:43:01
to help somehow ease the suffering.
:43:04
Maybe it's personal pain.
:43:07
At any rate, I don't believe
:43:09
good work is possible without it.
:43:12
Hmm.
:43:13
Well, me, I just enjoy
making things up.
:43:17
Yes, sir. Escape.
:43:21
It's when I can't write
and escape myself,
:43:23
that I want to rip my head off
:43:26
and run screaming through the street
:43:28
with my balls
in a fruit picker's pail.
:43:31
Hmm.
:43:31
This will sometimes help.
:43:33
That doesn't help anything, Bill.
:43:35
I've never found that
to help my writing.
:43:38
Your writing?
:43:39
Son, have you ever heard
the story of Solomon's mammy?
:43:43
Barton, you should read this.
:43:45
I think it's Bill's finest,
:43:46
or among his finest, anyway.
:43:48
So now I'm supposed to roll over
:43:50
and get my belly scratched?
:43:51
Bill.
:43:52
Look, uh...
:43:53
maybe it's none of my business,
:43:55
but don't you think
a man with your talent...
:43:58
your first obligation
is to your gift?
:44:00
Shouldn't you be doing
whatever you have to
:44:02
to work again?
:44:03
What would that be?
:44:05
I don't know.
:44:06
But with that drink,
:44:07
you're cutting yourself
off from your gift
:44:10
and your fellow man
:44:11
and everything your art is about.
:44:13
Oh, no, son.
:44:14
I'm building a levee...
:44:16
gulp by gulp,
brick by brick...
:44:18
Putting up a levee
:44:20
to keep that raging river of manure
:44:22
from lapping at my door.
:44:23
Maybe you better, too, Barton,
:44:25
before you get buried
under his manure.
:44:27
My honey pretends
to be impatient with me,
:44:29
but she'll put up with anything.
:44:31
Not anything, Bill.
:44:33
Don't test me.
:44:34
You're lucky she puts up with you
as much as she does.
:44:38
Maybe to a schoolboy's eyes.
:44:39
People who know about
the human heart, though,
:44:42
maybe they'd say,
"Bill over here,
:44:43
he gives his honey love,
:44:45
and she pays him back with pity,
:44:47
the basest coin there is."
:44:49
Stop it, Bill.
:44:51
Gone are the days
:44:52
When my heart was young and gay
:44:56
Gone are my friends
:44:59
From the cotton fields away