The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
He was growing into middle age...
...and was living then in a bungalow
on Woodland Avenue.
He installed himself
in a rocking chair...
in the evenings...
...as his wife wiped her pink hands
on an apron...
...and reported happily
on their two children.
His children knew his legs...
...the sting of his mustache
against their cheeks.
They didn't know how their father made
his living or why they so often moved.
They didn't even know
their father's name.
He was listed in the city directory
as Thomas Howard.
And he went
everywhere unrecognized...
...and lunched with Kansas City
shopkeepers and merchants...
...calling himself a cattleman
or a commodities investor...
...someone rich and leisured
who had the common touch.
He had two incompletely healed
bullet holes in his chest...
...and another in his thigh.
He was missing the nub
of his left middle finger...
...and was cautious,
lest that mutilation be seen.
He also had a condition that was
referred to as "granulated eyelids"...
...and it caused him
to blink more than usual...
...as if he found creation
slightly more than he could accept.
Rooms seemed hotter
when he was in them.
Rains fell straighter.
Clocks slowed.
Sounds were amplified.
He considered himself
a Southern loyalist and guerrilla...
...in a Civil War that never ended.
He regretted neither his robberies,
nor the 17 murders that he laid claim to.
He had seen another summer under
in Kansas City, Missouri...
...and on September 5th
in the year 1881...
...he was 34 years old.
You just... You just slide them things
right in there, right in your sleeve...
...and then, when you get ready,
you just shake it out.
Like that, right there. You shake it out.
Mary Todd Lincoln, tyrant's wife, fall
into hysterics when the moon was full.
President's men would tie her up
with hay-baling wire...
...keep her from ripping
her husband's ears off.
You never heard word one about the wife of
the Confederacy's Jefferson Davis, did you?
- I didn't.
- No, you didn't.
He did his duty by her.
- Oh, my God, I'm speaking to children.
- No, I get it, I get it, I get it.
The president of the Confederacy discerned
his wife's needs and satisfied them...
...with the utmost skill
and the utmost courtesy.
- Charley, you spit all over my boot.
- Sorry. Sorry, sorry, Jesse.
- Here, get it off.
- I'll wipe it... I'll wipe it off.
But Abraham Lincoln probably
sent his wife on a shopping expedition.
- A three-act play.
- With money stole from us.
Chow!
I think insanity run on both sides
of that Lincoln family.
You're right about that.
The river... You jump in the river.
- Chow!
- Don't be shy now, Dick.
- One more piece of meat.
- When you diddle a lot...
There's a good piece of bacon fat
in there for him.
Excuse me.
I see I've traipsed right on in
and interrupted you.
Who are you, then?
Bob Ford.
Charley's brother?
Yeah.
I was lying when I said
I just happened down here.
I've been looking for you. I feel lousy
I didn't say so at the outset.
Folks take me for a nincompoop...
...on account of the shabby first impression
I make, whereas I think of myself...
...as being just a rung down
from the James brothers.
I was hoping if I ran into you
aside from those peckerwoods...
...I could show you how special I am.
I honestly believe I'm destined
for great things, Mr. James.
I got qualities that don't come shining
through right at the outset.
You give me a chance, I'll get
the job done. I guarantee you that.
Hey, Dick, is it true you diddled a squaw?
Come on, you can tell me. I've always
wanted to lay down with a redskin.
Well, Charley...
...there's a feeling that comes over you...
...getting inside a woman whose hands
has scalped a congregation.
There's this thunderous sound
that comes from their cooch...
...on account of the fact that
they birth a child standing upright...
...like a wild animal.
- What's it sound like?
Whatever a thunderous cooch sounds like
there, Charley. I don't know.
No.
They got a noisy quim
on account of the fact that...
...they use their cunnis as a saddlebag
to carry sundries across the plains.
Come on, what'd it really feel like?
Did it feel good?
Come on, fess up, now.
I like you, Charley.
I like you too, Charley.
Well...
You're not so special, Mr. Ford.
You're just like any other tyro
who's prinked himself up for an escapade.
Hoping to be a gunslinger
like them nickel books are about.
You may as well quench your mind of it...
...because you don't have
the ingredients, son.
Well, I'm sorry to hear
you feel that way...
...as I put such stock
in your opinions.
As for me being a gunslinger, I've just got
this one granddaddy Paterson Colt...
...and a borrowed belt to stick it in.
But I also got an appetite
for greater things.
I hoped by joining up with you, it'd put me
that much closer to getting them.
Well, what am I supposed to say to that?
Let me be your sidekick tonight.
Sidekick?
So you can examine my grit
and intelligence.
I don't know what it is about you...
...but the more you talk,
the more you give me the willies.
Now, I don't believe I want you anywhere
within earshot this evening, okay?
You understand?
- Well, I'm sorry...
- Why don't you just get now? Scat.
All right.
I was with a girl once, wasn't a squaw.
But she was pretty.
She had yellow hair like a...
Oh, like something.
Like hair bobbed from a ray of sunlight?
Yeah. Yeah, like that.
Boy, you... You talk good.
You can hide things in vocabulary.
Maybe you and me could write her a note,
send it by post?
See, all you gotta do, Ed...
...is predict her needs
and beat her to the punch.
Well, this girl, she has a real specific job.
- Specific?
- We was only together once.
She...
She was afraid of lightning,
and she came up under the wagon and...
...just cuddled right up to me.
She give me a kind price too.
Well, I'll be. That is specific.
Yeah, sure,
she'd been with other people...
...but the kind of things she said to me...
...people just don't say
unless they really mean it.
My love said she would marry only me
And Jove himself could not make her care.
For what women say to lovers, you'll agree
One writes on running water or on air.
My God, that's good.
Let's write her that.
No.
Poetry don't work on whores.
How do you do?
Am I too late
to wish you a happy birthday?
How'd you know?
You'd be surprised
at what I got stored away.
I'm an authority on the James boys.
Is you?
Well... Well, your brother Frank and I,
we just had a real nice visit.
Just chit-chatting about this and that,
right over there.
And must've been a hundred subjects
entertained...
Good Lord, you know
what this stew needs?
Dumplings?
Noodles.
You eat yourself some noodle stew
and your clock'll tick all night.
You ever see that woman up in Fayette?
Suck noodles up her nose.
- In Fayette?
- I don't believe I have.
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"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_assassination_of_jesse_james_by_the_coward_robert_ford_3182>.
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