Excerpts from Carrier
VOICES:
Raven Flight, this is Mother. Raven up.
Roger, Raven Flight. Come to 040, climb and maintain angels 3.5, go 305.0 for Skyshield control, over.
Roger, Mother. Raven Flight to 040, angels 3.5, 305.0 for Skyshield, break-break.
Raven Flight, this is Lead, go 305.0 now. Roger, Lead.
Skyshield Control this is Raven Flight up this net, lean and mean with three, how copy?
Roger, Raven Flight , we gotcha, say your goodies, over.
BAILEY:
What’s happening?
JERI ELLEN:
Same thing. Bombing Baghdad. Boom boom. You’re working hard. Are you going to finish that petition, or let the nice man fry?
BAILEY:
Let him fry. I didn’t choose this case—
JERI ELLEN:
You could’ve said no.
BAILEY:
I can’t say no to Larry—
JERI ELLEN:
Not when he says, “Ed, you’re the best appeals guy in Baltimore! You’ve got balls!”
BAILEY:
So all we know is we’re bombing Baghdad?
JERI ELLEN:
Turn on the radio. There’s a news crew in the main hotel, they’re running around looking out each other’s windows. Ed, I need to get done here. I called Max, he’s watching the war so he cremated the pot roast, so if we could get this petition done—
BAILEY:
We’ve got till ten a.m. tomorrow.
JERI ELLEN:
Ed—
BAILEY:
Boom boom.
JERI ELLEN:
My son is eighteen, Ed.
BAILEY:
Right. I know. Right. Yes. Ok. Right.
Post-combat stress. Ok, I can have some sympathy for the guy. He fought a totally different war than I did. He’s in the jungle, cutting off ears for souvenirs. While I get up, breakfast, fly a mission, come back to the ship, my bed’s made, listen to my stereo, write some letters, fly another mission— Like going to the office, dodging SAMs at the middle management level—
But nothing like—
VOICES:
Raven flight. . . Mother. . . 040. . . climb. . . maintain. . .
EDDIE:
You got the combination?
ROGERS:
These little chickenshit locks. . .
WINKELMAN:
Lemme do it.
ROGERS:
It’s your speed, baby.
WINKELMAN:
That should work.
O’GRADY:
Some things work. Some don’t.
LANDIS:
Don’t get morbid.
O’GRADY:
Stating a fact.
LANDIS:
Facts. . .
WINKELMAN:
Got it.
ROGERS:
Right man for the job.
Winkelman opens the safe. The men sort the contents of the safe and locker. One finds a bottle. Rogers opens it. Winkelman takes out glasses and cups, Rogers pours.
ROGERS:
Here’s to Dick Owens.
They drink. Bosun: “Chief engineer report to the bridge. Chief engineer report to the bridge.”
Sonsabitches.
WINKELMAN:
Which sonsabitches?
ROGERS:
Motherfuckers we’re fighting. He’s one of the best guys in the squadron.
EDDIE:
They didn’t get him. His airplane broke.
BAILEY:
His airplane broke.
ROGERS:
He’s one of the best. They try to kill a guy like that.
LANDIS:
We’re trying to kill them. That’s what we’re here for.
ROGERS:
We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those fuckers.
WINKELMAN:
Don’t get political.
EDDIE:
His airplane broke.
ROGERS:
Fuckers.
WINKELMAN:
(to Eddie) Trousers fit?
EDDIE:
Think so.
WINKELMAN:
Take’em.
ROGERS:
He shoulda got promotions. He was a damn good stick.
WINKELMAN:
Good stick. Lousy at paperwork.
ROGERS:
Fuck paperwork.
WINKELMAN:
Fuck paperwork, sure, but it’s a fact.
ROGERS:
Fuck the paperwork! Paperwork don’t get the job done! We get the job done!
WINKELMAN:
Yeh we do.
ROGERS:
Good stick.
WINKELMAN:
Damn good.
ROGERS:
Fuckers.
LANDIS:
You wanta send this stuff to his wife? Write a note or something?
ROGERS:
Naw, let Owens do it, he was more—
Stops abruptly.
Owens. Hoo. I started to say, “Let Owens do it, cause he’s good at that stuff.”
WINKELMAN:
“He knew him better.” (chuckling) Sick.
ROGERS:
“Let Owens do it.” Holy shit.
EDDIE:
Everybody hold it.
They look at him. He snaps a flash picture.
O’GRADY:
What’s that for? His wife?
EDDIE:
I dunno.
VOICES:
Jack the FAC, Raven flight, feet dry now, you copy?
Rog, Raven, Jack up and busy as hell. Get low and call a tally on my green smoke, then I’m the hell outta here, copy?
Rog, Jack, Lead’s in, holy shit, where’d all these guys come from? Lead’s off hot, heads up, looks like a mobile launcher in there.
EDDIE:
Go in over the beachhead, over the target, roll in on the target, point your nose at the ground, right straight at the target, setting computers, scanning the panel while flying straight at the earth at five hundred miles an hour.
I’m strapped in, stuff going by, two feet from the canopy, fireflies, hit you they kill you. Down the path, go down balls to the wall, and I tell you, Kay, honest to God—
KAY:
Be honest—
EDDIE:
Honest to God, I’m so fucking scared, I start to scrunch down in a foetal position, wad up in a ball, I—
KAY:
Tell me—
EDDIE:
I push the button, pickle and pull, wait for the computer to let the bombs go, two seconds it seems like weeks, it seems like—
KAY:
Weeks—
VOICES:
Three’s in, Two, SAM launch, break right, break right, Sparrow away, gogogogo. Got’em, oh shit, Two’s hit, Three off hot. Dump it all and boogie, anybody see a chute? See a chute?
BAILEY:
No chute.
EDDIE:
And suddenly it’s light. The plane is light. Try get away, you’re turning, climbing, accelerating, moving through three dimensions, the radar tracks over two dimensions, you’re moving three. And I am clear. I am clear—
VOICES:
(continuing) Balls to the wall, baby, balls to the wall. It’s better than fucking.
Fuckin, fuckin, fuckin. . . Clear. . .
EDDIE:
Clear! And then the rush. Invincibility. I won—
O’GRADY:
Question for you. What are you bombing down there?
EDDIE:
What?
O’GRADY:
What you’re dropping stuff on.
EDDIE:
Whatta you talking about?
O’GRADY:
You go up in an aircraft, and you drop stuff down. What’re you dropping’em on?
EDDIE:
Targets.
Pause.
Targets, for Chrissake.
O’GRADY:
Right.
EDDIE:
You’re joking, right?
DERRYDALE:
Talk to me baby
Tell me what to say
Talk to me a little
Cause I been a long time away.
Talk to me honey
Tell me what you wanta hear
Talk to me just a little bit now
Tell me what to whisper in your ear.
I can tell you stories
Tell you who I wanta be
I can tell amazing stories
You might even think it was me.
Talk to me sweetheart
Tell me how to feel
Give me a hint if you can do it
Just how to make it real.
Talk to me baby
It’s no big deal
I’m just a little nervous now
I might have to make it real
If you talk to me.
EDDIE:
Wink. You didn’t mean that, did you?
WINKELMAN:
Mean what?
EDDIE:
You can’t roll an A-3.
WINKELMAN:
Five’ll get you ten.
EDDIE:
It won’t get me ten. You won’t be here to pay me the ten.
WINKELMAN:
You hold the stakes.
EDDIE:
Hell with that. I’m supposed to be down here hoping you lose? You can’t roll a Whale.
WINKELMAN:
You can roll it if you’re good. I’m good. Hey, you wanta see it, don’t you?
EDDIE:
I’m dying to see an elephant do a backflip, but I’m never gonna. I might see him try. You can’t roll it, Wink.
WINKELMAN:
I been flying that thing a fucking ten months— And cargo and every damn kind of big watermelon with wings.
EDDIE:
Sure, and you really belong in a fighter instead of a tanker. That’s the key to winning this war, if the President only knew. Your turn.
WINKELMAN:
See those guys in the Phantoms, those fighter pukes, do those tuckaway breaks and get away with it, hell— They let those guys get away with stuff, wouldn’t it be great if I rolled the Whale? Just a farewell fuck-you. I’d be a fleet legend.
DERRYDALE:
We in a nose-down attitude Mother
We in a vertical dive
We in a nose-down attitude Mother
We in a vertical dive
Gotta pull up outta that nose-down attitude
If we wanta come out alive
Calling May-day May-Day.
We got no hydraulics to move us Mother
Got no ejection seat
No hydraulics to move us Mother
Got no ejection seat
Better cope with this obsolete technology
Or we’re gonna be dead meat
Pull me up pull me outa my nose-down attitude
May-day. . .
Try full throttle power bring my nose up Mother
Too damn strong on the Q-force
Grab at the latch, the latch don’t work
Going from bad to couldn’t-be-worse
Falling back falling back
Bring my nose up
Calling May-day
Mother calling May-day
Thought I lost you Mother
Mother send me angels
Are you there
Hate that nose-down vertical attitude
It’s death every time.