EXT. BOSTON COMMON — MINUTES LATER

Sean and Will sit in the bleachers at the mostly empty park.
They look out over a small pond, in which a group of
schoolchildren on a field trip ride the famous Swan Boats.

WILL
So what’s with this place? You have a
swan fetish? Is this something you’d
like to talk about?

SEAN
I was thinking about what you said to
me the other day, about my painting.
I stayed up half the night thinking
about it and then something occured
to me and I fell into a deep peaceful
sleep and haven’t thought about you
since. You know what occurred to me?

WILL
No.

SEAN
You’re just a boy. You don’t have the
faintest idea what you’re talking about.

WILL
Why thank you.

SEAN
You’ve never been out of Boston.

WILL
No.

SEAN
So if I asked you about art you could
give me the skinny on every art book
ever written…Michelangelo?
You know a lot about him I bet. Life’s
work, criticisms, political aspirations.
But you couldn’t tell me what it smells
like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve
never stood there and looked up at
that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked
you about women I’m sure you could
give me a syllabus of your personal
favorites, and maybe you’ve been laid
a few times too. But you couldn’t
tell me how it feels to wake up next
to a woman and be truly happy. If I
asked you about war you could refer me
to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional
material, but you’ve never been in
one. You’ve never held your best
friend’s head in your lap and watched
him draw his last breath, looking to
you for help. And if I asked you about
love I’d get a sonnet, but you’ve never
looked at a woman and been truly
vulnerable. Known that someone could
kill you with a look. That someone
could rescue you from grief.
That God had put an angel on Earth
just for you. And you wouldn’t know
how it felt to be her angel. To have
the love be there for her forever.
Through anything, through cancer. You
wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting
up in a hospital room for two months
holding her hand and not leaving because
the doctors could see in your eyes
that the term “visiting hours” didn’t
apply to you. And you wouldn’t know
about real loss, because that only
occurs when you lose something you
love more than yourself, and you’ve
never dared to love anything that much.
I look at you and I don’t see an
intelligent confident man, I don’t see
a peer, and I don’t see my equal. I
see a boy. Nobody could possibly
understand you, right Will? Yet you
presume to know so much about me because
of a painting you saw. You must know
everything about me. You’re an orphan,
right?

Will nods quietly.

SEAN (cont’d)
Do you think I would presume to know
the first thing about who you are
because I read “Oliver Twist?” And I
don’t buy the argument that you don’t
want to be here, because I think you
like all the attention you’re getting.
Personally, I don’t care. There’s
nothing you can tell me that I can’t
read somewhere else. Unless we talk
about your life. But you won’t do
that. Maybe you’re afraid of what
you might say.

Sean stands,

SEAN (cont’d)
It’s up to you.

And walks away.