EXT. -- TAN SON NHUT AIRFIELD, SAIGON -- THE END OF THE APPROACH RUNWAY -- NIGHT
Barter and Wilcox are seated in their Jeep, in the high grass just two feet from the end of the tarmac runway. The Jeep points directly down the runway.
Wilcox takes a pull on a quart bottle of Jack Daniels, then passes it to Barter who takes it, unsure. Wilcox pulls a pack of Carltons out of his pocket, pops one of the apparent cigarettes between his teeth, and lights up.
Barter smells the air suddenly.
BARTER Marijuana. I smell ...
WILCOX
(interrupting)
... you smell killer Vietnamese weed, my man.
Wilcox pulls the production cigarette/joint out of his mouth, and shows it off.
WILCOX (cont.) Pre-rolled, convenient, and a full pack of twenty, for those really long nights. You want one?
Barter waves him off and takes a long hit on the Jack Daniels, then looks nervously behind himself.
WILCOX (cont.) Your first dead guy?
BARTER Uh ...
WILCOX C'mon. They're either dead or married when they look like that.
BARTER Saw a lot of them on the news about this place.
WILCOX Shit. You really are some kind of a virgin, ain't you?
(pause) Okay, this is how it is. This is my second tour here. First time, I spent this vacation as a grunt humpin' a ruck in the bush.
BARTER Huh?
WILCOX Ah, how do I explain this?
(pause) I was infantry ... grunt ... soldier on my first tour of duty. I was in the jungle ... everything I owned was in a rucksack on my back. You bic?
BARTER Bic?
WILCOX Bic. Bic! Vietnamese I think! You understand?
BARTER
Understand what?
WILCOX (completely unraveled) No! You bic! means ... do you understand? Christ, what kind of bad drugs are they selling you children back in The World?
(pause, then calm) The point is ... my first time here, I saw a lot of dead guys. Some friends. I stopped makin' friends when I saw how easily they die. So don't go gettin' upset if I don't want to go pal around with you later on. Thing is ... people really die in this motherfucker.
BARTER How'd you deal with it, the first time?
WILCOX Put a fresh clip in my sixteen and blew it all off into some bushes. Didn't kill anything. But I felt a little better.
(pause) 'Course you ain't got any V.C. to go shootin' at, so you go 'an pop Willie in the mouth. At least you swung out at something. Shows good instincts.
BARTER Why'd you come back? You were done with this. Why come back?
WILCOX (musing) After you're done with a year over here, and some asshole sergeant in The World comes along and tells you to spit-shine your boots ...
(pause) ... nothin' was really important. But people thought they had to go an' make it important. I couldn't take it after this.
(pause) I wonder how I'm ever going to get used to bein' back home when my time comes.
Wilcox flips the joint away and takes the bottle from Barter. After a long pull at it, he looks straight ahead at the runway.
WILCOX (cont.) Got myself made into an MP this time. Get to take a shower when I want, an' it's close enough to bein' infantry so I don't feel like I'm wimpin' out.
(pause) An' no one watches you when you're an MP. In the bush, you got officers givin' you orders, sergeants telling you how to follow 'em, an' a bunch of grunts tryin' to act like some goddamned unit or somethin'.
(pause) Here, you got no one watchin' you, Barter. An' almost as much fun ... no one to back you up. Just two guys in a Jeep playin' Cowboys an' Indians. I like to figure we're the Indians. Makes me feel better about what we're doin' here.
Barter looks down the neck of the bottle he's just taken from Wilcox.
BARTER
(embarrassed)
I enlisted.
WILCOX No shit? Me too. Hey, when you were born, did the doctor squeeze your head too hard with the forceps, too?
BARTER Nah ... ah ... I had friends comin' back, Wilcox. Shot up bad. Other friends in the streets, protesting. I go visit a friend in the VA hospital. Jerry. Jerry's right arm and leg are in a cast. He tells me he should'a been killed. He's casual about it. Like ... so what if you die? Man, that's not Jerry.
(pause) Then he asks me ... what you been doin', Barter? How's college? So I'm supposed to tell him I've been in the streets with the protestors? I'm supposed to tell him I'm doing something important studying The History of Western Civilization in college?
WILCOX Sounds good to me.
BARTER I was embarrassed.
WILCOX Stupid. But I understand.
BARTER So I had to figure it out. Come over here, see it for myself. Earn my right to walk the streets holding some goddamned protest candle if I wanted to. I'm here to find some answers, Wilcox.
(pause) I didn't come here to fight a war. Just to understand it.
WILCOX Sorry, son. You can't have one without the other.
BARTER (impassioned) Then I want it all, Wilcox. Want to do everything. Feel everything.
Wilcox suddenly perks up and swings around in his seat, looking behind himself. A wild grin comes to his face.
WILCOX You've done a noble thing there, Barter. Fucked up, but noble, nevertheless. If you're serious about doing this all-out, first thing you gotta do is put your feelings on hold. You can't afford to be cryin' when you oughta be killin'.
The SOUND OF WAR JETS comes up and closes in on Wilcox and Barter.
WILCOX (cont.) (thrilled) We're gonna have some Phantoms flying over our heads real soon now ... comin' in for a landing.
BARTER (very anxious) Oh, God.
Barter tries to turn around and look behind, but Wilcox grabs him and throws him forward into the windshield.
WILCOX (intense) I've learned three things in this motherfucker, Barter, an' I'm gonna pass 'em along to you, 'cause for some reason, I got a feelin' we're gonna be partners before this thing is done with the two of us. Both of us enlisted ... can you believe that shit?
(pause) First lesson. Keep lookin' forward 'cause the danger is always ahead of you ... because of lesson number two.
(pause) Lesson number two. Never look behind you. That's over and done with and you shoulda' already killed any enemy behind you anyways. People argue with me on this one, but ... well, one of these nights, one of those jets is gonna come in all crippled up like and drop right on this spot we're sittin' on. If we're here, it ain't gonna make any difference if we watch it crush us. So, never look back.
The SOUND OF THE APPROACHING JETS nears almost thunderous levels. Barter takes a long and desperate pull on the whiskey, staring straight ahead, away from the jets behind him.
WILCOX (cont.) Third lesson ... never think about anything, or feel anything. None of this makes any sense. Never did. Never will.
An F-4 Phantom fighter jet drops out of the sky just fifteen feet above the Jeep and skids onto the runway. The back-blast and flame scour the front of the Jeep as Wilcox slams himself and Barter down behind the Jeep's firewall.
They rise up and look at the fire of the exhaust of the plane as it continues down the runway.
WILCOX (hugely happy) I'm waitin' for the day the flame melts the windshield wipers.
BARTER (screaming) I can't live by Rule Three, Wilcox. Thinking about things! Feeling them! That's why I came here!
Another F-4 slams the runway in front of them and Wilcox begins giggling as both he and Barter dive behind the firewall. Barter begins giggling too, and hands the whiskey over to Wilcox. They both sit up and stare straight ahead.
Barter suddenly grabs the bottle back and climbs to stand up on his seat. He takes a hit off the bottle.
BARTER (laughing) Never look behind you!
Another jet flies higher over them, and drops onto the runway. The turbulence tosses Barter to the grass alongside the Jeep.
Wilcox runs over to drop next to Barter. He grabs him by the shirt, shaking him.
WILCOX You alright!?
BARTER (screaming)
I got it! I got part of it!
(Barter sobers up) I understand, Wilcox. Don't look back. It takes the fun out of death coming up to rip the backside of your head off.
WILCOX (smiling) You're crazy. Good, now, I think you're ready to come back to work.
EXT. SAIGON -- NGUYEN HUE STREET -- AN HOUR LATER -- NIGHT
This street is a prime player in the lives of almost every G.I. who ever worked in, or visited Saigon. It's a main road leading to downtown, just a short kick to the right after passing the final checkpoint, Checkpoint Charlie Far East, leading from the MACV complex, into the city proper.
It's a street lined with two-and three-story buildings; the first floors devoted to the bars, hookers, and small hole-in-the-wall family businesses. The second and third floors take the G.I.s and hookers, and give them a place to do business above it all. It's a hot, dirty, ugly disgrace to humanity and it holds a world of glorious dreams for a lot of people.
During the day, the madness, the wild movement and the frantic business affairs and traffic suck the breath from any human and drop him to his knees the first time he sees it. And then the street riffles the pockets of the unconscious for change.
But after curfew at 10:00 p.m., the carnival closes. Everything goes dark. Streets empty of people. You can be shot for being out on the street then. Someone's going to have to explain your killing, but no one's going to worry too much about the words theyuse.
A Jeep heads down the deserted street. It's Barter and Wilcox, cruising, playing cowboys scouting the range.
BARTER What are we looking for?
WILCOX Bad guys.
BARTER What do they look like?
WILCOX Like you and me. And some're Vietnamese.
BARTER C'mon. Don't gimme that shit. That could be ...
WILCOX ... anyone? Yeah. There it is, Barter. You got your U.S. of A. A.W.O.L.s and your deserters ... deserters'll kill you by the way. Sometimes we scare up a spook. They hate it when we do that.
BARTER Spooks?
WILCOX C.I.A. Man, you'd think they were flies on a corpse, there's so many of them here. We had one down in the Delta, where I pulled my first tour. Got himself killed.
BARTER How?
WILCOX Guy kept asking someone questions about things. Someone was trying to get some sleep. Everyone understood the killin'. Sleep's a precious thing in the Delta.
BARTER The C.I.A. guy got killed 'cause he kept someone from sleeping?
WILCOX Xin loi. That's the way it goes. Sorry 'bout that. Too fuckin' bad.
BARTER Xin loi ...?
WILCOX Gonna get myself some sleep now. You keep an eye out on the road for trip wires.
BARTER Trip wires? I thought they only had booby traps in the jungle.
WILCOX They string 'em across the road here. Connect the wires to grenades they stick in cans. We run into a wire, it gets caught up underneath, the grenades pull loose from the cans and we go down the road draggin' two frags after us. Gives you a kind of a strange feeling, if you know what I mean.
(pause)
Nowhere to run. That's a bitch.
MOTORCYCLE LIGHTS appear in the b.g.
Barter stops the Jeep and grabs his M-16. Wilcox looks behind himself casually, then resettles himself in the seat.
WILCOX Barter, I'm going to tell you this only one time. Never, never stop the Jeep when you think there's trouble comin' down. You slam your foot onto that accelerator and get our asses out of wherever we are.
(pause) Too much for you to remember?
The motorcycles come closer. Barter kneels by the Jeep. He loads a round and levels the rifle at the cycles. Wilcox looks at Barter, bored.
WILCOX You shoot anyone tonight, I'm going to kick your ass. You got that? They'd make me do paperwork, and man ...
Barter grows frantic as the cycles roar closer.
BARTER (panicked) Christ, Wilcox. No one's supposed to be out on the street! It's past fuckin' curfew! It's a horde of V.C.!
WILCOX (amused)
A horde of V.C. on motorcycles? A fucking horde? You know, it's going to be fun working with you, Barter.
Wilcox reaches over and lifts the rifle out of Barter's hands. He crawls out of the Jeep on Barter's side and, weapon cradled in his right arm, his finger on the trigger, he waves at the motorcycles as they pull up alongside him.
There are seven motorcycles, all loaded the same way, with an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldier driving and a hooker on the back. One rider, NGUYEN, grins at Wilcox. He motions with his hand at the woman behind him.
Wilcox levels the rifle at Nguyen.
NGUYEN Wilcox, you want some tonight?
WILCOX Not tonight, asshole.
NGUYEN Why you always call me asshole?
WILCOX 'Cause I can't remember your name.
Barter casually tosses the rifle over to Wilcox without taking his eyes off Nguyen.
NGUYEN Name is ... Nguyen. Same like everyone in Saigon.
WILCOX Ain't that the truth, asshole. You di-di, now.
(pause) Barter here's a new guy. Be a shame if he had to shoot someone his first night out.
(pause, to Barter) Show them your nerves of steel, Barter. Kill someone.
Barter is very nervous, and slightly confused.
BARTER You told me not to kill anyone.
WILCOX I changed my mind.
Nguyen's woman lifts her top, flashing Barter, and smiling a killer smile at him.
BARTER (impressed) I'm not killin' the woman, Wilcox.
NGUYEN Someday, Wilcox. Someday you will buy my woman.
WILCOX The day I want the clap, Nguyen, I'll come running to you.
NGUYEN If you want the clap, it would be better if you came running to the woman, Wilcox.
Nguyen fires up the motorcycle and motions foward to the group behind him. They roar off, the woman on the back of Nguyen's bike lifting a little and mooning Wilcox and Barter.
BARTER (seriously impressed) Yeah, I'm letting that woman live, Wilcox.
Wilcox snatches the rifle from Barter, leans down, and sprays a street-level magazine's worth of lead at the motorcyclists. One cycle catches a round in the rear tire and slides sideways. The riders immediately leave the downed bike and run for the other bikes, where they treble up and roar off.
WILCOX Damn. It would appear that I dropped your rifle, Barter. But don't worry, I'll take full responsibility if it got scratched.
(pause) So you liked the woman, huh? She's Nguyen's wife. And she'll do you anywhere ... up against a wall in an alley, on the bike. Meanwhile, her husband is going through your pants while you're not looking. Run a knife into you if you have problems with him robbin' you.
BARTER She's Nguyen's wife?
WILCOX The perfect working couple.
BARTER Never saw anything like that in Colorado.
WILCOX Yeah, well, I've heard you guys are a little backward.