Raising Arizona

My name is H.I. McDunnough.

Call me Hi.

The first time I met Ed...

was in the county lockup in Tempe, Arizona.

Don't forget his profile, Ed.

Turn to the right!

The day I'll never forget.

Turn to the right!

What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?

Short for Edwina. Turn to the right!

You're a flower, you are.

Just a little desert flower.

Let me know how those come out.

Prison life is very structured...

more than most people care for...

but there's a spirit of camaraderie between the men...

like you find only in combat, maybe...

or on a pro ball club in the heat of the pennant drive.

In an effort to better ourselves...

we were forced to meet with a counselor...

who tried to help us figure out why we were the way we were.

All he wanted was a hot roll and butter.

So...

why do you use the word "trapped"?

Why do you say you feel trapped in a man's body?

Well, sometimes I get the menstrual cramps real hard.

Have you learned anything, Hi?

Yes, sir. You bet.

You wouldn't lie to us, would you?

No, ma'am. Hope to say.

OK, then.

I tried to stand up and fly straight...

but it wasn't easy with Reagan in the White House.

I don't know.

They say he's a decent man, so...

maybe his advisers are confused.

Turn to the right.

What's the matter, Ed?

My "fy- ance" left me.

She said her fiance had run off...

with a student cosmetologist...

who knew how to ply her feminine wiles.

The sumbitch.

Don't forget his phone call, Ed.

Tell him I think he's a damn fool, Ed.

You tell him I said so...

H.I. McDunnough.

If he wants to discuss it, he knows where to find me...

in the Maricopa County Maximum Security...

Correctional Facility For Men...

State Farm Road Number Thirty- one, Tempe, Arizona!

I'll be waitin'!

I'll be waitin'.

I can't say I was happy to be back inside...

but the flood of familiar sights, sounds, and faces...

almost made it feel like a homecoming.

Most men your age are getting married and raising a family.

Well, factually...

They wouldn't accept prison as a substitute.

Would any of you men care to comment?

sometimes your career has got to come before family.

Work's what's kept us happy.

I tried to sort through what Doc Schwartz had said...

but prison ain't the easiest place to think.

When there was no meat, we ate fowl.

When there was no fowl, we ate crawdad.

When there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.

You ate what? - We ate sand.

You ate sand? - That's right.

Well, Hi, you done served your twenty months...

and seeing as how you never use live ammo...

we got no choice but to return you to society.

These doors gonna swing wide.

I didn't want to hurt anyone, sir.

Hi, we respect that.

But you're just hurting yourself...

with this rambunctious behavior.

I know that, sir.

OK, then.

I don't know how you come down...

on the incarceration question...

whether it's for rehabilitation or revenge...

but I was beginning to think...

revenge is the only argument makes any sense.

Show the tattoo!

Turn to the right!

Don't forget his fingers, Ed.

Hear about the paddy wagon...

that collided with the cement mixer, Ed?

Twelve hardened criminals escaped.

Ha ha! I heard that one.

Got a new beau?

No, Hi. I sure don't.

Don't worry. I paid for it.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

And for once, they may be right.

You missed a spot. - Rrr!

More and more, my thoughts turned to Ed...

and I finally felt the pain of imprisonment.

Mama would throw the live crawdad...

in a pan of boiling water.

One day, I decided to make my own crawdad...

and I threw it in a pot without the water, you see?

And it was just like making popcorn.

Yeah, the joint is a lonely place...

after lockup and lights out...

when the last of the cons...

has been swept away by the sandman.

But I couldn't help thinking...

that a brighter future lay ahead...

a future that was only eight to fourteen months away.

They got a name for people like you, Hi.

That name is called recidivism.

Repeat offender.

Not a pretty name, is it, Hi?

No, sir. That's one bonehead name...

but that ain't me anymore.

You're not just telling us what we want to hear?

No, sir. No way.

'Cause we just want to hear the truth.

Then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.

Didn't we just tell you not to do that?

Yes, sir.

OK, then.

Turn to the right!

I'm walking in here on my knees, Ed...

a free man proposing.

Howdy, Kurt.

And so it was.

Don't forget the bouquet, Ed.

I do.

You bet I do.

OK, then.

Ed's pa staked us to a starter home...

in suburban Tempe...

and I got a job drilling holes in sheet metal.

We were doing paramedical work...

in affiliation with the state highway system.

Not actually practicing, you understand.

Me and Bill were patrolling down Nine Mile.

Bill Roberts? - No, not that mother- scratcher.

Bill Parker.

Anyway, we're approaching the wreck...

and there's this spherical object...

resting in the highway...

and it's not a piece of the car.

Most ways, the job was a lot like prison...

except Ed was waiting at the end of every day...

and a paycheck at the end of every week.

Government do take a bite, don't she?

These were the happy days...

the salad days, as they say.

Ed felt that having a critter was the next logical step.

It was all she thought about.

Her point was that there was too much love and beauty...

for just the two of us...

and every day we kept a child out of the world...

was a day he might later regret having missed.

That was beautiful.

So we worked at it on the days we calculated most likely to be fruitful...

and we worked at it most other days, just to be sure.

Ed rejoiced that my lawless years were behind me...

and that our child- rearing years lay ahead.

And then the roof caved in.

Hi...

I'm barren!

At first I didn't believe it...

that this woman who looked as fertile...

as the Tennessee Valley...

could not bear children.

But the doctor explained that her insides...

were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.

Ed was inconsolable.

We tried an adoption agency.

It's true that Hi has had a checkered past.

But Ed here is an officer of the law twice decorated...

so we figure it kind of evens out.

But biology and the prejudices of others...

conspired to keep us childless.

Our love for each other was stronger than ever...

but I premonised no return of the salad days.

The pizzazz had gone out of our lives.

Ed lost all interest in both criminal justice...

and housekeeping.

Soon after, she tendered her badge.

Even my job seemed as dry and bitter...

as a hot prairie wind.

So here's Bill walking down Nine Mile...

That's Bill Parker, you understand.

He's got his sandwich in one hand...

and the fuckin' head in the other!

I even caught myself driving by convenience stores...

that weren't on the way home.

Then, one day...

the biggest news hit the state since they built the Hoover Dam.

The Arizona Quints was born.

By Arizona Quints...

I mean they was born to a woman named Florence Arizona.

As you probably guessed...

Florence Arizona is the wife of Nathan Arizona...