Midnight Cowboy Page #2

RALPH:

You ain't coming to work?

JOE:

Don't guess. Just come for my day's

pay owing and to tell you I'm

heading East.

Joe tilts his Stetson as the Waitress appears at the door...

WAITRESS:

Cups!

... but she disappears without noticing Joe. Ralph offers his

hand. Joe takes it, holds it.

RALPH:

What you gonna do back there, East?

JOE:

Lotta rich women back there...

RALPH:

Yeah?

JOE:

Men, they mostly faggots.

RALPH:

Must be some mess back there.

JOE:

Well, ain't no use hanging around

here.

RALPH:

Ain't gonna collect your pay?

JOE:

I got me two hundred twenty-four

bucks of flat folding money...

(slaps hip)

He know what he can do with that

chicken-sh*t day's pay. And if he

ain't man enough to do it for

himself, I be happy to oblige!

INT. SUNSHINE CAFETERIA - DAY

The door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY swings open and Joe appears,

measuring his effect on the customers and his fellow

employees as he crosses the sterile white dining room,

observing the drab details of the life he has left behind -

garbage on greasy dishes, limp food in steam table trays,

coffee-soaked cigarette butts, caked mustard and ketchup on

formica table tops -- two pimply high school girls slurping

suggestive noises after Joe through the straws of empty coke

glasses. O.S. a Tiomkin-tradition chorus sings, "From this

valley they say you are going -- we will miss your bright

eyes and sweet smile for they say you are taking the

sunshine..."

EXT. TOWN MAIN STREET - DAY

The song ends as Joe comes from the cafeteria "... that

brightened our pathway a while."

JOE:

Tough tiddy, ladies, you had your

chance.

From a high angle -- Joe starts his long walk toward the bus

depot along the street of a small Western town struggling to

urbanize itself. The click-clack-click of his boots is loud

but somehow lonely The radio at his ear drones grain prices

on the Commodity change. Joe's pace slows as he passes...

EXT. SALLY BUCK'S BEAUTY SALON - DAY

... a gilt-lettered sign in the window, glittering in the

sun, momentarily hiding the fact that the shop is deserted.

Joe grins as he hears remembered sounds and voices incomplete

flashes, more significant in tone than content a girl

giggling sexily -- "Keep your meat hooks off my beauty

operators, sugar" -- tinkling noises of a busy beauty parlor

- Sally Buck singing "Hush, little baby, don't say a word,

Grammaw gonna buy you a mockingbird..."

... a shift of light revealing a row of tarnished driers, a

broken mirror, a FOR RENT sign in the window. Joe turns

toward the bus depot, radio pressed to his ear.

ANNOUNCER'S VOICE

Benson and Hedges One Hundreds

makes special awards from time to

time for anything that's longer

than anything...

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