Charlie Talbert credited as playing...
Angus Bethune
- Angus: I'm still here, *asshole*! I'll *always* be here!
- [begins to violently push Rick across the dance floor]
- Angus: You push me down and I'll get right back up again, and again, and *again*, and *again* and * again*!
- [Rick falls, hitting his head on the steps to the stage]
- Angus: I could beat you *right* here, *right* now! But *I don't want* to be better than you, Rick! *I don't want* to be better than *anybody*! I want to be who I *am*: a *fat* kid, who's good at science, and fair at football. That's who I *am*! I can *live* with it. Why can't you?
- Rick: Because it's not normal. *You're* not normal.
- Angus: And who is? You?
- Rick: You bet your ass.
- Angus: And so what? to be normal, we all have to be like YOU? There are 400 people in this room that are *nothing* like you! Some of them are fat, some of them are skinny. Some of them are tall, some of them are short. Some of them have braces, some of them have birth marks, or scars, or frizzy hair, or *ears that stick out*!
- [Troy's head pops up out of crowd]
- Angus: But most of them probably walk through these halls *every day*, never telling anybody the truth about what they really want, or need, or believe, because people like you, *normal* people like *you*, have them *terrified* of being who they are. I mean, if *you're* normal, what does that make them? So which is it, Rick? Are you normal? Or are you just one of us?
- Rick: Whatever I am, it's something you're never gonna be.
- Angus: Thank God.
- Grandpa: Superman isn't brave.
- Angus: Did you take your pills this morning?
- Grandpa: [chuckles] You don't understand. He's smart, handsome, even decent. But he's not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's people like you and your mother. People who are different, and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep on going out there every time.
- [last lines]
- Angus: The dance ended. School closed for the holidays. Rick Sandford got suspended for his little prank. I got into Jefferson, but I didn't go. I said screw 'em. I finally knew what it felt like to be on top of the world. I had had my moment, and then I heard my grandfather's voice say to me, "Now go have another." Maybe I will. Who knows, maybe Melissa Lefevre actually likes me. All I know is I'm still here.
- Mr. Kessler: Now, if I could see your science experient, Mr. Bethune. Do you have a science experiment, Mr. Bethune?
- Angus: Yes. Yes, I do.
- Mr. Kessler: May I See it?
- Angus: You're looking at it.
- Mr. Kessler: Is this a joke, Mr. Bethune?
- Angus: No. I'm hoping to prove that within every normal system, there exists an aberration. Something different.
- Mr. Kessler: The Chaos theory.
- Angus: The Bethune Theory.
- Mr. Kessler: Your hypothesis?
- Angus: When a small, abnormal element is forced into a larger normal system, the element will either be rejected or destroyed.
- Mr. Kessler: Obviously.
- Angus: But it doesn't have to be that way! If...
- Mr. Kessler: If?
- Angus: If the element is brave.
- Mr. Kessler: Brave?
- Angus: If the element can hold out long enough and face the torment of the system until the system's energy is depleted. If the element can look the system in the eye and say 'I'm still here, asshole!' Then, the system will have to change, adapt, mutate. And if this happens, it will have proved my fucking point.
- Mr. Kessler: Which is what?
- Angus: There is no normal.
- Meg Bethune: Angus, Where are you going?
- Angus: To mutate.
- Angus Bethune: You just don't know how it feels!
- Troy: I don't know how it feels? So you think you're the only person on earth who wakes up every morning wishing they were someone else?
- [first lines]
- Angus: My mother named me after my father, Angus; a cow's name, which didn't help matters much, because I was a big kid. My mother was in labor with me for two days, but it was my father who died during child birth. He had a heart attack waiting for her to deliver, but this wasn't really my problem. In fact, I perceived my family situation as relatively normal, until I began to collect expert opinion around kindergarten.
- Grandpa: Don't mind what other people think.
- Angus Bethune: You don't know what other people think anyway. Your mind is shot!
- Angus: I can't dance. My limbs are lethal weapons. Innocent people got hurt trying to teach me dance.
- Grandpa: Why does she talk to me like I'm a child?
- Angus Bethune: Why does she talk to me like I'm an adult?