That’s My (Las Vegas) Raiders! Rudderless (Raiders at the Bye Part 1)

EXT. LAS VEGAS RAIDERS SHARED HOUSE – DAY

Establishing shot and title card.

ANNOUNCER BETH MOWINS: That’s Five Raiders [sic] is filmed in front of a hive Eskimo [sic] audience.

CUT TO – INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

HUNTER RENFROW sits at the kitchen table, studying his playbook. His backpack sits on the chair next to him. JOSH JACOBS is sitting quietly in an armchair by the window, occasionally jotting down new notes for the clarinet section in the concerto he is writing. KOLTON MILLER is seated on the couch, eating from a big bag of Baken-Ets Hot N’ Spicy Flavored Chicharrones. 

KOLTON MILLER: [singing quietly to self]

♫…Gonna be Raiders five-ever…♫

KOLTON MILLER: [glances at bag of chicharrones]

♫…Cause we eat lots of pork…♫

♫…Gonna be livin’ together…♫

KOLTON MILLER: [glances at fingertips, which are caked with seasoning powder]

♫…I should eat these with a fork…♫

JOSH JACOBS: [glaring at him] I swear to God if you inflict that earworm on me one..more…time…

KOLTON MILLER: Sorry, Josh.  What are you writing, anyways?

JOSH JACOBS: I’m not writing, I’m composing.

KOLTON MILLER: What are you composing, then?

JOSH JACOBS: It’s a piece commemorating the death of Henry Kissinger, from the point of view of his detractors.  So, basically, the opposite of a requiem.

KOLTON MILLER: [looks at him blankly]

JOSH JACOBS: Henry Kissinger was a horrible human being, and this [holds up sheaf of papers] says so. Musically.

KOLTON MILLER: Oh, so like a diss track.

JOSH JACOBS: Conceptually, yes.  I’m aiming for a slightly higher level of sophistication, though.  [furrows brow] There’s got to be a word for how to refer to a piece like this…Hunter, can you help me out here?

HUNTER RENFROW doesn’t look up from his playbook.

JOSH JACOBS: [loudly] Hunter!

HUNTER RENFROW: [is startled, looks up] Huh? What?

JOSH JACOBS: Man, you’ve had your nose buried in that playbook all week.  What gives?

HUNTER RENFROW: Oh, you know, just…trying to stay on top of Coach P’s system.

JOSH JACOBS: [sets aside his composing materials and stands up] System? It’s the same system Josh McDaniels installed, you mean to tell me that you didn’t learn it when the Smartest Coach on Earth was screaming at you every fifteen minutes to stop freelancing, but you’re spending your free time studying it now?

JOSH JACOBS snatches HUNTER RENFROW’s playbook from the table and pulls a magazine out from inside of it.

JOSH JACOBS: Aha! Hey, what the heck is this?

HUNTER RENFROW: [sheepishly] Don’t tell Coach.

JOSH JACOBS: Listen, just because I wrote that longform article on how the Biden administration’s negotiations with China to reduce the flow of fentanyl into the United States was the biggest victory for the D.E.A. in a decade doesn’t mean I’m a narc.  Where’d you even get this thing?

HUNTER RENFROW: Have you seen that show Cabinet of Curiosities?

JOSH JACOBS: [tersely] No.

HUNTER RENFROW: Okay, so it’s this horror anthology put together by Guillermo del Toro, you know, he’s the guy that did Hellboy, and Pacific Rim, man I wish they’d make another one of those, it’s pretty good, kinda gory, maybe a little too gory sometimes, like the ending of the one with the rats, but yeah, it’s pretty good and the first one is about a guy who buys the rights to an abandoned storage unit based on a tip from the facility manager, and there’s like a whole bunch of crazy occult stuff in there, and…

JOSH JACOBS makes a circling motion with his hand, indicating for HUNTER RENFROW to move things along.

HUNTER RENFROW: …and anyways that gave Mr. Baumgartner the idea to check out storage unit auctions to find spare parts for vintage A/V equipment, like old VCR heads, some of that stuff is really hard to get but there’s a bunch of stuff packed away…

JOSH JACOBS starts tapping his foot.

HUNTER RENFROW: …and so he hit the mother lode two weeks ago out in Hayward.  The unit was full of all these sci-fi magazines from the nineteen thirties.  I can’t get enough of them.

JOSH JACOBS: Uh huh.

HUNTER RENFROW: There were books, too.  I grabbed one I thought you’d find interesting.

HUNTER RENFROW reaches into his backpack and pulls out a hardcover book and hands it to JOSH JACOBS, who gazes at it thoughtfully.

HUNTER RENFROW: So it’s this alternate history, well, I guess it’s not really an alternate history since it’s not “history” from the author’s perspective, because it was published in 1919, but anyway it’s set in 2041 and it’s based on the premise that after World War 2 – which doesn’t happen until the 1980’s – the whole world was unified under a single government except for Germany, whose entire population inhabits this impregnable bunker city, and then the protagonist manages to infiltrate their society because he looks identical to a chemist of theirs that was killed in a gas attack, and it’s all about how their society developed with…

As HUNTER RENFROW is speaking JOSH JACOBS flips through the book and settles on a passage.

JOSH JACOBS: [reading aloud] “…but I knew that was merely due to lack of sun and did not signify a lack of physical vitality. Mere sun-darkened skin does not mean physiological efficiency, else the negro were the most efficient of races.”

JOSH JACOBS looks at HUNTER RENFROW with raised eyebrows.

HUNTER RENFROW: Well, I mean, it is a product of its time. But other than that it’s really fascinating.

They are interrupted by a knock at the door.

HUNTER RENFROW: Speak friend, and enter.

FEMININE VOICE: [through the door] Huh?

JOSH JACOBS: Just come in.

— [door flies open] —

VEGAS SHOWGIRL: I’m here to see…[glances at a handwritten note she is holding]…Jerry Colangelo?

JOSH JACOBS: You must mean Jimmy Garoppolo, around here we call him Handsome Jimmy.  Down the hall, second door on the left.

The VEGAS SHOWGIRL exits down the hall.  Shortly afterwards a gentle knocking is heard, followed by the sound of a door creaking slightly open.

JIMMY GAROPPOLO: [off-screen] GO AW…oh, hey, come on in.

JOSH JACOBS looks at his watch.

JOSH JACOBS: Man, look at the time…we’d better get this show on the road.

KOLTON MILLER: What show?

HUNTER RENFROW: …and what road?

JOSH JACOBS: Well I thought it was time we had a conversation about the state of the Raiders, and…

— [door flies open] —

…to be continued…

on…Monday, maybe? 

Hopefully before the next game, for God’s sake get it together Rikki.