"One, two, three, one, two, three..." "Two three" "Now." "(door open)" "Burning the midnight oil?" "Amongst other things." "Have you slept?" "Not really." "Do the dishes?" "Guess I forgot." "Leave the house?" "Nah." "Anything happen at all?" "Some guy called." "About?" "Something, said he'd call back." "When?" "I don't remember." "Thanks for the message." "You're welcome." "Got a call from a guy today." "About what?" "An opening across town." "Really?" "It's not glamourous, but it's a job." "Doing what?" "Night watchman." "Sit around, surf the Internet, take a look about every once in a while." "Watching TV." "Yeah, I told them you were good at that." "How would I get there?" "I'll drive you over in the evening, you take the bus back." "Is there an exam?" "Fake it." "Once you're in, they don't care." "What about my record?" "You can use my numbers, moonlight." "Come on, try it for me." "What do we wanna do for dinner?" "We?" "Yeah, you and me." "You gonna buy?" "Exactly." "What am I gonna do for dinner?" "You don't have to be such a dick, man." "You don't gotta lay around all day, man." "Fuck you." "Fuck me?" "I take you in when nobody else will, am my brother's keeper, and fuck me?" "So, taco hell?" "You go there entirely too much quit trying to change the subject." "Mickey D's?" "Not that depressed." "Pizza slut?" "Not that hungry." "Sub slop?" "I could do that." "Hello?" "Yeah, I can move it." "Yeah, let me talk to my guy." "All right." "Where have you been?" "Out." "With who?" "Friends." "Doing what?" "Having fun." "Where'd you get those earrings?" "They were a gift." "From who?" "My mother." "For what?" "Birthday!" "Bullshit." "Go to hell." "So what's his name?" "We never go out anymore." "Yeah, some of us have to work." "All you do is sit around and smoke all day." "Look, I'm making deals." "Oh yeah?" "How long has it been since the last one?" "Look, it'll happen, okay?" "It just takes a little patience." "I'm getting tired of waiting." "Well some of us can't get by on just our looks, you know." "There's more to me than that." "Yeah, I can think of a couple of things." "Well, I won't hold them against you." "So you're not gonna tell me what you've been doing?" "Nope." "Where are you going?" "Out." "What for?" "To have fun." "With who?" "Friends." "You don't have any friends!" "You see, what a woman wants is a dog." "A dog?" "Yeah, something she can take care of and show to guests, give a bath when it gets dirty," "Fetch sticks when she calls?" "Yeah, when she wants to play with the dog it's okay, and when she doesn't it needs to sleep quietly at the foot of the bed." "Okay, so how exactly does this apply to me?" "You're too smooth, man." "You got your suit and your tie and your shoes all shiny and" "To a certain extent, that's important." "Well don't you have to be housebroken?" "Yeah, but you gotta have some bad traits too." "I mean leave your shirts on the floor, something, and she'll think "Oh, I can change that."" "Then you've got her." "When she thinks she can train you?" "Yeah, then she'll clean the toilets, and wash your shirts and change the sheets, and all you gotta do is every so often is fix one of your faults and get another month out of her." "Well okay, well then what happens when she's got you turned completely into her little lap puppy?" "You dump her and revert to your old ways, and start all over again." "Would be cheaper than a maid." "And you get room service." "All right, so if the dude's the dog then the chick's the cat?" "Basically." "I mean, a cat will come over and let you pet it and then the next time it'll be a step further away, and if you pet it there then the next time it's two steps and so on..." "It's testing your limits." "Yeah, sooner or later they'll figure out how far you're willing to chase them." "Well what for?" "Well, so they can stand at the edge and see what really makes you come closer" "I mean this look or that move" "And when they want you do to something, they know what bait to put on the trap." "Well I'd rather get carrots than a stick" "It's what they're up to, it's just their nature." "You can no more fight it then teach a cat not to purr." "Well if you can figure out the game they're playing, then you can play along." "You take a step in, you take a step back, they expect you to be predictable but instead they're guessing." "It's a simple battle of wills, the stakes your soul." "A true romantic, I see." "That's good." "Your whole dewy-eyed "I'm looking for the right one" thing I mean they think "that could be me" and then you've got them." "But I am looking for the right one." "Sincerity works well for luring them in too." "But once you've gone to the trouble of getting a nibble though you might as well get as much play out of them as possible." "Okay, so like run up the mileage and trade it in for a new model?" "I prefer to call it catch and release." "What's wrong?" "Why do you say that?" "You just seem pissier than usual." "I got a raise." "Congratulations." "It's twenty dollars a week." "Not bad." "I've been working there six months, never once been late," "and then one day they decide that's worth an extra fifty cents an hour." "Stick around a whole year they might give me a dollar." "Big money." "I've been thinking about quitting for a while, and then they come up and tell me the news." "Just the look on their faces." "You didn't take it?" "I need the money more than my pride." "Some days you'd rather keep it?" "Yeah, then come back and there you are and I wonder why I go through the grind." "I mean, don't you ever get tired of it?" "Sometimes." "We need to go someplace warm and sit on the beach and drink margaritas and let the waves and the surf wash all the noise away." "Don't you have a break coming up?" "We should plan something, get out of here." "It's not the same." "Besides, I'll probably wake up tomorrow and not even care." "Just every once in a while I wonder where I'm headed but at this point, it doesn't even matter any more." "You could get another job, if this one's getting on your nerves too much." "Ah, no matter where I'd go though I'd just be getting on the treadmill again." "Finding myself adapting and trying to become the best cog in the machine." "Just another animal in the zoo." "Every need taken care of and all they do is stare out the window." "No, yeah, you tell him if he wants an extension he can have one." "Yeah, but he's gonna have to make payments." "Yeah, you tell him for each day he's late, it's gonna be an inch off his dick." "You tell him, that if he's a week late again he can't have it 'cause he ain't got the collateral." "Okay, talk to you later." "What can I do you for?" "Heard you were the guy that could move some stuff." "Stuff?" "What do you mean by stuff?" "You know." "No, I'm afraid I don't." "You're gonna have to be a little more specific." "You mind?" "What is this, a joke?" "Who the hell are you?" "I heard you were kind of guy that could move some..." "Yeah, yeah, well you heard wrong, alright?" "Now get out of the office." "What, are you deaf?" "Did you not under stand me?" "Is this some sort of fucking trap here?" "Get the fuck out before I have you beaten!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Please remove this gentleman out of the office!" "Hey, I'm leaving!" "Jesus Christ!" "Goddamn little punk, try and set me up!" "Who would win in a fight," "Jet Li or the Predator?" "Ooh, tough choice." "Danny plus Mel can take down Li, while Danny plus a swat team can beat the Predator" "Let's assume that Mel and the swat team are pretty much equal," "Well then they'd be pretty evenly matched, I'd think." "Who would you bet on?" "I'm gonna go with Jet Li." "How so?" "Alright the predator is part bad-ass alien and part high technology" "But you take the technology away and Ahnold can take him down." "So the way I see it, he's gonna be knocking" "Jet Li around, maybe like bloodying his nose or something." "Mostly pissing him off." "Right." "But eventually Jet Li's gonna get his hands on one of those magic laser bullet spears and go medieval on his ass." "Okay, versus the alien." "The alien." "But doesn't the predator beat the alien though?" "What beats the alien is technology, whether it's space ship engines or the gun on the Predator's shoulder." "But you factor that out and Li doesn't stand a chance." "What are some quick moves gonna do against an alien that lives in vacuum and spits acid?" "Nothing." "Okay, the terminator." "Which one?" "The real one." "Liquid metal?" "The first one!" "Hyper-alloy combat chassis with a bio-mechanical shell?" "You know it." "Li again." "But Reese whacks aliens left and right, and even he can't take down the Terminator." "The terminator is Ahnold plus technology." "Aliens are bad-ass but they got no tech." "Reese in the future has tech, Reese in the present doesn't." "Li's got no tech either." "I admit, Conan is pretty tough." "I mean, he took on a demigod and Wilt Chamberlain with only his sword and his bulging biceps." "In the same day, even." "But his weakness is speed, and that's what Li has in spades." "I mean, it wouldn't be a pretty fight." "It's gonna be a lot of hit and run and Li darting around," "Guerrilla warfare." "And if the terminator got ahold of him for a second it'd be over." "One mistake and he's done." "But when it's all on the line Jet Li's gonna rise to the challenge." "Hey, what are you watching?" "Oh, I love this show." "Look, I'm sorry." "I'm sorry, when you go running around, it just makes me think that something's happening." "Look, I'm not the one who disappears." "I'm entitled to some secrets." "Not from me." "Why not?" "Because." "Look, I pay for all this." "So your money?" "That's not what I mean." "What, then?" "Don't put words into my mouth." "Then don't say them." "Look I'm sorry, okay?" "I apologize." "For?" "For caring too much." "I'm sorry for being an ass." "Asshole, you mean." "Same difference." "Look, you wanna make some food?" "Why don't you go check the fridge?" "What do we got?" "How about some margarine?" "With paprika?" "Mmmm, paprika." "I don't see why you can't cook anything every once in a while." "You know I don't cook." "Yeah, I forgot." "It's been a while." "For me, anyways." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Look, should we just order a pizza?" "Did you make your deal?" "What deal?" "That guy you went to see." "Yeah maybe." "Tell me!" "Yeah, yeah I did." "Yes, I did." "Is it any good?" "Be enough to keep things going for a while." "Well then, let's celebrate." "You wanna do dinner?" "Beats sitting around here." "Where should we go?" "Someplace we haven't been in a while." "Like where?" "Just not the usual joints." "How about Dorsia's?" "That would be nice." "Yeah, it would." "What should I wear?" "I don't care." "It's not even that." "A guy was sick the other day so I covered for him." "A good deed." "Thanks." "Now he's gonna figure out how to get off next week, and I'll end up doing his shift again and I don't want to." "Fair enough." "It just seems that anybody I help always tries to push it for more." "And if somebody doesn't get to walk over you they decide to be an enemy." "They want you to play their game." "It's not that they're bad people, it's just the way they are." "You don't get mad at a coyote for howling at the moon." "So, no sense in stopping a backstabber?" "Take a pack of dogs." "There will be a leader." "You add a new one and he'll have to fight for his place in the order." "Every animal knows the unwritten law." "Seeing the pattern, doesn't that mean you can break it?" "The only way to be free of the nonsense is to be outside of it all." "But then you're always alone, wandering from place to place, unknown, unwanted." "No connections, no problems." "But nothing means anything." "You just sit around watching the days pass by." "It looks empty from here." "All paths lead to the same place." "The only difference is which one you take." "I suppose there are more important things than money." "Well, somebody's gotta pay the piper." "Can't live off good intentions and holding doors open for little old ladies." "Can't eat that." "Maybe the old ladies." "Yeah, but cooking them's a pain." "You wanna get some alcohol?" "You even know what this is about?" "Boss just said to come over quick." "Yeah, I know how he gets." "What do you think this guy was after?" "Well wasn't worth it." "That's the truth." "Well, where's that shovel at?" "It's uh in the trunk?" "Aw, well that puts a damper on things, doesn't it?" "This is not my fault." "Let me get this straight." "I listen to your blather while we drive an hour into the country, and you still forget the equipment?" "I..." "I what?" "I fucked up?" "But..." "I am not listening to this." "Screw you." "Screw me?" "I'm not the dude who screwed up." "Ignorant redneck, I'm always covering for your ass." "Don't call me a redneck." "I'll call you whatever I damn well please." "You're better than that." "I'm better than what?" "Using stereotypes." "You throw them around all the time!" "Mine are non-cultural." "What?" "Crazy women drivers, dumb blondes, horny old people." "Timeless archetypes." "Like drunken Irishmen?" "Exactly." "Inebriated bogtrotters." "If you're gonna insult me, use a neutral term, like hillbilly." "What's the difference?" "Rednecks are white trash that fly rebel flags outside of their mobile homes." "Hillbillies are people, perhaps out of touch with modern society, with a strong trait of self-sufficiency." "Alright, you're not a stupid redneck, you're a stupid hillbilly." "Point taken." "And this situation?" "I forgot to check the car as a result of years of collective inbreeding." "And to rectify the situation we shall go buy a shovel." "And just how does that demonstrate self-reliance, hillbilly?" "I will dig the hole to atone for my sins." "Fine." "I'll drive." "Did you see that?" "Yeah." "The kitty-cat?" "Yes." "So aren't you going to stop?" "I'm not the one who threw it out." "But we saw it." "Yeah, and?" "So don't we have to do something?" "Like what?" "Like pick it up." "And then?" "Keep it." "Why is that funny?" "Have you ever had a pet before?" "No, but I can learn." "Thing would be dead in a week." "Well we could take it to the pound." "Do you know what they do to animals there?" "Do you think that I don't know how to take care of it?" "Are you serious?" "Fine, if you're gonna complain let's just go get the damn thing." "It's right up here." "I know where the spot is." "Here kitty kitty!" "What?" "You want it, you find it." "Here kitty kitty." "Come to mommy." "Here kitty kitty." "Kitty kitty!" "Look, it's gone." "Here kitty kitty!" "Look, more than likely if we found it and took it to the shelter, they'd just kill it anyway." "You really don't care about anybody other than yourself, do you?" "Look, it's a cold hard world babe, and I didn't make it that way." "White white red..." "White white black..." "What's that?" "The houses." "The only thing different is the color of the front door." "Surely there's gotta be more than that." "It's like someone took a blade and smoothed it all out," "No mountains, no trees, no rivers, just flat." "People gotta live somewhere." "Hell, if I had the means I'd probably wanna live here too." "It just seems like everywhere any more." "Identical cars, same people, same houses." "A cancer of order creeping across the land." "Who wants to be different?" "I could be in a different city and have the exact same job, exact apartment, go to the same places to eat." "We're robots?" "Not really, but go here go there do some of this do some of that go somewhere else all to make me feel special and unique." "But I just can't shake this feeling that somewhere a hundred miles away there's this guy whose motions match mine." "You'd rather go back to the way it was?" "Hell no." "Things are better than ever right now." "But as the doors blur by I just find myself changing to try to fit in." "Even a rat in a maze has his choice of exits." "Free will." "And yet the answer is predetermined." "Get the cheese if you do what they say." "It's just easier to keep on going and do the things the way they are than try to change." "But hasn't it been that way since the dawn of time?" "Things are just too institutionalized now." "Fighting the man?" "Just another catchy slogan." "Kids seem to be into it." "That oughta move at least another few thousand more units." "Hey, double that if we can find an angry old man to complain." "Guess we just gotta hire one." "So, did you catch the game?" "Oh, I don't watch soccer." "Well why not?" "I can't stand a game that outlaws the fast break." "The what?" "You take the ball, a guy runs down the field, you get it to him, he scores." "Standard practice in basketball." "In football the problem is getting open." "Hell, even in baseball you can steal bases." "All right, so what's the deal with soccer?" "A guy runs down the field by himself in soccer, he's offsides." "So instead everyone wanders to midfield and there's these boring passing attempts to get around a defender." "What, it doesn't go fast enough for you?" "Yeah, there's arguments for slowing down the casual game." "But guys at the pro level are way beyond being able to claim to run too much." "So ditch the rule." "That would alter the balance." "You like that?" "Here's my next one." "Add a shot clock." "Blasphemy!" "It's a little fast in professional basketball, it encourages throwing it up." "I'm not gonna go overboard." "Say, three minutes." "That's a decent amount of time, at least." "What it destroys is playing keep away." "You remember the four corners nonsense in basketball?" "That's modern soccer." "Well what about hockey?" "What about it?" "Well they have offsides too." "Yeah, but at least they acknowledge it as a limitation." "You get a guy in the box, no penalty for your side." "If that's not an endorsement for the fast break I don't know what is." "All you're doing is asking to speed it up, I mean can't you like something for what it is?" "Are you gonna add a double lightening round to boxing?" "It's a game." "A set of rules to produce an outcome." "Why do we do it a certain way?" "Tradition." "Fuck that." "The structure encourages a certain style of play." "As long as it stays the same so will the players." "What do they have to do with this?" "The nature of the game determines who's good at it." "I mean, basketball favors tall guys." "Football the big dudes, soccer all the little ones left over." "There's exceptions." "Sure, but a little guy is always gonna be fighting uphill in basketball, and a tall guy's gonna be too slow for football, and some big guy's gonna get winded running up and down a soccer field for an hour." "Yeah, I guess." "I don't mind preferring one sport to another, but pretending there's some idealized set of rules that's better than all the others and beyond reproach is bullshit." "Well, they're not gonna change it." "Why not?" "All right, if Americans started caring about soccer then in ten years they'd get serious and start kicking everybody's ass." "And then the rest of the world would have to find some other pastime that they say is better than everything else." "What's that gonna be?" "Cricket?" "Gonna eat that?" "It's too much for me." "Do you want it?" "Nah, I'm good." "You sure?" "Yeah." "Look, I said I don't want the damn thing." "Fine, I was just trying to be nice." "I'm not hungry." "Do you enjoy this?" "What?" "Eating, talking together?" "It's all right, I guess." "Better than sitting at home?" "Sometimes." "You'd rather watch TV." "Depends on what's on." "So I'm more important to you than reruns but not as much as the big game?" "Look, that only comes on once a year and I'm usually not interested in the teams anyway." "But if it on every day you'd rather it than me." "But it's not." "But if it was." "Look, it just seems that we go out a lot, that's all, okay?" "What's wrong with that?" "Can't you grill a steak or something?" "I don't do dishes." "It'd just be less expensive, I guess." "So you'd rather have me at a cheaper price?" "Oh, don't start." "Start what?" "You know what." "No, I don't." "Are we so boring we have to fight in order to have something to do?" "Is it the only way to say what we mean?" "Why are you the only one that gets to ask questions and I don't?" "I just want to know what we have here." "Fine, say...say I won the lottery." "Would you wanna get married?" "I guess." "And if I didn't?" "Exactly." "Exactly what?" "Exactly my point." "That?" "That you're no different than I am." "So the only way you'd marry me is if you won the lottery?" "Needed some toothpaste so I went to the store." "You get the green stuff?" "I've tried the other kinds, none of them taste right." "Then I also realized I was gonna run out of shampoo so I went down the aisle for a bottle." "You get the same brand?" "Nah, of those the blue gunk is better." "I ended up standing there looking at them." "Just one in each hand?" "I decided it was silly to go to the store every couple months so I went back and got two more of each." "But do you use them at the same rate?" "Exactly." "The shampoo goes faster so I went and put one of the tubes back." "And so?" "And nothing." "Just had one of those weird moments where catch a glimpse of yourself doing something." "You wanna know what the man in the mirror's doing when you're turned around?" "Just wondering if he thinks I've become conservative." "So are you gonna start yelling at the kids to get off the front yard?" "It bugs me that I've figured this out for the next half a year." "Nothing wrong with being prepared." "Just tired of trying to figure these things out." "I'm always trying to make the right move so I'm not repeating myself." "Are you getting better with time?" "I remember how fast I was once." "Slower now, just better at hiding it, that's all." "Tricky usually beats good anyway." "Not always." "Feel my routine deepening and becoming a rut." "This could be my last chance to break free." "It could just be more of a groove." "This isn't where I saw myself in five years." "If something doesn't change I could be here in another decade." "And that scares me more than anything." "Man, I think you're over thinking your toiletry purchases just a bit." "Yeah, but that toothpaste is still the best and anybody who says otherwise is a damn fool." "Fine, let's talk." "Where did you go this morning?" "It's not that." "Then what?" "I can't tell you." "You expect me to be truthful and honest and all that jazz and you can't even answer a simple question?" "How am I supposed to answer yours?" "I guess you just have to trust me." "I don't trust nobody." "Not even yourself?" "Especially not myself." "Some broad comes by and shows him the goods that dumb son-of-a-bitch would sell his soul to get a squeeze." "So that's all I am?" "What?" "Just another piece?" "You're the one who disappears once a month to god knows where come back with all these pointed questions." "I say the wrong thing and all of a sudden you're the outraged victim." "This time is different." "You've said that before." "I know, but this time I mean it." "And that, too." "So here we sit." "Over and over again." "Fine, one question." "Shoot." "Did you really get that deal?" "Yeah." "I've been around long enough to know when you're lying." "Bullshit." "Your left eye twitches." "Does not." "So what are we doing here then?" "Because it's what you want." "What I want or what you think I want?" "Is there a difference?" "Of course." "Women only want one thing." "Oh yeah?" "What's that?" "Balls on a platter." "Oh that's right, I forgot." "All every single woman in the universe thinks about all day is your dick or your money." "Oh, so now you're thinking?" "You better stick to what you're good at." "Well, we can't all be geniuses like yourself." "Are you saying I'm not smart?" "If you were we wouldn't be having these problems." "You'd think with the money I spent on you I'd get a better return on my investment." "Excuse me?" "Would you be dating me if I was broke?" "You really think that's why I'm here?" "I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary." "Oh sweetie, I'd have to be pretty dumb to stick around for your money." "Men don't look at you for your well-rounded mind, babe." "I'm leaving." "Good idea, this place was starting to bore me anyway." "I've decided that I'm only gonna eat natural foods from now on, like water." "We've been drinking water since the dawn of time, okay?" "But not ice." "Not natural." "Ancient man didn't sit around drinking lemonade on summer days." "So what, like nuts and berries?" "I got no problem with plants." "Or with protein." "You take a sixteen ounce steak, okay, a pound of beef." "You could eat that every day for the rest of your life and not have any problems whatsoever." "Yeah, but you're gonna get sick of it!" "Whatever." "But if you ate a pound of sugar a day there's no doubt in my mind which is gonna cause problems." "But what are people afraid of?" "Everyone knows that meat is gonna cause you problems later." "We've been eating animals for thousands of years, and now they want to replace them with fried starch and corn syrup." "What are you gonna do when you get scurvy?" "Drink orange juice." "That's not natural!" "What do you mean?" "Orange juice." "You take the orange, you grind them up you take off the pulp, and you serve what's left." "The sugar water." "All the good parts they throw away." "I'll chug a vitamin, then." "That's not natural either!" "Some machine in a factory crapped that out!" "Well what would you do, smarty pants?" "Fried liver." "Goddamn!" "You know what goes into those birds?" "Yeah." "Shit!" "And that's what you're eating!" "Look, it's not any weirder than the first guy who decided to start sucking on cow titties." "Euuugh." "It's like baloney." "They take all the parts of the cow nobody wants, and grinds them up together." "You think there's no insects that get in the orange juice grinder?" "I like apple juice." "Yeah, well drink it, then." "It's not natural." "Nothing is." "Apples don't exist in the real world." "What you buy in the store is the result of thousands of years of mucking around with nature." "Which makes them taste good." "Yes." "But drawing a line in the sand and saying everything on this side is good and everything on that side is bad is just gonna lead to ruin." "I mean, like something for what it is, not for some half-baked rationalization you came up with." "Well then I might have to think for myself!" "Yeah." "Scary, ain't it?" "Fine, I'm the bad guy." "I'm at the end of my rope and you're gonna run off again because I'm nothing." "And then you're the one who gets upset when I say these things." "Well, how else are you gonna change your mind if I don't?" "That's what I thought." "You know, I was at Wally world the other day and I saw this guy the girls he had with him were pretty rough." "Yeah, but he had two them, right?" "No doubt." "And I was thinking we should do the same thing." "I mean, two fives are less work than one nine." "In what way?" "Well, ten's not so much a measure of beauty as it is rarity." "For every ten say you have a dozen nines, and for every nine a dozen eights, for every ei..." "Okay, what's the point?" "If you're gonna go for the very top you're gonna have to fight out everybody else to get there." "She knows that." "Ah, so you're gonna have to pay." "Through the nose." "But give me a couple of solid, dependable, fives." "Not sixes, but not fours either." "Yeah, I know the type." "Average." "And here's the thing." "There's a lotta girls ahead of them." "They know the score." "All you gotta do is find a couple of them that can stand each other." "And that's the end of it?" "Well, if they get out of hand you kick them to the curb." "You know that, they know that." "So there's no drama." "Yeah, perhaps." "Perhaps." "Yeah, triangles are not a stable structure." "I mean, it'd be all right if they were always fighting each other." "But they're women!" "Eventually they're gonna put aside their differences and team up on you." "And then you're screwed." "And not in a good way." "There's no way to fight a herd of females shy of picking them off one at a time." "Yeah, so there's plenty of fives out there." "But finding the two that aren't cause trouble together is harder than it seems." "And then you're back to the original problem." "Except now there's four hands on your cojones." "Yeah, and they're gonna squeeze." "It's feminine nature." "All right, new angle." "Indian or Asian?" "Chinese." "Why?" "Well, there's nothing better than a good plate of shrimp fried rice." "If I had a hot little momma at home making that for me every day?" "Mmm." "You're not saying which one is better." "I'm not?" "Okay, eventually you're gonna have to do something besides sleep together." "She doesn't have to be a Ph. D but there's gotta be a little something there." "What does this have to do with food?" "Okay, if you can't spend some quiet evenings at home together, eventually you're just gonna drive each other nuts." "I mean, take a woman who's maybe not the sweetest smelling rose, but she cooks, she cleans...turn down the lights, turn up the music, go to town!" "Gotta eat every day, don't gotta fuck?" "Exactly." "I'm asking which catches your eye." "And I'm saying it's a little bit more complicated than that." "All you've got is a fantasy list." "Avoiding the question." "Okay, fine, I want the nine." "But I give points for cooking and manners and erudition and things you don't even think about!" "Blah, blah blah, give me the fives." "See that one up there?" "Yeah." "That's Mars." "Think we'll ever go there?" "Someday, people will go, take a few pictures." "They don't really wanna travel though, just wanna show off to their friends." "Outer space tourism." "It's a sad thing what got us off this rock in the first place was tying to keep in line the foreigners." "Same thing that explored the globe." "There's no place to explore any more." "People just sit around, try to escape reality." "You think there's anything worth finding?" "Probably." "People always forget how spread out everything is up there." "A lot of empty space." "You know, used to look up, just see all the points of light." "Now all I can focus on is the dark." "Yeah, but I mean, what if?" "A million years from now, it won't matter." "The same sun same stars shining down on the same earth." "Maybe by then cockroaches will have taken over." "They'll be sitting around looking up at the sky asking each other the same questions." "Some guys killed some other guys right here then some new guys came and killed the old ones the voices all quiet now, buried with the bodies." "Dust into dust." "Ashes to ashes." "I figure it's a good thing we don't really know who's pulling the strings, eh?" "But if none of it matters aren't we free?" "We're not really free." "Not free from each other." "We still gotta breathe, still gotta eat." "Everybody has to play the game." "Some people won't ever risk anything others will piss it all away, but in the end the house will always win." "So best to take what you want rather than spend your life wishing you had?" "It's a dangerous thing, rationalization." "How's it going?" "It's all right." "Nice weather, no?" "Yeah, it's pleasant." "So...." "So do they have a shovel?" "They have an extensive gardening selection." "And?" "And I seem to have misplaced my wallet." "Damnit." "Ten dollars do it?" "Make it twenty." "Uh, hello?" "Oh, you got it?" "Let me call you back in a bit." "Fuck." "Fuck fuck fuck." "Fuck." "Hello?" "Yeah, this is he." "Yeah, I remember you." "You want to talk?" "About what?" "All right, I'll be there in a few." "Baby?" "I did it I got the money." "You don't have to leave." "I made my deal you don't have to go." "Doesn't matter." "Why not?" "Because if I stayed for your money then I'd be your whore." "There are a dozen others just like you." "Good luck finding them." "So Tom or Jerry?" "Jerry." "See, that's what everybody says." "But I got a soft spot for Tom." "I saw this one where he's getting out some lemonade and he's setting up a hammock, he's gonna read a magazine." "He's just minding his own business." "Enter Jerry." "Who's intent on destroying the peace." "And it all escalates from there." "Of course." "So Tom ends up fanning both Spike and Jerry while they drink his lemonade read his magazine in his hammock." "Tom's just standing there wondering what the hell happened as they're beating him over the head." "That sucks." "And then it hit me." "What?" "Jerry is the instigator." "Tom leaves him alone, he doesn't even really bother him." "Sure, if he gets yelled at he's gonna make a show of chasing the mouse." "But he doesn't cause the problems?" "That damn mouse has some sort of psychological disorder that causes him to wreck havoc." "So who's the greatest of them all?" "Well first I gotta state my biases." "I don't like people who talk, so that rules out Daffy Duck and company." "Even Bugs?" "Especially Bugs!" "That guy's such a poser!" "He's cool!" "He is that guy." "The one with the good looks, model girlfriend, who's rich, perfect life." "Compared to?" "Porky has a stutter and an eating disorder." "Daffy has a lisp." "They're real." "Okay, who's the best?" "All right, Wile E. Coyote." "Dude never says a word." "His plans blow up in his face but he shrugs them right off and he goes back to the lab." "Never gonna give up, huh?" "He keeps trying no matter how foolish it is." "It's the principle of the thing." "I mean," "He's doomed to fail, but this time, this time just might be the time he gets lucky." "He never complains." "Wasn't there one though where he talks to the kids?" "Didn't happen." "Figment of your imagination." "Lies perpetuated by the machine." "They tried to make him like the rabbit." "But when it's just him and the bird, words ruin it." "The best action doesn't need translation." "You really want me to get that job?" "You interested?" "Not really." "But I'll give it a try." "I mean, you do so much for me and I never return the favor." "I'm just not cut out for the real world." "Nobody is." "You get up every morning." "I've tried a dozen times." "Someone says something wrong," "I punch them in the face, back out on the street again." "You know, violence isn't the solution to everything." "It's what I'm good at." "Well, video games and cartoons and other stupid shit." "I guess I can branch out." "I ain't making no promises, though." "You know that thing you were talking about tomorrow?" "What, that?" "Let's do it." "Really?" "I don't give a shit any more." "I mean, fuck 'em, they're bad people anyway." "That's a hard reason to die." "It's your call then." "But don't let me stand in your way." "This ain't like deciding where to go eat." "I know." "But you just get to a certain point and you realize that's all there's gonna be." "And I want something more." "I mean I could learn to cope without and smile, and pretend it doesn't matter, but I don't want to." "I got a chance to break the wheel." "It's not something good but I'm not a good man." "And if the shoe was on the other foot they'd be doing the same thing to me." "I just don't care any more." "I mean, no more bad food and alarm clocks in the morning." "That's all I'm after." "Hey." "Remember the thing we were talking about yesterday?" "Hello!" "Hello, come on in, hey." "Hey, I'm sorry about snapping at you the other day, you know" "I've been a little paranoid lately, thinking everybody's out to get me you know what I'm talking about, right?" "Yeah?" "Hey, have a seat, man." "So, uh, you were serious about the stuff?" "You, uh, still got it?" "Well it's not really me that's got it, it's, uh, a guy I know." "But, uh, he's willing to do it today." "Today, huh." "How much, uh, how much does he want for it?" "He said, uh, seventy-five?" "Seventy-five!" "That's very reasonable." "How much do you want?" "You know, your take, finder's fee whatever?" "I was thinking, uh... ten?" "You know, for setting it up and all." "Ten...well that's quite a bit." "But you got yourself a deal!" "There you go." "So, uh, think you can call him right now?" "I think I could do that." "Hey man." "Yeah, it's me." "Yeah, they're in." "Seventy-five." "Where?" "Bridge, nine o'clock." "Nine o'clock at the bridge?" "All right man, I'll see you there." "Later." "So, uh, that's it?" "We're set up?" "Good to go." "Great." "Well, you drive a hard bargain." "Let me reward you." "Goddamn little punk." "You call up our friends at the company and find out where that last phone call was made to." "Then get Jack, and get Petey over here and dispose of this little piece of shit." "And then take care of those other fuckers too, alright?" "Nobody steals from me." "Nobody steals from me." "Yeah?" "Alright, when?" "Where?" "Alright, we'll take care of it." "What'd he say?" "Alright, well we..." "Dig!" "Yes, massa." "You stole from the wrong guy." "Do you have a last request?" "It's alright." "Do it."