Billy Bob Thornton credited as playing...
Karl Childers
- Vaughan Cunningham: You always seem to be deep in thought. Tell me, what are you thinking right now?
- Karl: I was thinkin', I'm gonna take me some of these taters home with me.
- Vaughan Cunningham: How about before that?
- Karl: Well, let me think... I was thinkin' I could use me another couple cans'o that potted meat if ya got any extree.
- Karl: Just 'cause I ain't gonna be around no more, maybe, don't mean that I don't care for you.
- Frank: I care 'bout you too, but you'll be around. Don't say that.
- Karl: Doesn't matter where I was to be. We'll always be friends. You and me made friends right off the bat. Don't nobody ever change that. I kindly want to put my arm around you, then I'm gonna get up out of here and leave.
- [Puts his arm around Frank]
- Karl: I love you, boy.
- Karl: I don't reckon you have to go with women to be a good daddy to a boy. You been real square-dealin' with me. The Bible says two men ought not lay together. But I don't reckon the Good Lord would send anybody like you to Hades. That Frank, he lives inside of his own heart. That's an awful big place to live in. You take good care of that boy.
- [walks off]
- Vaughan Cunningham: I will. Karl?
- Frank: You ever have any brothers or sisters growing up?
- Karl Childers: I had one there for a little while. But, uh, it didn't get old enough for me to play with it.
- Frank: Why not? It die?
- Karl Childers: Yes, Sir.
- Frank: Why?
- Karl Childers: It got born too early. My mother and father made it come out too early some how or other.
- Frank: So it died when it came out?
- Karl Childers: My daddy came out to the shed and got me. He said, "Here, take this and throw it away", and he handed me a towel with something or another in it. Well I started for that barrel and I opened up the towel 'cause there was a noise. Something a-moving around in there. The towel was all bloody-like all around it there. It was a lil' ol' baby not no bigger than a squirrel.
- Frank: A girl or a boy?
- Karl Childers: It was a little ol' boy.
- Frank: You threw it in the trash barrel?
- Karl Childers: Well that didn't seem right to me, so I went in the shed and got me a shoe box and emptied out all the washers and nuts and screws and whatnot that were in it and I takened the little fellar and put him inside the box and buried him right there in a corner of the yard. That seemed more proper to me, I reckon.
- Frank: Was it still alive when you buried it?
- Karl Childers: I heared it a-cryin' through that box.
- Frank: That don't seem right. Seems like you would have kept him and taken care of him if he was your brother.
- Karl Childers: I wasn't but 6 or 8. I don't reckon I knew what to do. I didn't know how to care for no baby. My mother and father didn't want him and they learned me to do what they told me. These days I reckon it's better to give him back to the Good Lord anyhow.
- Karl: There were these two fellars standin' on a bridge, a-goin' to the bathroom. One fellar said, "The water's cold" and the other fellar said, "The water's deep". I believe one fella come from Arkansas. Get it?
- Marsha Dwiggins: Will you ever kill anyone again, Karl?
- Karl: I don't reckon I got no reason to kill nobody. Mmm.
- Karl: I don't think anything bad ought to happen to children. I think the bad stuff should be saved up for the people whose grown up. That's the way I see it.
- Karl: I reckon what yousa wantin' to know is why I'm in here. Reckon the reason I'm in here is cause I've killed somebody, mhm. But I reckon what yousa wantin' to know is how come mea killed somebody, so I'll start at the front and tell ye, mhm... I lived out back of my mother and father's place mosta my life in a little old shed that my daddy had built fur me, mhm. They didn't too much want me up there in the house with the rest of 'em, mhm. So mustley I just sat around out there in the shed and looked at the ground, mhm. I didn't have no floor out there, but I had me a hole dug out to lay down in. Quilt or two tu put down there, mhm. My father was a hard workin' man most of his life. Not that I can say the same for myself. I mostly just sat around out there in the shed, tinkerin' with a lawn mower or two. Went to school off and on from time to time, but the children out there, very cruel to me, made quite a bit a sport of me, make fun of me quite a bit. So mostly, I just sat around out there. In the shed. My daddy worked down there at the saw mill, the plainer mill, for an old man named Dixon. Old man Dixon was very cruel feller. Didn't treat his employees very well, didn't pay 'em too much a wage, didn't pay my daddy too much a wage. Just barely enough to get by on, I reckon, mhm. But I reckon he got by alright. Hmm. I used to come out, one or the other of 'em. Usually my mother, feed me pretty regular, mhm. I know he made enough where I could have mustard and biscuits three or four times a week. Mhm. But old man Dixon, he had a boy. His name was Jesse Dixon. Jesse was really more cruel than his daddy was. He used to make quite a bit a sport with me, when i was down there at the school house. he used to take advantage of little girls there in the neighborhood an' all. He used to say that my mother was a very pretty woman. He said that quite a bit from time to time when I'd be down there at the school house. Well... I reckon you want me tu get on with it and tell you what happened, so I reckon I'll tell ye. I was sittin' out there in the shed one evening, not doin' too much of nothin', just starrin' at the wall, waitin' on my mother to come out and give me my Bible lesson. Mhm. Well, I heard a commotion up there in the house. Mhm. So I run up on the screened-in porch to see what was a-goin' on. I looked in the window there and saw my mother layin' on the floor without any clothes on, hmm. Mhm-hmm. I seen Jesse Dixon layin' on top of her, hmm. He was havin' his way with her. Hmm. Well, I just seen red. I picked up a Kaiser Blade that was sittin' there by the screen door. Some folks call it a Sling Blade, I call it a Kaiser Blade. It's kindly a wood handle, kind of like an axe handle. With a long blade on it shaped kinda like a bananer. Mhm. Sharp on one edge, and dull on the other. Mhm. It's what the highway boys use to cut down weeds and whatnot. Well, I went in there, in the house, and I hit Jesse Dixon upside the head with it, knocked him off my mother, mhm. I reckon that didn't quite satisfy me. So I hit him again with it in the neck, the sharp edge, and just plumb near cut his head off, killed him. My mother she jumped up and started hollerin' "What'd you kill Jesse fur? What'd you kill Jesse fur?" Well... come to find out I don't think my mother minded what Jesse was a-doin' to her. I reckon that made me madder that what Jesse'd made me. So I take the Kaiser Blade, some folks call it a Sling Blade, I call it a Kaiser Blade, and I hit my mother upside the head with it. Killed her.
- Charles Bushman: Karl, who'd you kill? Was it the boy?
- Karl: Don't you say another word about that boy. Fact'o business, don't you say another word to me. I ain't listening to you no more.
- Doyle: [Karl enters the bedroom, startling Doyle and Linda] Hey! What the God damn hell you doing, Karl? 'The fuck you doing up in the middle of the night?
- Linda: What you want, Hon?
- Karl: I wanna be baptized.
- Doyle: Well get baptized then, I don't give a shit. Call up a fuckin' preacher, Goddammit, we can't baptize ya.
- Karl's Father: I told you I ain't got no boy, now why don't you get on outta here and let me be. You ain't no kin to me.
- Karl: [after a pause] I learned to read some. I read the Bible quite a bit. I can't understand all of it, but I reckon I understand a good deal of it. Them stories you and Mama told me ain't in there. You ought not done that to your boy. I studied on killing you. Studied on it quite a bit. But I reckon there ain't no need for it if all you're gonna do is sit there in that chair. You'll be dead soon enough and the world 'll be shut of ya. You ought not killed my little brother, he should've had a chance to grow up. He woulda had fun some time.
- [Exits]
- Doyle: Was you in the nut house for hackin' somebody up with a hatchet?
- Karl: I never used no hatchet that I remember. Mmm.
- Doyle: So you're just crazy in a retard kind of way, huh? Wouldn't matter to me if you did do violence on someone. I ain't scared of shit. You're just a humped-over retard, seems to me. I'm just kiddin'. Welcome to our humble home, Buddy.