Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Car Talk finalish

INT.  ROVER - DAY

White Sands area.

Hunter driving, Jackie front passenger. Tom behind Hunter, Chloe behind Jackie. 

TOM: When's the last time you were on a horse?

CHLOE: A Santa Barbara beach ride with my mom a couple years ago. And, if a mule counts, two years before that at Grand Canyon. 

TOM: I'd say a mule counts. Good time?.

Chloe nods.

CHLOE: Have you been?

TOM: I have. Had an aunt and uncle who lived in Flagstaff. We went out for a week one summer.

CHLOE: We being whom?

TOM: Mom, dad, me and Ruthie. 

CHLOE: How old were you twelve. The day we drove to the canyon was Ruthie's tenth birthday. 

HUNTER: How did you get to Flaqstaff?

TOM: Drove.

HUNTER: In what?

TOM: Sixty-one Chrysler three-hundred. Mom's car.

HUNTER: What was dad's car?

TOM: Fifty-nine Chevy Apache pickup.

HUNTER: What was your first car?  

TOM: Sixty-four Pontiac G-T-O. 

HUNTER: Original muscle.

TOM: Yessir. My dad and both grandfathers gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. Much to the concern of mom and both grandmothers. 

HUNTER: Three eighty-nine?

TOM: Yep. 

HUNTER: Transmission?

TOM: Four-speed manual.

HUNTER: That's a lot of car for a seventeen-year-old.

TOM: It was. I didn't drive it a whole lot. It was made clear to me it might be worth some money someday. So while it was technically mine I always considered it to be the family's. An investment.

HUNTER: What became of it?

TOM: Put it in the garage when I went to Vietnam, crashed it in Mexico a few months after I got back.

HUNTER: A story you'd be willing to share sometime?

TOM (beat): Sure. 

A pause.

CHLOE: Selfie with me, Tom.

TOM: Long as ya send it to me.

CHLOE: Deal.

Chloe scoots close to Tom, aims phone to take selfie. 


[CUT TO

TBD looking at selfie.]