Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

- (THUNDER RUMBLING) - (RAIN PATTERING GENTLY)

My father, The Brute,

says that reading Walt Whitman is a waste of time

despite the fact that we share the same last name.

And henceforth,

I will go celebrate anything I see or am,

and sing and laugh

and deny nothing.

Come on, James, catch me.

Run faster, James.

Come on, James.

Wait, Jorie.

Wait, Jorie.

Run faster, James. Try and keep up.

Wait.

Stop, Jorie. Stop.

Where are you going?

Come on, James, catch me.

Where are you?

Gone.

Gone.

You're gone.

My psychoanalyst, Dr. Bird,

has informed me that I should try

and be more positive.

So, like Walt Whitman,

I wake up every morning with a song of myself.

I say...

I am James Whitman.

I am light. I am truth.

I am might. I am youth.

I leap from my bed to greet the day.

I brush my teeth with enthusiasm.

Gargle with panache.

And evacuate my bowels with distinction.

But no matter how hard I try to be upbeat and optimistic,

a dark cloud hovers over my brain.

One month ago today,

my sister, Jorie, disappeared.

When I look deep into my mind's eye,

I remember her like this.

What's wrong?

Nightmare? (SHUSHING)

This is my friend. He eats bad dreams.

I want you to have him.

James!

Breakfast!

It's a terrific oatmeal, mom.

Uh, where's my spoon?

What is the face for? I don't get a spoon anymore?

You don't live in this house?

You don't know where the spoons are?

Really, it's just terrific, mom. Thank you.

Do you know where the invoice order forms are?

The invoice order forms?

What are you talking about?

What is this spice? It's... It's so...

I don't work at the restaurant, Carl.

- You live in this house. - Tastes so exotic.

- It's cinnamon, honey. - You know,

you're just as responsible for what happens there as I am.

Oh, really?

- Yeah, really. - Well, I'm so sorry

that I don't spend every hour of my life there.

- Oh. - That I don't actually

- hide out there to avoid... - Right.

...coming home and dealing with reality.

Did you ever hear me say, "Don't come in today?"

Did you ever hear me say, "Don't help in any way at all.

"Stay at home and collect a bunch of useless

"community college degrees?"

Because I don't remember saying that.

Well, maybe if I did go in,

I wouldn't have run off all the employees

like you run everyone else off.

Well, that's my fault. All right?

It's my fault she's gone?

That's my fault?

- Where are the chopsticks? - I drive people away?

- There is supposed to be blue... - And that one...

- ...and pink chopsticks. - ...does it right there.

- You're coming with me. I'm not here.

I'm not here.

I'm not here.

I'm late. I got to go.

All right, so, have a great day.

- (SIGHS) - (ENGINE STARTS)

Listen, I said white dress,

but when I got there to the funeral...

Imagine butterflies

drawn in by a flower so bright...

...they forget how to fly.

That's the feeling I get from Sophie Seltzer.

Rumors about what happened to my sister

spread across school like a stomach virus

on a Caribbean cruise ship.

- She was abducted by aliens. - Oh, my God.

She murdered a pimp named Papa Smurf.

She had a sex-change operation in Tijuana.

She converted to Islam and now lives in a harem

as the fourth wife to the Sultan of Brunei.

I don't know the truth.

All I know for sure is The Brute kicked her out

- of our home and no one's heard from her ever since. - (HUSHED VOICES WHISPERING)

He's coming. The Enlightenment,

also known as The Age of Enlightenment

or The Age of Reason, was an intellectual movement

that dominated Europe during the...

My best friend, Kwame, emigrated to the U.S.

from Ghana when he was ten.

But while according to Mensa he's a genius,

his grasp of the American idiom was formed primarily

by watching 1980's teen sex comedies on VHS tape.

If I'm "friendless,"

how could you be friends with me?

I tell people that you're my social experiment.

And that your mother pays me to be your friend.

We should probably choose just one.

Why, you crack baby?

Because if you answer a question

with more than one answer,

people will know that you're lying.

All the girls in school love Kwame

because his father came out of the closet in third grade.

I don't think this is necessarily a good reason

to love anyone, but still...

I wish it had happened to me instead.

In trying to solve the differential equation

that describes space time,

Einstein had to come up with a constant term

to avoid having the universe collapse upon itself.

Whitman wrote that, "If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."

I'm pretty sure he was referring specifically

to Sophie's left clavicle.

If I were a normal kid,

I'd just go up to her and say something like...

Are you a Middle-Eastern dictator?

No. Why?

Because there's a dangerous uprising in my pants.

- (CHALK SCRAPING) -TEACHER: ...the universe from collapsing.

Oh, God. I overdid the return eye-roll.

Now she probably thinks I'm spasmodic.

Or that I have some sort of degenerative ocular disease.

Pop quiz!

Is she looking at me?

I think she's looking at me. Is she? I think she's...

- Son of a... - (HEART BEATING)

Of course all I want is for her to look at me,

but now that she is, my mind and body betray me.

Pencils down.

James!

I think my heart might drown in its own blood.

You're Jorie's brother, right?

Right. - Okay.

Wait. Just a sec. I'm coming down.

Your sister used to write poems for the Conundrum.

Uh, the Conundrum?

The school literary magazine?

Oh, yeah, the Conundrum.

What, you know it?

Nope, never heard of it.

Uh, I read it every week.

It's a quarterly.

Um, anyway,

she did most of our poems,

she just put it under a different name.

A pseudonym?

Exactly.

- You don't say. - I just did.

Well, this is me.

Her touch is like the explosion of a thousand atomic bombs.

You're a fucking cliche of beauty.

What?

Nothing.

Anyhoo, um,

I feel really bad asking this. I know Jorie's MIA

and it's probably a really confusing time for you,

but it's sort of urgent.

Um, the Conundrum is up for this

national student award and Jorie promised

a graphic poem for the final issue.

Graphic, like...

Explicit?

Graphic, like pictures and words.

Not like sex and violence.

I see.

Anyways, I was...

I was wondering if maybe you could look in her room for me?

I can do that.