SCHULBERG, Budd

On the Waterfront

…..
EDIE

(to Father Barry)

They're waiting for him to walk in.

FATHER BARRY

You hear that, Terry?

(as Terry fails to respond)

Terry, did you hear that?

(trying to penetrate Terry’s battered mind)

You lost the battle but you have a chance to win the war. All you gotta do is walk.

TERRY

(slowly coming to)

...walk?

FATHER BARRY

Johnny Friendly is layin' odds that you won't get up.

JOHNNY

(in B.G., shouts)

Come on, you guys!

Friendly's voice acts as a prod on Terry.

TERRY

(dazed)

Get me on my feet.

They make an effort to pick him up. He can barely stand. He looks around unseeingly.

TERRY

Am I on my feet...?

EDIE

Terry...?

FATHER BARRY

You're on your feet. You can finish what you started.

Blood oozing from his wounds, Terry sways, uncomprehendingly.

FATHER BARRY

You can!

TERRY

(mutters through bloody lips)

I can? Okay. Okay...

EDIE

(screams at Father Barry)

What are you trying to do?

ANGLE—ON RAMP

As the groggy Terry starts up the ramp, Edie reaches out to him. Father Barry holds her back.

FATHER BARRY

Leave him alone. Take your hands off him—

Leave him alone.

Staggering, moving painfully forward, Terry starts up the ramp. Edie's instinct is to help him but Father Barry, knowing the stakes of this symbolic act, holds her back. Terry stumbles, but steadies himself and moves forward as if driven on by Father Barry's will.

TERRY APPROACHING PIER ENTRANCE

As he staggers forward as if blinded, the longshoremen form a line on either side of him, awed by his courage, waiting to see if he'll make it. Terry keeps going.

REVERSE ANGLE—BOSS STEVEDORE—TERRY'S POV

Waiting at pier entrance as Terry approaches. Shot out of focus as Terry would see him through bloody haze.

TERRY

As the men who have formed a path for him watch intently, Terry staggers up until he is face to face with the Stevedore. He gathers himself as if to say, "I'm ready. Let's go."

STEVEDORE

(calls officially)

All right— let's go to work!

As Terry goes past him into the pier, the men with a sense of inevitability fall in behind him.

JOHNNY FRIENDLY

Hurrying forward in a last desperate effort to stop the men from following Terry in.

JOHNNY

( screams)

Where you guys goin'? Wait a minute!

As they stream past him.

JOHNNY

I'll be back! I'll be back! And I'll remember every last one of ya!

He points at them accusingly. But they keep following Terry into the pier.

WIDER ANGLE—PIER ENTRANCE

As Father Barry and Edie look on, Stevedore blows his whistle for work to begin. Longshoremen by the hundreds march into the pier behind Terry like a conquering army. In the B.G. a frenzied Johnny Friendly is still screaming, "I'll be back! I'll be back!" The threat, real as it is, is lost in the forward progress of Terry and the ragtail army of dock workers he now

leads.

FADE OUT

THE END