Renaissance Man Page #5

-All right.

[ Chuckles ]

-What are you readin? Okay.

-Archie comic.

I mean, whats up with Jughead?

Archies got Betty.

And you got Reggie with Veronica.

I mean, whats up with Jughead?

In my neighborhood,

it didnt matter how ugly

you were, you always had a girl.

I dont know whats the matter

with this guy. Another thing,

you guys maybe could help me.

-Mr. Rago, hold on a sec.

Uh, here it is.

-[ Groans ]

Come on, Archie, lets go

to the malt shoppe. What

the hells a malt shop-ee?

-[ Montgomery ] Benitez.

-Whats a malt shop-ee? You guys know?

Bring your stupid ass over here.

-Whats the matter with you?

-What do you mean?

-What are you doin

readin a comic book?

-He said bring anything.

-I bought a comic book.

I like comic books.

-Knock it off.

-Youre here for education,

not to read comic books.

-Youre embarrassing me, boy.

-Thats stupid.

-You could a got something else

at the P.X.

-Yeah, like Batman

or Superman or Spider-Man.

-Come on, shut up!

-[ Benitez ] They scare me.

-[ Sighs ]

-[ Montgomery Laughs ]

-Bunch of hyenas.

-Whats the book you got, Mr. Rago?

-This?

-Yeah.

-This is called Hamlet.

Hamlet. Yo, thats about

a little-bitty pig, right?

No, it aint about

a little-bitty pig!

Whats it about, Billy boy?

Its about... sex...

murder, incest...

-insanity.

-Ohhh.

-Shoot. Beats the hell out

of this garbage Im readin.

-Guns.

Sure does. Pretty much beats the heck

out of any book ever written.

-All right, Leroy.

-Yeah?

-What are you readin?

-Uh, Sports Illustrated. The

Faces in the Crowd section.

Why dont you tell us more about

your book? Sounds more interesting.

Yeah, who wrote it?

Well, it was written

by William Shakespeare.

You ever hear of Shakespeare?

-I heard of him. That guys in

Central Park every summer.

-Dude mustve got mugged a lot.

Hes been dead

for almost 400 years.

-See that? They killed him.

They killed him. New Yorkers.

-Yeah, yeah.

He wrote plays.

Plays. You know, like TV.

Without the box.

Mmm.

They didnt have any TVs

back then or movies.

Or that many books even.

So everybody went to the theater.

Everybody.

Kings, queens, right down

to the working stiffs.

-Why dont you read us some of that?

-Word.

Skip to the page with some incest so we

can make Haywood feel at home. Sooey!

No, you guys dont want

to hear about Hamlet.

What? What? What?

I guess were not smart enough.

-No, no, no, no. Its just very,

I dont know, its--

-[ Montgomery ] Here we go.

-What? Its just what?

-Its complicated.

So? Were here. Were listenin.

[ Clears Throat ]

Sit down.

Okay, okay.

All right, heres the deal. Um--

Hamlet is, uh...

uh, hes a prince.

All right. And, uh...

-and hes away at college.

-[ Montgomery ] Rich kid.

Right? And he, he gets word

that his father died.

-Oh, no, Davis, please,

dont start cryin.

-Leave me alone, Benitez!

-Forget about it.

-Benitez, shut up, all right?

-Chill.

-Go ahead.

All right, so he comes home

from college for the funeral.

And when he gets back,

everythings fishy.

All right?

You ever hear of the term,

something is rotten

in the state of Denmark?

Naw, but in apartment 3-C,

my building, Miss Leary...

every Thursday, she always cooks

the corned beef and cabbage.

-Mm-hmm.

-Something sure smells rotten

in the state of New York.

All right.

Thats the same kind of thing.

-That was dumb. That was really dumb.

-Leave him alone, man.

He gets back, and hes in mourning...

and less than a month goes by

and his mother gets remarried.

-Damn.

-To his uncle.

-[ Everybody Gasps ]

-Thats the incest part.

Okay? So, now, Hamlet spends

the rest of the play trying to decide...

whether hes got the guts

to go after his uncle the king...

and avenge his fathers death,

or if he wants to just...

go with the flow and do what his mother

is tellin him to do.

-Naw.

-Dont go out like that.

So, where I am in the play,

[ Clears Throat ]

Hes with his mother and the king

and shes trying to cheer him up.

And she says...

Good Hamlet,

cast thy nighted color off...

and let thine eye

look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not forever with thy veiled lids

seek for thy noble father...

-in the dust.

-[ Montgomery ] What?

-Hey, you wanna lay that

down one more time?

-Please.

Well, its--its really easy.

You just gotta listen, all right?

Cast thy nighted color off.

Well, what color do we wear at a funeral?

-Black.

-Black!

-A nighted color.

-Shes tellin him not to wear

black, to stop mourning.

-[ Bill ] Right?

-[ Hobbs ] Right.

It says, Let thine eye look like

a friend on Denmark.

Which means shes sayin

dont glare at me as though you hate me.

Why should he? His fathers

bodys not cold yet and shes

given the punnani to UncleJoe.

Something like that.

Only its Uncle Claudius.

-What the hell is a punnani?

-[ Montgomery ] Cave boy

never heard of punnani.

Hey, Mr. Bill, when my daddy split

on my mama, he moved in...

with her sister,

who is, of course, my auntie.

And I got a baby cousin

whos also my baby sister.

Thats sort of the same thing.

Mel speaks.

[ Chuckles ]

[ Applause, Whistling ]

-Glad to have you, Mel.

-I got a question.

-Yes?

-Now, if look like a friend

means dont hate me...

why dont she say dont hate me?

-Because its poetry.

-But it dont even rhyme, yo?

Yeah, but its like, you know, uh--

Its language. Its trying to put things

together that evoke...

a certain--

It sounds better.

What do you mean?

I mean, it doesnt sound like

anything to me. I dont get it.

Yeah. Come on, Teach, teach us.

Its--all right.

Its a simile.

-A what?

-A simile. All right, here.

-[ Benitez ] A simile.

-Yeah.

[ Montgomery ] Thats a little

yellow face with a smile on it.

Um--

-[ Melvin ] Si-mi-le.

-Simile.

Its, uh...

when you take two things...

that, um... dont seem alike...

but in a way, they are.

-Huh?

-[ Leroy ] Hmm?

All right. All right, were lookin

for a simile. Haywood.

Um...youre, uh--

Youre workin in the mill and, uh...

you come home

or youre on your way home.

You go to a bar, you stop

for a brew. Down at the end

of the bar is a beautiful woman.

And she winks at you.

All right?

You go to her like--fill in the blank.

-[ Mumbling ] I dont know.

-Like a rooster with an itch!

[ Class Chuckles ]

Like a rooster with an itch.

Way to go, Davis.

You gotta love those barnyard similes.

All right, that was simile.

Now, heres somethin else. A metaphor.

-All men are--

-Dogs.

Dogs! Okay, you got it?

Simile:
like dogs.

Well, heres metaphor.

We just plain are... dogs.

Okay? All right.

Now, this is a good one here.

-All right, lets see.

-[ Writing On Chalkboard ]

-Oxymoron.

-[ Montgomery ] Hold up.

Hold up, hold up. You cant do that.

That is a diss. I aint no oxmoron.

No, no, no, no.

Not oxmoron, schmuck. Oxymoron.

Its when you take two words

that are totally the opposite

and you jam em together.

All right? Like, uh...

military intelligence.

Dark victory.

Thunderous silence.

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