Hobo sapians

This started out as an idea just to create comedy where it isn't obviously found, ie. homeless people. I wanted to create likeable characters who made fun of the preconceptions that the general public have around homeless people.

Today I came up with the name Hobo sapians which is obviously a reference to homo sapians, meaning human being or literally translated "wise man" or "knowing man". I think this is something I might take further. One idea I am toying with at the moment is a short film about an alien coming down to Earth expecting to be greeted as a welcome visitor but instead finding himself living on the streets... Anyway this is just a bit of dialogue between a young homeless couple living in Hammersmith.

Scene 1
A shop doorway

Darren
Mate, this is a joke. Lets go sit next to some bank machines. Apparently you make proper money by bank machines.

Dawn
You think these cunts are goin’a give us notes?!

Darren
We’re in the wrong spot. It’s all about the spot in this game. I knew one guy who found this spot in between KFC and McDonalds and right next to a cash machine. That, my friend, is the spot. See, KFC has these meals and they’re all one ninety nine, two ninety nine, three ninety nine or whatever. But they don’t have donation boxes! Other places you get your penny change and you just put it in a box. KFC you either leave it on the counter, which just seems like a cheeky tip, or you put it in your pocket even though you don’t want it. That’s why KFC has to come into the equation. If a homeless dude sits outside KFC he is guaranteed a penny from almost everyone who walks in. Or out. ‘Cos that’s when they have the penny.

Dawn
Listen to you. Piss off.

Darren
No seriously. Then you have McDonalds. Same deal really except that they have these stupidly priced meals where you get like thirty p change. Now you and I know that if even half of McDonalds customers give you thirty p when they’re done filling their faces then we are lookin’ at some serious cup filling. You will have to super-size your fuckin’ cup!

Dawn
They don’t do supersize anymore ‘cos of that film.

Darren
What film?

Dawn
That Supersize Me film.

Darren
When did you become a film buff?

Dawn
Fuck off- I can still fuckin’ read. When did you become an expert in fuckin’ home-less economics?

Darren
Homeless economics… that’s actually quite funny for you.

Dawn
Stop grinning you look like a drunk.

Darren
Anyway, I’m not finished. So you’ve got your greasy pennies from KFC and your McIncome from McDonalds’ stupidly priced meals THEN just to top it all off you have the ultimate. The cash machine guilt trip. It’s known all over the world, tried and tested.

Dawn
It’s fuckin’ obvious, that’s what it is. What’s also obvious is that no fucker is going to actually give you any money. You think they’re gonna get out an extra tenner to keep the fucked up guy sitting on the floor next to them happy?! No.

Darren
Ah, that my dear girl is where you are shortsighted. Of course the geezer never whips out a crispy tenner and hands it to you there and then. But he thinks about it! He does! He thinks about how good a person he would be if he gave just a tenner because, lets face it, he has enough that he can spare a tenner but ultimately he won’t. HOWEVER…

Dawn
Is this gonna go on much longer? I wanna get some breakfast…

Darren
However. If a few minutes, hours, maybe even days or months, if that same cashpoint geezer sees the same guy on the street and recognises him…

Dawn
People don’t recognise homeless people.

Darren
Of course they do, what are you talking about? We’re the most quirky lookin’ fuckers about!

Dawn
They see us out the corner of their eye. They do not recognise us.

Darren
They do! I remember when I was young we knew all the tramps around my area. It was joke, they all had nicknames… (pauses thoughtfully)

Dawn
What?

Darren
I wonder if we have nicknames…

Dawn
Probably. Yours would be “That-ugly-little-cunt-down-Ealing-Broadway”

Darren
Twat, yours’d be “Dirty Dawn… the reject from porn… looks like something the fuckin’ dog did on the lawn” you cunt.

Dawn
How’d they know my name you cat guzzling paedo?

Darren
Go chase a kid. You’re the most difficult fucker to explain anything to I swear. I’m telling you how to make a mint just by sitting on your arse and you’re talking a load of bollocks and tryin’ to confuse me.

Dawn
I’m bored. Lets go look through a fuckin’ bin or something. I heard if you look in bins outside Greggs you get hot meals. ‘Cos they’re so fuckin’ nasty every cunt throws ‘em away!

Darren
Ok- but let me explain this fuckin’ cashpoint thing.

Scene 2
The bin outside Greggs the Bakers.

Darren
So later on they have a coupla ten pees or whatever they feel like they’d be evil not to you know what I mean? It’s like, they’ve already denied you of a tenner so this little bit of change makes ‘em feel like they’re not a complete cunt.

Dawn
Told you! You fuckin cunt! Fuckin’ sausage roll! Fuckin sausage roll!

Darren
Alright love, don’t have a fuckin prolapse. Its only half a fuckin’ sausage roll.

Dawn
Piss off. Better than collecting pennies all day.

Darren
Piss off. Go whore yourself and get us something proper to eat will ya? Make yourself useful.

Dawn
Cock. You would probably make just as much as I could, you should get yourself down to Hampstead Heath. You said it yourself, its all about the spot.

Darren
We need some props or summin. There’s one geezer down near Picadilly, he’s got a dog that lies there with a dummy in it’s mouth. Get’s him loadsa money apparently…

Dawn
I could always give you some sort of injury.


Darren
I bet it’s a Trampskam.

Dawn
A what?

Darren
Trampskam. Like the geezer with the dog. I bet the dog's been dead for years. It's a Trampskam.

Dawn
Where the fuck did you hear that?

Darren
I just made it up. Catchy though innit? I might copywrite it.

Dawn
Fuck off you don’t know how to fuckin’ write let alone copywrite!

Darren
Yeah I do! You just send a letter with the thing you wanna copywrite to yourself and then don’t open it- then you have a date on it and it proves you thought of it first.

Dawn
I don’t think anyone’s gonna be fighting for the word Tramplie.

Darren
Trampskam.

Dawn
Whatever. Maybe I’ll copywrite Tramplie. This could be our way out.

Darren
I just realised we cant.

Dawn
Why? …Oh yeah…