The Girl on the Train (2013) Movie Script
You're not real.
Weren't your eyes green?
And your hair?
You weren't what I thought.
A real person would never
say that. That proves it.
You weren't what I thought.
Weren't your eyes green?
That proves it. A real person
would never say that.
I get to make it whatever
I want. That proves it.
A real person
would never say that.
The things is,
even after everything,
I wanted to believe.
Duct-taped to a chair,
inches from oblivion,
I still wanted to believe her.
It's a myth that we use
only five percent of our brains.
Ask anyone who's lost
even the smallest bit.
No, we use
pretty much all of it,
and usually
that's not enough.
We never catch the turtle who sits
on the turtle who sits on the...
Yeah.
It's turtles all the way down.
A lot to learn.
A moment too late.
Are you ready?
What did you have for breakfast
this morning, Mr. Herzman?
Who cares about that?
I'm just getting
sound levels.
Ham and eggs,
like every morning.
Okay.
The trains were hell.
But even hell has levels.
Some are in the middle
of the car,
and they're probably
not going to make it.
The heat from the bodies...
Their hell is worse.
But my father pushed me
to the edge.
There wasn't a window there,
but there were slats,
and through the slats sometimes
a breath of fresh air.
Heaven.
We stopped at a station
somewhere.
Standing still
is worse than moving,
even if you're moving
to something bad.
A bit of light
hit my eye,
so I squeezed closer
to the slat.
Then suddenly...
a beautiful face appears...
with innocent blue eyes.
An angel.
But I didn't believe
in angels,
even then when I was a boy,
certainly not in this place.
The Herzman story had been featured in a
local paper and was picked up nationally.
Before they knew it, they had a book
deal, and there was talk of a movie.
I thought it'd make
an interesting documentary.
History Channel?
That kind of thing?
Yeah.
Internet says
you make movies.
Normally.
I prefer fiction.
Why is that?
It's more believable.
I was late, as usual,
hustling to make the 9:40 to
Hudson where the Herzmans lived.
In the city,
you're always in a hurry.
Gotta get to that meeting,
business lunch, the ATM.
People are just obstacles,
inconveniences.
And every now and then, a face
you can't get out of your mind.
Who is this person,
and how did
our trajectories cross?
What histories does she bring, and what myths
might we create if only given the chance?
And you want to say something,
but you can't find the words.
You're just not that guy.
So she'll always be a face
among faces, a cipher.
You'll never talk on the phone,
recognize her scent.
You won't face each other
over a bistro table,
taste the Malbec, learn
each other's favorite color.
She is, in short,
every girl you'll never know,
never love.
Better never
to have seen her at all.
Now you understand
the ancient wisdom...
Rip out the offending eye.
Except I'd captured her
in my camera.
And like that,
she was gone.
I was getting some B-roll, and she
was just a face across the platform.
No reason to believe
you'd ever see her again.
There are physicists who believe
there are universes like ours...
but with one
or two things changed.
I thought maybe there was
a universe where we might meet.
I didn't think
it'd be this one.
Other universes?
Yeah.
That what you believe?
I find it comforting.
For simplicity's sake,
let's keep to this universe.
It was a little girl,
maybe five or six,
with pretty blonde curls.
She peered at me
through the slat,
a boy only a little
older than she.
What must she have thought
of this train...
and its strange cargo?
We looked at each other,
only inches away,
but it might have been
different continents.
Then she made
a quick motion,
and her small fingers
pushed through the slat.
She dropped something
into my palm,
and a moment later, as if the universe
had known that this moment had ended,
the train
started up again.
I looked down
at my hand,
and I saw
that she had given me...
the little gold cross
from around her neck.
There is always a moment
when your life changes,
though you may not
realize it at the time.
The words spoken,
the light falling across
someone's face in a certain way,
the moment you realize
you're in love or out of it.
History has turned on its axis,
and you will never be the same.
Right there.
Was she getting a speck out of
her eye or dabbing at a tear?
That touch, however small, turned
into flesh and blood for me...
A soul with a past,
a life with an arc.
A pretty girl on a train
is one thing,
a crying girl
a whole other matter.
I wasn't sure if it was
the same girl I'd seen before.
She looked different.
Are you okay?
Sorry. You just...
You seemed upset.
You know, trains
can make people sad.
It's like in all those
country-western songs.
- Country.
- Right.
There's always a train,
and there's always someone sad.
No. No one's called it country
and western in 30 years.
- Well...
- Your lens is showing.
It's my job.
If you're a private eye,
you suck at it.
Nothing surreptitious.
I'm shooting a documentary.
Is it on now?
Camera shy?
Who are those people who believe
a photograph captures your soul?
Aborigines.
Pretty sure they're wrong.
What's it about?
Your movie.
I guess you could say
it's a love story.
I thought documentaries
were nonfiction.
That would be
cynicism?
You think just because something
really happens, it isn't fiction?
I was pretty sure this wasn't your
average girl on the commuter line.
She give you
any personal details?
She had a way of turning
your questions around.
You thought you were talking about her, but
you were really just talking about yourself.
Why were you crying?
You tell me.
I get to make it
whatever I want?
Sure.
Okay.
Seven years ago, you met
a man on this very train.
You got to talking, but you never
exchanged more than first names.
He gets off at Poughkeepsie.
As he steps onto the platform, you realize
you should have gotten off with him.
He was the guy. He was your one
chance to escape the wheel.
But the train's already moving.
You've missed your chance.
So you spend weeks looking through
the Poughkeepsie directory,
but you've only got
his first name.
Which is?
Bob, unfortunately.
If only it were
Zebediah.
You call every one of the 373
Roberts, Bobs and Bobbys.
- I would never call a Bobby.
- With no luck.
But every day for seven years,
you buy your ticket,
you get on the train,
take it to Poughkeepsie,
and then you turn back
and head home alone.
Next stop will be Westport.
Westport Station in two minutes.
That is such a guy story.
Yeah?
I wouldn't spend that much time tracking
someone down if they murdered my mother.
So you're really
not gonna tell me?
You know, the difference
between trains and planes is,
on a train, if you don't like
the conversation,
you can change
your seat.
Or get off
at the next stop.
Shouldn't ask
for your number then?
Let me see your hand.
You gonna tell
my fortune?
That's easy.
You'll know moments of joy. You'll
lose what you love. You'll die.
Can I get a second opinion?
The other thing
about trains is,
you get to see the world
passing in real time.
When you're eight miles up,
you can convince yourself...
you're still the same person
when you get off.
So, a million questions
without a questioner,
a hundred replayed nights.
How do I find myself
in this sweaty bed?
Who is this person
beside me?
Why are there more scars
than I remember wounds?
Right. Memory is flawed.
But isn't memory all that knits our moments
of existence into a sense of self?
Of course, philosophical
questions lose power...
when you're staring
at your own mortality.
It's one thing to know you're
going to die at some point...
in the indeterminate future,
another to watch
the clock wind down.
And, yeah, I'm not
the only dead guy in the room.
So you went back
to work?
I had to finish
the project.
But now you had a name.
There were no Lexi's
in Westport.
There were three Alexandras,
but none of them were her.
When we got to the camp,
everything is very simple.
A man points left or right,
and you live or you die.
For my mother
and sisters, death.
I was big enough to work, so my
father and I go to the right.
I still held the little cross
in my hand,
but I saw that they were taking every
little piece of gold they could find...
Rings, bracelets.
You could only keep
the fillings in your teeth.
That they took
when you were dead.
I decided then and there...
that I would hold on to the little
cross the girl had given me,
no matter what.
I slipped it under my tongue.
Having a mission,
even if it's
only in your mind,
keeps you alive.
When I wasn't working,
I found myself
wandering the streets.
I would think I saw her
maybe a dozen times a day.
Somehow, I'd always wind up
back at the same place.
I remembered an old photo
I'd seen somewhere.
Watch things in real time,
and it's easy to believe
we're part of the world,
that our motion
is more than random,
our presence
more than accidental.
But a long exposure
reveals the truth.
We're just ghosts,
illusions we perpetrate
in ourselves.
So a guy's getting his
morning coffee and paper.
In line in front of him,
he sees this vision.
Gorgeous. I mean, right out
of the swimsuit edition.
And she's buying
a lottery ticket.
He's smitten.
Can't get a word out.
He lets her get away.
The next day, he goes back to the
store and he asks the owner,
"Do you know the girl who
bought the lottery ticket?"
And all the English this guy knows
is, "You buy something or get lost."
Right?
Well, our boy figures people
are creatures of habit,
so he finds himself
the nearest coffee shop,
plants himself where he's
got a view of the store,
figuring sooner or later
she'll come by for her ticket.
He gets obsessed.
Days turn to weeks.
Seasons change.
He shows up late for work. He's
unavailable for his friends.
But wouldn't you know it. The day he
finally decides to give it all up...
She shows up.
Turns out
she was out of town.
Let me guess.
He never makes his move.
Why?
He sees the future.
They'll have their affair, and in
time it'll be no more than that...
An affair.
He can anticipate
the purr of her throat,
the scratchy quality
of her voice in the morning.
He closes his eyes,
and he can almost smell her.
It'll be good, but they have
about as much chance...
of making it in the long run as
she does of winning the lottery.
Because good
is never perfect.
In his fevered mind,
he's realized...
the unbridgeable distance
between real and ideal.
So he would rather let her walk
away with her sad lottery ticket.
He would rather let her live in
the purity of his imagination...
than succumb to the spectacle of
flesh and blood, scent and sorrow.
He's lost something, sure...
Another conquest, maybe even
an enduring relationship.
But think what he gets
in return.
He will forever be the man who
waited in the snow and rain...
day after day
for the lottery girl.
He will be the one
who walked away...
at the moment
his dream was realized.
He will be mythic.
You want to know
what really happens?
Sure.
He's out of that
coffee shop so fast,
he sloshes his half-caf latte
on his hand, extra hot.
He almost knocks her over, they strike up
a conversation, and they begin dating.
Two kids and a summer home
in Montauk?
Lasted eight months. "It's not
you, it's me." That kind of thing.
What? Don't be smug.
He gave it a shot.
My version
would've lasted forever.
Now I know your secret.
Didn't know I had one.
You'd rather have a great story
than a great love.
You didn't think it was odd
running into her like that?
I guess I wasn't
thinking at all.
What?
I haven't quite figured out
if you're a victim or a suspect.
Well, I suppose you could pretty
much say that about anyone.
And the lottery ticket?
She won.
You try to find me?
There are no Lexi's
in Westport.
I didn't say
I lived in Westport.
You gotta give a guy
a fair chance.
I found you, didn't I?
You look different.
Different day.
What color was your hair?
Here's the thing about two
people meeting on a train.
If they know they'll
always be strangers,
it frees them.
You can create me any way you
want, and I'll never disappoint.
I could ask you to kill for me, and I
won't know if you'll carry it out.
We have no reason
to lie to each other...
unless the lie
is prettier than the truth.
We're no longer
on the train.
No?
How did you find me?
Don't tell me you're one of those New Age
types who don't believe in accidents.
You're not gonna ask me
to kill someone, are you?
Why don't you
show me what you do.
Can I get you
a pain pill for that?
Actually, the pain
helps me remember.
Sisters at Saint Jude's
would agree with you.
Catholic school?
You bet.
Her patron saint.
I held the cross
under my tongue...
until there was
a bloody sore.
I ate with it...
like that.
I slept with it.
Eventually the pain fades
and the callous appears.
My father only made it
a few weeks.
One morning
he refused to work,
and they beat him to death
with their rifles.
Bullets were too expensive.
When I was young, my mother used to
tell me this story when things got bad.
"The world ended when Jesus
hung on the cross," she'd say.
And all of history
is just a dream...
in the last instant
of a Roman centurion's life.
Coffee?
That's when she asked you
to tail Carl Pruitt.
Not at first.
I knew she was hiding something,
something from her past.
It wasn't so much
what she said...
It was
the way she said it?
More the way she didn't say
what she didn't say.
You some kind
of cop detective?
Yeah.
You don't look like cop.
Yeah? What's a cop
look like?
Better dressed.
Guy cheating on his wife.
I seen it all right here.
Yeah, I bet you have.
Nothing like stories
from cab driver.
One guy tries to strangle hooker in
backseat. I say, "Not in my cab."
He say,
"I give you big tip."
So what'd you do?
I throw him out. He strangle
on street, his business.
Not in my cab.
People fucking, okay.
A big tip covers it.
Killing?
Yeah, I get it.
Not in your cab.
You can bet you.
That's him.
Want to hear
strangest story ever?
Does it involve dwarves?
Dwarves? What?
Somehow they always seem to involve
dwarves, and they're never true.
This happened 100%.
My brother, he's fucking
this girl two years.
Met in spinning class. You know,
bicycle doesn't go nowhere?
Only women in these classes.
My brother joins for women.
So he's fucking this girl. One night
she asks, can her friend join in.
My brother is like
winning lottery.
Of course.
More is merrier.
Let me guess.
The friend is a man.
Man? You crazy? Is more beautiful
than one my brother is fucking.
Big tits, everything.
So they have wild night.
Everything is on menu,
soup till nuts.
My brother thinks he died
straight to heaven.
In the morning, I get call.
He wakes up, everything's gone...
Girls, wallet, flat-screen.
He calls police,
but nothing to do.
Her cell doesn't work no more. She's gone
from spinning class like she never exists.
Let me
get this straight.
She's with him for two years
so she can steal his TV?
His whole house. Lucky she
left him his underwears.
I tell you
it was crazy story.
He never found her?
Every day he sees her.
On subway,
walking down street.
But never her. One woman
he followed for half an hour.
She called police.
My brother is never same.
Stopped spinning classes even.
So she had you
playing detective?
It wasn't until the next time
I saw her that she asked me.
The time in the camps...
stands outside normal time.
The time in the camps...
The time in the camps...
stands outside normal time.
Hello?
Can you meet me?
Where I grew up everything
was flat, even the cities.
This seems more honest.
Eye to eye with everyone, you can convince
yourself we're not that different.
Step over a homeless guy
to get to your penthouse,
you know better.
Grow up poor?
Shows?
My mother was always getting
mixed up with the wrong guy.
Father got out
before I was born.
Can't say I blame him.
You ever try
and find him?
I heard he had
an uncle in the east.
That's why I came
out here originally.
He wasn't much use though.
You still close
to your mother?
I grew up using her
as a model of who not to be.
When I was about seven, she finally
seemed to get her life on track.
Stopped drinking,
met a guy from a wealthy family.
She always wanted me
to be provided for,
so he agreed to put
something aside for me.
It was good for a while.
For a while.
He never laid a hand on me,
but I decided then and there
I would never be a victim.
It's important to keep
promises to yourself.
Isn't it?
This the photo
she showed you?
I knew I was gonna do
what it took to help her.
At first it's, "You know you
like it rough, don't you, babe?"
Makes you feel like you're
always the one at fault.
If I hadn't done this,
hadn't said that.
You look in the mirror
one morning and realize...
it's not only your
mother's eyes you've got,
it's the bruises
around them.
Is that why
you called me?
I called you...
to get drunk.
That when she told you
she was married?
Not in so many words.
More the way she didn't say
what she didn't say?
So who was she?
The one who
got to you.
What makes you think
there was only one?
Devil takes many forms,
but there's really only one.
You should've been
a priest.
Not an option
for a woman.
I'd make a terrible nun.
There's always one
who sets the standard.
For most guys, it's the girl in
college who barely knew they existed.
There were a couple
of those, I guess.
It's just as well.
If you'd gathered
the courage to talk to her,
you would've noticed
her teeth aren't perfect.
Her eyes
are slightly askew.
You ever notice how
it's always those quirks...
we find the most charming in the beginning
become the most irritating over time?
What about you?
I'm more comfortable
on this side.
As long as there's
no tape in it.
It's digital.
No tape.
It was high school,
backseat of his car.
I wish I could be
more original.
He plays it cool,
a little smile on his face.
But in that smile is a world
of expectation and sadness.
The flower is beautiful,
but it dies.
The girl is fertile,
but she will age.
They won't find each other in an old age
home at the sunny edge of the world.
Won't wind up in L.A.
This is their moment,
and they better take it.
If there's anything
you need to tell me...
about your relationship
with this young woman,
now would be the time.
I needed to know
if it was possible to know...
I needed to know if it was
possible to know someone...
- I love you.
- Really know someone.
I always have.
I wanted to know
what was real...
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
And what was just some kind
of image of her in my head.
I love you. I love you.
I always have.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I love you.
I always have.
I always have. Our souls were born
together at the beginning of time.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I love you.
I love you.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
It wasn't in college.
We met at the museum.
Impressionists?
How'd you know?
You always find the best women
in the impressionist wing.
We went out
a couple of times.
She invites me
back to her place,
and we're sitting
on the couch.
When she gets up
to throw a log in the fire,
I notice a slight
stiffness in her step.
Somehow that tiny
sign of age...
made her real for me.
She was perfected
by her imperfections.
And in that moment,
I can see the future.
We will move together
into the bright haze,
fighting age and decay,
losing gloriously.
I will come to love her cancer
scars, her arthritic knee.
And I know that sex and love
are just animal things,
the genes liking
what's good for them.
But maybe there's
another possibility.
If love is more
than the sum of its parts,
maybe we are more
than the sum of our parts.
But there's
another future.
She will leave me,
or I'll leave her.
I'll feel the pain
but only for a while.
And I know that if I ran
into her a year later,
she won't be someone that I could
imagine falling in love with.
In fact, I'll question
that I ever did at all.
So which future did you choose?
Sometimes the scorpion
stings you,
even if it means
he'll drown too.
When I was little, my mother
told me about the saints.
Saint Jude
was always my favorite.
Patron saint of lost causes.
Why did you
really call me?
I agreed to help her out
with Pruitt,
but there was a condition.
She still hadn't told me why she was
crying that day I met her on the train.
He was a brave man once.
He was in Cuba on business
during the revolution.
Somehow he managed to convince
both sides he was with them.
He infiltrated the guerrillas
on behalf of the government,
told the revolutionaries he was
gathering intelligence for them.
Both sides suspected
he was C.I.A.
I think eventually even he
didn't know what the truth was.
One time he was able to warn
a village about a coming attack.
About a dozen families
escaped.
Do you have chocolate?
I need you to do this
for me, Danny.
What will following him
with my camera give you?
Ammunition.
Not everybody
has a double life.
Not everybody
has a secret.
That's where
you're wrong.
You assumed the elderly
gentleman was her great uncle?
I imagine he was just some
old-timer she used as a prop.
She was very good
with stories.
That's when you agreed
to follow Carl Pruitt.
He was a criminal
defense lawyer.
I knew he'd have
some unsavory associations,
but I didn't think
much of it.
You were led to believe
this ammunition...
was for a potential
divorce proceeding?
She never actually
mentioned divorce.
Right.
The way she didn't say
what she didn't say.
About a week in,
it started to get interesting.
That was the first time
you saw James Fenetree?
Well, we weren't formally
introduced, but, yeah, that's him.
Of course
we already know that.
For the record,
I didn't leave her.
So, sometimes the scorpion
gets stung too.
You replay the last weeks
and days looking for a reason.
Did you say something wrong,
commit some callous act?
Can it really be so fragile?
Or you can move on.
Envy those couples who've
been together so long...
they can't remember why.
In the land of the one-eyed,
envy the blind.
With the Americans approaching,
they were in a hurry...
to finish up with us.
Finally it would be
my turn.
I thought back to the
little girl by the train.
In a place where evil
seemed so big...
Also so small,
so everyday...
I believed...
that this one little act
of kindness saved my life.
I had to know that
there was something else,
some people existed
who could be good and kind.
You didn't notice anything odd about the
picture she showed you of Carl Pruitt?
Not exactly
a family portrait.
That's taken
with a telephoto lens.
Well, she doesn't like
getting her photograph taken.
Right.
The aborigines.
I guess I took
a lot on faith.
Well, I thought all you
movie people were atheists.
Only when it comes to God.
In the morning,
so much excitement.
The camp guards
have disappeared.
People are running around.
The Americans
have liberated the camp.
They had
hot food for us...
Just some broth
with a little meat.
But it was so long since I had
had anything so hot and good,
I ate it so quickly that the little
cross came loose, and I almost choked.
Just think about it...
If after all I'd been through
I had choked...
on this kind gift.
I took it out of my mouth...
and hung it round my neck.
A Jewish boy wearing a cross?
I got tired of explaining.
So if they thought
I'd converted, let them.
I'd seen Pruitt go into
the building a couple of times,
so I decided
to get a better look.
Ever seen him before?
His name's Spider.
Of course.
Carl represented him
a few times.
He's required to do a certain
amount of pro bono work.
And Spider?
He's a provider.
Drugs, girls, you name it.
Carl likes to get paid
one way or another.
Are you asking
for the time?
Do I need
some kind of wrist band?
It ain't part of the club.
I wasn't getting past
this guy anyway,
so I figured
I'd come back another night.
He had to take a break
sooner or later.
You didn't think you might be
getting in over your head?
Ever try and jump off
a moving train?
If there's anything
you need to tell me...
about your relationship
with this young woman,
now would be the time.
I thought I wasn't
a suspect.
Yet you're willing to walk into a
potentially dangerous situation...
armed with
a video camera.
I guess I wanted to know
what was real...
and what was just some kind
of image of her in my head.
I needed to know if it was
possible to know someone,
really know someone.
It seemed very important.
My wife died last year.
Thirty years.
I got the call I'm usually the one making.
Car accident.
Funny thing is, she wasn't even
supposed to go out that night,
but she did go out.
She was going out to see
the guy she was screwing.
For weeks I bounced
between anger, hurt, loss.
The hardest thing was jumping
from one feeling to the next.
I couldn't get
a foothold.
So finally I decided
to pick one emotion.
I tried to remember
who she was...
and why I loved her.
And then when the dark
feelings would rise,
I would...
What do you call it when
you turn lead into gold?
Alchemy.
I'd take everything about her,
even the things I hated,
and I'd tell her in my mind
how that made me love her...
because that's what made her
who she was, even the flaws.
I see it every day.
Love a person half your life,
then wake up one morning...
and you can't find a single
thing about them not to hate.
I've seen women carved
to ribbons by men...
who two days ago would have jumped
in front of a truck to save.
I wasn't gonna let
that happen.
I wasn't gonna turn
gold to lead.
Did it work?
Sometimes.
You know, there's a tab
on the camera menu,
you can turn off
the tally light?
That way the suspect doesn't
know he's being recorded.
You're good.
You share. I share.
Was it true?
Didn't Jesus say,
"What is truth"?
Actually,
I think it was Pilate.
Eventually I made my way
to New York.
I found work with a relative
who sold small gifts,
religious trinkets
from the church.
He always made fun
of me anyway.
"The goy," he called me
because of the cross.
"Go out and sell the saints."
So every day I went to the cart
out on Coney Island.
I couldn't believe how happy
all the people were...
just for nothing,
for some cotton candy...
and a few silly rides.
This happiness
was more foreign to me...
than the new language.
One day
I'm pushing my cart...
when this pretty young woman approaches
to buy something for her niece.
I hear she has an accent,
so we start talking German.
I never talked
about my experience...
with a Gentile,
certainly not a German.
But she was so kind,
so gentle,
I let her know
I was a Jew.
She could figure out
the rest.
So much was different
between us,
and yet it was so easy
to talk to her.
I never forget her smile.
Finally she buys
a trinket,
and I reach down
to put it in a bag,
and the cross comes out
from under my shirt.
Her eyes get very big...
like two blue pools
of water.
"Where did you get this?"
she asks.
I don't want to tell her
the whole story,
but of course
she already knew.
"Why is a Jewish boy
wearing a cross?"
It seemed like forever.
Neither of us
said a thing.
Then there are tears
in her eyes.
"I was punished when I told
my parents I had lost it."
I had found my savior,
the little girl whose kindness had
seen me through impossible times.
I left the cart right there
on the boardwalk,
and we walked for hours,
just talking...
Two people so different.
It was like we'd known
each other our whole lives,
which, of course, we had...
in our imaginations.
Seeing the worst
that people are capable of,
I had also seen in her
the best.
Now that I'd found her,
I promised her, promised myself,
I would never
lose her again.
And I've never
broken that promise.
I was wrong.
You don't want to choose between
a great love and a great story.
You think that's
what this is about?
I woke up one morning,
and I saw my mom standing
over the kitchen sink,
and suddenly
I knew what hell was.
You see the world,
but you're not in it.
People walk by your grave,
laughing, alive,
forgetting you.
But still you remain,
a bead of awareness
in a universe of uncaring.
But what if
there's a way out?
What if there's a bridge
to just one moment,
a story,
a sentence of our lives?
Do we become
a part of that story?
Does that become
our eternity?
I don't know why I didn't
tell her about the Herzmans.
I wonder
if it saved my life.
She took the cab
down with me.
The idea was I'd collect the footage
and we'd meet later in a diner.
You should have
fought for her.
You thought it was her
imperfections that you loved,
but it's really
just the story.
Makes you
into a nicer guy...
than the one who would've
left her for someone younger.
The great lost love
has its appeal,
even to a girl like me.
Stories don't age and die.
You can tell them
over and over.
Problem is,
they always end the same.
Seriously, man, what the
fuck were you thinking?
Fair question.
I mean,
what did you expect?
Damned if I know.
Damned if you don't.
Good one.
Yeah? Well,
take it to the grave.
What am I doing here?
Hey, man, you chugged
in here on your own steam.
It was
a rhetorical question.
I was asking myself.
I know what
"rhetorical" means.
No disrespect.
You know what I like
about vampire stories?
The good ones, anyway.
I couldn't begin to guess.
The victim has to invite
the vampire in.
I think I might
have misjudged you.
It's a common mistake.
Did you really think
you could have her?
Think she'd ever
show you her real self?
I guess I wasn't thinking.
That's where
you're wrong, partner.
You think too much.
Girl like Lexi,
she isn't about thought.
She tell you
what floats her boat?
Tell you to grab her hair,
push her face
into the pillows?
Tell you
she likes it rough?
I just had
a funny thought.
Wouldn't think you'd be
in a laughing mood.
About a patron saint
for lost causes.
Yeah, that's
one of her raps.
Unlike you, I don't imagine I'm
the first man she's told that to.
Probably not the first to wear
this around his neck either.
You always believe women when
they tell you you're their first?
Actually
I never believe that.
Well,
there's hope for you yet.
You know, of course,
that's a scorpion.
And your name's Spider.
Why do you...
Why have you got
a scorpion tattoo?
You do have a right
to remain silent.
Hey, I'm just saying.
Just saying.
In the end, does all that
smarts really pay off?
I mean, look where I am.
Look where you sit.
Doesn't that strike you
as funny?
Well, not funny.
I have this theory
about smarts...
That it gets in the way
of seeing things.
What? Did you think
she cared?
Just what I thought.
Only a smart guy could be
that fucking stupid.
Here's another smart guy.
See how fucking smart?
So, want to hear the plan?
Our girl asks you to get some dirt on old
Carl over there, which isn't hard to do.
He's much more interested
in pain than women.
What's the difference?
But you wind up
falling for her.
Decide you
have to have her.
She brings that out
in a man.
Let me guess.
I kill him.
See? Those smarts again.
Why do I kill him if she's
going to leave him anyway?
Hang on a minute.
Because he put a fucking
nail through your hand.
Of course, I'd been
following Pruitt,
collecting all this footage,
so it had a certain logic.
Spider.
Scorpion.
Whatever your name is.
Arachnid!
You like pain
or something?
Look, I know smarts
has its limitations,
but dumb won't get you
very far either.
Seriously?
You really think
you're gonna end up...
on a paradise island
with her?
You really don't know
what's what, do you?
- She's not real.
- No?
She only shows you
what she needs to.
See, a man like you will
never get what she's about.
Upper West Side pussy.
Think I don't know you?
You walk the line, afraid
to give the littlest offense.
Tell them what they wanna hear,
fuck on their schedule,
tiptoeing nine paces
behind them.
You're right, hoss.
She'll never be real to you.
Just about done here.
And you thought the nail
was a good idea because?
He pisses me off.
So let me get this straight.
He kills Carl, and then he hammers
a nail into his own hand.
Carl fucks him up with the nail,
but he gets himself free.
He does Carl
with the knife,
and Carl has just enough left in him
to put a bullet between his eyes.
What did I say
about improvising?
Where is he?
I want to see him.
I've waited a long time.
Who the fuck are you?
Jesus.
Now he's dead.
He didn't know you.
You have the gun?
Cold as they come.
Why didn't he know you?
No. Let me.
You sure, babe?
He's my responsibility.
There's my girl.
Come on. You can do
better than that.
If it makes a difference,
I'm sorry.
Can't blame the scorpion
for stinging you.
What was that she said?
About living out an alternative future
in the last instant of your life.
...future in the last
instant of your life.
Is that what all this has been?
Is that what this is?
Are you always the last
to realize you're already dead?
...always the last to realize
you're already dead all along?
Maybe I should have been
paying more attention.
Well, that was the death that
flashed before my eyes anyway.
No. Let me.
There's my girl.
For the record,
I never liked it rough.
He pisses me off.
You weren't what I thought.
You're exactly
what I thought.
He won't be needing it.
So where will you go?
Someplace warm.
Who will you be
when you get there?
You invented me as much
as I invented myself, Danny.
The vampire can't enter
without an invitation.
I knew he didn't come up
with that line himself.
You want me to tell you
it was real for me?
That I loved you
if only for a moment?
That's why you're alive
and Spider's dead.
Okay.
I love you.
I always have.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I can't tell you anything
you don't already know.
I believe you.
Will you remember me?
Safe bet.
The thing is,
even after everything,
I wanted to believe.
Duct-taped to a chair,
nail through my hand,
two dead guys on the floor,
I still wanted to believe her.
Homo creditus.
Man the believer.
Pretty fucking stupid?
Just overmatched.
They're smarter than us.
You know that.
At least you're not one of
the dead guys on the floor.
Does that make me
a suspect?
I don't think you killed
Carl Pruitt.
And I don't really think that she
ever expected you to take the rap.
My guess is her plan was to get rid of
Pruitt and Spider at the same time.
So why use me?
What Spider lacked
in moral clarity,
he made up for
in street smarts.
He knew somebody would have
to take the fall for Pruitt.
Well, she convinced him
it was you...
so he wouldn't know
it was him all along.
But why kill Spider?
I guess she had a short fuse
on this kind of thing.
Tell you
she likes it rough?
She was never
married to Carl.
He didn't seem to know her.
He knew her.
But I decided then and there
I would never be a victim.
The mother
was married to him.
He killed her.
D.A. went for manslaughter.
Carl claimed she came at him
with a kitchen knife.
He was acquitted.
She never said
she was married to him.
What?
Or that he was the one
who beat her. She just...
You look in the mirror
one morning and realize...
it's not only your mother's eyes you've
got, it's the bruises around them.
She just...
She just let me
fill in the blanks.
Turns out the mother insisted that
Carl set up a blind trust for Lexi...
before she'd marry him.
Carl stipulated the trust
wouldn't go into effect...
until he
and the mother died.
She always wanted me
to be provided for,
so he agreed to put
something aside for me.
She cleaned out the trust
three days ago.
I imagine she hooked up with
Spider as a way to get to Pruitt.
He'd represented him
on a couple of drug beefs.
Once Spider laid a hand
on her, his fate was set.
You knew all along.
Be nice if we could see
the rest of the room.
Well, I'll be more careful
next time I drop my camera.
You will get me the footage
that you've been collecting?
So I'm free to go?
I am curious though.
Earlier you mentioned something
about that couple, the Herzmans.
Something you
never told her.
I didn't want him
to do this. Never.
I was in the camps,
just as I said.
And I saw many trains
pass by with prisoners.
But I never
even saw Morris.
That day on Coney Island
was the first time we met.
We fell in love
and were married.
The important parts
are true.
But the story of the girl
with the cross? Your angel?
That I made up.
It was just a trinket
he was selling.
I thought it was so funny, you know,
a Jewish boy selling crosses.
I've worn it ever since.
But it's not even real.
Of course it's real.
It's just not real gold.
When the book publishers
did their fact checking,
they found that the dates
and places didn't match.
Morris came clean, but of course
he lost the book and movie deal.
Why'd he do it?
For the money?
Not exactly.
It was a wonderful story.
It made people happy.
But it's not true.
Agh! It made them feel good.
Do you care when you read a novel
that it didn't really happen?
Are you angry at Shakespeare because
Juliet never said those words?
Our love is real.
Fifty years.
That part is real.
So what's more important?
I gave them something beautiful,
and now it's gone.
Is there too much beauty
in the world?
Believe me, where I was
there wasn't so much beauty.
A story like this would've
given those poor souls...
more hope
than a hundred gold crosses.
That's why I was on the train
when I saw Lexi the second time.
I was on my way up to do the follow-up
interview with the Herzmans.
You will get me
that footage.
You're welcome to it.
She never let me shoot her.
Maybe she was right
after all.
About it capturing
your soul.
She asked me if I'd choose the
great love or the great story.
But is there a difference
really?
In the end, you aren't
who you think you are.
You're who
I perceive you to be.
In the world of matter, you are
uncontrollable, unpredictable,
a babble of random motion.
I capture you in a net of words, and
you are known, if only for a moment.
We imagine we create words.
But what if they create us?
This is the secret poets know.
Words are incantations
weaving magic spells.
If the word initiated
the universe into existence,
what will close it?
Why didn't I tell
Detective Martin?
I guess I was never purely
victim or suspect.
You could say I was
an accomplice of sorts.
Check my heart.
Why did I give her the memory
card, let her keep her soul?
Why did I go back there,
knowing?
Sometimes you just have to
find out how the story ends.
Of course, I did back it up
to my hard drive.
I really do miss
our conversations, Danny.
But this time I'm just going
to have to imagine your side.
In a way,
it's just as well...
since we can't ever
really know each other, can we?
Men and women,
people and people,
we're all alone
in the end.
But maybe that's okay.
It's what makes us hope and fear
and sometimes love each other.
It's what keeps us awake
at night...
and makes us pull the blankets over our
head against the glare of morning.
It's the throbbing in your brain at 4:00
a.m. as you look for the bathroom...
in some stranger's apartment to piss out
the chemicals from the night before.
It's fingers
scratching across tiles,
my knees pointed at the ceiling,
my back arched like a cat's.
Love is a religion,
a denial of death,
a descent into fiction
and improbability,
a lighting of candles,
a bridge to the impossible,
a lunatic babbling
on the uptown I.R.T.
It is this tenement basement with
its stink of cockroach and death.
It is Jesus above Rio.
...denial of death.
It is sex and it's withering.
It is blood on the floor.
You will kill for it
and die for it.
It is hope
and the death of hope.
You'll open its shroud and see your
face etched in dirt and sweat.
It fills you and empties you
in the same heartbeat.
A bridge to the impossible.
It is hope
and the death of hope.
Love without sex
is life without death.
Sex without danger
is God without the devil.
If you can't risk being damned,
don't imagine you can ever love.
Love straps your arms
to the cross,
drives nails
through your hands and feet.
Love is the spear
that pierces your side...
and the blood and the gall
that splashes to the ground.
It is a rag of vinegar
pressed to your lips...
and the thorn
pushed into your scalp.
It is a desert mirage,
an echo in a cave,
your own words
returning to mock you.
It's every great painting
you'll ever see...
and the way we know art from the scratchings
an elephant can make with his trunk.
Hard center or soft?
Soft.
Never much cared
for the hard center.
Nor I.
Weren't your eyes green?
And your hair?
You weren't what I thought.
A real person would never
say that. That proves it.
You weren't what I thought.
Weren't your eyes green?
That proves it. A real person
would never say that.
I get to make it whatever
I want. That proves it.
A real person
would never say that.
The things is,
even after everything,
I wanted to believe.
Duct-taped to a chair,
inches from oblivion,
I still wanted to believe her.
It's a myth that we use
only five percent of our brains.
Ask anyone who's lost
even the smallest bit.
No, we use
pretty much all of it,
and usually
that's not enough.
We never catch the turtle who sits
on the turtle who sits on the...
Yeah.
It's turtles all the way down.
A lot to learn.
A moment too late.
Are you ready?
What did you have for breakfast
this morning, Mr. Herzman?
Who cares about that?
I'm just getting
sound levels.
Ham and eggs,
like every morning.
Okay.
The trains were hell.
But even hell has levels.
Some are in the middle
of the car,
and they're probably
not going to make it.
The heat from the bodies...
Their hell is worse.
But my father pushed me
to the edge.
There wasn't a window there,
but there were slats,
and through the slats sometimes
a breath of fresh air.
Heaven.
We stopped at a station
somewhere.
Standing still
is worse than moving,
even if you're moving
to something bad.
A bit of light
hit my eye,
so I squeezed closer
to the slat.
Then suddenly...
a beautiful face appears...
with innocent blue eyes.
An angel.
But I didn't believe
in angels,
even then when I was a boy,
certainly not in this place.
The Herzman story had been featured in a
local paper and was picked up nationally.
Before they knew it, they had a book
deal, and there was talk of a movie.
I thought it'd make
an interesting documentary.
History Channel?
That kind of thing?
Yeah.
Internet says
you make movies.
Normally.
I prefer fiction.
Why is that?
It's more believable.
I was late, as usual,
hustling to make the 9:40 to
Hudson where the Herzmans lived.
In the city,
you're always in a hurry.
Gotta get to that meeting,
business lunch, the ATM.
People are just obstacles,
inconveniences.
And every now and then, a face
you can't get out of your mind.
Who is this person,
and how did
our trajectories cross?
What histories does she bring, and what myths
might we create if only given the chance?
And you want to say something,
but you can't find the words.
You're just not that guy.
So she'll always be a face
among faces, a cipher.
You'll never talk on the phone,
recognize her scent.
You won't face each other
over a bistro table,
taste the Malbec, learn
each other's favorite color.
She is, in short,
every girl you'll never know,
never love.
Better never
to have seen her at all.
Now you understand
the ancient wisdom...
Rip out the offending eye.
Except I'd captured her
in my camera.
And like that,
she was gone.
I was getting some B-roll, and she
was just a face across the platform.
No reason to believe
you'd ever see her again.
There are physicists who believe
there are universes like ours...
but with one
or two things changed.
I thought maybe there was
a universe where we might meet.
I didn't think
it'd be this one.
Other universes?
Yeah.
That what you believe?
I find it comforting.
For simplicity's sake,
let's keep to this universe.
It was a little girl,
maybe five or six,
with pretty blonde curls.
She peered at me
through the slat,
a boy only a little
older than she.
What must she have thought
of this train...
and its strange cargo?
We looked at each other,
only inches away,
but it might have been
different continents.
Then she made
a quick motion,
and her small fingers
pushed through the slat.
She dropped something
into my palm,
and a moment later, as if the universe
had known that this moment had ended,
the train
started up again.
I looked down
at my hand,
and I saw
that she had given me...
the little gold cross
from around her neck.
There is always a moment
when your life changes,
though you may not
realize it at the time.
The words spoken,
the light falling across
someone's face in a certain way,
the moment you realize
you're in love or out of it.
History has turned on its axis,
and you will never be the same.
Right there.
Was she getting a speck out of
her eye or dabbing at a tear?
That touch, however small, turned
into flesh and blood for me...
A soul with a past,
a life with an arc.
A pretty girl on a train
is one thing,
a crying girl
a whole other matter.
I wasn't sure if it was
the same girl I'd seen before.
She looked different.
Are you okay?
Sorry. You just...
You seemed upset.
You know, trains
can make people sad.
It's like in all those
country-western songs.
- Country.
- Right.
There's always a train,
and there's always someone sad.
No. No one's called it country
and western in 30 years.
- Well...
- Your lens is showing.
It's my job.
If you're a private eye,
you suck at it.
Nothing surreptitious.
I'm shooting a documentary.
Is it on now?
Camera shy?
Who are those people who believe
a photograph captures your soul?
Aborigines.
Pretty sure they're wrong.
What's it about?
Your movie.
I guess you could say
it's a love story.
I thought documentaries
were nonfiction.
That would be
cynicism?
You think just because something
really happens, it isn't fiction?
I was pretty sure this wasn't your
average girl on the commuter line.
She give you
any personal details?
She had a way of turning
your questions around.
You thought you were talking about her, but
you were really just talking about yourself.
Why were you crying?
You tell me.
I get to make it
whatever I want?
Sure.
Okay.
Seven years ago, you met
a man on this very train.
You got to talking, but you never
exchanged more than first names.
He gets off at Poughkeepsie.
As he steps onto the platform, you realize
you should have gotten off with him.
He was the guy. He was your one
chance to escape the wheel.
But the train's already moving.
You've missed your chance.
So you spend weeks looking through
the Poughkeepsie directory,
but you've only got
his first name.
Which is?
Bob, unfortunately.
If only it were
Zebediah.
You call every one of the 373
Roberts, Bobs and Bobbys.
- I would never call a Bobby.
- With no luck.
But every day for seven years,
you buy your ticket,
you get on the train,
take it to Poughkeepsie,
and then you turn back
and head home alone.
Next stop will be Westport.
Westport Station in two minutes.
That is such a guy story.
Yeah?
I wouldn't spend that much time tracking
someone down if they murdered my mother.
So you're really
not gonna tell me?
You know, the difference
between trains and planes is,
on a train, if you don't like
the conversation,
you can change
your seat.
Or get off
at the next stop.
Shouldn't ask
for your number then?
Let me see your hand.
You gonna tell
my fortune?
That's easy.
You'll know moments of joy. You'll
lose what you love. You'll die.
Can I get a second opinion?
The other thing
about trains is,
you get to see the world
passing in real time.
When you're eight miles up,
you can convince yourself...
you're still the same person
when you get off.
So, a million questions
without a questioner,
a hundred replayed nights.
How do I find myself
in this sweaty bed?
Who is this person
beside me?
Why are there more scars
than I remember wounds?
Right. Memory is flawed.
But isn't memory all that knits our moments
of existence into a sense of self?
Of course, philosophical
questions lose power...
when you're staring
at your own mortality.
It's one thing to know you're
going to die at some point...
in the indeterminate future,
another to watch
the clock wind down.
And, yeah, I'm not
the only dead guy in the room.
So you went back
to work?
I had to finish
the project.
But now you had a name.
There were no Lexi's
in Westport.
There were three Alexandras,
but none of them were her.
When we got to the camp,
everything is very simple.
A man points left or right,
and you live or you die.
For my mother
and sisters, death.
I was big enough to work, so my
father and I go to the right.
I still held the little cross
in my hand,
but I saw that they were taking every
little piece of gold they could find...
Rings, bracelets.
You could only keep
the fillings in your teeth.
That they took
when you were dead.
I decided then and there...
that I would hold on to the little
cross the girl had given me,
no matter what.
I slipped it under my tongue.
Having a mission,
even if it's
only in your mind,
keeps you alive.
When I wasn't working,
I found myself
wandering the streets.
I would think I saw her
maybe a dozen times a day.
Somehow, I'd always wind up
back at the same place.
I remembered an old photo
I'd seen somewhere.
Watch things in real time,
and it's easy to believe
we're part of the world,
that our motion
is more than random,
our presence
more than accidental.
But a long exposure
reveals the truth.
We're just ghosts,
illusions we perpetrate
in ourselves.
So a guy's getting his
morning coffee and paper.
In line in front of him,
he sees this vision.
Gorgeous. I mean, right out
of the swimsuit edition.
And she's buying
a lottery ticket.
He's smitten.
Can't get a word out.
He lets her get away.
The next day, he goes back to the
store and he asks the owner,
"Do you know the girl who
bought the lottery ticket?"
And all the English this guy knows
is, "You buy something or get lost."
Right?
Well, our boy figures people
are creatures of habit,
so he finds himself
the nearest coffee shop,
plants himself where he's
got a view of the store,
figuring sooner or later
she'll come by for her ticket.
He gets obsessed.
Days turn to weeks.
Seasons change.
He shows up late for work. He's
unavailable for his friends.
But wouldn't you know it. The day he
finally decides to give it all up...
She shows up.
Turns out
she was out of town.
Let me guess.
He never makes his move.
Why?
He sees the future.
They'll have their affair, and in
time it'll be no more than that...
An affair.
He can anticipate
the purr of her throat,
the scratchy quality
of her voice in the morning.
He closes his eyes,
and he can almost smell her.
It'll be good, but they have
about as much chance...
of making it in the long run as
she does of winning the lottery.
Because good
is never perfect.
In his fevered mind,
he's realized...
the unbridgeable distance
between real and ideal.
So he would rather let her walk
away with her sad lottery ticket.
He would rather let her live in
the purity of his imagination...
than succumb to the spectacle of
flesh and blood, scent and sorrow.
He's lost something, sure...
Another conquest, maybe even
an enduring relationship.
But think what he gets
in return.
He will forever be the man who
waited in the snow and rain...
day after day
for the lottery girl.
He will be the one
who walked away...
at the moment
his dream was realized.
He will be mythic.
You want to know
what really happens?
Sure.
He's out of that
coffee shop so fast,
he sloshes his half-caf latte
on his hand, extra hot.
He almost knocks her over, they strike up
a conversation, and they begin dating.
Two kids and a summer home
in Montauk?
Lasted eight months. "It's not
you, it's me." That kind of thing.
What? Don't be smug.
He gave it a shot.
My version
would've lasted forever.
Now I know your secret.
Didn't know I had one.
You'd rather have a great story
than a great love.
You didn't think it was odd
running into her like that?
I guess I wasn't
thinking at all.
What?
I haven't quite figured out
if you're a victim or a suspect.
Well, I suppose you could pretty
much say that about anyone.
And the lottery ticket?
She won.
You try to find me?
There are no Lexi's
in Westport.
I didn't say
I lived in Westport.
You gotta give a guy
a fair chance.
I found you, didn't I?
You look different.
Different day.
What color was your hair?
Here's the thing about two
people meeting on a train.
If they know they'll
always be strangers,
it frees them.
You can create me any way you
want, and I'll never disappoint.
I could ask you to kill for me, and I
won't know if you'll carry it out.
We have no reason
to lie to each other...
unless the lie
is prettier than the truth.
We're no longer
on the train.
No?
How did you find me?
Don't tell me you're one of those New Age
types who don't believe in accidents.
You're not gonna ask me
to kill someone, are you?
Why don't you
show me what you do.
Can I get you
a pain pill for that?
Actually, the pain
helps me remember.
Sisters at Saint Jude's
would agree with you.
Catholic school?
You bet.
Her patron saint.
I held the cross
under my tongue...
until there was
a bloody sore.
I ate with it...
like that.
I slept with it.
Eventually the pain fades
and the callous appears.
My father only made it
a few weeks.
One morning
he refused to work,
and they beat him to death
with their rifles.
Bullets were too expensive.
When I was young, my mother used to
tell me this story when things got bad.
"The world ended when Jesus
hung on the cross," she'd say.
And all of history
is just a dream...
in the last instant
of a Roman centurion's life.
Coffee?
That's when she asked you
to tail Carl Pruitt.
Not at first.
I knew she was hiding something,
something from her past.
It wasn't so much
what she said...
It was
the way she said it?
More the way she didn't say
what she didn't say.
You some kind
of cop detective?
Yeah.
You don't look like cop.
Yeah? What's a cop
look like?
Better dressed.
Guy cheating on his wife.
I seen it all right here.
Yeah, I bet you have.
Nothing like stories
from cab driver.
One guy tries to strangle hooker in
backseat. I say, "Not in my cab."
He say,
"I give you big tip."
So what'd you do?
I throw him out. He strangle
on street, his business.
Not in my cab.
People fucking, okay.
A big tip covers it.
Killing?
Yeah, I get it.
Not in your cab.
You can bet you.
That's him.
Want to hear
strangest story ever?
Does it involve dwarves?
Dwarves? What?
Somehow they always seem to involve
dwarves, and they're never true.
This happened 100%.
My brother, he's fucking
this girl two years.
Met in spinning class. You know,
bicycle doesn't go nowhere?
Only women in these classes.
My brother joins for women.
So he's fucking this girl. One night
she asks, can her friend join in.
My brother is like
winning lottery.
Of course.
More is merrier.
Let me guess.
The friend is a man.
Man? You crazy? Is more beautiful
than one my brother is fucking.
Big tits, everything.
So they have wild night.
Everything is on menu,
soup till nuts.
My brother thinks he died
straight to heaven.
In the morning, I get call.
He wakes up, everything's gone...
Girls, wallet, flat-screen.
He calls police,
but nothing to do.
Her cell doesn't work no more. She's gone
from spinning class like she never exists.
Let me
get this straight.
She's with him for two years
so she can steal his TV?
His whole house. Lucky she
left him his underwears.
I tell you
it was crazy story.
He never found her?
Every day he sees her.
On subway,
walking down street.
But never her. One woman
he followed for half an hour.
She called police.
My brother is never same.
Stopped spinning classes even.
So she had you
playing detective?
It wasn't until the next time
I saw her that she asked me.
The time in the camps...
stands outside normal time.
The time in the camps...
The time in the camps...
stands outside normal time.
Hello?
Can you meet me?
Where I grew up everything
was flat, even the cities.
This seems more honest.
Eye to eye with everyone, you can convince
yourself we're not that different.
Step over a homeless guy
to get to your penthouse,
you know better.
Grow up poor?
Shows?
My mother was always getting
mixed up with the wrong guy.
Father got out
before I was born.
Can't say I blame him.
You ever try
and find him?
I heard he had
an uncle in the east.
That's why I came
out here originally.
He wasn't much use though.
You still close
to your mother?
I grew up using her
as a model of who not to be.
When I was about seven, she finally
seemed to get her life on track.
Stopped drinking,
met a guy from a wealthy family.
She always wanted me
to be provided for,
so he agreed to put
something aside for me.
It was good for a while.
For a while.
He never laid a hand on me,
but I decided then and there
I would never be a victim.
It's important to keep
promises to yourself.
Isn't it?
This the photo
she showed you?
I knew I was gonna do
what it took to help her.
At first it's, "You know you
like it rough, don't you, babe?"
Makes you feel like you're
always the one at fault.
If I hadn't done this,
hadn't said that.
You look in the mirror
one morning and realize...
it's not only your
mother's eyes you've got,
it's the bruises
around them.
Is that why
you called me?
I called you...
to get drunk.
That when she told you
she was married?
Not in so many words.
More the way she didn't say
what she didn't say?
So who was she?
The one who
got to you.
What makes you think
there was only one?
Devil takes many forms,
but there's really only one.
You should've been
a priest.
Not an option
for a woman.
I'd make a terrible nun.
There's always one
who sets the standard.
For most guys, it's the girl in
college who barely knew they existed.
There were a couple
of those, I guess.
It's just as well.
If you'd gathered
the courage to talk to her,
you would've noticed
her teeth aren't perfect.
Her eyes
are slightly askew.
You ever notice how
it's always those quirks...
we find the most charming in the beginning
become the most irritating over time?
What about you?
I'm more comfortable
on this side.
As long as there's
no tape in it.
It's digital.
No tape.
It was high school,
backseat of his car.
I wish I could be
more original.
He plays it cool,
a little smile on his face.
But in that smile is a world
of expectation and sadness.
The flower is beautiful,
but it dies.
The girl is fertile,
but she will age.
They won't find each other in an old age
home at the sunny edge of the world.
Won't wind up in L.A.
This is their moment,
and they better take it.
If there's anything
you need to tell me...
about your relationship
with this young woman,
now would be the time.
I needed to know
if it was possible to know...
I needed to know if it was
possible to know someone...
- I love you.
- Really know someone.
I always have.
I wanted to know
what was real...
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
And what was just some kind
of image of her in my head.
I love you. I love you.
I always have.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I love you.
I always have.
I always have. Our souls were born
together at the beginning of time.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I love you.
I love you.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
It wasn't in college.
We met at the museum.
Impressionists?
How'd you know?
You always find the best women
in the impressionist wing.
We went out
a couple of times.
She invites me
back to her place,
and we're sitting
on the couch.
When she gets up
to throw a log in the fire,
I notice a slight
stiffness in her step.
Somehow that tiny
sign of age...
made her real for me.
She was perfected
by her imperfections.
And in that moment,
I can see the future.
We will move together
into the bright haze,
fighting age and decay,
losing gloriously.
I will come to love her cancer
scars, her arthritic knee.
And I know that sex and love
are just animal things,
the genes liking
what's good for them.
But maybe there's
another possibility.
If love is more
than the sum of its parts,
maybe we are more
than the sum of our parts.
But there's
another future.
She will leave me,
or I'll leave her.
I'll feel the pain
but only for a while.
And I know that if I ran
into her a year later,
she won't be someone that I could
imagine falling in love with.
In fact, I'll question
that I ever did at all.
So which future did you choose?
Sometimes the scorpion
stings you,
even if it means
he'll drown too.
When I was little, my mother
told me about the saints.
Saint Jude
was always my favorite.
Patron saint of lost causes.
Why did you
really call me?
I agreed to help her out
with Pruitt,
but there was a condition.
She still hadn't told me why she was
crying that day I met her on the train.
He was a brave man once.
He was in Cuba on business
during the revolution.
Somehow he managed to convince
both sides he was with them.
He infiltrated the guerrillas
on behalf of the government,
told the revolutionaries he was
gathering intelligence for them.
Both sides suspected
he was C.I.A.
I think eventually even he
didn't know what the truth was.
One time he was able to warn
a village about a coming attack.
About a dozen families
escaped.
Do you have chocolate?
I need you to do this
for me, Danny.
What will following him
with my camera give you?
Ammunition.
Not everybody
has a double life.
Not everybody
has a secret.
That's where
you're wrong.
You assumed the elderly
gentleman was her great uncle?
I imagine he was just some
old-timer she used as a prop.
She was very good
with stories.
That's when you agreed
to follow Carl Pruitt.
He was a criminal
defense lawyer.
I knew he'd have
some unsavory associations,
but I didn't think
much of it.
You were led to believe
this ammunition...
was for a potential
divorce proceeding?
She never actually
mentioned divorce.
Right.
The way she didn't say
what she didn't say.
About a week in,
it started to get interesting.
That was the first time
you saw James Fenetree?
Well, we weren't formally
introduced, but, yeah, that's him.
Of course
we already know that.
For the record,
I didn't leave her.
So, sometimes the scorpion
gets stung too.
You replay the last weeks
and days looking for a reason.
Did you say something wrong,
commit some callous act?
Can it really be so fragile?
Or you can move on.
Envy those couples who've
been together so long...
they can't remember why.
In the land of the one-eyed,
envy the blind.
With the Americans approaching,
they were in a hurry...
to finish up with us.
Finally it would be
my turn.
I thought back to the
little girl by the train.
In a place where evil
seemed so big...
Also so small,
so everyday...
I believed...
that this one little act
of kindness saved my life.
I had to know that
there was something else,
some people existed
who could be good and kind.
You didn't notice anything odd about the
picture she showed you of Carl Pruitt?
Not exactly
a family portrait.
That's taken
with a telephoto lens.
Well, she doesn't like
getting her photograph taken.
Right.
The aborigines.
I guess I took
a lot on faith.
Well, I thought all you
movie people were atheists.
Only when it comes to God.
In the morning,
so much excitement.
The camp guards
have disappeared.
People are running around.
The Americans
have liberated the camp.
They had
hot food for us...
Just some broth
with a little meat.
But it was so long since I had
had anything so hot and good,
I ate it so quickly that the little
cross came loose, and I almost choked.
Just think about it...
If after all I'd been through
I had choked...
on this kind gift.
I took it out of my mouth...
and hung it round my neck.
A Jewish boy wearing a cross?
I got tired of explaining.
So if they thought
I'd converted, let them.
I'd seen Pruitt go into
the building a couple of times,
so I decided
to get a better look.
Ever seen him before?
His name's Spider.
Of course.
Carl represented him
a few times.
He's required to do a certain
amount of pro bono work.
And Spider?
He's a provider.
Drugs, girls, you name it.
Carl likes to get paid
one way or another.
Are you asking
for the time?
Do I need
some kind of wrist band?
It ain't part of the club.
I wasn't getting past
this guy anyway,
so I figured
I'd come back another night.
He had to take a break
sooner or later.
You didn't think you might be
getting in over your head?
Ever try and jump off
a moving train?
If there's anything
you need to tell me...
about your relationship
with this young woman,
now would be the time.
I thought I wasn't
a suspect.
Yet you're willing to walk into a
potentially dangerous situation...
armed with
a video camera.
I guess I wanted to know
what was real...
and what was just some kind
of image of her in my head.
I needed to know if it was
possible to know someone,
really know someone.
It seemed very important.
My wife died last year.
Thirty years.
I got the call I'm usually the one making.
Car accident.
Funny thing is, she wasn't even
supposed to go out that night,
but she did go out.
She was going out to see
the guy she was screwing.
For weeks I bounced
between anger, hurt, loss.
The hardest thing was jumping
from one feeling to the next.
I couldn't get
a foothold.
So finally I decided
to pick one emotion.
I tried to remember
who she was...
and why I loved her.
And then when the dark
feelings would rise,
I would...
What do you call it when
you turn lead into gold?
Alchemy.
I'd take everything about her,
even the things I hated,
and I'd tell her in my mind
how that made me love her...
because that's what made her
who she was, even the flaws.
I see it every day.
Love a person half your life,
then wake up one morning...
and you can't find a single
thing about them not to hate.
I've seen women carved
to ribbons by men...
who two days ago would have jumped
in front of a truck to save.
I wasn't gonna let
that happen.
I wasn't gonna turn
gold to lead.
Did it work?
Sometimes.
You know, there's a tab
on the camera menu,
you can turn off
the tally light?
That way the suspect doesn't
know he's being recorded.
You're good.
You share. I share.
Was it true?
Didn't Jesus say,
"What is truth"?
Actually,
I think it was Pilate.
Eventually I made my way
to New York.
I found work with a relative
who sold small gifts,
religious trinkets
from the church.
He always made fun
of me anyway.
"The goy," he called me
because of the cross.
"Go out and sell the saints."
So every day I went to the cart
out on Coney Island.
I couldn't believe how happy
all the people were...
just for nothing,
for some cotton candy...
and a few silly rides.
This happiness
was more foreign to me...
than the new language.
One day
I'm pushing my cart...
when this pretty young woman approaches
to buy something for her niece.
I hear she has an accent,
so we start talking German.
I never talked
about my experience...
with a Gentile,
certainly not a German.
But she was so kind,
so gentle,
I let her know
I was a Jew.
She could figure out
the rest.
So much was different
between us,
and yet it was so easy
to talk to her.
I never forget her smile.
Finally she buys
a trinket,
and I reach down
to put it in a bag,
and the cross comes out
from under my shirt.
Her eyes get very big...
like two blue pools
of water.
"Where did you get this?"
she asks.
I don't want to tell her
the whole story,
but of course
she already knew.
"Why is a Jewish boy
wearing a cross?"
It seemed like forever.
Neither of us
said a thing.
Then there are tears
in her eyes.
"I was punished when I told
my parents I had lost it."
I had found my savior,
the little girl whose kindness had
seen me through impossible times.
I left the cart right there
on the boardwalk,
and we walked for hours,
just talking...
Two people so different.
It was like we'd known
each other our whole lives,
which, of course, we had...
in our imaginations.
Seeing the worst
that people are capable of,
I had also seen in her
the best.
Now that I'd found her,
I promised her, promised myself,
I would never
lose her again.
And I've never
broken that promise.
I was wrong.
You don't want to choose between
a great love and a great story.
You think that's
what this is about?
I woke up one morning,
and I saw my mom standing
over the kitchen sink,
and suddenly
I knew what hell was.
You see the world,
but you're not in it.
People walk by your grave,
laughing, alive,
forgetting you.
But still you remain,
a bead of awareness
in a universe of uncaring.
But what if
there's a way out?
What if there's a bridge
to just one moment,
a story,
a sentence of our lives?
Do we become
a part of that story?
Does that become
our eternity?
I don't know why I didn't
tell her about the Herzmans.
I wonder
if it saved my life.
She took the cab
down with me.
The idea was I'd collect the footage
and we'd meet later in a diner.
You should have
fought for her.
You thought it was her
imperfections that you loved,
but it's really
just the story.
Makes you
into a nicer guy...
than the one who would've
left her for someone younger.
The great lost love
has its appeal,
even to a girl like me.
Stories don't age and die.
You can tell them
over and over.
Problem is,
they always end the same.
Seriously, man, what the
fuck were you thinking?
Fair question.
I mean,
what did you expect?
Damned if I know.
Damned if you don't.
Good one.
Yeah? Well,
take it to the grave.
What am I doing here?
Hey, man, you chugged
in here on your own steam.
It was
a rhetorical question.
I was asking myself.
I know what
"rhetorical" means.
No disrespect.
You know what I like
about vampire stories?
The good ones, anyway.
I couldn't begin to guess.
The victim has to invite
the vampire in.
I think I might
have misjudged you.
It's a common mistake.
Did you really think
you could have her?
Think she'd ever
show you her real self?
I guess I wasn't thinking.
That's where
you're wrong, partner.
You think too much.
Girl like Lexi,
she isn't about thought.
She tell you
what floats her boat?
Tell you to grab her hair,
push her face
into the pillows?
Tell you
she likes it rough?
I just had
a funny thought.
Wouldn't think you'd be
in a laughing mood.
About a patron saint
for lost causes.
Yeah, that's
one of her raps.
Unlike you, I don't imagine I'm
the first man she's told that to.
Probably not the first to wear
this around his neck either.
You always believe women when
they tell you you're their first?
Actually
I never believe that.
Well,
there's hope for you yet.
You know, of course,
that's a scorpion.
And your name's Spider.
Why do you...
Why have you got
a scorpion tattoo?
You do have a right
to remain silent.
Hey, I'm just saying.
Just saying.
In the end, does all that
smarts really pay off?
I mean, look where I am.
Look where you sit.
Doesn't that strike you
as funny?
Well, not funny.
I have this theory
about smarts...
That it gets in the way
of seeing things.
What? Did you think
she cared?
Just what I thought.
Only a smart guy could be
that fucking stupid.
Here's another smart guy.
See how fucking smart?
So, want to hear the plan?
Our girl asks you to get some dirt on old
Carl over there, which isn't hard to do.
He's much more interested
in pain than women.
What's the difference?
But you wind up
falling for her.
Decide you
have to have her.
She brings that out
in a man.
Let me guess.
I kill him.
See? Those smarts again.
Why do I kill him if she's
going to leave him anyway?
Hang on a minute.
Because he put a fucking
nail through your hand.
Of course, I'd been
following Pruitt,
collecting all this footage,
so it had a certain logic.
Spider.
Scorpion.
Whatever your name is.
Arachnid!
You like pain
or something?
Look, I know smarts
has its limitations,
but dumb won't get you
very far either.
Seriously?
You really think
you're gonna end up...
on a paradise island
with her?
You really don't know
what's what, do you?
- She's not real.
- No?
She only shows you
what she needs to.
See, a man like you will
never get what she's about.
Upper West Side pussy.
Think I don't know you?
You walk the line, afraid
to give the littlest offense.
Tell them what they wanna hear,
fuck on their schedule,
tiptoeing nine paces
behind them.
You're right, hoss.
She'll never be real to you.
Just about done here.
And you thought the nail
was a good idea because?
He pisses me off.
So let me get this straight.
He kills Carl, and then he hammers
a nail into his own hand.
Carl fucks him up with the nail,
but he gets himself free.
He does Carl
with the knife,
and Carl has just enough left in him
to put a bullet between his eyes.
What did I say
about improvising?
Where is he?
I want to see him.
I've waited a long time.
Who the fuck are you?
Jesus.
Now he's dead.
He didn't know you.
You have the gun?
Cold as they come.
Why didn't he know you?
No. Let me.
You sure, babe?
He's my responsibility.
There's my girl.
Come on. You can do
better than that.
If it makes a difference,
I'm sorry.
Can't blame the scorpion
for stinging you.
What was that she said?
About living out an alternative future
in the last instant of your life.
...future in the last
instant of your life.
Is that what all this has been?
Is that what this is?
Are you always the last
to realize you're already dead?
...always the last to realize
you're already dead all along?
Maybe I should have been
paying more attention.
Well, that was the death that
flashed before my eyes anyway.
No. Let me.
There's my girl.
For the record,
I never liked it rough.
He pisses me off.
You weren't what I thought.
You're exactly
what I thought.
He won't be needing it.
So where will you go?
Someplace warm.
Who will you be
when you get there?
You invented me as much
as I invented myself, Danny.
The vampire can't enter
without an invitation.
I knew he didn't come up
with that line himself.
You want me to tell you
it was real for me?
That I loved you
if only for a moment?
That's why you're alive
and Spider's dead.
Okay.
I love you.
I always have.
Our souls were born together
at the beginning of time.
I can't tell you anything
you don't already know.
I believe you.
Will you remember me?
Safe bet.
The thing is,
even after everything,
I wanted to believe.
Duct-taped to a chair,
nail through my hand,
two dead guys on the floor,
I still wanted to believe her.
Homo creditus.
Man the believer.
Pretty fucking stupid?
Just overmatched.
They're smarter than us.
You know that.
At least you're not one of
the dead guys on the floor.
Does that make me
a suspect?
I don't think you killed
Carl Pruitt.
And I don't really think that she
ever expected you to take the rap.
My guess is her plan was to get rid of
Pruitt and Spider at the same time.
So why use me?
What Spider lacked
in moral clarity,
he made up for
in street smarts.
He knew somebody would have
to take the fall for Pruitt.
Well, she convinced him
it was you...
so he wouldn't know
it was him all along.
But why kill Spider?
I guess she had a short fuse
on this kind of thing.
Tell you
she likes it rough?
She was never
married to Carl.
He didn't seem to know her.
He knew her.
But I decided then and there
I would never be a victim.
The mother
was married to him.
He killed her.
D.A. went for manslaughter.
Carl claimed she came at him
with a kitchen knife.
He was acquitted.
She never said
she was married to him.
What?
Or that he was the one
who beat her. She just...
You look in the mirror
one morning and realize...
it's not only your mother's eyes you've
got, it's the bruises around them.
She just...
She just let me
fill in the blanks.
Turns out the mother insisted that
Carl set up a blind trust for Lexi...
before she'd marry him.
Carl stipulated the trust
wouldn't go into effect...
until he
and the mother died.
She always wanted me
to be provided for,
so he agreed to put
something aside for me.
She cleaned out the trust
three days ago.
I imagine she hooked up with
Spider as a way to get to Pruitt.
He'd represented him
on a couple of drug beefs.
Once Spider laid a hand
on her, his fate was set.
You knew all along.
Be nice if we could see
the rest of the room.
Well, I'll be more careful
next time I drop my camera.
You will get me the footage
that you've been collecting?
So I'm free to go?
I am curious though.
Earlier you mentioned something
about that couple, the Herzmans.
Something you
never told her.
I didn't want him
to do this. Never.
I was in the camps,
just as I said.
And I saw many trains
pass by with prisoners.
But I never
even saw Morris.
That day on Coney Island
was the first time we met.
We fell in love
and were married.
The important parts
are true.
But the story of the girl
with the cross? Your angel?
That I made up.
It was just a trinket
he was selling.
I thought it was so funny, you know,
a Jewish boy selling crosses.
I've worn it ever since.
But it's not even real.
Of course it's real.
It's just not real gold.
When the book publishers
did their fact checking,
they found that the dates
and places didn't match.
Morris came clean, but of course
he lost the book and movie deal.
Why'd he do it?
For the money?
Not exactly.
It was a wonderful story.
It made people happy.
But it's not true.
Agh! It made them feel good.
Do you care when you read a novel
that it didn't really happen?
Are you angry at Shakespeare because
Juliet never said those words?
Our love is real.
Fifty years.
That part is real.
So what's more important?
I gave them something beautiful,
and now it's gone.
Is there too much beauty
in the world?
Believe me, where I was
there wasn't so much beauty.
A story like this would've
given those poor souls...
more hope
than a hundred gold crosses.
That's why I was on the train
when I saw Lexi the second time.
I was on my way up to do the follow-up
interview with the Herzmans.
You will get me
that footage.
You're welcome to it.
She never let me shoot her.
Maybe she was right
after all.
About it capturing
your soul.
She asked me if I'd choose the
great love or the great story.
But is there a difference
really?
In the end, you aren't
who you think you are.
You're who
I perceive you to be.
In the world of matter, you are
uncontrollable, unpredictable,
a babble of random motion.
I capture you in a net of words, and
you are known, if only for a moment.
We imagine we create words.
But what if they create us?
This is the secret poets know.
Words are incantations
weaving magic spells.
If the word initiated
the universe into existence,
what will close it?
Why didn't I tell
Detective Martin?
I guess I was never purely
victim or suspect.
You could say I was
an accomplice of sorts.
Check my heart.
Why did I give her the memory
card, let her keep her soul?
Why did I go back there,
knowing?
Sometimes you just have to
find out how the story ends.
Of course, I did back it up
to my hard drive.
I really do miss
our conversations, Danny.
But this time I'm just going
to have to imagine your side.
In a way,
it's just as well...
since we can't ever
really know each other, can we?
Men and women,
people and people,
we're all alone
in the end.
But maybe that's okay.
It's what makes us hope and fear
and sometimes love each other.
It's what keeps us awake
at night...
and makes us pull the blankets over our
head against the glare of morning.
It's the throbbing in your brain at 4:00
a.m. as you look for the bathroom...
in some stranger's apartment to piss out
the chemicals from the night before.
It's fingers
scratching across tiles,
my knees pointed at the ceiling,
my back arched like a cat's.
Love is a religion,
a denial of death,
a descent into fiction
and improbability,
a lighting of candles,
a bridge to the impossible,
a lunatic babbling
on the uptown I.R.T.
It is this tenement basement with
its stink of cockroach and death.
It is Jesus above Rio.
...denial of death.
It is sex and it's withering.
It is blood on the floor.
You will kill for it
and die for it.
It is hope
and the death of hope.
You'll open its shroud and see your
face etched in dirt and sweat.
It fills you and empties you
in the same heartbeat.
A bridge to the impossible.
It is hope
and the death of hope.
Love without sex
is life without death.
Sex without danger
is God without the devil.
If you can't risk being damned,
don't imagine you can ever love.
Love straps your arms
to the cross,
drives nails
through your hands and feet.
Love is the spear
that pierces your side...
and the blood and the gall
that splashes to the ground.
It is a rag of vinegar
pressed to your lips...
and the thorn
pushed into your scalp.
It is a desert mirage,
an echo in a cave,
your own words
returning to mock you.
It's every great painting
you'll ever see...
and the way we know art from the scratchings
an elephant can make with his trunk.
Hard center or soft?
Soft.
Never much cared
for the hard center.
Nor I.