"Bye." "Bye." "CHRIS:" "When you're a kid, one of the most important lessons you learn is when your parents tell you to do something..." "Y'all better eat that liver." "Yes, ma'am." "Yes, ma'am." "...you do it no matter what you think..." "Boy, get your feet off my good chair." "Yes, ma'am." "...no matter what it is." "Girl, are you crazy?" "!" "You want to cook your brother, do it outside." "Yes, ma'am." "( muffled yelling )" "No matter how you feel." "Chris, clear off the table and do the dishes." "( both laughing )" "No." "( tires screeching, crashing sounds )" "( all gasp )" "What?" "CHRIS:" "Will I say what I said again?" "Will my mother kill me before I get a chance to say it?" "Are Drew and Tonya gonna sit there and just let this happen?" "Don't touch that dial." "* Aw, make if funky now *" "CHRIS:" "After saying no to my mother for the first time," "I didn't know what to expect." "What did you say?" "I said no." "Twice." "That's what I thought you said." "Now say it again." "Mom, I didn't eat all the dinner by myself." "I shouldn't have to clean it all up by myself." "I don't wear all the clothes, but I wash them by myself." "I don't sleep in all the beds inthis house, but I make them up by myself." "I don't pee in all of the toilets in this house by myself!" "Mom, Drew and Tonya sitting right there doing nothing." "Why can't they help?" "Because I told you to do it." "Now I don't want to hear no more back talk." "Now clean this mess up." "No." "I'm not gonna do it." "Lord... please help me before I knock this boy's neck off." "Eight..." "Nine..." "T" " Ten!" "CHRIS:" "I wouldn't see a woman that perplexed again until Palin found out her daughter was knocked up." "Now are you gonna clean up this table or do I need to tell your father?" "CHRIS:" "Whenever there was a problem my mother couldn't handle, she'd call my father for backup, like the governor bringing in the National Guard." "Ow!" "What's the situation?" "!" "Chris won't do what I told him." "You want me to do some dishes?" "!" "I'll do some dishes!" "( screaming wildly )" "I'll handle this." "Oh!" "That was my..." "( launcher beeps )" "Yes!" "( crowd cheering )" "You know what?" "Go ahead." "Tell him." "I don't care." "Fine." "Drew, Tonya, come clean this table up and wash the dishes." "BOTH:" "Yes, ma'am." "CHRIS:" "I enjoyed time with my father, but I was afraid this might be the last time." "Where have you been?" "I stopped to get coffee." "CHRIS:" "With his coffee coupon." "Oh, coffee." "Oh, yeah, that-that's nice." "Well, while you were out taking your time sipping on coffee, uh, your son was here staging a coup!" "A coup?" "What?" "Who, Drew?" "Chris!" "I spent 20 hours of labor pushing out that big-eared boy, and he turns around and does this to me?" "!" "Does what?" "What did he do?" "What did he do?" "Oh, what?" "You're on his side now?" "!" "No, no, I'm just trying to find out what's going on." "Oh, what's going on, what's going on." "Let me think about what's going on." "Your son is trying to kill me." "That's what's going on!" "I-I cook, I clean, I care for this family, and what do I get in return?" "Just a full-scale mutiny!" "Led by a child who I bore for a man who's supposed to love and honor and protect me!" "You know, I thought we were all in this together, but you know what?" "I'm finding out now that I'm just by myself!" "Rochelle, what did he do?" "I told Chris to wash the dishes." "And he told me, "No."" "And what do you do?" "Nothing!" "CHRIS:" "While my father was trying to figure out what to do," "I was starting to realize what I had done." "What are you doing here so early?" "It's a long story." "Why you here?" "I'm always here for breakfast." "So what happened?" "I talked back to my mother, she's telling my father, and I had to get out the house before he got home." "What were you thinking?" "She's always making me do work while Drew and Tonya sit around like it's a hotel." "I mean, why do I have to be a maid?" "Do I look French?" "Do I have on a black skirt with a white apron?" "CHRIS:" "That's a whole other type of maid." "You're a fool." "Mothers do have limits." "I mean, there's only so much they can take." "You know, one day you just refuse to do the housework, and then the next day you wake up, and there's some Italian lady naked in your kitchen at midnight eating all your spumoni ice cream," "and your dad comes out and he's, like," ""Hey, just, you know, go back to bed." "Forget all about it, Greg."" "Well, after my dad knocks my brains out," "I won't have to worry about remembering anything." "CHRIS:" "While I was trying to savor my last day of life," "Mr. Omar was trying to savor a last meal." "So, the next thing I know, the doctors call and say I've gone from a clean bill of health to who knows how much time left to live." "( laughs )" "BOTH:" "Tragic." "You see, most people are decapitated by flying hubcaps." "( laughs )" "Or fall down a flight of steps and get strangled between banister rails." "So knowing when I'm gonna die allows me to make the most of my remaining days and get my affairs in order." "CHRIS:" "And he doesn't mean business affairs." "So from now on, I'm gonna do the things" "I want to do and say the things" "I want to say without worrying about the consequences." "( door shuts )" "Hey, Mr. Omar." "Oh, hey, Mr. Julius." "Unfortunately, I'm here to give my 19-day notice." "You moving out?" "Mm, no, more like moving on." "Where you going?" "Well, that's the great mystery of life, isn't it, Mr. Julius?" "Where do we go when we die?" "Dying?" "Mr. Omar, that's terrible." "Oh, no, it's not." "'Cause for the next 19 days, I'm gonna be living it up!" "Pass me the meatballs." "Okay." "Whoa-whoa-whoa, where's Chris?" "Chris said he had to work late." "Good, then he'll be home soon." "ROCHELLE:" "Julius, your son is trying to kill me." "Go find him and stop him." "CHRIS:" "With my father on the way to Doc's," "I was a dead man working." "( shrieks )" "We need to talk." "I just need to understand why you would talk to your mother like that." "Dad, Drew and Tonya were sitting down watching TV, and I'm the only one Mom said to go clean up." "It's just not fair." "You raised me to stand up for myself, so why do I get in trouble when I do it at home?" "Look, Chris, you might win the battle, but you're gonna lose the war." "Sometimes it's not about just being right." "Hey, look, you need to apologize to your mother." "Why?" "Because she will make your life miserable." "You know how many times I've been right and still had to apologize?" "469,531 times." "CHRIS:" "And counting." "How is that even possible?" "Because she doesn't care." "It doesn't make any sense." "Exactly." "Look, that's the #1 rule of living with women:" "nothing makes sense." "When you learn this, then you'll finally understand what it is to be a man." "Wrong or right, you still have to be sorry." "CHRIS:" "I had survived the walk home." "Now all I had to do was apologize, and my life would go back to normal." "So did you talk to him?" "I talked to him." "Good." "Chris, clean up the table and do the dishes." "No." "CHRIS:" "Well, it's been nice knowing you, America." "CHRIS:" "I had put my foot down." "But unfortunately, it was into my own grave." "So I thought you talked to him?" "I did." "And he's got a point." "What?" "!" "Why should Drew and Tonya watch TV while Chris cleans up their mess?" "I do not have to explain to him why I do the things that I do." "If I want him to do something that I don't want the other kids to do," "I probably have a good reason!" "And do you have a good reason?" "No." "But that doesn't matter!" "He's growing up, Rochelle." "If you ask him to do something that seems unfair, he's gonna want to know why." "You wanted a strong-minded kid, well, you got one." "Oh." "Okay, I-I see." "Oh, if he wants to be grown, then he's grown." "Fine." "CHRIS:" "How come when a woman says "fine,"" "it's never actually fine?" "First thing in the morning, my mother did the meanest thing yet: nothing." "Why didn't you wake me up?" "I'm late for school." "You're grown." "Wake yourself up." "You don't want to do nothing for me," "I ain't doing nothing for you." "CHRIS:" "And she didn't." "She didn't do my laundry." "Where are my underwear?" "You're grown." "Wash your own drawers." "She didn't make my meals." "Where's my breakfast?" "You're grown." "You can cook your own food." "While my mother was teaching me a lesson about life," "Mr. Omar was giving out lessons about death." "And I also will take that helmet and those death darts." "That's a Crock-Pot and pens, man." "Not in the jungle, it's not." "You know, I can make a hand grenade out of a can of Cheez Whiz and a dress sock." "Well, you need to use it to blow your own brains out." "Don't they have centers for people like you?" "Bye." "Excuse me." "Hey, Monk." "Hey, Julius." "MR. OMAR:" "Hey, aloha, Mr. Julius." "You can't have all these people in the hallway." "What you gonna do about it?" "I'm dying." "Mr. Omar, these people are turning my house into a fire hazard." "Well, with all that asbestos in the walls and ceiling, you ain't got to worry about no fire." "It's the asthma that's gonna kill you." "Excuse me?" "You're cheap!" "You're a bald-headed, penny-pinching skinflint." "Watch yourself, Mr. Omar." "What's to watch?" "!" "I'm dying." "CHRIS:" "While my father was thinking about breaking a lamp over Mr. Omar's head," "I was trying not to break down." "Dude, you look terrible." "I know." "It was a rough morning." "Mom decided she's not gonna do anything for me anymore." "Barely made it to school." "If you back down now, you'll miss the one chance you have to make sure your voice is heard." "I know." "All I have to do is stick it out just a little bit longer." "She's been mad at me before, and she'll be mad at me again." "What's she gonna do, not be my mother anymore?" "( woman speaking indistinctly over P.A. )" "I'd like to return this child." "Do you have the receipt?" "Sure do." "Looks good." "Take this to the cashier for your refund." "Thank you." "CHRIS:" "I was trying to become my own person, but my mother still thought she owned me." "What you think you're doing?" "I'm making breakfast." "With my eggs?" "No, I bought the eggs, and I bought the bacon." "Oh." "( chuckles )" "Well, you ain't buy that skillet." "You ain't buy that fire." "You ain't buy that spatula." "You ain't buy that plate." "Next time, I'll remember to buy a paper plate." "Ooh!" "Next time?" "Oh, next...? "Oh, next time, I'll remember to buy a paper..."" "No, next time, you need to remember this ain't your kitchen!" "This ain't your stove." "This ain't your floor." "Those ain't your frozen gizzards." "That ain't your...!" "You say none of this is mine, maybe I should find someplace else to be." "Uh-oh!" "Did y'all see that?" "I guess he jumping bad now." "You bad!" "I guess you Shaft!" "You's a bad mother-- Shut your mouth!" "No." "Since you're so independent, so liberated, maybe you need to go live in the Statue of Liberty." "Fine." "I'm leaving." "CHRIS:" "I stood my ground, and now I was gonna be standing out on the street." "I left the house before my mother asked for her suitcase back." "DREW:" "Just say you're sorry." "What for?" "TONYA:" "Because you just got kicked out." "Look, I don't care, all right?" "It's better than doing everyone else's work." "If you had been cleaning up after me for the past ten years, you'd know how I felt." "How you gonna eat?" "I-I got a job." "Where you gonna stay?" "I'll find a place." "Will you quit being stupid, and go clean the kitchen like Mama told you?" "Look, if you want it clean so bad, you go do it." "So you're really leaving?" "Yeah." "Well, can I have your radio?" "Fine." "Good luck, Chris." "ROCHELLE:" "Yeah, since this morning." "I mean, you know, it's not a big deal, but if Chris calls, can you let me know?" "Okay." "Thanks, Doc." "Why is this table such a mess?" "CHRIS:" "Somebody fired the maid." "'Cause I'm not gonna clean it up." "They're not gonna clean it up." "When I find him, Chris is gonna clean it up." "When you find him?" "Chris and Mom got into another fight." "And she threw him out of the house." "What do you mean, you threw him out?" "I may have implied that since he was so self-sufficient, that maybe he should live someplace else." "And then he left." "You telling me you kicked our son out because he didn't do the dishes?" "CHRIS:" "Exactly." "Not exactly." "But it's the principle, Julius!" "Do you know what the words "too far" mean?" "CHRIS:" "Actually, she didn't." "You're cutting the boy's arm off for sticking his finger in the fan." "What?" "Cutting off his arm?" "I don't get it." "So am I the fan?" "I'm pretty sure Chris is the arm." "No, I think the arm is the arm." "Chris is the boy." "Yeah, Chris is the boy." "Look, sticking his finger in the fan is just the equivalent of doing something stupid." "Like talking back to Mom." "Right." "So cutting the arm off is kicking him out of the house?" "Exactly." "So if he stuck his finger in the fan, and I didn't like it, cutting his arm off so he wouldn't do it again wouldn't help." "Wouldn't help." "Oh." "Oh." "Got it." "I'm-I'm gonna go find Chris." "It's Saturday." "He probably just went someplace in the neighborhood to cool off." "CHRIS:" "Hopefully, not under a fan." "While my dad was talking sense into his woman, a woman was talking some sense into me." "Boy, are you crazy?" "You are lucky she just threw you out." "But, V-- Chris, you challenged her authority." "You left her no choice." "So if me or Tonya say no, are you just gonna kick us out, too?" "CHRIS:" "Yes!" "No." "I didn't kick him out, Drew." "He left." "CHRIS:" "After you kicked him out." "He only left because you told him to go live in the Statue of Liberty." "CHRIS:" "Okay, how am I supposed to talk to her if she won't listen to anything I say?" "Chris, you are a child." "Parents don't negotiate with children." "Even though I hate Chris," "I still wish he would come back home." "I don't want him to get stabbed or shot or turned out or hooked on drugs." "Your brother is not gonna get hooked on drugs." "Actually, he probably will." "Runaways tend to fall into dangerous situations pretty quickly." "And drugs and alcohol provide a sedative to the trauma and isolation." "Chris, you need to go back home." "Why?" "It's just gonna happen again." "What if he doesn't come back?" "If he does, it's just gonna happen again." "You know, if it was me and it was my kid," "I think I would've thought of a different way to say what I said, so that my kid still learned his lesson while keeping our family together." "VANESSA:" "It's dishes!" "You're acting like she told you to bring down the mob!" "CHRIS:" "Actually, the mob was slightly less vindictive than my mother." "Hey, Vanessa." "Chris, let's go." "While me and my mother were still bent out of shape," "Mr. Omar was about to straighten something out." "Oh, hey, Mr. Julius!" "Chris, go upstairs." "And don't say anything to your mother till I get up there." "I don't want her throwing you out again." "( chuckles )" "Hey, Chris!" "What?" "Um, I was wondering had you rented my apartment yet." "You forgot to say, "bald-headed skinflint."" "Yeah." "About that:" "I just wanted to say I'm very sorry." "Whatever." "What difference is it to you whether I rented the place anyway?" "Won't you be dead?" "Uh, no, no." "Uh, turned out, there was a mistake." "I got Mr. Watkins' prognosis, and he got mine." "Who is Mr. Watkins?" "He's the guy that's dying instead of me." "( laughs )" "Yeah, misdiagnosed with a terminal condition by a doctor with a nearsighted nurse." "Tragic." "Tragic!" "Well..." "I guess that's good news." "Uh, look, look, look, Mr., Mr. Julius," "Mr. Julius." "I was speaking my mind, but my mind wasn't in the right place." "So you don't think I'm a bald-headed" "( screams )" "Don't say it!" "Don't you ever say that." "You're a good man, Mr. Julius." "Mr. Omar, next time you think you're dying, before you start calling people names, be sure." "Rent's due on the first." "( chuckles )" "Hallelujah!" "All right, first of all, in the future, no kid gets thrown out of the house unless we both throw them out." "Second, your mother's in charge." "When she tells you to do something, you do it." "You got it?" "I'm talking to everybody here." "Now, do we all understand?" "ALL:" "Yes." "Good." "Chris, apologize to your mother." "I'm sorry." "JULIUS:" "Sorry for what?" "Mom, I'm sorry for being disrespectful and talking back to you." "JULIUS:" "Good." "Rochelle?" "Rochelle." "( sighs )" "Chris, I'm sorry for being unreasonable." "I know I was unfair." "JULIUS:" "Okay." "This is over and done." "Chris, give your mother a hug." "I'm sorry, baby." "I love you." "I'm sorry, too, Mom." "JULIUS:" "Great." "Drew, Tonya, go watch TV." "Chris, clean this mess up." "Yeah, baby!" "* Everybody hates Chris *"