Original subtitles

Oh, honey, look. Ben's punishment letter and flowers, too. Ben who?

Wake up.

Oh, hello, Maggie.

Hello. Good morning. Look.

Dear Mom and Dad, here's my punishment you wanted. I hope you like it.

Love, Ben.

Oh.

I don't know if I spelled pornography right or not.

Did he? He did.

I was afraid of that.

Dad, you wanted me to write all this stuff down to tell how we got to where

are and what I think about what I did and why it's disgusting.

Dad, you wanted me to write all this stuff down.

Oh, sorry.

For me, the real trouble started yesterday when you were paying the bill.

Mom's right.

Nothing good can happen when you sit down to pay the bill.

I was trying to make sure I wasn't around to hear you say any of those

always say on bill -paying days, and I'm not supposed to hear them.

Blood, sweat, and shears? Come on!

I didn't know I was home.

It's weird.

Carol, $55!

My mom knew about it. She said I should go ahead and get it done because... I'm

blossoming.

Well, stop!

Ben, will you please explain to your sister how you can have a rich and full

life on four bucks a week?

You talking to me?

Don't you go far, Mike. I'm going to want to talk to you.

What'd I do?

I haven't found it yet.

What's going on?

Bill painting.

Oh, I don't believe this one.

$216 for a one -month phone bill.

Is that high?

Okay, Mike, 67 toll charges, all of the same number, at $2 a piece.

Two dollars a piece?

Shocking, isn't it, Ben?

Now, why do you automatically assume it's me? Am I the only guy in this house

who ever does anything wrong?

Oh, no.

Tell you what, Mike, I'm going to call this number, and I'll just bet you that

girl answers.

I'm sure of it.

Even a ten -year -old can see through you.

Uh -oh.

Show me that smile again.

Don't waste another.

Oh, this is... It's a recording.

Sexual fantasies?

Yeah?

Yeah, Mike.

Oh, how gross!

You get in my office. We're gonna talk.

I think everyone should get in your office, because I didn't do anything.

Well, why don't you get in my office, then we'll all come in my office, and

we'll deduce who the culprit is.

This is so unfair.

One of our kids has been calling this number.

What? Mom was a teeny bit upset.

Yuck! 67 times in one month. Mike.

Oh, he denies it. Oh, if he listened to this with Ben around, I'll... I'm going

to have to be very calm and very rational about this. Good idea.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy Mike a new car.

What? Yeah.

Then I'm going to make him look at it. Then I'm going to take it away from him.

I'm going to park it on the... Come on, and let it rust.

All right, now which one of you little weasels did this?

Come on, Mike, save your outraged act for Mom and Dad.

Look, I'm telling you, I didn't do it.

Oh, what, so now you're going to try and blame little Ben?

Oh, you're right, Ben.

Well, it certainly wasn't me.

Well, it had to be somebody in this room.

Mike.

Now, using the process of elimination, who would you say the pervert is?

Ben?

67 times.

All right, Mike, here's the deal. You admit what you did, and you'll only have

to wait an extra year for your driver's license. You confess later, and you

won't get it for as long as you live here.

Mom. You have 30 seconds to make up your mind, Mike.

Now Mike was in trouble, too.

Real trouble.

And it was all my fault.

I couldn't let this happen to him, even if he always does treat me like a...

So, what do you have to say, Mike?

Well, those are my only two choices. Mike.

Okay, then. I did it.

No, I did.

Benny.

You?

I didn't know it was wrong.

Can you believe this little sleaze bucket?

Ben, I don't care how much Mike is paying you. Hey.

Honey, it's sweet that you want to protect Mike, but this is not the way to

it. Hey, hey, hey, look.

Especially that one of those calls was made on October 20th. No, I couldn't

done that, because that was the day me and Borna cut class to go to Coney

Island.

And you cut school.

Uh -oh.

That is the convincer.

These calls were all made before Mike even gets back from school.

Right.

I believe an apology is in order here.

Carol, Mike, you can leave the room, please.

Apology accepted, Dad. Thank you.

We'll talk about Coney Island later.

Later's good.

I started to know how serious it was when you looked at me like I was Emanuel

Lewis.

Aw, Benny, not you.

You're not interested in this kind of stuff. Why would you call that number?

Well, this kid's school was passing him around.

I knew it.

What's the boy's name?

Dad, I can't rat on somebody.

Well, you're not ratting on him, Ben. This is a kid with a problem.

He's got to be straightened out. Now, you'd be doing him a favor.

Can't we just forget about it?

No.

Is it the Futterman boy?

No.

Stinky Sullivan?

Uh -huh.

Ben, we're not going anywhere until you tell us who it is. Tell us, Ben.

We're waiting, Ben. Who is it? Now, Ben.

Chris Guzman.

From next door?

Why, that little dirtbag. Maggie.

I'm sorry I didn't mean dirtbag on it. You did the right thing by telling us.

That'll make your punishment easier.

Well, Jason, it wasn't his fault.

Well, for now, I don't want you playing with Chris.

But he's my best friend.

No, not anymore. What's the Guzman's number, Maggie?

You don't need friends like that.

Right then, I needed any kind of friend I could find.

Now I did it. I didn't mean to, but I did it.

You get your tail back home right now, young man.

Yes, sir.

I didn't do anything.

Having fun with the phone, huh?

What do you mean?

Hey, we're going to have to go in the house, sit down, and you and I are going

to have a little talk, young man, and then you ain't going to be able to sit

down anymore.

But Dad... In the house now.

Dad, I could have said something right then to save Chris, but I didn't.

the face on it.

I didn't know where I was going.

Just someplace with no phones.

Probably Russia.

I'll get it.

You got it? I got it. Good. Hello.

Yes, it is.

Ah, Mrs.

Kovacevic. You're working late.

Principal's job is never done, is it?

Well, what kind of trouble could Ben be in?

Yes, I saw the phone, Bill. Tell her we called the Kuzmen.

All the parents are angry?

Well, I guess the Kuzmen boys spread the number to everyone.

What do you mean?

What do you mean, what do I mean? What does she mean?

Ben did it?

No, there must be some mistake. Ben told us he got the number from the Kuzmin

boy. Tell her he's the dirtbag. Yes, he's the dirtbag. He's a bad influence.

Well, so it's Ben's word against some other child's.

Fourteen other child's?

They all name Ben.

Ben?

I don't know what to say. I, uh... Oh, we'll handle it.

Yeah, thank you.

She's sure?

Very.

Then Ben is a... Dirtbag.

Jason, I'm sure Benny had a very good reason for placing those calls.

Yes, and for blaming his best friend, for lying to us, and for spreading that

number all over Wendell Wilkie Elementary School. Okay.

Okay, can't you give a mother just a moment of protecting her young?

Now, either everything we said about Chris Kuzman now applies to Ben, or

hypocrites. I vote hypocrite.

Maggie. Good, it's settled.

Come on.

I'm sorry, Jason. It's just tough for me to accept that Ben is a purveyor of

pornography.

Well, the news was out.

Now it's time to face the music.

Seems you've been very busy passing a dirty number around school.

Not that busy.

How could you stand there, stare us straight in the eye and lie to us?

But I didn't lie.

I wanted it to be true.

Ben, I am very disappointed in you.

Mom had never said that to me before.

Things were about as bad as they could get.

Then they got worse.

Bud Kuzman.

Oh, am I glad to see you. Doc, Chris here has something to say.

Well, um...

So do we. Come in. Come in. I had never seen Chris so mad at me before.

And he was walking kind of funny.

Speak. Well, what happened was... Not you.

Him.

Um, yeah.

I'm sorry.

I'm very sorry.

Very sorry I gave Ben the dirty phone number. I have to interrupt here. Oh,

no, Doc. You said it all on the phone when you said that Chris here was

negative peer pressure.

I didn't know. Me neither, until I looked it up.

Go ahead, mister.

And I'll pay for your phone bill out of my allowance until it's all paid off.

Okay, let's go.

Wait a minute, bud. There's been a mistake.

What do you mean, a mistake?

All that could save me now is a natural disaster.

Like a flood.

Or a hurricane.

Or a tycoon.

Please, bud, sit.

Chris.

I'll meet you later.

But I should not have called you. Are you kidding?

If it was your kid pulling that malarkey, I'd be knocking at your door

to exert negative peer pressure on somebody's face.

Uh -huh.

You know, Doc, under the circumstances, I think you're being a real gentleman.

But I'd like to appeal to your sense of irony here.

Okay. Well, you know, when you think about it, it's almost kind of funny.

Funny. Well, see, as a psychiatrist, I understand that a kid can get confused

when he gets in a jam.

Well, as a plumber, I know that when my kid stops up on me, I've got to flush

the truth out of him.

the number.

You lied to me.

I told you it wasn't me, Pop.

Yeah, but then after I tanned your hide, you said it was.

We're just very sorry about the whole thing, really.

Ah, that's no sweat.

Little buckaroo probably had a spanking coming for something I didn't even know

about.

Look, look, look.

Tell you what I'm going to do.

Next time you get a couple of whacks coming, I'll forget about it.

Come on. Now, you see, this is a perfect example of how I, for one, have learned

not to jump to conclusions about my children.

I don't blame you.

Let's go.

Ben, don't you have something to say to Chris?

Chris?

What? I'm sorry.

Hey! Hey, that's rude!

All right, that's your freebie, pal.

Enjoy it.

Boy, I don't know what gets into him. You know, sometimes he acts like a

kid.

Well, Ben, I want you to go to your room.

I want you to think about why making those phone calls was wrong, why lying

about them was even more wrong, and what you're going to do about it.

So I'll be there a long time.

I don't know how long I was there, trying to figure out

what you wanted to hear.

I must have fell asleep, because it suddenly came to me that it was all a

dream, that I never called nobody, and I was the same little kid you loved.

walked in.

Ben?

Is it Maureen?

In Australia, but not here.

Listen, I wanted to warn you. Dad's coming up here to talk to you and he's

walking around breathing through his nose.

Oh, no.

Since this is your first time with the big punishment scene, I thought I'd give

you a few tips.

You never heard Mike.

Seeing him squirm is fun.

Seeing you... suffers like watching Merv Griffin's things.

Thanks.

First thing you have to know, the parents blame themselves for every bad

we do.

Really? Yeah, so if you get cornered, say something like, I didn't know any

better.

Second, say you got the idea from rock music lyrics.

You finished, Carol?

Uh, Dad, how long have you been here?

Long enough.

Carol was right. You were breathing through your nose.

just be straight with me, okay?

Okay. Where did you get the number?

From a poster on a tree in the park where the big kids hang out. That's the

truth? Yes.

Are we done? No, I'll let you know.

Did you know that what you were listening to, you shouldn't be listening

Kinda. That's yet?

No. Then you didn't know?

Not exactly.

Ben, we were on a roll here.

Well, I know it was dirty, but it didn't make much sense.

Then why did you pass it out?

Are you kidding?

distinction, Ben.

Yeah, it was great.

Look, if you're curious about sex, you've got to come to me or your mom and

talk. Don't let your fingers do the walking.

I hate the phone.

I'm never going to use the phone again.

Well, we have to talk about sex here. Haven't I heard enough about that?

Well, you haven't heard anything that's right or healthy or real.

Sex isn't something that you buy or sell on the street or at a newsstand or on

the phone.

Yeah? Yeah.

Sex is a beautiful thing. It's a private thing that two people share when they

care about each other.

It's not between one person and a public utility.

You actually told him that? More or less, yeah.

That's when you told me to write all this stuff down. I learned a lot from

I know that sex isn't something to use to make you famous.

And I know I should never have made those calls, and I'll pay for them

The one thing I still don't get is, since I shouldn't hear junk like that,

come it's so easy for a little kid like me to get the number?

All right, I'm sorry. Your little Benny has gone too far this time.

What's this?

He hid all the phone cords. Says they only cause heartache.

Oh, I think it's kind of cute.

Cute? Now, he has got to be punished.

You know, I think it's time you guys took a firmer hand with this man. Why,

speaking of punishment, there's still that little matter of you cutting school

to go to Coney Island.

On the other hand, what good does punishment really do?

What kids need today is love.

So why not reach out? Reach out and touch someone.

You gotta admit it. Yep, he is good.