TITLE: BITTEN APPLE
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY (1977)
Midday sunlight cuts through thick dust. The TV blares The Price is Right.
ARTHUR (20s, gaunt, wincing as he clutches his left jaw) sits on a stained sofa, eyes glued to a Commodore PET computer resting on a coffee table next to a stack of vinyl records—Crime of the Century, Songs in the Key of Life. Outside, a pea-green Ford Pinto backfires.
ARTHUR (whispering) Oh wretched man that I am... Romans seven.
Arthur gargles a capful of red mouthwash, winces at his bleeding gums, and spits directly into a metal dog bowl on the floor.
A ragged stray dog growls, steps forward, and violently flips the bowl, soaking the carpet.
ARTHUR (eyes cold) You don't reject me. Nobody rejects me.
INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
An icy wind blows through the open back door. Arthur stands at the counter, neatly wrapping fresh, unlabelled butcher paper packages of ground meat and stacking them in the refrigerator.
His girlfriend, CLARA (20s, visibly pregnant), stands at the open fridge door, staring at the meat. Her hands tremble.
CLARA Arthur... why does this feel like... where is the dog, Arthur?
Arthur doesn't look up from his Commodore user manual.
ARTHUR He wasn't built for the future, Clara. Typewriters are dying. Dog's gone. Eat your lunch.
INT. KITCHEN - FOUR DAYS LATER
Four glass pitchers sit on the counter, filled with a cloudy yellow liquid. Clara packs a plastic suitcase.
CLARA I’m going to my mother’s. To have the baby.
ARTHUR (absently typing on the Commodore) Fine. I missed two Mikasa glass meetings today anyway. Small office systems, Clara. It’s the new Hamilton Beach blender.
CLARA I left lemonade in the fridge. Drink it all, Arthur.
She walks out, slamming the Pinto’s passenger door outside.
EXT. NIAGARA FALLS PANCAKE HOUSE - DAY (1979)
Clara, in a grease-stained apron, holds a swaddled infant with dark, brooding eyes and a sharp jawline. She stands at a payphone behind the restaurant, the roar of the falls echoing nearby.
CLARA (into phone) I’m taking your father, Arthur. I’m working with him now. It’s over.
INT. ARTHUR'S KITCHEN - NIGHT - MATCH CUT
Arthur hangs up the wall phone. His face is entirely numb. He opens the fridge, pulls out the third glass pitcher, pours a heavy pint, and drinks the entire glass of Clara's yellow brew without wincing.
INT. SUBURBAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - DAY
Arthur stands in front of a school board committee. Behind him sits a single terminal.
ARTHUR A school isn't a kennel. It’s a repository for human potential. Olivetti makes these machines, but Olivetti sounds like a plate of warm pasta to a white man from the Cheektowaga reserve. You don't buy pasta to run a classroom. You buy the future.
He hits 'ENTER'. The screen glows brightly.
BOARD MEMBER We’ll take three hundred units. Exclusive North American distribution rights are yours.
EXT. TRUE VALUE HARDWARE STORE - DAY (1981)
Arthur pulls up in a gleaming new sedan. A newly adopted Black Doberman sits in the passenger seat.
As Arthur steps out, he looks down. The Doberman sits on the pavement, staring up at him, resting its paws next to a half-eaten McIntosh apple with a distinct bite taken out of it.
Arthur stares at the fruit, his mind racing through Genesis, the reserve, the church pews, and the cold logic of silicon.
He looks up at the store window. A bright sticker sits on the glass, displaying an icon of a bitten apple.
ARTHUR (whispering to himself) Knowledge of good and evil... Bite Apple. That’s the name. That’s how it happens.
TITLE: BITTEN APPLE (PART II)
INT. ARTHUR’S HEADQUARTERS - DAY (1983)
Arthur—now wearing a tailored tweed suit that hides his stiff, ruined jaw—stands over a massive drafting table. The room is filled with prototypes of the "Bite Apple" terminal, but every casing is empty.
ARTHUR We’re not a computer company. We’re an architecture of the mind. Let Kodak build the plastic and the chassis. They know processing. They know capture.
ASSOCIATE Arthur, Kodak builds cameras. They’re asking for millions up front to retool their plants for microprocessors.
ARTHUR (slapping the table) They’ll do it because the typewriter is dead and the photograph is next! Tell them Bite Apple guarantees the volume!
INT. IBM CORPORATE BOARDROOM - NEW YORK - DAY
A panel of executives in sharp blue suits sit across a glass table. A glowing slide projector illuminates a logo on the wall: an abstract silhouette of an apple with a heavy section bitten out, crossed with IBM’s blue signature stripes.
IBM EXECUTIVE Mr. Cheektowaga... or whatever you're calling yourself this week. You’ve been putting our registered 1971 data-capture graphic on three hundred school terminals across the tri-state area.
ARTHUR (leaning forward, jaw clicking) An apple belongs to God. It belongs to the garden. You can’t patent the fruit of knowledge.
IBM EXECUTIVE We didn't patent the fruit. We patented the vector graphic for International Business Machines. The IP licensing fee is four hundred thousand dollars, due retroactively. Or we seize the distribution rights.
Arthur stares at the blue stripes. He gargles a mouthful of water from a paper cup and swallows it whole.
ARTHUR I’ll see you in church.
INT. KODAK MANUFACTURING PLANT - ROCHESTER - NIGHT
Thousands of plastic cream-colored computer shells sit unfinished on a frozen assembly line.
Federal marshals and IBM lawyers march down the aisle, slapping bright red "SEIZED BY ORDER OF THE COURT" stickers over the "Bite Apple" logos.
Arthur stands in the shadows by the loading dock, a cold wind blowing in through the bay doors. His dog—a lean, silent Doberman—sits right beside him, chewing on a plastic component.
ARTHUR (whispering to the empty factory) Oh wretched man that I am...
An IBM LAWYER walks up, handing Arthur a final stack of foreclosure papers.
IBM LAWYER Effective midnight, International Business Machines owns the patent, the inventory, and the name. You're wiped out, Arthur.
Arthur looks at the paper, then down at the Doberman. The dog drops a bitten piece of black plastic at his feet, completely unbothered. Arthur picks it up, slips it into his pocket, and walks out into the snow, leaving the machines behind.
///
INT. SUPERMARKET - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - DAY (1982)
Arthur stands at the end of the checkout line. His jaw still sits slightly crooked, but he wears the tailored suit of a founder retained by IBM after the Anton Piller raid cleaned out his personal accounts.
He tosses ten cans of dog food, four cans of Chef Boyardee, and four cans of pork and beans onto the rubber conveyor belt.
A quiet, intense teenager with unkempt hair and a hyper-focused glare quickly bags the groceries. Arthur loads the bags into the back of his brown-and-tan 1982 Ford Bronco.
INT. ARTHUR’S KITCHEN - LATER
Arthur unpacks the brown paper bags onto the counter. He counts the cans.
ARTHUR (squinting) Two... where are the other two Boyardees?
His wife and two children sift through the paper sacks and check the footwells of the Bronco. Nothing.
ARTHUR (gritting his teeth) Not again. Nobody takes from me.
INT. SUPERMARKET - AN HOUR LATER
Arthur marches back into the store, grabs four more cans of Chef Boyardee and beans, and intentionally slips into the exact same checkout lane.
The same teenager stands at the end of the till, packing the cans into paper bags with slick, practiced hands.
Arthur grabs the bag, steps three paces past the register, and immediately stops to count the contents.
ARTHUR Two missing.
The bagger instantly clutches his stomach, groaning, and bolts down the aisle toward the employee breakroom.
ARTHUR (roaring) SECURITY! STOP THAT KID!
Two store managers tackle the boy near the staff lockers. As he hits the linoleum floor, two cans of Chef Boyardee roll out from under his oversized denim jacket, clattering against the tile.
STORE MANAGER We’re calling the cops right now.
Arthur walks up, staring down at the kid lying on the floor. He looks at the boy’s cold, unblinking eyes.
ARTHUR You risked your life for forty-nine cents of canned pasta. You looked me right in the eye, palmed the inventory right in front of the till, and almost executed a total escape. You don't look like an asshole, but you play one better than anyone I've ever seen.
Arthur turns to the store manager.
ARTHUR Cancel the police. (to the kid) You steal from me again, kid, and I'll grind you up and put you in the Boyardee can. But right now? You’re coming with me. IBM owns my company, Commodore owns my soul, but I need a guy who knows how to take things that don't belong to him.
Arthur extends a hand and pulls the teenager off the floor.
ARTHUR What’s your name, kid?
STEVE Steve. Steve Calloway. People call me Jobs.
Arthur smiles, his jaw clicking loudly in the quiet grocery store.
ARTHUR Pack your bags, Steve. We’re going to build a computer and a new Science Centre in Toronto; a new Ontario Place which is just as moving as I remember in 1979. I actually caught 3 Cray fish that day in that old industrial lake town but well managed after all that steel and sugar manufacturing for 100's of years and you can still see fish, catch a fish. Nothing will ever change that. If anyone steals from us, we make them dog food. We will know who steals from us since they will buy the product that gives us 100 times over cost value; a house phone some day.
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