Rocket Science

Hal Hefner:
Could... uh, could... could you tell her that uh... I uh... I'm done with my... my ma... masturbation and she can see! Oh... [Mrs. Ryerson shuts the door in his face]

Hal Hefner:
And all it got me was... was a cello through her wi... window.

Ben Wekselbaum:
You threw a cello? Through her window?

Hal Hefner:
Yeah.

Ben Wekselbaum:
How big was it?

Hal Hefner:
I... I think it was sta... standard sym... symphony size.

Hal Hefner:
There's a cello in your house now.

Ben Wekselbaum:
Man, it's a blessing to be squarely and dearly out of the god damn suburbs.

Hal Hefner:
The big city is, uh, is, is Trenton?

Ben Wekselbaum:
That's right

Hal Hefner:
That's god doing your dry cleaning. [smiles] God does dry cleaning. He wears a smock.

Ben Wekselbaum:
The fights you fight today are the fights you fight until you die.

Hal Hefner:
It's one of those two, love or revenge, I'm not really sure which one. But it's one of those two that made me throw a cello through somebody's window, so you figure it out.

Hal Hefner:
No, ah, do you wanna know what it is?

Ben Wekselbaum:
Yeah, "What it is, is... "?

Hal Hefner:
What it. What it is, is, ah. It's, ah... is, ah, is. No. What, what it is, is. [shouting] It's spirit crushing, I said!

Ben Wekselbaum:
An actual cello?

Hal Hefner:
Well, it took a bunch of throws but, but ah, you know, I'm good for a bunch.

Juliet Hefner:
Is this some traditional Korean dish? Because it has an exotic odor.

Judge Pete:
Uh, that's tuna casserole.

Plainsboro Lunch Lady:
[serving sloppy joe sandwiches at school lunchtime] They're not really bad if you've never had really good ones.

Lewis Garrles:
[showing Kama Sutra to Hal] I tried this one with my pants on, on Winchester, our old dog, but he wouldn't sit still and he DIED a month later.

Earl Hefner:
[Hal is taking a bath with the bathroom door locked; Earl is trying to break in] I hate you! Mommy and Judge Pete hate you! Daddy hates you! Melody, daddy's new girlfriend, hates you. That bottle was reposado, you doofus dunce! Uncle Chaz spent big bucks on that. Uncle Chaz hates you! [Earl breaks into the room] That's all I wanted to say. There's pineapple cake in the fridge. If you're late, I'll eat the whole cake, so don't be late.

Ginny Ryerson:
Coach Lumbly, with the pilgrim hat, she teaches Patterns of Adult Living. On her third husband, name of Wallace Lumbly, Wallace the third. That's a particular pattern she doesn't lecture us on in class. Well, she came up to me after a presentation on egalitarianism and said that although my argumentative skills were at the fetal stage she sensed, somehow she intuited, my potential and invited me onto the team and, so, two years later, here I am doing the same with you. Recruiting. Ferreting out the debating talent from the masses. That's you. I've ferreted you.

Ginny Ryerson:
Resolved: that Hal Hefner should really stop letting the world tell him what's possible and try to find out for himself. Maybe that's just a life's philosophy suited only to some of us, those who cherish winning. So maybe it's not for you. But I think it is.

Hal Hefner:
[sees the Ryerson's approaching] There's a cello in your house now.

Hal Hefner:
You know, Ginny said I won't be her real partner for months. And until then, I'm, like... the mascot. The disfluent mascot. The disfluent mascot who's not getting a BJ.

Heston:
Like an aardvark.

Hal Hefner:
No, that was a joke, Heston... there isn't a debate mascot.

Heston:
I, for some reason, was convinced that it was an aardvark.

Hal Hefner:
No.

Heston:
C'est la vie.

Ginny Ryerson:
Have you ever felt like you can burn the world down?

Hal Hefner:
Every day.

Hal Hefner:
Um... but I'll have a slice of the, of your, one of your, um, a slice of, the, the p-p... the... the the pizza.

Pizza Server:
[puts one slice of pizza on a plate] You can pay me when you're through.

Hal Hefner:
You know why don't I make it not just on... not jus not o-one not of the not one slice of the but uh I'll uh I'll have uh not one.

Pizza Server:
I'm gonna close up in a bit, why don't you just take all three. Otherwise they're gettin' trashed. [puts two more slices on the plate]

Hal Hefner:
[raises hands in triumph] Yes...

Earl Hefner:
Mommy, Mommy! Hal's freaking out in the garage! This is gonna turn out bad, I can feel it.

Hal Hefner:
You know, someday you'll find love and then everything will be different.

Townsend Secretary:
Are you her little brother? You look like you could be her little brother.

Hal Hefner:
I'm... her ex-lover.

Heston:
My Dad told me I was the world's utmost idiot for not realizing you won something today... please accept my belated congratulations.

Ben Wekselbaum:
It's all so pointless. That's the realization I came to at States last year. Life is nothing but repetition, the same thing over and over. Somebody might give you a trophy and that's supposed to mean you're making progress but there's no such thing. The fights you fight today are the fights you fight untill you die.

Hal Hefner:
Yeah, be that as it may.

Ben Wekselbaum:
Sure, be that as it may...

Hal Hefner:
Wait! It is not some college application bullshit that is, that is like the driving force here or any bullshit.

Ben Wekselbaum:
I'm sure.

Narrator:
And if you don't know how farming subsidies could inspire all this commotion then you don't know life and there's nothing to be said about it. Suitcases end marriages and farming subsidies launch cataclysms.

Narrator:
Eventually all of this would pass, and the memory of it would give way to embellishment and fantasy and... outright distortion. Until it was hard for Hal Hefner to remember what he was really like back then, when he still carried in his head the sound a of a made-up perfect voice. A voice that could speak its heart. A voice he used wish he had, until the day he stopped wishing he sounded like anyone else and just started talking as he was.