Cita:
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: 1982:
A windy day, dust swirls.
ENNIS is dialing a telephone.
SPLIT SCREEN: ENNIS STANDS OUTSIDE, RIVERTON, WYOMING, COVERS ONE EAR/LUREEN TWIST'S SPOTLESS, TACKY NOUVEAU RICHE LIVING ROOM IN CHILDRESS, TEXAS: 1982
LUREEN, almost forty now, hair stiffly styles and even bigger, bleached-blonde hair, make-up even thicker, business-like, cold, direct, answers the telephone.
LUREEN
Hello?
ENNIS
Uh, hello, this is Ennis Del Mar, I, uh...
LUREEN
Who? Who is this?
ENNIS
Ennis del Mar. I'm an old buddy of Jack's, I...
LUREEN
(interrupts, speaks quickly, allows no interruptions)
Jack used to mention you. You're the fishing buddy or the hunting buddy, I know that. Would have let you know, but wasn't sure about your name or address. Jack kept his friends' addresses in his head.
ENNIS
Why I was callin', to see what happened...
LUREEN
(level voice)
Oh yeah, Jack was pumping up a flat on the truck out on a back road when the tire blew up. The rim of the tire slammed into his face and broke his nose and jaw, knocked him unconscious on his back. By the time somebody came along, he had drowned in his own blood. Terrible thing. He was only thirty-nine years old.
EXT. RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
WE'VE left LUREEN, and the screen holds only on ENNIS.
ENNIS can't answer right away. He wonders, suddenly, if it was the tire iron:
SHARP CUT TO
ENNIS'S POV: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: DUSK: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
A FLASH--JUST A SECOND OR TWO--ENNIS and WE EE, in the evening shadows, a MAN being beaten unmercifully by THREE ASSAILANTS, one of whom uses a tire iron.
SHARP CUT BACK TO
EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: PAY TELEPHONE: DAY: CONTINUOUS: 1982:
The huge sadness of the northern plains rolls down upon ENNIS. He doesn't know which way it was, the tire iron--or a real acciden, blood choking down JACK'S throat and nobody to turn him over.
The wind drones.
LUREEN
(not sure he's still there)
...Hello?
ENNIS
He buried down there?
LUREEN
We put a stone up. He was cremated, like he wanted, and half his ashes was interred here. The rest I sent up with his folks. He use to say he wanted his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but I wasn't sure where that was. I thought Brokeback Mountain might be around where he grew up. But knowing Jack, it might be some pretend place where bluebirds sing and there's a whiskey spring.
ENNIS can hardly speak.
ENNIS
...No ma'am, we herded sheep up on Brokeback one summer...
LUREEN
Well, he said it was his favorite place. I thought he meant to get drunk. He drank a lot.
ENNIS
His folks still up on Lightnin' Flat?
LUREEN
They'll be there till the day they die.
ENNIS
Thanks for your time, then...I am sure sorry...we was good friends...
LUREEN
Get in touch with his folks. I suppose they'd appreciate it if his wishes was carried out. About the ashes, I mean.
Although she is polite, her little voice is as cold as ice.
ENNIS hangs up.
LOOKS like death.