Baby Doll & Tiger Tail (2 page)

[
Archie Lee points to off right with a heavily tragic gesture
.]

17] TRAVELING SHOT. SYNDICATE GIN. THEIR VIEWPOINT.

It is new, handsome, busy, clearly prospering. A sign (large) reads:

SYNDICATE COTTON GIN.

18] TWO SHOT. ARCHIE AND BABY DOLL.

ARCHIE
: There it is! There it is!

BABY DOLL
: Looks like they gonna have a celebration!

ARCHIE
: Why shouldn’t they!!?? They now got every last bit
of business in the county, including every last bit of what I used to get.

BABY DOLL
: Well, no wonder, they got an up-to-date plant—not like that big pile of junk you got!!

[
Archie glares at her
.]

QUICK DISSOLVE.

19] WAITING ROOM. DOCTOR’S OFFICE.

Archie and Baby Doll enter, and he is still hotly pursuing the same topic of discussion
.

ARCHIE
: Now I’m just as fond of Aunt Rose Comfort—

BABY DOLL
: You ain’t just as fond of Aunt—

ARCHIE
: Suppose she breaks down on us?? Suppose she gets a disease that lingers—

[
Baby Doll snorts
.]

ARCHIE
: All right, but I’m serving you notice. If that ole woman breaks down and dies on my place, I’m not going to be stuck with her funeral expenses. I’ll have her burned up, yep, cremated, cremated, is what they call it. And pack her ashes in an ole Coca-Cola bottle and pitch the bottle into TIGER TAIL BAYOU!!!

BABY DOLL
[
crossing to inner door
]: Doctor John? Come out here and take a look at my husband. I think a mad dawg’s bit him. He’s gone ravin’ crazy!!

RECEPTIONIST
[
appearing
]: Mr. Meighan’s a little bit late for his appointment, but the doctor will see him.

BABY DOLL
: Good! I’m going down to the—

ARCHIE
: Oh, no, you’re gonna sit here and wait till I come out. . . .

BABY DOLL
: Well, maybe. . . .

[
Archie observes that she is exchanging a long, hard stare with a young man slouched in a chair
.]

ARCHIE
: And look at this! Or somethin’.

[
He thrusts a copy of
Screen Secrets
into her hands and shoves her into a chair. Then glares at the young man, who raises his copy of
Confidential.]

DISSOLVE.

20] INNER OFFICE.

Archie Lee has been stripped down to the waist. The doctor has just finished examining him. From the anteroom, laughter, low, which seems to make Archie Lee nervous
.

DOCTOR
: You’re not an old man, Archie Lee, but you’re not a young man, either.

ARCHIE
: That’s the truth.

DOCTOR
: How long you been married?

ARCHIE
: Just about a year now.

DOCTOR
: Have you been under a strain? You seem terrible nervous?

ARCHIE
: No strain at all! None at all. . . .

[
Sound of low laughter from the waiting room. Suddenly, Archie Lee rushes over and opens the door. Baby Doll and the Young Man are talking. He quickly raises his magazine
. . . .
Archie closes the door, finishes dressing
. . . .]

DOCTOR
: What I think you need is a harmless sort of sedative. . . .

ARCHIE
: Sedative! Sedative! What do I want with a sedative???

[
He bolts out of the office
. . . .]

DISSOLVE.

21] MEDIUM LONG SHOT. ARCHIE LEE’S CAR GOING DOWN FRONT STREET.

Baby Doll sits on her side aloof. Suddenly a moving van passes the other way. On its side is marked the legend: IDEAL PAY AS YOU GO PLAN FURNITURE COMPANY. Suddenly, Baby Doll jumps up and starts waving her hand, flagging the van down, then when this fails, flagging Archie Lee down
.

22] CLOSER SHOT. ARCHIE’S CAR.

BABY DOLL
: That was all our stuff!

ARCHIE
: No it wasn’t. . . .

BABY DOLL
: That was our stuff. Turn around, go after them.

ARCHIE
: Baby Doll, I’ve got to wait down here for my perscription. . . .

[
At this moment another IDEAL PAY AS YOU GO PLAN FURNITURE COMPANY goes by, in the OTHER direction
.]

BABY DOLL
: There goes another one, towards our house.

ARCHIE
: Baby, let’s go catch the show at the Delta Brilliant.

[
Baby Doll starts beating him
.]

Or let’s drive over to the Flaming Pig and have some barbecue ribs and a little cold beer.

BABY DOLL
: That’s our stuff. . .!

[
Archie Lee looks the other way
.]

I said that’s our stuff. . .!! I wanta go home. HOME. NOW. If you don’t drive me home now, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll—Mr. Hanna. Mr. Gus Hanna. You live on Tiger Tail Road. . . .

ARCHIE
: I’ll drive you home.

[
He spins the car around and they start home
.]

23] EXTERIOR. MEIGHAN HOUSE. DAY.

Meighan’s car turns in the drive. The van we saw is backed up to the house, and furniture is being removed from the house. Baby Doll runs among them and starts to beat the movers. They go right on with their work, paying no attention. After a time Aunt Rose puts her arms around Baby Doll and leads her into the house
.

24] CLOSE SHOT. ARCHIE LEE.

He really is on a spot. Again he hears the sound of the Syndicate Cotton Gin. He makes the same sound, imitating it, he made earlier. He looks in its direction and spits. Then he gets out of the car and walks towards his empty home
.

25] INTERIOR. MEIGHAN HOUSE. THE PARLOR.

Baby Doll is sobbing by the window. The screen door creaks to admit the hulking figure of Archie Lee
.

ARCHIE
[
approaching
]: Baby Doll. . .

BABY DOLL
: Leave me alone in here. I don’t want to sit in the same room with a man that would make me live in a house with no furniture.

ARCHIE
: Honey, the old furniture we got left just needs to be spread out a little. . . .

BABY DOLL
: My daddy would turn in his grave if he knew, he’d turn in his grave.

ARCHIE
: Baby Doll, if your daddy turned in his grave as often as you say he’d turn in his grave, that old man would plow up the graveyard.

[
Somewhere outside Aunt Rose is heard singing: “Rock of Ages
.”]

ARCHIE
: She’s out there pickin’ roses in the yard just as if nothing at all had happened here. . . .

BABY DOLL
: I’m going to move to the Kotton King Hotel. I’m going to move to the Kotton King Hotel. . . .

ARCHIE
: No, you ain’t, Baby Doll.

BABY DOLL
: And I’m going to get me a job. The manager of the Kotton King Hotel carried my daddy’s coffin, he’ll give me work.

ARCHIE
: What sort of work do you think you could do, Baby Doll?

BABY DOLL
: I could curl hair in a beauty parlor or polish nails in a barbershop, I reckon, or I could be a hostess and smile at customers coming into a place.

ARCHIE
: What place?

BABY DOLL
: Any place! I could be a cashier.

ARCHIE
: You can’t count change.

BABY DOLL
: I could pass out menus or programs or something and say hello to people coming in! [
Rises
.] I’ll phone now.

[
She exits
.]

26] HALL.

Baby Doll crosses to the telephone. She is making herself attractive as if preparing for an interview
.

BABY DOLL
: Kotton King? This is Mrs. Meighan, I want to reserve a room for tomorrow mornin’ and I want to register under my maiden name, which is Baby Doll McCorkle. My daddy was T.C. McCorkle who died last summer when I got married and he is a very close personal friend of the manager of the Kotton King Hotel—you know—what’s his name. . . .

27] EXTERIOR OF HOUSE.

Archie comes out the door and wanders into the yard, passing Aunt Rose, who holds a bunch of roses
.

AUNT ROSE
: Archie Lee, look at these roses! Aren’t they poems of nature?

ARCHIE
: Uh-huh, poems of nature.

[
He goes past her, through the front gate and over to his Chevy
.

[
The front seat on the driver’s side has been removed and a broken-down commodious armchair put in its place
.

[
Sound of the Syndicate Gin, throbbing. Archie Lee reaches under the chair and fishes out a pint bottle. He takes a slug, listens to the Syndicate, takes another. Then he throws the bottle out of the car, turns the ignition key of the car and
. . . .]

28] THE CHEVY ROCKS OUT OF THE YARD. DISSOLVE.

29] THE INTERIOR. BRITE SPOT CAFE.

A habitually crowded place. Tonight it is empty. In the corner a customer or two. Behind the bar, the man in the white apron with nothing to do is sharpening a frog gig on a stone. Enter Archie, goes over to the bar
.

ARCHIE
: Didn’t get to the bank today, Billy, so I’m a little short of change. . . .

[
The Bartender has heard this before. He reaches to a low shelf and takes out an unlabeled bottle and pours Archie a jolt
.]

ARCHIE
: Thanks. Where’s everybody?

BARTENDER
: Over to the Syndicate Gin. Free liquor over there tonight. Why don’t you go over?

[
Then he laughs sardonically
.]

ARCHIE
: What’s the occasion?

BARTENDER
: First anniversary. Why don’t you go over and help them celebrate.

ARCHIE
: I’m not going to my own funeral either.

BARTENDER
: I might as well lock up and go home. All that’s coming in here is such as you.

ARCHIE
: What you got there?

[
The Bartender holds up a frog gig. The ends, where just sharpened, glisten
.]

ARCHIE
: Been getting any frogs lately?

BARTENDER
: Every time I go out. Going tomorrow night and get me a mess. You wanna come? There’s a gang going. You look like you could use some fresh meat.

[
Another rather despondent-looking character comes in
.]

ARCHIE
: Hey, Mac, how you doing?

MAC
: Draggin’, man.

BARTENDER
: Why ain’t you over to the Syndicate like everybody else?

MAC
: What the hell would I do over that place. . . . That place ruined me. . . ruined me. . . .

BARTENDER
: The liquor’s running free over there tonight. And they got fireworks and everything. . . .

MAC
: Fireworks! I’d like to see the whole place up in smoke. [
Confidentially
.] Say, I’m good for a couple, ain’t I?

[
As the Bartender reaches for the same bottle-without-a-label, we
]

DISSOLVE TO:

30] EXTERIOR. SYNDICATE GIN.

A big platform has been built for the celebration and decked out with flags, including the Stars and Bars of Dixie and the Mississippi State Banner
.

A band is playing “Mississippi Millions Love You,” the state song, which is being sung by an emotional spinster. Several public officials are present, not all of them happy to be there as the county has a strongly divided attitude towards the Syndicate-owned plantation. Some old local ward heeler is reeling onto the speaker’s platform and a signal is given to stop the band music. The Old Boy lifts a tin cup, takes a long swallow and remarks
.

THE OLD BOY
: Strongest branch water that ever wet my whistle. Must of come out of Tiger Tail Bayou.

[
There is a great haw-haw
.]

THE OLD BOY
[
continuing
]: Young man? Mr. Vacarro. This is a mighty fine party you’re throwing tonight to celebrate your first anniversary as superintendent of the Syndicate Plantation and Gin. And I want you to know that all of us good neighbors are proud of your achievement, bringin’ in the biggest cotton crop ever picked off the blessed soil of Two River County.

[
The camera has picked up a handsome, cocky young Italian, Silva Vacarro. His affability is not put on, but he has a way of darting glances right and left as he chuckles and drinks beer which indicates a certain watchfulness, a certain reserve
.

[
The camera has also picked up, among the other listeners, some uninvited guests. . . including Archie Lee and his friend from the Brite Spot. Archie Lee is well on the way and, of course, his resentment and bitterness are much more obvious
.]

THE OLD BOY
: Now when you first come here, well, we didn’t know you yet and some of us old-timers were a little standoffish, at first.

[
Vacarro’s face has suddenly gone dark and sober. In his watchfulness he has noticed the hostile guests. With a sharp gesture of his
head, be summons a man who works for him
—
Rock—who comes up and kneels alongside. The following colloquy takes place right through the Old Boy’s lines
.]

SILVA
: There’s a handful of guys over there that don’t look too happy to me. . . .

ROCK
: They got no reason to be. You put ’em out of business when you built your own gin, and started to gin your own cotton.

SILVA
: Watch ’em, keep an eye on ’em, specially if they start to wander around. . . .

THE OLD BOY
[
who has continued
]: Natchully, a thing that is profitable to some is unprofitable to others. We all know that some people in this county have suffered some financial losses due in some measure to the success of the Syndicate Plantation.