Original subtitles

- Choo choo, chugga, chugga.

Choo choo, chugga, chugga.

Choo choo, chugga, chugga. - [sighs]

- Ally, ally.

Stop dragging geoffrey.

We don't play like that.

- Oh, relax, ma.

That's how debra took me down the aisle.

- Raymond, aren't you concerned?

I mean, girls shouldn't be dragging boys

Around like that.

- Oh, they were just playing, marie.

It's okay.

- That's right.

We're feminists.

Really, raymond.

I would think you of all people

Wouldn't want your daughter to bully boys.

- Ma, what are you talking about?

- Seventh grade, tammy gelles.

Gave you that black eye.

- My god. - Hmm.

- Forgot all about that.

- A girl beat you up?

A girl named tammy?

- Tammy socked him and then took away his rc cola.

- Aww.

- And he was so scared to go back to school,

He didn't even want to ride the bus.

- Okay, ma. All right.

- Oh. Poor raymond.

Oh, that tammy sounds like a mean little girl.

- And for your information, she wasn't so little, okay?

Her nickname was "tank."

- Yeah, right.

- She sued the town to play football.

I don't get it. How did my mom know about that?

I never told anyone about tammy gelles.

The only way my mom could have found out about it

Is if she read my journal or something.

- You kept a diary?

Oh, my gosh! I didn't know that.

That is so sweet.

- It wasn't a diary. It was a journal.

- Oh, sorry.

"dear diary,

Another girl beat me up today."

- Oh, yeah, it's just all a barrel of giggles

To you, right?

Come on, you think my mom really did read my journal?

- Oh, honey, what's so surprising?

She would ride a q-tip into your brain if she could.

- I know, but even if she did read it,

How'd she crack the code?

- You had a code? What was the code?

- It was a code I invented.

- Okay, say something to me in your code.

- Why-okah. - What?

- I'm answering you in the code.

- Why-okah.

- Okay, one more.

- Why-okah, my ee-whif.

- My wife? "okay, my wife."

So you just took the last letter

Of the word and put it in front?

- Maybe.

- Wow. How uncrackable.

- It's a good code.

- No, no, it is. It's not at all...Ee-lam.

- It's not lame.

- Sorry, that's okay.

Goodnight, my little... Ass-jack.

- That's--

That's not even how you do it, okay?

It's not the whole word. It's just the letter.

It's ess-jacka. - [groans]

- Oh, good morning, dear.

- Hello.

- Well, would you like some pancakes?

- Sure, why not?

Do you have any... En-baco?

- Any what, dear?

- Some en-baco.

To go with my ess-pancake.

- Why are you talking gibberish?

- Is it gibberish?

- Well, I certainly don't understand it.

- Really? 'cause I-I think that you do.

En-baco!

- What are you doing?

- What do you think I'm doing? En-baco.

- Is that spanish for something?

- So you--you admit that it's another language.

- Well, it sounds like bacon.

- You read my journal!

- What? What journal?

- No "oh, what journal?" come on.

The journal that I kept as a kid.

How else would you know about en-baco and tammy gelles?

- What? What are you talking about?

- Are you saying that you never read my journal?

- I didn't even know you had a journal.

- Yes, you did, and you read every word of it!

- Raymond, I never read your journal!

- Dad, did mom ever read my journal?

- All right, I read your journal!

- Aha!

- What journal?

- What do you mean, what journal?

His journal with the dungaree cover.

- I don't know what you're talking about.

Where are my pancakes?

- His journal, frank.

We used to sit up at night

And read it after johnny carson.

I confessed for nothing.

- You read it to him?

- Well, he couldn't figure out the code.

- Oh, yeah!

Your little girlie book.

[laughs]

There was some funny stuff in there.

- All right.

- Like sleeping with a belt around your head

To make your nose smaller.

- How could you do that, ma, huh?

How could you go into my journal?

- I wanted to know what was in there.

- It was private! There was stuff in there

I didn't want anyone to know about!

- Like when he glued bottle caps to his socks

Because he wanted to be a tap dancer?

- Shut up, dad.

- Oh, don't be angry, dear. I read it for your own good.

- Yeah, yeah, sure you did.

- For your information, I just wanted to know

That you were okay, that you weren't on drugs.

- You know dancers:

Always trying to keep their weight down.

- Shh, frank.

I mean, how else was I supposed to know

What was happening in your life?

- Why couldn't you be like a normal parent and ask me?

- I did ask you. Did you ever answer me?

- [grunts] - exactly.

That's what you said about everything.

"how was school today?"

[grunts]

"did you finish lunch?"

[grunts]

"what about the other boys?

Did they like your outfit today?"

[grunts]

You didn't leave me much choice.

- So you're perfectly fine with this?

You don't think you've done anything wrong?

- I was just trying to be a good mother.

I mean, if you can't see that,

And I see that you can't.

I mean, obviously you feel that I stepped

Over some "boundaries."

Then I want to apologize, raymond.

No, really, I mean it.

I'm sorry, raymond.

- All right, then.

So are there pancakes?

- That's it?

You don't have anything to say to me?

- What do you mean?

- I just apologized for doing something

That apparently offended you,

And you have nothing to say to me?

- Thank you?

- Thank you. I see.

So you think that you're innocent in all of this.

- Yeah.

- Fine.

That's just fine, raymond.

But let me tell you something,

You may have written that diary,

But I had to read it!

[theme from "a man and a woman" plays]

- Hey, robert.

[turns off music]

You busy? - Kind of.

What do you want?

- Ready for this?

What, you got a cat now?

I was just at your mother's house.

Anything she's ever done to you, I can top it.

- Left me at a gas station in arizona?

- She came back.

- Conceived me out of wedlock?

- Oh, yeah, yeah, you're a big victim.

Listen to this.

25 years ago, I kept a journal.

She used to read it every day.

- The dungaree one.

- Did you read it?

- [sarcastically] yeah, raymond, I read your diary.

I wasn't getting enough you.

- Yeah, well, she read it. She read the whole thing.

And now, for some reason, she's mad at me.

- Well, what was in it?

- It doesn't matter what was in it!

God, everybody's missing the point here.

That was my private journal.

Those were my private thoughts, okay?

Doesn't matter if I wrote--

Oh, my god.

- What? - Oh. Oh, no.

Oh, no!

Ahh.

- What?

- I'm just remembering the stuff I used to write in it.

- Go ahead.

- You know, like I had a grown-up dream once

Of my homeroom teacher mrs. Hustwick.

- Ooh, I remember her. "lusty husty."

So ma read that. It's not a big deal.

- And then I had the... Chart.

- What do you mean?

Chart for what?

- For a while,

I used to... Measure things.

- Mom read that, huh? That is pretty bad.

- Hey, what? Hey, you kept a diary, okay?

She probably read yours too.

- I hope she did.

- What do you mean?

- I was hip to ma.

I had two diaries.

The one for her was a decoy.

- You kept two sets of books?

- Yeah. The one I let her find had stuff in it

That I knew she'd want to read,

Like, um, how good her eggplant parmigiana was

And how her punishments were fair and just

And about how I wanted to marry someone

Just like her.

- A fake diary.

A fake-- you kept a fake diary?

That's sick.

- Yep, and I kept it in the first place

I knew she'd look-- under my mattress.

- That's where I kept mine.

- Unfortunate.

- Well, where'd you keep the real one?

- Safety deposit box at first national.

- What? What are y--

How'd you get a safety deposit box?

You were a kid.

- I was tall.

- Well, what'd you put in that one?

- [chuckles]

Well, certainly nothing I'd have to write

With my pants down.

- Yeah...

If your pants were down, the only thing you could write

Is, "hey, where's everybody going?"

- What?

- I don't know!

- Freak.

- Hi, ma.

- Hello, raymond.

[door shuts]

- Uh, listen, ma, about the journal...

I, uh, want to apologize for what...

You saw in there.

Um...

Could you not look at me while I say this?

- All right.

- Um, you know, when you're 14,

The world is a very confusing and...

Sexy place.

Ma, come on.

So I just--I just want you to know

That I outgrew all that stuff, okay,

And I don't do that stuff anymore hardly.

Um...So I'm sorry that you had to see that.

I just want you to know

That I'm not still some kind of weirdo, all right?

So, I'm going to go take a shower,

And maybe you want to do the same.

- Raymond. Raymond.

Do you think I'm a prude?

- What?

- Do you think all that stuff is why I'm upset?

What you did as a teenager?

I don't care about your happy dreams.

- All right, ma!

- Or where you have your little hair.

- Ma, stop it!

- Or why you went into my sewing kit

For my measuring tape.

- Oh, god!

Oh! - Oh, come on.

Grow up. That's not what I'm upset about.

I mean, give me a little credit.

- Please stop talking.

- No, I will not.

As if you've forgotten October 9, 1974.

- I have to forget everything now.

- Did you forget what you wrote on October 9th?

- I don't know!

What? You still have that?

No, give me it! - No, no, no.

- No, give me it! - No, no!

- Give me it, ma! - No, no.

October 9, 1974.

A single entry on this particular day.

Not much to report except...

"I ee-hat my mom."

- That's it?

- There's nothing else on the page.

No reason for it before or after.

Just here between "I dropped a pencil

To look up mrs. Hustwick's dress"...

And "today mrs. Hustwick

Caught me doing the pencil thing."

Just this sentence.

No exclamation point after,

Like you were having some sort of a tantrum.

It's just written like a fact.

"I ee-hat my mom."

- Well, so what, ma? That doesn't mean anything.

- Then why did you write it? Was it something I did?

- I don't know.

It was probably nothing that you did.

- Oh. So it's what I thought.

You just generally hated me.

- What? What are you talking about?

I was a kid.

Every kid probably wrote that.

- Robbie didn't.

You want to know what he wrote on the same day?

- Oh, no.

No.

No, ma...

- "terrific chicken tonight."

- That's a fake book, ma. - What?

- No, that's a decoy.

The real one's in a safe-deposit box

At first national.

- Do you know how crazy you sound?

- It's true!

- We're not talking about your brother.

I need to know why you wrote that.

- I don't know, ma!

- Do you know when this feeling began?

- No, no.

- Do you know when this feeling ended?

No.

- I see.

- Oh, come on, ma.

What? I don't hate you.

I never hated you.

I-I don't know why I wrote that.

I'm sorry.

Okay? I'm sorry.

That was a terrible thing to write.

I was wrong to ever write that.

You know,

I didn't really want to be a tap dancer, either.

Okay? Are we okay now?

- Yes.

- Oh.

Oh, I guess we are. Okay.

- Hey, ray, it's 5:00.

You were going to pick up the kids.

- Oh, all right.

Is everything all right?

- Yeah, everything's fine.

I apologized. Everything's fine.

- W-wait a minute.

Did you say that you apologized?

- He's a good boy.

- Wait.

He apologized to you

For you reading his journal?

- No, no, that would be stupid.

I apologized because I wrote

"I ee-hat my mom" in there.

- Who cares what you wrote?

That was 25 years ago.

- Yeah, yeah, but, you know--

- I mean, do you know how sick that sounds?

- Debra.

- Look, you don't understand.

- No, no. You know what?

The problem is, I do understand.

I mean, when is this going to stop?

How could you make him apologize

For something that you did wrong?

- Excuse me?

- How could you make your son apologize

For private thoughts he had 25 years ago?

I mean, don't you see how wrong that is?

- Pee-shut-uh.

- I just want to ask you something.

Do you ever have any doubts

About how good a mother you are?

- Yes, of course.

- No, no, I mean severe doubts.

Have you any idea what it's like

To be married to a husband who never helps you at all?

- Go ahead.

- And when you go to him for support,

He only enhances those doubts?

That was my life.

Imagine little michael, who loves you,

Who lights up whenever you get near him.

Imagine him at 14,

And he doesn't talk to you anymore.

And you don't want to push him,

So you just give him more love.

And then one night you make him

His favorite dinner

And you try to give him a kiss good night,

And he goes up the stairs with a grunt.

And you come across his journal

And you open it,

And it says,

"I hate my mom."

I wouldn't wish that on you, debra.

- Ray?

- What?

- Apologize to your mother.

- I-I already did.

- Do it again.

- Look, look, look, that's all right, dear.

That was 25 years ago.

But there is one thing I would like.

Could you cross that out, dear, please?

- Okay.

- And what would you like to write there?

- I...

Ee-lov...

My mom.

- Oh, that's so nice.

And could you date it there?

And initial it there.

And here.

- Hey, what are you doing?

- Just a little light reading.

- Wh--could people not read my journal?

Give me it.

- No, come on. Some of this is cute.

Listen.

"today I kissed shelly for the first time."

Shelly was a turtle.