pulled a dead girl out of the reservoir.

God! Suicide?

If she chopped off her own arms and legs before strangling herself, maybe.

- Pen, I'm eating. - They figure it's the Oregon Undertaker.

That's the fourth girl in six months.

Each one mutilated and disemboweled...

- Pen! Pen! - Oh, sorry baby.

Listen, Charlie. You don't have to do this, you know.

Course I do. We can't go on living on one income.

How many times have you given Emily SpaghettiOs?

She likes SpaghettiOs.

Hey, baby. Trust me. Once they buy your book...

Not a single publisher has called, Pen. Not a single one.

'The term "black hole" is of very recent origin.

'It was coined in 1969 by the American scientist John...'

We handle nearly 200,000 calls a day -

the hotlines to some of the biggest corporations in the country.

- Sentel Online. Melanie speaking... - ...Melanie speaking. How can I help?

Again, my name is Melanie. Have a great day.

Do you only hire women named Melanie?

It's a trick of the trade. Callers like to think they get the same service rep.

This here is the Melanie and John section,

and you are over here with the Jennifers and Stephens.

This is you.

What do you mean this is me? I was told I had a supervisor position.

You gotta spend six months in the trenches

before you can interview for a supervisor.

But I have a Ph.D.

- Surely... - Look. You want the job or not?

- Yeah. - Great!

Gus here will help get you started.

- OK, Stephen. - It's Charlie.

Sure it is!

In the File menu do you see where it says Open?

Okey-dokey. Can you open the Open menu?

Okey-dokey. Again, my name is Stephen. Thank you for calling Sentel.

'I actually liked Gus at first sight.'

- Welcome to hell, dickhead! - 'Maybe not at first.'

- I'm sorry? - Hell!

People hooked up to machines like slaves.

And the smell... It's pure underarm.

OK, so what do we do here?

Sentel Online, Stephen speaking. How may I help you?

Okey-dokey, ma'am. Have you checked to see if your PC is on?

No, I'm not a retard. That's simply the protocol...

Sorry.

Okey-dokey. I'm gonna check that with my supervisor real quick

and I'm gonna put you on hold.

You feel feisty, you whiney little turkey-necked bitch?

Why don't you hop up on my dick and see if that fires your monitor?

Hello, ma'am. Thanks for waiting.

I'm gonna transfer you over to our technical service department.

Okey-dokey? Please hold...

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed dwarf is king!

That's my wife, Stephanie. Ex-wife! Keep forgetting!

And that there is my little daughter, Thais.

- That's a pretty name. - Yeah, it's Greek. It means 'Beloved'.

Thais has this problem with her eye pressure

and the doctor said if she doesn't get a cornea transplant in a year

then she's gonna go blind.

Every year, 65,000 diabetics

develop Proliferative Retinopathy,

one of the leading precursors to blindness.

She's not diabetic.

Ahem! So, are you gonna be able to afford the surgery before she...

Yeah, I hope so. If everything, you know, goes as expected.

- What do you mean? - Huh?

I have a plan.

Oh, hells bells!

'You see, Stephen, I'm 65 years old now

'and my husband is asking me to do it donkey-style...'

OK, ma'am. I'm going to transfer you to our technical department. Please hold...

- Good god... - Are you expecting a call?

Sentel Online, this is Charlie, er... Stephen. How can I help you?

'Yeah, my IP Address is stuck on 169.'

OK, Sir. Have you checked to make sure your computer is on?

- 'Didn't you hear what I said?' - Yes.

Oh, IP Address. IP Address...

Here we go. Your IP Address should start with 81.

So... does it?

'I told you it was stuck on 169! Do the cleaners answer the phones?'

- Sir... - 'No, don't sir me, asshole!

'Just help me out with my fucking problem!'

Please hold on while I check with our technical department.

Yes, sir. Your wife is one of 3.8 percent of American women

who engage in online chats with a stranger, accompanied by masturbation.

'My wife died three months ago.

'But I'd like to discuss that with your supervisor, Stephen.'

Hey! Charlie, wait. Wait!

- It's my fault. - Don't worry about it. I'll be all right.

- Look, you know I said I had a plan? - Yep.

Well, why don't you come in on it with me?

You know, be like a partner or something?

I sure as hell feel like I owe you one.

- It's not illegal, is it? - What? No...

- Dickinson! - Yeah. Right.

Look, meet me at the Monkey Wrench, nine o'clock. OK? Yeah.

Choo-choo Charlie!

Hey, Max. Two bottles of your finest mass-produced lager, if you please.

- So? - Come here.

So, I stumbled across the database at work.

The online history of each and every member of Sentel Online.

Look, this is their record of everyone in the state

that went online in the last three months and logged on to an illegal porn site.

Now I figure there's gotta be somebody in here

willing to fork over some coin to keep things hush-hush.

- They all look the same - And yet they're not.

- R-E-V Neville Smalls. What's R-E-V? - Reverend.

Exactly! It's brilliant, don't you think?

- I don't think I'm criminal material... - Wait, wait!

We're talking about a man of the cloth

who likes to watch teenagers take off their clothes

and have god-knows-who do god-knows-what to them!

Who's the real criminal here?

I tried to do things by the book, the nine to five. You know where it got me?

My daughter is about to go blind, Charlie. Blind!

- How much? - 50 for me, 50 for you. Even hundred.

A hundred?

Thousand?

- Dollars? - Not much to preserve one's reputation.

- What if somebody gets hurt? - It's a non-violent enterprise.

No harm done whatsoever. Pretty much all I need is for you to be my alibi.

- That's all? - That's all.

OK...

Pick the blue one and you go back to your old life.

But pick the red one and you finally get to be a free man.

But, I must warn you, once you eat the red one... there's no turning back.

Yes! I gotta tell you, I was a little nervous about going solo.

OK. Rule number one - preparation is king.

More than anything else, we wanna rule out the element of...

- Surprise! - Jeez!

Josie, how long were you sitting there?

Long enough to ask how you'd feel about bringing in a third.

Oh...

'Here's the touching story of how Gus met Josie.'

Er... miss.

- Yes, sir? - I'm gonna get the cheque.

- Why? - Does the chef have curly hair?

- No. - I'm gonna get the cheque.

- You work at the call center, huh? - Yeah, how can you tell?

- Well, half the town does. - Right.

- You have that look the rest of them do. - What look is that?

That how much longer till I drop dead so I don't have to go to my stupid job!

- That look. - Yeah, that would be the one.

- You from here? - Nope. Oklahoma.

- Oh, Oklahoma. What's that like? - Nowhere near as sexy as you.

- Ahem! - I'll get that.

So, care to hear about our desert special?

Wow! Jeez! You sure are a very forthright and smart girl, ain't ya?

That's what they said last year when they crowned me Miss Teen Oklahoma.

- What? - What?

- Miss Teen Oklahoma? Last year? - Yeah.

- How old are you? - 18... more or less.

Is it more or is it less?

Well... less, I guess!

Shit!

- What the hell's matter with you? - You're a child!

Do I look like a child? Huh?

OK... Ah! Is there anything else you forgot to mention?

- Who are you? - Charlie Wood, Gus's former co-worker.

Josie McBroom. Gus and I were an item.

- Ha! - What?

- I'm sorry to interrupt, but what... - I want in.

All right, read my lips, OK - no f... g way!

- You guys can't do the job without me? - Why?

Because, dumb-dumb, I'm the only one who can make the call.

If the preacher records you on his answer machine

they'll try and match it up with the voice records from the call center.

You guys would be screwed, stuffed and mounted.

- Is that true? - Kinda.

How'd you work that out?

I told you, I was Miss Teen Oklahoma.

- How much do you want? - 20,000.

20,000? For making a phone call?

For making 'the' phone call.

'The average person makes about 1,140 phone calls each year,

'none of which go anything like this.'

May I speak to the Reverend Smalls, please?

Hi, Reverend. Are you familiar with a website that goes by the name of

teen orgies dot com, or young and hung dot com?

Someone who knows what the mouse plays when the wife's away.

Listen, sicko. I have a list of all your favorite sites, your credit card number,

dates and times of all your connections, so you better cut the crap!

- What do I want? - 100,000 dollars.

100,000 dollars.