The Big Lebowski Page #10

QUINTANA:

I see you rolled your way into the

semis. Deos mio, man. Seamus and

me, we're gonna f*** you up.

DUDE:

Yeah well, that's just, ya know,

like, your opinion, man.

Quintana looks at Walter.

QUINTANA:

Let me tell you something, bendeco.

You pull any your crazy sh*t with

us, you flash a piece out on the

lanes, I'll take it away from you

and stick it up your ass and pull

the f***ing trigger til it goes

"click".

DUDE:

Jesus.

QUINTANA:

You said it, man. Nobody fucks with

the Jesus.

Jesus walks away. Walter nods sadly.

WALTER:

Eight-year-olds, Dude.

DUDE'S BUNGALOW

We are looking down at the Dude who is prone on the rug.

His eyes are closed. He wears a Walkman headset. Leaking

tinnily through the headphones we can just hear an

intermittent clatter.

In his outflung hand lies a cassette case labeled VENICE

BEACH LEAGUE PLAYOFFS 1987.

The Dude absently licks his lips as we faintly hear a hall

rumbling down the lane. On its impact with the pins, the

Dude opens his eyes.

He screams.

A blonde woman looms over him. Next to her a young man

in paint-spattered denims stoops and swings something towards

the carrier.

The sap catches the Dude on the chin and sends his head

thunking back onto the rug.

A million stars explode against a field of black. We hear

the "La-la-la-la" of The Man in Me.

The black field dissolves into the pattern of the rug.

The rug rolls away to reveal an aerial view of the city of

Los Angeles at twilight, moving below us at great speed.

The Dude is flying over the city, his arms thrown out in

front of him, the wind whipping his hair and billowing his

bowling shirt. He looks up.

Ahead the mysterious blonde woman wings away, riding on the

Dude's rug like a sheik on a magic carpet. She is outpacing

us, growing smaller.

The Dude does a couple of lazy crawl strokes and then notices

that a bowling ball has materialized in his forward hand.

His bemusement turns to concern over the aerodynamic

implications just as the ball seems to suddenly assume its

weight, abruptly snapping his arm down, and him after it. He

is falling. From a high angle we see the Dude hurtling down

toward the city, dragged by the ball.

A reverse looking up shows the Dude hurtling toward us

out of the inky sky, his eyes wide with horror. Led by

the bowling ball, he zooms past the camera leaving us in

black.

We hear a distant rumble, like thunder. Dull reflections

materialize in the darkness. They are glints off the shiny

surface of an oncoming bowling ball.

We pull back to reveal that the blackness was the inside of

a ball return, and the gleaming bowling ball is being

regurgitated up at us, overtaking us.

The Dude looks up, up, up at the looming ball, its mass

rolling a huge shadow across his face.

The gleaming ball shows three dead black holes rolling toward

us --finger holes.

The largest--thumb--hole rolls directly over us, engulfing

us once again in black..

The black rolls away and we are spinning--spinning down a

bowling lane--our point of view that of someone trapped in

the thumbhole of the rolling ball.

We see the receding bowler spinning away. It is the blonde

woman, performing her follow-through.

Floor spins up at us and then away; ceiling spins up and

away; the length of the alley with pins at the end; floor;

ceiling; approaching pins; again and again.

We hit the pins and clatter into blackness. We hear pins

spin, hit each other and drop.

We hear an irritating, insistent beeping.

FADE IN:

We are close on the Dude, upside down. As the picture fades

in the bowling noises continue, but filtered and faint.

They come from the Dude's Walkman, the headset of which is

now askew, with one arm off his ear.

As the Dude opens his eyes we spiral slowly upward to put

him right side around. His head is now resting against

hardwood floor, not rug.

DUDE:

Oh man.

He raises himself onto his elbows and massages the

red lump on his jaw. The beeper on his belt is

blinking red in sync with the continuing irritating beeps.

WIDE ON THE ROOM

An end table is upset, but otherwise the furniture is

in place. The rug is gone.

The Dude looks around. The bowling sounds continue.

The beeps continue.

The phone starts to jangle.

TRACK:

We push Brandt down the familiar marble hallway.

Again there is a distant aria. Brandt throws out a

wrist to look at his watch.

BRANDT:

They called about eighty minutes

ago. They want you to take the money

and drive north on the 4 5. They'll

call you on the portable phone with

instructions in about forty minutes.

One person only or I'd go with you.

They were very clear on that: one

person only. What happened to your

jaw?

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