The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Page #2

for eating, not for playin' with.

And use your napkin,

please Mr. Benjamin.

Queenie!

Hey, boy!

I always had a healthy curiosity.

What was up the street,

or around the next corner?

Benjamin! That is dangerous.

Come back over here!

Stay put, child!

I loved her very much.

She was my mother.

Momma... momma!

Some days I feel different

than the day before.

Everybody feels different about

themselves one way or another.

But we're all goin' the same way.

Just taking different roads

to get there, that's all.

You're on your own road,

Benjamin.

Momma, how much longer I got?

Just be thankful for

what you're given.

You already here longer

than you supposed to.

Some nights,

I'd have to sleep alone.

I didn't mind. I would listen

to the house breathing.

All those people sleeping.

I felt safe.

It was a place of great routine.

Every morning at 5:30

no matter the weather,

General Winslow, US army

retired, raised the flag.

Mrs Sybil Wagner, once an

opera singer of some note,

well, she sang Wagner.

Alright, c'mon.

We gotta put some life into

these old sticks for you.

get you walkin'.

No matter the season, supper

was served promptly at 5:30.

Mol-asses...

-Molasses.

Molasses.

I learned to read

when I was five.

My grandfather was

a dresser for a famous actor.

He brought home every

play for me to read.

"Kind keepers of my

weak decaying age

let dying Mortimer

here rest himself.

Even like a man new

haled from the rack.

So fare my limbs with

long imprisonment.

And these gray locks,

the pursuivants of death,

argue the end of

Edmund Mortimer."

You thought I was

plain ignorant, didn't you?

The actor my grandfather worked

for was John Wilkes Booth.

He killed Abraham Lincoln.

You never know

what's coming for you.

On saturday nights, momma

would make me go to church.

Benjamin!

Amen!

What can I do for you, sister?

Her parts are all

twisted up inside,

she can't have little children.

Lord, if you could see clear

to forgive this woman her sins

so she can bear

the fruit of the womb.

Out damnable affliction!

Praise God!

Hallelujah!

And what's this old

man's irrediction?

He's got the devil on his back,

trying to ride him into

the grave before his time.

Out, Zebuchar!

Out, Beelzebub!

How old are you?

Seven, but I look a lot older.

God bless you.

He's seven!

Now, this is a man with

optimism in his heart!

Belief in his soul!

We are all children

in the eyes of God!

We are gonna get you

out of that chair.

And we're gonna have you walk.

-It's all right.

In the name of God's glory,

rise up!

Come on!

Come on, man!

Now God is gonna see you

the rest of the way.

He's gonna see this

little old man walk

without the use of

a crutch or a cane.

He's gonna see that you walk from

faith and divine inspiration alone!

Now walk.

Don't touch him!

Rise up, old man!

Rise up like Lazarus!

I said rise up!

Yes!

Say hallelujah!

Walk. Walk on.

Now, when I look back on it,

it was miraculous.

But you know the saying:

"The Lord giveth and

the Lord taketh away."

Praise be to the Lord

on the highest...!

There was so many birthdays.

So we wouldn't run out,

we would spare the candles.

You know I don't like birthdays

and I don't like cake.

And death was a common visitor.

People came and went.

You always knew

when someone left us.

There was a silence in the house.

It was a wonderful

place to grow up.

I was with people who had shed all

the inconsequences of earlier life.

Left wondering

about the weather,

the temperature of a bath,

the light at the end of the day.

For everyone that died, someone

would come to take their place.

I've been married five times.

My first wife and I are captured

by neighbor tribe of cannibals.

We escaped across the river.

My wife, she can't swim,

so, sadly, she eaten.

My second wife steps

on a cobra and dies.

It was very bad luck

to be married to me.

That's Mr Oti. He's an acquaintance

of an acquaintance of mine.

The next summer I'm captured...

-He's a pigmey.

...with six others

by Baschiele tribe.

They trade us for pigs,

shoes and beer

to a very strange

american man.

I hear you're not so old

as you looking.

You just foolin' everybody.

What's the matter,

did you get Madjembe?

What's madjembe?

-Worms.

I don't think I have worms.

This is just how I am.

Come, let's get a cold root beer.

I found medication

under your pillow.

I'm not supposed to.

It's dangerous.

Who said that?

Come on, little man.

Hurry up.

Halt, please!

Then I am in the monkey house

at Philadelphia Zoological Park.

Three thousand people

show up my first day.

Look.

What's it like living

in a cage? -It stinks.

But the monkeys,

they do some tricks there.

I throw a spear...

wrestle with Kowali,

she is orangutan.

When I'm not playing

with the monkeys,

they want me to run to the bars

in my cage, with my teeth.

So then what did you do?

-Then I leave ZOO.

Go here, go there,

wander most of the time.

You were all alone?

-Plenty of time you'd be alone.

When you're different like us,

it's gonna be that way.

But I tell you a little secret.

Fat people, skinny people,

tall people, white people...

they're just as alone as we are.

But they are scared shitless.

I think about the river

I grew up on.

It would be nice to sit

by my river again.

Come. I have an appointment.

There's my little man.

You ready, sugar?

Always ready.

Always ready.

Filamena, mr Benjamin.

It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.

-My pleasure, ma'am.

You can find your own

way home, can't you?

Take the St. Charles

line to Napoleon.

Where in God's name

have you been? Get in here!

Youre goin' to take my breath

away, you know that?

Oh Lord, I was so

worried about you.

It had been the best

day of my life.

How's her breathing?

-Shallow.

They're sayin' it will

reach us in few hours.

I gotta get my baby

and take him to my sister's.

They say there's nothin' to worry

about here in the hospital.

Nurses will be right here if you

need them. Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm okay, reading...

I shouldn't be more

than an hour.

Was there just company?

It was just Dorothy leaving.

Go on, Caroline.

On sundays, the families

would come and visit.

It was Thanksgiving, 1930.

I met the person who

changed my life forever.

Well, Benjamin...

Might I say you are looking

strikingly youthful.

Good day, Mrs Fuller.

A single cane,

back straight as an arrow...

What elixir have

you been drinking?

-Thank you, Ma'am.

-Grandma, look at me!

That was really something!

Come on over here, you.

This is my granddaughter Daisy.

This is mister...

I'm afraid, Benjamin, I don't

rightly know your last name.

Benjamin is fine.

I never forgot her blue eyes.

Good people, supper is served.

Did you know turkeys

aren't really birds?

-Why do you say that?

-They're in the pheasant family.

They can hardly fly. Sad, don't

you think? Birds that can't fly.

I like birds that can't fly.

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