Man from Algiers

The Man from Algiers was published as County Line in 1982 or 83 in Three Sisters literary magazine out of Georgetown University. Stupidly I gave all my complimentary copies away to friends. A surviving manuscript is missing final pages. So this is a re-write with an original ending.



        Willie Riggs was leaning like a blond Narcissus againt the blue mirror finish of his swamp-crawler Ford. He drank the last of his gone-warm beer and flattened the can into the sand. It was ten o'clock on a slow autumn night and he and a circle of friends were shooting the breeze behind the Red Rooster lounge on Highway 27.
        Some out-of-town salesman interjected a piece of narrative comedy and Riggs inwardly groaned.
        "There was a Puerto Rican, a Cuban and a Jew and they all jumped off the Empire State Building at the same time--"
        To cover his discomfort Riggs drew a slim jay from his snap-down shirt pocket and fired it up for general distribution.
        "--so who hit first?"
        Someone coughed. "Who cares?"
        Riggs saw his darling crooking her finger at him from the rear door of the lounge, so he sauntered toward her with a toothy grin eating his face. He heard the salesman deliver a punchline and then the obligatory guffaws. His Justin boots clomped onto the boards of the rear deck.
        "Hey, there--"
        "Willie Riggs, what are you doing? Prodding around like a dirty old bull."
        They kissed and went inside.
        The juke was playing Tom T. Hall's song about building whiskey castles.
        "Jane, bring that cowboy of yours over here!" shouted the bartender. He was a stocky bald man with a tremendous brown beard. Checkered flannel shirt, western cut. A huge Copenhagen belt buckle was lodged beneath his belly.
        "Hi, Prescott. Let me buy you a beer."
        "Cowboy, you're too poor to do that."
        "Hell I am!"
        Prescott pulled his beard and winked at Jane. "What you got in the fridge at home?"
        "Cold cat pebbles."
        "You win, Cowboy. Thanks for the beer."
        The corners of Rigg's face crinkled and he said, "You're welcome, Prescott."
        He snaked an arm around Jane and pressed his hand into her belly. In her ear he said, "Love you."
        "Liar."
        "Not always."
        "Mmm. Love you too."
        Prescott winked at the two of them and went to the bin where the booze was stored in glittering parade formation. He took down a bottle of Austin Nichols for Jane and drew tall draughts for himself and Riggs.
        Riggs looked around and noticed a few new things. One of them was a poster he resented. It showed GIs raising the flag Iwo Jima style and jamming the staff into the rectum of the Ayatolla's Suribachi ass.
        "Prescott, is that your idea of humor?"
        "What?"
        "That!"
        "Damn straight it is!"
        "That kind of thinking won't solve anything."
        Prescott frowned, contemplating.  "Sorry, Cowboy."
        The men sipped their beers in silence.  Ignored, Jane turned from them and attacked the juke with a fistful of quarters. She unbuttoned her trim blouse to display compressed cleavage, and shook free her auburn curls. She selected a hard series of kicker classics, skipping Elvis Costello and Dire Straits.  Dolly, Tanya, Waylon and Merle.
        "Punch our song, Darling!" Riggs called.
        Jane turned toward him and slammed her denim buttocks against the juke. Oh, that irked her for some reason. She thought: sticking out my tongue would be too girlish. Giving him the finger would give him an excuse to call me a bitch. Dammit! I'll just sashay up to him with a song!
         "You don't have to call me darling, Darling--"
         She wrapped her arms around Riggs and hauled him away from the rail.
         "Jane?"
         "It's all right. Come on. Let's dance."


                                                                               *


        Into the middle of their intimate two-step the juke dropped a bomb.
        The Bee Gees.
        Riggs grinned sheepishly as Jane swung away from him and began a clogger's improvisation of disco. She mocked his lethargy. "I  didn't punch that song. Honest!"
        "Must be Prescott's mischief then."
        Riggs glanced toward the bar where Prescott was removing his poster from the wall.
        "Well, look at that. Prescott's honoring my wishes."
        "He's a good man. You shouldn't have braced him. He told me the VFW boys gave him that poster. They ordered it from Hustler magazine."
        "Crock."
        "Maybe the Vietnam Vets then."
        "Fuck that shit."
        Ice was forming upon their conversation.
        Riggs was relieved to hear a particular Mo Bandy song. It sounded like Hank Williams: "Take me back to yesterday once more--"
        He marshalled Jane and felt her firm buttocks move like magic beneath his wooden hands. She broke from his embrace and clicked-clacked toward the bar.
        Riggs was left on the empty dance floor with nothing to do but to rearrange his hard penis.
        Jane felt light-headed. She heard herself tell Prescott to stop removing the Ayatolla.
        Prescott heard Jane yammering.  He saw Riggs. The cowboy seemed to be absently counting the nailheads in the dance floor.
        Riggs was thinking he should buy a six-pack from the Junior Mart and visit Sue Ann.
        Sue Ann.
        Sue Ann!
        Sue Ann had astounding breasts and people said she resembled Dolly Parton.
        To her dismay Jane witnessed Riggs walk out of the Red Rooster lounge and into the cooling night.
        "I don't believe it. I don't believe it."
        Prescott noticed Jane's mounting alarm. He knew from knowing her for five years that her basic fear was of being left alone by someone.
        Jane downshifted into a blue mood.  "Prescott! Gimmee a double!"
        "Never mind the Wild Turkey, Jane. Go after him!"
        "Hell you say! Just do your job and pour me a drink."
        "Sure--"
        "Men don't listen to a thing I say and you're no damned different."
        Prescott lost his patience. He banged the bottle down and  then sloshed an unmeasured round into her Texas Tumbler. He plunked in an ice cube. Its splash surprised him.
        Jane felt threatened.
        Everywhere men were cruel and superficial and--and--
        Prescott was saying, "SORRY, Jane. Sorry."
        "No, you're not. Just go away."
        As the booze wrapped warm hands around her brain, Jane embarked upon that familiar voyage into self-pity.


                                                                                                 *


        Sue Ann was watching the third installment of "Shogun" when she heard the flat thunder of Riggs' huge truck. Having abandoned the washboard red clay road, the machine prowled through the pine forest and sped across the great meadow, coming at last to her acre of land. The truck remounted the road and halted at her bone-white picket gate. High beams flooded her living room. She killed the TV and lumbered up from her Lazy-Boy, her bosom swinging to and fro. She arched her back, listening to her retrievers, Missy and Gad-about, barking their stupid hellos.
        "Hey, you dogs--" Riggs sounded drunk.
        Drawing tight her terry kimono, Sue Ann smiled, admitting that Riggs would be better company than Richard Chamberlain on TV. He would want to drink her Southern Comfort and fuck. He would listen to anything she had to say. And she could finally tell someone about the horror of breast cancer.
         I want a man's opinion. I want to hear what he has to say.
        She hailed her dogs. "You let Willie-Boy alone!"
        "Yeah, dogs. It's me! Willlie-Boy!"
        Sue Ann stood on the porch, commanding him. "Hey, hard case. If you must take a leak, then be so nice as to come inside."
        "Inside?"
        "Yes. I have all the facilities."
        "I was only admiring the moonlight upon your meadows."
        "My meadows?"
        "Come on. Let me into one of your facilities."


                                                                                            *


        Prescott lit a Camel and settled into the swivel chair behind the cash register and fiddled with a cardboard advertisement for Stroh's. He liked Jane, but after an eternity of doing business with drunks he knew when to leave her alone.
        Maybe it's best she doesn't run after Riggs, he thought. They would have had a row. Could even break things off permanently. Now all she will do is drink herself cross-eyed and start crying over some bullshit thing.
        There was a break in the steady stream of people from the parking lot.
        Prescott finished his smoke.
        Jane pouted. "Press-Baby. Another double!"
        He told himself to simply pour her the drink and refrain from giving her unsolicited advice.
        While serving he thought to ask: "How're you doing, Jane?"
        Resentment burned in ugly bands across her face.
        Prescott sighed. "I think you misunderstood me."
        "Uh-huh. Yeah."
        "All I meant was easy conversation. Have you found a job? You know I care about you."
        "I don't want to talk about it. And I don't want to talk to you. Here's my money. Leave me alone."
        Jane's voice fluttered around the room like a wounded bird. Prescott shook his head and returned to his chair. He was genuinely pleased when the front door opened for a customer.
        It was someone new, but vaguely familiar. A swarthy man in sharpest black.  Three piece HS&M. His skin was purple beneath the tricky lights, and his shirt collar was sharp and white.
        "Yesser, what'll it be?"
        "The best martini in the South. Skip the lighter-fluid."
        "Coming up. Learned my trade on Toulouse Street."
        "Good to hear. Good to hear."  A melody in his words. "N'Awlins, eh? Just got in from Algiers myself."
         The swarthy face split into a smile, its edge as friendly as a crescent moon. It asked: "Could you tell me my how I might find my ex-wife? No hassle, understand? Works for you. Name's Sue Ann."


                                                                                *


        Lost in reverie, Jane chewed her swizzle stick. She was angry. Not because her lover was an insensitive lout, but because he had departed so quickly after being rebuffed. She wanted him with her now, to do with him as she pleased. She would have given him all the sugar he wanted. All in good time.
        "Pressy! Another!"
        Three sheets to the wind.
        Jane found herself addressing a bartender without facial color. White as the proverbial ghost.
        "God, Prescott. Are you all right?"
        "I was going to asky you the same thing."
        "Well, you look like somebody just shot J.R. Ewing."
        Prescott chuckled. "See that fellow over there?"
        "Um. Yeah?"
        "That, my friend, is Sue Ann's ex."
        "The one who--
        "Who pounded that fool into raw hamburger few years back."
        "Walter Reardon was no fool."
        "He was seeing Sue Ann."
        "Sue Ann told me he was a cigarette vendor who hung around after loading the machine."
        "Yeah, well, I think he was a fool."
        "Oh, Pressy, leave the gossip to me. Will you?"
        Jane ventured a sidelong scrutiny of  Sue Ann's ex. Slab-chested, athletic and well-maintained, with the agility of a prize-fighter.
         Just look at those spiffy clothes!


                                                                                            *


        A full moon crept over the great meadow and gained slanted entry into Sue Ann's bedroom through stilled lace curtains. Willie Riggs could not keep his mouth from the most sought-after breasts in the county. Sue Ann moaned as his tongue darted around her sand-dollar areole and swabbed her nipples. His spent penis remained within her. He delighted in the way she held it, kneading it as if it were a joint of white dough.
        "Hon, oh, hon, oh, hon," was the cowboy's refrain.
        Sue Ann's own moaning was far from the theatrics of past fucks.  Her mind spun like a bottle kicked across some bleak tarmac.
        Cancer. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.


                                                                                      *


        The juke fell silent, but Jane continued to croon into her drink. "Could I have this dance for the rest of my life? Ooo-ooo-oh."
        "Hi."
        "I beg your pardon."
        "May I talk with you?"
        "Sit right there, big grown-up man."
        "Name's Martin."
        "Martin Carcosa."
        "You know me?"
        "Know of you."
        "The bartender said you might help me."
        "Oh?"
        "I'm trying to find a friend of yours. Sue Ann Breedlove."
        "Yeah?"
        "I have this letter from her."
        "Mmm?"
        "Here." He unfolds it and presses it upon the bar.
        "Did you show this to Prescott?"
        "No. It's something you should read."
        "Me?"
        "Yes. Because, because you're a woman."
        "You're fucking wierd."
        "Please."


        Dear Martin,
                The doctor's report scares me to death. My breasts may have to come off. I don't know
        where to turn. Even God won't help me. All is forgiven.
                                                                                                                                          Sue Ann


        "That's it?"
        "You haven't the faintest idea."
        "Sorry."
        "Look. This address is old.  Tell me where she is now."
        "Not sure I want to."
        "You're not sure of anything."
        "Just fuck off!"
        "Cunt!"
        "Let go! Let, let go my arm!"
        Prescott did not see all of it. But what he did see caused him to freeze-up with like a blown V-8. Martin Carcosa was squeezing Jane's arm and she was shouting. Then he released her with a snarl. He raised the most fearsome fist Prescott had ever seen. The knuckles were as large as riverbed nuggets, and Carcosa whirled his entire frame and spiked that fist into the wall. The panelling split. Carcosa withdrew his fist unhurt and hurled himself like a tornado from the bar.
        Prescott stammered, "Jane? Are you all right. Hey!"


                                                                                       *


        The cool air ignited his lungs. Having left by way of the rear door, he encountered people partying in the parking lot. Someone complained after being jostled: "Hey, mister! Watch it!"
        "Watch yourself." Not breaking a stride.
        "Let the Gypsy go," a voice twanged like a taut wire. "He spoiling for a fight."
        Carcosa quickened his pace and veered toward the front of the building. His Toyota was locked and he ripped a stitch in his hip pocket while digging for his keys.
        That first voice had followed him. "Hey, mister!"
        Someone grasped his shoulder.
        He exhaled. Without turning, he asked, "You a cop?"
        "No--"
        "Then you better unhand me. Sure as hell."
        The grasp slid away.
        He climbed into his car and shut the door. He gravel-popped onto Highway 27 and cursed himself for being a fool.


                                                                                  *


        Jane had lost consciousness. Too much booze and terror had taken their toll within her sloppy brain. Her little chin struck the cushioned edge of the bartop and her saucy hip knocked over the barstool. She hit the floor with a loud Bop!  Prescott watched her disappear from view and heard the thump of her skull on the hard floor. When he reached her he saw worming rivulets of blood beneath her auburn curls. Afraid to touch her, he dialed for paramedics and deputies.
         "Dammit, yes! He's a kung-fu maniac!"


                                                                                *


        The Pines Motel had a red neon sign, a flagstone patio and rusted shell-shaped chairs that could be seen from the highway. Its pink stucco walls were hidden by azalea. The only outside light was a garish illumination suspended above the phone booth and soda machines.
        Martin Carcosa wrenched his Toyota onto the broken macadam drive and halted beside the gloomy office.
        He pressed the buzzer. Inside someone stumbled  into furniture and switched on a table lamp. Through the window Carcosa watched a paunchy man with crewcut gray hair approach him, wearing a tee-shirt and boxer shorts.
        "What is it?  What is it?"
        "Open up. I want a room."
        "Eh. Just a minute."
        Light spilled upon the flagstones as the man opened his door. Carcosa detected the reek of whiskey sweat.
        "Uh."
        "Raymond, how're you doing?"
        "Uh."
        "You are going to rent me a room."
        "Wha?"
        "Hope you don't have any dead people laying around."
        "Yeah. I mean no."
        "Just kidding."
        "Hey! I know you."
        "Sure you do. Remember me and Sue Ann Breedlove?"
        "Sue Ann. Why yeah."
        "Thought you would. Look, I need a room."
        "I aint even got my trousers on."
         "I should smile. You don't."
        "Let me look at you."
        "I'm Martin Carcosa."
        "Well, Sir. I got me a gold buyer in seven. I can give you eight. It's next to me and has heat."
        "That's swell. How about a drink?"
        "Nah. Nah. Appreciate it. But, nah."
        From his car Carcosa procured a fifth of I.W. Harper. To Raymond he said, "What do you mean, no?"
        Raymond rubbed his paunch and smiled the smile of a lonely man surprised by the advent of company. He drank with his guest and then said, "I'll be getting your room ready."
        Blue lights suddenly flickered through the blinds.
        They flickered on the fake mahogany wall with its framed lithograph of airborne mallards.
        "What the hell?"
        "Obviously the cops."
        "You done something?"
        "Kind of," Carcosa replied.  He opened his billfold. "Nothing I can't take care of."


                                                                                  *


        Through a brace of pines the sun ebbed like warm butter. Pervading the crisp cloudless morning was an oppressive stink from the cellulouse mill ten miles upwind. Blue jays began their haggling.
        Willie Riggs snored into Sue Ann's armpit. She was awake and his breath tickled her, but no laughter was possible. He had given her a gob of semen.
        Br-r-r-ring!
        The phone added a calamity she welcomed. And she was off and jiggling down the hall. She picked up the receiver, entering the crackle of on-going conversation. Then: "Sue Ann, are you there?"
        The voice startled her. It was Martin Carcosa and he sounded vexxed.
        "Martin?"
        "I've been arrested."
        "What's going on?"
        "They say I created a scene at the Red Rooster. Scared some people. And some damned woman is in the hospital."
        "Martin!"
        "I was only asking her how to find you!"
        "Who is in the hospital?"
        "Name is Jane Davis."
        "Oh, my God."
        "Drunk. Passed out. She fell of her barstool and cracked her head. The bartender swears I hit her."



                                                                             *


        The gold buyer in seven tapped his white gold wedding ring  upon the office door and shouted loud enough for everyone at the Pines Motel to hear him. "Get up in there!"
        Raymond opened his door. Hank Junior tee-shirt and blue checkered boxers. "What the flaming fuck do you want this early on a Sunday morning?"
        "It's not Sunday! It's Monday!"
        "What's the problem?"
        The gold-buyer was a sandy-haired guy far too old for his mod moptop. His sunburnt neck bulged above his collar and tie. His azure summer suit made him look like a cherub from the Moral Majority. Cerulian eyes, moist with faith in Christ.
        "This dump is bad for my business."
        Raymond stifled a laugh. "How's that so?"
       "It attracts nothing but riff-raff."
       "I could NOT agree with you more."
       "I paid you for a month. I'm checking out. You owe me a refund. Two days."
       "I don't owe you a fucking thing."
       Wiping away spittle with the back of his hand, the gold-buyer screamed. "I don't believe this!"
       Raymond began to doubt the business acumen of the gentleman.
       "Look, mister. I've been a nice guy. Now, you may have figured me for stupid. But I'm a nice guy."
       "What are you driving at?"
       "Well, look. You may think I don't know about that floozie you've been keeping in your room. Linda Ruiz. Migrant-worker whore--"
        "I have done God's work. She has been born again into my personal ministry."
        "Do tell? You two take a shower together?"
        The gold-buyer knitted his eye-brows. Raymond offered bait. "Look, I like having your trade in my motel. Tell me, what's REALLY bothering you?"
        "Well--"
        "C'mon. You've been a real flash in the pan here." Carny-smile.
        "It's the cops."
        "Cops make you nervous? Aintcha honest?"
        "Legal as can be."
        Raymond stifled a guffaw.
        "I aint innerested in yer busness. Cops don't give a tin whistle either."
        "Do they come here often? Like the other night?"
        "Freak occurence. HEY? Whaddyathink? This is a highway motel. Climb down!"
        "Yeah OK."
        "Come in and have a friendly drink. That guy they arrested left behind some nice straight Kentucky."
         "Just one."
         "Just one." 
         Livid in his memory: helping the dark Spanish woman with tanglewood hair from the bed just in time. She muttered something about her children; then sat spread-assed on the floor and, with a profound sob, released a stream of urine. The Quaaludes and beer had been shockingly effective.
         Pouring drinks, Raymond smirked. "So, how is Linda Ruiz in the sack? Hot tamale, eh?"


                                                                                     *


        Sucking a lemon drop, the hospital admissions clerk sat with brown suede boots upon his supervisor's desk and watched the clock, a huge and noisy device that dominated the far wall.
        Twenty minutes to go.
        Then his supervisor, luscious Mary Beth Hendry, would return from dinner-break. Or, more exactly, shared moments with that Jew Boy radiologist from Miami. God! He hated Jews!
         Suddenly his office door banged open and Sue Ann Breedlove stormed in with a fury he had never seen in her.
         "Tell me Jane Davis' room number!"
         "Uh. Three Ten."
          She found Jane alert, sipping Coke and watching TV.
          "Jane, dammit! What's this shit about Martin beaating you up?"
          "Don't know what you're talking about. He only squeezed my arm."
          "I'll have the cops come for your statement."
          "Why? Oh, I hate cops!"
          "Because you were out cold when you were brought in, my friend."



                                                                                 *



        old manuscript ends here.   


                                                                                         *


                Breakfast for Martin Carcosa at the county jail had been from MacDonalds. Scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. Coffee with four jots of creamer. His belly rumbled like a Jamaican steel drum.
                A sandpaper voice: "Hey, Bruce Lee! Be nice to the lady. She just sprung you."
                Holy Mother of God! There she stood. Sue Ann. In a white Swiss blouse and faded blue jeans. Her smiling face fresh as a morning glory.
                "Martin?"
                "Yes, ma'am!"
                The hick screw swung open the door and withdrew completely.
                Carcosa had half risen from his cot when she embraced him, feeling the anxcious muscles of his upper back and shoulders move like mercury. He embedded a tremendous kiss to her mouth. Years fell away and  again they were lovers  wriggling within the donut hole of an inner-tube floating down the chilly Ichetucknee! People floated by in tubes of their own, unmindful of Martin's laughter and Sue Ann's squealing during fellatio.


(more to come)



           



        
      
       
       
       


  




       
       

      
       
       





  


    

        



                                            
      

fragment: as in potshard

        Instead of a moon there were streetlamps. Benign milky orbs, two on each block. Lovers need not see the moon, however, to feel her pull, for there are tides on the darkest of nights. We looked up, drawn by her mysterious silent call. The stars were pinpoints of white heat in the black winter sky. The bite of the wind encouraged us to hurry along, for with each coaxing gust he snapped an icy cat o'nines. Yet in spite of the chill we would pause in shadow zones between store-fronts for a hot embrace. One moment, two! Then, falling in a confusion of apogees and perigees, we would part rekindled. By the time we reached the restaurant we were burning up, glowing like Jesus and Mary, and approaching in the dead of winter a solstice of our own. Out of habit I opened the door for my Russian goddess, and from the pedistal where I had placed her there came a peel of storm-charged laughter. My courtly manner never failed to amuse this wickedly charming and liberated creature. After another embrace we were inside our favorite hide-away for romantic dining. Gypsy violin and candlelight--

victorian poem

rending a gossamer veil of dream
with a druid's twig, i come upon
your anxious body.
wild gorse and heather
sigh when you sigh.

Snuff Movie: A Play In One Act

Snuff Movie was staged in 1983 at Tommy's Deep South Music Hall to SRO crowd. Tommy's was a popular beerhall in Tallahassee, Florida. Overture music was Laurie Anderson's "Oh Superman!"



CAST

                Klein
                Snow
                Crabbe
                Czarda
                Two Deputies


PLACE

                  A small town in the South in the early 1980s.







An upstairs apartment with two doors leading onto an L-shaped porch deck. During the play KLEIN uses the deck as he films actions inside the apartment. Books are stacked everywhere. The sleeping area is a futon with India bedspreads. The reception area is the walkspace around a sofa and a walnut
table littered with items needed by a writer. An Olivetti portable typewriter is centerpiece.  A glass chimney lantern burns at low ebb.

Night.


KLEIN is inside the apartment the apartment, standing at the window. He exhales smoke and clicks on a portable tape recorder with a long microphone cord. The book he picks up is clearly something by Ezra Pound.


KLEIN is an athletic man, thirty-ish, wearing a black tee-shirt and blue denim jeans. His hairdo is shaggy and cut flat on top, tagged by hipsters as a "mullet."  He is a nervous chain-smoker.


KLEIN:  (recording)   A swollen Li Po moon rises over this Florida town of white pine houses and dappled lanes of kudzu, azalea, oak and pecan. (sits and tosses the book aside) This is Paul Czarda's apartment. He's a  romantic kind of fool who would embrace the moon reflected in a river and drown. Heh. A drunk, that's what he is. I've been following him for years, on and off. Since Vietnam. Oh, there have been other adventures and interludes, taking me to far-flung hotspots around the world. Assignments to Kabul and Beirut, Jonestown and Belfast. I'm Mark Klein. Newsman, film-maker. (picks up a 16mm movie camera)  I don't know if you remember "Mondo Cane." A documentary. Came out, mmm, twenty years ago. It was great, absolutely great. My folks were grossed-out. To be sure. They said it was pointless. Made merely to shock people. It was. But it got me started. (loads camera)  I was fifteen. Yeah, we were in the car, coming home from the theatre and eating ice-cream cones, when I blurted out, Hey, Mom, hey, Dad, I want a movie camera for Christmas, huh, maybe later, for my birthday, what do you say? Well, shit. THAT shocked them more than the movie did! (lights a cigarette) By the time I was eighteen I was hanging out in New York. Learning the trade. Cinematography. I knew who to meet. Artists like Emile de Antonio and Paul Morrissey. I was at the Warhol party where Jim Morrison paid tribute to Jimi Hendrix by sucking his cock. Hey! Rock and roll! I heard people talking about me. I knew how to manipulate light and sound. But I had no balls. Baby, it takes balls to make a documentary. Because you are governed by CAUSALITY. The only way to re-direct your scenario is to step onto the stage. It is like being God. You can say, "que sera, sera." OR you can be a great director. Seriously. In "Mondo Cane" a large turtle emerges from the sea., clambers ashore, deposits her eggs and covers them with sand. Then it is time for her to return to the sea. But she mistakenly clambers upward toward dry land. Toward certain death. And you begin to worry. Will the film crew save her? Or will the bastards let her DIE?


Sound of an approaching car. Engine revved and cut. Two doors slam. KLEIN takes his gear and finds a spot for suitable filming.


Ferocious knocking at the door.


KLEIN:  (aiming camera)  Balls, baby. BALLS!


CRABBE:  Hey, in there! Open up. I'll kick this goddamn door apart!


SNOW:  (offstage)  Don't.


CRABBE:  (offstage)  What do you mean, don't? Look. The light is on inside. He's home.


SNOW:  (offstage)  Don't make such a racket. I know where he keeps a key hidden here.


CRABBE:  (offstage)  Might have known.


They enter the apartment.


CRABBE is a huge, ruddy man, fifty-ish, wearing cowboy duds and mirror-shades, pistol and a belt with a badge fastened to it.


SNOW is a beautiful woman, thirty-ish. The eternal preppie, she has an astonishing neatness. Trim blouse and skirt. Blond, blue-eyed, golden girl.


Lighting shows CZARDA collapsed upon the sofa, arms covering his eyes. A bottle of whiskey on the floor nearby.


They approach CZARDA.


CRABBE:  Look at the son of a bitch. Some Mormon.


SNOW grasps CZARDA'S shoulder and gently shakes him.


SNOW:  Paul. Paul. Wake up.


CRABBE:  WAKE UP!


CZARDA raises his head. Clears the cobwebs.


CZARDA is a gaunt young-old man with strong Eastern European facial lines (strong cheek bones) framed by thick black hair, gray at the temples. Magyar and Turk bloodlines. A terrycloth sweatband around his head gives him the menacing mystique of a Hollywood Apache. Blue chambray shirt and desert corduroy trousers. Barefoot.


CZARDA:  Well, hello, Sheriff.  (shocked to see SNOW)  Sister Snow. Glad you both came by. Here.  (to CRABBE)  Have a seat and park your gun.  Sit down. Sit down.


CRABBE:  I don't want to sit down.


SNOW:  Oh, Paul. Be serious.


CZARDA:  OK then.


CRABBE:  Do you know a Lisa Bradbury?  Daughter of Amos Bradbury?


CZARDA:  Sure.



CRABBE:  In what way? (impatiently) Yes. Yes. You HAVE the right to remain silent.



CZARDA:  She delivers my newspaper.



CRABBE:  Lisa has been missing for three days. Talk is if you have something to do with it.



CZARDA:  Talk, talk. Well, go ahead. Look around. Tell me if you find her.  (goes to the window)  Whew! Hot night. Colors seem to mushroom.



CRABBE: The girl said you were a poet.



CZARDA:  Everbody thinks I'm a poet.



SNOW:  Or just well-read.




CZARDA:  Closer to the truth. (facing SNOW)  Maybe she ran off with some -- oh, I don't know -- some drug-dealer in a van.  (facing CRABBE)  Go on, search. You won't find her here.




CRABBE:  Drug-dealer in a van, eh?  She was pretty impressionable, you agree.



CZARDA:  One time I told her that people in old Pompeii had gardens in their houses and that they watched the plants like we watch TV. The next day she was watering the fern on my porch and calling it "The Hill Street Blues." Yeah, I'd say she was impressionable.




CRABBE:  (to SNOW)  You getting all this?



CZARDA:  Yes, Sister Snow. What brings you here at this hour of the evening? Is this a social call?




CRABBE:   She was working late. I'm taking her home.




CZARDA:  But you decided to stop here first.




CRABBE:  Evidently.



CZARDA:  Well.  (looks at SNOW)  I can offer the both of you some top-drawer entertainment.


SNOW:  Paul, be serious.



CZARDA:  You're always saying that.




CRABBE:  I believe she wishes to help you.




CZARDA:  Help me? How is that, Sister Snow?



SNOW:  I -- oh, what's the use?



CZARDA:  (at the window)  Have you ever noticed the way a hot night carries the light in such a wild primitive way?  Fluid and sinewy. Like the logo for Coca-Cola.




SNOW:  Stop this silly prattle. You're only making things worse.



CRABBE:  I'll take it from here.



CZARDA:  It goes -- with -- leather fetishes. And rebel yells among tombstones. Out there a bowman stalks the sky.




CRABBE:  What the hell?



SNOW:  (joining CZARDA at the window, grasps his arm.)  Paul, she was only THIRTEEN. The whole county is in an uproar.




CZARDA:  From here during the day I can't see  that red stop-light down by the school. But I can see it now. Clearly, through the magnolias.  Blink. Blink. It mesmerizes me. And those magnolias! Why -- their buds look like --  little monkey skulls. Made of WAX!



CRABBE:  Lisa's school.  Jesus Christ in a sidecar!




CZARDA:  (triumphant)  Ho!  You think I'm crazy.  Nah-nah-no.



CRABBE:  Zarduh. That's a funny name.  Where're you from?  Originally.




CZARDA:  Possibly California.



CRABBE: You're not crazy. You're a fucking airhead.




CZARDA:  Out here. On the periphery. We are stoned. Immaculate.



CRABBE:  Cut the Morrison act.



CZARDA:  (begins pacing)  I -- haven't seen Lisa Bradbury since she -- joined the lettuce boycot. Did you know that lettuce is an herb? An herb! Naturally it has herbal essence.

          (CRABBE stares blankly at CZARDA as if he were a bug.)


 Uh -- small joke.



SNOW: (clears her throat.)  Paul. I must speak to you alone.



CZARDA:  Well, then. You should have come here ALONE.



SNOW:  Lisa Bradbury said around town -- she had sex with you.



CZARDA:   Well, let me tell you. She pulled down her britches every time she came up the stairs outside. Wind blowing through her pussy! All the way naked by the time she came through the door.
Can you picture that?


CRABBE:  Wha-at did you say?



CZARDA:  Truth is, I haven't seen her in a week.  You need to check with Amos Bradbury.



CRABBE:  I have! Grilled him for over an hour.



CZARDA:  Do you know he beat her black and blue every time he got drunk?  And called her the town cunt?  That he raved how God punished sluts?



CRABBE: This I do not know!




CZARDA:  Did ol' godfearing Amos send you after me?



CRABBE:  Matter of fact, no.  A guy named Klein did.  Some kind of New York reporter.  Been hounding me all day. He even took my secretary here out to lunch.  Until then you were pretty low on my list.



CZARDA: (facing SNOW)  Helen?



CRABBE:  I figured you for a guy with smarts.




CZARDA:  Klein? Mark Klein?  What did he tell you?




CRABBE:  He knew you in Vietnam.  He said you had this pathology for knives. Thinks you're another Ted Bundy.




CZARDA:  A Ted Bundy?  Oh, that's rich!  Now I have a pathology for biting dead girls.




SNOW:  (nervously, for CRABBE's benefit)  You were in jail for stabbing someone.




CZARDA:   Fucking LBJ.




CRABBE:  President Johnson?




CZARDA:  No, man.  LBJ was what we called the Long Binh Jail.  That was where I met Klein.  He was doing a documentary and he decided I was the most -- erudite prisoner in the joint. We did this Jean-Luc Goddard kind of thing, with me talking about free-will and responsibility, shit like that. He went ape when I said I wanted to stroll into a ritzy Saigon bar and shoot any dude with a Nikon. Especially if he looked like Alain Delon. Fucking Frog journalists. Then I got into a rap about French  Colonialism and how Uncle Ho fought the Japs and then begged America to help him fight the old system --




CRABBE:  You've lost me.




CZARDA:  Well, Klein seemed to think I was ate up with Kulchur.  In a single breath I could pontificate on abstract art and philosophy and their application during war.  Ach! We were Nietzschean demigods with a license to do ANYTHING!  ANYTHING!  Understand?  You don't understand.



CRABBE:  I think I do.




CZARDA:  We swaggered through the feces of two civilizations.  Scared out of our wits. Yet still conscious of our freedom.  Our profound existential freedom.




CRABBE: You would kill somebody for the hell of it.



CZARDA:  Me?  Me, personally?



CRABBE:  You.  You would shoot someone for having a fancy camera.  You said so.



CZARDA:  Don't take me for Leopold and Loeb.



CRABBE:  There you go again.  Being what?  Erudite.



CZARDA:  Leopold and Loeb were notorious thrill-killers.  Juiced on Nietzsche.  They played at being God.



CRABBE:  I think you're just like them.  You'd kill somebody for the hell of it.



CZARDA:  You're brighter than you look.



CRABBE:  Doctor Spock's TV Generation babies, all grown up, with a war for a sandbox.



CZARDA:  Oh fuck you!



CRABBE:  Well, tell me about this Klein.


CZARDA:  Oh we had great talks.  Klein and me.  (pauses)  He admired Norman Mailer enormously. And Mailer had made this dinky-dau film called "Maidstone." Real cinema-verite. A home-movie really. Bunch of friends got together with a script. Hah! That went to hell. The idea was to just let IT happen. Let it all hang out. Rip Torn attacks Mailer and they go to brawling. Crazy shit but you can't stop watching.




CRABBE:  (objectively)  Fascinating.




CZARDA:  Klein thought so. He thought it was great. Then he asked me about snuff movies.




CRABBE:  Huh?



CZARDA:  Snuff movies. They actually show somebody getting killed.  Snuffed.  I doubt they exist.  But you never know.  Anything's possible.  Klein was really interested in them.




CRABBE:  Weird.


CZARDA:  I thought so too. Here was this god-awful war going on and this New York kinko was gabbing about staging a snuff scene in some fucking STUDIO! I told him that if he wanted to film smomebody getting snuffed, wasted, dusted, GREASED or whatever, then he should boogy out on the next search and destroy mission. Wouldn't have to STAGE a thing.



CRABBE;  He wanted to make one of those movies?



CZARDA:  YES!  I'm telling you.  He probably still does.



CRABBE:  Mizz Snow, what did Mister Klein discuss with you?



SNOW:  Oh.  Things.




CRABBE:  He pumped you.




SNOW:  (blushing)  No, not at all.  We just.  We just talked.  About places we had been to.



CZARDA:  (to CRABBE)  Shit. Do you hear that?



CRABBE:  Yeah. Something is going on. (looks at SNOW and then addresses CZARDA)  Say, feller, how about a slam of that booze?




CZARDA:  Sure thing.


CRABBE twists off the cap and begins to drink.



SNOW:  I wish you wouldn't.




CRABBE:  Now, Mizz Snow.  This is a social call.  Isn't it?



CZARDA:  Sheriff, aren't you the least bit puzzled about Klein's interest in Helen here?



CRABBE:  No.  Should I be?  (admires the bottle)  You know, Zar-duh, for a Mormon you have a hell of a lot of vices.




CZARDA:  Ask HER about it.



SNOW is annoyed. She turns on the radio. Then she picks up a magazine here, a book there. Meanwhile, KLEIN positions himself to film her as she goes.




CZARDA:  Ah, Mahler!




CRABBE:  Whatever.




CZARDA:  Ever see "Death In Venice?"  The soundtrack was a Mahler mosaic.  Dirk Bogard plays a man dying from TB and is seated by the seashore and he is admiring the sexuality of a lovely teenage boy in a white linen suit.  He coughs blood and dies and the music swells and swells.  Tears flow into the sea.  Salt unto salt.



CRABBE:  Missed it.



CZARDA:  But as we moviegoers know.  Romance is but dirty sand on a miserable public beach littered with Hershey wrappers and Pabst cans. 




CRABBE:  How come you don't like Mizz Snow?




CZARDA:  She is one of those GOOD Mormons.




CRABBE:  Klein said you picked up a nickname in Vietnam. Shiv.  You were pretty mean, eh?



CZARDA:  VERILY!  Yay, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall FEAR no evil, for I am the MEANEST mother in the valley!



CRABBE:  Amen.  (snorts)  You get pissed off with someone and then try to slash him or stick him in the eyeball.




CZARDA:  Klein is completely GONZO!  Understand?  (pauses)  He probably told you I've got the Bradbury girl stuffed up my chimney.



CRABBE:  No one's accused you of anything.  I just want you to help me find her.  I doubt she's dead.  Just missing.



CZARDA:  (drinks)  Oh.



SNOW has been staring at CZARDA and catches his eye.  She indicates she still wishes to speak with him privately. He looks away.  She picks up a book with a huge cover illustration of Baphomet. She frowns as if infected with filth and tosses it to the floor.



CRABBE:  You kill any women or children over there?




CZARDA:  (stone face)  (suddenly a snear)  Hey, man!  Right.  All us hardcore Vets are crazy.  CRAZY!  Licking their EYEBROWS like Bruce Dern on the HITCHCOCK HOUR!




CRABBE:  That's very good.



SNOW continues through CZARDA's books.  She finds something that interests her enough to sit with it on the sofa. KLEIN realizes he should be filming the men.




CZARDA:  I guess you spent the war busting runny-snot flower-children on the pike.




CRABBE:  I served in Korea.




CZARDA:  That's right.  You were on M*A*S*H.




CRABBE:  Funny man.  I lost two toes at Chosen.  Baby toes.  The ice got them.




CZARDA:  (closing in on CRABBE)  Remember when you confiscated my knife?  At the trial.



CRABBE:  That little switchblade?   I've got it somewhere.




CZARDA:  Those SMUG three-piece lawyers and their BLOW-DRY attitudes, I wanted to CUT OFF THEIR NOSES!  Give them rubber ones.  The clowns.




CRABBE: Well, you certainly turned that court into a circus.  They only wanted you for jury duty.



CZARDA:  Helter-skelter!




CRABBE:  Stupid dip, that's ONE of the reasons you're a suspect in this case.



CZARDA:  Ah! The truth comes out.  (goes to a drawer)  Now HERE IS A KNIFE!  (draws a tremendous Bowie knife)  I call it Shibboleth.



CRABBE:  Jeezus!  You're STILL trying to convince me you're crazy.



CZARDA:  I named it from a story in the Bible.



CRABBE:  Mmm--




CZARDA:  Shibboleth was a password.  If a man mispronounced it by not saying it with a sh-h-h-h sound, then he betrayed himself as enemy. Executed on the spot.



CRABBE:  Interesting.  Did you use that in Vietnam?



CZARDA:  I was a Marine.



CRABBE:  So you told me.




CZARDA:  Well, we carried K-bars.  Combat knives.  But, yes.  Shibboleth saved my ass more than once.  I was in Saigon.  Pearl of the Orient. We had turned it into Dodge City.  Dudes strolling down the boulevards with M-60s, bandeleros, up for anything. Full-auto! Me?  I didn't need anything but the Colt 1911 and my knives.  Well.  One night.  I was leaving this gambling den when two gooks and another Marine gave me the old P-s-s-s-t   Hey Joe routine, pretending to be selling smack.  They tried to rob me in the alley.




CRABBE:  Which alley?



CZARDA:  You must think I'm making this up.




CRABBE:  Go on with your story.



CZARDA:  (jams the Bowie into the door frame)  Fuck it!



CRABBE:  That's terrible language for a Mormon.




CZARDA:  Sure is.  You don't here Sister Snow talking that way.




CRABBE:  How're you doing over there, Mizz Snow?  Been pretty quiet.




SNOW:  I've been praying.




CZARDA:  (to CRABBE)  See?




CRABBE:  We've been drinking and she's been praying.  Who's the better person?



CZARDA:  She's been MEDDLING.  Been through most of my things tonight.




CRABBE:  (chuckles)  Mizz Snow, we'll be leaving soon.



CZARDA:  You taking me in?  Going to BOOK  me?




CRABBE:  Mizz Snow has to look in on her mother.



SNOW:  (to CZARDA)  She had a stroke last month.




CZARDA:  Yeah.  I put my best hex-whammy on her.  Forces of darkness and all that.




CRABBE:  Quit talking shit.





SNOW:  She can barely eat.



CZARDA:  She can barely shit.




CRABBE:  I'm warning you.




SNOW:  Paul, come here a minute.  (pats the sofa)  Please.



CRABBE:  Excuse me, folks.  I have a radio call to make.   (exits)



CZARDA:  (exasperated) Jesus Christ, Helen.  How could you come here after what happened the other night?




SNOW:  Paul--




CZARDA:  What?  (sits with her)



SNOW:  I'm afraid--  (she is interrupted)



CZARDA:  No need.  I took care of everything.



SNOW:  I'm afraid this Mister Klein knows.




CZARDA:  (astonished)  What?  I don't believe you.  What did you say to him?




SNOW:  NOthing!  He.  He has this theory.  Oh dear God!  It was as if he were the cat and I was the mouse.




CZARDA:  Now wait.  His theory is only about Lisa.  Right?




SNOW:  Oh blast you, Paul.  He knows I was SLEEPING with you!  He KNOWS the whole ghastly thing.  (pause)  Who IS he?




CZARDA:  You could say he is my darker side.  Hah!  Can you imagine?



SNOW:  To be honest, no.



CZARDA:  He is, though.  As bad as I seem, he is worse.




SNOW:  What does he want?



CZARDA:  I don't know.




SNOW:  I'm only Crabbe's secretary, I can't stall him any longer.  He wanted to bring you in three days ago, but I convinced him to first check on Amos Bradbury.  And some poor drifter, an ex-mental patient found sleeping in a dumpster.




CZARDA:  I see.  It all points to me.  The resident crazy.



SNOW:  Stop saying you're crazy.  You're not fooling Crabbe at any rate.




CZARDA:  Time will tell.




SNOW:  WHAT are we going to do?  WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?  (chokes)  Yesterday I went to Bishop Pratt.  The airconditioning in his office was broken, and the place smelled like liver and onions gone bad.  Something  in a styrofoam box.  I felt sick --  (interupted)




CZARDA:  You went to Pratt Insurance?




SNOW:  Yes.  I told him I needed to see him alone and he told his secretary to leave. She left all right, but his walls are thin and full of ears.  I was going to tell him EVERYTHING! Do you hear?  But I lost my nerve.




CZARDA:  So then what?




SNOW:  He had me kneel on the carpet.  Oh, the dust.




CZARDA:  And he laid hands upon your head. And you prayed to your Heavenly Father.




SNOW:  (angrily)  AND YOURS!




CZARDA:  Oh, no.  Not anymore.  I was excommunicated, banished. Remember?




SNOW:  Yes.




CZARDA:  That hurt you.



SNOW:  More then you will ever know. I dreamed we would marry and receive Temple Recommends.  Our covenant would have been eternal. Celestial after death.



CZARDA:  (rises from the sofa)   What in hell brought us together in the first place?




SNOW:  Sometimes I think it was The Adversary.




CZARDA:  Oh, rubbish.



SNOW:  That Sunday.  When you spoke at Sacrement Meeting.  Spruced and spiffy in that brown suit.  You were so warm.  Radiant!




CZARDA:  Scared stiff.



SNOW:  You loaded the lecturn with books until it nearly tipped over.  And you didn't even need them.



CZARDA:  My mind went blank from stage fright.  It was all off the cuff after that.




SNOW:  You were INSPIRED!  You sounded like a college professor.  From BYU.



CZARDA:  Barnum and Bailey, more likely.



SNOW:  (earthy)  I wanted you.  I was wanton. My bed had been empty too long. How do you want me to say it?



CZARDA:  Early as that.  How shameless of you.



SNOW:  Don't cheapen me.



CZARDA:  You were eying me as a potential husband.



SNOW:  Yes.




CZARDA:  Right. That's the way it is with you Mormon women. Looking for that strong provider. Gold-diggers is what you are.




SNOW:  (saddened)  I'm sorry you see it that way.



CZARDA:  What do you mean?  Come on.  Out with it!




SNOW:  It  should be painfully obvious.



CZARDA:  I get it.  Yeah.  Since I'm not the strong provider type then I must be something else.




SNOW:  So sorry.



CZARDA:  I DRINK!  DRINK ALL THE TIME!  THAT'S IT! Isn't it?




SNOW:  No, Paul.  You don't work. You won't even-- (interupted)



CZARDA:  Wait a minute.  (storms over to the table and snatches up pages of manuscript and flings them at her)  What do you CALL THIS?




SNOW:  You won't hold a steady decent job.



CZARDA:  THIS IS MY SWEAT AND BLOOD.   My brow bleeds when I am writing! Just like JESUS with his crown of thorns!



SNOW:  I'm sure someday you'll be published.



CZARDA:  Oh, fuck you.




SNOW:  This is going nowhere and we have been through it before.




CZARDA:  Just why did you visit me the other night?




SNOW:  We hadn't seen you at the Pizza Hut lunch buffet. All the ladies were commenting.  Helen, where's your wild poet friend?




CZARDA:  (cock of the walk)  I can smell your pussy from here.



SNOW:  Crabbe will be returning soon.



CZARDA:  You missed me going down on you.



SNOW:  Stop torturing me.



CZARDA:  I'm sure Bishop Pratt would salivate if you told him how vigrous you prefer your sex. Riding your steed, grunting and laughing and demanding MORE!




SNOW attempts to slap him and CZARDA catches her wrist and bites it.  SNOW screams.




CZARDA:  Shush!  I'm not going to hurt you!




SNOW:  You DID hurt me.




CZARDA:  God, I'm sorry.  (touches her breast)



SNOW:  Don't.




CZARDA:  Oh, Helen.




SNOW:  It's too late for that.



CZARDA fully embraces SNOW.  In spite of her feeble protest.



SNOW:  No, don't.




CZARDA:  (releasing SNOW)  Don't worry about your reputation in town. Unmarried, but still likes to fuck.




SNOW reconstructs her composure.  CRABBE rushes in as CZARDA crosses over to the whiskey bottle.




CRABBE:  What the BLAZES is going on here?




CZARDA:  Oh, one of those damn palmetto bugs flew on her.  Scared the shit out of both of us!




CRABBE:  Sounded like bloody murder!




SNOW:  I'm all right.




CRABBE:  Uh huh--




SNOW:  I feel sort of silly.




CRABBE:  On the way up I thought I saw somebody on the porch deck. But when I looked again there was nobody.  Only shadows from those shrubs.  Did you get the feeling you were being watches?



CZARDA:  I'm immune to that feeling. This apartment is the proverbial glass house.  A goldfish bowl.




CRABBE:  (looking around)  Yeah.  I see you don't believe in  window shades.



CZARDA:  Call it artistic temperment. The sky is my muse.  Day and night, it is an enormous presence.  (walks to where the Bowie is jammed into the wood and pulls it free)



CRABBE:  Let me see that.



CZARDA:  (handing CRABBE the Bowie)  Got it on my fifteenth birthday.  That summer I received it and a book about Cossacks.  "And Quiet Flows The Don."  (recollects)  I mowed four-acre lawns along a windy azure bay. I wore a terry-cloth turban. Stripped to the waist in cut-off jeans. With the Bowie belted beneath my belly I was a Cossack! The scent of clipped grass was perfume and the smell of oil and gasoline was hot roiling booze. Raw  vodka! My bare feet turned green.  SWAK!  I made heads toll.  Locusts became capsules of slime.  A mouse in the tool shed, leaving a spoor of piss behind the rakes and garden sticks and bags of sheep manure-- (interupted)




CRABBE:  This in California?




CZARDA:  (jolted from his reverie)   Never been to California.



CRABBE:  (returns the Bowie to CZARDA)  One more whiskey.  Then I have to take my pretty secretary home.




SNOW:  (she touches CZARDA and he recoils, surprising himself)  It WAS The Adversary.  He has dominion over you.




CZARDA:  Eskimo crap on a stick.




CRABBE:  What is it with you two?



CZARDA:  Oh, can't you tell?




SNOW:  There will be a Blood Atonement.



CZARDA:  Yeah right.



CRABBE:  Come on, Mizz Snow.  Let's-- (interupted)




SNOW:  No, Sheriff.  I'm walking home.  Good-bye, Paul.  (exits)




CRABBE:  (face livid)  You son of a bitch.




CZARDA:  Aw.  She's a kick in the head.




CRABBE:  I ought to run you in right now.




CZARDA:  For what? 



CRABBE:  Don't be a rascal with me.  I'm tired of it.




CZARDA:  Oh, have a fucking drink.  (looks out the window)  Helen Snow.  Divorced Ben Snow two years ago.  Drove him out and said she would raise the kids.




CRABBE:  He was a son of a bitch like you.  Drunk all the time.




CZARDA:  And she is a gleaming pillar of virtue.




CRABBE:  She is that.  A splendid lady.




CZARDA:  A toast then.  To the splendid lady.




CRABBE:  (disapproves of the toast)  Look at what you've got.




CZARDA:  (musically, a hint of yodel)  You'll never get out of this world alive.




CRABBE:  Hank was right.




CZARDA:  (facing CRABBE)  I don't know who you resemble the most.  Detective Columbo or the inspector from "Crime and Punishment."




CRABBE:  You compliment this old redneck.  (pauses)  Ahem.  What was all that mumbo-jumbo?  Blood Atonement.




CZARDA:  Mormon superstition.




CRABBE:  Has to do with murder, doesn't it?  Something God will not forgive.




CZARDA:  You seem well acquainted with the subject.  Why don't you illuminate ME?




CRABBE:  I've been told you have a degree in Religion.




CZARDA:  Wrong.




CRABBE:  What then?




CZARDA:  Anthroplogy.  Totally useless.  Teaches that everything we do is the result of the way things are structured deep down.




CRABBE:  Sounds like bullshit.




CZARDA:  Same as Religion.




CRABBE:  You're a hardcase.  A real hardcase.  That Mormon lady would be good for you.




CZARDA:  (making a fist)  LAY OFF!  Just lay off.




CRABBE:  Tell me.  Were you ordained into the priesthood of Melchizedek?




CZARDA:  (astounded) I beg your pardon.




CRABBE:   Just asking.




CZARDA:  You floor me with your knowlege.




CRABBE:  (shows CZARDA a ring)  Freemason.




CZARDA: Oh my.  Whaddyaknow.




CRABBE:  Your Prophet Joseph Smith got a lot of ideas from Freemasonry.




CZARDA:  For which he paid dearly.  Where is this going?




CRABBE:  Maybe we should call it a night.




CZARDA:  (noticing that the classical music has been replaced by punk rock)  Why NO!  Things are picking up. I'm getting a nice buzz too.




CRABBE:  Jesus.




CZARDA:  Yeah.  They play that kind of music after midnight.  All the way to dawn.  (musically)  There's no future.  There's no future.  In ENGLAND, man!  (snears and twitches like Johnny Rotten)



CRABBE:  Bunch of fags.




CZARDA:  (quick sip of whisky)  Mmm.  Let me tell you about this afternoon.  Yeah.  There was this sharp knocking on my door. Woke me up. And there was this visitor.  Athin old man. His white collar cut across his neck like razor.  Yeah. He was a priest.  A Catholic priest. He may as well have been a fireman chopping into my home with a hatchet!




CRABBE:  Why this Catholic?  You're a Mormon.




CZARDA:  I've been a lot of things.  Catholic.  Pagan. Shaman.  FAITH HEALER!  (attempts to lay hands upon CRABBE)




CRABBE: Hey!  Knock it off!




CZARDA:  Oo-oo-oo!  Homo-PHOBIA!




CRABBE:  Goddamn!




CZARDA:  Ease up.  Have another slam. You look like I was gonna drill out your knee-cap with a Black & Decker.




CRABBE:  Bullshit!




CZARDA:  This priest.  Father Greene.  Here he was.  I wanted to grease him right there.  A blast from my Ruger would fold, spindle and mutilate him BACK from whence he came.



CRABBE:  There you go again.  Licking your eyebrows.




CZARDA:  He said he had worked in South America and I imagined plumed birds with Day-Glo reality.  A riot of pink, aflutter through cascading elephantine foliage.  There were Indians with lanced septums and beatific grins.  There were libertine priests who chewed narcotic leaves and joined Marxist revolutions.




CRABBE:  That poor motherfucker.



CZARDA:  I showed him my library.  He gasped at the number of books.  That pleased me.  I saw he was shivering.  The afternoon was oppressively hot and he was shivering.  No ju-ju.  I don't know what was the matter.  Sudddenly he slumped.  Like a man of wood losing his pegs.  In a clutter to the floor.




CRABBE:  Is this true?




CZARDA:  Can't breathe, he said.  I collected him as easily as a master would pick up his fallen marionette.  Holy Mary, Mother of God!  I placed him on the sofa and raised his feet with a pillow.




CRABBE:  Good for you.  Overcame your initial hostility, eh?




CZARDA:  Look, goddammit!  I'm a recluse, a writer.  Ihate people coming over uninvited.




CRABBE:  Unless they are teenage tarts with big tits you could diddle.




CZARDA:  Hey diddle diddle.  (pauses)  Well, as I was saying.  He took a pill and I turned on the fan.  His paroxysm passed and at length he sat up and explained why he had come to see me.




CRABBE: Yeah?




CZARDA:  Lisa had told him something.




CRABBE:  Lisa Bradbury?




CZARDA:  Yes. Evidently she had been watching TV when her father returned from happy hour.  He stumbled in and raised a fist.  She did ot stop running until she arrived here. Lights were on.  So she crept up.  She wondered why she was creeping when all along she knew she was welcome. She peered through the screen but saw no one.  On the sink counter were tomato, squash and onion from the garden.  On the table were all those things you see now. Machine, paper, books.  She called out.  (girlish falsetto)  Paul.  Paul.  Are you there?  Music was playing.  That cold digital stuff.  Kraftwerk maybe.  (synthesizer music happens to be playing on the radio)




CRABBE:  This sounds like a movie.




CZARDA:  Maybe it is.




CRABBE:  Go on with your story.




CZARDA:  LISA'S story.  By way of Father Greene.




CRABBE:  Get on with it!




CZARDA:  (grinning)  Ah!  WELL!  Curiosity got the best of her.  There were these strange TAPPING sounds.  TAP tap tap.  She forgot the beery menace of her father and his upraised fist, the size of a sandbag.




CRABBE:  Hmmmp.




CZARDA:  She found my secret key and entered.  Her Nike shoes making itsy bitsy squishy squeaks.




CRABBE:  Love these details.




CZARDA:  Yeah.  Gotta have 'em.  Tap tap tap.  She heard plaster fall from the ceiling.  And floorboards were rising and creaking.




CRABBE:  Poltergeist.




CZARDA:  Hah-hah!  Yeah.  Real horrorshow!  She SCREAMED!  Aaaaaah!  A blue light was pulsing from THAT PLACE above the sofa.  Now.  The sight that unhinged her is dubiously reported.  Processed through the minds of an impressionable teenager and a dying old priest.




CRABBE:  Dying?




CZARDA:  Obviously dying.




CRABBE:  She saw something that made her go bonkers?




CZARDA:  (calculated shrug)  Believe me.  I'm keeping MY imagination to a minimum.




CRABBE:  I better check on this Father Greene.




CZARDA:  Maybe she was on acid.  We had done it before making love.  We had GREAT times. We would light a ring of fat candles on the floor and sit naked in the golden center.  We would kiss nipples, press palms, life-line to life-line, touch tongues and sing.  She would draw blood from me and I would draw blood from her.  By then the walls and their dancing shadows had become plastic. (impassioned now)  Our limbs and loins became plastic.  Oozing into patterns, but govered by the will of our eyes.  Yeah, Shibboleth performed well.  Making us blood kin--




KLEIN runs out of film. Totally absorbed with CZARDA's story, he is irritated at having to put in another canister at this pregnant juncture.  He emits a small near-silent curse and immediately checks to see if either CZARDA or CRABBE have heard him. CZARDA is receiving sensory imput. He looks at KLEIN, but apparently sees nothing.




CRABBE:  Story.




CZARDA:  (distracted)  Beg pardon?



CRABBE:  You were telling a story.



CZARDA:  Ach!  So I was.  (pauses)  The air was solidly cold.  And there!  (pointing to the ceiling) Lisa saw a MASS emerging in a TORENT OF WHISPERS from that jagged CRACK!  And GROPING  (reaching toward CRABBE like some kind of bogeyman) into SPACE!  Blue space, as bright as the space surrounding a neon tube.  Ah!  DOWN came what looked like a GLOB OF PETROLEM JELLY with, oh, a DOZEN tentacles, six feet long, blue and glistening.  Swaying, swaying.  Lisa saw me lying on the sofa, my eyes rolling, my jaws open.  When one of the tentacles DROPPED INTO MY MOUTH-- (interupted)




CRABBE:  (caught up in the story)  Jesus!




CZARDA: (delighted, eyes bugging)   JESUS CHRIST IN A SIDECAR!  (stands proudly, arms akimbo)  You LIKED that tall fabrication.  Didn't you?




CRABBE is stunned.




CZARDA:  Ohhhhh, I can see you did.  (opens a package of peanuts and pops a few into his mouth) Yeah.  (munching)  Mmm-hmm-hmm. I WRITE such things occasionaly.  (prankster grin)  Penny a word!  I'm no Lovecraft, but--



CRABBE explodes from his seat and punches CZARDA in the mouth.




CRABBE:  Goddammit you motherfucking son of a bitch!  YOU TOLD--




CZARDA:  (on the floor and sputtering blood)  FUCK YOU IN THE ASS!




CRABBE:  Bring it on, you PUSSY!




CZARDA assumes a karate defense.




KLEIN:  (ecstatic)  Oh, SHIT!




CRABBE:  Come on, Marine.  All full of rant and talk.




The antagonists stalk each other.  CRABBE feints and CZARDA kicks him in the chest.




CZARDA:  Ee-yee-AH!




CRABBE falls and CZARDA  snatches up the Bowie and attacks.




CRABBE:  GOD!  (screams and tries to roll away)




KLEIN:  YEAH!  Somebody snuff somebody.




CZARDA halts within an inch of killing CRABBE.  He rises and stands over the terrorized CRABBE and glowers.  He lets his anger dissipate.  KLEIN is extremely disappointed.




CZARDA:  Get up, old man.




CRABBE groans.




CZARDA: Gutting you ISN'T in the scenario.




CRABBE:  Huh?




CZARDA:  Just an expression some people use.




CRABBE:  (hauling himself up)  You--feel--pretty--good.




CZARDA:  Better.




CRABBE:  Christ, you made me mad.




CRABBE drinks whiskey while CZARDA paces, swinging the Bowie in heavy arcs.  On the radio a Jim Morrison and The Doors medley begins.




CZARDA:  Ah-yeh-yah!  I AM the Backdoor Man!  (dances)  That reminds me of an August bacchanalia back in '68.  Sweaty, head-achey.  On a farm outside Beeville, Texas.  My Marine buddies crashed this pig-roast hosted by a Navy flyboy. They helped dig a pit in the mesquite, laid in coals, then the pig, and tossed down left-over stuffing. Pineapple chunks and breadballs.  Then we covered the whole business with banana leaves and sand.  We played grab-ass and Frisbee until we dropped. I sat on the porch, totally drunk, hiding beneath the brim of a Panama hat.  Hah!  Drinking tequila with a plastic worm floating in it. Pretty soon I was seeing double. A couple of local hippy women danced around the yard.  Took off their halter-tops and jiggled their tits.  Some kind of Wiccan Earth Mother thin celebrating Lughnasad.  Farewell to Lugh, soon-to-die Sun King. All for a bountful harvest. Shit like that.




CRABBE:  (looking at his watch)  It's late.




CZARDA:  The Doors were playing.  Over and over it went.  Ride the King's Highway. Ride the snake.  El Camino Real.  Quetzacoatl.  The plumed serpent god of the Aztecs--




CRABBE: I've got to be going.




CZARDA:  Quetxacoatl.  Another symbol of death and resurrection.  Mormons believe he was actually the Christ who appeared to the people of the New World.





CRABBE:  (goes to the door)  Look. There may be more questions.  That little tart has gotten the attention of the news media.




CZARDA:  Shouldn't call her a tart.




CRABBE:  See you.  (exits)




CZARDA walks onto the porch deck.




CZARDA:  You can always tell when somebody is nearby.  The crickets and cicadas stop.




KLEIN is attaching his camera to a tripod.




CZARDA listens.




KLEIN sets the camera to automatically film events inside CZARDA's apartment.




CZARDA:  Hey, Klein!  I know you're out there, man.




KLEIN:  Hey, baby.  What's happening?




CZARDA:  Getting drunk.




KLEIN:  I could use a drink.




They go inside.




CZARDA:  Just have whiskey.  Not much of that.




KLEIN:  (sips from the bottle)  So.




CZARDA:  What were you doing out there?




KLEIN:  Cooling until the fuzz left.  I was about to drop in when he pulled up with the dame.




CZARDA:  YOU don't just drop in.  You're a preditor.  You pounce upon unsuspecting prey.



KLEIN:  Hey, now.




CZARDA:  (picks up a cigarette butt)  You left little clues all over the place.  How did you get in?




KLEIN:  Found your secret key and had a duplicate made.




CZARDA:  Sheesh!




KLEIN:  You were hip to me, eh?




CZARDA:  Klein, you're a mystery.




KLEIN:  And YOU are the kind of guy who would toss sawbucks from the mezzanine onto the floor of the frigging STOCK EXCHANGE!  Just to see the money-grubbers grub.




CZARDA:  Beg pardon?




KLEIN:  (jabbing a finger)  I mean.  You're NEWS.  News with a capital N!




CZARDA:  Horsehockey!  I know you.  News is something you create.




KLEIN:  Yeah.  I'm New Wave.




CZARDA:  With yellow tricks.




KLEIN:  I may surprise you.




CZARDA:  Spare me.




KLEIN:  (fiddling with the lamp)  Kerosene.  Quaint.  Expecting a hurricane?




CZARDA:  Yeah.




KLEIN:  Nice glow.




CZARDA:  Helps me write.




KLEIN:  Ahhh.  Ambience.  You poetry horror guys need the dark.  No clean well-lighted place for you.




CZARDA:  The beast needs its lair.




KLEIN:  (tapping his head)  Up in Caligari's attic, eh?  Sitting in a scatter of bones?




CZARDA:  Yeah.




KLEIN:  Shit.  Try this.  HORROR will have SEX with you in a THOUSAND nasty ways and drown you in a crusty toilet.




CZARDA:  (has Shibboleth now and is patting his palm with the flat of the blade)  You seem to know my turf.




KLEIN:  I do and I think it is full of romantic delusions.  That's why you're so fucking poor.




CZARDA:  God, you're SERIOUS!




KLEIN:  Nobody wants to read about ghosts.  Ectoplasms from the fifth dimension.




CZARDA:  You're wrong.  The world is so corroded and sinister that people crave something unreal.




KLEIN:  Maybe.




CZARDA:  I know so.




KLEIN:  LOOK!  I now how people are!  They are morbidly curious.  They like to see car wrecks, HOTEL FIRES!  The stench of burning flesh may be too much for them, but they love the view.




CZARDA:  You're talking about yourself.  The voyeur!  Still stuck on that sicko film "Mondo Cane."  The one with the gooks going to the kennel behind the restaurant to select the dog for their meal.  Like we select lobster.



KLEIN: (with loathing)  Scumbag.  What do you know?




CZARDA:  I know the porcine stench of human fat bubbling in the fire. Tell me about it, Klein.  Tell me about Vietnam.  Did you ever take my advice and trek into the bush?




KLEIN:  Marvelous time.  Simply bloody marvelous.  Loved every moment, old chap.




CZARDA:  Then I take it you weren't hurt.




KLEIN:  Came close.




CZARDA:  Too bad.




KLEIN:  Sorry!  I didn't join the hallowed brotherhood of the wounded.  (passes his hand over the hurricane lamp)  I like this.  It reminds me of when I was a kid.  I grew up in South Florida too.




CZARDA:  What school?




KLEIN:  Same as yours.




CZARDA:  You must keep a dossier on me.




KLEIN:  Believe it or not, I do.  We both went to Miami Beach High. You lived on Pine Tree Drive and I lived on Alton Road.



CZARDA:  For crying out loud.




KLEIN:  Our place looked like a Spanish casa.  Pink stucco, red tile, black iron bars.  It's long gone now.




CZARDA:  So's my old place.




KLEIN:  I bet you toyed with knives when you were a kid.




CZARDA:  (darkening)  You were the only person to call me Shiv.




KLEIN:  Great buzzword for the media. Hey!  I wish you would PUT that thing away!




CZARDA:  Makes you nervous.




KLEIN:  Certainly does.




CZARDA:  (slices the air)  SHIV!




KLEIN:  (narrowly missed)  Cut that out!




CZARDA:  You fed a lot of information to the authorities about me.  Some of it pure fabrication.  Why?  Why did you come here?



KLEIN:  Try this scenario.  This Lisa learns you are screwing around with another woman. Someone your age. Someone she considers a threat.




CZARDA:  Garbage.




KLEIN:  Yeah. A jealous Lisa.  eeping into your place.  The SNIK! of her butterfly switchblade. Tap tap tap. The blade skips a metallic tattoo along the wall.  From the makeshift bedding on the floor comes a voice.  (imitates a woman)  PAUL, SOMEBODY's IN HERE!  WAKE UP!




CZARDA:  I want YOU out of here!




KLEIN:  LISA!  Throwing herself upon you!  Landing like a bag of snakes.  Her knife climbs a sibilent arc above your lover's moonlit belly.




CZARDA:  Fuck you, Klein!




KLEIN:  What's the matter?  Can't you take it?  Listen!  Spanish steel plunges through the humid air. OH, THIS IS LIKE ONE OF YOUR STORIES!  You are up! Coming from behind, in dappled darkness, and taking hold. You've got her knife now. Your lover screams! And Lisa gasps as her own blade cuts between her ribs. Her little sigh sounds like an orgasm. Oh, Lisa!  (dramatic pause)  And with her standing dead against you did you lose your erection? No, man.  You went wild!  You stabbed her again and again. And FUCKED HER!  Fucked her right there in front of that Mormon lady!




CZARDA:  Helen said you knew everything.  Damn you!  (wielding Shibboleth, he hurtles toward his adversary)




KLEIN has edged toward the cupboard where CZARDA keeps his revolver. A big Ruger Blackhawk. He draws it and cocks it.



KLEIN:  This is perfect.  More than I hoped for.



CZARDA howls/shrieks. His kamakazi leap is dazzling. Shibboleth plunges into KLEIN's eye just as the Ruger Blackhawk fires into CZARDA's chest.  Both die.

Blackout.




Dawn.



Sunlight gradually illuminates the apartment.The radio gives a news broadcast.



RADIO VOICE:  The body of slain teen Lisa Bradbury was found during the predawn hours this morning by woodsmen in the area of Grantham Slough. A witness at the scene said the girl was the victim of numerous stab wounds and possible rape.  Reported missing three days ago, Bradbury--




SNOW enters.  Opening the door, she sees what has happened.  She screams and steps backward.  She collides with CRABBE as he storms in with two deputies. They discover KLEIN crumpled on the floor and CZARDA sprawled upon the sofa.




SNOW:  Oh Heavenly Father. 




SNOW surveys the scene in a daze.  Then she points to something off-stage.



SNOW:  Is that a camera?



Curtain