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THE HITCHHIKER*


       

THE SCREEN IS BLACK. We hear a young man's voice in

        casual conversation with friends.



               
No, this guy told me you can go

               
down across the border and buy a

               
girl and bring her back and that's

               
what I'm goin' to do, I'm gonna go

               
down there and buy one of them and

               
bring her back and marry her. I am.



        An older woman's voice



               
Billy, are you completely crazy?



        We hear the good-natured laughter
of the woman, a man

        and another friend as Billy's
insistent voice rises through

        saying:



                              
BILLY

               
No, it's true. Really. This guy told

               
me. It's true. I'm really gonna do it.



        The film changes to COLOR. A
couple sit at a small table in

        a simulated border town nightclub.
It is a CLOSE shot,

        reminding us possibly of Picasso's
"Absinthe Drinkers." The

        atmosphere is suggested by peripheral
sounds such as bois-

        terous young voices, curses
in a foreign language, the tin-

        kling of glasses and music from
a small rock band. Perhaps a

        dancer is visible in the background.
Perhaps topless. An

        anonymous waitress could enter
the frame and leave, serving

        drinks.



        The HERO is drunk and he's trying
to persuade an attractive

        Mexican girl, a waitress in
the bar, a whore, to cross the

        border and marry him. The girl
tolerates him. She is work-

        ing, hustling drinks, and has
to listen but also she likes him.

        In some way, he interests her.



                              
BILLY

               
I bet only reason you won't come

               
with me is because I ain't got any

               
money. Well, listen. I'm tellin' you.

               
I'm gonna go back up there and get

               
me some money, lots of it, maybe

               
even ten thousand. And then I'm

               
comin' back for you. I'm comin'

               
back.



        He weaves offscreen, determined,
drunk, camera hold on

        girl, smiling wistfully and
ironically after him. Then she

        grabs another young American
and pulls him down beside

        her.



                             
THE GIRL

               
Hey, man, you want to buy me a

               
drink?



        TITLE



                         
THE HITCHHIKER

                     
(An American Pastoral)



        Film changes to BLACK and WHITE.
It is dawn on the

        American desert; it's cold,
and he stands hunched in his

        jacket, by the side of the highway.
The sun is rising. We

        hold on him as a few cars go
by at long intervals. We hear

        the car coming, watch his eyes
watching, he sticks his thumb

        out. CUT TO profile shot, as
a car swishes by. The third

        car stops and he runs, not too
energetically and get inside.



        INTERIOR car. Middle-aged man
in a business suit. He asks

        the hitchhiker where he is going.



                              
BILLY

                           
(mumbling)

               
L.A.



        He is obviously reluctant to
do any talking.



                           
THE DRIVER

               
I can take you as far as Amarillo and

               
then you'll have to go on from there.



                              
BILLY

                   
(No reply. No recognition.)



                              
DRIVER

               
What are you going to do when you

               
get to L.A.? Have you got a job lined

               
up?



                              
BILLY

               
(No answer. He is beginning to nod.)



        The man drives on. We see glimpses
of the American land-

        scape out the window of the
car. The man glances sideways

        occasionally at Billy who is
sleeping.



        CLOSE UP of the man's right
hand moving snake-like to-

        wards the hiker's left leg.
He hesitates and then touches it

        above the knee. Immediately,
a .38 revolver appears from

        Billy jacket and points at the
driver.



                              
BILLY

               
Pull over.



        Profile of car, left side, extremely
long shot. We hear a shot.

        The hitchhiker comes around
the rear of the car, opens the

        door, and pulls the driver toward
camera, his corpse that is,

        to the gully, and, after stripping
his wallet of all the cash,

        gets into the car and drives
away.



        The kid is standing beside the
car with his thumb out. The

        hood is raised. The engine has
failed. A State Patrolman (we

        learn this from his uniform,
western hat, and badge) stops in

        his own unmarked car. Billy
gets in the car. The sheriff is

        friendly. He talks a lot. He
tells Billy that he's just getting

        back home after delivering two
lunatics from his local jail to

        the state asylum.



                             
SHERIFF

               
I had to put them both in straight-

               
jackets and throw them in the back

               
of the wagon. I had to. They were

               
totally uninhibited. I mean, if I let

               
'em loose, they just start jerking off

               
and playing with each other, so I had

               
to keep them tied up.



        The killer is trying to stay
awake. He's strung out on ben-

        nies, and also just plain exhausted,
and he's fighting to fol-

        low the man's conversation.
The sheriff rambles on. Billy is

        in that weird state between
what's being said in reality and what

        he hears in his dream. The sheriff
asks a question. He an-

        swers and then jerks up suddenly
to realize that he's been

        inventing his own dialogue inside
his head. Finally, he can

        take it no longer. He pulls
the gun out and orders the sheriff

        to pull over to the side of
the road. Then he forces him to

        unlock the trunk, orders him
inside and slams the lid.



        INTERIOR of car. The hitchhiker
is driving on.



        As the car slows down for an
upgrade, the trunk flies open

        and the sheriff tumbles out
into the dust. Billy sees it in the

        rearview mirror. He slams on
the brakes, jumps out of the

        car and runs back to the spot.
From off in the desert, we see

        the sheriff racing insanely
toward the camera. He suddenly

        leaps and throws himself flat
on the ground behind a sand

        dune, next to the camera. From
this point of view, the sheriff

        crouched and breathing in heavy
gasps, we watch the kid

        stand on the side of the road,
stare out into the desert and

        finally get back into the car
and drive away.



        Billy is hitchhiking again.
Obviously, he has ditched the

        sheriff's car somewhere along
the way. A car pulls over.

        There is a young man driving
and in the back seat are his

        wife and two small children,
a boy and a girl. The driver is

        friendly, tells him he used
to hitchhike a lot himself and

        volunteers the information that
he has just returned home

        from two years in Viet Nam,
where he was a pilot. Billy

        pulls out the gun and lets them
know immediately that he

        wants them to take him anywhere
he wants to go. Other-

        wise, he'll kill them.



        It is NIGHT. They pull into
a gas station. Billy is hungry,

        so are the kids. So he goes
with the ex-aviator into a small

        country store that's part of
the station. He warns the family

        to keep quiet or he'll kill
everyone.



        INSIDE the country store. A
seedy old man behind the

        counter. They ask him for a
bunch of ham sandwiches. In

        close-up, we watch him slice
the meat, the knife hesitating

        minutely, deciding on the thickness
of each slice. The two

        men stand there watching him.
Suddenly, the husband

        wheels around and gets a grip
on the hitchhiker from behind.

        They whirl madly around the
store, the father screaming for

        the proprietor to call the police.



                             
THE MAN

               
Stop him! He's got a gun!! He's

               
gonna kill us!!! Help me!!!!



        Billy somehow manages to get
his gun out and forces the

        man to the car. The store owner
stares after him, mouth

        agape, then picks up the receiver
to call the police.



        MORNING. A young boy finds the
car, pulled off on a side

        road, splattered with blood.
He opens the door and sees the

        little girl's baby doll, the
naked, flesh-colored rubber kind,

        and in close-up, we see blood
on it.



        The EXTERIOR of a run-down shack
in the country. We

        hear the sounds from inside.
INTERIOR of shack. Televi-

        sion and radio and newspaper
reporters, including an attrac-

        tive woman with a notebook,
are interviewing the killer's

        father. He's a very old man,
an alcoholic, who is slightly

        pleased to be thrust suddenly
into the spotlight, but who

        treats the situation with a
grave sense of public image and

        self-irony.

                            
THE FATHER

               
He was always a pretty strange boy,

               
specially after his mother passed

               
away. Then he got real quiet. He

               
didn't have many friends. Just his

               
brothers and sisters.



                          
GIRL REPORTER

               
Mr. Cooke, is there anything you'd

               
like to tell your son?



                              
FATHER

               
Yes, there is. Billy, if you can hear

               
me, son, please turn yourself in.

               
Cause what you're doin', it just ain't

               
right. You're not doin' right, son.

               
And you know it.



        During this appeal, the camera
has moved slowly into a

        CLOSE-UP of the old man's face.



        INTERIOR. Car. Night. Rain.
A car radio. The light glows

        yellow in the dark car. The
radio is playing a country gospel

        hour. A revival meeting. The
preacher and his flock. As Billy

        listens, we flash back into
his past, over the rain and wind-

        shield wipers. We see an old
man and a young boy in the

        woods. The man is Billy's father
and the boy is Billy himself

        at about age seven or eight.
The father teaches his son how

        to shoot a gun. He tell him
to aim at a rabbit.



                            
THE FATHER

               
Don't be afraid, son. Don't be afraid.

               
Just squeeze one off.



        We see a rabbit pinioned in
a rifle's telescopic sight.



        A small town high school, 3:30,
bell rings, school is out. The

        kids gush from the building
and flow like a human stream to

        the favorite drive-in restaurant.



        INTERIOR of car. Billy is eating
a cheeseburger and Coke.

        Through his windows he watches
the movements of one of

        the carhops. She is wearing
slacks and with him we watch

        her ass and thighs. When she
comes to collect, he asks her to

        come for a ride with him. We
hear him say this but the

        ensuing dialogue is shown in
pantomime. The actual voices

        are drowned out by the sounds
of radios, kids talking.



        They are driving up a mountain
road. The Rolling Stones'

        "I Can't Get No Satisfaction"
comes on the radio. Billy sings

        along with the record with wild
abandon and squirms in his

        seat like a toad.



        The car is parked on a rocky
view overlooking the ocean.

        He gets out of the car and dances
around it, acting crazy, and

        howling like an Indian. He ducks
up and down, appearing

        and reappearing in different
windows. She laughs at his

        clowning.



        The couple are in the back seat,
vaguely we see their move-

        ments, hear them whispering,
laughing, talking. CUT TO

        outside of car. They get out
of the back of the car, hair and

        clothes disarranged and move
side by side into a rough ter-

        rain behind some rocks. Camera
holds on the rocks. A pri-

        meval rock formation. At a rhythm
that is peculiarly

        excruciating, we hear three
gunshots.



        A rest room in an LA service
station. EXTERIOR. Billy

        enters rest room.



        INTERIOR rest room. Billy shaves
with soap in rest room

        mirror, runs his wet hands through
his hair.



        EXTERIOR, downtown LA. Camera
follows him from a

        car, as he wanders through the
downtown crowds of Broad-

        way and Main Street. Many times
he is lost to our view. We

        see him in an arcade, where
he plays a pinball machine.



        CLOSE-UP of pinball game in
progress.



        Billy in photo booth. Flash
of the lights.



        CLOSE-UP of four automatic photos:
flash flash flash flash.

        Four faces of Billy.



        Billy in downtown hamburger
stand. He is eating, seen from

        behind, Gun enters frame left.
He turns and sees it, stares

        back blankly.



        CUT TO EXTERIOR, street. In
hand-held confused close-

        up sequence, we see him dragged
and shoved into the back

        seat of a car (police car).
He is kicked and beaten. During the

        struggle, we hear many men's
voices, gloating righteous ex-

        clamations.



                                
MEN

               
So you're the little bastard that

               
killed all those people! (Kick) You

               
had a good time, didn't you? (Kick)

               
You really killed 'em, didn't you?



        Hands cuffed behind his back,
he looks up with a confused

        expression and says:



                              
BILLY

               
But I'm a good boy.



        The men laugh.



        Film switches to COLOR. A montage
of extant photo-

        graphs representing death. The
body of Che Guevara, a

        northern Renaissance Dutch crucifixion,
bullfight, slaugh-

        terhouse, mandalas and into
abstraction. A nature film of a

        mongoose killing a cobra, a
black dog runs free on the beach.

        FADE INTO BLACKNESS.



        EXTERIOR night. On the steps
of City Hall of Justice we

        see the hitchhiker descend dreamlike
in slow motion, move

        languorously across a deserted
city square toward the camera

        until he covers the lens and
seems to pass through it.



        Seen now from behind, as he
moves away from lens, he

        enters a desert outskirt region
where he finds an automobile

        graveyard. He is wandering in
Eternity. In the junkyard,

        three people squat around a
small fire. They're cooking po-

        tatoes in the coals, an older
man named DOC pokes the fire

        with a stick. There is an older
woman, funky, glamorous,

        and the third person is a young
boy, a mute, of indeterminate

        age. He is slightly made up
with white makeup. They are

        hoboes in Eternity and are not
surprised to see him. He nears

        the fire.



                                
DOC

               
Well, how ya doin', kid? I see you

               
did it again. Ya hungry? There's

               
some food here if ya want it.



        Billy doesn't speak. He stares
at the moon. The woman has

        kept her head down, her hair
covering her face.



                               
DOC

               
Billy's back. Blue Lady, didja hear

               
me? I said Billy's back.



        She looks up for the first time.



                            
BLUE LADY

               
Hi, Billy.



                              
BILLY

               
Hello, Blue Lady.



        He looks at the boy.



               
Hiya, Clown Boy.



        CLOWN BOY claps his hands and
nods, his face contorted

        grotesquely in greeting. They
sit for a while like this, and

        stare at the fire. They eat
the potatoes. Then Doc rises and

        says:



                               
DOC

               
The sun's gonna be up in a while. I

               
guess we'd better move on.



        Slowly, one by one, the other
two rise. Doc puts out the fire

        with dirt and says:



                               
DOC

               
Ya comin' with us, Billy?



                              
BILLY

                         
(thinking hard)

               
I don't know, Doc, I just don't know.



        Doc smiles.



                               
DOC

               
Well, we'll see ya later, kid. The rest

               
of the gang will be real glad to see

               
ya. They sure will. Well...



        Doc, Clown Boy and the Blue
Lady start moving toward

        the rising sun into the mountain
desert. Every now and then

        they turn and wave, Clown Boy
leaping up and down madly

        and waving good-bye.



        As they slowly disappear, camera
changes focus to Billy, the

        hitchhiker, the kid, the killer,
hunkered over the dead smol-

        dering fire.



                             
THE END 
 
 
*THE HITCHHIKER IS A PLAY JIM WROTE WHILE IN COLLEGE. 


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