From the movie No Country For Old Men. Well worth the effort to transcribe. Some of the best writing and acting I’ve ever seen that encapsulates the #americant nightmare that is Disney and/or sparkles blowing out of a unicorn’s a$$ or somewhere there’s a rational person trying to figure out how your country got so fcuked even before fascism started showing its greedy, mighty, blood soaked, shot in the neck, head. (Shot in the neck because I just had a flash thought of the movie Taxi Driver.) It’s all cause you been putting up your whole life, you just don’t know it. Yea, baby.
Btw, a kinda follow-up/continue post from this post is here.
Putting Up Or The Gas Station Scene from the movie “No Country For Old Men”.
Scene
Anton Chigurh has stopped at a dusty gas station in the late afternoon or early evening.
Chigurh is in the gas station.
Chigurh stands at the counter across from the Owner. He holds up a bag of nuts.
Chigurh: How much?
Owner: Sixty-nine cent.
Chigurh: This. And the gas.
Owner: Y’all getting any rain up your way?
Chigurh: What way would that be?
Owner: I seen you was from Dallas.
Opening a bag of nuts; Chigurh pours some into his hand.
Chigurh: What business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?
Owner: I didn’t mean nothin by it.
Chigurh: Didn’t mean nothin.
Owner: I was just passin the time.
Chigurh: I guess that passes for manners in your cracker view of things.
Owner: Well sir I apologize. If you don’t wanna accept that I don’t know what else I can do for you.
The owner works the register and puts change on the counter.
Owner: Will there be somethin else?
Chigurh: I don’t know. Will there?
Owner: Is somethin wrong?
Chigurh: With what?
Owner: With anything?
Chigurh: Is that what you’re asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?
The old man is becoming more and more uncomfortable.
Owner: Will there be anything else?
Chigurh: You already asked me that.
Owner: Well… I need to see about closin.
Chigurh: See about closing.
Owner: Yessir.
Chigurh: What time do you close?
Owner: Now. We close now.
Chigurh: Now is not a time. What time do you close?
Owner: Generally around dark. At dark.
Chigurh: You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?
Owner: Sir?
Chigurh: I said you don’t know what you’re talking about. What time do you go to bed?
Owner: Sir?
Chigurh: You’re a bit deaf, aren’t you? I said what time do you go to bed.
Owner: Well… I’d say around nine-thirty. Somewhere around nine-thirty.
Chigurh: I could come back then.
Owner: Why would you be comin back? We’ll be closed.
Chigurh: You said that.
Owner: Well… I need to close now.
Chigurh: You live in that house behind the store?
Owner: Yes I do.
Chigurh: You’ve lived here all your life?
Owner: This was my wife’s father’s place. Originally.
Chigurh: You married into it.
Owner: We lived in Temple Texas for many years. Raised a family there. In Temple. We come out here about four years ago.
Chigurh: You married into it.
Owner: If that’s the way you wanna put it.
Chigurh: I don’t have some way to put it. That’s the way it is.
Pause
Chigurh: What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?
Owner: Sir?
Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Owner: I don’t know. I couldn’t say.
Chigurh digs a quarter out of his pocket; he tosses it. He catches it and slaps the coin onto his forearm but keeps it covered.
Chigurh: Call it.
Owner: Call it?
Chigurh: Yes.
Owner: For what?
Chigurh: Just call it.
Owner: Well… we need to know what it is we’re callin for here.
Chigurh: You need to call it. I can’t call it for you. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t even be right.
Owner: I didn’t put nothin up.
Chigurh: Yes you did. You been putting it up your whole life. You just didn’t know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Owner: No.
Chigurh: Nineteen fifty-eight. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails, and you have to say. Call it.
Pause
Owner: Look… I got to know what I stand to win.
Chigurh: Everything.
Owner: How’s that?
Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Owner: All right. Heads then.
Chigurh checks the coin.
Chigurh: Well done.
He pushes the coin across the counter.
Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket.
Owner: Sir?
Chigurh: Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.
Owner: Where you want me to put it?
Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it’ll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
-end-
Rant on.
-T
worstwriter 