Curio 2: The Best Day of My Life

Mr. Weathers comes downstairs into Queenie’s room to tell her that Hambert sends his remembrances to her. He sees the baby and says to Queenie, “I know you ain’t got all the parts it takes to make one of your own, but this ain’t yours to keep. It may not even be humankind.”

Queenie replies, “You never know what’s coming for you” which seems ominous when referring to a possibly inhuman baby. This could be a foreshadowing of scary or science fiction elements being introduced. Queenie and Mr. Weathers begin to have sex alongside the baby. 

This prompts Caroline to stop reading the diary and ask Daisy if any of this is true. Daisy replies by saying that Mr. Cake’s clock continued to run backwards, year after year. We see it ticking in reverse above the bustling train station. This fades back into Benjamin’s story. He’s now a bit older (and a bit younger) and narrates his experience growing up in a nursing home. He says he didn’t know he was a child, thinking he was an old man like the people he was surrounded with. He plays with a fork by dropping it on the table over and over while listening to the sound with an ear trumpet. Can you blame him? Queenie chastises him and we learn that Mr. Weathers is a chef because he is wearing a chef hat.

Benjamin rolls his wheelchair around the porch. A scary old man says “Hey boy” and nothing else. Benjamin teeters at the top of the very stairs he was once stepped on upon, curiously wondering about the world outside the nursing home. Queenie snatches him back from the edge.

Benjamin sleeps in the same bed as Queenie. He considers her his mom. He tells her he feels different every day. She says that everybody is going the same way. Oh really… Benjamin is very aware of his mortality. He asks Queenie how much longer he has and she tells him just to be grateful, he was already supposed to die. Then he is kicked out of the bedroom so Queenie and Mr. Weathers can have sex. He doesn’t mind and in fact feels safe and happy. He breathes on the window in a stunning display of digital special effects.

We spend more time on what it’s like to live in the nursing home. Every morning at 5:30AM retired army general Winslow raises the flag in the front yard while butt ass naked. Possible double entendre? Mrs. Sybil Wagner sings opera while Benjamin is sponged off in the tub by Queenie. I could definitely see this being a developmental moment that creates some type of strange sexual proclivity.

As Benjamin learns to read a molasses can, Mr. Weathers reveals that his grandfather was a dresser for a famous actor. He recites a monologue from Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 1, impressing Benjamin. Then Mr. Weathers says “The actor my grandfather worked for was John Wilkes Boothe. He killed Abraham Lincoln. You never know what’s coming for you.”

Benjamin goes to Church with Queenie. She whispers to the preacher, who is a faith healer. He tells everyone her parts are all twisted up inside and then attempts to heal her infertility by pushing her roughly to the ground. He doesn’t really follow up or give it his all. Then he sets his sights on Benjamin. Queenie tells him that Benjamin has the Devil riding in his back. The preacher asks Benjamin how old he is. Seven. The Preacher attempts to cast the devil out of Benjamin to allow him to walk. Benjamin stands but topples to the ground. Rather than help him, the preacher redoubles his efforts, and Benjamin begins to take teetering steps, walking for what can’t be the first time. Then the preacher instantly dies for no reason at all.

We see a random birthday party for an old man where he refuses a cake with a candle in it. Then, Benjamin eavesdrops as Mr. Oti, an acquaintance of an acquaintance of Mr Weathers, tells the old people about one of his wives being eaten by cannibals and another wife stepping on a cobra and dying. Mr. Oti is a pygmy from the Congo.

Mr. Oti suspects that Benjamin is faking being old. And he’s right! He asks Benjamin if he has worms. Benjamin says he doesn’t think so. Then they go ride the bus together. Oti tells Benjamin that he used to live in the monkey house at the Philadelphia Zoo. He says living in a cage stunk but sometimes the monkeys did tricks. Then he scares some kids riding the bus.

As they sit on a bench, Mr. Oti tells Benjamin that being different means you’re likely going to be alone a lot. But “fat people, skinny people, tall people, and white people are just as alone as we are, but they’re scared shitless!” He tells Benjamin he has an appointment, and introduces Benjamin to Filomena, who I don’t want to assume is a prostitute. She could be his barber or dentist or anyone else who does appointments.

Oti abandons Benjamin to find his own way home. He misses the train and walks home on his crutches, getting in trouble with Queenie and covering his hands in blisters. It was the best day of his life.

Dorothy, the person who I thought was a nurse, re-enters the room and says she has to leave. The hurricane is coming in only a few hours. “There’s nothing to worry about here in the hospital.” More horror foreshadowing. She says nurses will be right here and then leaves. We go back into Benjamin’s story:

Thanksgiving, 1930. Five years later, Benjamin is twelve. He says “ I met the person who would change my life forever” and we get a brief glimpse of Thomas Button spying on Benjamin from across the street. An old lady Mrs. Fuller calls Benjamin beautiful and asks what elixir he has been drinking. She introduces him to DAISY, played by Elle Fanning. They share a brief moment. Then, supper is served. 

Daisy shares an interesting fact about turkeys. She says they are not birds. Oti says “I like birds that can’t fly. They are… so delicious!” Young Daisy says, “that’s terrible” but it really sounds like she’s saying “that’s cool!”

End of curio.