Raising Arizona

GALE
Well now H.I., looks like you been up to the devil's bidnis!

EVELLE

That a him or a her?

ED

It's a little boy.

GALE

Got a name, does he?

Hi and Ed look at each other uncomfortably. Hi clears his throat.

HI
Well so far we just been using Junior.

ED

We call him junior.

EVELLE

Say, thairs good – JR., just like on the Teevee.

Gale is staring at the streamers and decorations. Reading aloud:

GALE

"Welcome... Home... Son." Where's he been?

Hi and Ed respond simultaneously:

HI
Tulsa.

ED

Phoenix.

HI

He was, uh... he was visiting his grandparents.

ED

They're separated.

GALE

Was that yer folks ma'am?

ED

No, I'm afraid not.

GALE

I thought yer folks was dead, H.I.?

HI

(very uncomfortably)

Well we thought Junior should see their final resting place – Whyn't you boys have a seat?

As the two men move toward the couch Ed hesitantly pipes up:

ED

Hi, it's two in the morning...

She wrinkles her nose.

ED

... What's that smell?

Apologetically:

GALE

We don't always smell like this, Miz McDunnough. I was just explainin' to yer better haff here that when we were tunnehn' out we hit the main sewer – dumb luck, that – and just followed that to –

ED

You mean you busted out of jail!!

GALE

Waaaal...

EVELLE

We released ourselves on our own recognizance.

GALE

What Evelle means to say is, we felt the institution no longer had anything to offer us.

He is looking at the baby.

GALE

... My Lord he's cute.

EVELLE

He's a little outlaw, you can see that.

ED

Now listen, you folks can't stay here!

Gale, Evelle, and Hi look up at Ed, dumbstruck. After a beat:

EVELLE
... Ma'am?

ED

You just can't stay! I appreciate your bein' friends of Hi and all, but this is a decent family now...

She looks at Hi .

ED

... I mean we got a toddler here!

Gale leans in close to Hi , a look of sincere concern on his face, and says under his breath:

GALE
Say, who wears the pants round here H.I.?

HI

Now honey –

ED

Don't you honey me. Now you boys can set a while and catch up, and then you'll be on your way.

There is an awkward silence as she leaves and slams the bedroom door.

Gale is carefully studying his thumbnail; Evelle stares fixedly at the ceiling. Still looking at his thumb:

GALE
Gotcha on a awful short leash, don't she H.I.?

BEDROOM

Sometime later, as Hi tiptoes in. Ed lies in bed facing the wall; we see only the back of her head. Hi sits gingerly on the edge of the bed and, smiling, sticks a finger through the bars of the crib to play with the baby.

The sound of the TV set in the living room filters faintly in.

ED
They stiff here?

Hi is momentarily startled, then goes on playing with the baby.

HI

Yeah, they're just gonna stay a day or two. It's raining out honey, they got nowhere to go.

Ed finally turns to face him. We hear the two men laugh raucously in the living room.

ED

They're fugitives, Hi...

Hi turns to face her.

ED
... How're we gonna start a new life with them around?

HI
Well now honey you gotta have a little charity. Ya know, in Arab lands they'd set out a plate –

ED

Promise just a day or two.

HI

Tonight and tomorrow, tops.

EXTREME HIGH ANGLE

Looking straight down at Hi, asleep in bed. It is later: filtering softly in from the other room is the end of the "Star Spangled Banner" on TV. We are craning down.

VOICE OVER

That night I had a dream.

FLASH CUT

For a brief moment we see a wall of flames and hear it roar.

BACK TO Hi

Still craning down.

VOICE OVER

... I'd drifted off thinkin' about happiness, birth, and new fife...

FLASH CUT

Wall of flames. Deafening roar.

BACK TO HI

Craning down. The faint National Anthem ends: we hear the WEEEEEEEE of a test pattern.

VOICE OVER

... but now I was haunted by a vision of –

WALL OF FLAMES

Roaring. At the cut: WHOOOOOSH! a huge low-rider motorcycle bursts through the flames, its engine roaring even louder than the fire. Its driver is a huge leather-clad hellion.

The chains worn by the Biker clank ominously as he rides.

VOICE OVER
He was horrible...

The Biker roars out of frame.

LOW-ANGLE REVERSE

As the Biker roars into frame, his rear tire laying down a wake of fire.

VOICE OVER
... a lone biker of the apocalypse...

TRACKING ON BIKER

As he roars along a ribbon of desert highway.

VOICE OVER

... a man with all the powers of her at his command.

The Biker reaches for his bullwhip.

VOICE OVER

... He could turn the day into night...

The Biker cracks the whip and, at the crack:

The sky behind him turns instantly to black. Bolts of lightning crackle across it as thunder roars.

ANOTHER DESERT SCENE DAY

Tracking with and also in on the Biker from behind as he roars along a strip of highway. He is reaching for the two sawed-off shotguns which are strapped crisscross across his back.

VOICE OVER
... and laid to waste everything in his path.

REVERSE TRACK ON BIKER

Pulling the Biker from a distance as he levels the two shotguns. The tracking camera pulls back further to reveal a running jack-rabbit keeping pace with us in the foreground.

VOICE OVER
He was especially hard on the little things...

CRACK – as the first shotgun spurts orange the foreground rabbit keels over. The Biker slues the other gun around.

LOCKED-DOWN WIDE SHOT

On a rock in the foreground, a desert lizard suns himself.

The Biker is approaching in the distant background.

VOICE OVER
... the helpless and the gentle creatures.

CRACK – from afar, the foreground lizard is blown away.

LOCKED-DOWN LOW-ANGLE WIDE SHOT
 

Of the empty desert road stretching away. In the foreground a lone desert flower blooms.

The Biker roars into frame.

VOICE OVER
He left a scorched earth in his wake, befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow.

As the Biker roars away, the foreground flower bends with his draft and then bursts into flame.

TRACKING ON BIKER

From in front. He twirls the shotguns in either hand and reaches back to plunge them over his shoulders into their holsters.

VOICE OVER
I didn't know where he came from or why...

We are moving in on his chest, where two crisscrossed bandoliers carry two rows of hand grenades, their silver pins glinting in the sun. We follow the line of one of the bandoliers up to his right shoulder which bears the tattoo: "Mama Didn't Love Me."

VOICE OVER
I didn't know if he was dream or vision...

REVERSE TRACK ON BIKER

From behind, booming down as we track. We are approaching the crest of a rise.

VOICE OVER

But I feared that I myself had unleashed him...

HIGH SHOT

Of the Biker approaching, craning down as he draws near.

VOICE OVER
... for he was The Fury That Would Be...

With the crane down we momentarily lose him from view over the rise; then suddenly – ROAR – he tops the rise and, wheels spinning, is airborne

REVERSE

As he crashes back down to earth in the foreground and roars away. Only now we are no longer in the desert:

We are looking down a twilit street at the end of which is the Arizona house.

VOICE OVER

... as soon as Florence Arizona found her little Nathan gone.

The roar of his engine and clank of his chains recede as the Biker gradually dissolves into thin air.

We are left looking at the empty street and the faraway Arizona house.

The receding roar has left behind eerily beautiful singing, a woman singing a lullaby. Faintly, behind the singing, there is also a droning high-pitched noise.

The camera starts floating forward very close to the ground, moving slowly toward the Arizona house. The high-pitched drone is becoming less faint under the singing.

The camera is accelerating. The drone is growing louder – we can now tell that it is a human scream.

As we approach the Arizona house we can see that a ladder is propped up to a second-story window.

We are moving quite fast now. The scream all but buries the singing.

We are rushing toward the house, toward the base of the ladder, the sustained scream drawing us on.

We hurtle toward and then straight up the ladder with no abatement of speed, sucked forward by the deafening scream.

We reach the top and hurtle – THWAP! – through the white curtains of the open second-story window into the nursery to reveal Florence Arizona, her back to us, screaming over the crib.

We are rocketing toward her.

She is turning to us, hands pressed to her ears, mouth stretched wide in an ear-splitting shriek and we are rushing into an extreme close-up of her gaping mouth and her wildly vibrating epiglottis and we

CUT TO:

EXTREME CLOSE SHOT OF HI'S EYES

As they snap open.

The screaming snaps off at the cut. The singing that the building scream covered, however, is now audible again.

Perspiration beads Hi's forehead. He looks down toward the foot of the bed.

THE BEDROOM

It is now morning. Ed walks back and forth, gently bouncing the baby as she walks. She is singing it a lullaby.

Faintly, from the next room, we can hear Gale and Evelle snoring away like buzz saws.

HI

(groggily)

He all right?

ED

He's all right. He was just havin' a nightmare.

Hi is getting out of bed.

HI
Yeah, well...

He crosses to the bedroom window and cracks the venetian blind. Orange light filters in.

HIS POV

Beyond a clothes line and a septic tank, a huge orange ball of sun is rising. We can almost hear the roar of its burning surface.

BACK TO HI

Looking.

HI

... Sometimes it's a hard world for little things.

HIS POV

The orange sun, rumbling, perceptibly rising.

ARIZONA HOME FRONT FOYER

At the cut the rumble of the sun is snapped off by the high-pitched ba-WEEEEeeee... of a strobe going off as a flash picture is taken: We are looking over Nathan Jr.'s shoulder as he stands at his open front door, facing a battery of press people who stand out on the porch.

An obie light over a local TV news camera glares in at us; various flashbulbs pop.

NATHAN

– No, the missus and the rest of the kids've left town to I ain't sayin' where. They'll be back here when we're a nuclear fam'ly again.

VOICE

Mr. Arizona, which tot was abducted?

NATHAN

Nathan Jr., I think.

VOICE

Do you have anything to say to the kidnappers?

NATHAN

Yeah: Watch yer butt.

VOICE

Sir, it's been rumored that your son was abducted by UFOS. Would you care to comment?

NATHAN

(sadly)

Now don't print that, son. If his mama reads that she's just gonna lose all hope.

A POLICEMAN from inside the house is taking Nathan by the elbow.

POLICEMAN
We really have to ask you some more questions, sir...

As Nathan allows himself to be led back into the house he calls back over his shoulder:

NATHAN

But remember, it's still business as usual at Unpainted Arizona, and if you can find lower prices anywhere my name still ain't Nathan Arizona!

We are following the two, hand-held, as the Police leads Nathan toward the living room.

LIVING ROOM

The room is filled with policemen milling about in several different uniforms: local police, state troopers, plainclothes detectives.

The original Policeman is leading Nathan to a table where a white-smocked technician is preparing inkpad and exemplar sheets.

The dialogue is urgent, rapid-fire and overlapping.

POLICEMAN
Mr. Byrum here can take your exemplars while you talk.

MR. BYRUM has taken Nathan's right hand and is rolling its fingers onto the inkpad.

BYRUM
Just let your hand relax; I'll do the work.

Nathan jerks his hand away.

NATHAN
What is this?! I didn't steal the damn kid!

Two men in conservative suits are approaching.

POLICEMAN

Sir, these men are from the FBI –

NATHAN

(bewildered)

Are you boys crazy?! All I know is I wake up this morning with my wife screaming –

BYRUM

(patiently)

We just need to distinguish your prints from the perpetrators', if they left any.

Giving his hand back:

NATHAN

Course! I know that!

FBI #1

Sir, we have an indication you were born Nathan Huffhines; is this correct?

NATHAN

Yeah, I changed m'name; what of it?