Original subtitles

Remember that hat?

Remember that hat he had?

How did you decide when you were on the boat

who was the captain?

We always knew that 'cause Charlie had the hat.

We had Charlie. That's what we had.

Charlie...

He didn't even tell me until this morning

that he'd actually found a new office.

He just moved out.

"If I need the files, can I get in touch with you?"

I don't care for the new people he's taken up with,

the clients.

I know what's always gone on in the office.

I've done the tiresome work

while Charlie's knocked everybody dead with personal charm.

His whole act has consisted in denying

that the law's anything but an ironic joke,

and that goes far with a lot of people.

He told me today

some clients were intimidated by our office's grandeur.

One of his clients accused the receptionist of being racist

because she asked him to use an ashtray instead of the rug.

If you don't tune in on the world, you'll disappear.

It's back.

No, he can have the boat.

It's back.

Well, you shouldn't have fed it in the first place.

I suppose so.

I'll have to call the aspca.

Poor thing.

It does very well for itself.

All those cats do well.

Stop watching it.

Soph?

Soph.

The livers are good.

Perhaps their survival depends on people like me.

I don't see that it matters whether they survive or not.

Well, it looks half-starved.

Ignore it.

Do you want all the wild cats in Brooklyn

holding a food vigil on our porch?

I saw one catch a bird the other day.

They're not pussycats, you know. They're thugs.

The days are getting shorter.

Goody. No more locals with their God damn bongos.

Maybe it'll snow early like last year.

Well, the weather's not on your side.

Yes, it is.

I think I'll give the cat a little milk.

That God damned woman

just dumped her evening load of garbage over there.

Why doesn't the cat go over there to eat?

Here, kitty.

Yes. Here, kitty. Come on.

What time are we due at the holsteins'?

9-ish.

Here, kitty, yeah...

That's a kitty.

Yeah...

Nice ki...

oh!

Oh, no! Oh...

All that melodrama. I can't live with that.

He couldn't leave it alone.

If I wasn't with him, I was against him.

I'll be better off by myself.

What are you going to wear?

I haven't decided yet.

Why'd it bite me?

I thought you said it just scratched you.

Oh, whatever it did.

I was petting it.

Because it's savage,

because all it wanted from you was food.

Charlie's using these people and their causes.

He doesn't want to be left out.

I don't want to be left out.

Time to end it, anyway. We've used each other up.

The truth is, I don't even like him anymore.

I wonder how he feels.

Like Paul muni.

Paul muni?

Charlie is right.

You're barely in the right century.

That's right.

Charlie's not bad.

No, he's not bad.

He's vain, irresponsible, and hysterical.

Bad hasn't anything to do with it.

Irresponsible? What?

Shut up.

Sorry.

Don't.

Why not?

My hand. I don't want to get blood on you.

No! Try the bathroom window!

O.K.! Fire when ready!

I'd like to throw the door open and catch it empty.

Like being alive at your own funeral.

Not at all.

Two more houses sold over there.

What happens to the people in them now?

I don't know.

What are they doing to that dog?

Catholics believe animals have no souls.

Why talk about catholics?

They all to go that pentecostal iglesia.

Watch out.

No dog ever did that.

I think maybe I'll just give the boat to Charlie.

Where is he going to sail it, the bowery?

Why do they drop everything on the pavement?

The packaging/wrapping frenzy.

I saw a colored man kick a trash can yesterday.

When it rolled in the street,

he roared with laughter.

This morning I saw that white man,

who hangs his blanket out the window,

pissing into the yard.

There's good and bad in every race.

Ain't it the truth?

Ouch.

What's the matter?

I bumped my hand.

Let's see.

That's a real bite.

You shouldn't have fed it.

Why didn't you tell me?

I didn't want you to say you shouldn't have fed it.

That's awful.

No, it's just sensitive.

You should at least get a tetanus shot.

What do you mean, at least?

Even a psychoanalyst should know something about animal bites.

Don't bring it up.

I'd like to leave early.

It's like a sale.

Soph, darling. Hello, Otto.

Hello, Mike.

Hey, you look marvelous,

like some sad, lovely girl out of the thirties.

And me?

Just sad.

Ah. Tell him.

Something's happened, and Otto's making too much of it.

Tell me while I make you a drink.

Gin on the rocks?

No.

It was such a shock.

I'd been feeding the damn beast, and it turned on me.

It ought to be looked at.

It's nothing.

Animals have bitten me before.

No, I haven't. Why'd I say that?

There's been no rabies around here in years.

No chance. The cat was healthy.

You know me. I want to be the Saint who tames wild creatures.

Would you get the door?

I shall return.

A very gentile party.

A very gentile party.

I saw at least three Jews.

Your parties are very educational.

It's not my party.

Yes, it is.

Your generation's thing.

Oh, for Christ's sake.

She's a wicked one, isn't she?

You must be young Mike's friends.

Let's see Lonnie in St. Luke's.

O.K.

The hospital? The visiting hours are over now.

The final line of final lines

is from the roaring twenties.

Cagney, bogart, Paul Kelly, Gladys George.

Cagney was top dog all through prohibition,

but now he's a bum,

and for some reason that escapes me,

the mob guns him down.

He's dying on the steps of a church. It's snowing.

Gladys George... who's been in love with him the entire picture,

but he was in love with someone else...

is cradling him in her arms

as he draws his last breath.

A cop comes and says, "who was he?"

And Gladys George says... brace yourself...

Gladys George says, "he used to be a big shot."

Man, that chokes me up.

"He used to be a big shot."

That's a line.

Here come the tears.

Hello, Sophie.

I didn't know you knew the holsteins.

I don't. I came with their friends, the elders.

I don't know them.

Otto spotted me.

We chatted.

How've you been?

Fine.

You?

Fatigue,

anemia, all the symptoms of irreversible loss.

Francis.

Oh, Dr. Reed?

Oh, I see. No, never mind.

Another answering service.

There's no point to leaving this number.

Who reads these?

What every analyst needs after a tough day.

Dr. wexler?

I see. No, never mind.

Look, there's a hospital six blocks from here.

The emergency room's not bad.

When cervantes wanted to come to the new world

the king wrote across his application

"tell him to find a job around here."

Are you working on anything?

They sent a book to translate,

but I didn't understand it, not even in French.

It simply irritated me.

I hear Otto and Charlie are ending their partnership...

Which would change both our lives, and I feel nothing.

Charlie... the compulsive bleeding-heart, dying-to-be-loved.

Otto... always strength. The machine broke down.

What a lousy view of what happens between people...

a machine.

As bad as that?

Worse.

Would you like me to send you to a friend of mine,

a first-rate man, member of the institute?

Sophie?

I was up here an hour ago.

The drapes muffled the sound.

Don't mention it to flo.

I'll clean it up myself.

Oh, well. It's nothing.

Trying to stop her from talking

is like trying to get a newspaper under a dog

before it pukes.

I hate it when you talk like that.

I'm tired of parties.

I don't care about Fred Astaire,

and he doesn't care about me.

Ditto fellini, truffaut, and bergman.

You fell asleep. Everyone knew you were asleep.

Mike asked me to take you home.

Know what's wrong with Mike?

Culture desperation.

He can't stand his trade,

like a movie starlet

who announces she's studying philosophy at u.C.L.A.

He called some doctors about the cat bite.

And?

Nobody was in.

Don't you know this country's falling apart?

It looks swollen.

Well, I'll soak it.

Ahh...

What are you sighing about?

I don't know.

I'll get the alarm.

I resent it that someone we don't know

knows every time we go in or out.

It makes me feel cared for.

Hello?

Hello?

It's some degenerate.

Hang up.

A degenerate.

Hang up!

An American cretin.

What are you thinking about?

Marriage.

I don't know what's the matter with you.

You could ask.

What's the matter with you?

I think I've been poisoned by that cat.

Why didn't you answer the telephone?

I never hear anything

I don't want to hear anymore.

You're becoming an eccentric, you know that?

Just like Tanya.

I thought Tanya lived her whole life on the telephone.

Tanya only answers the telephone

when she's broken off a love affair.

I hate Tanya. Ahem.

You never told me that.

I never heard you say you hated anyone before.

I just realized it.

Well, what about Claire?

Ah, Claire. Claire's all right.

What do you care what I think about Tanya?

You don't like her yourself.

You hardly ever see her.

I hardly see anybody.

Is that my fault?

That phone call scared me.

Get out! Get out of here!

You ought to throw that underwear out. It's falling apart.

I like it when they get so soft.

Suppose you got hit by a car and had to go to the hospital?

I'd say I was Charlie Russell,

friend of the worker, knight of the oppressed.

Did Tanya ever try to seduce you?

What kind of question's that? No.

Is that why you hate her?

No.

Why do you hate her then?

I think it was that time

she visited us in flinders

and used every drawer in that enormous bureau.

She'd put her scarf in one drawer,

her stockings in another,

her girdle in another drawer.

What kind of woman uses every single drawer in a bureau

just because they're there?

Did you notice Mike Jr. tonight

with that Hungarian ribbon around his head?

Wait till he tries to get a job with that.

That won't be necessary.

Mike sr. Will find him one.

Water babies...

they come out of faucets, not out of people.

Wish I knew what they were up to.

I think it's worse.

Well, call Noel first thing in the morning.

We'll drive out to pelham if we have to,

drag him to the office.

Funny, running into Francis early.

Yes.

Did you get a chance to speak with him?

Mm-hmm, briefly.

He's back with his wife again.

He's something of a phony.

I thought you liked him.

I do.

He's very appealing, but he's a phony.

He can't help himself.

Otto!

Charlie.

I have to talk to Otto.

Otto's asleep.

Well, I have to see him.

I'm in a terrible state. I have to see him.

Now? You're crazy.

I couldn't see him before.

It's taken me all this time to get to the point I'm at.

I won't wake him.

Well, I will.

Ow.

What's the matter?

A cat bit me.

I just feel murdered.

I don't want to see that bastard.

Let's get out and get a cup of coffee.

Does Ruth know where you are?

Ruth who?

Oh, I hate wife jokes. Don't make wife jokes.

Maybe we better give up.

Aw, there must be something open.

You say a cat bit you?

Yes.

I didn't know you had a cat.

Was it one of those oriental genetic freaks that cost $700?

You sound like a corkscrew. It was a stray.

Come on.

You've seen a doctor?

The cat wasn't sick.

Oh, it takes five years for rabies to incubate sometimes.

The cat wasn't sick.

That's family court.

Half my clients spend most of their time

in those urine-scented chambers.

Your husband won't even set foot in the place.

We were together at Columbia,

together in the army.

We've spent most of our lives together.

This morning when I leave the office,

he says, "lots of luck, fella."

I felt like my first day in camp when I was 8...

peed my pants

as some little sadist wrapped a milk snake around my neck.

Lots of luck, fella.

What's the point of seeing Otto?

There's a place.

I just want him to acknowledge

that something important has happened.

I went to a movie.

Man sitting nearby said I was talking to myself.

I said not to interrupt.

He said I was fucking up his one night out,

so I went to an automat,

which was full of people talking to themselves.

Foundations of privilege under total assault,

and Otto keeps fiddling with his navel.

He won't survive.

If you don't tune in on the world,

you'll dry up and disappear.

He told you?

Mm-hmm.

Ruth and I never discuss anything.

I try, but she's not interested,

unless it relates to the new liberation.

She's taken up yoga, chopped off her hair,

she wants to get some hashish.

She's like a demented Sherlock Holmes

trying to track down the ultimate clue... sex.

Sex is at the heart of everything.

She talks about sexual modalities,

the wit of pornography.

You know the funniest part, we stopped making love.

I'm not so different from Otto.

I want the pass, too.

I hate planes and cars, but I don't dare.

Bobby's 16. He'll be drafted in a few years.

I don't dare.

I've had two miscarriages.

I've got a uterus like a pinball machine.

How come you never adopted?

Well, we put it off and put it off.

Now we're settled.

When I was 10,

I realized he was drunk most of the time.

My mother constructed her social life

around the idea that he had a slight speech impediment.

How did he die?

He shot himself with a pistol he bought in Rome,

just before he married her.

What will Ruth think

if she wakes up and finds you gone?

She'll assume I'm with a pale, young, beautiful girl,

which is where I should be.

How would she really feel?

She doesn't feel anything these days.

They're hostages to fortune.

I love them, they suffocate me,

and it's a business like everything else these days...

the having children business,

the radical business,

the culture business,

the decline of old values business,

the militant business,

the failure business.

The self-sacrificing lawyer business.

You know what kind of a lawyer I wanted to be?

Like Mr. jarndyce in bleak house.

That scene where Esther summerson is weeping in the coach

and old jarndyce whips out a plum pie and a cake,

offers her both of them,

and when she refuses,

he flings them both out the window,

and says, "floored again."

Ha ha ha!

What style.

He flings them both out the window.

What did he throw out the window,

the pie and the cake or the people?

The plum cake

or the plum pie, whatever the hell it is.

I think I've got rabies.

Have a plum pie.

Would you like me to tell you about my love affair?

A recent one?

The only one.

Shocked?

Yes.

Because I've had one,

or because I've had any?

Both.

Lasted six months.

Then it's over.

He put me in a taxi.

When I turned around to wave,

I saw him peering in the window of a book shop.

That's how it ended.

There's a good hospital on the other side of the bridge.

I wouldn't go to a hospital

for anything as foolish as this.

You're afraid.

Yes.

Well, the other is worse.

No.

Nothing frightens me more than pain.

Frightens me more than dying.

What's the matter with him?

Three guesses.

He looks dead.

He's drunk.

But maybe he's ill.

He's drunk.

How do you know?

I know.

He could've had a heart attack.

Try a bad case of whiskey.

The American form of wisdom...

no room for doubt.

You hate your country?

No. I hate you.

A lot?

No.

That's good.

Come on. Not with that man lying out there.

Don't flatter yourself.

What are you going to do today?

Lunch with Claire. You?

The office.

Charlie's departure makes problems.

How's the bite?

Sore, but it looks better.

Call Noel.

He's not in on Saturdays.

He has an answering service.

You know what answering services are for.

No. What are answering services for?

Answering services are for muffling the screams of the dying.

Ha ha. These are the jokes.

Ahem.

Well, I...

Why did you say, "lots of luck, fella"?

How'd you know that?

Charlie came here in the middle of the night to see you.

Why didn't you wake me?

In the state he was in, it wasn't too wise.

We went for a walk.

Why'd you wait until now to tell me?

He's hurt.

He thinks you're not giving this thing its proper weight,

the end of the partnership.

Don't tell me anything else.

Otto.

What?

You care about him!

Yes.

Then why is this happening?

He wants a new life.

Even Charlie wants that.

Why wouldn't he?

How's that again?

Oh, I see.

I said I see.

Bellamy?

Are you serious?

Oh, no, I think it's an excellent idea.

Ha ha ha!

It's a bit of a surprise, bellamy.

There are several others.

Lunch?

Tomorrow?

Well, let me think.

Uh... No, I'm afraid I can't tomorrow.

Monday?

Yes, Monday seems all right.

Yes, Monday it is.

Anywhere you like.

Fine.

Bellamy.

Oh, I'm sure it's an excellent choice.

Well, it is a bit of a surprise, bellamy.

Ruth?

Ruth?

Ruth...

How are you?

Hello, Sophie.

I wanted to call you about the trouble.

Trouble?

Charlie and Otto.

I wouldn't call it trouble.

How are the children?

The children are fabulous.

Stuart sounds so grown up on the telephone.

He is grown up.

He's going to that tennis camp this summer.

It's incredible how his self-image improved.

Director knows what tennis is about...

three hours playing,

one hour of constructive criticism.

And Bobby and Linda?

Bobby's going through a little phase of kleptomania.

Linda's marvelous. She certainly knows who she is.

I really feel terrible about the breakup, Ruth.

Oh, I always thought there was something odd

about their dependency on each other.

Odd?

They're big boys now.

Mustn't keep them babies.

It castrates men.

Can we have lunch?

I don't eat lunch. I'm on a diet.

I'll call you then.

What did she say?

Did she say go away?

It doesn't matter. I'm just curious.

Claire?

In here! The kitchen!

Cornmeal on top, clams on the bottom.

When they come up for it,

they clean the sand from their craws.

Did you say hello to Leon?

I didn't know he was here.

I think his wife's driving him into the ground.

Is he married again?

Last spring.

Some dull graduate student

who's convinced she's a creature of lust.

That's what he tells me anyhow.

Gin or whiskey?

Gin.

He tells me more than I want to hear

about that side of things,

like I was his charlady instead of his first bride.

Tell him to keep it to himself.

That would hurt his feelings.

He said she fooled him by writing a good thesis on Henry James,

some cockeyed angle on his relationship with his brother.

He always was a brain lover.

She's dippy.

She waits for him every night stark naked.

Calls herself his beast.

He hates to go home.

Vermouth, tonic, or what?

Tonic.

You look elegant.

How are you?

Fine.

Not so fine.

Look at those shoes.

Made by some European slave for a lira, right?

What multitudes we all recline on.

I thought my vanity would subside by 40,

but it's worse.

That's why I dress this way.

Better a middle-class frump than an aging go-go girl.

There was an African tribe

that flung women over 40 over a cliff.

How's Otto?

Charlie's leaving the firm.

Why?

They weren't getting along.

I don't see how Otto stood him this long.

You only met Charlie once.

All that good liberal stuff spread out so impeccably.

No holy fools enter paradise.

I knocked over a box of little instruments like bugs

on your dresser.

I started to pick them up,

but was overwhelmed by the dust.

Don't you ever clean up?

Come down and see Sophie.

I can see her from here.

Come down anyway.

When Leon and I were married centuries ago,

we went to lots of meetings that turned into parties.

I sat at Leon's feet and listened to the men talk.

And how they talked.

All that civilized babble.

The only thing I can remember are their wives,

especially the older ones,

waiting like pensioners for a personal word or two.

You hated intellectuals because they made you feel like a gentile poop.

Intellectuals? Those dilettantes, fops?

Don't talk like that.

They were serious people.

I'm sorry.

You never did pay attention to me.

You're wrong. I always paid attention.

I just didn't listen.

Why didn't you marry again?

I didn't feel like it.

The truth at last.

Behind all that frantic energy I found so admirable

is nothing but sloth.

It takes energy to live with someone else.

I should be home reading a grim m.A. Thesis

by a teacher who wants to advance herself

and hates the subject she chose.

Don't let me keep you.

Why do you dress that way?

Mother garbage.

You should've seen her in the old days, Margaret.

Sophie.

Sophie.

What a beauty.

And moved like lightning.

Fixed leaking toilet tanks

and electric plugs.

Painted walls like a pro.

Chemtone. I painted everything with it.

Time to reheat the potage.

You couldn't cook then.

We lived on canned macaroni,

bacon, whatever I could steal from my mother.

What has become of us all?

Age.

And so many already dead.

No one wants to talk about age, do they?

Humiliations of the bowels.

My own body has turned against me.

Refill?

Who is the holy fool?

"No holy fools enter paradise."

Who's the fool?

My son by my second wife.

20 with the mind of a newborn.

I got his letter yesterday...

must've found a stamp in the gutter...

which I made the error of reading

before my first class,

19th century American fiction.

It was supposed to be a poem

about the great oneness of everything.

It's his belief that the world began in 1950,

the year of his birth.

I have tried to dissuade him of this delusion,

but my knowledge is no match for his ignorance.

At the very hint of an idea from me,

he smiles gently as if I were eternally damned.

He wears a rubber band around his hair

to keep it from his eyes

when he studies the wall before him,

where his visions arise.

Lives in a horrible slum house in east orange.

If only he wanted to save something.

The world, for example.

But he is stupid.

Stupid.

The only basis of his privilege, me,

has to lecture forever on William Dean howells,

who bores me sick.

Is that justice?

In 1938, you handed out leaflets on 6th Avenue.

There wasn't a question you didn't have an answer for.

You and I lived together.

We never talked about love.

Wasn't necessary.

On Fridays, you lit candles for your mother.

Reading on the subway...

No one paid for us.

You worked for the bjerskis.

They paid me almost nothing,

but asked my advice because I was a college boy.

They drank tea all day.

Knew their employees first names.

Played pinochle with the turret lathe man.

On Fridays, they closed early

so you could all get home before sunset.

Once I cut a slice of salami

with the same knife I used for cheese.

They screamed with horror.

I have been told

by a colleague 10 years older than myself...

as if it were possible to be 10 years older than I am...

that salvation comes from staring at

the pubic region of strangers

and freedom from inducing in myself

by the use of a chemical

the kind of ecstatic lunacy

in which I spent most of my adolescence,

a condition I attribute to my body's strength at the time

and the conviction that I'd live to see

socialism in the United States.

Now that my bones are weak, my brain is stronger.

I don't expect anything.

It's edible.

Be still, my heart.

He's in a state of innocence.

He's scared.

He thinks one of his students might try to drug him.

They harangue him about drugs all the time.

He's afraid to have coffee in the cafeteria.

Even thinks the faculty dining room might be dangerous.

He now knows how scared old ladies are

of being raped.

Are you ever afraid around here?

Not of anything like that.

Nothing at all?

I'd rather be shot than wait in the operating room

for somebody with the dirty news in a piece of glass.

What's that?

A cat bit me.

Someone you know, I hope.

A stray.

It's been looked at?

It's nothing.

A llama bit me once.

I took Benny to the children's zoo.

It was supposed to be the thing to do.

A dirty, demented llama reached over the fence

and clamped its jaws on my hand.

It was like being bitten by dirty laundry.

Don't touch them.

He always does them.

It's part of the agreement.

You back with that man again?

Funny you should ask that.

I ran into him last night.

And?

Nothing.

You thought I was bad to do that, didn't you?

Yes... But it's easy for me to say.

I never had anything like that.

The nearest I ever came was him,

and not when we were married.

But now...

Sometimes he sleeps here.

We lie together all night long

with our arms around each other.

No sex.

Guess I never really liked sex.

We just lie there.

Sometimes I wake up in the night...

And I'm happy.

It is a kind of loving, isn't it?

We can just be the way we are with each other.

Now if he didn't come to see me,

I think I'd blow away like milkweed.

Sometimes in the afternoon,

I sit here for hours.

When it gets dark

I make myself a little supper...

chops, some frozen beans.

If he's here,

I have to be a gourmet.

Days like paper chains.

All I got is that old man

I dumped 20 years ago

when he knocked up some trotskyite lady named Carla.

Look at this sponge.

It's filthy.

Use your shirt.

What are you going to do with those clams?

Edgar and his friend, some hairdresser, are coming.

Can I stay?

No.

Women that hang out with homosexuals

are spiders.

No wonder men weep.

I haven't seen any men weeping.

Because you're not observant.

Is this age of generalized cock

the revelation toward which my life has been directed?

This age of baby shit?

What I've admired and thought all my life

has been debased, and I weep.

Finish the dishes.

Why do you wear your hair that way?

You're repeating yourself. A sure sign of age.

I put it to Sophie.

It's the last one this size.

Thank you. It's exactly the size I want.

We have them larger.

You've got to season it.

Yes.

What happened to your hand?

It's bleeding.

No.

You must've banged it on something.

It's only a drop.

We have so little space here...

all these new shipments.

I didn't do it in here.

People have to watch where they are going.

I'm not blaming you for this.

What?

You look like an orphan.

After dinner, we'll go to the hospital.

We'll go now.

No, after we've eaten.

What are you reading?

Oliver Wendell Holmes' common law.

There's a note here in your handwriting in the margin.

"Limitation of liability by statute."

Reminded me how serious you are.

I wonder what you really talked about with him last night.

He was drunk and foolish

and talked about himself.

How did we arrive at such a place?

We agreed that it would be best

to dissolve the partnership.

We had a meeting.

We were reasonable.

The next day it began,

as though he were punishing me.

It was his idea to end the thing, not mine.

I realize there were difficulties.

It's a failure in me that I can't feel more

about what preoccupies him,

but I think about it. I care.

Sit.

Says I have contemptuous clients.

I don't.

It's Charlie I have contempt for

because he doesn't mean it.

He wants to be caught up by something,

so he doesn't have to think.

The giveaway is what he's trying to do to me.

What is he trying to do?

The way he informs clients about the break.

The way he behaves toward me in the office.

Someone I had represented for years called me last week.

I had given some of his business to Charlie

because there was too much on my own desk.

The man told me that Charlie told him

that I was putting my time in on the money clients...

Where the big fees are.

He suspected I was having personal problems

because I was neglecting so much routine in the office.

Even implied it...

Might be something medical.

You just should've gone and knocked him down.

I'm too old to pretend that changes anything.

Aren't you angry?

I don't know.

All I know is I can't live like this,

suspecting everyone.

You mean me?

He shit on our friendship and our hard work.

You mean, you suspect me.

What did you talk about with him last night?

He said you were cold.

He said he loved you,

and you treated him like a delivery boy.

I didn't defend you the way I should have.

I don't know why I didn't,

but I didn't.

I'd like to come in and talk to you a second,

if I might.

All right.

I just want to use your phone.

Everybody around here seems to think

that black men are killers.

I got a telegram this morning.

My roommate and I, we got no telephone.

My mother has had a stroke.

She lives in upstate New York.

I've got to find out what time the next train leaves.

There's a phone right behind you.

You can use the phone.

Go on.

It's all right.

God bless you.

Uh, 6...9...

6...5...9...

6...O.

Oh, that's the new haven, you know.

What time is the next train to Albany?

Uh-huh. And after that?

Uh-huh. What's the fare?

Round-trip?

Uh, how about one-way?

Whew. Wicked.

You've got a decent man there, lady.

It's nice to know

that there's some people in this world

that's not crazy.

I want to thank you both.

Seems they've raised the fares

since the last time I went up there.

It used to be very cheap.

Now they tell me it's $22 one-way.

I... I got $12.

As soon as I get up to Albany,

I can get some more money.

I'll tell you what.

Let me write down my name and address.

That's my pen, sorry.

And thank you very much.

You're going to get this money back.

Have a nice trip.

Bless you, brother.

I gave him $10.

He said he'd return it

when he got back from Albany.

Arthur weinstein.

Weinstein?

That's his roommate's name.

He didn't want to write his own.

Maybe he thought his own wouldn't count.

I wouldn't say that.

I'd say he's extremely resourceful.

His story might be true.

If it isn't, what's $10?

They are not to be held accountable?

When you give something, you give it.

He couldn't have done better with a gun.

Yes, he could have.

A lot better.

Why did you open the door?

Smell became color

and color became smell.

What?

That's the way

I would describe this place in a book.

I wish it was.

What?

I wish it was a book.

I can see Noel on Monday.

It won't make any difference.

Now let's go.

Put up with it.

Everyone else does.

You're the one that got bit by the cat, honey?

Let's have a look.

I'm not going to take that hand away from you.

Let's see.

It'll have to be reported.

Reported?

To the police. All animal bites have to be.

When did it happen?

Yesterday.

Why didn't you come in then?

I didn't think it was necessary.

You were wrong.

Roll up your sleeve, honey.

What for?

A little tetanus.

Just roll up your sleeve. We'll take care of it.

That a girl.

I have no resources.

I'm absolutely gutless.

It's a medical procedure. It's an incident.

You don't draw enough lines.

You'll have to have the shots.

You get them at the board of health.

I know the cat isn't sick.

You can't tell by looking.

Relax, those shots ain't so bad.

Shots in the stomach aren't bad?

They give them in the arm now.

Suppose we caught the cat?

Then you're clean.

Just take it to the aspca,

they examine it and let the police know.

They'll have to kill the cat, won't they?

I think so.

They have to look at its brain.

I killed the cat.

We haven't caught it yet.

I think we frightened it away for good.

Soph?

Hey, soph, look. Chicken livers.

Do we have a box somewhere,

good strong carton, something with flaps?

This is absurd.

Imperative.

Some other cat will eat them.

Uh-uh. Nope. Not a chance.

We're going to be watching them.

Get the box. Go on.

It won't be back.

It'll be back.

It will.

Oh, for God's sake, be a little uncertain.

Get the box.

Soph,

get the box.

Go on.

What time?

Half past.

Must have dined elsewhere.

Giving up?

It'll be here in the morning.

Well...

All right.

It'll be here in the morning.

Do you think it's true

they don't give them in the belly anymore?

It'll be here in the morning.

Now.

It's here now.

All right.

Put on your jacket. Hurry up.

Go on. Move. Come on.

Get the box.

Here, kitty, kitty.

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.

Here you go. Nice chicken livers.

Here you go.

Here.

Here.

Yeah. You like that?

Come on.

Here, pussycat.

Come on. Come on.

You got the box?

Put it down. Put it down.

Come on. Come on.

That's it.

Zip up your jacket, for God's sake.

Here.

Hey.

Good.

Come on.

Here, puss, puss, puss.

Come on, puss, puss, puss.

Come on.

Get the rest.

Good pussycat.

Yeah, get the rest of those livers.

Go on. Here it is.

Ah, good pussycat.

Ah, my, my, my.

Those are good, aren't they?

All right.

Hello, pussycat.

O.K.

All right!

Get the rope.

You hold the flaps while I tie it.

Hold the flaps!

Sophie, that's...

get the God...

Sophie!

God damn it!

Oh!

I got him! Open the box!

All right.

Come on.

You hold the flaps.

I can't.

God damn it, Sophie!

Damn it!

I'll do it! I'll do it!

Sophie, go make some tea.

I can't count on you for a God damn thing.

Got you, you son of a bitch.

Soph?

Sophie?

Sophie?

The night man at the aspca

says there hasn't been a case of rabies

around here for 30 years.

When will they know?

Monday.

Not till Monday.

The doctor doesn't come in till then.

If there's anything...

There won't be anything, Sophie.

They'll call you before noon on Monday.

And what about the cat?

They don't have to kill them anymore.

But?

But?

But the man asked me if I wanted it back.

He said they'd dispose of it.

Dispose of it?

Enough.

Sophie.

I'm taking you to flinders tomorrow.

It's going to be a nice day.

Start out early.

We'll have a picnic lunch by the fireplace.

Go for a nice long walk.

Think about different things.

It'll do you good.

Did it make any noise in the car?

No.

Till I handed it over to the man.

Then what?

It screamed.

How's the hand?

It stopped hurting, but I'm high as a kite

thinking about that phone call.

Don't worry.

There is a possibility.

It's a formality, not a possibility.

Wish there were some other way we could go.

Don't look.

If Charlie heard that,

he'd say that was an example

of my lack of social conscience.

I want Charlie to be gone...

Silent, vanished.

What exactly did he say the other night?

I told you.

One morning I found him staring at something he'd printed

in block letters on a piece of paper.

It was that Thoreau quotation...

"most men live lives of quiet desperation."

I asked him in a light tone

whether his life was quietly desperate.

He stared at me with absolute hatred,

buzzed his secretary,

told her to send in his next appointment.

Could we please declare a moratorium on Charlie?

You're right.

No more Charlie.

Who says you can't run away from your troubles?

I'll bite. Who?

One of those things you're brought up to believe,

so you face up. Pure bullshit.

He said demurely.

I'm just taking Charlie's advice.

I'm tuning in on the world.

It sounds out of place when you talk like that.

All I need is a little practice.

Bullshit.

Bullshit, I say, sir!

That was pure bullshit!

Thanks for suggesting this.

Yeah, let's never go back.

You can actually see the sun.

There's a car there. There's a car there.

I couldn't see him.

You dumb...

Bastard. I couldn't see him.

Bunny.

Name the operetta.

The operetta quiz is on the air.

Trial by jury?

Trial by jury? Wrong.

Patience, or bunthorne's bride.

I will never make you a "g" and "s" fan

and that is that, I guess.

That's what I get for marrying beneath me station.

That's what you get for marrying.

Look at those birds.

Yep, I'd love to have some of those... Rail fences.

She felt the wave of pure happiness.

Good for her.

Otto!

Oh!

Hey, look at this.

Oh!

Here's how they got in.

Wouldn't you think haynes would know?

Mr. bentwood and Mrs.!

Don't tell me it's summer!

Mr. haynes...

come in, come in!

We got a nice little parlor,

but you know how we country folks love the kitchen.

Turn that... Turn that thing off.

That's Dwayne and Warren.

You met them when we fixed your porch.

That's Connie, our glamour girl.

You know Mrs. haynes.

Mr. haynes, someone broke into our house.

Tom's supposed to do a weekly check on summer places.

You know tom.

Who doesn't know good old tom?

Otto.

Did they steal any valuables?

We don't think so.

All them nice things, you're lucky.

That's the word I was looking for... lucky!

I'll call tom.

It could be worse.

So we've been told.

Might be kids after liquor.

You summer people keep liquor lying around.

It's more than some young people can take. Right?

Right.

We've checked, there's nothing missing.

I said "might be."

How often do you check?

Every week.

This house was checked last week?

Yes, and everything looked fine.

No broken windows or anything.

There's a dead bird in the bathtub.

It's been there for quite awhile.

We were out here last week.

Otto?

They're gone.

I wish someone would tell me how I can live.

It's only furniture.

Well, maybe we should move away.

It's only furniture.

I wouldn't mind being shot in a revolution,

having my house burned,

but this is meaningless.

Maybe it's just a language you don't understand.

Are you defending pigs

who shit in your fireplace?

Otto!

Sophie... Sophie.

Sophie, stop it.

Soph... I'm sorry.

Don't!

I don't want to!

Sophie, don't!

I don't want to!

Sophie!

Don't speak, don't speak.

Don't.

Don't.

Sophie!

Sophie.

Soph.

Sophie.

Sophie.

I wonder if those haynes bastards

had anything to do with it.

How they hate us.

Maybe we ought to...

Maybe we ought to think about adopting a child again.

All right.

All right? Is that how you feel about it?

I exhausted feeling about that subject some time ago.

When I wanted to do it,

you made me feel as though

I'd asked you to get me a tractor.

I'm thinking about it differently now.

If I thought you were serious...

Then?

I don't know.

Take my hand.

When will they kill the cat?

After they've examined it.

Can you stay home tomorrow until noon?

They're not going to call.

There's always a chance.

Do you want to be rabid?

If I was, I'd be equal to what's outside.

Are you coming?

Sophie?

Suppose they've been here, too.

Not yet.

Come on.

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