Quantity, Structure, Space and Change

INT. BAR - NIGHT

Two men are sitting at a bar. One of them is PAUL BANKS. Nebbish but imbibing. The other is CURTIS WHITMAN. Pale and nauseous.

They drink.

PAUL -- I don't know the next time I'm going to see my wife in twenty-four hours. She's gone gambling in Niagara Falls with two other girls from the bank. She's pretty. Amicable. The mother of my son... Tomorrow morning I have to go to work. I have to be at work for eight hours. Then I have to come home. Then I have to make myself a meal and eat it. Then, for seven hours (minus five for sleep), have nothing but time to myself. Watch TV. Surf the Internet. Play Super Mario Brothers.

They drink.

CURTIS -- You know what's always bothered me? Math. When I was in high school I was never good at math. A lot of people probably agree. You might probably agree with me. Math is a tortured subject, maligned in pop culture as "the un-cool class." I was always afraid to be called on. I'd never have the answer figured out fast enough. I always found myself counting out-loud on my fingers. Always formulas that I couldn't remember. An implacable syntax. That immediate rush of panic after being called on to present an answer! Nothing but just pure panic! Sometimes I'd be so wired I couldn't get in contact with my brain.

He thinks for a moment, then they drink.

PAUL -- I just realized something. My nose is bleeding all the time because I use an electric nose-hair trimmer.

CURTIS -- Why do math teachers have make examples out of kids? That seems embarrassing. All my math teachers were the same. Was it the board of education? Do they hire teachers that adhere to a specific system? What separates public school math-classes from private school math-classes? What do kids learn in that Montessori school? How are the teachers different? Do they all ask questions of the class? Please reply.

PAUL -- I'll look it up.

CURTIS -- Math homework I especially despised. Numbers were an evil I recognized I didn't want in my life. A complete animal rejection of science as a system. I didn't want to let that way of order into my life. I didn't want to see things that way. I still don't see things that way. I read Hemingway.

PAUL – I don’t understand what that means.

They watch a few minutes of the football game on a television above the bar.

CURTIS – What did you say your name was?

PAUL -- Paul Banks.

CURTIS – Curtis. Curtis Whitman.

They shake hands. Curtis goes back to the football game.

CURTIS -- Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space and change. It qualifies the world. When things take on worth... When things become valuable. That's the end of the world. What is it you do?

PAUL'S MISTRESS enters the bar. He stares at her across his raised glass.

PAUL -- I'm in marketing.

He drinks.

CUT TO:

BLACK