- Angel: Yes, push forward. Pray that you learn valor and be given luck. You will walk many miles. Dozens will become hundreds. Hundreds will become thousands. You will pass through countless villages. But finally, one village will speak to you. Some deep, essential part of you will recognize it, and you will say "This village is mine." You will learn a trade. And eventually, earn a living. You will know the pleasure of tasting fruit and bread and wine that is yours because you have earned it. You will find a plot of land and build a house with your own hands. You will cultivate the land. You will live off it. You will come to make new friends. One day, you will meet a woman. The story of your meeting will change, according to who tells it; that you were lost, that she helped you find your way, or that she was off course and you guided her home. She will see your fears and your pain and your dreams and your potential. And you will see hers. In finding your other half, the gifts of your life will multiply. Sometimes, she will look like a man to you. She will become pregnant because you have sex with her. You will have children, three sons. You will teach them what you know and you will tell them you love them every day. They will grow into handsome boys, blessed with courage and kindness and ambition. You will share your feelings of pride with your therapist. He will archive them. One day, a historic storm will sweep through your village and destroy your home. You will be carried away by a great flood. You and your family will be separated. And you will be deposited in a strange country. You will look for your family for days, then weeks, then months. So many months that you will come to lose count, but you will not find them. You will try to find work to support your continuing search but no one will speak your language. You will be treated like a criminal. Eventually, you will come upon a village wracked by an inexplicable plague. As you pass through, a man deranged by tragedy will identify you as the beast who burned down his home and replaced his children's feet with their hands. You will try to argue your innocence, but this will only make you sound more guilty. You will wonder yourself whether you are guilty. You will flee. Mad with vengeance, they will send an attack dog to pursue you. It will tear through the world to find you. You won't know this, but you will sense it. And you will keep a detailed record of these impressions in a log, and over time this log will become many logs. Your adventures will continue for years and years. You will learn to distinguish birds by their call and you will know every tree and plant by its name. Abandoning all comforts, you will condition your mind to new ways of seeing. You will experience great highs and profound lows, and you will look for your family until your life shrinks and fades into the dream of a ghost. You will come to wonder if they ever existed. Finally, when you are old and frail, you will collapse in exhaustion.
- [first lines]
- Beau Wassermann: I accidentally drank mouthwash Friday night. You can't get stomach cancer that way?
- Therapist: Not from one time.
- Beau Wassermann: I drank a mouthful a couple of weeks ago too.
- Therapist: I'm sure it's fine.
- Mona Wassermann: You think a mother could even help but see through her son's blatant *lies and *falsehoods and endless schemes? You think this is any different from the time you gave me the exact same CD for my birthday that you gave me the year before, and which you also gave your fucking high school counselor? Or when you bought me that kitchen set the very week after I *publicly swore off cooking? Even when you were a baby, you rejected me and refused to breastfeed while every other smug cunt on the street had happy, docile babies sucking their tits dry!
- UPS Guy: Look, I never would have gone inside if-- if uh... the dogs on the street hadn't been going nuts and I hadn't had smelled that smell and the door hadn't been half opened, that's the only reason I went inside.
- [last lines]
- Beau Wassermann: Mommy, please! Please, help me, please! Please, oh God, please! Help! Help me! Somebody help me, please! Help! Help! Help me, please! Help, please! Please, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna...
- Young Mona: He died on our wedding night. The same night you were conceived. He died the very instant you were conceived.
- Boy Beau: How?
- Young Mona: By finishing. Into me. He had a heart murmur, just like you.
- Boy Beau: Did it hurt?
- Young Mona: I'm sure it was excruciating. It was the first time we made love. The first time either of us made love with anyone. Your grandpa and your great-grandpa died the same way. But he thought he might be different. I'm just as guilty. I urged him on. I wanted a normal life. I wanted a child. He died on top of me. Inside. I think about it and I want to rip my ears off. But then... but then that same trauma, which changed me so utterly, also resulted in the greatest gift of my life. I am so sorry for what your daddy passed down to you. I can't tell you how sorry I am.
- Beau Wassermann: Excuse me, sir, m-my bag and my key w-were just here...
- Superintendent: [grinning] You're fucked, pal.
- Beau Wassermann: [as Toni begins drinking paint] No! Please, Toni no! Stop, please! You're gonna be sick! Stop! Stop!
- Toni: [with a mouth full of paint] Fuck you!
- Graffiti: Hail Satan, Shoot Dope, Kill children, Fuck the Pope.
- Minstrel: When troubles come they come not single spies but in battalions.
- Mona Wassermann: Do you know what I had to go through to bring you into this World?
- Beau Wassermann: I'll make it up to you!
- Teen Elaine: Are you a virgin?
- [pause]
- Teen Elaine: Well, it doesn't matter. I am too. I mean, who gives a shit?
- Teen Beau: I have to; it's very dangerous for me. It's genetic. My father died.
- [Beau has what appears to be an ankle monitor strapped around his foot]
- Beau Wassermann: What is this?
- Roger: That's my little assistant health monitor.
- Mona Wassermann: You've been going around your whole life asking "If I do this, will I avoid this?" As if you don't have the Mechanism!
- Mona Wassermann: [over the phone] Are you at the airport?
- Beau Wassermann: I'm on my way, I just -- it's not safe, is it? What do you think I should do?
- Mona Wassermann: [over the phone] I'm sure you'll do the right thing, sweetheart.
- Grace: There was a stabbing... you were assaulted.
- Beau Wassermann: What?
- [cut to a brief scene of Beau getting viciously stabbed in the stomach and multiple times in the hand]
- Beau Wassermann: What?
- Grace: [softly and sympathetically] I know!
- Sign: Jesus sees your Abominations.
- Graffiti: [Unspeakably Obscene Cartoon] Don't mind if I do!
- Therapist: Do you ever wish she was dead?
- Beau Wassermann: God, no!
- Therapist: It wouldn't be so crazy if you did. Conflicting feelings can coexist. This is a space to explore them.