Glen Does the Pope Wear a Funny Hat

Photos

Quotes

• H.I. : Edwina's insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.

• Parole Board chairman : They've got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called "recidivism."

  Parole Board member : Repeat offender!

  Parole Board chairman : Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?

  H.I. : No, sir. That's one bonehead name, but that ain't me any more.

  Parole Board chairman : You're not just telling us what we want to hear?

  H.I. : No, sir, no way.

  Parole Board member : 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.

  H.I. : Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.

  Parole Board chairman : Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

  H.I. : Yes, sir.

  Parole Board chairman : Okay, then.

• H.I. : Wake up, Son.

  [aims gun at the clerk]

  H.I. : I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash ya got.

  Ed McDonnough : [sees H.I. from the car] That son' bitch. That son of a bitch! You son of a bitch!

  H.I. : Better hurry it up, I'm in dutch with the wife.

• [an old convict and H.I. lying on their prison bunks, passing the time]

  Ear-Bending Cellmate : ...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.

  H.I. : You ate what?

  Ear-Bending Cellmate : We ate sand.

  [pause]

  H.I. : You ate SAND?

  Ear-Bending Cellmate : That's right!

• Glen : How many Polacks it take to screw up a lightbulb?

  H.I. : I don't know, Glen. One?

  Glen : Nope, it takes three.

  [Glen laughs. H.I. doesn't]

  Glen : Wait a minute, I told it wrong. Here, I'm startin' over: How come it takes three Polacks to screw up a lightbulb?

  H.I. : I don't know, Glen.

  Glen : 'Cause they're so darn stupid!

  [Glen laughs again. H.I. doesn't]

  Glen : Shit, man, loosen up! Don't ya get it?

  H.I. : No, Glen, I sure don't.

  Glen : Shit, man, think about it! I guess it's what they call a "way homer."

  H.I. : Why's that?

  Glen : 'Cause you only get it on the way home.

  H.I. : I'm already home, Glen.

• Ed McDonnough : [sobbing] Turn to the right.

  H.I. : What's the matter, Ed?

  Ed McDonnough : My "fy-ance" left me.

  H.I. : [narrating] She said her fiancé had run off with a student cosmetologist, who knew how to ply her feminine wiles.

  H.I. : [out loud] That sumbitch. You tell him, I think he's a damn fool, Ed. You tell him I said so - H.I. McDonnough. If he wants to discuss it, he knows where to find me: in the Maricopa County Maximum Security Correctional Facility For Men State Farm, Road Number 31, Tempe, Arizona! I'LL BE WAITIN'! I'll be waitin'.

• [last lines]

  H.I. : [final lines] That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether- a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that's just as well. I don't mean to sound superior, and they're a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren't ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don't know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior's progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we'd broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn't remember just how they got broadened. But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

• H.I. : I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused.

• H.I. : There's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet.

• H.I. : Do you ever get the feeling that there's something... Powerful pressing down on you?

  Glen : Yes, I know that feeling. I told Dot to lose some weight but she don't wanna listen.

• H.I. : What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?

  Ed McDonnough : Short for Edwina. Turn to the right.

  H.I. : You're a flower, you are. Just a little desert flower.

• Machine Shop Ear-Bender : So we were doin' paramedical work in affiliation with the state highway system. Not actual practice, you understand. And me & Bill were patrolling down Nine Miles.

  H.I. : Bill Roberts?

  Machine Shop Ear-Bender : No, not that mother-scratcher. Bill Parker. Anyway, we're approaching the wreck, and there's this spherical object a restin' in the highway. And it's not a piece of the car.

• H.I. : I think the wife and me are splitting up. Her point is that were both kind of selfish and unrealistic, so we're not really good for each other.

  Nathan Arizona Sr. : Well, ma'am, I don't know much, but I do know human beings. You brought back my boy, so you must have your good points, too. I sure hate to think of Florence leaving me. I do love her so. You can go out the way you came in. Oh, and before you do another foolish thing like busting up, I suggest you sleep on it. At least for one night.

• Ed McDonnough : I don't care about myself anymore. I don't care about us anymore. I just want Nathan Jr back safe.

  H.I. : I know that.

  Ed McDonnough : If we don't get him back safe, I don't want to go on livin' and even if we do get him back safe, I don't want to go on livin' with you. I guess I still love you, Hi. I-I know I do. I'm not even blaming you. The whole thing's crazy, and...

  H.I. : Well, factually, I myself...

  Ed McDonnough : Lemme finish. Ever since those two jailbirds took little Nathan, I've been doin' some thinkin' and I ain't too proud of myself. Even if Mrs. Arizona had more than she could handle, I was a police officer swarned to uphold the constitution of the United States.

  H.I. : Well, honey, you retired...

  Ed McDonnough : That ain't the point, Hi! We don't deserve little Nathan any more than those jailbirds do. And if I'm as selfish and irresponsible as you...

  H.I. : You're not that bad...

  Ed McDonnough : If I'm as bad as you, what good are we? What good are we to each other? You and me's just a fool's paradise.

• H.I. : I"m in here on my knees, Ed, a free man proposing. Howdy, Kurt.

• H.I. : If it's all the same to you, Honey, I think I'll skip this little get together, slip out with the boys and knock back a couple of Coca Colas.

  [Ed gives him a look of disapproval]

  H.I. : I guess that wouldn't be such a good idea.

  Gale : So many social engagements, so little time.

• H.I. : Sometimes it's a hard world for small things.

• H.I. : That night, I had a dream. I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life, But now I was haunted by a vision of... He was horrible. The lone biker of apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path. He was especially hard on little things-the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn't know where he came from or why. I didn't know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him. For he was the fury that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her little Nathan gone.

• Glen : Say that reminds me, how'd you get that kid so darn fast? Me and Dot went in to adopt on account a' somethin' went wrong with my semen, and they said we had to wait five years for a healthy white baby. I said, "Healthy white baby? Five years? What else you got?" Said they got two Koreans and a negra born with his heart on the outside. It's a crazy world.

  H.I. : Someone oughta sell tickets.

  Glen : Sure, I'd buy one.

• H.I. : This here's the TV. Two hours a day, maximum, either... either educational or football, so's, y'know, you don't ruin your appreciation of the finer things.

• Dot : I'm sure you have the life insurance squared away?

  Ed McDonnough : Have we done that honey? We gotta do that honey!

  Dot : You gotta do that HI! Ed's got her hands full with this little angel.

  H.I. : Yes, ma'am.

  Dot : What would Ed and little angel do if a truck came along and splattered your brains all over the interstate?

  Ed McDonnough : Yeah honey! What if you get run over?

  Dot : Or carried off by a twister?

• H.I. : Need a beer, Glen?

  Glen : Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

• Ed McDonnough : What would have happened if me and Ed Junior got picked up for accessory to commit armed robbery?

  H.I. : Aw, it ain't armed robbery if the gun ain't loaded.

• H.I. : My dearest Edwina, Tonight, as you and Nathan slumber, my heart is filled with anguish. I hope that you will both understand and forgive me for what I have decided I must do. By the time you read this, I will be gone. I will never be the man that you want me to be, the husband and father that you and Nathan deserve. Maybe it's my upbringing. Maybe it's just that my genes got screwed up. I don't know. But the events of the last day have showed amply that I don't have the strength of character to raise up a family in a manner befitting a responsible adult. I say all this to my shame. I will love you always, truly and deeply. But I fear that if I stay, I would only bring bad trouble on the heads of you and Nathan Jr. I feel this thunder gathering even now. If I leave, hopefully, it will leave with me. I cannot tarry. Better I should go, send you money, and let you curse my name. Your loving - Herbert

• Prison Counsellor : Most men your age Hi, are getting married and raising up a family.

  H.I. : Well factually, the...

  Prison Counsellor : They wouldn't accept prison as a substitute. Would any of you men care to comment.

  Gale : Well, sometimes your career's gotta come before family.

  Evelle : Work's what's kept us happy.

• H.I. : What are you talkin' about, Glen?

  Glen : What am I talkin' about? I'm talkin' about sex, boy, what the hell you talkin' about? I'm talkin' about l'amour! I'm talkin' that me and Dot are swingers, as in "to swing." I'm talkin' about wife swappin'. I'm talkin' about what they call nowadays open marriage. I'm talk...

  H.I. : [Knocks Glen to the ground with a punch] Keep your goddamn hands off my wife!

• H.I. : Biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep us childless.

• H.I. : Nathan Jr accepts me for what I am! And I think you better had, too! You know I'm okay, you're okay! That there's what it is!

• H.I. : I found myself driving past convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

• Ed McDonnough : We finally go out with decent people and you break his nose. That ain't too funny, Hi.

  H.I. : His kids seemed to think it was funny.

  Ed McDonnough : Well they're just kids.

• H.I. : He's a scandal in't he, he's a little outlaw.

  Ed McDonnough : Naw, he-he-he's a good boy.

  H.I. : He ain't too good, you can tell by that twinkle in his eye.

• H.I. : A man for a husband.

  Ed McDonnough : That ain't no answer.

  H.I. : Honey, that's the only answer.

  Ed McDonnough : That ain't no answer.

• Ed McDonnough : I love him so much!

  H.I. : I know you do, honey.

  Ed McDonnough : I love him so much!

  H.I. : I know you do.

• H.I. : Now, y'all without sin can cast the first stone.

• Ed McDonnough : I'm not gonna live this way, Hi! It just ain't family life!

  H.I. : Well... it ain't "Ozzie and Harriet."

• H.I. : Prison life is structured - more'n some people care for.

• Dot : Where's that baby? Where's he at?

  Glen : [Glen smacks Dot on the butt] Go find him, honey!

  Dot : [Dot smacks Glen with her purse] Cut it out, Glen!

  H.I. : [quietly] He's asleep right now.

  Glen : [rubbing his jaw] Shit! I hope we didn't wake it!

  Dot : Can I just sneak a peek-a-loo?

• [first lines]

  H.I. : [voiceover] My name is H.I. McDonnaugh. Call me Hi.

• Glen : Say, that 'minds me. What are going to name him?

  H.I. : Uh... Ed. Ed, Jr.

  Glen : But I thought you said it was a boy?

  H.I. : As in "Edward." We just like that name!

• H.I. : I even caught myself drivin' by convenience stores... that weren't on the way home.

• H.I. : We figured there was too much happiness here for just the two of us, so we figured the next logical step was to have us a critter.

• H.I. : This is Gale and Evelle Snoats. As fine a pair as ever... broke and entered!

hornwormithe.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093822/characters/nm0000115

Share this post