O Brother, Where Art Thou? Page #11

Waldrip's hair, protruding from under his boater, is plastered

against his scalp.

EVERETT:

...Have you been using my hair

treatment?

WALDRIP:

Your hair treatment?!

Everett covers his anger with an exaggerated politeness.

EVERETT:

S'cuse me...

He draws Penny aside.

EVERETT:

Well, I got news for you case you

hadn't noticed - I wasn't hit by a

train. And I've traveled many a weary

mile to be back with my wife and six

daughters.

SIX-YEAR-OLD

Seven, Daddy!

PENNY:

That ain't your daddy, Alvinelle.

Your daddy was hit by a train.

EVERETT:

Now Penny, stop that!

PENNY:

No - you stop it! Vernon here's got

a job. Vernon's got prospects. He's

bona fide! What're you?

EVERETT:

I'll tell you what I am - I'm the

paterfamilias! You can't marry him!

PENNY:

I can and I am and I will - tomorrow!

I gotta think about the little Wharvey

gals! They look to me for answers!

Vernon can s'port 'em and buy 'em

lessons on the clarinet! The only

good thing you ever did for the gals

was get his by that train!

EVERETT:

...Why you... lyin,... unconstant...

succubus!

WALDRIP:

You can't swear at my fiancee!

EVERETT:

Oh yeah? Well you can't marry my

wife!

With this he takes a wild swing which Waldrip easily eludes.

Waldrip adapts a Marquess of Queensbury stance and prances

about, delivering stinging punches to the nose of a stunned

and outclassed Everett.

A crowd is gathering and voices murmur:

BYSTANDERS:

Who is that man?

PENNY:

He's not my husband. Just a drifter,

I guess... Just some no-account

drifter...

EXT. WOOLWORTH'S

Its glass doors swing open and Everett is hurled out and

bellyflops into the dust of the street.

BRAWNY MANAGER:

...And stay out of Woolworth's!

MOVIE THEATER:

Romantic music tinnily plays as Delmar and Everett watch,

Everett slumped down and angrily hissing:

EVERETT:

Deceitful! Two-faced! She-Woman!

Never trust a female, Delmar! Remember

that one simple precept and your

time with me will not have been ill

spent!

DELMAR:

Okay, Everett.

EVERETT:

Hit by a train! Truth means nothin'

to Woman, Delmar. Triumph a the

subjective! You ever been with a

woman?

DELMAR:

Well, uh, I - I gotta get the family

farm back before I can start thinkin'

about that.

EVERETT:

Well that's right! If then! Believe

me, Delmar, Woman is the most fiendish

instrument of torture ever devised

to bedevil the days a man!

DELMAR:

Everett, I never figured you for a

paterfamilias.

EVERETT:

Oh-ho-ho yes, I've spread my seed.

And you see what it, uh... what it's

earned me... Now what in the...

The screen is flickering down to black as the music slows to

sludge and stops.

The theater is dark and quiet.

Everett and Delmar, and the rest of the sparse audience,

look restively about.

A man carrying a shotgun enters the auditorium.

He walks halfway down the aisle and stops several rows behind

Delmar and Everett. He scans the theater, then brings a

whistle to his lips.

At his whistle the back doors burst open and a line of chained

men trot in at double-time. With much clanking they file

into one row and then, that row filled, the one behind it.

They remain silently on their feet.

The first guard and two others who escorted in the convicts

scan the theater. The first guard again blows his whistle.

The two rows of chained men sit.

After another silence:

FIRST GUARD:

...Okay boys! Enjoy yer pickcha show!

One more whistle cues the movie to grind back up to speed.

A hissing whisper from behind draws Everett and Delmar's

attention:

VOICE:

Do not seek the treasure! It's a

bushwhack!

Everett and Delmar turn and stare, saucer-eyed. In the middle

of the frontmost row of convicts sits Pete - bald, haunted

Pete.

After a long, disbelieving stare:

DELMAR:

...Pete?

Pete whispers again, urgently:

PETE:

They're fixin' a ambush! Do not seek

the treasure!

Everett, jaw hanging open, can only stare, as if at a ghost.

Delmar stares also, but finally brings out another:

DELMAR:

...Pete?

PETE:

Do not seek the treasure!

Everett's face remains frozen in horrified disbelief, but

Delmar finally accepts Pete's corporeal reality.

DELMAR:

We thought you was a toad!

Pete squints and c*cks his head as if to say, What was that?

Delmar repeats the whisper slowly and with exaggerated mouth

movements:

DELMAR:

We thought... you was... a toad!

Pete shakes his head - didn't catch it - and repeats, also

overarticulating:

PETE:

Do not... seek... the treasure!

A guard murmurs:

GUARD:

Quiet there. Watcha pickcha.

VERANDA:

Pappy O'Daniel sits on the veranda of the Governor's Mansion,

smoking a cigar and sipping from a glass of bourbon as the

evening sun goes down.

PAPPY:

I signed that bill! I signed a dozen

a those aggi-culture bills! Everyone

knows I'm a friend a the fahmuh!

What do I gotta do, start diddlin'

livestock?!

JUNIOR:

We cain't do that, Daddy, we might

offend our constichency.

PAPPY:

We ain't got a constichency! Stokes

got a constichency!

ECKARD:

Them straw polls is ugly.

SPIVEY:

Stokes is pullin' ah pants down.

ECKARD:

Gonna pluck us off the tit.

SPIVEY:

Pappy gonna be sittin' there pants

down and Stokes at the table soppin'

up the gravy.

ECKARD:

Latch right on to that tit.

SPIVEY:

Wipin' little circles with his bread.

ECKARD:

Suckin' away.

SPIVEY:

Well, it's a well-run campaign,

midget'n broom'n whatnot.

ECKARD:

Devil his due.

SPIVEY:

Helluva awgazation.

JUNIOR:

Say, I gotten idee.

ECKARD:

What sat, Junior?

JUNIOR:

We could hire us a little fella even

smaller'n Stokes's.

Pappy whips at him with his hat.

PAPPY:

Y'ignorant slope-shouldered sack a

guts! Why we'd look like a buncha

satchel-ass Johnnie-Come-Latelies

braggin' on our own midget! Don't

matter how stumpy! And that's the

goddamn problem right there - people

think this Stokes got fresh ideas,

he's oh coorant and we the past.

ECKARD:

Problem a p'seption.

SPIVEY:

Ass right.

ECKARD:

Reason why he's pullin' ah pants

down.

SPIVEY:

Gonna paddle ah little bee-hind.

ECKARD:

Ain't gonna paddle it; he's gonna

kick it real hard.

With his mouth forming an O around his dropping cigar, Pappy

looks sadly from one to the other, like a spectator at a

particularly boring tennis match.

SPIVEY:

No, I believe he's a-gonna paddle

it.

ECKARD:

Well now, I don't believe assa

property scription.

SPIVEY:

Well, that's how I characterize it.

ECKARD:

Well, I believe it's mawva kickin'

sichation.

SPIVEY:

Pullin' ah pants down...

ECKARD:

Wipin' little circles with his

bread...

A NOOSE:

In slow motion it is dropping... dropping... dropping through

the night. We hear distant thunder and the howl of a hound.

The sounds recede, and the black background dissolves into a

pan down from a raftered ceiling as the noose fades away.

The continued pan down shows that we are in a barracks-like

cabin. It is night. Convicts are ranged in bunk-beds. Their

snores stand out against the chirp of crickets.

In the upper berth of the foreground bed is Pete. His hands

are clasped behind his head. A manacle and chain links one

wrist to a rail that serves as headboard.

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