stick it up your ass! have a nice day. guster!
he escaped. he's going back in.
there are no windows facing my. exposure.
the plumber's due out on friday.
you were the only neighbor i could tolerate.
my life is a warning. i just can't figure out for what.
colleen, how hard was it for you to get your head outside that window far enough to see my dick?
i'm doing the grass.
i was going to start monday.
you'll crap real logs if you keep eating wood.
i'll survive.
he must.
are you his friend?
why?
you forgot david dokos and tom and barbara.
i aimed high.
was bankrupt and dead before i was twenty.
it was in my name so he wouldn't lose it. he stole it from everyone that deserved it by putting me on title.
thanks for telling me.
i could be anyone.
you should lock your doors.
you let him pierce his nose?
where is he?
not that i don't trust you.
i should have knocked.
i don't know.
why aren't you coming in for the weekend? sam?!
he doesn't answer.
why does he have a lock on his door?
you need every brain cell you've got.
is there a.
a bird caught me.
i'm good, thanks.
pardon me?
oh. nothing. thirty pounds. i just haven't been very hungry.
when we divorce a decade ago, she was very, very angry. now she's just hostile.
he buys and sells the world.
i did tell you, didn't i? that i'd be ready to start the berlin model today?
typing and clicking myself to renderings isn't why i started building models.
i'm not.
i've been here twenty years.
maybe?
my wife left me because i wasn't. very emotional. i kept trying to explain that my father sucked all the emotion from me. drunks do that, sometimes. make their kids afraid. make them unwilling to express themselves.
how old are you?
we were probably in school together. you went to berkley?
i was a sophomore when i got the call my parents were dead.
my dad had a blood alcohol level of .18. a little high. drove right into oncoming traffic. killed my mother with him. a lady in another car. hurt her daughter. a five-year old girl. i think about her still.
i hate this job.
from the day i started. to today. can't stand it.
it may sound that way, but i react out of fear. my life has nothing to do with what i like or don't like. you haven't been listening, have you?
for everything.
good. i was hoping for that.
i've got one favor to ask.
i built my first model here when i was twenty. there are hundreds of them on shelves around the office. twenty years of my life. i was wondering if i might be able to pick a few to keep, to take home? only the ones that really mean something to me.
thank you.
yes, it is.
oh. okay.
thank you.
i'll take this one, if that's okay?
thank you for going out on a limb and allowing me one.
you're a great architect and a miserable human being.
you're right. you win.
i could kiss you.
no food. i'm painless.
what would you do if you had three or four months to live?
good for you.
i'd build a house.
you know what mortise and tenon is?
i've got every part of it ready. it's like a jig saw puzzle. all in pieces now, just waiting to make sense. i've been through design and review. the planning commission, city council.
stage four pancreatic cancer. they haven't even pretended to offer treatment. you tell me, when would you start eating red meat?
i can die trying.
i haven't been touched in years.
a handshake, or you know, someone pats you on your back through clothes. doctors, people who have to touch you. but not by people who want to.
isn't that weird? i mean, i dated a little bit after my divorce, for four or five years. six years. i know when my son was younger. maybe when he was ten or eleven even, he'd run up and wrap his arms around me.
i'm touched.
thanks for waking me up. picking me up. you're loud today.
you're the most beautiful woman i have ever known in my life.
i'm not talking just physically. even your anger is perfect.
i didn't think you'd know i went missing.
a blueprint spool.
four days. i left to think.
kurt's been feeding him.
i wasn't thinking. look, i'm sorry i didn't think to call you while i thought. i think.
i need to talk to you.
i was parked in day parking.
i'm going to tear down the shack and build my house.
there's nothing anymore to stop me.
severance pay. and i'm going to cash in my life insurance policy.
i love those doors.
the garage.
when's school over?
i'll be by saturday to pick him up.
not for the weekend. for the summer.
the garage is plumbed. i'll put in a toilet. we'll survive.
sounding? i need help. he's cheap labor.
at least we'll have a house to show for it.
i want him with me.
i want sam for the summer.
hey, hey!
alyssa.
i'm living here while i build another house.
don't you have school?
what's today?
my keys.
nothing. i cut myself.
i had them in my pocket.
make the bed for me, would you? i gotta run.
i forgot where i put my keys.
her leg hair.
and sam?
oh. good.
sam!
ready?
i think you'll have fun this summer.
don't forget your headphones.
would you mind turning it down?
it won't all be work, you know?
it won't be all work, you know!
your mom and the boys can drop by anytime.
i'll be around to check up on you.
because i live there.
did you tell him he's spending the summer with me?
i don't have a phone.
i can't leave the house?
did you tell him he was spending the summer with me?
he's not spending the summer in tahoe.
you'll know me by the time we're through.
i'll get your bag.
you have everything?
let's go.
you don't have a choice.
he's not spending the entire summer with another kid in tahoe. if he leaves, i will follow him up there and i will drag him home by his nose ring. he can hate me. you can hate me. he can try to kill me while i sleep. you can call the police. you can call your husband or your attorney, but sam is spending the summer with me. he's my son. he's sixteen. that's it.
you can do anything you want.
go get in the truck, sam.
your nose ring comes out of your nose. if you've got them in your nipples, they come out, too. and there's no make-up at my house. no glue sniffing. huffing. no pills, no grass.
you've worn out your welcome at this house, sam. i won't ever hit you. this may well be the worst three months of your life, but you've earned it. so, pick up your suitcase and go get in the truck. now.
you can't even begins to know how much i hate my father. think of it as a family tradition.
sam? i'm. for like three minutes?
that's okay. if i break my back, daddy's gonna buy you a naval ring.
and if that naval ring don't fit, daddy's gonna rub you down with the sun screen.
i want you wearing sun block. and i want you down here to help me. now.
it works on guster.
you're in there not helping at all, aren't you?
you know what else helped guster? neutering.
do you want garlic bread?!
thinking of jumping?
only jump after you hear the wave crash against the rock. the water will take you out. let it. swim a little north and you'll see the sand.
first time i did it, younger than you, i thought i'd break my neck and just sort of float to catalina. you don't always get what you wish for, sam.
i almost saw catalina.
which side of the bed do you want?
just kidding. the sofa's a pullout.
goodnight.
have you got sunscreen on?
guess how many low-income apartments the city approved for this lot?
come on. ballpark figure.
i warned you yesterday.
rub him down, please.
she's pretty. for a girl.
do you ever get like the slightest inkling that you might want to help me instead of doing absolutely nothing?
get the inkling, sam. i'm getting tired of your attitude.
no you don't.
i want you to take out your nose ring and leave it out.
it bugs me.
your brothers are right. it was the most god-awful smell i've ever had my nose around.
we're fine. turkey sandwiches.
what?
but you hated four out of the five you did.
which?
i don't even like turkey sandwiches. what kind of pizza?
why the first and the last?
i was up on the roof this morning, tearing it down and it struck me as strong as anything ever has. that i'm happy today.
it was just that, maybe the way the sun struck the ocean, the sound of the waves. it was simple, whatever it was. then i started thinking about the last time i felt this good. it's been a long time.
the only time i can think of for sure, i was holding onto sam in the ocean, saving him from the waves.
you head was pressed against my chest. i could feel your heart racing. and i remember i kissed your hair.
what is it?
i don't know.
you'll have money when you work.
i'd blame you. i want you here.
it'll be fine.
i'd rather sell my nuts to a castrati.
i don't beg.
i can promise you complete privacy.
this will save you from prying eyes.
you'll have money when you work for it.
ah! oh.
no hot water.
check the permits. it was built as a guesthouse. it's a legally rentable unit grandfathered when south laguna was incorporated.
i haven't forced him to work. i only wet him down once. why would he leave?
hey. hey!
where are you going?
when are you going to be back?
well, until you know, you can't go.
i'm not very good at it. parenting.
it's not breakfast yet.
finished or unfinished?
didn't you once dream you could lick people well, though?
oh. with his ear infection!
go in there and lick his attitude.
you were wrong about the first year, you know?
hindsight. it's like foresight without a future.
with your hands or your tongue?
good morning.
i've been dreading you.
a violation?
and if i enclosed it?
a sink?
a friend of yours is here.
i might have a solution.
doors.
i flushed it down the toilet.
if that's what it takes.
i hope that makes the pain in the ass that called you happy.
everything about you is my business. what you smoke, what you swallow, what you sniff, it's all my business.
i'll apologize for everything but today. today i give a shit.
the gloves on the table are for you.
sit down for a second.
my dad used to play a game. i never really understood what it was until after he was gone.
the game was to make me smaller than he was. no matter what. he could be almost invisible as a human being, but i had to be smaller. so if i got good grades, i was a pussy for not playing football. if i cut my hair for him, it wasn't short enough. if i shaved it, i looked like a psycho. i never won the game. not once. and if he couldn't make me smaller with words.
i won't ever hit you. i don't want you smaller. i want you to be happy. you're not. not here with me. not home with your mother. not up in tahoe. not alone. not anywhere. you're what i was most of my life, sam. i see it in your eyes. in your sleep. in your answer to everything. you're barely alive.
you know that great thing, though? is that change can be so constant you don't even feel the difference until there is one. it can be so slow that you don't even notice that your life is better or worse, until it is. or it can just blow you away. make you something different in an instant. it happened to me.
build this house with me.
it all has to come down before we can start again. knock it down.
i hated this house from the second my father cheated everyone and put it in my name.
twenty years of hating what you live in. what you are. this is the end of it, sam. i'm gonna build something of me here that i can be proud to give to you.
do whatever you want with it. i don't care. all i want from you is for you to remember we built this house together.
try it. it feels good.
my stupid back.
no, i'm. thanks. i took something.
he won't use my shower. i don't get it.
you brought your kids?
i'll find something that won't kill them.
you're a good mother.
i think so.
hi, alyssa.
it's been a while.
tell him how you made me fall in love with you.
watch out for the smile, boys.
oh, i'm worse. much, much worse.
i know. why?
i know the feeling.
what would you like to be?
what are you now?
that's not true.
i know parts of who you are.
when you started first grade and your mom went to work, it was so she could save for an apartment. but then she met peter and skipped the idea of renting.
i couldn't imagine how i could compete with him for any part of you. so, i didn't. he wanted you to have his last name. i let him even take that.
i wish you had told me then.
i gave up on you.
what would you be doing now?
if i asked you to stop, would you?
i'm proud of you, sam.
i put a gun to my father's head once.
have you ever thought like that? i've been thinking. watching you work. how much do you hate me? he was passed out. just screaming at my mother before. about nothing. under-cooked meat. i went back to my room.  put the barrel close to his ear and chickened out again. not my dad. hid in my room. not even me. of course it was a bb gun. but it still would have hurt like hell.
i was just thinking about my mom. she wouldn't leave him. i remember one time she made us dinner wearing sunglasses. i mean it was dark outside and in. but we never talked about it.
to hide a black eye.
i think she was terrified of living with him. but maybe even more terrified of life without him.
everything would have been better if you had. you'd have liked your grandmother. and there'd be a girl out there that'd have her mother. i remember reading about her in the paper. they couldn't find her father and her mother was dead. i still feel guilty about that.
i loved him too much.
after everything.
the absolute best color i've ever seen in my life.
three.
with you.
i love you!
maybe you shouldn't come everyday.
it's just that there's less that adam and ryan can do anymore. i'd hate to have them bored.
how much time do they get to spend with their dad?
i'd rather you not be here.
i can hire workers to help me.
going on?
what did i say?
that was the truth.
i'll say a lot of things i've never said before. it's habit.
i can't pick you up.
you bit my finger.
let's not do this, okay?
you need to know what? do i still love you?
absolutely. there's not a doubt in my mind that through all my anger. my ego, i was faithful in my love for you. from seventh grade on.
that i made you doubt it, that i withheld it. that's the greatest mistake of a life full of mistakes. but the truth doesn't set us free, robin. i can say it as many times as you can stand to hear it. and all that does, the only thing, is remind us that love isn't enough. not even close.
i fell asleep!
can you keep sam straight?
i mean drugs. i thought you said he was?
you're a good girl.
you have to ask like that?
i've taken a lot of morphine. oral morphine. for my back. can i wait till i can say no and sound convincing?
maybe your tongue. i don't know, my mouth is numb. why did you do that?
let's shut up and not kill her.
what did you think it would be?
i didn't think you'd come today.
no. mostly me.
left you?
what did he say?
i had a kink in my.
what?
it won't happen again.
absolutely. have him put it on a separate line. at christmas, we'll pact it so full of lights, we'll make god wear sunglasses.
so could i.
it's not my back that's killing me.
george nelson.
oh. sorry.
she needs to be alone, i think.
she's a little sad, is all.
josh, you look like you could use a hug.
well, they got me started.
i guess.  i don't know.
hello?
colleen?!
god, i hope not.
i'm an idiot to have you up there.
i think he might have broken a leg.
two ribs, a finger, a leg, a bruised kidney and a mild concussion aren't bad considering he landed on brick.
not a perfect day.
you look better than ever.
she seemed upset.
are you taking them still?
i'm having a problem with cancer.
the kind where there isn't really an answer.
i wanted you here so we could have a few months together. maybe everything happens for a reason. something bad to force something good.
i'm having a problem with cancer.
the kind where there isn't really an answer.
i wanted you here so we could have a few months together. maybe everything happens for a reason. something bad to force something good.
yes.
we're all dying from the start. i just got picked for advanced placement.
i would have lied to me if i thought i'd believe it.
i never tried to get you to like me. i tried to get you to love me.
it's open.
i need you to do me a favor.
i want you to find someone for me.
i've been dreading you.
it's thirty feet.
i have the permit.
to the patio and one north-facing window.  and six inches to the height.
david dokos?
i don't let him. he just loves to.
that would take weeks.
please. i can't.
stop licking me.
i don't wanna go, sam.
i always thought of myself as a house. i was always what i lived in. it didn't need to be big. it didn't even need to be beautiful. i just needed to be mine. i became what i was meant to be. i built myself a life. i built myself a house.
twenty-one years ago, my father crossed a double-line. he changed my life and the life of a little girl forever with that mistake. i just can't stop thinking about her.