the charity of kings: a screenplay-in-progress by Angelita Biscotti
an art student/astrologer/club-drug retailer sets up shop at inner-city night clubs in melbourne. she sells party drugs in order to support her unemployed and unwell mother who lives in the philippines. her best friend is a criminology phd student who lost her sister to substance addiction. every time she makes a sale, she goes to confession with a priest she has intense sexual feelings for - the only person who knows about her secret life.
this is a tv drama about crumbling under the secrets we keep from people we love. about being the first generation of contemporary artist from a working-class family. about being an outsider in melbourne's gentrified inner northern suburbs, and being brown and working-class in the contemporary art world.
this is not a true story. any resemblance to persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.
cast:
caridad de los reyes - 20s/femme. art student/astrologer/club-drug retailer, POC.
jenny mclachlan - 20s/femme. criminology phd student, POC.
father henri - 30s - early 40s. priest, any ethnicity.
~
CARIDAD (voice-over)
my name is caridad de los reyes. 'the charity of kings' is literally is what that means.
i don't believe in kings. i don't believe in charity.
i'm an astrologer. so i know i was born under shit stars.
like every other multi-disciplinary artist in naarm, my instagram bio says i'm a multi-hyphenated polymath. i'm a lot of things. i'm a second-year student at the country's top art school. that means i can turn anything into an exhibition-worthy project if i cite three dead french dudes in my artist statement.
i'm a photographer for brands, clubs and events. i never wear a bra on a shoot and people do what i say, for the camera.
i'm an astrologer. people pay me to read their birth charts. and cry on my shoulder about guys who've treated them badly.
i sell drugs. like a psychiatrist or barista. i put things in people's bodies that make them feel good (generally). this is something i've gotten really good at, for two reasons. one, i never get high on my supply. two, i have no choice.
my mum lives in manila. she's alone, unwell, and unemployed after my dad died suddenly and left us out of his will. she doesn't have friends and family. she was the mistress of a gambling addict 25 years her senior, and people judge. i'm all she has left.
i haven't had sex in a while. sex makes things complicated, especially if you have a pussy. i project a libertine image but live like a nun. a drug-dealing titty nun who gives you the full holy spirit experience.
i'm horny and lonely all the time.
cut to wide-angle shot.
a confessional. full body.
in profile, father henri.
facing the camera, caridad.
FATHER HENRI
what are you confessing today, caridad?
CARIDAD
i'm not sure, father henri. i just wanted to talk.
FATHER HENRI
what's making you feel sinful?
CARIDAD
looks down at feet, looks up at camera
(voice-over) my sex dream about you last night.
(to father henri) i sold some pills to a regular astrology client last night.
FATHER HENRI
why did that make you feel sinful?
CARIDAD
she'd been ghosted by a fashion designer she'd met on hinge and had been hooking up with for a couple of months. she then saw her full-on making out with someone else at a spoken word night. like a full-body make-out, dry-humping on the dance floor. this client is a pisces. sun, moon, mercury in pisces. so she's sensitive. life hits her intensely. and what happened was legit hectic. she called me up in tears and begged for a birth chart reading. i came over and said, that was fucked, you don't deserve what's happened to you. i held her hand, and put a pill in there. i said, 'the first one's free, and i can give you a discount for the first bag.'
FATHER HENRI
it sounds like you feel guilty.
CARIDAD
i made a sale out of my client's pain and i felt nothing.
FATHER HENRI
you feel guilty about feeling nothing.
CARIDAD
her parents bought her a three-bedder off lygon street brunswick. that's her forever home. she's 26 and has a forever home. i'm 24, paying my 50-year-old unemployed and disabled mother's rent in a dinky part of manila. why should i feel guilty about taking some of that intergenerational white privilege to support someone that's always lived with so little?
FATHER HENRI
it still sounds to me like you feel guilty.
CARIDAD
maybe i should have charged her more.
FATHER HENRI
the way you described her, it sounded like you were empathising with her pain. the reason you were successful at selling her those drugs was that you made her felt like you understood her suffering. pain can seem like such a private thing. what a release it is to know someone else gets it.
CARIDAD
she's good for repeat business. she organises monthly queer lingerie parties. exclusive. ticketed. fully produced. she always gets me to do astrology readings at these things. now she knows i've diversified my offerings.
This screenplay (c) Angelita Biscotti 2022. No part of this may be reproduced, performed or distributed without my permission.
if you enjoyed reading this, consider donating whatever you can, maybe $6.99 (yes) or more so i can keep writing weird stuff that’s not quite what most funders or major publishers are after. if you recognise what’s special way before the rest of the world does, please support the work x
you can also book a drug-free and ethically sound birth chart reading with me here.
