Scene Three where forty minutes out of Memphis seems more like 1866 than 1966; Sam Phillips, sorghum, Falstaff Beer, benzedrine inhalers, and two runaway sisters.
FADE IN:
BEALE STREET -- MORNING -- 11 YEARS AGO
A truck advertising an electrical supply shop backs into a spot on a busy city street out front of a dull little room with a sign that reads Mulberry Records.
INSIDE MULBERRY RECORDS -- CONTINUED
A desk lady chews bubble gum. A door opens. The desk lady looks up to see a peculiar looking young lad.
With greasy hair, pimples, and,(is that eye shadow?), YOUNG DANNY FISHER stands before her.
DANNY FISHER
Mam?
RECEPTIONIST
Yeah..
She takes a long look at Danny's face. He's both unsure and sort of cocky.
DANNY FISHER
Said on the radio five dollars I could record a song.
RECEPTIONIST
Uh-huh..
DANNY FISHER
It's my mother's birthday next week.
BEAT.
RECEPTIONIST
Mine too. What a coincidence.
CUT TO:
40 MINUTES OUT OF MEMPHIS -- TODAY
The two Cadillacs are pulled over at a t-bone intersection. It's not long past dawn, hours now since the whole thing at the truck stop with the police and Dick Scrim.
A GAS PUMP manned by a TOOTHLESS HILLBILLY. The Yokel smiles at Fat Phil when Phil hands him seven dollar bills.
When Phil turns around the hillbilly's face changes to suspicion. He eyes Red and Kid Jack as they fill up the Cadillacs.
Danny is by himself in the yard. Sucking an inhaler.
Chiaroscuro'd by flies.
BACK TO ELEVEN YEARS AGO
Danny is in a recording studio. He sings. We don't hear it.
It's a mime act for ten seconds as the kid looks to be crooning his heart out.
Behind the glass a BORED ENGINEER twists a Pall Mall to shreds.
A forty year old man enters the booth, and the Bored Engineer straightens his posture. This man looks like a SAM PHILLIPS TYPE.
No sound. Sam Phillips Type watches the kid crooner in the studio.
MOMENTS LATER
Sam Phillips Type comes into the studio and puts both hands on Danny Fisher's hands. He's priestly.
SAM PHILLIPS TYPE
What's your name?
DANNY FISHER
Danny. Danny Fisher.
SAM PHILLIPS TYPE
Danny. It's not good. It's not good, Danny Fisher. But it's not bad. How's about we try another song?
DANNY FISHER
No thank you, sir. I was doin this on account my mother's birthday is next week.
SAM PHILLIPS TYPE
You know anything but ballads? You know "Rocket 88"?
DANNY FISHER
All I know is from church, sir.
A smile from Sam.
SAM PHILLIPS TYPE
Just church?
DANNY FISHER
Church. And Dean Martin.
BACK AT THE TODAY, THE PUMP
A radio somewhere is scutching out something crass.
Danny Fisher is staring at a gas pump dog. The mutt is in the shade licking his own ass.
The boys are at the pump still.
RADIO JOCKEY (OS)
--That was Boulder Dash with Satisfied!
BACK AT THE DINER LAST NIGHT
Danny Fisher is back with Dick Scrim. State Cops all over, Michael Jones standing there. And Kid Jack and Fat Phil presenting the PAINTING.
Here is the moment when these two can speak between them, and it is just a moment..
DANNY FISHER
I had a twin. A brother.
DICK SCRIM
I knew that.
DANNY FISHER
You want the painting?
Dick Scrim hears. He covers...
DICK SCRIM
There's a picture that I carry --
THE TRUNK OPENS BACK AT THE GAS PUMP
And Danny Fisher looks down at the painting again. It seems right normal. For a moment it seems less blasphemous, less part of The Strange. Where the light hits it makes it look like one baby out of the two.
BA-SMHOOP!
Danny looks up. Someone shooting at him?
He pulls for his piece and comes up with the Benzedrine inhaler. He hits off of it, then pulls a second time -- comes up with the Forty-Five.
Over the quilt of the sky comes a funny green apple.
BA-SHMOOP!
Danny aims his pistol at the trees.
Arms come around him, pushing the pistol to the pavement.
RED
Put it away, Sweets. Them apples is apples.
Against the Caddy closest: two smushed crab apples running down the windows.
Danny looks from tree to tree.
Red looks tree to tree.
A FLASH of movement.
They watch figures running in the trees, but can't track where it ends.
Then three more apples come heaving over heaven. Ploop, against the gas pump. Caroop, against the Caddy. And, PLAK!, against Fat Phil.
FAT PHIL
Hey!
The boys scatter. End up together behind the Cadillacs.
Danny peeks over the hood; he spots the culprits running down into a ditch across the road, on there way to a vast field of sorghum beyond.
And Danny walks across the country road. He skitters down the ditch, and marches up into the crop land.
The sun is a caramel glaze on the world. This is deep summer, the sorghum looks like alien corn, and Danny a shaman walking the punky corridors.
The apple-chuckers cross in front of him, running like Looney Tunes lane to lane in the sorghum.
But Danny identifies them: two boyish blonde girls, eight or nine, maybe ten, maybe twelve.
DANNY FISHER
Girls. Get out here.
A moment is all. They present themselves: two little blonde bumpkins in thrice-sewn sack dresses.
They stand at attention.
DANNY FISHER
Why'ya chucking apples at me?
OLDER GIRL
I dunno.
YOUNGER GIRL (quickly)
I dunno neither.
DANNY FISHER
Where's yer house?
OLDER GIRL
Over there.
YOUNGER GIRL
Yup. Over there.
DANNY FISHER
How bout I walk you home?
OLDER GIRL
I'd rather you didn't.
YOUNGER GIRL
We ain't goin home --
OLDER GIRL
Be quiet.
YOUNGER GIRL
We ain't runnin away.
OLDER GIRL
Shut up, Lisa!
DANNY FISHER
Where ya gonna run to?
OLDER GIRL (gives in)
Hollywood I reckon.
DANNY FISHER
What's wrong with your house?
OLDER GIRL
Nothin.
YOUNGER GIRL
Nothin at all.
He now sees both girls have bruised arms. The Older Girl a split bottom lip.
DANNY FISHER
Which house is it?
The girls look at each other. The Younger Girl points to the farm just behind them. Not far at all.
AT THE FARMHOUSE JUST AFTER
A MAN stumbles just about through the screen door and falls into a chair on the porch.
He sucks down the rest of his can of Falstaff beer.
His eyes are bleary and yellow.
DRUNK DADDY
Milicent! Milicent!
GIRLS' MOTHER
What?
DRUNK DADDY
A beer!
As he waits, Drunk Daddy looks off at the fields. He sees the three figures walking his way, the two girls with a man.
THROUGH THE SORGHUM
Danny walks with the girls past LEAN BLACK FARMERS.
None of them pay him much mind. He might as well not be who he is.
AS DANNY AND THE GIRLS REACH THE FARMHOUSE:
DRUNK DADDY
Get inside the house! Lisbeth! Arly!
The girls make to comply.
DANNY FISHER
Hold on.
DRUNK DADDY
NOW!
DANNY FISHER
Sir, hold it a second.
Now the GIRLS' MOTHER appears at the screen door. She is very young, no more than 25. She's loading a revolver.
GIRLS' MOTHER
Your daddy said get inside!
Then this woman recognizes the stranger escorting her girls. She stops shoving bullets into chambers.
GIRLS' MOTHER
Danny?
The Drunk looks at his wife, looks back.
DRUNK DADDY
What brings you here, sir?
DANNY FISHER
Nothun much..
(beat)
Just met the girls up by the gas pump and escorted them home.
GIRLS' MOTHER
You know better than to be up that way. Get inside.
(to her husband)
Jim, that's Danny Fisher.
The girls don't move. Something in how fast the parents shifted with the recognition of this guardian has girded them some courage.
GIRLS' MOTHER
Inside!
The girls give in.
They go to their mother, and then inside the house.
Both mother and father look for an answer from the interloper.
Danny looks like Danny, they have no idea how stoned he is.
DANNY FISHER
What's fer breakfast?
CUT TO:
INSIDE THE FARMHOUSE AN HOUR LATER
Quite a setting. Danny, Red, Phil, and Jack sit with the family over flapjacks with sorghum, corn, sweet greens, and bacon.
DRUNK DADDY
Sorghum on the bacon. Sorghum on the greens. By 1970 sorghum is gonna sweep the rest of the nation!
FAT PHIL
It tastes swell, Mam. Thank you.
The Girls' Mother doesn't hear Fat Phil because she is smiling sweetly at Danny.
DANNY FISHER
Girls?
OLDER GIRL
Yes sir?
DANNY FISHER
How y'all done in school?
OLDER GIRL
Good.
YOUNGER GIRL
Yeah, good.
Danny glances at Drunk Daddy, Drunk Daddy is staring at the wall. Where hangs The Painting.
DANNY FISHER
I was figurin, if you're daddy and mother accept, I could help you both enroll up in Memphis at Immaculate Conception. Now y'all would have to live there on campus during the school year, but there is no better finishing school for young ladies than Immaculate Conception. What do you think?
OLDER GIRL
Mommy?
DRUNK DADDY
Sir...
DANNY FISHER
This one's on me. The thing is, sometimes young people just need a chansh, a chance. Mam?
The Girls' Mother looks at Danny, at her husband, at her girls.
GIRLS' MOTHER
That would be an opportunity.
DANNY FISHER
For your girls.
DRUNK DADDY
Ain't you just Charles Dick-eens, Sir.
DANNY FISHER
These girls ain't gonna get where they need to go sittin on this farm.
DRUNK DADDY
Why is that, sir? Because of the niggers? I have the niggers under control here, you can ask anyone.
DANNY FISHER
No sir. Not them..
(beat)
Not them at all.
LATER ON THE PORCH
Out in the yard Red and the boys are hanging by the Cadillacs.
But Danny is on the porch sitting with the Drunk Daddy.
DRUNK DADDY
You can't do this.
Danny has his badge out again.
The Girls' Mother appears once more, this time with a tray of iced tea and cakes. When she sets the platter down she smiles again at Danny. The Drunk Daddy's hand clenches, though his arm never raises. Danny sees this as he bites a cake.
DANNY FISHER
Thank you, mam.
She goes back in the house.
OUT AT THE CADILLACS
Red and the Boys watch the fields. Workers coming in for their morning meal. The two little girls out chasing each other around the barn.
PORCH
DRUNK DADDY
(voice is low)
You think that fake badge means anything to me? Who do you think you are?
DANNY FISHER
A shepherd. For my lord, my country, and the fine state of Tennessee, which includes our law enforcement agencies.
DRUNK DADDY
Jesus said beware false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but underneath are ravenous wolves.
DANNY FISHER
John Browning says keep your fingers off those girls.
Danny advertises the .45 holstered at his waist.
DRUNK DADDY
You think you can come down here from your mansion on high and take my daughters from me?
DANNY FISHER
I don't want your daughters, sir. I want them boarded at Immaculate Conception.
DRUNK DADDY
Take your painting --
DANNY FISHER
It was a gift.
DRUNK DADDY
Everyone knows what's the true Danny Fisher; what you do behind your gates --
DANNY FISHER
Sir, I agree with you. I have sinned. I will look into that.
Danny stands up.
DANNY FISHER
If those girls aren't at Immaculate Conception in a month you are going to be visited by more pigs than you can imagine.
DRUNK DADDY
You have no cause.
DANNY FISHER
I was called.
DRUNK DADDY
Take your painting with you!
DANNY FISHER
That was a gift to your wife --
DRUNK DADDY
We won't have it disgrace our house.
DANNY FISHER
Consider it a reminder of your family, your two children.
DRUNK DADDY
I won't have it.
DANNY FISHER
No?
DRUNK DADDY
The girls can go to your school, but I won't insult the savior Jesus Christ with your blasphemy -- I'll burn it.
DANNY FISHER
I understand.
Danny whistles. Kid Jack hustles up.
Kid Jack goes into the house.
When he gets to the dining room, and reaches for the painting up on the wall, he is attacked from behind.
It's the Girls' Mother, hugging him most vociferously.
She kisses the back of his neck. Not sexual, but fervent.
And again: Her thin pale lip presses into the tail of his Vitalis'd swoosh of hair.
OUT IN THE YARD
Danny is sitting in the back of one of the Cadillacs, now idling and turned back toward the long road out of the farm.
Red is at the wheel.
Fat Phil is in the other car. Out in front of them.
Out the passenger side window Danny sees the Drunk Daddy on the porch, pretending they've already left.
RED
What are we doing?
DANNY FISHER
I don't know.
RED
We need to clean it up. We're due for California.
DANNY FISHER
I ain't goin nowhere until we find a home for this painting. I think there's something right about that.
RED
You ain't been to sleep in two days, Danny. We're gonna get clipped sooner or later. What'll the Colonel say then?
Just then Kid Jack walks by holding the painting in perfect frame with the passenger window.
BEAT. The two Girls march by next, playing some army game.
Then Red puts the Caddy in gear, and they start slowly down the rutted dirt path away from the farm.
It's not long the Cadillac window catches up to the two Girls. They wave.
Danny Fisher blows them a kiss.
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