Practice Exercise:
Here is an example of a very popular TV series: Breaking Bad. Here is YouTube clip of the scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPk3TN81y_c
Below are the transcripts for you to practice reading:
Mike: You got a good
thing going here. We all do. You want to risk it all on one junkie? Now I
realize you two have a history, but this kid's been on the bubble a while now.
It's a long time coming.
Walter: What is?
Mike: [Chuckles] Um... I used to be
a beat cop, long time ago. And I'd get called out on domestic disputes all the
time, hundreds probably over the years. But there was this one guy, this one
piece of shit, that I will never forget: Gordy. He looked like Bo Svenson. You
remember him? Walking Tall? You don't remember?
Walter: No.
Mike: Anyway. Big boy; 270, 280. But his
wife, or whatever she was, his lady, was real small. Like a bird, wrists like
little branches. Anyway, my partner and I get called out there every weekend and
one of us would pull her aside and say, "C'mon, tonight's the night we
press charges." And this wasn't one of those 'deep down he really loves
me' setups, we got a lot of those, but not this. This girl was scared. She
wasn't gonna cross him no way, no how. Nothing we could do but pass her off to
the EMTs, put him in the car, drive him downtown, throw him in the drunk tank.
He sleeps it off, next morning out he goes, back home. But one night, my
partner's out sick and it's just me. And the call comes in and it's the usual
crap. Broke her nose in the shower kind of thing. So I cuff him, put him in the
car and away we go. Only that night, we're driving into town, and this sideways
asshole is in my backseat humming 'Danny Boy'. And it just rubbed me wrong. So
instead of left, I go right, out into nowhere. And I kneel him down and I put
my revolver in his mouth and I told him, "This is it. This is how it
ends." And he's crying, going to the bathroom all over himself, swearing
to God he's gonna leave her alone, screaming – much as you can with a gun in
your mouth. And I told him to be quiet, that I needed to think about what I was
gonna do here. And of course he got quiet. Goes still, and real quiet, like a
dog waiting for dinner scraps. And we just stood there for a while: me acting
like I'm thinking things over, and Prince Charming kneeling in the dirt with
shit in his pants. After a few minutes I took the gun out of his mouth and I
say; "So help me if you ever touch her again I will such and such and such
and such and blah blah blah blah blah".
Walter: Just... just a warning?
Mike: Hmph. Of course. Just trying to do
the right thing. But two weeks later he killed her. Of course. Caved her head
in with the base of a Waring blender. We got there, there was so much blood you
could taste the metal. The moral of the story is, I chose a half measure when I
should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again. [stands
up] No more half measures, Walter.
