And now, my bookends for
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They're a bit long, but I got carried away and couldn't help myself.
Old Indy is with his great-grandchildren Annie and Harry at the 1994 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We see a couple of the usual floats pass by. The two kids cheer at The Lion King float. A woman approaches Indy.
Caroline:
You must be getting cold, Grandpa! (smiles) I’ll take over from here.
Old Indy:
Well… I think I could hold out… but a rest
would do me good. (waves at them all) See you kids in a little while.
Indy looks around, and spots a nearby café alongside the road. He enters and takes his coat off. He sits down at the bar, and orders a cup of coffee. Indy and the bartender beside him (who is in his late twenties) watch the parade from the café’s window.
Bartender:
Would you look at that!
Old Indy:
(sipping his coffee) Huh? (turns his head) Oh.
They see a huge, dragon-like character high above one of the floats. It is attached to a hot-air balloon which blows fire about a hundred feet in the air.
Old Indy:
Ho-ly smokes. It gets bigger and better every year. You know…all of this macabre reminds me of the time I was in India, in 1935. After a crazy series of events, I found myself caught up with a bloodthirsty cult hell-bent on finding the Sankara stones, a kind of… “magic rocks”…
An hour or two later, Indy is finishing his story.
Old Indy:
It was pure horror. But in the end, we made it out safe, Mola Ram got what was coming to him, Willie got a singing job back in the states, and I found Shorty a nice home there too. As for me, (grins) I continued my work.
Bartender:
You did all that for rocks?!?
Old Indy:
Of course not. (half-sarcastic tone) Have you been listening to me, boy? When I first arrived in the village, they thought I was sent from the gods. When I saved all their children, I think they believed I was a god. Sometimes you get yourself in a jam, and ya gotta do what you can to get out of it. It’s a part of life.
Bartender:
(nods and thinks for a second) So it was a good memory then?
Old Indy:
More like a bad dream.
Bartender:
So do you… believe in anything now? You know, like in God or something?
Old Indy:
Ohhh, I’m convinced there’s something out there.
Indy smiles and gives the man a slight smirk. The man watches in bewildered amazement as Indy leaves a twenty dollar bill on the counter and leaves the café to rejoin his family.