Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Hearing the yelling, Frank recaps the fifth of Seagram’s and stashes it in the shadow of a dumpster before entering the alley. He first sees Iris wringing her hands, slumped against the tattooed brick wall. Her red hair merciless. Woodrow paces in front of her, bellowing:“How dare you, you fucking bitch!” To which she could only mew back, “Woodrow—I!” before he is in her face yelling again. You’re with me. Get it?” Iris lifts a hand to placate him but he merely repeats even louder than before, “Get it!?” Frank, meanwhile, fights to leave them to their own train wreck love. She chose the bastard, after all. Leaving the ugly Frank all alone in this ugly town. But, fuck. Frank loved her. There was never any secret about that, was there? “Woodrow?” Frank is already at a loss for words as his animal rival turns and scowls. Frank must think: “I don’t like the way you’re treating her.” With this, a surprised Frank is able to edge past Woodrow. Woodrow is equally surprised that he, himself hasn’t hurt anyone yet. “Iris,” Frank pats a creamy shoulder, “You want to go?” Iris tears and makes a move to embrace him. Woodrow moves closer to Frank, “She doesn’t want to go with you.” “Well, you know what they say,” Frank buys time, hoping Iris will sneak away, “Two’s company, three’s a crowd, and four and five are nine.”Iris does not move, Frank continues “Its like this, Woodrow. Its like dropping your toothbrush on the floor. You could rinse and rinse it out, but it still looks unclean. Worse still, you know that if you put it back on the sink, you’ll stick the thing in your mouth tomorrow, completely forgetting it was on the floor today. Such is the fleeting nature of one moment of reality.” Woodrow, incensed, grabs Frank by the shoulder and whips him around away from Iris.Frank then feels the buck-knife slide into his lower abdomen—“Spleen territory,” Frank muses, “Too bad. A little to the right would be preferable. The liver was already fucked up anyway.” The blade jerks up slicing and tearing god knows what on Frank’s insides. Frank stares at the deer antler handle now poking out of his stomach, as Woodrow lets go of it. But, Woodrow is soon taking him by the neck and slamming him into the bricks. Frank crumples at Iris’s feet. He eyes her red Chuck Taylor’s an inch from his head and misses her dearly. Failing to notice it sticking out of Frank, Woodrow, at this point in the proceedings, cannot find his knife. He opts to pull a small .22 from the waistband of his jeans. “Let’s go,” he grunts leveling the revolver alternately between Iris’ chest and Frank’s fallen form. “The fuck you do,” mutters Frank as what begins as a comic struggle to his feet, ends with a desperate lunge at Woodrow. Two shots ring out and Woodrow and Frank tumble into some trashcans, and, Iris unscathed, both slugs were surely now lodged in Frank. Hitting the ground, however, Frank smiles. As the metal cans dive out of the way, he realizes that the sickly squish of head on cement emanates from Woodrow, not himself. Woodrow’s unconscious tongue is lolling out of his mouth. Frank breathes heavily. He begins to drag himself toward Iris’s red sneakers, which are, still, all he can see. She is soon by his side, and he is left to lie still and stare up at the night sky while Iris quickly ministers to him. He is finally alone with her, but drifts away in doubt, catching her quick glance back at her fallen lover. She debates whether or not to pull the buck out of Frank’s abdomen. He sighs and turns heavily on the ground, away from Iris and back towards the fifth—which he can spy, intact under the dumpster at the open end of the alley. Frank feels something like—exactly like— Warren Oates, in Peckinpah’s classic, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), available on DVD Spring 2005, by MGM. A great film, but there is no time for that now— “It’s OK,” Frank burbles, “I scream into the void, but even cocking an ear an listening, I do not hear the slightest echo in return!”