Terry Allen: Reunion: Return To Juarez (1992)
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 |
Directions: | Thunder. Music. |
Narrator: |
Just like a movie...in the center of the bridge, a sailor and a woman
hold each other. |
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 |