Days of Heaven Page #3

BILL:

You playing mousie again?

ABBY:

I love how nice and hard your shoulders are. And

your hair is light. You're not a soft, greasy guy that puts

bay rum on every night.

BILL:

I love it when you've been drinking.

ABBY:

You're not greasy, Bill. You have any idea what

that means?

BILL:

Kind of.

They share the boxcar with a crowd of other

HARVEST HANDS. Ursula is among them, also dressed like a

man. Bill gestures out at the landscape.

BILL:

Look at all that space. Oweee! We should've done

this a long time ago. It's just us and the road now, Abby.

ABBY:

We're all still together, though. That's all I

care about.

16EXT. JERKWATER

The train slows down to take on water. The hands

jump off. Each carries his "bindle"-- a blanket and a few

personal effects wrapped in canvas. TOUGHS with ax handles

are on hand to greet them.

The harvesters speak a Babel of tongues, from German to

Uzbek to Swedish. Only English is rare. Some retain odd bits

of their national costumes, they are pathetic figures,

lonely and dignified and so far from home. Others, in split

shoes and sockless feet, are tramps. Most are honest

workers, though, here to escape the summer heat in the

factories of the East. They dress inappropriately for farm

work, in the latest fashions.

BILL:

Elbow room! Oweee! Give me a chance and I'm

going to dance!

Bill struts around with a Napoleonic air, in a

white Panama hat and gaiters, taking in the vista. Under his

arm he carries a sword cane with a pearl handle. It pleases

him, in this small way, to set himself apart from the rest

of toiling humanity. He wants it known that he was born to

greater things.

17NEW ANGLE

Bill comes upon a BIG MAN whose face is covered

with blood.

BILL:

Good, very good. Where you from, mister?

BIG MAN:

Cleveland.

BILL:

Like to see the other guy.

Bill helps him to his feet and dusts him off. A

TOUGH walks up.

TOUGH:

You doing this sh*t?

(pause)

Then keep it moving.

BILL:

Oh yeah? Who're you?

The Tough hits Bill across the head with his ax handle.

TOUGH:

Name is Morrison.

Bill looks around to see whether Abby has seen this. She

hasn't. He walks dizzily off down the tracks.

18NEW ANGLE

He takes Abby by the arm.

ABBY:

What happened to your ear?

BILL:

Nothing.

She is a sultry beauty--emancipated, full of bright hopes

and a zest for life. Her costume does not fool the men.

Wherever she goes they ogle her insolently.

EXT. WAGONS

The FOREMEN of the surrounding farms wait by their wagons to

carry the workers off. A flag pole is planted by each wagon.

Those who do not speak English negotiate their wages on a

blackboard.

BENSON, a leathery man of fifty, bellows through a

megaphone. In the background a NEWCOMER to the harvest talks

with a VETERAN.

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