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Terry Allen: Reunion: Return To Juarez (1992)

© Green Shoes Publishing Company 1992.
All rights reserved.



Directions: Ocean--Seagulls
Narrator: The Characters:
  Sailor: A Texas boy just returned from duty with the Navy in the Pacific is on leave in the Port of San Diego.
  Spanish Alice: A Mexican prostitute working the bars in Tijuana and looking for ways into the U.S.A.
  Jabo: A Juarez-born pachuco living in Los Angeles decides to go home by way of a joy-ride up into southern Colorado.
  Chic Blundie: Jabo's L.A. (Los Angeles) girlfriend an enigma rock-writer and occasionally... Jabo himself.
Directions: El Camino song, instrumental.
Narrator: A simple story. Sailor meets Alice in a Tijuana bar.
They get drunk.
Fuck.
Cry-to-believe together
and get married.

They cross the border and travel by car (probably a Buick)
from San Diego to Cortez
Colorado.

They honeymoon in a small run-down mountain trailer.

AND EXACTLY AT THE SAME TIME....

Jabo appeals to and persuades Chic to leave L.A.
(probably by motorcycle)
for Juarez by-way-of-Cortez.

THEY GO NORTH TO GET SOUTH
Directions: Thunder
Narrator: In Cortez...
The two couples meet -
argue -
fight -
resulting in Sailor and Alice
lying dead on the trailer floor
Directions: Thunder
Narrator:

Jabo and Chic
objects of a massive statewide search
escape by car
(probably a Buick)
and flee to Juarez
as planned.
In Juarez...
They part.

Directions: Thunder. Music.
Narrator:

Just like a movie...in the center of the bridge, a sailor and a woman hold each other.
They speak, but we can't hear them.
The sailor reaches up and touches the woman's face. Their shadow is on the top of the river.
Two children, a boy and girl, wade into the shadow...
Looking straight up into the bridge.
They are each holding catch-wands...a broom handle with
a cardboard cone wired to the end.
They shake the wands...trying to get the couple to throw them something.
The woman looks at him...then she turns and walks away.
The sailor watches her until she disappears.
Then everything dissolves...and all we can see is the
edge of the river...
the banks.
The sun falls down behind the mountains...toward
night...in Tijuana.
Cervezeria las Golondrinas.

In Juarez...
They part.

Directions: Music out. Thunder. Woman whispers "Alicia". Fire.
Narrator: In the 'Beer Bar of the Swallows',
Jabo is at the bar...tapping the floor with his pointy-
toed shoes.
Alicia is in a booth.
She is looking at a postcard of the burning woman.
She looks up...and there is a moment in the mirror when she and Jabo see the same thing.
The room short circuits. It completely stops.
Directions: Music, instrumental
Narrator: Then sailor walks in.
Suddenly,
Jabo is gone...and Alice -
Directions: Woman whispers "Alicia"
Narrator: is burning up.
(whispers: Later)
Later....inside, the ghost is jumping.
The band is playing something impossible.
They all have on fancy suits, but the song is crazy...
endless and nuts!
In the darkness, he mentions his mother.
But then tells her about Japan...his tattoos.
She kisses the ships on his arms.
She shows him the burning woman.
They laugh and drink tequila and rub each other with
limes under the table.
Outside, in the streets, somebody screams.
The band is playing dirty now...the Filthy Norteno...
singing about punta (whore) and blood and something-
else about a Circle Forever.
On stage, a naked 15 year old girl contorts, and sits
on her own face.
Smoke is everywhere.
And over the bar...
ELVIS AND JESUS WALK ARM-IN-ARM ON VELVET ACROSS
THE CLOUDS
Directions: Thunder. Rain. Woman whispers "Later." Fire out.
Music out.
Narrator: Outside, a storm comes up.
Directions: Fire. Birds diminish. Rain only. Song 'Border Palace'
fades out.
Narrator: Later...
  they take a taxi in the rain
to LA ESTRELLA NEGRA,
the whorehouse where Alicia works.
Directions: Song 'Oughta Be A Law' (instrumental)
Narrator: Meanwhile...outside San Bernardino,
Jabo is on the freeway, flying through the rain.
He just stole a car, robbed the store and killed
somebody.
He's covered with jailhouse tattoos and runnin'
blind behind the wheel.
The only way anybody can really get to L.A.
He makes it to Boyle Heights and taps on Chic's window
with his gun.
She lets him in, the radio is blaring...and they're
all over each other.
Directions: Breathing with song and rain
Narrator: In-between the songs, a special bulletin mentions a
shoot-out at some gas station in Arizona...
and also something about the end of the world.
But details are sketchy...and it's too early to tell.
Jabo is naked and Chic has on green shoes.
They fuck like demons to the music...all over the floor
and up the walls.
Directions: Breathing to crescendo. Thunder. Song out. Fade to
pleasant morning birds chirping.
Narrator: Later...Jabo brings his bike out of hiding.
He calls it his little CRUCITA...his little cross.
He ties a rag around his head and takes off his short.
The blue Jesus is dancing on his back...with Magdalina,
Our Lady of the Luck...the virgin whore.
Directions: Woman whispers "His little crucita".
Narrator: In the house...Chic is at the mirror getting ready.
She puts razor blades in her hair.
Directions: Wind
Narrator: Meanwhile...back in Tijuana,
the inside of the whorehouse is one large gutted space.
It has a single door and two windows on opposite walls.
The ceiling is low and the floor completely covered
with mattresses.
Ropes have been strung across the ceiling, criss-
crossing overhead in a grid...a web of rectangles.
Blankets have been suspended from the ropes, hanging
down to make little rooms...CRIBS...over each of
the mattresses.
The windows are open and the wind is blowing.
The whole room rolls like the sea.
Alicia's crib is in the center of this ocean.
She says IT IS ALWAYS NIGHT.
Directions: Sparse 'El Camino' song (instrumental)
Narrator: Oceans of cloth.
Her life is pinned to the blankets.
Directions: Song 'What of Alicia'. Everything fades out but wind
with song.
Narrator: Postcards...milagros...a dried hummingbird...little
scraps of paper and flowers...posters and tear-outs
from fashion magazines...beauty tips and
shoes...snapshots...teen angel...the pope...TV
celebrities and saints...
A picture of her mother.
She says her name was CARLOTTA and she disappeared
years ago in Guadalajara.
They just chinga (fuck) and talk...chinga and talk...
chinga and talk...chinga and talk...
and finally,
they talk and make love.
Directions: Woman whispers "Carlotta"
Narrator: He tells her he knows a perfect little place -
a little trailer in Cortez, Colorado.
They can go there and stay forever
Later, he shows her Polaroids of his own mother who is
buried on Abeline.
ABELINE.
A mean little Christian town stuck just off I-20
(highway)...right between the last gasp of North Texas
and the Holy Rapture.
He says it's just like a bad wish...facing East, but
looking due West...with a little bitty black heart
running dead South. Skinny as a Mexican dog.
Abeline.
It ain't nothin' like Japan.
Directions: Woman "Carlotta"
Narrator: Alicia listens.
Then she pins up the burning woman.
Directions: Woman "Carlotta"
Narrator: They talk...but, right from the start...
They knew.
They didn't really have a single thing to say to one
another. They had no history that wasn't busted
up...unhinged at the seams. He just likes the way she
looks, and she likes the way he looks as-a-way-out.
Strange, isn't it?
Their skin feels perfect together.
That did it as much as anything.
Perfect skin gives people ideas.
They both knew exactly what they were NOT doing.
They've practiced it over and over and over...inside
themselves for years. CORTEZ.
The perfect plan. THE PERFECT PLAN.
A cold-blooded, premeditated ACT OF LOVE.
They're on fire...and somewhere in all the smoke,
a car gets bought,
some lines get crossed...and Colorado
burns like a black star.
Directions: Woman "Carlotta". Sounds begin to fade. Wind still up.
Narrator: So, the next morning, in San Diego, they get married.
He gives her a camera and a blue kimono.
She gives him the burning woman...and off they go
to America.
Directions: Sound/song. Song fades. Wind segues into cars passing
Narrator: On the same day...at the same time,
Jabo and Chic leave L.A.
They are all on the same road.
Directions: "El Camino" song intro.
Narrator: In America, it's MOTION that is holy...
not the destination.
Speed...blood...dreams...love and hell.
The highway is the heartbeat through everything.
So Jabo sings:
Directions: Lyrics start "El Camino, mi corazon. El Camino, that's
my problem. El camino, mi corazon. El camino, mi
problema, por vida mi corazon."
Narrator: Chick laughs.
She says...that song is as close as you'll ever get to
knowing anything about anything. Especially about
love.
Chick loves again. Then writes it on the wall:
THIS IS HELL.
Directions: Thunder cuts the song off. Single car passes. Song
"Especially About Love"
Narrator: Just across the state line, Sailor and Alice pass an
abandoned drive-in movie theater. She shoots it with
her camera.
That night...Alice dreams a film is showing.
The characters in the film walk out big holes in the
screen and got sit in cars and watch new characters
take their place. It doesn't make any sense to her.
He tells her he dreamed once that all his tattoos sank
right under his skin...and he could feel it...all the
ships and fish and anchors wiggling through his
blood...feel it like it was real.
He said EVERYTHING WAS MOVING TOWARDS HIS HEART
but he woke up before it got there.
He said he was scared shitless
Alice shoots the desert through the window.
She has no idea what he's talking about...and doesn't
say another word for a hundred of miles.
She does her nails.
Directions: Eerie drone. "Station" music.
Narrator: That morning in the desert, Arizona is just like a hole
with a movie in it.
We see Jabo and Chic pull into an isolated filling
station and ask for gas.
The attendant, this goofy looking kid, is shook-up just
looking at them....Jabo fiddles with the bike while
Chic browses around inside the station.
She picks up a can of spray paint and tests it out on
the walls, on the coke machine, the cash register
etc....then opens the register and takes the money.
The attendant sees this and starts to back away, but
Jabo pulls a knife and walks him back toward the
garage.
Directions: Rhythm-overlay begins
Narrator: He tells Chic to move the bike around to the side of
station. The attendant is standing hands-up in the
sunlight in front of the open garage door...Jabo is in
the shadows just inside. Chic moves the bike...and
NOW WE SEE a tow-truck suddenly pull in...
'Aztec Auto'
is hand-scrawled on the door.
The driver sees the attendant with his hands up, knows
something is wrong, and grabs a big rifle from the gun
rack above the seat. Jabo yanks the goofy attendant
inside the garage and holds a knife against his throat.
Chic has spotted the truck and pulls a pistol.
The driver gets out...peer s over the hood...then
suddenly just starts firing shots into the
garage...then he runs like maniac across the driveway
into the office area of the station.
Jabo and the attendants duck as the bullets ricochet
off tire tools and wheel rims and the grease rack.
The driver hides behind the office desk and yells for
whoever is in there to come out RIGHT NOW with their
hands in the sky...then he fires two more shots through
the door separating the office and the garage.
Again, Jabo and the attendants duck as the bullets
fly...the attendant is petrified now and his neck is
slightly cut.
Jabo is swearing and hissing curses...then, they all
hear the low rumble of an engine.
THEN WE SEE
Chic screams out from the side of the building on the
bike and skid to a stop behind the tow-truck.
She starts blasting away with the pistol into the
office from over the good.
The plate glass window explodes, and the driver inside
is ducking flying glass, then returns fire...blowing
big holes in his own truck.
Jabo makes a decision.
With a single gesture, he slits the attendant's throat
and shoves him through the door into the office.
The driver, startled, whirls and shoots the attendant
full of holes as he comes through the door already
dead...the driver is stunned when he realizes who he's
shot.
Meanwhile, Jabo takes advantage of the diversion to run
out of the garage and get across the driveway to
safety behind the truck with Chic.
They jump on the bike and screech off...Chic still
pouring pistol fire into the office.
The bike hits the shoulder of the road and spins out in
a huge cloud of dust...then roars down the highway.
The driver runs out firing at them, but the bullet hits
a passing motorist in a camper.
The camper careens off the road, barely missing Jabo
and Chic, and crashes into the gas pumps in front of
the station.
Everything blows sky high.
YOU CAN HEAR screaming inside the camper.
Jabo and Chic are in a high speed wobble...but Jabo
gets it in control as more explosions and black smoke
erupt behind them...and back there...we see HELL
itself.
Other cars are crashing...somebody is trying to pull
burning kids from the camper.
A WOMAN IS ON FIRE,
RUNNING IN CIRCLES.
Everybody is screaming...and blending in now with
police sirens in the distance.
Directions: Eerie drone out. Breathing rhythm starts.
Narrator: The scene cuts here...and WE SEE
a green Buick parked on the side of the road.
A highway patrol car rushes by in the opposite
direction...sirens howling.
Sailor and Alice are asleep naked in the back seat.
The siren startles them awake....and they raise up and
look out the windshield just as a chopper (helicopter)
flies by.
Jabo and Chico zoom past the parked car.
Chic's hair is flying and her legs stick out like the
bike has WINGS.
Chic looks back and sees Alice.
Directions: Rhythm/Breath out
Narrator: The whole screen fills up with her eye.
It looks like a BLACK WHEEL.
Directions: Crickets, night sounds
Narrator: Under the highway, in a culvert...Jabo and Chic hide-
out from the day.
A cop car passes overhead.
They're naked...and deep into Arizona.
They've made a fire and Chic is glowing.
She's drawing on the concrete walls.
Jabo watches her breasts swing as she scrawls.
The word CARLOTTA is tattooed over her left nipple.
His own body is alive with words and pictures...but
they're more than just marks...
He looks at the dots on her fingers.
Then says he's been pissed off his whole life.
Chic stops...looks at him.
JUAREZ is stitched homemade blue across the bottom of
his throat.
She laughs.
She tells him he's stupid as TV.
A truck passes overhead...then another cop.
She's spraying paint in the air...
Directions: Ocean. Seagulls.
Narrator: You know, you are like that story of the fish that has
no body. No flesh.
A skeleton-fish...all bones and empty and lost,
swimming around under water forever...looking for your
own skin.
And one day, in complete frustration, that fish jumps
right out of the water and grabs a seagull.
He's fed up with seeing that thing up there...just
flying around all free and easy.
So he decides to kill it.
And eat it.
But the first bite he takes, something happens.
As soon as he swallows, he grows a brand new little
piece of himself
ON himself...a little string of meat dangling on the
bone.
And it occurs to him, the more seagull he eats, the
more REAL fish he's going to become...so, he starts
eating that bird like no tomorrow.
Well...when the seagull is completely gone, gobbled
up...sure enough, the fish has turned into and become
a true whole fish.
He's thrilled to death.
But here's the catch.
While that poor bird is being eaten, he's also
flying...straight up.
And a fish, I don't care HOW REAL THEY ARE, can't live in the sky.
He's just out of his element...so,
he falls.
Narrator: Jabo glares at her.
He says he hates fucking fish stories.
Directions: Ocean out
Narrator: That night in the motel, Sailor is looking at the map.
It reminds him of the best tattoo he ever saw.
Directions: Seagulls. Birds
Narrator: A man who is completely covered with a net.
His entire
body cross-hatched with lines...stopping only at the
wrist, ankles and neck. But the amazing thing is what was underneath!
Behind the net, drawn with great skill, were thousands
of birds...birds of every kind...frantically trying to
get out.
The net was drawn like it was bulging...and wings,
feathers and beaks looked like they were sticking out
in places...and in other areas, like over his
heart...it was unraveling.
It was like every WISH he ever had was busting loose
inside of him.
  fini


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