Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Page #7

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is wrong with you?

This is your life!

Yeah, it is my life.

It's me who has to

lie in bed all day,

with a shaved head...

...getting weaker and uglier,

and more miserable,

with no hope in sight.

I'm the one who

has to suffer through this,

not you, so don't yell at me.

I'm sorry,

but I'm not gonna sit here

and get comfortable

watching you die.

Okay? I'm not.

I'm not gonna do that.

So don't ask me to.

If you can't accept

that I'm going to do

what I want to do

with my life...

...then you're

a terrible friend.

I'm a terrible friend?

Okay.

You know,

I'm not the one giving up.

I'm not ruining

my friend's life

by giving up

on the whole world.

Oh, please, Greg,

you should be overjoyed.

Now you can

go back to your life

of being invisible

and detached...

...and self-hating.

Yeah.

And you can go back

to your life of being dead.

Nice. Really nice.

This is gonna kill your mom.

Have you gotten

comfortable with that?

That doesn't

bother you anymore?

Thinking about your mom?

Get outta here, Greg.

You've done your time.

You don't have to hang around

with the sick girl anymore.

How can you even

say that to me?

Your mom forced you

to hang out with me.

Earl forced you

to show me your movies.

Madison forced you

to make a movie about me.

So, what part of this

did you actually want to do?

Just... Just do something

nice for me for once

and just get out.

Earl!

This is it!

You've gone too far!

You've leaked

the unleakable secret

because you hold nothing sacred.

'Cause you're a d*ckhead!

The foundation of any

good working partnership

is trust...

...and I can no longer

trust you in any way.

You'll leak anything to anyone.

It's like working

with Julian Assange.

Assangde. Ass-andge.

Damn it!

The hell you want?

Just waiting for Earl.

Awright, awright.

Whassup, boy?

You gonna come in?

So, Rachel told me that

you told her about the, uh...

...about the film

that we're making for her.

You're like Julian Assange, man.

It's like you always do this...

I don't know,

'cause you, like,

wanna be a better friend

than me or something?

I don't know if I can

work with you again

after you sell me out

like a dick!

Oh, okay. Watch out, yo.

Hey, yo,

shut your ass up, man!

Like you care so much about

what other people think,

boy, you go around here...

...kissin' everybody ass,

Look, nobody

gives a sh*t about you, Greg!

All right? Nobody give a sh*t!

Whoop his ass!

And then the one girl

who do actually care about you...

...you wanna come

over here and

b*tch and whine

about some films, yo? Huh?

Because somebody

actually cares about you?

Like, damn,

I'm so tired of you

treating this girl

like she a burden.

You know,

her life is over after this!

And you want to come over here

bitchin' and whinin' about

some irrelevant bullshit!

Like, yo, you so close to me

knocking your sh*t loose right now, son!

Go for it!

Yeah, I don't care!

You want me to hit you now?

Yeah, Earl, I want you to!

That's right! Jack that

little dude up there!

See, Greg?

You lucky that was him

and not me out there...

...'cause I'd have been

whooping your ass up and down this street.

It'd have been a ass-whoopin'

fest around here, you dig?

So what's the status

on the 20-pager on Nixon?

Uh, I need another extension.

That might prove difficult...

...seeing how it's the...

...the end of the quarter

and all.

Yeah, I've just been busy.

You know, I heard...

...about Rachel.

How you holding up?

You know...

...not great.

You know, my dad died

when I was 15, Greg.

A couple years

younger than you.

You know, the thing is that,

when I was a kid...

...I really,

I really can only remember

thinking about him as this...

...you know, big,

kind of like a**hole guy.

At his wake,

these buddies of his

kept coming up to me...

...and telling me

these stories about him.

And it was like

they were talking about

some complete other guy.

To give you an example.

He knew every single

European pop song

from the 1970s.

He'd memorize these songs,

and he'd do that

so he could go...

...and sing them

to German girls in bars.

He had a go-to,

his number one

go-to song. It was a...

It was a Dutch song.

It was called Ding-a-Dong.

My dad used to sing that

to German girls in bars.

That's a fact.

So what does that mean?

Well, Greg, I think that

it just means that...

...even after somebody dies,

you can...

...you can still

keep learning about them.

You know, their life.

It can keep unfolding

itself to you just as long...

...just as long as

you pay attention to it.

Are you seriously

trying to turn this

into some stupid sappy lesson?

You're a good kid, Greg.

No! Look, I'm going home.

See, I'm cutting class

right in front of you. 'Kay?

I'm not a good kid. I'm not.

Okay.

Earl came by earlier

to drop something off...

...but he turned down

this superb

Andouille rabbit sausage...

...which is quite unlike him.

Is everything all right?

Buddy?

We tried

a lot of different ways

of making a film for you...

...but they were all

too goofy or irrelevant...

...or just not what we wanted.

So, now I'm gonna

talk to you directly.

Um...

All right, I'm gonna be

honest here. Okay?

Sometimes, white girls

are particularly stupid.

I mean, everybody's stupid,

but white girls, you know...

They think

they better than everybody

and self-centered

and pretend they not.

But...

you aren't like that,

you know. Um...

It's just crazy

how patient you've been.

You know, I know if it was me

that had cancer, uh...

...I'd be upset and angry

and trying to beat

everybody's ass half the time.

So I'm just, I'm just amazed

at how patient you've been.

You, you make me feel blessed.

By Michael Powell

and Emeric Pressburger.

I think, ultimately,

what one has to understand

watching this film...

...it's a very special

piece of filmmaking.

Oh.

Are you eating lunch

in here still?

Not if you are.

Well, I'm not eating

lunch in here if you are.

Good,

'cause I like it in here.

So I guess I could just go.

Or you could go.

No, I like

the air-conditioner.

And I like

the comfortable chair.

Yeah, I like those too.

Sounds like your damn problem.

Which showed

one film per week...

...twice a night,

and three times on Saturday.

In a way,

Tales of Hoffmann is...

...the culmination of

Powell-Pressburger's work...

...with what they call

the composed film.

Hey!

Can I talk to you

about the movie?

Um...

Yeah, it's not done yet.

Greg, you guys

have been working on it

for like four months.

Yeah, well...

I don't know,

we tried a bunch of stuff

and it just...

...didn't really work.

It's not that good.

Greg!

Now is not the time for your

"I'm Greg, I suck,

"nothing I do

is any good" thing.

I'm sure what you have

is awesome

and I think she would

really benefit...

...if you just got it done

and gave it to her.

Madison,

she stopped treatment.

She gave up.

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