American Pastoral Page #2

Our hero.

Our Kennedy.

[Merry] Grandpa.

- [stuttering] Grandpa.

- Yes, Merry, what?

Lady Jane's going to have

a calf, grandpa.

I hope it's a heifer.

What's a heifer, sweetheart?

You're talking to a guy from Newark.

It's a girl, grandpa.

Oh. a girl!

I bet it's going to look just like Count.

That's who mounted her.

"Mounted"? ls that a way

for a young girl to talk?

That's what it's called, Dad.

Yeah, what's she supposed to say?

- "Make love"? It's a cow.

- [laughing]

[Lou] And what does my son

need with cows?

Why do they need to live this far

from civilization?

No offense to the locals, Mr. Orcutt,

Mrs. Orcutt, but let's be candid.

This is all rock-ribbed

Republican out here.

- That's true. That's so.

- Lou, don't start.

What did I say?

We're out in the middle of nowhere.

This is Ku Klux Klan country.

Dad, will you stop?

I don't see why my brother wants

to live here either,

but a couple of cows

doesn't make it Mississippi.

- This is Morris County.

- Grandpa!

[Seymour] Jerry's right, Dad.

No one thinks like you anymore.

We can live where we want.

This is America.

- Newark is in America.

- [Merry] Grandpa!

Yes, darling.

What? Yes, sweetheart.

Come to the barn to see Count.

Wait till you meet him.

He's so...

[stuttering]

[Sheila] I adore Merry.

I think she's very special.

- Thank you.

- We all do.

She likes coming here.

She told us that.

Very much.

[Sheila] Sometimes when

she's here, I ask her,

"Merry, what terrible thing

do you think would happen

if you stopped stuttering?

How do you think your father

or your mother would feel if you stopped?"

But she can't stop.

I think Merry's stuttering

is a strategy.

A strategy for what?

For avoiding competition

with the beautiful mother,

the beautiful

Miss New Jersey mother,

for winning the handsome father.

This is about our looks?

- Doctor...

- Sheila.

Sheila, stuttering isn't

something that Merry chooses.

It makes her suffer.

Maybe the benefits

outweigh the suffering.

But it's killing us to see her.

It's killing Merry's mother.

Maybe that's one

of the benefits.

Have you thought about how difficult

it must be for Merry

growing up the daughter of someone

who's had so much attention

for something as trivial as beauty?

Maybe the reason Merry stutters

is to stop people from asking her,

"Do you want to be Miss New Jersey

just like your Mommy?"

But who asks her that?

Nobody asks her that.

I'm not Miss New Jersey,

for God's sake. I'm her mother.

It's just that in a highly-pressured

perfectionist family, you...

Who says we're

a highly-perfectionist family?

We're an ordinary family.

What about the physiological basis

for her stuttering?

I read an article where...

I can give you organic theories

if that's what you want,

but that's not the way I've found

I can be most effective.

[Merry] Ouch. Ouch.

I told you to wear your shoes.

[stuttering] You didn't tell me

about how sharp the rocks would be.

No!

[laughs] Dad!

[Yelps]

[crickets chirping]

Do I look... look like

Audrey Hepburn?

Better. You look like

Meredith Levov.

Do you...

- miss Mother?

- Sure I do.

Me, too.

She wanted to come.

She couldn't.

I... I know.

Lady Jane's going to have her calf

any day now. Mom had to be there.

- Yes, Dad. I know.

- She'll come next time.

Have you had a nice time here?

With you?

- Terrible.

- [chuckles]

Two drifters

off to see the world

There's such

a lot of world to see

We're after the same

rainbow's end

Waitin' around the bend

My huckleberry friend

Moon river and me

[Seymour laughs and applauds]

Hold these for your mother.

Daddy...

[stuttering]

Kiss me.

No.

Really, really kiss me.

Kiss me the way you kiss mother.

[imitates stuttering]

No!

And fix your dress.

Oh, I'm sorry, Cookie.

Oh, I deserve it.

It's the same at school

with my friends.

I get started with

something and I go...

[stuttering]

too far and I get carried aw...

[engine revs, tires screech]

[Lou] There's nothing wrong

with that little girl.

Her mind goes too fast

for her tongue. That's all.

There, I just saved you the money

you were going to give to the shrink,

- because that's all there is to it.

- We just want to help her, Dad.

"Help"? That girl?

Just give her a little bit of time.

Let her tongue catch up to that brain.

The rest will follow from that.

Freddy, is something up

with this machine?

Every now and then, she kicks.

No, no, no. You'll be throwing stitches

soon. Send it down to the shop.

See my son, Vick?

He picks out the bad machine from 100.

He's got the ear.

He gets it from you, Lou.

How are you feeling, Dad?

You don't have to come in every day.

Who comes in every day?

I don't%

- Besides, where else am I supposed to go?

- [knocking on door]

- Time cards, gentlemen.

- Thank you, Vicky.

Vicky, my son is trying to tell me never

to come around here anymore.

I didn't say "anymore,"

I said "not every day."

But, Lou, you built this place.

You made a home for all of us.

Where else do you belong?

Exactly my point.

- [Dawn] Here you go.

- [Seymour] Oh, thank you.

- [Dawn] You finish your stuttering book?

- Mm-hmm.

Have you written down

all the words that stopped you today?

D... do you want to check?

[Dawn] Not if you say you finished.

My teacher in school never believes me

unless she checks.

Well, your teacher says that you have

a stubborn streak.

Merry, why does she say that?

Because of the homework.

The class had to write an answer

to the question "Why are we here?"

- and Merry wrote...

- [Seymour] Merry can tell me herself.

[Dawn] Sorry.

"Why are apes here?"

That's it?

She made her rewrite it.

So I wrote...

"Why are...

kangaroos here?"

- [Seymour chuckles]

- And then last week,

the teacher asked them,

"What is life?"

This is what they ask in school?

"What is life?"

What did you answer?

[stuttering]

I don't...

- remember.

- Yes, you do.

"Life is just a short space of time

in which you were alive."

Daddy,

do you understand?

Yes, I think I do.

[reporter on TV]

He assumed the lotus posture

and another priest stepped forward

and poured gasoline over him.

- A very frail, old man in his 70s,

- [Dawn] Oh, my God.

- Quang Duc.

- What is this?

This monk burned himself

and he sat there.

- Oh, Merry shouldn't be seeing this.

- No.

And then suddenly, a towering flame

and the smell of gasoline and of burning

flesh in the air for ten minutes.

And the priests and the nuns in the

audience moaned and prostrated them...

[Merry sobbing]

Why did that poor...

why did that poor man

have to burn himself?

Hey.

That gentle man and

those gentle people.

It's far away, baby.

It's far away.

- Doesn't anybody care?

- Of course people care.

[stuttering]

Doesn't anybody...

doesn't anybody

have a conscience?

- Yes, you have a conscience.

- Cookie.

Don't cry. Shh.

[sizzling]

- Do they look good, Daddy?

- You've got the touch.

If you don't end up senator

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