Breakfast of Champions Screenplay

INT. DWAYNE'S HOUSE - MASTER BATHROOM- NIGHT

CLOSE ON a revolver in a man's hand. The thumb cocks the gun. The barrel rotates and enters the mouth of Dwayne Hoover.

Dwayne is sitting, fully clothed, on the toilet in his luxurious master bathroom. He holds the muzzle of the gun in his mouth for a long moment. He closes his eyes...

INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Sparky is sitting rigidly, ears cocked, right outside the door. A SHOT echoes explosively in the tiled bathroom. Sparky whines.

INT. MASTER BATHROOM- NIGHT

Dwayne is holding the smoking revolver. On the wall nearby, one of six tiles decorated with hand-painted flamingoes is shattered into pieces. Dwayne levels the gun at the next flamingo tile in line. As if he were in a shooting gallery, he picks off the flamingoes, one after another.

	DWAYNE
	Dumb fucking birds...!

He puts the gun down, picks up the bathroom telephone, and pushes a single button. The phone memory-dials a number. Francine's voice answers:

	FRANCINE'S VOICE
	Hello?

	DWAYNE
	Francine...? This is the corpse of Dwayne Hoover.

Francine laughs.

INT. FRANCINE PEFKO'S APARTMENT- NIGHT CLOSE ON a cuddly bear's face: Its mouth begins to move -- in synch now with Dwayne's words:

	THE BEAR
	(Dwayne's voice)
	What's so funny?

Francine is lying on her bed. She laughs again at Dwayne's lugubrious voice being mouthed by the bear-telephone.

	FRANCINE
	I'm sorry, honey. You're coming through the bear phone. The one Mom gave me? And it just seemed so silly. A bear moving its mouth up and down, saying "This is the corpse of Dwayne Hoover." I'm sorry. You must feel awful.

	THE BEAR
	(Dwayne's voice)
	Yeah. I do. Staying in this house is like living in an open coffin.

Francine laughs again.

	FRANCINE
	This is impossible. I'm going to have to take it in the other room.

INT. DWAYNE'S MASTER BATHROOM- NIGHT

	DWAYNE
	Forget it. Want to go for a ride?

EXT. INTERSTATE HIGHWAY - UNION AVENUE - NIGHT

Dwayne zooms down the Interstate, which he has all to himself. His car radio, tuned to a country music station in West Virginia, is offering him ten different kinds of flowering shrubs and five fruit trees for six dollars, C.O.D.

VOICE--	RADIO VOICE
	And every shrub, every fruit tree, and every vegetable in the Starter Kit has been mentioned in the Holy Scriptures and there's a tag on each one to show you where. No devil food in this deal!

	DWAYNE
	Sounds good to me.

Dwayne swerves into Exit Ten at about sixty miles an hour above the recommended speed limit, slams into a rubberized array of 55-gallon water drums, and spins around and around. He comes out onto Union Avenue going eighty miles an hour backwards.

VOICE--	RADIO VOICE
	Yes, you can grow the Lord's Supper in your own back yard. And to the first five hundred who take advantage of this remarkable offer, we'll include the smallest white-suede-covered Bible in the world. The full power of the Word in a package no bigger than a postage stamp!

	DWAYNE
	Sounds good to me.

Dwayne jumps a curb, roars across a vacant lot, jounces back onto the next street, and spins around once more. He slides sideways on two wheels, almost tipping over, and comes slamming down to a stop precisely in the gap between two parked cars in front of Francine Peflco's small red-brick tract house.

Only about a second passes before the front door opens, and Francine comes out, buttoning her coat. To Francine it looks as if Dwayne has done a particularly expert job of parallel parking.

INT. DWAYNE'S CAR - NIGHT

Dwayne is drhing along Ridge Road, a highway that winds up into the hills above Midland City.

	DWAYNE
	I killed six flamingoes in my bathroom tonight.

Francine stares at him. He shrugs.

	DWAYNE
	It was them or me.

	FRANCINE
	(studying him sympathetically)
	It's Celia's death, isn't it? That's what you're carrying around. That's what's been making you act so--

	DWAYNE
	I sat there on the john with a gun in my mouth and I wasn't thinking about Celia at all. I was thinking about how oily the barrel tasted.

Dwayne is starting to drive faster...

	DWAYNE
	And I thought about the bullets -- neat little metal packages filled with charcoal and potassium nitrate and sulfur.

And faster...

	DWAYNE
	And all I had to do was pull this little lever, and the powder would turn to gas.

And even faster... He's barely staying on the road.

	DWAYNE
	And the gas would blow a chunk of lead down a tube -- straight through my brains.

Francine slides over next to Dwayne, puts her hand on his arm. Throughout this scene, she shows not the slightest trace of fear. She is totally absorbed in Dwayne, truly loves and -- for whatever possibly misplaced reason -- TRUSTS him. (Just as he asks the world to do in his tv ads!)

	FRANCINE
	Honey, killing yourself isn't going to make you feel any better. I thought about killing myself. When they told me Frankie drowned in boot camp. And I don't know why, but I just felt so guilty that I thought I deserved to die. Maybe you're feeling the same way.

Dwayne is still accelerating. The car screams through a turn, just inches from sliding over the side -- down a hillside that grows steeper as they continue to climb.

	DWAYNE
	I don't feel guilty. Maybe I should. But I don't know how. I've always envied people who could. I've seen a thousand tv shows about people who feel guilty for what they've done -- being hunted down by people who feel guilty for chasing them. But I just don't get it.
	(turning to stare intently straight at her)
	I just don't get it.

	FRANCINE
	You have been pretty lucky all your life. Maybe that's why. But there must be something that's making you act this way.

Dwayne is still staring intently at Francine. The convertible is ripping blindly through the night at a hundred and twenty miles an hour now -- straight toward the edge of the cliff.

	DWAYNE
	It just comes and goes, Francine. One moment, I'm Dwayne Hoover -- "Mr.Midland City" -- and the next thing you know--

He turns back, sees the rapidly approaching void...

	DWAYNE
	I'm over the edge!

He slams on the brakes. The car shudders and screeches and comes to a stop one inch from the sheer drop into oblivion!

INT. PORNO MOVIE THEATER - NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT

Trout is sitting in a dingy porno movie house on 42nd. Street in New York. In the nearby rows are a rag-tag assortment of DIRTY OLD MEN and TEEN-AGE BOYS. Spread out on the seats next to Trout are his possessions: his cardboard suitcase, his birdcage, and a recently-acquired collection of pornographic magazines (the collected works of Kilgore Trout). He also has a box of popcorn, and is feeding Bill as he talks. The screen bathes them in its raunchy images; from theater speakers, PANTING and MOANING punctuate Trout's speech.

	TROUT
	How do you like it so far, Bill? You like the plot? A college professor being stripped to his candy-striped underwear by a group of sorority girls -- and then having oral sex with all of them...? I love it! In three days, those walking success stories out in Midland City are going to be asking me about --
	(takes the crumpled letter from his pocket, quotes from it)
	"The Arnerican Novel Beyond Barth and Bellow." And you know what I'm going to say? "Gentlemen, I don't know pigeon shit about Barth and Bellow, but I know what it's like to spend the night with a lot of other dirty old men in a porno theater in New York City. Could we talk about that?"

The MEN around Trout yell for him to "Shut the hell up!"

	TROUT
(turning to the men)
Why? Do you find what's happening on the screen more interesting than what I'm saying? These phantasms of young men and young women sucking harmlessly on one another's soft apertures?

The BURLY MAN in front of Trout swings around.

	BURLY MAN
	Hey, Perfesser! You want somethin' inneresting from a "soft aperture"?

He farts long and loudly. The other men laugh. Bill tries to retreat within his cage.

EXT. STREETS - NIGHT

Trout, carrying his suitcase, his magazines, and his birdcage, wanders out onto the sidewalk of Forty-second Street. It's a dangerous place to be. (The whole city is dangerous -- because of the uneven distribution of wealth and so on.)

In the background, a white Oldsmobile Toronado with a black vinyl roof is burbling along at about three miles an hour, ten feet behind Trout and close to the curb. A PIMP -- visible only as a silhouette in a wide-brimmed hat -- is at the wheel.

Trout suddenly stops. A gleam comes to his eye. He sets down the suitcase, and unfolds his sketch pad.

	TROUT
	(to Bill)
	That dumb fart gave me a good idea for a story. Listen:

He writes across the top of the page: "The Dancing Fool."

	TROUT
	It's about a tragic failure to communicate... A flying saucer creature named Zog arrives on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured.

Trout draws brave young Zog standing beside his flying saucer.

	TROUT
	Zog brings the information from his home planet, Margo, where the natives converse by means of farts and tap dancing.

In illustration, Trout himself does a little tap-step punctuated by a few staccato farts. TWO YOUNG PROSTITUTES -- one white, the other black -- are strolling along the street near the slowly cruising Oldsmobile. They stop and take in Trout's little show.

Trout finishes his sketch with a golfclub embedded in poor Zog's head. He folds the sketch pad and reaches for his suitcase. The two prostitutes step up on either side of him.

Kilgore Trout is lying sprawled on a handball court underneath the Queensboro Bridge. Blood seeps from behind one ear. His clothes are in tatters -- razored open in a search for money. His possessions are scattered around him -- his pornographic magazines, his tuxedo spilling from the now torn-open cardboard suitcase, his birdcage battered and empty.

He is pinned in a pair of flashlight beams. Two NEW YORK COPS stand over him. His eyes open and he looks around, sees the empty birdcage.

In answer, a parakeet calls out from nearby. As Trout slumps back in relief, Bill flutters down and lands on his chest.

Lyle and Kyle Hoover, carrying matched Browning automatic shotguns, are walking past a row of attached cottages -- the "Sacred Miracle Cave Motel." Each of the cottages has a different, evocative name: "Sheik of Araby," "Hawaiian Love-Nest," "Queen of Sheeba," "Polar Ice Palace." Dwayne's yellow Bonneville convertible is parked outside "Tarzan and Jane." Lyle and Kyle stop, look at the car.

The cheapest possible version of fantasy -- like decorations left over from a high school play: a few tufts of bush grass, a mangy stuffed tiger with a broken leg propped up against one wall, a cloth monkey dangling from the ceiling, rattan walls and astro-turf floor. Jungle sounds emanate from a tinny speaker in the corner.

Dwayne and Francine are lying in the mosquito-netted bed. Dwayne's eyes are open, his head is nestled against Francine's breast.

Kyle is standing at the door, his hand poised to tap again, torn by doubt and uncertainty.

We are in a huge, dimly-lit, underground room densely populated with stalactites and stalagmites. A thicket of rustic, wooden signs shaped like hands point toward different attractions: "Ghost of Jesse James," "Moby Dick," the "Sacred Tears of Christ Sacred Grotto." The room we're in is identified as the "Cathedral of Whispers."

Dwayne, Lyle, Kyle and Francine enter the Cathedral of Whispers. Activated by a photoelectric trip-switch, a sappy organ solo suddenly blares out. The MUSIC is coming from a cheap loudspeaker behind a cluster of stalactites and stalagmites which have grown together in one corner of the Cathedral. The cluster isilluminated by electric lights, which change colors in rhythm to the music.

Lyle flips a concealed switch and the lights and music cut off abruptly. The only sound now, is water TRICKLING down from a stone formation that has been very crudely modified with patching plaster to resemble a face of Christ. The water drips from its "eyes" into a pool: the "Sacred Tears of Christ Sacred Grotto."

Lyle sits down on the lip of the pool. It's bottom glitters with coins that tourists have tossed into the clear water.

They walk downstream from the grotto, along a narrow twisting passage. As they turn a corner, they are suddenly face to face with a wall of tennis-ball sized bubbles shouldering one another up the passage. The bubbles have started to engulf a big boulder painted white to resemble Moby Dick the Great White Whale. Moby Dick's long-lashed blue eyes, as big as dinner plates, barely peer out above the rising wall of bubbles.

Dwayne touches the bubbles. They're as hard as plastic. He picks one up, stares at it.

They lift their guns. Francine covers her ears and immediately backs out of the passage as Lyle and Kyle start blasting away! The sounds of the GUNS ROAR in the cavern -- mixed with the sounds of millions of BUBBLES POPPING.

The smoke from the guns conceals the wall of bubbles for a moment, then it clears -- revealing a huge, billowing cloud - of phosphorescent yellow gas. Lyle, Kyle, and Dwayne immediately begin to cough and choke -- and run headlong back out of the cave.

Wayne Hoobler's content and smiling face is reflected in the sparkling, diamond-bright wax job on a Plymouth Estate car. The WARDEN of Shepardstown Insane Asylum appears behind Hoobler, his face gleamingly reflected as well.

The CAMERA PULLS BACK: the warden's car is parked just inside the main gates of the asylum. Hoobler is wearing a freshly-laundered set of coveralls from which the stitching that reads "Shepardstown Insane Asylum" has been removed. The ghost-image of the letters is still plainly readable in the unfaded parts of the cloth. Hoobler packs up his rags and can of Turtle wax, and sighs.

Hoobler sets down the rags and the can, turns, and strides -- happily and expectantly -- out the gates of the asylum.

Kilgore Trout is sitting at a table in a police interrogation room. He is dressed in his only remaining, unslashed clothes: his moldy tuxedo, his ruffled shirt, and a tangerine bow-tie and cummerbund. A Police DETECTIVE is scanning a report form. Bill, back in his dented cage now, is on the table between them -- along with Trout's pile of pornographic magazines.

He looks up at Trout, expecting Trout to add something. Trout simply nods his head.

Trout is carrying Bill's cage and the armful of porno magazines, approaching the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel.

He reaches into Bill's cage, lifts the bottom paper, and pulls out a bird-shit-bespotted ten dollar bill.

Trout stops at the mouth of the tunnel and sticks out his thumb. The expressions on the faces of several MOTORISTS remind us how truly weird Trout looks: an old man in a ratty tuxedo, carrying porno magazines and a birdcage.

A big diesel semi hisses to a stop. Huge lettering across the whole side of the trailer reads: "Leaning Tower Olives." The driver -- DENZEL WHITELAW, 35, with a mustache and sideburns, a Levi jacket, and a Mack Truck Bulldog hat -- leans out of the cab and yells:

He points to a sign in the window of his cab. It shows a voluptuous blond and says: "PUT OUT OR GET OUT!" Trout shows his disappointment. The truck driver laughs.

The truck is passing the petrochemical cracking plants amid the poisoned marshes and meadows of New Jersey.

Dan's Country Kitchen ("Your Kind of Family Place!") is a national franchise outfit. It is totally decorated in SunBurnt Orange and Electric Circus Pink. Its walls are adorned with huge lighted plastic pictures of delectable-looking food that hasn't been served in Dan's since it opened -- art directed plates heaped high with perfect eggs, slabs of just-killed bacon, and mountains of potatoes -- meals called "The Famished Farmer," "Grandma's Come And Get it!" and "Pigs On A Roll."

The CAMERA TILTS DOWN to the food-warmer shelf under the row of spectacular pictures as a COOK's hands (with dirty fingernails) set two plates on the shelf -- each containing shriveled black bacon arranged into little funeral pyres, a tablespoonful of molecularly addled eggs, and a deep-fried brick of a substance that might be potatoes.

The waitress, PATTY KEENE, a pretty teenager, picks up the dreadful-looking plates and brings them to the booth where Dwayne and Francine are sitting. Both are wearing "Support lhe Arts!" badges -- as is Patty (and in fact most of the townspeople). Dwayne's clothes have weird yellow stains now (from the gas in the Miracle Cave). Patty pretends she doesn't notice Dwayne's clothes or the odor that emanates from them. Dwayne looks up at her and grins.

Dwayne is looking at his plate. He begins to re-compose it: stabbing the bacon spears upright in the slab of "home-fries" like a miniature Stonehenge, and topping them with a crosspiece of the egg-stuff. Dwayne's actions are really spooking Patty.

He accompanies this with a broad, chest-beating gesture. A puff of yellow dust comes off his suit.

She runs her finger over the sleeve of his jacket, gets a little of the yellow powder on it, and sniffs at it. Dwayne takes her hand and licks her finger.

Dwayne crosses the street that separates the restaurant from his "Exit Eleven Pontiac Village." As he enters the lot, he looks up at his big plaster head rotating on the pole at the corner. There's a giant pair of Groucho Marx "nose-glasses" attached to it now, and a big arrow (with an obvious loop of wire) supposedly puncturing the head. As Dwayne stares at it, he starts to get dizzy and disoriented.

And when Dwayne looks down at the asphalt prairie which surrounds his Pontiac agency, he discovers that someone has turned the asphalt into a sort of trampoline. It sinks beneath Dwayne's weight. It drops him to well below street level, then slowly brings him only part way up again. Dwayne is in a shallow, rubbery dimple.

Dwayne takes another step in the direction of his automobile agency. He sinks down again, comes up again, and stands in a brand new dimple.

He gawks around for witnesses, but there aren't any. Dwayne progresses from dimple to dimple, blooping across the car lot. He stops in a dimple, looks up at and finds himself face to face with Wayne Hoobler. Hoobler is standing on the edge of the dimple -- not sinking in at all. He is waxing and polishing a maroon Pontiac Firebird. He isn't merely polishing the car -- he is burnishing it. The car is blindingly bright. Hoobler smiles at Dwayne equally blindingly.

Dwayne is sinking deeper into the asphalt. Hoobler doesn't notice Dwayne's distress.

Dwayne is almost submerged now. Only his head is still above the surface of the asphalt.

In desperation, Dwayne reaches up out of the deep rubber dimple toward Hoobler -- like a drowning man grasping for a life preserver.

Their hands lock together. And Dwayne suddenly finds himself standing once again on solid ground. Grinning from ear to ear, Hoobler pumps Dwayne's hand up and down -- the handshake sealing their "deal."

Not trusting himself to cross the rest of the asphalt expanse, Dwayne reaches for the door handle of the maroon Firebird that Hoobler has been waxing.

He opens the door for Dwayne, and Dwayne immediately collapses onto the driver's seat. From Dwayne's point of view, the entire car now begins to slowly sink down into the asphalt. Dwayne grips the wheel. Hoobler leans in the window, surveys his handiwork.

From Hoobler's point of view, Dwayne is slowly sinking into and off the seat. Hoobler leans in, takes a deep whiff of the interior scent, and grins.

From Dwayne's point of view, Hoobler, leaning in, whiffing the air, looks like some kind of monster. Dwayne spots the power window button, reaches up for it, and pushes it with all his might. The window slowly rises while Hoobler speaks...

Kilgore Trout is still in Denzel Whitelaw's "Leaning Tower Olives" truck. He is reading one of his stack of porno magazines: "Beaver Fever." Occasionally he chuckles at what he's reading. Denzel watches him, grinning knowingly.

Up ahead, a huge neon sign shouts: "EAT." Denzel pulls his big diesel rig off the highway toward the cafe.

The place is full of TRUCKERS. Denzel and Trout enter the cafe and sit down at the counter. The huge COUNTER MAN serves them coffee. Denzel studies the menu, then looks at Trout.

Trout flips open his sketch pad and draws six straight lines all intersecting at a common point: a perfect, childlike vision of an asshole. Denzel glances at it, chuckles.

A large crowd of people have gathered now around the maroon Pontiac Firebird -- inside which Dwayne is still slumped on the floor. Francine pushes through them and taps on the window. Dwayne looks up at her for a second, then the window starts to slide down.

The "bad chemicals" in Dwayne's brain have now brought on an attack of incipient echolalia (he repeats out loud whatever has just been said).

Francine helps Dwayne out of the car, escorts him toward his showroom. The ground isn't blooping underneath him anymore, but now he sees something else for which there could be no explanation: His sales manager, Harry LeSabre, is standing in the doorway, holding an eight foot long spear, wearing a lettuce-green leotard, straw sandals, a grass skirt, and a fluorescent Hawaiian shirt, open to reveal the logo on his incandescent pink T-shirt: "Dwayne's Gone Crazy!!" He's also wearing "nose-glasses" and an "arrow through the head."

Dwayne's eyes are pinwheeling now. Harry swings wide the doors to the showroom, proclaiming grandly:

There's a big banner across the showroom that shouts: "Dwayne's Gone Crazy!!" All of Dwayne's STAFF are dressed in uniquely bizarre costumes -- the only things they all wear in common are the "nose glasses," the "arrow-through-the-head," and the "Dwayne's Gone Crazy" tee-shirts.

Standing beside each of the gleaming car models inside the showroom is a full-sized cardboard figure of Dwayne (dressed like his staff) with a voice-balloon coming from its mouth declaring: "I must be CRAZY to sell this car for:______" Each sign has a different hand-written price for each different car.

Dwayne walks unsteadily up to one of the cardboard Dwaynes and stares at it -- nose to nose-glasses.

He puts his hand on a brand new pink Pontiac Firebird to steady himself -- and the metal fender starts to move beneath his hand -- to elongate... He steps back in amazement. Harry sees Dwayne's expression and misunderstands it.

As Dwayne watches, the car continues to change before his eyes: The grille becomes a round, plump tip... The rear end becomes a pair of balls housing tractor-sized wheels... The front wheels retract into the shaft-shaped front-end...

Dwayne slumps into the driver's seat, and he looks out -- down the long, cylindrical front-end -- at the staff and CUSTOMERS in his show-room. Harry reaches past him and starts the engine.

As the engine starts up, the windows crackle with electric discharges -- and the view of the showroom disappears -- replaced by highly-stylized computer-game animation of a race course. The steering wheel is a big joystick. Harry shoves it forward, and the animated display outside the windows starts to race by. The car swerves wildly, and Dwayne desperately grabs the joy-stick with both hands.

In the animated display, all kinds of penis-cars are cruising by outside: a looooooong black one... a Chicano driving a low-rider penis that pumps up and down on the pavement... an R. Crumb businessman driving a compact prick -- a tiny little VW bug of a penis...

Up ahead, straddling the animated highway, a huge figure of an Amazon woman looms closer. She stomps on the VW bug -- and squashes it!

There's a big red "Fire!" button on top of the joy-stick. Dwayne pushes it. A long, clear plastic tube rockets past his head right down the center of Dwayne's car, ending at the tip. Dazzling flashes of light pulse down the tube, shoot out the tip -- and hit the Amazon woman -- blowing her up! -- and racking up a score on the flashing dashboard display.

Dwayne grins wildly, fires at another Amazon woman, and another... But they're coming too fast, now... He misses one shot and a giant Amazon fist engulfs Dwayne's car, appears to lift it off the animated highway -- straight toward her mouth...

Dwayne screams and starts to struggle frantically and we suddenly: MATCH CUT TO:

The Amazon's mouth is replaced by the doors of an ambulance. The driver's seat is a gurney on which Dwayne, struggling frantically in a straight-jacket, is being wheeled inside the ambulance.

The doors slam shut. Framed through the back windows, we can see Francine, Harry, and Hoobler all peering in -- shaken, truly frightened.

An alarm SIREN is shrieking from a small black box sitting on the dashboard. Denzel immediately slows the big rig to a few miles an hour under the speed limit. He grins in satisfaction and flicks off the alarm. Trout is staring at the black box.

He pats the black box fondly, then spots a highway patrol car that's partly hidden by the side of the road. He gives the PATROLMAN a big wave as they cruise by.

Trout is looking out the truck's window. There's a broken guardrail ahead. He gazes into a gully below it, and sees a 1968 Cadillac El Dorado capsized in a brook. There are also several old home appliances in the brook -- stoves, a washing machine, and a couple of refrigerators. An angel-faced white CHILD, with flaxen hair, stands by the brook. She smiles and waves up at Trout. She clasps a thirty-two-ounce bottle of Pepsi-Cola to her breast.

Trout has begun to sketch something that we can't see yet. Bill, meanwhile, squawks more loudly and frequently as the story progresses.

He shows Denzel the sketch: A dozen dangling Hawaiians tethered to their balloons bobbing completely legally above an island sprouting with sugar canes and "No Trespassing" signs.

Dwayne's eyes pop open. He is lying in a hospital bed, still wearing a straightjacket. Cyprian Ukwende, the black doctor, is looking down at him. He is holding a test-tube filled with blood.

He unfastens Dwayne's straight-jacket. Dwayne sits up in bed, rubs the circulation back into his arms.

He holds up the test tube. IN CLOSE UP: We can see that there is a thin layer of clear, liquid plastic floating on top of the blood.

He points to the thin layer of plastic, and hands the tube to Dwayne. Dwayne tips it, but the blood won't run out past the impermeable plastic plug.

The "Pipe Organ of the Gods" is pumping out another sickly-sweet tune. Lyle and Kyle are staring up at the face of "Christ" above the sacred grotto, wagging their heads in disgust. Instead of tears of water, ping-pong sized clear plastic balls are oozing from its eyes and plopping into the pool. There's a long ladder propped up on the edge of the grotto. Lyle is carrying a gallon can. Kyle starts up the ladder.

Lyle hands him the can, and Kyle climbs up to the face of "Christ." He starts daubing black goopy sealer around one of the eyes. It looks kind of like mascara.

Kyle tries to stretch over toward the other eye, but it's a long reach. He overbalances, slips, and goes plunging down into the water. He comes bobbing up, thrashing wildly. His cowboy hat has miraculously still stayed in place.

When Kyle bobs back up to the surface, he is strangely silent -- and thrashing quite a bit less. He sinks a second time. Lyle shakes his head in exasperation, quickly strips off his boots, Western shirt, and pants, revealing boxer shorts with little doggies on them.

Lyle climbs up onto the edge of the pool and dives in. He shudders at the stench of the water, and strokes off toward the spot where Kyle sank.

Suddenly, right in front of him, Kyle bobs back up to the surface. His face is frozen in bug-eyed terror. His entire body is rigid and immobile -- completely laminated in gleaming plastic.

Horrified, Lyle grabs his brother's stiff body. It's so slippery that his hands slide right off. Finally, hooking an arm around Kyle's neck, Lyle starts back toward shore. His powerful stroke slows. He opens his mouth in slow-motion -- as if straining against some force that's keeping it closed. A big plastic bubble fills his mouth...

	LYLE
	Since yesterday morning. And if we don't stop 'em fast, we're gonna be out of business.
	(cocking his gun)
	Come on. Let's waste the little suckers!

	TROUT
	Well, Denzel, I used to be a conservationist. I used to weep and wail about people shooting bald eagles with automatic shot-guns from helicopters and all that, but I gave it up. I laugh about it now. When some tanker accidentally dumps its load in the ocean, and kills millions of birds and billions of fish, I say,
	(raising his arms in celebration)
	"Up your ass with Mobil gas"!

VOICE--	COOK'S VOICE
	(shouting)
	Two Famished Farmers!

	DENZEL
	You want to know how truck drivers make out with women, right?
	(Trout shrugs indifferently)
	You have this idea that every driver you see is fucking up a storm from coast to coast, am I right?

	DENZEL
	Why would anybody in his right mind go to Midland City?
	(Trout shrugs)
	Midland City is the asshole of the Universe.

	TROUT
	Zog lands at night in Connecticut. He no sooner touches down than he sees a brush-fire spreading toward a house. He rushes into the house -- farting and tap dancing -- warning the people about the terrible danger they're in. And the head of the house brains Zog with a golfclub!

	BLACK PROSTITUTE
	Hey, Fred Astaire -- you and tweety-bird looking for some fun?

	WHITE PROSTITUTE
	I know a cheap hotel -- hundred dollars a night!

	BLACK PROSTITUTE
	What's the matter, Grandfather? You too tight to pop for a little party?

	DWAYNE
	(begging her fragrant bosom)
	Tell me what life is all about.

	DWAYNE
	To find out how much a man could take without breaking.

	DWAYNE
	I don't want to hear the kinds of things doctors say. I want to talk to somebody brand new. I've heard everything anybody in Midland City ever said, ever will say. It's got to be somebody new.

	LYLE
	I didn't say kiss it, Pecker-head, I said knock on it!

	KYLE
	Bubbles. The stream under the Miracle Cave is filling up with bubbles.

	LYLE
	These ain't no ordinary bubbles, Dwayne. They're as tough as ping pong balls.

	KYLE
	Them bubbles is halfway up to the Moby Dick. The way they're coming, they'll be up to the Cathedral in a week or two!

	DWAYNE
	(wincing)
	Would you turn off the "Pipe Organ of the Gods"!

	LYLE
	(surveying the Cathedral)
	Brings back memories, don't it? All the people that've been married here?

	KYLE
	(to Dwayne)
	Harry LeSabre and his wife. You and Celia.

	FRANCINE
	I'd never get married here. This place gives me the creeps.

	LYLE
	Everybody to their own taste. It always makes me feel real religious.

	LYLE
	Ya sit down here after the tourists go, and it gets real quiet, with just the Tears of Christ trickling into the Sacred Grotto, and you almost feel like God's talking to you.

	FRANCINE
	Actually, it's kind of cute. Looks like the whale's taking a bubble bath.

	DWAYNE
	Yeah, Kyle. Laid by a plastic hen. How long has this been going on?

	WARDEN
	Wayne, I just want you to know that if things get too tough.. too complicated out there... There's always a home for you here.

	HOOBLER
	Well, Warden, I appreciate that. But I'm gonna do all right on the outside. I got myself a job!

	HOOBLER
	I'm gonna be working for Mr. Dwayne Hoover down at his Exit Eleven Pontiac Village.

	WARDEN
	Oh... Is this something the Social Services Bureau arranged?

	WARDEN
	I don't remember Dwayne visiting the Institution...

	HOOBLER
	On the television! That's his personal way of getting messages through to me.

	WARDEN
	(backing off)
	Okay, Wayne... Well, you just remember what I said.

	DETECTIVE
	The only statement you gave us is that you were "kidnaped by pure evil in a white Oldsmobile."

	DETECTIVE
	Look, buddy, we're gonna need more than that. How many people were in the car? How old were they? What sex? What color were they? Did they have any accents? Any gang markings?

	TROUT
	Officer, for all I know they may not even have been Earthlings!

	TROUT
	For all I know, that car may have been occupied by an intelligent gas from Pluto!