- When less than perfect husband and father, Richard "Tony" Mason is given an ultimatum to save his family, he decides to quit drinking and join the police force. Several years later when a routine arrest goes wrong, the officer's psychological wounds are reopened, exposing the deep-rooted pains. Will his wife, who was able to get him on track once before, be able to do it again, or will the combination of alcohol and his service revolver be a deadly combination?—Steve Mason
- EIGHT A dramatic short, based on true events.
Richard "Tony" Mason is a blue-collar worker (a welder), who is unhappy with how his life has turned out so far. Only when applying for his marriage certificate does he find out that he was adopted. Enter inside a young man's fractured mind. Excessive drinking turns his modest Long Island home into a house of fear and violent neglect. When his wife leaves with their two young children and threatens divorce, Tony agrees to quit drinking and join the police force.
After three years as a respected, sober, officer of the law, a routine arrest goes horribly wrong, and Officer Mason feels he, himself, will face jail time. Feeding off self-imposed fear and anxiety, he is unable to hear a superior officer's comforting and suggestive guidance on the proper way to handle the situation, and so the demon reclaims his nest...
Tony spirals quickly out of control, returning to the one comforting vice he once knew. The alcohol doesn't take long to poison the man, and his self-afflicted mind settles on a seemingly natural progressive thought... There is no way out.
He tells his wife that he wants to end his own life. Upon learning his intention, she immediately takes his service revolver and orders him to church and a psychiatrist during his mandatory vacation from the job.
When the psychiatrist gives a clean bill of mental health, Tony tells his wife he has decided to return to work. His wife of 14 years decides to give her husband back his gun, and that his return to work is in-line with the doctor's diagnosis. Neither the doctor nor his wife's actions could be further askew.
Tony is asked to handle a family chore before his return to work, of taking his 12-year-old daughter to deliver her Sunday paper route. Narrowly escaping his wife's request will ensure there is no one else in the family home when he puts his final plan into action.
We gather from all we have seen that Tony has well thought out his plan. The only questions the movie leaves us to ponder is, could Tony have possibly known that it would be his youngest child, eight-year-old Steven, that would discover his lifeless body lying on the master bedroom floor only moments after the smoke from the fired .38-caliber cleared the room, and how would this discovery affect such a young, impressionable mind?
... Some endings are just the beginning.
Steve Mason WGA# 1919582
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