[
Vaughan is being tattooed]
Vaughan:
It's too clean.
Tattooist:
Medical tattoos are supposed to be clean.
Vaughan:
But this is not a medical tattoo. It's a prophetic tattoo. Prophecy is ragged and dirty... so make it ragged and dirty.
James Ballard:
I'm beginning to feel like a potted plant.
Vaughan:
The car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event.
James Ballard:
Katherine, are you all right?
Catherine Ballard:
James. I don't know.
James Ballard:
Are you Hurt?
Catherine Ballard:
I think I'm all right...
[
James starts groping and kissing his wife]
Catherine Ballard:
... I think I'm all right.
James Ballard:
Maybe the next time, darling. Maybe the next time.
Vaughan:
I've always wanted to drive a crashed car.
James Ballard:
You could get your wish at any moment.
Vaughan:
No, I mean a crashed car with a history. Camus' Fassellvega, Nathaniel West's station wagon, Grace Kelly's Rover 3500. Just fix it enough to get it rolling. Don't clean it, don't touch anything else.
James Ballard:
Do you see Kennedy's assassination as a special kind of car crash?
Vaughan:
The case could be made.
Vaughan:
Seagrave? You couldn't wait for me? You did the Jayne Mansfield crash without me? And the dog... the dog is beautiful!
Vaughan:
[
talking into microphone as he walks around the car] Don't worry. That guy's gotta see us. Don't worry. That guy's gotta see us... These were the confident last words of the brilliant, young Hollywood star James Dean as he piloted his Porsche 550 Spyder race car toward a date with death along a lonely stretch of California two-lane blacktop Route 466... Don't worry that guy's gotta see us. The year... 1955. The day... September 30. The time... Now. The first star of our show is Little Bastard. James Dean's racing Porsche. He named it after himself and had his racing number - 130 - painted on it.
Vaughan:
[
speaking into microphone] I myself shall play the role of Dean's racing mechanic Rolf Voudrich, sent over from the Porsche factory in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Now, this mechanic was himself fated to die in a car crash in Germany 26 years later.
James Ballard:
After being bombarded endlessly by road safety propaganda, almost a relief to have found myself in an actual accident.
Colin Seagrave:
I want really big tits, out to here, so the audience can see 'em get all cut up and crushed on the dashboard.
James Ballard:
You should've gone to the funeral.
Catherine Ballard:
I wish I had. They bury the dead so quickly. They should leave them lying around for months.
James Ballard:
You had sex with all those men in cars? Only in cars?
Helen Remington:
Yes. I didn't plan it that way.
James Ballard:
Did you fantasize that Vaughan was photographing all these sex acts as though they were traffic accidents?
Helen Remington:
Yes. They felt like traffic accidents.
[
Ballard is giving Helen a lift; she's wearing a white coat]
James Ballard:
Where can I take you?
Helen Remington:
To the airport.
James Ballard:
You're not leaving?
Helen Remington:
No, although not soon enough for some people. A death in the doctor's family makes patients uneasy.
James Ballard:
[
smiling] I take it you're not wearing white to reassure them.
Helen Remington:
[
unsmiling] I'll wear a fucking kimono if I feel like it.
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