Days of Heaven Page #2

13EXT. FREIGHT YARDS

They hop a freight train.

14CREDITS (OVER EXISTING PHOTOS)

The CREDITS run over black and white photos of

the Chicago they are leaving behind. Pigs roam the gutters.

Street urchins smoke cigar butts under a stairway. A blind

man hawks stale bread. Dirty children play around a dripping

hydrant. Laundry hangs out to dry on tenement fire escapes.

Police look for a thief under a bridge. Irish gangs stare at

the camera, curious how they will look. The CREDITS end.

15EXT. MOVING TRAIN

Abby and Bill sit atop a train racing through

the wheat country of the Texas Panhandle.

BILL:

I like the sunshine.

ABBY:

Everybody does.

They laugh. She is dressed in men's clothes, her hair tucked

up under a cap. They are sharing a bottle of wine.

BILL:

I never wanted to fall in love with you.

ABBY:

Nobody asked you to.

He draws her toward him. She pulls away.

BILL:

What's the matter? A while ago you said I was

irresistible. I still am.

ABBY:

That was then.

She pushes her nose up against his chest and

sniffs around.

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.

BENSON:

Shockers! Four more and I'm leaving.

BILL:

How much you paying?

BENSON:

Man can make three dollars a day, he wants to

work.

BILL:

Who're you kidding?

Bill mills around. They have no choice but to accept his

offer.

BENSON:

Sackers!

Abby steps up. Benson takes her for a young man.

BENSON:

You ever sacked before?

She nods.

Transcriber's Note: the following seven lines of

dialogue between the NEWCOMER and the VETERAN runs

concurrent with the previous six lines of dialogue between

Benson and Bill and Abby. In the original script they are

typed in two columns running side-by-side down the page.

*****

NEWCOMER (o.s.)

How's the p*ssy up there?

VETERAN:

Not good. Where you from?

NEWCOMER (o.s.)

Detroit.

VETERAN:

How's the p*ssy up there?

NEWCOMER (o.s.)

Good.

(pause)

The guys tough out here?

VETERAN (o.s.)

Not so tough. How about up there?

NEWCOMER (o.s.)

Tough.

*****

BENSON:

When's that?

ABBY:

Last year.

He waves her on. Abby nods at Ursula.

ABBY:

You're making a mistake, you pass this kid up.

BENSON:

Get on.

He snaps his fingers at her. Bill climbs up ahead of the

women. Anger makes him extremely polite.

BILL:

You don't need to say it like that.

Benson ignores this remark but dislikes Bill from the first.

20EXT. PLAINS

Benson's wagons roll across the plains toward

the Razumihin, a "bonanza" or wheat ranch of spectacular

dimensions, its name spelled out in whitewashed rocks on the

side of a hill.

21EXT. BONANZA GATES (NEAR SIGN)

The wagons pass under a large arch, set in the

middle of nowhere, like the gates to a vanished kingdom.

Goats peer down from on top.

Bill looks at Abby and raises his eyebrows.

22EXT. BELVEDERE

At the center of the bonanza, amid a tawny sea

of grain, stands a gay Victorian house, three stories tall.

Where most farm houses stand more sensibly on low ground,

protected from the elements, "The Belvedere" occupies the

highest ridge around, commanding the view and esteem of all.

Filigrees of gingerbread adorn the eaves. Cottonwood

saplings, six feet high, have recently been planted in the

front. Peacocks fuss about the yard. There is a lawn swing

and a flagpole, used like a ship's mast for signaling

distant parts of the bonanza. A wind generator supplies

electric power.

A white picket fence surrounds the house, though its purpose

is unclear; where the prairie leaves off and the yard begins

is impossible to tell.

Bison drift over the hills like boats on the ocean. Bill

shouts at the nearest one.

BILL:

Yo, Beevo!

23TIGHT ON CHUCK

CHUCK ARTUNOV, the owner--a man of great reserve

and dignity, still a bachelor--stands on the front porch of

the Belvedere high above, observing the new arrivals.

24EXT. DORMITORY

Benson drops the hands off at the dormitory, a

hundred yards below, a plain clapboard building with a

ceiling of exposed joists. Ursula sees Chuck watching them.

URSULA:

Whose place is that?

BENSON:

The owner's. Don't none of you go up around his

place. First one that does is fired. I'm warning you right

now.

In the warm July weather most of the hands

forsake the dorm to spread their bedrolls around a strawpile

or in the hayloft of the nearby barn.

Abby and Bill slip off to share a cigarette.

Ursula tags behind.

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