A SCOWLING YOUNG MAN named Gary Blue arrives at a Nashville talent show carrying an “original Chet Atkins” guitar. He meets Wendy, a gregarious chatterbox who’s there to compete with her flute. If she wins the $3,000 first prize she’ll be able to study in Paris.
They have a few hours to kill, so they have lunch together.
Gary says he wants the prize money so he can go to law school. He’s likes music, of course, but his real love is winning arguments. “It makes you feel like you’ve really accomplished something.” “I hate arguing,” says Wendy. “I’m sure you argue.” “I’m sure I don’t.” “I’m sure you do.” Instead of responding, she just smiles. Winning the argument. Though frustrated, Gary’s attracted to her. She’s got strange teeth, messy hair and some rough manners. These aren’t the things that attract him. She is effervescent and open, and makes him feel relaxed. Heading back to the contest, they see a man abusing his trained chimp. Wendy weeps, insisting that they have to rescue it. Gary’s so smitten by this girl he trades his Chet Atkins guitar for the chimp. Wendy gives him an all-encompassing hug of gratitude, but the hug is broken when the chimp jumps onto Gary’s hips from behind and starts humping him. Gary is one of the first people scheduled to perform. Wendy encourages him not to give up. She says it’s a trained chimp, so just go out there and let the chimp do his tricks. Maybe there’s still a chance to win. “There’s not a chance in the world of winning,” Gary says. “There’s always a chance.” “There isn’t always a chance.” “We’ll argue later, I promise. Just get out there and dazzle.” So Gary takes his new pet out onto the stage, and it’s a disaster. It’s the most disgusting chimp in the world. Either it was never trained, or it was trained to be obscene. Half a minute into it’s x-rated performance, the curtain comes down. It’s obvious the guy won’t be going to law school anytime soon. He’s furious at the girl for getting him into this. Then it’s her turn to perform. Instead of a flute, she goes onstage with a big mess of string. Her act is “Clairvoyant String Untangler.” She attempts to read the minds of people in the audience while showing how fast she can get all the knots out of the string. She’s unbelievably terrible at both. The chimp could have done it better. It cheers Gary up a little. The girl explains afterward she was lying about being a flute player because she was intimidated at meeting a real musician. It softens Gary up a bit more.
Now they have to do something with the chimp. They hatch a scheme. Julia Roberts lives in Austin, six or seven hundred miles away, and she recently did a documentary on some kind of monkeys. So all they have to do is get Julia to fall in love with their chimp and adopt it. So the three set out for Austin. Gary figures there’ll be at least one night in a motel, and maybe he’ll get lucky. He’s nice for the rest of the day, listening to the girl’s long stories that start at the end and work backwards, never reaching a beginning. He puts up with the chimp’s constant raunchiness, hoping his own mature behavior will get him laid. When night comes, the girl invites him into her room. He’s about to score when the chimp attacks in a jealous rage. They’re both in love with the same girl. Size matters, and it’s the chimp who has the biggest teeth. The monkey sleeps with the girl, and Gary sleeps alone. He doesn’t like the way the chimp is smiling the next morning. It starts the day all wrong. The girl feels responsible for all Gary’s troubles, so now she’s the one being extra nice. She evens sides with Gary when he and the chimp have a dispute. The chimp gets its feeling hurt and jumps a ride with a trucker going the opposite direction. Gary and Wendy hop in the car and open pursuit, driving at top speed in reverse–so they can’t be charged with driving against one-way traffic. The hirsute trucker will only give the chimp back if the girl will do something special for him inside the cab of the truck. He whispers hopefully into her ear. She reluctantly agrees. Gary and the chimp both dislike the way the shirtless trucker is smiling when the girl exits the cab. Now Gary and the chimp have something in common. The trio drives off and we see the truck driver using two handheld mirrors to admire his reddened, sore, hairless back. On the floor there is a pile of hair-filled wads of paper towels and empty “Hair-Be-Gone” containers. The girl has done for him what no man can do for himself.
There are two more days of such adventures before the trio reaches Julia Robert’s mansion outside of Austin. By this point the two humans are bickering constantly and the chimp is worn to a frazzle.
It turns out the only way they can get inside the mansion is if our guy pretends to be a musician arriving for Julia’s evening party.
In order to get a guitar, our couple hock the chimp at a local pawn shop. At the moment, both humans like the chimp more than one another, but they knows this is necessary in order to give the chimp a permanent home. The chimp seems glad to be free of them. The girl must seduce a French violinist in order to sneak Gary into the musician’s bus. He watches from a distance, and sees the Frenchman going through a shameless seduction. He doesn’t realize the girl is giving the man instructions. “Now kiss my hand.” It’s not a French violinist, but a Texan member of the catering staff. Wendy just wants to make Gary jealous. Gary gets into the mansion, and then it’s time for him to perform a guitar solo. This is what he’s supposedly been practicing for his whole life. He who is the nephew once or twice removed of Chet Atkins. Instead of playing, he puts his guitar aside and asks for a ball of tangled string. He announces that he is not only an accomplished, natural guitar player, but a clairvoyant string un-tangler.
He’s getting thrown out on his ear when the crowd become strangely quiet. Beautiful flute music rings through the Texas evening.
It’s our girl, playing a borrowed flute. Julia Roberts sees there’s clearly some kind of energy between the phony guitar player and this magical flautist from the catering staff, so she takes them both to a back room and demands the truth. Faced with the indignation of a breathtakingly beautiful celebrity, our guy confesses instantly that he’s a phony. He’s never played a chord in his life. He came to the Talent Show to sell his brother-in-law’s guitar in order to get money for paint supplies, so he could market himself as a house painter.
“I figure if I paint thirty-five thousand houses I’ll have enough to go to Harvard,” Gary says. Wendy confesses that she’s a phony, too. She really is an accomplished flautist. She just pretended not to be so Gary would feel better about losing his guitar and the $3,000 prize. “So were you intimidated by me or not?” ask Gary. “Actually, no,” says Wendy. “But I did like your scowl.” “Well, here’s another one,” says Gary. Julia says none of that’s the truth she was asking for. As an actress she appreciates and recognizes emotional truth in real life as well as on the screen, but she doesn’t appreciate missing her own party, so what’s going on here.
The couple then starts explaining about the chimp. Julia throws a fit. She’s been sick for six months with something she caught while filming that documentary about monkeys, and she doesn’t want to hear another screech or see another mutual grooming session as long as she lives. “Get out of here before I have a rabies flashback,” she says. The couple leaves, walking up the long country highway under the stars. Gary admits he made up the whole story about being Chet Atkins’ nephew in order to impress her. He says he’d never meet anyone as good looking as her without wanting to demolish her in argument. “Even when I first met you I didn’t really want to argue with you,” he says. “I just said I did out of habit.”
And Wendy confesses she’s not really from a poor family. She takes out the ugly dental fixture that makes her seem to have bad teeth. She takes the rubber band off her crooked ponytail and fans out her black hair like it’s a shampoo commercial. She said she’s been daddy’s little rich girl so long she just wanted to see if people would accept her on her own merits. The hick accent has dropped away. Gary sees her as she really is, a refined, educated beautiful woman.
“I wish you would’ve gone first,” he said. “I could still pretend to be Chet Atkins’ nephew.”
“I can put the fixture back in, if it makes you more comfortable,” she says. “If you don’t mind,” he says. “No problemo,” she says. Julia comes along and picks them up in her Range Rover, completely ashamed of herself for her previous crass behavior. “I’m such a fucking cunt sometimes,” she says.
They rush into town and bang on the door of the pawn shop. Julia has industrial strength hearing protectors on. “Screech, screech, screech,” she says. “I’m warning you, get antibiotics first thing tomorrow. As many as you can afford. And believe me, stay near a bathroom.”
The pawnbroker doesn’t answer. Our heroes break the door down. They wriggle as quickly as they can through room after room of forsaken junk. They find the pawnbroker–as foul a man as you can imagine–and the chimp, both wearing kitchen aprons and listening to an old show tune. They are baking Bisquick cinriammon rolls. And both of them are changed individuals.
The chimp has finally matured, having learned on his road trip how unpleasant it is to see others behaving badly.
And the pawnbroker has finally discovered how much better it is to go through life with a friend. “All these years I’ve lived with more small home appliances than the average person would even see in a lifetime, much less own. Yet I never knew the meaning of the word ‘home.’ I can see now the most important thing is having someone to have your small home appliances FOR. And someone you can say, ‘Hey, all these used amplifiers and binoculars don’t mean nothin’ compared to your smile.” The chimp shows them all an uncomfortable grin. “You better treat him right!” cries Wendy to the doe-eyed pawnbroker. “Use lots of antiseptic soap,” says Julia. “And make Lysol your friend.” “See you, little fella,” says Gary. “You taught me a lot.” “Such as what?” asks Julia. “How to scratch your balls with your mouth?” “Such as, you don’t have to argue with people for them to like you. Such as, it’s okay to show your real feelings.” “For example, jumping on people’s butts from behind and humping them” laughs Wendy. “Really?” asks the pawnbroker.
I haven’t worked out an ending yet. Maybe it’ll be something about Paris.