Original subtitles

Thank you.

um

Thank you.

When I was a child, my favorite story was Robinson Crusoe. Oh, how it filled

me with a longing for exciting places, particularly some enchanted island.

Well, when I was a child, I used to trace big color pictures of a faraway

land called Hawaii.

I'd just sit and dream by the hour and hope that someday I could go there and

walk along the beach and watch the golden sunset.

Oh, it was a wonderful dream.

Now it's going to come true. Step aboard my magic carpet, my love, and away we'll

go. I can hear the waves breaking on the shore

And it's making me a willing

visitor

Well, where shall we go?

How about a walk along the beach? Okay, if you'll let me take my shoes off. I've

always wanted to walk barefoot in the sand.

Oh, this is such fun.

Why can't we just stay here forever?

Maybe we can. Besides, we haven't seen the tea leaf slide yet.

Or Thomas Square?

A mission house? Honolulu Holly?

Iolani Palace?

Oriental Shopping District? Waikiki Beach?

Oh, yes. I think maybe we should stay here forever.

What would you say to that?

I wanna EAT!

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

How's your husband feeling these days?

Not so good.

Maybe if you both slept in the same bed, he'd feel a lot better.

Drop dead.

world.

Please stay.

Don't... Don't get serious.

You know, if you make me decent, I can't go out into the street immune to shame.

I don't want you decent.

Here now, come on, take this. You'll feel a lot better.

Thank you.

Enclosed in my room, I speak to the quietness, breaking the silence.

Enclosed in my room, I...

Just

taking it easy, aren't you, brother?

I hear your sink is all clogged up Where's the trouble?

It's over there

It's awfully hot in here. Why don't you make yourself comfortable?

Your shirt smells kind of funny.

Why don't you take it off and I'll wash it while you work.

Want a cup of coffee?

Coffee would be just fine.

It goes right through my system and cleans me out.

You know, pipes aren't the only things that get stuffed up.

Once a girl from a farmhouse in Oklahoma Where there

were gray skies and wheat fields all around She was

so lonely she left for California She made

it butch until a stranger in town

The only girl from a farmhouse in Oklahoma would

wander uptown and downtown all alone.

She tried her luck. Action! Out of here! You're awful!

Go back to where you belong! Go back with the cows!

Hi, Nina.

Hi, Dad. I was cheering like Derek.

From dirt that grows, potatoes tip around.

And potatoes feed the country.

Don't ever forget that.

But I want to forget about potatoes.

Why does everyone have to remind me of the ugly things of life? Like that witch

out there with her cheap makeup and dime store toilet water.

Let her out of your mind and take your dress off.

You need to rub down.

You're tired, honey.

Maybe this business ain't for you.

Do I sting that bad, Nina?

Well, kid, I don't want to hurt your feelings by telling you this.

Don't worry about that. Tell me the truth.

All right.

You stink.

Listening to you is like listening to a rhinoceros fart.

Thank you for being so candid.

Where are you from, kid?

From a little town in the middle of nothing, where the lazy rivers flood in

nowhere.

Sounds like heaven to me, baby.

When you've been around as much as I have, you get tired and need to stick

your feet in the nowhere river.

Don't shove your one way or the other.

Just passes by quietly.

Do you think that I made a mistake for leaving that place?

That's what that drunken woman out there shouted.

Go back to where you belong.

That's what she screamed.

Do you think I made a mistake for coming here, Nina?

What's your state tree, Debbie?

I mean, what's the official tree of my home state?

Yeah.

The redbud tree.

You ever seen any out here?

No, now that you mention it, I haven't. Thank you for bringing it to my

attention. I knew something was missing, but I didn't know what.

Perhaps the redbuds sense that I'm gone, too. I'm sure they do.

Listen, you're a sweet kid with a swell body.

Why don't you get out of this dump while you've got the chance before you wind up

like me?

I'm not on the menu, but I can be eaten for a lot cheaper than the roast beef

Here take $20 for my purse get out of here while you've got the chance I

couldn't No, I couldn't please do it quick and get out of here before I

change my mind.

I Wouldn't want to do that

Cancel out the only decent thing I'll ever do in this whole rotten life.

I'll never forget you, Nina.

Remember not to forget those redbud trees.

That little town in the middle of nothing.

Where the rivers go nowhere.

Yes, my heart remembers.

Come with me.

Time is passing.

Dear Mr. Menninger, your wife is a tramp.

Your wife is a tramp.

And to what she will be owed.

You really lay it on thick with the alcohol, don't you, Dr. Hoymans?

And for what reason? Can you tell me that?

Are you suggesting I got you drunk for some obscure motive?

Uh, sing's the word, honey.

There's nothing obscure about your motive.

It's out in the open and hanging loose.

Like your tongue, little miss Goody-two-shoes.

What's the diagnosis, doctor?

You're hot.

A fever?

An inflammation of the erogenous zones.

Oh, my goodness.

Such language.

Bite your tongue.

Bite it for me.

How long have you had this hardening of the arteries?

Since dinner.

Too many brandy Alexanders, maybe.

With drinking scotch. Certainly were.

It tasted just fine.

Except nobody puts a cherry in their scotch.

They either drink it straight or on rocks.

Well, I'm straight, honey, and you ain't no cherry.

We're going to end up on the hay rather than the rocks.

Do you expect me to commit adultery for the sixth time this week?

What sort of woman do you take me for?

I'll take you in sickness and in health until death do us part.

Oh, wait!

Wait for the organ music before you play that one.

You think I'm joking, don't you?

But I'm not. I want you, Ginger.

Not just for a night, on weekends.

I want you for a kiss.

You're afraid I don't kiss very well, David.

I rap quite easily.

Perhaps you've noticed.

Oh, I'd stay fresh for a month or two in this icebox that you call a bachelor's

pad.

But basically, I'd just be a piece of frozen meat

to get thawed out periodically by a bottle of vodka.

You're from Sweden, aren't you? Yes.

I could tell by the cold lights burning in your eyes.

Northern lights.

Always shifting.

A man of many moods.

And whims.

This is not a whim, Ginger.

I fell in love with you the very first time I saw you that foggy Sunday in

front of the renal dialysis machine.

The window was open and a shred of fog blew in with the gale that whistled

through the fruit trees.

It swirled about your head like the halo of a Madonna and curled about your

ankles in the form of a snake.

May the angel of mercy come to relieve the suffering multitudes on Medicare, to

fill their pain-wracked bodies with joy and their hearts with love.

My body was not in pain, but my heart was empty.

You stood there in the clouds, dressed in your blue cape, giving your all to

humanity.

Yeah, I suppose you could say that.

All the things that you knew was all.

Me, when you're talking about anatomy.

Don't talk like a hussy.

No, I didn't used to.

My husband, Edmund, he changed all that.

When did he marry that thing?

Oh, he was Hawaiian.

He was the ancestor of some fat Hawaiian monarch that ruled the craters of Mount

Mauliki.

He promised me a...

Pineapple plantation.

And a necklace from the teeth of a tiger shark.

Well, as it turned out, he became the pineapple, and the necklace became

nothing more than the collar and the leash.

Well, I picked a dog, all right.

Of course, fate or an act of God.

If you believe in God.

Had a lot to do with the outcome of our honeymoon.

What do you mean?

We were to spend our wedding night on his father's island.

They were going to roast a pig for us in our honor.

As it turned out, it was his father who got roasted because Mount Mauliki sprang

a leak.

And a river of molten lava flowed through that place and covered it to a

depth of 15 feet.

His father-in-law was killed?

Burned. To an ash.

And my dreams went up in smoke too.

It doesn't have to be a dream with me.

I have the money and the desire to give you whatever you want.

As long as you'll give me what I want.

Hmm. And that's me.

You want my hand in marriage.

I want more than your hand.

What you want is my all.

All or nothing at all.

All!

Making fun of you.

Making fun of the situation.

Look at us.

The big city nurse and the doctor wonderful who makes a fortune by cutting

people up and sewing them back together.

Cutting people up and sewing them back together again.

And you're getting a fortune for the whole damn thing.

And look at the way you live.

Why, this place is just as filthy as mine.

Then we are alike.

There is common ground between us.

between us is far from common.

It's a weed-filled lot watered only by the seepage from a nearby septic

tank.

Stop me, David.

I can't stop myself.

Marriage is out, but you are definitely in for tonight only.

I won't stop you, Ginger. I couldn't even if I tried.

I hate you.

I'd never dump Edmund through the life of you. I'd be going around in a circle.

That's because you're lost.

I can hear the waves breaking on the shore.

And it's making me a willing visitor.

I can see the monkeys praying me to stay.

A place to love and live in till we die.

Oh, why is he always gone when I need him most?

A little mustard that I think will do.

Everything all right?

Or, uh,

can I get you something?

Uh, yeah.

Get me a glass of water, please.

Would you like something with a little more substance?

Oh, yeah, thank you for being so delicate with your words.

Then again, it's too hot for more hot air, don't you think?

Sheets are cool.

They remain that way a lot longer.

Just one person under the covers.

You catch on fast.

There's nothing fast about me.

That may be my wristwatch. It is fast.

By ten minutes.

I hate missing buses.

It's a lonely life, riding buses.

Take a plane, but who wants to get nowhere fast?

You got it all wrong, Lee.

It's not where you're going that counts.

All the steps along the way, getting up to it.

You mean down?

No. Going downhill is too easy.

The pulse doesn't beat as fast as yours when you're going downhill.

Let go of my wrist.

Wouldn't you like some assistance in climbing that stairway to heaven?

What do I need your help for?

I've got a box of pills in my purse that'll send me to heaven on a high

-speed escalator.

It's a one-way trip, baby.

Right through the swing doors of a psychiatric clinic.

How fitting.

We enter life through the swinging doors of a maternity ward and exit likewise

into a nut house. You're a sour one.

Why, those sweet-looking lips of yours are nothing more than the opening to a

vinegar jar.

And you supply the oil with that head of hair of yours. Don't we make a lovely

salad?

At least the tomatoes aren't missing.

You are delicate with your words, aren't you?

Just because a man is born and raised in this hot, dusty town doesn't make him

turn out like a withered corn stalk.

At least stalks of corn have ears and aren't deaf to the desperations of the

damned. You talk as if you've been married.

Are the scars that obvious?

I suppose they are.

The indentations caused by the little jabbing at the breakfast table.

The cross-hatching on the back, etched in by drunken tongue-lashing of some

cheesy country club cocktail lounge in front of all the bouffant hairdos and

flashing cufflinks.

The ominous and percolating silence over the meatloaf and zucchini.

Meatloaf that I pounded and mashed with hate, pounded until my knuckles were

raw, and the eggs I cracked like I'd like to crack his head.

Those onions I had to slice with a knife so perfectly shaped to penetrate his

gut. And every minute it was getting closer to five o'clock and I knew he was

getting ready to come home from the office, picking himself up from that

swivel chair that stunk from being heated from the emanations of his

sweating buttocks.

I pity that chair.

And I empathize with it because...

I know he's coming home to sit on me.

And I'm to feel those massive thighs around my neck

like some filthy albino anaconda from the pits of some Amazonian swamp.

Well, it wasn't long before I was fixing MTV dinner.

Take them out of the tin tray and put them on paper plates so he wouldn't

suspect anything.

I covered it all with his cheap powdered gravy you mix from water from the tap.

One day the plumbing was all messed up and the trickle of rust and slime

fluttered from the faucet when I was ready to make it.

He commented after the meal how much better he liked the consistency of the

gravy that night.

Didn't you eat with him?

He ate with the television set.

They both stared at each other over little metal trap bridges for him at

Woolworth.

I got up so I wouldn't put his glass of Kool-Aid on the arm of the sofa.

The television would talk to him about who was found with a meat cleaver in his

head.

Rattle on in high fidelity about human bones found in a barbecue pit in Palo

Alto.

For dessert, I talked about some football superstar cracking three of his

ribs. There was something always about topless waitress or bottomless waiters.

That always got a laugh from him.

I knew I'd have to come in later with a piece of toilet paper to pick up the

tiny crumbs of half-chewed food off the rug.

Where did you eat?

Oh, at 3.30 I'd drive down to Hefty Burger.

Stand in line with a scum from the Immaculate Heart High School.

When it finally got my turn, I'd order the hefty special with green chili sauce

and a side order of french fries.

Then I'd drive down to the ocean, eat it in the car, facing the surf while the

seagulls nibbled at the garbage washed in by the waves.

On the way back, I'd stop off at Dumbo Dairy and order a super chocolate shake.

which I tried to suck through a straw while driving one handed down Citrus

Boulevard.

I mostly sucked in air and chunks of frozen matter, which would stick in my

throat. I'd sneeze it all up out of my nostrils onto the dashboard, coating the

little statue of St. Christopher with frozen mucus.

I'd get home just enough time to stick my head in the toilet bowl and throw the

whole thing up.

You had some pretty hard knocks.

I'm afraid I wasn't knocked up enough to relieve the boredom.

Oh, of course there was always an interview now and then.

A man from the telephone company.

A guy from PG&E.

Somehow we got our wires mixed up and nothing seemed to spark.

So I limited my monthly service charge to cash only.

That's all you have to pay to stay here, lady.

Call me Ginger.

All right, Ginger.

What's your name, stranger?

Frank.

What are you laughing at?

The only son of Mary and William.

Where is the lucky couple?

Mom died six years ago.

She fell into a wheat threshing machine and became hamburger for the crows.

My father's in a mental institution near Tulsa.

He was driving the machine.

I'm sorry.

Those are the brakes.

I noticed earlier that you limped slightly.

Yes, I injured at the service.

It was a hot night. I was on my way to the Coca-Cola machine when I fell.

They found me at the bottom of the stairs.

Near the hostess cupcake dispensary.

It was a serious fall.

Serious enough to eject me from the army.

So I came back to Blessed Prairie on crutches and hobbled to the bank to

withdraw my savings.

What little I had served me well until I landed this job with Mr. and Mrs. Hobby.

It's a steady, good, decent work and Mr.

and Mrs. Hobby treat me well like the son they never had.

They bore no children?

Yes, one.

Nobody talks about her.

It was last seen boarding a bus for New Orleans dressed in leopard slacks.

They were so tight that the fellow that saw her said they ripped in half when

she tried to make that first step.

Panty never did wear panties.

Zeke, the guy who saw her, said it was like ripping the tissue away from a big

ripe peach.

I guess a town like this is full of gossip.

Why are you here, Ginger, in Blessed Prairie?

I'm here because of a telephone call that got me out of bed two nights ago.

It was the highway patrol.

And as I stood out in the darkness, wrapped up in all that bedding, they

told me about an accident that happened here in Oklahoma.

Seems the car that was traveling down 81 that runs parallel to the port is around

home.

The people at the port were having these maneuvers where the helicopter was going

from point A to point B.

I was grabbing a 400-pound boxcar from point A to point

B.

But I never made it to point B.

earthworks. The only thing between it and the asphalt was a 1959 Chevrolet. I

just played 5-8-2-2-90.

A Chevrolet purchased three years ago in San Jose, Charlotte on the morning of my

23rd birthday.

Purchased by my husband.

Now it, like him, lies flattened.

What a marriage!

Frankly, I thought the ending would come more slowly.

Perhaps by the accumulation of lethal radiation after 15 years of watching

colored TV.

Or maybe he could just collapse with bleeding gums and bald spots from a

microwave oven.

Or maybe he could just freeze to death.

But no.

Death flew on a single propeller.

And it's appetite for breakfast calls to make a pancake of my husband.

And I'm here to identify that pancake.

To make it official.

Although they tell me it won't be easy.

Because of the nature of the accident.

I wonder when I get there.

Any normal woman would be, Ginger.

I'm not scared in the normal way.

I'm afraid I'm going to burst out laughing when they show me the body.

Because my life with Edmund these last four years made me so callous to do such

a thing.

That's what I'm afraid of, Frank.

That I'll laugh myself sick in front of all those officials in blue and white.

Laugh.

Laugh until I was red in the face.

And then...

Then I'd know that I was just black inside.

Black as the gates of hell.

And I'd just have to enter those gates and give up all that is good and pure.

Because I was going to have given up my passport to the human race.

And exile me to a life of debauchery in the Hollywood Hills.

Sounds pretty exciting to me.

Debauchery out here is limited to tilting the pinball machine from the

Sabbath.

I'm serious, Frank.

Just look how my hands tremble.

What you need is a shot of Mrs. Hobby's special elixir.

Get two glasses from the bathroom, will you?

Yes, sir.

Mrs. Hobby's own homegrown liquid amnesia.

Fermented from subterranean cellars so deep...

that we call it the devil's latrine.

And this is the liquid product of that latrine in a bottle of such deep reds

that after several sips, you'd swear it was a ruby flat

from Persia.

Why are you so good to me, Frank?

Once, about two years ago, in an Oklahoma City restaurant on Main Street,

I read a saying by the owner of the place.

It was written on the menu right beneath the beverage section.

It said, and I quote,

be good and you'll be happy.

I've never forgot that, Ginger.

Be good and you'll be happy.

The owner was a man in his 70s.

Big, robust man with that.

Oh, he was a member of the YMCA.

Ran a mile every day.

Five days a week.

And what's more, the food in that restaurant was really tasty.

You remember that saying, Ginger.

Be good, and you'll be happy.

What are you doing?

Nothing. What is that stuff?

Nothing. It looks like vomit.

What are you doing carrying vomit around in a plastic jar?

It's not real vomit, Frank. It's artificial.

I mixed it myself four days ago.

You expect me to thank you for making it fake?

Give me that drink.

I don't expect anything.

All I expect is for someone to clean up after me for once.

For three years as a visiting nurse, all I've done is clean up after people.

The only way I can get revenge, let them clean up after me for once.

You're a queer bird.

The dodo was a queer bird, and it's extinct.

Should I be so lucky for such happy oblivion?

There's an old saying, old but true, never foul up your own nest.

This is not my nest. It could be.

Go lay an egg.

A golden egg, Ginger. One we could share for life.

Listen, I'm too hard-boiled for that line, Frank.

I could crack through that shell if you'd only let me. In the center you'd

find it's only rotten.

I stink, Frank. I stink so bad it scares me. Then let me take you into my arms

and fumigate that beautiful body.

It's not the body that needs fumigation.

God knows there's enough products on the shelves to take care of that. Take a

look in that attache case.

In that case, you'll find the cosmetic nervous system of ginger meninger.

That's my spine you have in your hands.

Without it, I'm not even jelly.

Too dry for jelly.

It's more like semi-damp cornstarch. You don't need all this crap.

That's only the external icing.

Under this dress, I'm braced with more support than the Golden Gate Bridge.

Why, there's so much latex rubber encasing my body that if I fell down a

flight of stairs, I'd be bouncing for 15 minutes.

But Ginger, everybody now is in for the natural look.

That may be easy for you to say, to look natural.

But I've read too many Arlene Dahl beauty books and seen too many Polly

Bergen...

Oil of the turtle has to back out now. But they're older than you are.

And wiser.

And richer.

I see. So why shouldn't I listen to them?

I see. Do you find a woman with makeup attractive to kiss?

Or do you feel like you're putting on the wrong side of the mask?

I enjoy kissing you, Ginger.

Do you feel it's me or just the colorful remnants of Helena Rubinstein?

I feel you and I like it.

Frank, do you like me really?

I really do.

Then stop chipping away at the armor of this bitter widow and let me go identify

the body of the man who has labeled me as such. I'm sorry.

Ginger?

Yes.

Come back.

I will.

No, not just to this room.

Come back to me.

I think I will, Frank.

It's strange.

What is?

I've been alone many times, but never lonely.

As soon as you walk out that door,

I know things are going to be different.

And being alone and lonely is going to be inseparable.

All things separate, Frank.

From amoebas to space modules.

Just remember to have the devil's latrine well stocked.

. .

Ginger, where are you?

It smelled like the spring was busting out all over. Well, after the winter we

had, it's no wonder.

All you can do is stay inside and eat. It ain't spring that's busting out. It's

all this goddamn winter fat.

Speak for yourself.

Sheila.

That's right, Sheila.

Monique joined the House of Venus three months ago.

Isn't that a bigger cellar on 29th Street?

That's right.

I didn't know they kept her kind.

What do you mean by that, Mark?

Well, it's just that you still have two arms.

That's Sheila.

Always good for a laugh.

You supply the booze and I'll supply the laughs.

Only there's just one thing missing.

What's missing?

Brains? What'd you do with brains, Simon?

Yeah, what would you do with something as weird as that?

Oh, maybe he could have a transplant some day.

Don't be stupid.

The body always rejects an alien object.

And in his case, the shock would probably kill him.

I was talking about love.

Have any of you seen a woman in black coming in here?

The only women that come in here are stylish, Frank.

She's wearing a black hat with a net and a run in her stocking.

What color were her panties, Frankie boy?

I wouldn't know.

She's a lady.

Well, then we certainly didn't see her in this place.

I saw her.

Where, Monique?

Getting on a bus to the airport.

No. No, that couldn't have been her.

Did she have eyes as hard as steel?

As diamonds.

And a form-fitting black dress?

She had a beautiful form.

Perfectly chiseled.

Well, she left for the airport at sundown with her black dress and black

hat and her eyes as hard as steel.

Diamonds, Monique.

Loretta was asking for you, Frank.

Who?

You know, Loretta, the one who was a Girl Scout leader.

And if she's resting bigger, we need to see her.

Yeah, Frank, she wants to see you real bad, like she's got ants in her pants.

We'll call an exterminator.

What she needs is an art bar.

What the hell is that?

That's a mammal with a long snout.

Sounds like Phillip over here.

Oh, Louise, how indiscreet.

We're having a party tonight, Frank.

And Loretta will be here.

I'll be here too, Frank. We can chew the fat over a beer.

You better watch it with that beer, or your fat's going to be bigger than your

mouth. What time is your party?

You mean you'll come?

Sure.

Sure, I'll come.

What time's your party, my lady?

It's at the stroke of midnight, when all decent people are in bed.

In separate beds, of course.

See you at the stroke of midnight.

That is, if all goes well and God doesn't intervene.

There is no God in this part of the country.

This part of the country is too dry for God.

That's what I'm talking about.

Hello?

Hi, Angie.

Frank, is that you?

How'd you know?

It's been... It's been a long time, Angie.

An eternity, Frank.

I know.

You still have those leopard slacks?

That was a long time ago, Frank.

That's what I'm talking about.

Wild, tortured years.

Years of endless drought.

The drought's over, Frank.

It's not my tongue that's swollen now.

It's my bladder.

But damn broke, huh, Angie?

It broke and swept me all the way to New Orleans.

I'm not wet behind the ears anymore.

Why? Are there two towels in the bathroom? Are his and hers?

Sometimes there are more than two.

They're not permanent fixtures.

They get used and dirty.

Then I throw them away.

I see.

Do you?

For 15 years I tried to make you open your eyes and see me.

Remember those hot nights in August when the temperature was 96 degrees at

midnight?

The only thing that was moving was the sheet lightning in the west.

Remember how I undressed at the rim of the waterhole?

Undressed without shame.

My body glistening with sweat while you stripped down to your rubber diving

suit. Those were foolish years.

I was...

I was ashamed of my body, afraid of its uncontrollable reactions.

You taught me shame.

Only not the kind of shame I really wanted.

I've changed, Angie. My body's under control. I no longer have to muzzle it.

That's just what I don't want.

A body under control.

Mine has been running rampant for three and a half years.

Just like the Mississippi River at springtime.

Sure, there's a lot of mud and filth.

A lot of copperheads, too.

The wild thrill of an elemental existence drives me on, and has been

driving me on.

Ever since the afternoon I step on the bus in my leopard slacks, and I split

with a big crack.

A crack of dawn.

The dawn to a new world.

What was wrong with the old one, Angie?

It was the Scarlet Onion Tavern and Sammy's Coconut Bijou Club.

They were kind of wild, a place where you could let your hair down and drop

your flannel pretenses.

You were what was wrong, Frank.

When I found you, it was like a wildcat oil strike.

I'd hit a gusher.

But you gushed from the wrong end, and all I heard were words and more words

rather than what I really wanted to hear.

Grunts and groans of a biped in heat.

Will the moanings and wailings of a lonely empty shell be just

as good?

Why?

Why after so long do you stand in the way of the torrent I call my life?

You are the only dyke I cannot crumble.

The only wall of sandbags immune to my treacherous tides.

You have only to say the words and I'll head back north.

You know that, don't you, Frank?

I need you, Angie.

Say the words, Frank!

I... I love you.

I'll be there, Frank.

You have a long to wait, so I won't say goodbye.

Get out, Ronald. The party's over.

I can't go with you to the Mardi Gras.

I don't want to go to the Mardi Gras. I've had enough of this merry-go-round.

Drop dead.

Get out now and don't make a scene.

Please.

Remember where I found you, Angie?

Was it in the gutter?

That's right, baby. I picked you up from that gutter.

Battened you up on caviar and rich crackers.

Put some decent clothes on your back.

Indecent, Ronald.

Those necklines dropped lower than the January temperature of North Dakota.

Well, they made my temperatures rise, baby.

And that's what counts.

You were always hot, Ronald.

So hot that they ought to label you like they do those automatic clothes dyes.

Warning some unwary woman about melting girdles when the hot lever's down.

My hot lever was never down.

You make my flesh crawl.

Just what makes you think you're so righteous that you can share me with all

your creepy friends?

They're my war buddies, Angie.

We went through hell together.

I think it's only fair that we share our ecstasies, too.

Leave me alone.

Get out, Ronald, and take that creep with you.

Thank you.

There's a moon above us, and the stars is a-shining so bright

now. There's a warm breeze blowing in the air, and everything's gonna be

alright now.

We're gonna meet all the gang, gonna dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the

sound of...

Gonna be like that.

And when the band starts to play, we're gonna rock, gonna rock,

gonna knock them dead.

Gonna fruit twist, jerk, do the monkey twist. Gonna roll like the rug, gonna

feel so fine.

We'll work out, baby, cut up on the floor. Gonna dance till...

Gonna be like that

And when the night

I didn't recognize you in that outfit, Loretta. Oh.

Is it becoming?

Becoming unzipped, if that's what you mean.

Will you zip it up for me, Frank, darling?

We sound like the typical married couple.

No.

Not here, Frank.

Don't zip it up in front of our guests.

Come into the darkness.

They're all sticky from too many potato chips, Loretta.

They're so cold.

Why are they so cold, Frank?

When I drink and smoke rather heavily, I always get cold hands and cold feet.

Guess it's got something to do with lack of

oxygen.

What? Am I cold?

No, you feel hot.

Then stay close, darling.

Stay close to a source of heat as searing as any nuclear furnace.

The chain reaction started years ago. I can't remember when.

Maybe it's some cursed-out weenie roast in the Wichita Mountains.

A Girl Scout doesn't act like this, Loretta.

But I'm not uniform now.

There's no campfire crackling somewhere in the distance.

There's always a campfire crackling somewhere.

Even if it's 1500 miles away in California.

That's still not too far to feel the warmth radiating against your chest.

Not too distant to smother the red glow from way out there on the western

horizon.

A glow that outlasts the setting sun. I see nothing out there except a star.

What is that star, Frank?

Venus.

Cold, distant, beautiful Venus.

Is that where you are now?

Millions of miles away in space?

What do I need you here?

With me.

I... I can't help you, Loretta.

You can.

Don't touch me. I hurt all over.

What? I don't understand.

Oh, you couldn't understand, Loretta. All these years, you've hidden behind a

box of Girl Scout cookies while others tried to unravel life's endless knots.

True. I know that now.

That box of macaroons was only a crutch.

A way of avoiding my primitive femaleness.

I was green.

Not just green in uniform, but green inside.

But I'm right now.

And I thank the Almighty that the harvest has come before the frost of

middle age blackens whatever external virtues I possess.

You possess many, Loretta.

But my eyes have been temporarily blinded by that dazzling star somewhere

out there on the western horizon.

Who is she, Frank?

Who is it that has crippled you in mind and body? Then you do understand.

I'm trying.

I'm trying so hard.

And in a way, in all your suffering, I envy you.

Well, you wear the badge assembled into the mysteries of the flesh.

The only flesh I delved into was the end of the fork.

Someday, Loretta, you'll find yourself on the other end of that fork.

Oh, so back to your marshmallows and campfire song before it's too late and

you can never go back.

I can't live in the past anymore, Frank.

I've outgrown it.

And now, it's time to slip into something a little more comfortable.

Something sheer and low-cut that hints at the riches waiting to be plundered by

he who unsheathes his saber. Out there in those hollow rooms, you'll find all

the plunderers, Loretta.

How strange.

I brought you in here to help me become a woman.

And instead...

I find myself wanting to help you accept your manhood.

You're just following some empty, meaningless oath you pledged allegiance

to one of those scout meetings.

Well, I'm not an old lady who needs help crossing the street.

We all need help, Frank.

The world is no longer a garden of Eden.

It is littered with the rotten cores of apples never meant to be eaten.

Sweet Loretta, the night has been full of the devil's name.

You're the only one that hints of a god somewhere up in that black sky.

That black sky will turn a rosy color, Dawn.

It always does.

Only most people are asleep and they don't see it.

Dawns are gray, Loretta.

The only thing that's going to turn a rosy red is my nose.

You need to sleep.

Go lay down and I'll cover you with my body.

There's a deathly chill in this room. I don't want to sleep.

What's the sense in going to sleep?

I'll only wake up suddenly in a few hours. My heart pounding.

And all, everything will be the same. Nothing will have changed.

The new day will lie ahead of me like a big gaping hole with no bottom.

And all those waking hours will be spent falling into it. You can hang on to me,

Frank.

Put your hand under my dress.

Now pull.

Pull hard.

Rip the clothes off my back.

Now hold on to me.

I don't rip as easily as rayon and cotton.

Close your eyes.

Don't gaze at that star.

It'll lead you to your doom.

I'll inform you now that Edmund is no longer with us.

Frank?

Are you in?

I love you, darling.

I've come back.

Who are you?

A dead memory that someone dug up in the past.

What are you doing with that revolver? You ask a lot of questions, don't you?

Well, I'm going to give you an answer real soon, sweetheart.

Only it's going to come from the barrel of this gun. You must be insane!

Yeah, that's right.

I must have been crazy to believe that telephone call. What telephone call?

I must have been nuts to let that familiar voice... Let me back out here.

Frank, is that true?

It's because of that telephone call.

That's the only man that accepted me as I was.

Sure, Ronald was a creep.

But he had a swell body. He looked good in underwear.

Put that gun down.

He even laughed at me. The boys.

when I wanted to see them in their underwear. Don't come any closer.

Especially Frank.

He considered me a pervert.

Listen, he's not like that anymore.

I'm sure he's changed.

Oh, you ought to know you sniveling snot nose.

I'll bet he parades around in front of you in one of those athletic supporters.

I don't want to hear this.

This has got me all wrong.

I don't like men in underwear.

It makes me sick. Do you hear me?

Lost jungle kid.

Keep out of the bushes and you won't get hurt.

Who are you?

That's not important now, Frank.

How'd you know my name?

You used to tell me you had eyes the color of the Mississippi.

Now I believe you. Who told you? Someone from your past.

Someone from our past.

Funny. What's funny? What are you talking about?

My dreams I wanted to kill you.

The creeping into the dreams of someone else.

Someone that I thought I loved.

But it wasn't love.

I know that now.

And it isn't hate that I feel.

I know that too.

She used me as a mannequin.

A torso to model underwear.

But I'm more than that.

I'm hands that can till and plow the soil.

Build chairs.

Make tables.

Make a woman happy. You also have a head.

It's a bad head, Frank.

Oh, operator, get me the highway patrol and hurry.

I lie and cheat.

It's never too late to change, is it, kid?

Hope not, stranger.

Name's Ronald.

Hello? Yes, there's been a shooting in the hobby house on Route 81. Come quick.

Shooting? What happened?

It'll be in the afternoon papers.

It won't be in the morning papers.

The press has already been run.

So why don't you go out and lay down in some meadow?

The dew's already fallen and it may rain later on.

And if it does rain, don't run.

There's nothing like a little God's water to wash away the dirt to collect.

The Devil's Cleavage.

It's late and I've gone on a bus for a long time.

Anyway, I can't see through that thing.

Would you happen to have a single room for the night?

I'm sorry, lady. I don't work here.

Oh, well, it's the manager inside.

There's been an accident.

I think they might close the place.

How dreadful.

It'll be dawn soon and everyone will see me like this.

All tired and dirty.

If only I could bathe and lie down for a while.

Do you know if there's a sponge around?

I have some rubbing alcohol.

Maybe I could bathe that way.

I've got a handkerchief. Would that do?

I thought so.

Why don't you take your dress off and put it over there?

All right.

My name's Debra Ann Wilson. What's yours?

Ronald.

Ronald Smith.

Hi, Ronald.

You have a very nice body.

Thank you. That's what Nene's dog is telling me.

He's got all the loudest bit of vocal cords.

Let's see.

Open your mouth.

Did you change your mind about that single room for tonight?

What do you mean?

Would you share a double one?

With me?

I'd like that very much, Ronald.

Only can you answer one thing?

What?

Are the redwood trees in bloom yet?

I don't really know.

It's been a very dark night.

The dawn will be here soon, yeah.

It'll answer my question.

It all got done.

Where am I?

How did I get in here?

You came through that door.

I opened it by... ...quenching my sweaty fist over the knob and turning it.

But it took a key.

A $6 a night key to undo that door.

A small price to pay for 12 hours of...

Merciful amnesia.

I need more than 12 hours.

I need an eternity of forgetfulness.

Only I'm afraid I'm going to run out of those strong, sweaty, clenched fists to

turn these doorknobs.

Your type of woman will always find a hand, a mouth, a probing

protuberance.

Everything. Except a heart.

I don't want to talk about hearts this afternoon.

Hearts are brittle even in the heat of the day.

If only they were made out of chocolate.

Sweet.

Rich.

Melting more and more with every hot breath.

The breath that blew on you was a...

Corpse, wasn't it?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

Only it blew in from an iceberg.

A thing of... A thing of frozen treachery and deception.

I ran into it all right.

And I'm taking in water fast.

Would you like me to inflate something you can hang on to?

Don't be a fool.

Why settle for a beach ball when I can offer you the Hindenburg?

Be careful, Mr. Wonderful.

I just might be the spark that leads you to a flaming doom.

How much better to die like that than to be frozen in a block of memories?

Tell me about that woman who sent you wandering down a hot country road.

Dust on your shoulders and it grazed your eyes.

We almost ran you down, didn't we, Marvin?

It was so hot, the sweat kept burning.

But I saw you through that bug-splattered windshield.

I saw you loom up, hunched over like some scarecrow who lost his wooden

bracing.

And I knew you were one of us.

One of the lost.

Don't fool yourself.

Out there, there drifts a fleet of flying Dutchmen.

But believe me, it's a rare and lucky occasion when we find ourselves on a

collision course.

I collided with you, Stella.

Do you remember where?

Don't ask me to remember.

Let's just pray we can forget.

I'd get down on my knees for that.

I already have.

I'd go.

I'd go down on my knees.

And anoint my troubled head.

With this holy water.

I could just forget her.

Big city nurse.

What city?

What city are you talking about, Frank?

That city by the bay.

Stinking bay.

San Francisco.

Open your golden gate.

I'll drink to that.

I just left San Francisco.

Although there really was no heart for me to leave behind.

I lost that years ago in a barn in Illinois.

All I gained was my salvation.

I gain salvation by departing before dragging another soul into the depths of

the hell I call my life.

I'd be a willing passenger to your own private hell, Stella.

What would be the price of a ticket?

A marriage license.

It's a pretty high price to pay.

Not for the exquisite tortures it guarantees.

Do you think... Do you think there could be happiness for us?

I mean, not individually, but as a threesome.

I mean, perhaps there's some truth in that old

theory about three being the sacred number. And you, Marvin, left your job

as a plumber, fed up with sewage not always contained in metal pipes.

Sewage that walked the halls waiting for you to come with your big plunger.

so that everything stuffed up could be pumped away in you, Stella.

Fleeing from the only thing that could have saved you from frying in your own

crazy secretions.

Running. Running for fear that someone decent, someone who truly

loved you for the way you were, would slip in those secretions and crack

his...

You two are truly noble people with royal flesh.

But unlike the monarchs of the past, you both have no qualms about giving your

flesh to the peasants.

If there's no bread to feed the people, give them cheesecake.

Give them beefcake.

Why should you lose your head for that?

I've lost my head already, Frank.

Over this girl.

You can't ride a thousand miles under a desert sky without being captivated by a

radiance more dazzling than the Milky Way.

The radiance that she exudes from every voluptuous sweat plant.

In my business, you get to smell a lot of things.

Things that clog up and ferment in rusty pipes.

Moldy rags rotting under porcelain turds a month old being compressed by a jet of

high-speed water Until they have the consistency of viscous putty

Took one whiff of Stella and I knew that I was debasing my

senses Took just the touch of her lips

to flush out my system

Three is a lucky, a holy number, Frank.

People like us are the tripods that hold up the ceilings of motels.

Without us, there couldn't be three coins in a fountain.

And that would mean there are no wishes.

Oh, sure, there are always shooting stars to wish at, but remember, there

are only cold rocks that burn for a while and then are gone forever.

A little while ago,

I did not want to live. Because, after all, it's been people like you who've

mixed the... Why don't you shut up?

I'm so honored to meet a real registered nurse.

My husband needs medical attention so badly.

Would you like to meet him?

How wonderful.

Let me take your pulse.

Thank you.

That's my bonzo!

Thank you.

I'm afraid.

I'm so afraid.

We're all afraid.