November Read Online Free PDF Page B

Essentially.
    CHARLES: But you know what you have?
    BERNSTEIN: Sir?
    CHARLES: A work ethic.
    BERNSTEIN: Thank you, Sir.
    CHARLES: You roll your sleeves up and muck in.
    BERNSTEIN: Thank you.
    CHARLES: You’re not some fricken “expert.”
    BERNSTEIN: No, Sir.
    CHARLES: The experts cost me this election. They didn’t build this country.
    BERNSTEIN: No.
    CHARLES: Who built this country?
    BERNSTEIN: Sir?
    CHARLES: Shade-tree mechanics. Tom Edison. Henry Ford.
    BERNSTEIN: Are they sending a car to take me home …?
    ARCHER: They’re trying to rent you one.
    CHARLES: The Wright Brothers … couple guys, sitting round the Coffee Corner, Wednesday morning … ( BERNSTEIN
sneezes
. CHARLES
hands her a Kleenex
.) Some fella, doodlin’ on a
napkin
 … Dreaming. He looks up: “Hey. I betcha
this’ll
work.” ( BERNSTEIN
sneezes
.) Uh, Jonas Salk gets up one day, “Hey, you know what?
Fuck
polio …” “Experts?” What’s an expert? That’s not who made this country great. Who made this country great?
    ARCHER: Who?
    CHARLES: Tinkerers. Like you and me. Huh?
    BERNSTEIN: “Shade-tree mechanics.”
    CHARLES: That’s right. People with a vision.
    BERNSTEIN: “Just like you and me …”
    CHARLES:  … that’s right …
    BERNSTEIN: The people at the watercooler …
    CHARLES: Yes …
    BERNSTEIN: We don’t know their politics …
    CHARLES:  … no …
    BERNSTEIN: We wouldn’t think to ask.
    CHARLES:  … that’s right.
    BERNSTEIN:  … for we respect their right to be different.
    CHARLES: Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s true, though. Isn’t it …?
    BERNSTEIN: Yes, Sir. It’s true. And it’s what people need to hear.
    CHARLES: (
Reading
) “A low light … a low winter light. Which points the way toward spring …” And toward two hundred million dollars. To stick in my fucking pocket. (
Pause
) You’ve stopped writing, Bernstein.
    BERNSTEIN: That’s right.
    CHARLES: Could you tell me why?
    BERNSTEIN: I feel, Sir, on reflection, perhaps this speech falls outside the purview of my duties as enumerated.
    CHARLES: Say it again.
    BERNSTEIN: It occurs to me you want me to indulge in an exercise in extortion.
    CHARLES: That’s right. And I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you in return—whatever you want. I’m like the Chinese. You want something from the Chinese, you go over there and
trade
them for it.
    BERNSTEIN: I don’t understand.
    CHARLES: You paid, if I’m not out of court, twenty-five grand for your baby.
    BERNSTEIN: I did not pay, Sir, for the baby, which would be trafficking in human flesh.
    CHARLES: What did you pay for?
    BERNSTEIN: How do you know I paid?
    CHARLES: You paid twenty-five grand from the credit card.
    BERNSTEIN: You investigated my credit card account?
    CHARLES: Oh, grow up.
    BERNSTEIN: I
paid
, Sir …
    CHARLES:  … oookay.
    BERNSTEIN: Administrative costs, associated with …
    CHARLES: Yeah, okay. I get it. I get it.
    BERNSTEIN: I insist that you amend your language.
    CHARLES: Uh-huh.
    BERNSTEIN: I insist on that point.
    CHARLES: To
who?
Get
it? Ain’t
nobody
in this room but us. All your fricken bullshit about “social justice.” That’s swell. What you
forgot:
THIS IS A DEMOCRACY. Which
means:
The
people
make the laws. And if
you
want to make the laws, you
go
to the people who make the laws, and what do you do?
    ARCHER: You bribe them.
    CHARLES: YOU BRIBE THEM. You give them something
they’d
like. In order to get something
you’d
like. Just like you did in third grade.
    ARCHER: That’s right.
    CHARLES: You say “gimme your candy bar and I’ll give you my orange.”
    BERNSTEIN: I…
    CHARLES: You do
not
say: “Give me your candy bar, because it exploits the cocoa workers in Brazil …”
    ARCHER:
Chucky
.
    CHARLES: “…  I heard it on public radio.”
    ARCHER: Chuck.
    CHARLES: I could couch my language in the gibberism you speak. But I’m addressing you, like I’d talk to anyone else, because, you say
that
in the schoolyard, and the other kid says