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...

...and smoked a cigar down

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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