getaway: script for a short film

by jared t. fischer

characters:

henry

lindsay

[you find the young couple, henry and lindsay, in bed in a motel in west virginia. it’s a simple, plain-as-hell room—bed; dresser with tv; white walls; green carpet; mirror; lamps; lights; small bathroom; table; chairs; sink; cabinets; two windows and a front door. 

as an intro beforehand, you could show in a flash how they discovered this rancher-style motel in the dark after driving sleepily some late hours down the mountain and onto a slow-lowering lane: as they drive down lower, they see a welcome motel that sits on one side of the road; directly opposite on the other side is a nice, lit-up hamburger bar where the couple stops first before checking in to the motel. when they’re ready to call it a night, they knock on the motel’s office door and a nice but sleepy old guy in overalls comes out to check them in. that’s the end of the intro flash, if desired. 

the scene starts with henry and lindsay mostly naked in bed under the sheets at about 2:30 a.m.]

henry: do me a favor.

lindsay: what?

henry: the wine, pass it to me. have a glass, too.

lindsay: let me finish this page, end of a story.

henry: which one?

lindsay: “crevasse” by faulkner.

henry: i love how much you’re reading. even on the side of the mountain

you got a book out like you didn’t care to look back down.

[a minute or two while she finishes the last page.]

lindsay: i finished. god that was good. where’s that wine?

henry: left of the tv, on the dresser.

lindsay: [brings it over to the bed.] i’ll have a glass. 

henry: [readies two glasses.] cheers!

to the mountains and the river

and this quiet little motel.

didn’t think we’d find one like this—like a house.  

lindsay: stopping for hamburgers and drinks

first was a good idea.

got to see the locals and they saw us.

pool and a jukebox, cigarettes and strange couples,

lonely folks gazing around with desire,

old, young—

some were a little scary.

henry: yeah. wonder what they thought of us. 

we rolled in dusty and hungry

from the mountain. must have found us funny,

awkward, lost but not in any way troublesome.

[short pause.]

lindsay: i know it’s a bit much, but their looking at us

in mysterious and meaningless ways throughout

the night made me fuck you the way i did. [fingers his chest.]

henry: because of them? that’s fine! it worked.

could have told me that while we were at it

and i would’ve run with it.

lindsay: you did anyway, without me saying it.

how much difference two years and this kind of getaway make:

climbing a mountain with you, going along the course of a river,

it all answers a passionate brutality in me. . . .

i still love life

violently! [lifts wine to her lips. continues poetically.] by will, 
but shown a way by nature—or am i confused . . .

we reach new heights and can see (it happens in books too)

or we fall, get tired

or can’t see, like earlier tonight.

then we come to a place like this motel

and it makes our situation better.

an adventure and a little rest.

henry: [reaches up with a finger and twirls some of her oily hair.] the damned unfamiliar does the trick.

forgetting all past lives

and moving on. glad we’re doing this. [sip of wine.]  

lindsay: forget if we can, but we really don’t need to forget.

fucked up shit sticks in my mind with pins and needles

and i’m still okay.

no wear, none the worse. yes, two summers ago,

fred jumped in bed with us at our drunken invitation.

wouldn’t even now, however, say he divided us. a mad, risky fun.

henry: um. i would!

because of it, he enjoyed two damned stolen years of sun and beaches with you.

i was left out. but i know! i’d become intolerable—

too much talk of unreasoned politics in the car, ranting

and never shutting up 
when you thought me a blind dickhead.
conspiracy theory, you called it.

lindsay: well, it was because you shut me down about everything.

henry: because i was lonely and not confident about my work, my life,

i felt glued to the news, felt i had to solve all the world's problems
instead of my own.

took needless pride in calling out all the dumb people: murderers, celebrities and anyone corrupt. and to feel better, i took a shit on fake artists in our city, too.

you found me paranoid and defensive. bitter, you said.

lindsay: you were. no easy thing talking with you. eyes wide, you got louder.

i just shut up and tuned you out. i’d look into the light of the sun as we drove around

or at leaves on trees. i’d hate you, because the car was warm

and you yelled about nothing.

henry: maybe i didn’t touch you.

remember a moment i was thinking, when was the last time we were playful together,

either batting each other around in the grass or under a playground in a park

or simply discovering some new sex thing we’d both enjoy?
but it was not even that. i felt like a disabled or asexual lost boy.

always chattering and knowing i had not touched you.

you had your arms folded in the car. [finishes his wine and sits up. looks straight ahead. continues.] had every chance but went with

the annoyances you couldn’t tolerate.

lindsay: [pulls her head back on the pillow, away from him, to look at him deeply. desultorily, she touches his covered leg.] when i slept with both of you,

that was because, yes, i started feeling dead with just you:

saying the same things over and over,

doing the same things,

not anything different,

when before that we picked up sticks and beat each other for fun.

climbed forbidden towers by the youth prison 
and spilled champagne beneath the wolf moon.

we used to drink margaritas, camping nights on the beach at assateague.  

made horse-shit fires then went into ocean city for the ferris wheel.  

henry: [still sitting up, he curls in now toward her to play with her hair that cascades down across her neck onto her chest.] i know! i miss the hell out of that. that’s why this trip’s like a new life.

lindsay: [puts her wine aside. she likes being touched but responds with very little, only maybe touching his arm with her cheek.] part of it's my fault. maybe i didn’t keep up with what was hurting you.

you listened to so much all the times i told you how i wanted to kill myself

for various reasons or no reason at all,

or wished to move away to a village in kenya,

scattered but real plans. . . .   

just to have it hard and different, be near nature, live beside new people

and animals.

henry: all those times were okay because i was happy with you.

just kept a little distant so you wouldn't find me patronizing—
you know how you blow up!

lindsay: what a sad refrain crying is.

henry: it was not working out then.

lindsay: i did not know what to do. i thought you couldn’t like me. no one could. if you did, it was fake or dumb of you, because i didn’t deserve anyone liking me. i myself never liked anyone anyway. kept thinking, where to run? felt lonely. no answers. [looks sad but clear of real trouble, no tears.]

[pause.]

henry: [taking a softened tone, but speaking darkly as if it hurts him.] when i’d listen and say nothing, i kept imagining that i was seeing into a window high up in a dark building. no one was in the room up in the building. but i kept looking there when you talked. it was a weird thing my mind did.

lindsay: and it sucked, because you were fun, though you had your repetitious shit moods—but it was me. i brought my complaints to you. then it was like you got lost even more.

henry: confidence broke off. i saw it ending, not working.

lindsay: then there was no adventure. you got to be an authority and a jerk about stuff way outside of you.

henry: [almost turning mad because he finds this talk to be the same old crap again.] let me guess, when we got in bed with fred that was meant to—

lindsay: bring new feelings out of us!

another attempt—you know, i was thinking
how another's breathing, pulses, thoughts, conflicts,
instincts and quick desires could mix in 
for the benefit of both of us. was i wrong?

and we’d crumble under it.

it would make us both insecure:
new unpredictable lust spread over our jealousies in a horny sort of picnic.

henry: it was hard for me to feel anything except a real weakness

that sprang up in me and drove me into you and him.

remember when i punched him right there in the bed, in the face,

and you bit into my neck and the night sort

of collapsed on us and exploded in each of us

in that moment? and we tried it again in the morning. it didn’t work.

lindsay: it worked in the way it did. there are no failures of feeling.

feelings are feelings—a tough life is a good one.

henry: yeah, but it felt so strange for me. you know, 
the times i used to skateboard with him—my own damned friend and yours, too.

fred was a beast at skating—muscular and agile

and timing his moves and never screwing up on the ramp

or the street, and being some strange thoughtful gentleman,

liking both girls and guys. 
i thought i could be experimental like him.

you thought the same.

lindsay: [reaches under the sheet and grabs him. possibly, it's to make things awkward and uncomfortable with fiery, recalled jealousy (but who really knows)—all good, real feelings, push come to shove.] we both always talked to him at parties.

henry: yeah. right. he smiled at you mostly, and at me sometimes.

lindsay: nah. times i would find him with you,

and that‘s what first made me feel you and i’d both like it—fucking around.

seeing him in a corner

drinking and talking

with you seriously, by a fire, about the world

and wars,

i admit i was jealous.

i felt a need to do something to you: something to please you, something to hurt me then you—if fred got hurt. . . . 

well, thoughts are weak.

feelings are only for a second
and then come memories.

henry: [feeling what she is doing, he gets manipulatively horny, too. grabs her under the sheet. kisses her. reaches down to feel her while they hash this mess out.] it’s already done. we don’t need to talk about it. but after the one time, you started making plans with him and forgetting me.

lindsay: i could not help that. i felt like i was going downriver in a new adventure,

and i heard your voice in the background somewhere, and that reassurance

that you were there talking pushed me to leave.

fred did not turn out any better in the long run.

he was dull and apelike, and though very sexy, fun and reassuring at first,

his appeal panned out to be complete dullness in the end: 
no gold—not one ounce of fight in him.

and i could never lean on him.

don't get me wrong. it was fun because he was an eccentric 
but he was also boring as hell:

too much of skating and bikes 
and those shitty expected things he'd say about art or life;

no hazard whatsoever in his mind.

i remember i felt i missed  your arrogant complaints,

but more than that, i wanted to be in the ferris wheel
again with you

or under a tree, drunk as hell, in the dog park.

having kids walk up to us at night

thinking you were having your way with me ruthlessly.

henry: i picked you up that night and tried to carry you home. 
they looked at us like we were crazy,

asked if you were okay. we were.
we are now, too. and it's no codependency that made us
desire this trip. when we started hanging out again 
two months ago after seeing each other
at the movie theater, we could not agree more that
there really are no other people who like
to go about life and travel the way we do. 

[this whole time they have been caressing each other under the sheet, getting each other worked up, and now it is hard for them to keep talking. they don’t really want to talk if they can do this other thing and feel this good. but they say a few more things, make simple plans.]

lindsay: tomorrow we have more of the river and the mountains.

who gives a fuck?—that whole time before this had to play itself out.

say it was fun and relaxing. i've no regrets.

henry: guess i don't either. who cares?
better to enjoy now.
we're doing this trip like how we would in spain or france.

it's almost a damned foreign country.

[laughing as he fingers her.] you are a foreign woman.

lindsay: coming out here together, let’s be clear: 
we are not returning to a golden age, 
we are not here to rekindle anything or make up.

this is all a new experience. we are empty, new, clean people 
or animals.

other people will see us tomorrow.

other animals will cross our path.

we’ll hear the river run

and hike the mountains,

and those feelings will drag us around

like adventurers.

henry: [laughing and still fucking around.] coffee and tea 
and going through the woods, seeing deer.

lindsay: [feeling him.] in the sun i can read some more grim faulkner: 
all those human voices and the tunnels of gossip.

experiences, lives, in the raw,
the tempting things and flecks of truth 
moving about.

henry: but we don’t need to talk—

lindsay: yeah, not talk. . . . 

[ends with them going somewhat wild with each other under the sheet. they kiss and roll about and play. they turn the lights out.]