REPORT: RANGER JAROD
FILE #: 114

Jarod is watching a SIM of himself from 1969. He sees himself as a ten-year-old, wired up to monitoring devices while he stands inside a glass booth. Syndey and other spectators are on the outside of the booth. Jarod asks what’s going on, and Syndey tells him they’re studying human sexuality. Jarod says he’s read all the technical manuals. Syndey says that sexuality cannot be defined simply by what one reads in a book. “I want you to meet someone.”

Into the room (outside of the glass booth) Miss Parker arrives. She steps up gingerly to booth where Jarod is standing. We can hear in the background the “blip” of the monitors. Their audio signals increase in tempo as Miss Parker approaches Jarod. Jarod looks at her and smiles a little. “You’re a girl,” he says.

IN THE PRESENT , Jarod is sitting at a counter in a diner in Oregon. A television set in the room is on, and the patrons are watching an episode of ” The Three Stooges ” . Jarod watches somewhat amazed by the fact that the characters “seem to be able to withstand an enormous amount of pain.” At first, he doesn’t understand why others in the diner think the mock-violence of the Stooges is funny, but then starts to laugh along with them. When the waitress has had enough of the Stooges, she changes the television station and a news bulletin comes on. Seeing the broadcast, Jarod rises to leave, but steps back and bumps into another patron of the diner, a dark-haired woman.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, “I feel like such a — “

“– Stooge?” the woman finishes for him, and gives him a slight smile before moving on.

The reporter on television is telling about the disappearance of an ornithology grad student named Victor Simpkins, who disappeared in the mountains of the Toluca Lake National Forest five days ago. The search for him is continuing. Jarod pays his bill, and then leaves before the waitress can give him his change.

Along with the other volunteers and rangers, Jarod poses as an ex-Army Ranger, Jarod Forrest , and joins the search for Victor Simpkins. When the Head Ranger, Sam Conrad, starts questioning Jarod about his background and skills, the woman Jarod saw in the diner comes up and says, “He’s lying, Sam. He’s really just one of the Stooges.” She walks away with a shy smile for Jarod. Jarod asks if she’s a ranger, and Conrad tells him, no, she’s a volunteer named Nia. She owns an outfitting store nearby, and usually keeps to herself. When Conrad then gets word that Victor Simpkins’ base camp has been found, everyone rushes to the camp.

While the others stand around the camp and get directions from Conrad for the day’s search pattern, Nia finds Jarod sitting in the middle of Victor’s tent. His legs are crossed underneath him, his eyes are closed, and he seems to feeling for things in the air around him. Nia asks, “A disturbance in the Force?” Jarod doesn’t understand the reference, not even when she mentions Obi Wan Kenobi and ” Star Wars .” Nia then just asks him what he’s doing. Jarod says he’s trying to get a feel for the kind of person Victor is; why he would spend so much time in isolation on purpose.

“Maybe he’s trying to find himself,” Nia suggests.

Jarod: “In the wilderness?”

Nia: “Sometimes you have to get lost before you can find yourself.”

Jarod and Nia then re-join the search party, and Jarod finds Victor’s mother to ask her a few questions. He discovers from the mother that Victor was right-handed, and that he had been documenting the nesting habits of eagles. She also tells Jarod that Victor is the only family she has left. Jarod promises her he won’t leave the mountain until victor is found. When the search party finally breaks up to spread out over the mountain, Jarod and Nia get paired together.

As they walk, looking for Victor, Nia asks Jarod about the questions Jarod had asked Victor’s mother. Jarod said he thought it was strange that at Victor’s camp Victor’s glasses were put on the left side of the sleeping bag; that would be a bit awkward for a man who was right-handed. He is also concerned that at the base camp there was no refuse pile or even a latrine. If Victor had been there for several days, why was there no debris of his living and working there? Jarod then stops Nia, and tells her he can see footprints in the loam that someone has tried to sweep over.

He realizes that a few feet ahead someone is hiding behind one of the pine trees. He approaches the tree carefully and rousts out a twitchy little man from behind it. The man’s name is Bob, Big Bob, and he’s searching for his partner, Little Bob. Jarod and Nia ask him if he’s seen any sign of Victor, and Bob says, no. He then sniffs the air, feels the wind direction with his finger, and tells them that a big storm is coming. Bob then hurries off into the forest.

As Jarod and Nia search further, they come across a cliff-side where Jarod sees a “carabiner” sticking out from the cliff-face. He climbs down to retrieve the carabiner, but when he tries to climb back up, he temporarily loses his footing. Nia grabs him by the wrist to keep him from falling, but he bangs his back and shoulder against the cliff-face. With Nia’s help, he’s able to scramble back up to safety. For a brief moment, while they lay face-to-face on the edge of the cliff, Jarod find it difficult to look at Nia without feeling moved by her presence.

BACK AT THE RANGER COMPOUND , Jarod shows the other searchers the carabiner he’s found, and Victor’s mother identifies it as belonging to her son: “The orange tape… the Inuit sign for eagle. He said anyone could use their initials.” The placement of the find, indicates that Victor was moving toward the river away from the mountain, but it’s too late in the day for anyone to go looking for him again that day. Ranger Conrad tells everyone to regroup in the morning.

Jarod asks another Ranger, Derrick Kobey, if there’s a hotel nearby, and Kobey tells him the nearest one is about 100 miles away. Nia overhears this and tells Jarod she has room at her house for him, and invites him to spend the night with her. Kobey is impressed.

“Senorita Iceburg invites you over for a slumber party?” Kobey says to Jarod. “You are in .”

“In where?” Jarod asks, confused.

AT NIA’S HOME , she offers Jarod the couch to sleep on, and he accepts. He sees a photograph on a nearby tables of two adults and a child standing in front of the Casa Rosada, and determines the Nia must be from Argentina. She’s impressed that a “gringo” like him knows about the Argentinean White house. When she sees that he’s only carrying his Halliburton case she asks him why he’s traveling so light. Nia asks him if he’s, “On the run?” And Jarod answers, “Some days…. I, uh, do a lot of consulting work.” As he’s putting the case down, he turns his back slight to Nia and she see the tear in his shirt from when he fell on the cliff that afternoon. “Take off your shirt,” she tells him. And he does.

Naked to the waist, Jarod sits on a chair, while Nia cleans an ugly-looking gouge on his shoulder blade and bandages it. He likes her touch, but also seems to be uncomfortable with her close proximity. He watches her furtively from over each shoulder as she moves around him. When she’s finished dressing his injury, she tells him she’s going to go take a shower, but will try to leave him enough hot water. She goes upstairs… and Jarod rises to his feet.

Still shirtless, he paces for a while, full of energy and some frustration, and then he watches a DSA of himself as a ten-year-old interacting with Miss Parker. That doesn’t seem to help alleviate his agitation, so he turns off the DSA and closes the case… just as he realizes that Nia has come back down from the bathroom to tell him he can use the shower. She glances at the case, but doesn’t ask about it. Then she smiles shallowly at Jarod and tells him to sleep well. He returns the wish, and Nia goes back upstairs to bed. Still confused by his feelings, Jarod calls Sydney on his cell phone.

Jarod: “I need to talk to you… about women.”

Sydney: “Why is that?”

Jarod: “Because I’ve met one.”

Later that same night, Jarod, sleeping on the couch, is awakened by the sound of Nia screaming upstairs. He rushes up to find her thrashing in bed and shouting, “I don’t want to disappear!” in Spanish. Realizing she’s having a nightmare, Jarod goes to her, puts his arms around her, and quiets her down. She awakens and clings to him. As she’s holding him, he can see a handful of deep scars on her right shoulder that course down her back.

AT THE CENTRE , Miss Parker, Syndey and Broots are listening to a recording of Jarod’s conversation with Sydney about women. We can hear Jarod tell Sydney that he’s been around hundreds of women since he left The Centre, but never felt for any of them what he feels for Nia… Sydney tells him the attraction is chemical… When Jarod starts talking about Nia coming out of the shower, Broots stops the tape. Miss Parker looks surprised and asks him what he’s doing. He tells her that they’ve reached the part of the back where the radio playing in the background was the most distinct. She tells him she’s interested in that and demands that he play the rest of the recording.

Later, she demands a mini-cassette copy of the conversation for herself, and she sits in her office and listens to Jarod’s voice over and over again. She also remembers a time when she and Jarod were both about ten-years-old. After touching hands with her across a table, he asked her what her first name was and she stepped up to him and whispered it in his ear… She also recalls the time when, announcing that “girls mature faster than boys” , Miss Parker gave Jarod his first kiss.

BACK IN THE TOLUCA NATIONAL FOREST , Jarod and Nia continue their search the next morning, and once again come across Big Bob — who falls out of a tree in front of them. He tells them he still hasn’t found Little Bob yet, and so has to check on his “crop” by himself. He also says that the last time he saw Little Bob, Little Bob was almost hysterical from a plane that had buzzed the mountain several days ago… and by the dynamiting that had gone on on the same day. He says Ranger Conrad was out dynamiting stumps and clearing trails that afternoon.

Over the walkie-talkies, Jarod and Nia hear that Victor’s backpack has apparently been found. They go back to the Ranger Compound, where Kobey shows them the backpack he found by the river just a little ways away from the cliff where the carabiner had been found. He concludes that Victor fell from the cliff, walked to the river, dove or fell in and dropped his pack in the process. Conrad says if Victor is in the river, he’ll have to turn the search over to the sheriff’s department because they have jurisdiction over the river from there to the ocean.

While the other searchers disburse, Jarod goes through Victor’s pack. There’s too much food in it to have been used by Victor over a five-day-period, and there are no writing materials for him to document anything. Jarod doesn’t believe the pack belongs to Victor, and tells Nia that he believes Victor is still on the mountain somewhere. Nia agrees to search with him the next day.

That evening, while Jarod is showering, Nia comes across his Halliburton case and opens it. She plays one of the DSAs from 03-20-69 in which Jarod is simulating one of the failed Apollo missions. His hair still wet, his chest bare, Jarod comes back downstairs and finds her watching the SIM. He walks around her and closes the case. His eyes fill with pain when she asks him, “Is that boy you ?” He says he can explain what she’s seen, but she puts her fingertips to his lips then brushes his cheek with her hand and tells him he doesn’t have to explain anything to her. “We all have scars,” she says, and Jarod’s eyes glisten with tears.

Very early in the morning, Jarod wakes Nia up and tells her he think he’s figured out where Victor Simpkins might be. They travel for nine hours up the mountainside, and Nia is about to give up when they come across Victor’s REAL base camp. They find debris of his camp there, and scraps of paper on which he’d sketched the likenesses of eagles. Nia asks Jarod how he knew the camp was there, and he tells her that the other base camp was just too low on the mountain for Victor to have observed the nesting habits of eagle from there, “because they always nest at the highest point.”

BACK AT THE CENTRE Miss Parker is watching an e-mail transmission that came to her from Jarod. It’s a front-piece to a Three Stooges episode. While the Stooges’ theme song plays in the background the title Catch Me If You Can appears, and in the place of the Three Stooges faces there appears the images of Miss Parker (as “Missy” with a bald head, like Curly), Broots (as Brootsy with a mop of curly hair like Larry), and Sydney (as Sydney with Moe-style bangs). Then an image of Jarod, with a bald head, “n’yucking” it up like Curly appears. Miss Parker shuts the transmission off as Broots interrupts to tell her he’s found out what radio station was playing the song they had heard in the background of Jarod’s earlier telephone call to Sydney.

IN OREGON , Jarod and Nia search further, and at nightfall come across the wreckage of a crashed plane. “The plane that scared Little Bob,” Jarod presumes, and he searches through the wreck. He finds the pilot — with a bullet in his head — traces of narcotics inside the craft and a wad of money. Simulating Victor’s response to the crash Jarod then describes to Nia how Victor had heard the crash, had come to help the possible victims, saw the murder and then was chased off by someone. He shows her the two sets of footprints in the ground fleeing down the side of the mountain toward the Box Canyon area. Nia tries to ask Jarod how he was able to feel what Victor felt, but he interrupts her and tells her they’ll have to find a shelter. A storm is coming up and they won’t survive if they get caught in it. Nia tells him she knows of a place they can stay.

Nia takes Jarod to a small rustic cabin, where they’re able to start a fire in a fire pit, and snack on granola bars. While they’re this close, Jarod starts to tell Nia about his past: how he was taken from his family and raised by people he didn’t know; people who made him do things that hurt other people. Nia tries to silence him, but he tells her he’d never been able to talk to anyone about this before, and he wants to tell her. Sadly, he says: “I don’t know who I am.” Nia comforts him with a soft, “You’re Jarod . And you’re here with me.”

Jarod then encourages Nia to talk about herself. “I saw your scars,” he tells her, and she explains that she got them when she was a child. Her father had run a newspaper and her mother had been a reporter. One day when she was eight, the garrosocia came in the middle of the night, kidnapped her whole family and took them to “a horrible place”. She never saw her parents again. The members of the garrosocia tried to get her to say that her parents were traitors, that they hated the generals… but she refused to betray them with such lies. She was beaten and raped… and then placed in a home with people she didn’t know, who refused to tell her what happened to her parents. As she talks, Jarod feels her humiliation, rage and anguish.

She cries, “I miss them… I miss them so much…” and Jarod gathers her into his arms and repeats to her, “I know, I know, I know, I know…” To comfort her, Jarod gives her a kiss on the cheek and brushes her hair from her face with his hand. She responds by kissing him on the mouth… once… then again, more firmly… When she leans into him with a more passionate kiss, he withdraws slightly and explains, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but… I’ve never done this before.” Nia takes his face gently between her hands, smiles at him, then kisses him softly and tips him onto his back.

Later, Jarod is sitting in the dark cabin with a blanket draped over his naked shoulders. Nia rises from the blankets on the floor and walks up to him. She sits down beside him, strokes his hair with her finger tips, and then cradles his head in her lap.

The next morning, Jarod and Nia are lying on the floor side-by-side, covered with blankets, when their sleep is disturbed by a loud “snuffling” noise in the cabin. Jarod, still bare chested, rolls over to see what’s there, then taps Nia on the shoulder to awaken her. She rises beside him and sees that the cabin has been invaded by a very large pig. Jarod asks Nia: “Is that pig wearing a baseball cap?” A few seconds later Big Bob comes in with a rope calling, “Sooo-eee, sooo-eee.”

Jarod asks him, “Is that your pig?”

Bob answers: “That’s no pig; that’s my partner in a burgeoning mushroom business.”

It was Little Bob’s job to route up truffles for Big Bob to sell. Big Bob claims they would have made a fortune on the truffles in the old mine shaft in Box Canyon, but couldn’t get to them now because the entrance of the mine shaft had been dynamited by someone and sealed shut. That dynamiting took place the same day Ranger Conrad had been clearing stumps in the area… the same day the plane buzzed the area… the same day Victor Simpkins disappeared. And it was Conrad who lead the search AWAY from the mountain and toward the river…

Jarod and Nia get themselves together and rush out to the Box Canyon mine. They’re able to pull enough boulders and debris from the entrance to get into the mine, and find Victor Simpkins there, lying on floor. He’s suffering from exposure, but is alive.

Jarod has Big Bob Carsey call Ranger Conrad and tell him that he thinks he’s been able to find Victor in the mine shaft. Conrad tells Kobey and the other rangers to stay where they are and not to call Simpkins’ mother until he’s had a chance to check the lead out himself. Conrad arrives at the mine shaft and finds the entrance sealed shut. He relocates enough rock until he can get into the shaft, then creeps up to what he believes is Victor’s Simpkins’ body on the floor of the shaft. When he touches it, the body rolls over. It’s Jarod. “Well, it’s about time,” Jarod complains to Conrad, “my legs were starting to cramp up.”

Jarod confronts Conrad with what he knows about Simpkins’ disappearance, and Conrad’s drug running. Conrad offers him money if he’ll just ignore the whole thing, but Jarod refuses. Instead, he traps Conrad in the mine shaft himself, and collapses the entrance again so Conrad can’t get out. Conrad screams, “You can’t leave me in here!” And Jarod tells him, yes, he can; but he’ll lead a search team personally to retrieve Conrad… “in a few days.”

BACK AT NIA’S HOME, Nia is reading a newspaper. Headlines tell of Conrad’s drug-running, the murder of the pilot and attempted murder of Victor Simpkins. Conrad will go to prison. Jarod, his Halliburton case in hand, walks out of the house, and sits on the porch next to Nia. “I can do many things,” he tells her honestly, “but I don’t know how to do this .” Nia tells him, “I know you have to go.” He says he’s worried that if he stays the people who are looking for him might endanger her life. She tells him she can take care of herself, and wishes him well. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she says. Jarod caresses her face and says, “You’ve already helped me find a part of it.” He kisses her on the mouth. Gives her a last good-bye, and then walks off into the nearby woods. Nia goes back into the house and finds a small wrapped present with a large purple bow sitting on a table in the entryway. She opens the wrapping and uncovers a simple wooden music box. As she opens the lid, she smiles: it’s playing ” Three Blind Mice ” Stooges-style. Later that same morning, a sedan pulls up in front of Nia’s home as she sweeping the front porch. Although he had indicated to her that he was leaving, Jarod returns — but stays out of sight — so he can keep an eye on Nia when Miss Parker and Syndey step out of the sedan. They show Nia a photograph of Jarod and ask if she’s seen him. She tells them, yes, ” He was tall, handsome, a little mole beside his right eye…He was here for a few days. He’s gone now .” They ask Nia if she knows where Jarod went, and she tells them, no, “But he did say something about loving Argentina.” (In his hiding place, Jarod smiles a little.) Sydney starts walking back to the sedan, but Miss Parker lingers for a moment, looking Nia over. She asks, “Do you think he’ll come back?” Nia replies frankly, “I hope so.” Miss Parker gives Nia one more look-over, then walks back to the sedan and gets into he driver’s seat. As the sedan pulls away, Jarod looks over to where Nia is still standing in front of the house. His longing and despair is evident in his facial expressions, but he turns his back and walks away from her — alone — through the woods.