Crash

JAMES: I think he'll be waiting for us at the airport

CATHERINE: James.

JAMES: The traffic... where is everyone? They've all gone away.

CATHERINE: I'd like to go back. James...

JAMES: Not yet. It's only beginning.

CATHERINE: I wasn't driving. I'd left the car in the parking lot at the airport. Could it have been deliberate?

JAMES: One of your suitors?

CATHERINE: One of my suitors.

JAMES: I thought that was you, up there.

CATHERINE: My last lesson's next week. James... my car...

CATHERINE: You'd better drive him. He's a bit shaky. I'll follow in my car. Where is yours?

JAMES: At home. I couldn't face all this traffic.

CATHERINE: I'd better come with you, then. Are you sure you can drive?

CATHERINE: They're questioning Vaughan about an accident near the airport. Some pedestrian... they think he was run over intentionally.

JAMES: Vaughan isn't interested in pedestrians.

CATHERINE: He must have tucked a lot of women in that huge car of his. It's like a bed on wheels. It must smell of semen...

JAMES: It does.

CATHERINE: Do you find him attractive?

JAMES: He's very pale. Covered with scars.

CATHERINE: Would you like to tuck him, though? In that car?

JAMES: No. But when he's in that car...

CATHERINE: Have you seen his penis?

JAMES: I think it's badly scarred too. From a motorcycle accident.

CATHERINE: Is he circumcised? Can you imagine what his anus is like? Describe it to me. Would you like to sodomize him? Would you like to put your penis right into his anus, thrust it up his anus? Tell me, describe it to me. Tell me what you would do. How would you kiss him in that car? Describe how you'd reach over and unzip his greasy jeans, then take out his penis. Would you kiss it or suck it right away? Which hand would you hold it in? Have you ever sucked a penis? Do you know what semen tastes like? Have you ever tasted semen? Some semen is saltier than others. Vaughan's semen must be very salty...

CATHERINE: Renata tells me you're going to rent a car.

JAMES: I can't sit on this balcony forever. I'm beginning to feel like a potted plant.

CATHERINE: How can you drive? James... your legs. You can Barely walk.

JAMES: Is the traffic heavier now? There seem to be three times as many cars as there were before the accident.

CATHERINE: I've never really noticed. Is Renata going with you?

JAMES: I thought she might come along. Handling a car again might be more tiring than I imagine.

CATHERINE: I'm amazed that she'll let you drive her.

JAMES: You're not envious?

CATHERINE: Maybe I am a little. James, I've got to leave for the office. Are you going to be all right?

CATHERINE: Minute flecks were spattered across the seat and steering wheel. The instrument panel was buckled inwards, cracking the clock and the speedometer dials. The cabin was deformed, and there was dust and glass and plastic flakes everywhere inside. The carpeting was damp and stank of blood and other body and machine fluids.

JAMES: You should have gone to the funeral.

CATHERINE: I wish I had. They bury the dead so quickly - they should leave them lying around for months.

JAMES: What about his wife? The woman doctor? Have you visited her yet?

CATHERINE: No, I couldn't. I feel too close to her.

JAMES: Where's the car?

CATHERINE: Outside in the visitors, car park.

JAMES: What!? They brought the car here?

CATHERINE: My car, not yours. Yours is a complete wreck. The police dragged it to the pound behind the station.

JAMES: Have you seen it?

CATHERINE: The sergeant asked me to identify it. He didn't believe you'd gotten out alive.

JAMES: It's about time.

CATHERINE: It is?

JAMES: After being bombarded endlessly by road- safety propaganda, it's almost a relief to have found myself in-an actual accident.

CATHERINE: The other man, the dead man, his wife is a doctor - Dr. Helen Remington. She's here, somewhere. As a patient, of course. Maybe you'll find her in the hallways tomorrow on your walk.

JAMES: And her husband? What was he?

CATHERINE: He was a chemical engineer with a food company.

JAMES: That's going well, then.

CATHERINE: Well, yes. You're getting out of bed tomorrow. They want you to walk.

JAMES: Is that a gift from Wendel? It has an aeronautical feel to it.

CATHERINE: Yes. From Wendel. To celebrate, the license approval for our air-charter firm. I forgot to tell you.

CATHERINE: Not a lot of action here.

JAMES: They consider this to be the airport hospital. This ward is reserved for air- crash victims. The beds are kept waiting.

CATHERINE: If I groundloop during my flying lesson on Saturday you might wake up and find me next to you.

JAMES: I'll listen for you buzzing over.

CATHERINE: There, that's better.

JAMES: Thank you.

CATHERINE: Poor darling. What can I do about Karen? How can I arrange to have her seduce me? She desperately needs a conquest.

JAMES: I've been thinking about that, about you and Karen.

JAMES: Where were you?

CATHERINE: In the private aircraft hangar. Anybody could have walked in.

JAMES: Did you come?

CATHERINE: No. What about your camera girl? Did she come?

JAMES: We were interrupted. I had to go back to the set...

JAMES: Please finish your story.

HELEN: The junior pathologist at Ashford Hospital. Then the husband of a colleague of mine, then a trainee radiologist, then the service manager at my garage.

JAMES: And you had sex with all of these men in cars? Only in cars?

HELEN: Yes. I didn't plan it that way.

JAMES: And did you fantasize that Vaughan was photographing all these sex acts? As though they were traffic accidents?

HELEN: Yes. They felt like traffic accidents.

JAMES: Is this part of the act or are they really hurt?

HELEN: I don't know. You can never be sure with Vaughan. This is his show.

JAMES: Who is that? The announcer. Do I know him?

HELEN: That's Vaughan. He talked to you at the hospital.

JAMES: Oh yes. I thought he was a medical photographer, doing some sort of accident research. He wanted every conceivable detail about our crash.

HELEN: When I first met Vaughan, he was a specialist in international computerized traffic systems. I don't know what he is now.

HELEN: I've found that I enjoy burying myself in heavy traffic. I like to look at it. Yesterday I hired a taxi driver to drive me around for an hour. "Anywhere", I said.

HELEN: We sat in B massive traffic jam under an off-ramp. I don't think we moved more than fifty yards. I'm thinking of taking up a new job with the Road Research Laboratory. They need a medical officer. The salary is larger something I've got to think about now. There's a certain moral virtue in being materialistic, I'm beginning to feel. Well, it's a new approach for me, in any case.

JAMES: The Road Research Laboratory? Where they simulate car crashes?

HELEN: Yes.

JAMES: Isn't that rather too close...?

HELEN: That's the point. Besides, I know I can give something now that I wasn't remotely aware of before. It's not a matter of duty so much as of commitment.

HELEN: Do you want a cigarette? I started to smoke at the hospital. It's rather stupid of me.

JAMES: Look at all this traffic. I'm not sure I can deal with it.

HELEN: It's much worse now. You noticed that, did you? The day I left the hospital I had the extraordinary feeling that all these cars were gathering for some special reason I didn't understand. There seemed to be ten times as much traffic.

JAMES: Are we imagining it?

JAMES: The airport? Why? Are you leaving?

HELEN: Not yet - though not soon enough for some people, I've already found. A death in the doctor's family makes the patients doubly uneasy.

JAMES: I take it you're not wearing white to reassure them.

HELEN: I'll wear a bloody kimono if I want to.

JAMES: So - why the airport?

HELEN: I work in the immigration department there.

JAMES: You haven't told me where we're going.

HELEN: Haven't I? To the airport, if you could.

JAMES: I don't think we should have come here. I'm surprised the police don't make it more difficult.

HELEN: Were you badly hurt? I think we saw each other at the hospital. I don't want the car. In fact, I was appalled to find that I have to pay a small fee to have it scrapped.

JAMES: Can I give you a lift? I somehow find myself driving again.

HELEN: After this sort of thing, how do people manage to look at a car, let alone drive one? I'm trying to find Charles's car.

JAMES: It's not here. Maybe the police are still holding it. Their forensic people...

HELEN: They said it was here. They told me this morning.

RENATA: What does he want from you?

JAMES: Hard to say.

RENATA: I'm going to leave now. Do you want a lift?

JAMES: No, thanks. I'll go with Vaughan.

JAMES: What is it?

RENATA: A complimentary ticket for a special stunt-driving exhibition. Definitely not part of the big auto show. There's a map in the packet and a note requesting you be discrete about the location.

JAMES: Really? What kind of exhibition is it?

RENATA: I suspect it involves reenactments of famous car crashes. You know, Jayne Mansfield, James Dean, Albert Camus...

JAMES: You're kidding.

RENATA: Serious. But you'll have to take your new friend, the female crash-test dummy. She dropped it off for you.

JAMES: You're not jealous, are you? You have to understand... Helen and I had this strange, intense... experience together.

RENATA: Can you drive?

JAMES: I can drive.

JAMES: There's still a patch of blood there on the road. Did you see it?

RENATA: I saw the blood. It looks like motor oil.

JAMES: You were the last one I saw just before the accident. Do you remember? We made love.

RENATA: Are you still involving me in your crash?

RENATA: Are we allowed to park here?

JAMES: No.

RENATA: I'm sure the police would make an exception in your case.

VAUGHAN: I need to see you, Ballard. I need to talk to you about the project.

JAMES: Where are you?

JAMES: He must have driven through a pool of blood. If the police stop you again, they may impound the car while they have the blood analyzed. Vaughan kneels beside him and inspects the smears of blood.

VAUGHAN: You're right, Ballard. There's an all- night car-wash in the airport service area.

JAMES: It's very... satisfying. I'm not sure I understand why.

VAUGHAN: It's the future, Ballard, and you're already part of it. For the first time, a benevolent psychopathology beckons towards us. For example, the car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event - a liberation of sexual energy that mediates the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity impossible in any other form. To fully understand that, and to live that... that is my project.

JAMES: What about the reshaping of the human body by modern technology? I thought that was your project.

VAUGHAN: A crude sci-fi concept that floats on the surface and doesn't threaten anybody. I use it to test the resilience of my potential partners in psychopathology.

VAUGHAN: I've always wanted to drive a crashed car.

JAMES: You could get your wish at any moment.

VAUGHAN: No, I mean a crash with a history. Camus' Facel Vega, or Nathaniel Nest's station wagon, Grace Kelly's Rover 3500. Fix it just enough to get it rolling. Don't clean it, don't touch anything else.

JAMES: Is that why you drive this car? I take it that you see Kennedy's assassination as a special kind of car-crash?

VAUGHAN: The case could be made.

JAMES: What exactly is your project, Vaughan? ~ book of crashes? A medical study? A sensational documentary? Global traffic?

VAUGHAN: It's something we're all intimately involved in: The reshaping of the human body by modern technology.

JAMES: Do you live here? With Seagrave?

VAUGHAN: I live in my car. This is my workshop.

JAMES: Why are the police taking this all so seriously?

VAUGHAN: It's not the police. It's the Department of Transport. Internal politics. It's a joke. They have no idea who we really are

VAUGHAN: Crash victim?

JAMES: Yes.