Lambeau: Most days I wish I'd never met you 'cause then I could sleep at night. I didn't have to walk around with the knowledge that there was someone like you out there. I didn't have to watch you throw it all away.
Sean: I thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. I stayed up half the night thinking about it.
[pause] Something occurred to me. I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, and I haven't thought about you since. You know what occurred to me? You're just a kid. You don't have the
faintest idea what you're talking about. It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.
So if I asked you about
art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written.
Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the Pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the
Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw
Shakespeare at me, right?
"Once more into the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, and watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about
love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like
God put an
angel on
Earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of
Hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sittin' up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause that only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.
I look at you. I don't see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared crapless kid. But you're a
genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine. You ripped my ****in' life apart. You're an orphan, right?
[Will nods] Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, 'cause I read
Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don't give a crap about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you I can't read in some ****in' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
Will: So, when did you know, like, that she was the one for you?
Sean: October 21st, 1975.
Will: Jesus Christ. You know the ****in' date?
Sean: Oh yeah. Cus' it was game six of the World Series. Biggest game in Red Sox history.
Will: Yeah, sure
.
Sean: My friends and I had, you know, slept out on the sidewalk all night to get tickets.
Will: You got tickets?
Sean: Yep. Day of the game. I was sittin' in a bar, waitin' for the game to start, and in walks this girl... Oh it was an amazing game, though. You know, bottom of the 8th Carbo ties it up at a 6-6. It went to 12. Bottom of the 12th, in stepped Carlton Fisk. Old Pudge. Steps up to the plate, you know, and he's got that weird stance.
Will: Yeah, yeah.
Sean: And BAM! He clocks it. High fly ball down the left field line! Thirty-five thousand people, on their feet, yellin' at the ball, but that's not because of Fisk. He's wavin' at the ball like a madman.
Will: Yeah, I've seen...
Sean: He's going, "Get over! Get over! Get OVER!" And then it HITS the foul pole. OH, he goes apecrap, and 35,000 fans, you know, they charge the field, you know?
Will: Yeah, and he's ****in' bowlin' police out of the way!
Sean: Goin', "God! Get out of the way! Get 'em away!" Banging people...
Will: I can't ****in' believe you had tickets to that ****in' game!
Sean: Yeah!
Will: Did you rush the field?
Sean: No, I didn't rush the ****in' field, I wasn't there.
Will: What?
Sean: No — I was in a bar havin' a drink with my future wife.
Will: You missed Pudge Fisk's homerun?
Sean: Oh yeah.
Will: To have a ****in' drink with some lady you never met?
Sean: Yeah, but you shoulda seen her. She was a stunner.
Will: I don't care if
Helen of Troy walks in the room, that's game six!
Sean: Oh, Helen of Troy...
Will: Oh my God, and who are these ****in' friends of yours they let you get away with that?
Sean: Oh... They had to.
Will: W-w-w-what'd you say to them?
Sean: I just slid my ticket across the table and I said, "Sorry guys, I gotta see about a girl."
Will: I gotta go see about a girl?
Sean: Yeah.
Will: That's what you said? And they let you get away with that?
Sean: Oh yeah. They saw in my eyes that I meant it.
Will: You're kiddin' me.
Sean: No, I'm not kiddin' you, Will. That's why I'm not talkin' right now about some girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago and how I always regretted not going over and talking to her. I don't regret the 18 years I was married to Nancy. I don't regret the six years I had to give up counseling when she got sick. And I don't regret the last years when she got really sick. And I sure as hell don't regret missin' the damn game. That's regret.
[pause]
Will: Wow...
[smiles] Woulda been nice to catch that game, though.
Sean:
[shrugs sheepishly] I didn't know Pudge was gonna hit a homer!
Sean: Do you have a soul mate?
Will: Define that.
Sean: Someone you can relate to.
Will: Chuckie.
Sean: No, Chuckie's family. He'd lie down in ****in' traffic for you. I'm talking about someone who opens things up for you.
Will: Sure, I got plenty
Sean: Well, name them.
Will:
Shakespeare,
Nietzsche,
Frost,
O'Connor,
Kant,
Pope,
Locke...
Sean: Well that's great. They're all dead.
Will: Not to me, they're not.
Sean: You can't give back to them. You can't have a lot of dialogue with them.
Will: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts.
[laughs]
Sean: Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. You'll never have that kind of a relationship in a world where you're always afraid to take the first step because all you see is every negative thing 10 miles down the road.
Gerry: In 1905, there were hundreds of professors renowned for their studies of the universe, but it was a 26-year-old Swiss patent clerk doing physics in his spare time who changed the world. Can you imagine if
Einstein would have given that up just so he could get drunk with his buddies in Vienna? We all would have lost something.
[gestures condescendingly to the bartender] Tim would never have heard of him.
Sean: Pretty dramatic, Gerry.
Gerry: No it's not, Sean. This boy has that gift, he just doesn't have the direction for it. We can give him that.
Sean: Hey Gerry, in the 1960s there was a young man who had just graduated from the University of Michigan who was doing brilliant work in mathematics, specifically bounded harmonic functions. Then he went to Berkeley, where he was an assistant professor and showed amazing potential. Then he moved to Montana and blew the competition away.
Gerry: Yeah, so who was he?
Sean:
Ted Kaczynski.
Gerry: Never heard of him.
Sean: Hey, Timmy?
Tim: Yo.
Sean Who's Ted Kaczynski?
Tim: The Unabomber.
Will:
[voiceover, in a letter to Sean] Dear Sean, tell the professor sorry about the job. I had to go see about a girl.
Sean:
[chuckling] Son of a *****! He stole my line!