JFK Page #27

GUARD'S VOICE (V.O.)

Send him on in.

PRISON DORMITORY - (1967)

A chief guard walks Jim and Bill into a circus-like

atmosphere. In Louisiana the prisoners can wear any outfit

they choose, which makes this prison look like Mardi Gras.

There are many transvestites.

GUARD:

(with evident pride)

...we don't need no gates out there,

sir, we got the "swamp". Many of

'em gone in there but none come out...

Hey, Willie!

Willie O'Keefe, a handsome, muscled, young chickenhawk with

an earring, bandana, colorful clothes, an aura of burned

truth in his intense, staring brown eyes and thick country

accent, sashays over.

GUARD:

You got some company, wants to talk

wid you. You behave now, boy, y'hear.

TIMECUT TO the prison work area, where Willie talks, leaning

against a tree looking out on a mangrove swamp. It's lunch

break and other prisoners move in the background, eating,

socializing.

JIM:

I want to thank you, Mr. O'Keefe,

for this time.

O'KEEFE

Call me Willie. I ain't got nuthin'

but time, Mr. Garrison. Minutes,

hours, days, years of'em. Time just

stands still here like a snake sunnin'

itself in the road...

BILL:

Clay Bertrand, Willie?

O'KEEFE

Yeah. Clay. I met him sometime in

June of '62 at the Masquerade Bar.

Dave Ferrie took me there, for the

express reason to meet him.

JIM:

For sexual purposes?

O'KEEFE

Well... yeah.

FLASHBACK TO the Masquerade Bar in the French Quarter. It's

nighttime and Ferrie, Bertrand and O'Keefe sit at a back

booth. Bertrand, as seen earlier, is an imposing, white-

haired patrician man, over six feet tall, heavily defined

bones and eyelids, in his late 40's or early 50's.

BILL (V.O.)

Did he pay you for this?

O'KEEFE (V.O.)

Twenty dollars each time. Hell,

it's no secret. That's what I'm

here for.

They rise to leave. Bertrand with a slight limp.

JIM (V.O.)

Anything else unusual about him you'd

be able to describe in a court of

law, Willie?

O'KEEFE (V.O.)

I remember he had some kinda thing

wrong with his left leg. He limped.

Don't get me wrong, he's not one of

those, you know, limp wrists. He's

a butch John. You'd meet him on the

street, you'd never snap. You could

go fishing with him, play poker with

him, you'd never snap in a million

years. So one night we were over at

Ferrie's place. Having a party.

Sometime in the late summer of '63.

FLASHBACK TO Dave Ferrie's apartment on a night in 1963.

The place is filled messy bricabrac, including two dozen

mouse cages for Ferrie's cancer experiments. Ferrie,

Bertrand, O'Keefe, and four Cubans in battle fatigues are

laughing and fooling around. Oswald is in a corner cleaning

a .22 rifle with a scope on it. He looks different, unkempt,

unshaven. A record player grinds out a speech in Spanish by

Castro. Some other people are there as well - it's a beatnik

scene:
sandals, hanging out, only one woman. Ferrie is taking

pictures throughout of the group horsing around, photographing

Oswald.

O'KEEFE

...there were about nine or ten

people, Cubans, friends of Dave doing

some stuff in the bush with him.

Place was a mess. Dave's mind was a

mess,

(laughs)

Y'know he had all those mice cages

around cause he's working on this

cure for cancer... Dave's smart -

real smart - speaks five languages,

knows philosophy, medicine, military

history, politics. He wanted to be

a priest but they defrocked him 'cause

he was queer...

BILL (V.O.)

And that's where you met Oswald for

the first time?

O'KEEFE (V.O.)

Yeah, strange guy. Dave introduced

him as...

FERRIE:

Willie, say hello to Leon Oswald.

O'KEEFE

(over the racket)

How ya doing?

OSWALD:

(sullen, to Ferrie)

What the f***'s he doing here?

O'KEEFE

F*** you, man.

Ferrie separates them. Oswald seems to resent an outsider

being there.

FERRIE:

(to O'Keefe)

Leon's in a bad mood, don't get

excited, he's all right.

JIM (V.O.)

Would you say this "Leon" was actually

Lee Harvey Oswald?

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