Platoon Page #14

Elias cuffs a joint, keeping its glow hidden in the dark. A

pause, both of them meditative.

CHRIS (CONT'D)

Barnes got it in for you, don't he?

ELIAS:

(philosophically)

Barnes believes in what he's doing.

CHRIS:

And you, do you believe?

ELIAS:

In '65 - yeah. Now ...

(pause)

No. What happened today's just the beginning. We're

gonna lose this war ...

CHRIS:

(surprised)

You really think so ... us?

Elias' eyes seem to go to some inner place, his passion surging.

ELIAS:

... we been kicking other people's asses so long I

guess it's time we got our own kicked. The only

decent thing I can see coming out of here are the

survivors - hundreds of thousands of guys like you

Taylor going back to every little town in the country

knowing something about what it's like to take a life

and what that can do to a person's soul - twist it

like Barnes and Bunny and make 'em sick inside and if

you got any brains you gonna fight it the rest of

your life cause it's cheap, killing is cheap, the

cheapest thing I know and when some drunk like

O'Neill starts glorifying it, you're gonna puke all

over him and when the politicians start selling you a

used war all over again, you and your generation

gonna say go f*** yourself 'cause you know, you've

seen it, and when you know it, deep down there ...

He plants his fist in Chris' gut, expelling his breath such is

the force of the blow - like a power passed between them.

ELIAS (CONT'D)

... you know it till you die ... that's why the

survivors remember. 'Cause the dead don't let em

forget.

His eyes blazing, reliving the deaths in the village, licking the

wounds for the platoon, mourning the failure of its heroism.

Chris looking at him, a little awed by his intensity. Elias

looks away, embarrassed that he has sermonized, looks back at the

stars.

ELIAS (CONT'D)

Oh sh*t! Sometimes there's things in my head ...

man. Grass does that to me, fucks me all up like a

crazy Indian ...

CHRIS:

Do you believe that stuff about ... knowing you're

gonna die?

ELIAS:

Yeah, those are the guys that live. I really don't

think Death gives a sh*t, it's like a giant garbage

can, I think it takes whatever it can get ... you

never know where it's gonna come from anyway ... so

why spin your wheels?

He shrugs, a certain bravado masking his own uncertainty.

CHRIS:

... You ever think about reincarnation, all that

stuff?

A lightning quick movement follows. Elias' hand passing over his

face like a mime, a click of the fingers and he leans closer to

Chris. A new expression on his face. Devil's eyes, mocking

child, danger in his soul, excitement, sex - the Elias that Chris

saw in the smoking session in base camp. Chris smiles, sucked

in, almost laughs and then the face is gone again.

ELIAS:

Sure, goes on all the time. Maybe a piece of me's in

you now, who knows. But when you die - really die -

that's a big return ticket.

(soft)

I like to think I'm gonna come back as ... as wind or

fire - or a deer

(likes the image)

... yeah, a deer ...

He smiles at the thought. Chris looks at him, looks away. A

shooting star falls suddenly and dryly through the cosmos. Their

eyes.

EXT. JUNGLE - STREAM - DAY (RAIN)

The Platoon moves along a shallow STREAM bordering the jungle. A

thick RAIN falls amid cracks of distant thunder. Chris, Rhah,

Francis, Big Harold, others are at the rear of the platoon, their

ponchos pulled over them like big sad grey tents. There's a

holdup ahead and the Men rest on rocks or stand. The rain makes

a pointilistic pattern, the men collages of grey, their rifles

slung upside down to keep dry.

Barnes is up ahead, out of the stream bank, on the radio.

EXT. JUNGLE CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)

Lerner's on point, resting in the shadow of a decaying old French

Catholic Church from the 19th Century. The jungle has long ago

won the battle, vines creeping into the cracks, remnants of

arches layered around the church at the epicenter. Behind Lerner

is Sgt.Warren and his radioman.

EXT. JUNGLE CLEARING - DAY (RAIN)

Elias, further back, is checking out the jungle alongside the

clearing, noticing a number of old spider holes long since

abandoned. He goes over and checks them.

EXT. JUNGLE - STREAM - DAY (RAIN)

Back at the stream, Rhah, looking old and whiskered under his

poncho hood, lights up a roach, puffs it. Another crack of

thunder. Chris comes over, sits with him on his rock. Rhah

passes him the joint. He smokes.

Big Harold pulls a leech out of his open crotch area.

HAROLD:

Sh*t, lookit this little f***er trying to get up ma

glory hole.

FRANCIS:

Hey Big Harold, put dat in your turkey loaf it won't

come out your back end.

KING:

(ribbing)

Yeah, big boy, thought you had that laundry gig all

laid out?

BIG HAROLD:

(pissed)

Sh*t, got to paint myself white get one of dem jobs.

Get ma request in for a circumcision.

KING:

Gonna be a rabbi man?

FRANCIS:

Gonna cut your pecker down to size hunh Big Harold?

BIG HAROLD:

Dat's okay wid me, better to have a small one den no

one at all.

KING:

Your girlfriends gonna look for new lovers, man.

Best thing a bro's got's his flap.

HAROLD:

I'll drink to your flap in Chicago, King. All I

gotta do is stretch it out to 15 days and I'll be

short 15 and the Beast just wouldn't dare send me

back to the bush.

FRANCIS:

You gonna get some for me back in the World, Harold?

Whatcha gonna do?

(dreaming of it)

HAROLD:

The world's gonna be ma oyster man. First's I gonna

EAT - all the hamburger and french fries and steaks

soaked in onions and ketchup I can get. Then I'se

gonna F*** and SUCK Sandy Bell till I sore all over

and can't f*** no more, and den I'se gonna SLEEP for

DAYS, for WEEKS! Den I'se gonna think bout what

comes next ...

The words carry over Chris staring out at the rain, feeling a

leaden fatigued high. Passes the roach, down to a millimeter,

back to Rhah who points to his face.

RHAH:

... you got one right there.

Chris feels for, finds the leech on the edge of his lip, cursing

under his breath.

LIEUTENANT WOLFE

(in the stream, on radio)

All right move out.

The men start slogging on against the rain.

Junior is drinking from the stream, as Fu Sheng passes.

FU SHENG:

Don't drink that a**hole. You're gonna get malaria.

JUNIOR:

Sh*t I hope so!

EXT. JUNGLE - CHURCH - DAY (RAIN)

On point, Lerner moves out through a remnant of an old arch,

somewhat casual in his approach to point.

LERNER:

Hey Sarge, you wanna tell me which way or do I get to

figger it out?

Sgt.Warren, picking up a quick azimuth on his lensatic compass,

points. Lerner moves in the new direction.

EXT. JUNGLE - DAY (RAIN)

Lerner moves away from the clearing, working up a slight incline

when the MACHINE GUN FIRE erupts out of the jungle, spinning him

- throwing him into the dirt like discarded garbage.

The men are down, yelling.

SGT. WARREN

Ambush! Incoming! F***ing incoming!

Suddenly an RPG rocket breaks out of the bush, sounding like an

atom bomb as it devastates the front of the Platoon. Radio Talk

is continuous now, back and forth between the three platoon

radios, through the ambush.

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