All language subtitles for Permanent.Vacation.1980.108

My name is Aloysious Christopher Parker,

and if I ever have a son
he'll be Charles Christopher Parker,

just like Charlie Parker.

But people I know just call me Allie,

and this is my story, or part of it.

I don't expect it to explain all that much,

but what's a story anyway except
one of those connect-the-dots drawings

that, in the end,
forms a picture of something?

That's really all this is.

That's how things work for me.

I go from this place, this person,
to that place or person.

And, you know,
doesn't really make that much difference.

I've known all different kinds of people -

hung out with them, lived with them,

watched them act things out
in their own little ways.

And to me —

to me, those people I've known
are like a series of rooms —

just like all the places
where I've spent time.

You walk in for the first time
curious about this new room —

lamp, TV, whatever.

And then, after a while,
the newness is gone.

Completely.

And then there's this kind of dread,
a kind of creeping dread.

You probably don't even know
what I'm talking about.

But anyway,

I guess the point of all this
is that after a while,

something tells you,
some voice speaks to you,

and that's it.

Time to split.

Go someplace else.

People are gonna be basically the same —

maybe use some different kind
of refrigerator or toilet or something.

But this thing tells you,
and you have to start the drift.

You may not even want to go,
but things will inform you.

So here I am now in a place
where I don't even understand their language.

But, you know,
strangers are still always just strangers.

And the story — this part of the story —

well, it's how I got from there to here.

Or maybe I should say from here to here.

Where have you been?

I haven't seen you since Thursday.

Walking.

Just walking around.

I can't seem to sleep at night.

Not in this city.

Doesn't seem like you sleep at all.

Well, I have my dreams while I'm awake.

All right. Hey.

Whew!

You know, sometimes I think
I should just live fast and die young...

and go in a three-piece white suit
like Charlie Parker.

Not bad, huh?

"She has dropped a roll of paper
from her breast.

A stranger picks it up,
shuts himself in his room all night

and reads the manuscript...

which contains the following:

'When she ventured out with her silk net
on the end of a rush,

chasing the wild, free hummingbird.

Send me one and I, in return,

will wreath a garland of violets,
mint and geraniums.

I was not present at the event of which
my daughter's death was the result.

If I had been,

I would have defended that angel
at the cost of my blood.

Maldoror was passing with his bulldog.

He sees a young girl sleeping
in the shade of a plain tree.

At first,

he took her for a rose.

It is impossible to say
which came first to his mind —

the sight of this young girl
or the resolution which followed.

He undresses rapidly, like a man
who knows what he is going to do.

He opens the angular claws
of the steel hydra

and, armed with a scalpel
of the same kind,

seeing that the green of the grass
had not yet disappeared

beneath all the blood which had been shed,

he prepares without bending
to dig his knife courageously

into the unfortunate child.

Widened hole, he pulls out, one after one.

Corpses sleep again in the shade.

Pig-snouted brutishness

covered him with its protective wings

and cast loving glances at him."'

I'm tired of this book. You can have it.

I'm finished with it.

I'm tired of being alone.

Everyone is alone.

That's why I just drift, you know.

People think it's crazy...

but it's better to think that you're not alone
when you're drifting,

even though you are,

instead of just knowing
that you're alone all the time.

Some people, you know, they —

they can distract themselves
with ambitions and —

and motivation to work, you know,

but it's not for me.

They think people like myself
are crazy, you know.

Everyone does.

Because of the way I live, you know.

I don't know.

I guess you can say it's reckless...

but it's the only way for me, you know.

My mother was like those kind of people,

telling me it's bad to be like that.

And she ended up crazy herself, you know,

after my father was gone.

But I don't care anymore.
I don't want to think about it.

I know that when I get the feeling,
you know, the drift is gonna take me.

I have this feeling...

inside my head

that's been haunting me for a long time.

Up until now.

Because I've decided to...

go visit someone
I haven't seen in a long time.

I'm gonna go back and see my mother.

I haven't seen her in over a year.

She's in an institution.

But first,
I'm gonna go back to where I was born,

the building
that my mother and father lived in.

It was blown up during the war.

I'm gonna walk through the rubble there...

and just look at it one more time.

Look at how the building is all bombed out.

Walk through the rubble

of the building where I was born.

What are you talking about?

What war?

The building was blown up during the war.

Blown up by who?

The Chinese.

Incoming rounds!

Hey, man. What's the matter?

Hit it! Those are enemy planes!
Get on the ground!

Hey, take it easy, man.

Those are not even planes.
They're choppers.

The Cong doesn't have choppers.

Come on, man, take it easy. Get up.

You see? Those are American.

- You want a cigarette?
- Yeah.

Hey, you wanna hear a funny story?

The other day,
I was walking over by, uh...

where I used to live a long time ago.

And right in front of my house
was this big car.

Really shiny.

You know, like one of these old cars -
like, two-tone, very shiny car.

Lots of chrome. You know?

Really beautiful. Like a bubble car.

Very big and round, you know, like that.

It was the most beautiful car I ever saw.
I wanted a car just like it.

It was really bad.

And then today, you know,
I woke up and I couldn't believe it.

I walked out of my house,
where I live now,

and the same car, I saw it.

The same exact car.

Wow, I really flipped, man.

It lit up like a bomb, this car, you know.
It was so great.

Really, like the Batmobile, you know.

Like a gangster car.

Just like that.

It was bad.

So, what do you say to that?

I live back there.

Oh, yeah? Hmm.

Some place to live.

You should get out of here, man.

You should get away from here,
go someplace different.

That's what I'm gonna do.

Take it easy.

I'm gonna get out of here too.

Come on, now. Don't be scared.
Let's go. Come on.

You can walk by yourself. Come on.

- Mrs. Parker is your mother?
- Mm-hmm.

- This is the room.
- Thank you.

Mom?
It's me, Aloysious Christopher Parker.

Mom, it's me, your son.

Mom, it's me, Allie. I'm here to see you.

My son is here to see me?

How are you? Have you been all right?

Do you feel all right here?

I know who you were.
I know you were my son.

I knew because those eyes aren't yours.
They don't belong to you.

They were taken out of your father's head.

Aw, Mom, you're crazy.

I can hear the planes sometimes.

I haven't heard them since the war
when we were bombed.

Is there another war going on?

Excuse me, ladies.
It's time for your medication.

And would you mind leaving the room
for a few moments? You can come right back.

Yeah, sure.

Is there another war?

Shh! Shh!

Shh! Shh!

Are you all right?

What are you singing?

- What?
- Go!

Get out of here!

But I just wanted to know
what you're saying.

You gotta — You gotta be quiet.

Get out. Get out.

All right. All right.

Ah.

Hi. I'd like to buy some popcorn.

Um, 75 cents.

Do you think I would like this movie?

The Quinn the Eskimo film?

Um, well, the only parts
that I remember were, uh,

the first part where he's eating —
they're eating maggots,

and the second part where the old lady
tells the pregnant daughter, uh,

that the firstborn, if it's a boy,

um, they rub it with blubber for good luck

and the second, if it's a girl, uh,

they stuff snow in its mouth and kill it.

Hmm.

Uh-huh.

You wanted to get me killed!
When did you unload it?

Huh?

Go ahead.

He stop and think to the Doppler effect.

You ever heard of the Doppler effect?

Uh —

Doppler effect.

Yeah. Yeah, I heard of it.

Yeah, sure. It's, uh —

It's, uh —

Oh, I know. It's, uh — It's —
It's when sound changes when it moves.

All right. Yeah.

That's the Doppler effect.
Yeah. That's right.

That's — That's the name of my joke.

The Doppler effect.

The Doppler effect.

You — You see, back —

back in the '50s, there's this guy.

He played the sax.

He play a mean sax too. Yeah.

But — But he was out of his time.

His sound was different.
Way out. Too advanced for all those folk.

But he — he couldn't get no work
'cause he didn't want to —

he didn't want to conform
to the traditional style of playing.

So times was rough for him.

So his friends got together,
and they said, "Look, man.

You ought to go on over to Europe.

See, over there
they play a different sound.

You know, they — You'd fit in.
You'd be able to play."

And they, uh, got together some money
and bought him a ticket to Paris.

So he goes over there, and when
he gets over there it's the same old thing.

His sound's too advanced for them.

Nobody know where he comin' from.

And he couldn't get no job playin'

'cause he — he still doesn't want to conform
to the traditional style of playing at the time.

So he gets real depressed, gets upset,

and he's broke, and he ain't got no money,

so he's gotta go out in the street
and start playin'.

He plays out there, and he gets into junk,
and it's all kinds of stuff and —

It's just too much for him.
He's not makin' it.

So one day he decides to climb up some stairs
and go up on the roof and jump off.

End it all.

Yes.

He up there, and it's a — it's a gray day.

Everything's gray. The sky is all gray.

And, uh, he's looking down.

Then he looked up,
and just as he was about ready to jump,

the skies open up, and there's this...

ray of light.

Hit him like a spotlight.

Hmm?

And for no reason at all, he just —

he picked up his horn and started
playin' "Somewhere over the Rainbow."

And that's as far as he got.

He couldn't remember no more.

He just kept on playin' that same verse
over and over and over again.

But he couldn't remember no further.

Just couldn't. Then all of a sudden, people —
people all down, gathered around,

started lookin' up at him and —

and police come up to the roof
and sneakin' up on him from the back,

and he's still trying to remember
the next verse, but —

He turn around and look,
see the police coming, and he jumps down!

Yeah. And there he is down there.

He ain't die from the fall.

And — And then he was conscious, and —

and he heard in the distance
the sound of the ambulance coming,

and, uh, it was going —

Doppler effect.

What do you want to hear, kid?

I don't care, as long as it's
a vibrating, bugged-out sound.

Man, what a sax.

This gun is my legislative gun.

This gun is my legislative gun.

This gun is my legislative gun.

No, I get it now.

It's, "This gun is my legislative branch."

No, that's it. That's it.

Okay, I'll be back in a minute.

Hey.

Can you put these in the box for me?

Come on. I can't reach.

What do I look like, the mailman?

Jesus fuckin' Christ.

I don't believe it!
That kid just stole my car!

Did you see him?

That's our car!

- That's our fucking car! Oh, my God!
- Oh, my —

That dude was wild-style. Oh, no, man.

You better get your ass out of here
before he snatch that up too.

Millie!

- Is that the car?
- Yep.

That's it.

What's your name again?

Allie. Aloysious.

Hey, what are you doing?

Well?

I'll give you $800 for it.

800?

Ah, it's worth more than that.
I could get more than that for it.

Go ahead.

800 is all you can give me?

I need the money. Okay.

Okay.

Leila?

You going on the boat too?

No, I just got here.

- Where you from?
- I'm from France, from Paris.

You born there?

Yeah, I was born there.
Were you born in New York?

Yeah, but I'm leaving.

Yeah, I had to leave too.

How come?

See, I have a lot of trouble there.
That's why I had to get out of Paris.

And now my friend are crying.

You see, I never cry

'cause I know when things change
I have to go somewhere else.

And now I think that New York
is gonna be Babylon for me.

So that's where I got to live.

You think I would like it in Paris?

Yeah, Paris is gonna be your Babylon.

Yeah.

- I just got a tattoo the other day.
- Oh, yeah?

I kind of wanted to get one
before I went away.

I got a tattoo here since years.

- What's it say?
- It means "mommy."

Oh, you got a diamond shape?

Pretty good.

I gotta go — my boat.

I gotta go too.

Bonne visite.

I was thinking about the note
I left her when I got on the boat.

But how can you explain
something like this to someone?

I'm just not the kind of person
that settles into anything.

I don't think I ever will be.

There isn't really anything left
to explain that can be.

And that's what I was trying
to explain in the first place.

I'm just not like that.

I don't want a job or a house or taxes,

although I wouldn't mind a car,
but I don't know.

Now that I'm away, I wish I was back there
more than even when I was there.

Let's just say
I'm a certain kind of tourist.

A tourist that's on
a... permanent vacation.