Hobo Trade Show

The film opens as bearded, homeless, cockeyed, drug addict, Sully Jones, enters the Ace Hotel and is, of course, greeted warmly by the concierge, Jeffrings. Jeffrings checks three of Sully’s four overcoats and ushers him to a sign-in table where a beautiful volunteer, Megan, welcomes Sully to the H.O.B.O. Trade Show, the world’s premier convention of winos, crackheads, street urchins, and derelicts. Sully is dazzled by exhibits such as a preview of the 2010 model boxes, a meet & greet with the one and only “Times Square Screamer”, and a seminar on “Exploiting Religious People and Other Panhandling Tips!” all set up in Liberty Hall. A shanty realtor, Barry, hooks Sully up with a prime Central Park rats nest and Sully grabs a handful of free syringes on display. Meanwhile, Megan states to the enamored Jeffrings that some of the homeless guys would be sexy dressers, if it weren’t for the germs. Later on, when next in line for a medical checkup, Sully peeks behind the curtain and discovers that the bums getting checkups are being cattle-prodded and implanted with a tracking device for extermination by secret government soldiers! And he’s next!

Sully jumps out of line, only to be met, face to face, with Megan, holding a very threatening pair of scissors. Realizing that she’s in on it too, Sully breaks away and darts through the trade show floor into the lobby. He finds Jeffrings and grabs him by the lapel yelling that the government is employing secret soldiers to implant tracking devices into all the homeless so that they can eradicate the bums. Naturally, Jeffrings doesn’t believe the ranting, conspiracy-spouting vagrant; instead he is furious that Sully has sullied his jacket. Then a light bulb goes off for Jeffrings. If Megan sees him in Sully’s jacket, she’ll fall for him, so Jeffrings does what any self respecting concierge would do in a time like this, he steals a homeless guy’s last jacket. In the struggle for the coat, syringes fall out of the pockets. Sully dives down for the syringes as Jeffrings dawns the overcoat. Just then, Megan and the Government Soldiers arrive in the lobby, hot on Sully’s trail. Mistaking Jeffrings for Sully, they cattle prod Jeffrings and throw a bag over his head. Sully is just about to escape unharmed, when he notices one last syringe on the ground. Reaching for it, a soldier catches him and snatches him by the beard. Megan recognizes Sully and the Soldiers un-hood a dazed Jeffrings. The Soldiers’ General explains his evil plot to Sully and Jeffrings. Jeffrings protests that the H.O.B.O. Trade Show was supposed to help the bastards. He insists the Hotel would not approve. Having heard enough, the Soldiers cattle prod Jeffrings to death.

Sully takes the opportunity to stab his captor with his syringes and escape, stopping briefly to re-pocket the bloody syringes. As the Soldiers are about to chase Sully down, they are stopped by – Barry, the shanty realtor. Not wanting to bring attention to themselves, Barry lets Sully get away, noting that they’ll catch him in the shanties.