The Dude as Dad

Posted by jdg | Wednesday, April 12, 2006 | , , ,

WALTER
Not your fucking rug again, Dude.

DUDE
Yes the rug again, Walter.

WALTER
I know, I know, it really tied the room together.

DUDE [changing from a pair of jelly sandals into bowling shoes, sockless]
Well it did, Walter.

WALTER
Why did you have the kid this week anyway? I thought you only saw him once a month on non-league game weekends.

DUDE
Oh, Maude had to go to Vienna this week and she couldn't bring him with her.

WALTER [stretching a leather bowling glove over his wrist]
What happened to the nanny?

DUDE
Who Knox? He and Maude had some sort of falling out. Something to do with a video he made of Egon.

WALTER
He sounds like some kind of pederast.

DUDE
He's not a pederast, Walter. He's a video artist. Maude just didn't want him using little Egon in his work. She couldn't get a new nanny before she had to fly out. So, the Dude was dad for a whole week.

WALTER
The Dude as dad. [Walter tips a bottle of Bud towards the dude, who takes a sip from his caucasian.]

DUDE
That's right, man [smiling widely, with milk dripping from his mustache.]

WALTER
What happened with the rug, Dude?

DUDE
I was trying to figure out how to change the kid's diaper the first night. I had just taken a dirty one off him. There was shit everywhere and I was trying to wipe it off his little balls and then I heard the tea kettle on the stove. By the time I got back he was lying there peeing all over the rug, man.

WALTER
Your son's a rug pisser.

DUDE
Fuckin-A, man. [The Dude gestures with his arm, making a perfect arc].

WALTER
Your rug has certainly seen its share of micturition, Dude.

DUDE [whispering]
The other thing is, this was the first time I saw his little johnson. Maude didn't have him circumcised.

WALTER
That's too bad.

DUDE
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad she didn't have it done, man. It was just a little weird to see it. I'm not used to how it looks.

WALTER
She should have had him circumcised.

DUDE
What the fuck Walter, don't you know circumcision is an act of violence?

WALTER [visibly upset]
Huh?

DUDE
Remember last year when I was still having those nightmares? The nihilists, chasing me with giant scissors, you know, how they wanted to. . .

WALTER
. . .Cut off your johnson?

DUDE
That's right, man, well anyway, I got to talking to Allan my landlord about a year ago, and he tells me it's not the nihilists after all, but all the emotional baggage I have from being circumcised.

WALTER
Allan told you this?

DUDE
He's got an associates degree in psychology from Santa Monica College, man. Plus he's an intactivist so he's like an expert on this stuff.

WALTER
What the fuck is an intactivist?

DUDE
Somebody who spreads the word about the evil of circumcision, I guess. And he's trying to grow back his foreskin.

WALTER
Grow back his foreskin? What? How the fuck is he going to do that?

DUDE
I don't know. Something about skin grafts, and weights and pulleys; I didn't get the full details, Walter.

WALTER
Circumcision isn't evil, Dude.

DUDE
What are you talking about, man? It's an act of violence against an innocent child, Walter.

WALTER
Damn it Dude, the brit mila is a sacred covenant between man and God. It's not some kind of torture. It's not like castration. And it sure as shit isn't fucking evil. [Walter slams fist on the table; scorecards and empty beer bottles scatter. The Dude's cocktail nearly falls from the table.]

DUDE
Watch it man, there's a beverage here!

WALTER
Brit mila.

DUDE
I'm not talking about the Jewish thing, man.

WALTER
I am circumcised, Dude.

DUDE
Well so am I, Walter, but that's the whole fucking problem, man; We didn't have any say in the matter and truth be told I think I might have liked to have a foreskin.

WALTER
No you wouldn't, Dude.

DUDE
What the fuck do you know, Walter?

WALTER
Oh, I know.

DUDE
How do you know?

WALTER
Because if you hadn't been circumcised you might have found yourself standing in the showers at Long Binh camp and some smartmouth first lieutenant from Brooklyn points at your foreskin and for the rest of that tour your whole platoon is calling you the anteater. [shouting] And goddamn it I didn't watch my buddies die facedown in the muck so that your dancing landlord could besmirch three thousand years of beautiful tradition.

DUDE
I thought you said you were circumcised, Walter.

WALTER
I was, dude, in 1984. When I converted to Judaism.

DUDE
You got circumcised for Cynthia?

WALTER
I made a sacred covenant with the lord, Dude. Abraham was circumcised when he was 99 years old. Besides, I wasn't going to have Cynthia looking at my. . .

DUDE
But Walter, that must have been major surgery, man.

WALTER
Just a little local anesthetic. Outpatient procedure. I was on bedrest for three days, but that was it.

DUDE
Christ, Walter.

WALTER
You want a foreskin, Dude? I can get you a foreskin, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me.

DUDE
But Walter. . .

WALTER
The issue here is your rug, Dude. And with Maude overseas, might I suggest another Lebowski, Egon's grandfather perhaps, who has the wealth, uh, the resources obviously to compensate you for the fucking rug.

DUDE
The fucking rug that his darling grandson soiled.

WALTER
That's right Dude. Who's watching the kid right now though?

DUDE
Oh, his grandma Bunny is taking care of him. Let's fucking roll.

[The preceding fragment of the script for "The Little Lebowski" was recovered by an associate at the Sepulveda Boulevard Kinkos in Van Nuys, CA, after a frazzled Ethan Coen rushed in to copy a small stack of typewritten pages, accidentally leaving behind several off-center copied pages in the recycling bin. Several other fragments were also recovered.]