Ethan Coen

Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.

She said her fiancé had run off with a student cosmetologist, who knew how to ply her feminine wiles.

That sumbitch. You tell him, I think he's a damn fool, Ed. You tell him I said so - H.I. McDonnough. If he wants to discuss it, he knows where to find me: in the Maricopa County Maximum Security Correctional Facility For Men State Farm, Road Number 31, Tempe, Arizona! I'LL BE WAITIN'! I'll be waitin'.

That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether- a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that's just as well. I don't mean to sound superior, and they're a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren't ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don't know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior's progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we'd broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn't remember just how they got broadened. But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

There's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet.

I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused.

I think the wife and me are splitting up. Her point is that were both kind of selfish and unrealistic, so we're not really good for each other.

Sometimes it's a hard world for small things.

If it's all the same to you, Honey, I think I'll skip this little get together, slip out with the boys and knock back a couple of Coca Colas.

I guess that wouldn't be such a good idea.

That night, I had a dream. I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life, But now I was haunted by a vision of... He was horrible. The lone biker of apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on little things-the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn't know where he came from or why. I didn't know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him. For he was the fury that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her little Nathan gone.

This here's the TV. Two hours a day, maximum, either... either educational or football, so's, y'know, you don't ruin your appreciation of the finer things.

My dearest Edwina, Tonight, as you and Nathan slumber, my heart is filled with anguish. I hope that you will both understand and forgive me for what I have decided I must do. By the time you read this, I will be gone. I will never be the man that you want me to be, the husband and father that you and Nathan deserve. Maybe it's my upbringing. Maybe it's just that my genes got screwed up. I don't know. But the events of the last day have showed amply that I don't have the strength of character to raise up a family in a manner befitting a responsible adult. I say all this to my shame. I will love you always, truly and deeply. But I fear that if I stay, I would only bring bad trouble on the heads of you and Nathan Jr. I feel this thunder gathering even now. If I leave, hopefully, it will leave with me. I cannot tarry. Better I should go, send you money, and let you curse my name. Your loving - Herbert

Biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep us childless.

Nathan Jr accepts me for what I am! And I think you better had, too! You know I'm okay, you're okay! That there's what it is!

I found myself driving past convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

My name is H.I. McDonnaugh. Call me Hi.

I even caught myself drivin' by convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

We figured there was too much happiness here for just the two of us, so we figured the next logical step was to have us a critter.

This is Gale and Evelle Snoats. As fine a pair as ever… broke and entered!

I don't want Santana Abraxis! I've just been in a terrible auto accident!

The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know... what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for this on the mid-term.

Please. I need help. I've already talked to the other rabbis. Please. It's not about Danny's bar mitzvah - my boy Danny, this coming Shabbos, very joyous event, that's all fine. It's, it's more about myself, I've... I've had quite a bit of tsuris lately. Marital problems, professional, you name it. This is not a frivolous request. This is a ser- I'm a ser- I'm, uh, I've tried to be a serious man, you know? Tried to do right, be a member of the community, raise the- Danny, Sarah, they both go to school, Hebrew school, a good breakfast... Well, Danny goes to Hebrew school, Sarah doesn't have time, she mostly... washes her hair. Apparently there are several steps involved, but you don't have to tell Marshak that. Just tell him I need help. Please? I need *help*.

Well, you can't do physics without mathematics, really, can you?

You understand the dead cat? But… you… you can't really understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That's the real thing; the stories I give you in class are just illustrative; they're like, fables, say, to help give you a picture. An imperfect model. I mean - even I don't understand the dead cat. The math is how it really works.

Well, I… I'm sorry, but I… what do you propose?

No no, I...

Well, the other students wouldn't like that, would they, if one student gets to retake the test till he gets a grade he likes?

No, I'm afraid…

No, that's just not workable. I'm afraid we'll just have to bite the bullet on this thing, Clive, and…

She seems to be asking an awful lot. But then, I don't know. Somebody has to pay for Sy's funeral.

His own estate is in probate, but why does it have to be me? Or is it wrong to complain? Judy says it is. But I'm so strapped for cash right now, carrying the mortgage, and paying for the Jolly Roger, and I wrecked the car, and Danny's Bar Mitzvah coming up, I…

I don't know where it all leaves me, Sy's death. Obviously it's not gonna go back like it was.

No, I- well, yeah… sometimes… or… I don't know; I guess the honest answer is "I don't know". What was my life before? Not what I thought it was. What does it all mean? What is Hashem trying to tell me, making me pay for Sy Ableman's funeral?

And did I tell you I had a car accident the same time Sy had his? The same instant, for all I know. I mean, is Hashem telling me that Sy Ableman is me? Or that we are all one, or something?

Well, you know, the way I look at it, it's an opportunity for me to really sit down and figure things out and look at the world afresh instead of just, you know, settling for the routine, tired old way of looking at things.

I feel like the carpet's been yanked out from under me.

You know Lee Sussman.

Did he ever tell you about the goy's teeth?

So... Lee is at work one day; you know he has the orthodontic practice there at Great Bear. He's making a plaster mold - it's for corrective bridge work - in the mouth of one of his patients, Russell Kraus. The mold dries and Lee is examining it one day before fabricating an appliance. He notices something unusual. There appears to be something engraved on the inside of the patient's lower incisors. He vav shin yud ayin nun yud. "Hwshy 'ny". "Help me, save me". This in a goy's mouth, Larry. He calls the goy back on the pretense of needing additional measurements for the appliance. "How are you? Noticed any other problems with your teeth?" No. There it is. "Hwshy 'ny". "Help me". Son of a gun. Sussman goes home. Can Sussman eat? Sussman can't eat. Can Sussman sleep? Sussman can't sleep. Sussman looks at the molds of his other patients, goy and Jew alike, seeking other messages. He finds none. He looks in his own mouth. Nothing. He looks in his wife's mouth. Nothing. But Sussman is an educated man. Not the world's greatest sage, maybe, no Rabbi Marshak, but he knows a thing or two from the Zohar and the Caballah. He knows that every Hebrew letter has its numeric equivalent. 8-4-5-4-4-7-3. Seven digits... a phone number, maybe? "Hello? Do you know a goy named Kraus, Russell Kraus?" Who? "Where have I called? The Red Owl in Bloomington. Thanks so much." He goes. It's a Red Owl. Groceries; what have you. Sussman goes home. What does it mean? He has to find out if he is ever to sleep again. He goes to see... the Rabbi Nachtner. He comes in, he sits right where you're sitting right now. "What does it mean, Rabbi? Is it a sign from Hashem, 'Help me'? I, Sussman, should be doing something to help this goy? Doing what? The teeth don't say. Or maybe I'm supposed to help people generally, lead a more righteous life? Is the answer in Caballah? In Torah? Or is there even a question? Tell me, Rabbi, what can such a sign mean?"

What would happen? Not much. He went back to work. For a while he checked every patient's teeth for new messages. He didn't find any. In time, he found he'd stopped checking. He returned to life. These questions that are bothering you, Larry - maybe they're like a toothache. We feel them for a while, then they go away.

Sure! We all want the answer! But Hashem doesn't owe us the answer, Larry. Hashem doesn't owe us anything. The obligation runs the other way.

He hasn't told me.

The goy? Who cares?

Sy Ableman was a serious man.

They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz Something-or-other. Or is it? Maybe it's Werner. Anyway, he's got this theory, you wanna test something, you know, scientifically - how the planets go round the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap - well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes you look at it, your looking changes it. Ya can't know the reality of what happened, or what would've happened if you hadn't-a stuck in your own goddamn schnozz. So there is no "what happened"? Not in any sense that we can grasp, with our puny minds. Because our minds... our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the "Uncertainty Principle". Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something.

The more you look, the less you really know. It's a fact, a true fact. In a way, it's the only fact there is.

You say he was being blackmailed, by who? You don't know. For having an affair, with who? You don't know. Did anyone else know about it? Probably not, you don't know.

Science. Perception. Reality. Doubt. Reasonable doubt.

No talking out of school. What's out of school? Everything's out of school. I do the talking. You keep your trap shut. I'm an attorney. You're a barber. You don't know anything.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the jury, citizens of Santa Rosa, we've just heard from the district attorney a rather lurid description of a truly despicable man.

One may at first look at these lines and see only the chaos of a work of modern art.

Look closely at him. This human, this barber.

But most specifically, this is a barber's dilemma. For he is modern man.

He is your reflection.

Call for a Mistrial, your Honour!

You're okay, pal. You're okay, she's okay, everything's gonna be hunky... And the, and the flapjacks, honey.

Madam, we must have waffles! We must all have waffles forthwith! We must all think, and we must all have waffles, and think each and every one of us to the very best of his ability...

And what, to flog a horse, that if not dead is at this point in mortal danger of expiring, does this little square represent?

Madam, or rather, mesdames, you must accept our apologies for not bein' able to perform, for, as you see, we are shorthanded. Gawain is still at work, and we could no more play with one part tacit than a horse could canter shy one leg. Perhaps I could offer, as a poor but ready substitute, a brief poetic recital. Though I do not pretend to any great oratorical skills, I would be happy to present, with your ladies' permission, verse from the unquiet mind of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. Ladies, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore, that gently, o'er a perfumed sea, the weary, wayworn wanderer bore, to his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, thy Naiad airs have brought me home to the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.

Well... uh... properly speaking, madam, we are surprised. You are taken aback. Though I do acknowledge that the sense that you intend is gaining increasing currency through its use, yes.

Oh, indeed, indeed. The thirst for knowledge is a very commendable thing. Though I do believe that when you hear the explanation you shall laugh riotously, slappin' your knee and perhaps even wipin' away a giddy tear, relieved of your former concern. Lump here is an avid collector of Indian arrowheads, and having found one simply lying on your cellar floor - a particularly rare artifact of the Natchez tribe?

He enlisted the entire ensemble in an all-out effort to sift through the subsoil in search of others. And apparently, in doing so, we hit a mother lode of natural gas. I myself became acutely aware of the smell of "rotten eggs." And it was just at this inopportune moment that the General here violated the cardinal rule of this house and lit himself a cigarette.

Who only just remortgaged his home in order to raise the money for a surgical procedure that will correct the wandering eye of his common-law wife, Mountain Water, who suffers from astigmia, strabismus and a general curdling of the vitreous jelly. Mr. Pancake is an ardent foe of the Federal Reserve, and is, in fact, one of those eccentrics one often reads about hoardin' his entire life savings, in Mr. Pancake's case, in a Hefty bag that is his constant companion. The Steel Sak.

To penetrate the vault here this afternoon, while Mrs. Munson is at church, havin' blasted that little old rock to pieces durin' Mrs. Munson's choir practice. Garth, can you run us through the game plan for what remains of our tunnel?

And will you be able to wield the drill with your maimed extremity?

You, madam, are addressing a man, who is in fact quiet… and yet, not quiet, if I may offer to you a riddle.

What do you think, General? Present any problems? Good then. Gentlemen, why don't we crowd around and go over the plan? Gentlemen, this is the Bandit Queen. Gambling den. Cash cow. Sodom of the Mississippi Delta and the focus of our little exercise. Here is Orchard Street. Here is the residence of Marva Munson, the charming lady whom you all met moments ago. Gentlemen, I'm sure you're all aware that the Solons of the state of Mississippi, to wit, its legislature, have decreed that no gaming establishment shall be erected within its borders upon dry land. They may, however, legally float. While the gambling activity is restricted to these riverboats, no such restrictions apply to the functions ancillary to this cash-besotted business. The casino's offices, locker rooms, facilities to cook and clean, and, most importantly, its counting houses, the reinforced, secret, super-secure repositories of the lucre, may all be situated… wherever. Gawain, where is "wherever"?

Ha! Underground! Mmm! Underground. During the casino's hours of operation, the door to this counting room is fiercely guarded. The door itself is of redoubtable Pittsburgh steel. When the casino closes this entire underground complex is locked up, and the armed guard retreats to the casino's main entrance. There, then, far from the guard, reposes the money, behind a five-inch-thick steel portal, yes. But the walls… the walls are but humble masonry behind which is only the soft, loamy soil deposited over centuries by the Old Man, the meanderin' Mississippi, as it fanned its way back and forth across the great alluvial plain, leaving earth. This earth. The General here, whose curriculum vitae comprehends massive tunnelin' experience through the soil of his native French Indochina, shall be directin' our little old tunnelin' operation. Garth Pancake, though a master of none, is a jack of all those trades corollary to our aim. He will be doin' such fabricatin' and demolition work - as our little caper shall require.

Gawain is our proverbial "inside man." He has managed to secure himself a berth on the stodial staff of the Bandit Queen.

And this brings us to Lump. To look at Lump, you might wonder what specialized expertise could he possibly offer our merry little old band of miscreants. Well, gentlemen, in a project of such risks, it is imperative to enlist the services of a hooligan, a goon, an ape, a physical brute. Someone who will be our security, our battering ram, our blunt instrument. And, on our behalf, I wish him a warm Mississippi welcome.

Well, gentlemen, here you are. Men of different backgrounds and differing talents. Men with, in fact, but two things in common: One, you all saw fit to answer my advertisement in the Memphis Scimitar, and two, you're all going to be, in consequence, very, very, incredibly… rich. Let us revel in our adventure, gentlemen. Let us make beautiful music together, and, by all means, let us keep this to ourselves. What we say in this root cellar, let it stay in this root cellar.

Yes, I must confess. I often find myself more at home in these ancient volumes than I do in the hustle-bustle of the modern world. To me, paradoxically, the literature of the so-called "dead tongues" holds more currency than this morning's newspaper. In these books, in these volumes, there is the accumulated wisdom of mankind, which succors me when the day is hard and the night lonely and long.

Oh… Yes, yes. The Good Book, mm. I have found reward in its pages. But, to me, there are other good books as well. Heavy volumes of antiquity freighted with the insights of man's glorious age. And then, of course, I just love, love, love the works of Mr. Edgar Allan Poe.

No, madam, no, no. Not of this world, it's true. He... he lived in a dream. An ancient dream. Helen, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore, that gently, o'er a perfumed sea, the weary, wayworn wanderer bore to his own native shore.

One doesn't know who Helen was... but I picture her as being very, very... extremely... pale. Mrs. Munson, I have been trying to figure out some way of expressin' my gratitude to you for takin' in this weary, wayworn wanderer. It's just a little old present. Why, it's hardly anything at all.

Oh, madam, I blush, I melt. No… I just happened to hear of this gospel concert tomorrow night, "The Mighty, Mighty Clouds of Joy", and I thought you and a friend from church perhaps would…?

Perhaps if you apologize to the man, gave him flowers… uh… perhaps a fruit basket with a card depicting a misty seascape and inscribed with a sentiment.

Surely a chocolate assortment has been known to melt the heart of even the hardest misanthrope.

I also hold a number of other advanced degrees, including the baccalaureate from a school in Paris, France, called the Sorbonne.