Art tells me you were a sniper with the Rangers.
Tim GuttersonYeah, I was.
What's the longest you ever had to watch a target?
Tim Gutterson
Three days. Shitty little village outside Kandahar. You watch a man that long, you can get to know him better than his wife does. How he reads the paper, picks his nose, what glass he likes for tea, what one for milk. If he jerks off, what he looks at when he does. If he's nice to the dog when no one's around.
What's the trick to something like that? Keeping your focus?
Tim Gutterson
Well, they told us to come up with stories about ourselves and the target.
What do you mean, "stories"?
Tim Gutterson
Well, nothing elaborate. Imagine taking Shirley to the movies, watching Price is Right, eating takeout Chinese. They eventually stopped that, the business with the stories.
Tim Gutterson
They found some folks get so involved in the tales they're telling themselves, they grow to like the target. And when they got the green light, they couldn't pull.
Tim, when you were working with Pinter, you ever come across a guy looks like a black Mr Clean? Dresses like the janitor in a rap video.
Tim Gutterson
Like it says Tommy Hilfiger on his coveralls?
Yeah, like he wears a t-shirt with his gators.
Tim Gutterson
Detroit accent, looks like he could dead-lift the back of a car?
When I was Nick's age, before my father's cancer, I thought we were the Cosbys. My parents had good jobs, there was a feast on the table after church on Sundays. Shawnee and I would ride our Huffys around the neighborhood. We had good hair, and made straight A's. Except, as my mother reminds me, that wasn't reality. The jobs weren't all that good, and my father was never a happy man even before he got sick. And Shawnee was smoking pot at 9 and running away to smoke heroin at 15.
I never bore any illusions that my family was the Cosbys.
Your family wasn't funny.
Tim Gutterson
At least you got to shoot your father. Mine had the nerve to die before I got back from Basic with skills and a loaded weapon.
You didn't miss much. I thought it was gonna be way more fun than it was.
I'm sorry, what are we talkin' about?
Where were you yesterday?
Why? Did somethin' happen?
You're keeping addict hours, you come in late, you leave early, you're haggard. It's like the baby's already been born.
I don't know what you're talkin' about.
Tim Gutterson
I'd rather not take sides.
Well would you rather do morning prisoner transports for the next six months?
Tim Gutterson
You do seem a little tired.
No shit! The question is why?
Tim Gutterson
Smart money in the office pool's on exotic dancin'.
You let Raylan take him?! Holy shit!
NDNelson Dunlop
He said it was a late birthday present.
Arlo Givens' body not even cold on the slab, and you let Raylan drive off into the sunset with his killer! Have you lost your mind?! Where is he? Tell me he's in Leoville, dropping off the prisoner like a good boy.
Tim Gutterson
Not unless they moved it to Harlan, 'cause transponder's got him around Baxter.
God damn it. God damn it!
NDNelson Dunlop
You want me to go up and get him?
I want you to sit your ass down and get used to purging case files until I figure out how to like you again!
[Tim slams on the breaks] What the hell?! What are you doing?
Tim Gutterson
It's not right.
Tim Gutterson
One abandoned car beside the road's no big deal, but two so close together, that's weird.
Tim Gutterson
How bout a third? [points to another up the road]
What are you thinking? IEDs?
Tim Gutterson
I'm not thinking confetti canons.
Tim Gutterson
For all I know I'm just having a full-blown PTSD episode.
Tim Gutterson
Only when I'm handling firearms in public.
Tim Gutterson
[calling Colt realizing he's put IEDs in cars to ambush his team] Am I right in saying that you were in the sandbox before Afghanistan?
I am a double winner. Is that why you called, to ask me that?
Tim Gutterson
Oh, why? You busy?
I am in the middle of something.
Tim Gutterson
All right, I'll make it quick. I'm writing a book set in Iraq. There's a chapter where a convey of military police is transporting a criminal, and Lieutenant Dan, he's our main guy, he gets a bad feeling—
Tim Gutterson
Huh?
There's a Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.
Tim Gutterson
Oh shit, you're right. I'll change it. Lieutenant Colt.
I would like a young Gérard Depardieu to play me in the movie. I'm honored.
Tim Gutterson
Well you should be, he's a big guy, a real badass, or he was, he's kind of losing his grip when we meet him, he's lost someone, he's started using dope that he confiscated.
Yeah but then we find out he's kicked again, and anyone who thinks he's in anyway diminished is in for a big surprise.
Tim Gutterson
Yeah, but he's the kind of character might say he's kicked but we all know he's just one broken shoelace away from sayin' "screw it" and picking up again.
How about you have him go into a bar and pick a fight with some rangers and he send a couple of them to the hospital?
Tim Gutterson
It's not a fantasy. Anyway, he gets a bad feeling when they pass an abandoned vehicle, sees a second and a third, so he's thinking IEDs triggered by cell. You ever come across anything like that?
Me, personally? No. But I did hear about this one convoy, couple of Frankensteins and a gun truck on Highway 10. So, the spotter, he calls a halt between the first two cars thinking the Hajis will blow the second if it moves forward, and the first if it tries to go back.
Tim Gutterson
Well, how'd they get out of it?
Yeah, they didn't. Because they were too afraid to move, they just sat there in their vehicles, pssing and shitting in their helmets, too afraid to toss it out the windows on account of possible snipers. Then they ran out of food. They started eating each other till there was only one left, and he blew his brains out. Do you want to know the sad part?
Tim Gutterson
Oh, there's a sad part?
Yeah. Because they were so afraid to move, they never found out whether or not the cars had explosives. So basically, they all died from being pussies.
[lighting a cigarette] Gonna quit tomorrow.
Tim Gutterson
What do you think you're doing?
Tim Gutterson
Did you kill my friend?
You know what it's like to be in the shit. Go back there enough times, and bad things happen.
Tim Gutterson
So, you did kill him?
Collateral damage. I'm sorry about what happened to your friend Mark, but I think most of him died somewhere in Kandahar.
Tim Gutterson
Only part I'm concerned about is the one that died here. Last time I'm telling you. Put your weapon on the ground.
[Colt exhales his cigarette smoke] I guess I'll quit today.
[Colt raises his gun; Tim shoots him in the chest]
Justified · 383 quotes
