Patti Rocks 1988

In Minneapolis just before Christmas, Billy, Chris Mulkey persuades his old friend Eddie, John Jenkins, whom he has not seen for six months, to listen to his story. While working on barges between the Twin Cities and La Crosse, Wisconsin, Billy met and slept with Patti Karen Landry, who now says she is pregnant. As she refuses to talk on the phone with him, Billy wants a friend to accompany him on a visit to her La Crosse home to explain that as a married man and a father of two, he would prefer she not have the child. The pair drive through the night, drinking beer and talking crudely about women. At a stop, when an older woman challenges Billy to have sex with her, his machismo is revealed as immature bluster. Arriving at Patti’s apartment after midnight, Eddie is surprised to find that Patti is actually a strong-willed, fiercely independent woman—nothing how Billy described her. Patti tells Billy she will go ahead and have the baby and wants nothing from him. She then shuts herself in her bedroom. Billy begs Eddie to speak to her, and she lets him in. After discussing their lonely lives—he, divorced, and she, preferring freedom—tenderly they make love. Billy looks in and sees he is no longer wanted. As he prepares to drive Eddie home, Patti takes a photograph of him to give to the child one day. When Eddie asks, Patti says he can call again.