When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.
Carine McCandless:
[voice-over] The year Chris graduated high school, he bought the Datsun used and drove it cross-country. He stayed away most of the summer. As soon as I heard he was home, I ran into his room to talk to him. In California, he'd looked up some old family friends. He discovered that our parents' stories of how they fell in love and got married were calculated lies masking an ugly truth. When they met, Dad was already married. And even after Chris was born, Dad had had another son with his first wife, Marcia, to whom he was still legally married. This fact suddenly redefined Chris and me as bastard children. Dad's arrogance made him conveniently oblivious to the pain he caused. And Mom, in the shame and embarassment of a young mistress, became his accomplice in deceit. The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that a fine crystal glass had to be cared for or it may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they did not seem to know or care that their course of secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was, for Chris, a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turn, like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow, suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris' sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence, as well.
Jean Roqua:
[Jake is considering going to the Beatdown] Do this and you can never come back in my gym again. I let you get away with it once, not twice.
Jake Tyler:
Wait! You think this is what I want? To never train with you again? Just to give some asshole the show that he's looking for?
Jean Roqua:
Then stop! Let it go.
Jake Tyler:
The night my dad died, I just let him drive. I didn't even try to stop him. Doing nothing has consequences too.
Jean Roqua:
You cannot live in the past, my friend.
Jake Tyler:
Really? If you could go back, and stop the guy who shot your brother.
Jean Roqua:
Don't push me.
Jake Tyler:
I know you would've fought that guy. I know...
Jean Roqua:
You know nothing! Seven years. Seven years, I've not seen my family. My friends. And every day, like the day before, I wake up, wash my face, look myself in the mirror, disgusted.
Jake Tyler:
Why not go back?
Jean Roqua:
And face my father? The last time he spoke to me, he said both of his sons died that night.
Jake Tyler:
Well if that's what you believe, then he was right. You gave up. Sometimes fighting the fight means that you have to do the one thing you don't want to do. You have to fight for his forgiveness. You can't just hide here forever. At least I can't. I'm gonna stop this guy. Win, lose, it makes no difference. It ends tonight. This is my fight. Everyone's got one.
Jean Roqua:
Jake, no matter what happens, control the outcome. It's on you.
Jake Tyler:
Always has been.
