Romancing the Ruins, a Film Treatment
Page 4
has sovereignty.
Personifying the devastation to be ravaged upon the Four Corners, Clarence guffaws that the “damn Injuns” are in the way again, but he tells Dillon not to worry for The Windjammer has the right of eminent domain, so nothing can stop it on its straight link to Los Angeles.
Curious, Dillon asks where the new Four Corners city will be located. In confidence Clarence tells him it is to be built on the 50,000-acre ranch owned by Henry DeCamp. He brags that DeCamp has asked him to survey the new city and that he’ll be working closely with Congressman Roybal, who is coloring in the overall city plan.
Peering again through his binoculars, Clarence is surprised to see a woman climbing down the cliffside. He watches with fascination and comments lecherously to Dillon about her anatomy.
Scene Nineteen:
While the one-hundred-fifty year old log building known as the Cross Cultural Trading Post has been expanded to include a cantina, it continues to greet visitors as the historic relic it once was in a time long ago when it served fur traders, mountain men and Indians. Today the trading post attracts collectors of Indian art, tourists and archaeologists.
Inside, Anna and her group of eight seminarists, some of whom we met at the Washington reception, gather for breakfast in the cantina’s nonsmoking section before setting off on their trek to the ILMA dig site: George (bolo tie in the design of an oil well) and Martha from Houston; Greta, a school teacher; Margaret, a banker; Alex Parish; Daisy in short shorts (right out of Dogpatch); Paul, an economist from Wall Street; and Dusty Rhodes.
Clarence and Dillon are eating breakfast in the smoking section.
“Tony—Your Llama Man” pulls his trailer loaded with llamas into the parking lot, tires bubbling in the gravel. Dressed in black hat, jeans, flannel shirt with a red bandana, he bursts through the carved wooden door of the trading post, shouting, “Who’s got the dog in here. My llamas won’t unload until the dog’s gone.”
Clarence, tipping his hat to Anna, leaves with Dillon and Willie in tow.
Before Anna and her seminarists go outside to load their belongings onto the pack animals, Dusty’s cell phone rings. Granddaughter Emily is calling him from Washington to make certain her going-away gift to her grandfather is working. Not accustomed to cell phones and embarrassed by the ring, Dusty answers sheepishly and then, in a patronizing voice, tells Emily he will unearth a Toltec wheel for her.
Outside, amidst the llamas, everyone joshes with each other until Anna takes the reigns of the lead animal, Paco, and steps out resolutely down the trail.
Scene Twenty:
Back East, in the magnificently restored train station-turned-hotel in Scranton, Pennsylvania, we see a fumbling Worthington pacing the lobby, oblivious to the decorative displays of miniature 19th and early 20th century trains, trying to prepare for his first public appearance of his cross-country tour promoting The Windjammer. He is unable to concentrate because his thoughts are on Anna. Suddenly he realizes he has forgotten his visual aid equipment, and he must phone his assistant Charlene in Washington to drop everything and come to his rescue. But he can’t focus on making the telephone call and must re-dial several times.
Later, interrupting the evening’s presentation, Booth’s media mercenaries begin their attack. Barbara Waters from the All-Gossip TV Network confronts a surprised Worthington, demanding to know the details about the unexplained death of “one William Rhodes.”
Scene Twenty-One:
The next morning Charlene arrives with a stack of newspapers, which headline Worthington’s alleged involvement in the cover-up of the Maine tragedy.
In addition, The Washington Post states that he may have had something to do with missing funds from a federal grant received years ago by a non-profit organization set up to improve the facilities of New England fishing harbors.
Worthington assures a concerned Charlene there is nothing to any of these stories, and they’ll all soon fade away.
Scene Twenty-Two:
At a press conference in Pittsburgh, a wary Worthington stands behind a protective picket fence of microphones, delivering a pitch for The Windjammer.
Johnny Redgrave, a reporter with The All-Gossip TV Network, shouts, “Can you explain why the non-profit in Maine, of which you were an officer, never filed income tax returns for the years 1985 and 1986? Also, can you tell us where you got the money to buy that seaside home in Maine and that new Cadillac after your uncle’s death while you were still a kid in high school?”
Worthington has all he can do to control his anger. In the privacy of his hotel room, he shouts into the telephone at Henry DeCamp, telling him to get control of his damned media.
Scene Twenty-Three:
Under a brilliant Four Corners blue sky, Henry DeCamp collapses the antenna on his cell phone, as he and Brenda Turner resume their hike across his vast cattle ranch where, as Brenda narrates prehistory to the media mogul, the Anasazi civilization takes on new meaning. Henry stops short and asks incredulously, does she mean there were people living on his ranch before real people arrived?
Brenda nods and picks up a potshard. Henry says he’ll find a beautiful pot that hasn’t been broken and display it in his Washington office, but Brenda warns, “The pot belongs to the people.” Miffed, Henry says this is his land and he’ll do with it what he wants, and anything and everything on it belongs to him. “Have I bought the Four Corners Daily Worker instead of the Weekly Tablet?” he asks. But then his demeanor changes as he invites her to come and play in the jacuzzi back at his ranch house.
Scene Twenty-Four:
Having traveled on to Indianapolis, Worthington takes time out from his agenda and stops by the Eiteljorg Museum of The Southwest to purchase postcard art at Emily’s request. Captivated by the works of artists of the Taos School, he visualizes murals depicting historic Southwest scenes that could be painted on the walls of his new Four Corners City station.
Looking for a pay phone to call Anna to tell her his idea, he encounters Quentin Ford IV in the “Plains Indians” Gallery, where the ILMA chairman is dedicating his gift of Native American Indian ceremonial masks. Their puzzling conversation baffles Worthington, but he just can’t put his finger on why.
Scene Twenty-Five:
Driving back to his hotel, Worthington summons the courage to call Anna. Dusty answers and, in his usual gruff manner, deflects Worthington’s purpose, telling him a story about some old archaeologist in Greece. Worthington is disgusted with himself for his inability to follow through with his idea of telling Anna about his proposed murals.
He forces a smile when he sees Edward and Zoe in the lobby—the 20-something spin doctors Henry DeCamp has dispatched to the scene to replace a redundant and miffed Charlene.
Edward says their new game plan is for Worthington to connect with the MTV crowd, and he’s booked him into a singing engagement at the local Club Nostalgia. National television coverage for the evening’s gig has been arranged.
Zoe explains that with Generation X support he might be able to counteract the sexual harassment lawsuit Charlene has just filed against him. Seeing Worthington’s bewilderment, Zoe tells him that Charlene needs his understanding and a compassionate explanation as to why he sent her back to Washington. “She may be simply getting even for being left out of all this fun.”
Reeling with these out-of-the-blue developments, Worthington quips he doesn’t know whether to exercise his vocal chords or to strangle Charlene’s.
Scene Twenty-Six:
Meanwhile, out on their isolated dig, the seminarists are suffering from telephone withdrawal. Gathered around their evening campfire, they clamor to use Dusty’s cell phone.
When it’s Anna’s turn, she leaves the group, entering the solitude of the Anasazi stone signal tower. There she tries to reach Quentin Ford IV. He is traveling, so she punches the number for Stuart Wales. In a halting, dread-filled voice she asks if Worthington’s assassination has taken place yet.
Stuart explains that he and Quentin,
along with Booth and Angela, are engaged in character assassination, not murder. Finally understanding—difficult when one’s mind has been fixed on an opposite concept for so long—Anna sobs with relief that she is not to be a party to murder.
As the sun is setting over the Sleeping Ute Mountain, a mollified Anna returns to her seminarists gathered around the campfire. They look questioningly at each other as she calmly and methodically narrates for them a mystical legend that ends with: someday, the spermatozoa from the Sleeping Ute will propagate a brave new chief who will lead his people to rise up and reclaim these lands that, since the beginning of time, have rightfully been theirs.
Scene Twenty-Seven:
In the 1940’s-decorated Club Nostalgia, Worthington croons Hit Parade songs à la Tony Bennett. He is an instant success among the Generation X patrons.
Having enjoyed his media moment, Worthington and Edward get into Zoe’s Mitsubishi convertible and head to the Indianapolis Airport. She tells Worthington he is now scheduled for a little R & R back in Washington, allowing for photo-ops with his family, which will counteract the media attacks on his character. A mellowed-out Worthington says it will be wonderful to embrace Sara and see little Emily again.
Scene Twenty-Eight:
But events don’t work out as Edward and Zoe planned for, walking off the