Captain!
They shot the hell out of my painting!
Give me your other hand.
You'll be all right, Captain.
They got a nice spot in Heaven waiting for you. Nice spot.
You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went.
You could swear, curse the Fates.
But when it comes to the end,
you have to let go.
Captain?
Thirteen hundred and twenty eight men died that day.
I said my goodbyes to the Cherokee, Dennis Smith.
John Grimm, who was right, he was gonna die there.
I sent Pleasant Curtis' wife his money.
I said goodbye to the twin, Vic Brody,
and to Mike Clark, captain of the tugboat Chelsea.
I said goodbye to all the other men who had dreams of their own,
all the men who wanted to be insurance salesmen
or doctors or lawyers or Indian chiefs.
This don't get fixed.
Out here, death didn't seem natural.
I'd never seen a hummingbird that far out to sea.
Before or since.
And in May of 1945, when I was 26 years old,
I came home.
I'm ready! I'm ready!
I'm coming!
- I'm ready! - All right, I'm coming, Miss Alfalina.
- Queenie? - Yes?
Sweet Jesus! Oh, you're home! Oh, Lord, you came back!
- Let me look at you. - Who's that, Mama?
- Child, it's your brother, Benjamin. - I didn't know he was my brother.
There's a shitload of things you don't know, child.
Get on out there and finish sweeping.
Come here, wash your hands, help me with the table. Go on, now.
Turn around. You look like you've been born again.
Younger than the springtime.
I think that preacher laid hands on you gave you a second life.
I knew it that moment I saw you, you were special.
I tell you what, my knees are sore,
'cause I've been on them every night asking the Lord,
I said, "God, just bring him home safely."
Remember what I told you?
"You never know what's coming for you"?
That's right. Sit down.
Well, you learn anything worth repeating?
- I sure saw some things. - Oh, you seen some pain.
- Some joy, too? - Sure. Sure, I did.
Yeah, that's what I want to hear. Look at you.
- Where's Tizzy? - Oh, baby.
Mr. Weathers died in his sleep one night last April.
- Mama, I'm so sorry. - Don't you worry about that, baby.
Yeah, well, it's only one or two of them left now.
They all just about new.
Guess they're waiting their turn like everybody else, huh?
I'm so glad you're back home with me!
Now, we're gonna have to find you a wife and a new job! That's right.
Come on in here, help me with this table.
Benjamin.
You're wasting your time, baby. She's stone deaf.
Oh, and you'll be staying in what was Mrs. DeSeroux's old room.
You're too big to be rooming with anybody else.
It's a funny thing about coming home.
Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same.
Did I ever tell you I've been struck by lightning seven times?
Once when I was sitting in my truck, just minding my own business.
You realize what's changed is you.
And late one morning, not long after I'd been back...
Thank you.
Hey.
- Excuse me, is Queenie here? - Daisy?
- It's me, Benjamin. - Benjamin?
Oh, my God!
Of course it's you! Benjamin!
How are you? It's been such a long time.
There's so much I want to know. When did you get back?
Well, I got back a few weeks ago.
I spoke to Queenie, she said you were in the war, somewhere at sea.
- We were so, so worried about you. - Oh, I'm okay.
Well, look at you. You're so lovely.
You stopped writing.
"When I had left, she was a girl. And a woman had taken her place.
"She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen."
Beautiful.
"The most beautiful."
- You remember Grandma Fuller? - Why, sure I do.
- She passed. - I heard that. I'm sorry.
I just can't believe we're both here. Must be fate.
No, no, what do they call it?
Kismet.
Do you know about Edgar Cayce, the psychic?
I don't believe I...
He says that everything is predetermined,
but I like to think of it as fate.
I'm not sure how it works, but I'm glad it happened.
Have you been to Manhattan? It's right across the river from me.
Now, I can see the Empire State Building
if I stand on my bed.
What about you? Where have you been?
Tell me everything. Last time you wrote, you said you'd been to Russia.
I've always wanted to go to Russia. Is it as cold as they say?
- Twice as cold. - My goodness.
We always said you were different. But I think you really are.
You wrote that you met somebody. Did it work out?
It ran its course.
Hey, do you remember this?
"This is the picture of Old Man Kangaroo
"at 5:00 in the afternoon."
Would you like to have dinner?
Did I tell you that I danced for Balanchine?
Oh, he's a famous choreographer. He said that I had perfect line.
You know, in a rehearsal once, a dancer fell.
And he just... He just put it right into the production.
I mean, can you imagine that? Like in a... In a classical ballet?
You know, a dancer, intentionally falling.
There's a whole new word for dance now. It's called "abstract."
No, he's not the only one, though.
There's Lincoln Kirstein and Lucia Chase, and oh, my...
Oh, there's Agnes de Mille.
She's just torn up all those conventions,
you know, all that straight-up-and-down stuff.
It's not about the formality of the dance, it's about what the dancer's feeling.
As she told me about this big new world,
names that didn't mean a thing to me,
I didn't really hear very much of what she was saying.
It's new and it's modern and it's American.
They understand our vigor and our physicality.
Oh, my God. I've just been talking and talking.
No, no, I've enjoyed listening. I didn't know you smoked.
I'm old enough.
I'm old enough for a lot of things.
In New York, we stay up all night,
watch the sun come up over the warehouses.
There's always something to do.
I have to go back tomorrow.
- So soon. - Wish I could stay.
Dancers don't need costumes or scenery anymore.
I can imagine dancing completely naked.
Have you read D.H. Lawrence?
- Well... - His books were banned.
The words are like making love.
In our company, we have to trust each other.
Sex is a part of it.
You know, a lot of the dancers are lesbians.
There was one woman who wanted to sleep with me.
- Does that upset you? - Which part?
Somebody wanting to sleep with me.
You're a desirable woman.
I would think most of them would want to sleep with you.
Let's go back to the house.
Or we could get a room somewhere.
- We could lay down your jacket. - I don't know, Daisy.
It's not that I wouldn't like to or anything. I think I'll just disappoint you.
Oh, Benjamin, I've been with older men.
You're going back to New York in the morning.
You should be with your friends.
- You're only young once. - Oh, I'm old enough.
Daisy, just not tonight, is all.
We could go hear some music.
Our lives are defined by opportunities.
Even the ones we miss.
You look so handsome and so distinguished.
They're saying the hurricane's gonna miss us, blow right on by.
- Oh, that's great. - I'll stay under the blankets with Mother.
She says nothing... Benjamin?
"Things were becoming different..."
... for me.
My hair had very little gray and grew like weeds.
My sense of smell was keener. My hearing, more acute.
I could walk further and faster.
While everybody else was aging, I was getting younger, all alone.
Come in.
Benjamin.
- Do you remember me? - Well, sure I do, Mr. Button.
- What happened to you? - Darn foot. Got infected, so...
Welcome home, my friend.
I see you're still drinking your Sazerac with whiskey.
Creature of habit.
You still visiting the house on Bourbon Street?
Not for a long time.
Interesting times, though.
We went from making 40,000 to nearly half a million buttons a day.
We employed 10 times the number of people.
We were operating around the clock.
Damn shame.
The war has been kind to the button industry.
You know,
I'm sick. I don't know how much longer I have.
- I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Button. - No...
I don't have any people. I keep to myself.
I hope you don't mind, but, whenever possible,
I'd enjoy your company.
I'll certainly do what I can.
Benjamin, do you know anything about buttons?
Now, Button's Buttons has been in our family for 124 years.
My grandfather was a tailor, and he had a small shop in Richmond.
After the Civil War, he moved to New Orleans,
where my father had the wisdom to make our own buttons.
So, with his help, the tailor shop grew to this.
And today, I can't sew a stitch.
That's very, very interesting.
You sure have done well for yourself.
So, what can I do for you, Mr. Button?
Benjamin? You're my son.
I'm so sorry I never told you before.
You were born the night the Great War ended.
Your mother died giving birth to you.
I thought you were a monster.
I promised your mother I'd make sure you were safe.
I should never have abandoned you.
My mother?
At the summer house on Lake Pontchartrain.
When I was a boy, I'd love to wake up before anyone else,
run down to that lake and watch the day begin.
It was as if I was the only one alive.
I fell in love the first time I saw her.
Your mother's name was Caroline Murphy.
She worked in your grandfather's kitchen.
She's from Dublin.
In 1903, Caroline and all her brothers and sisters came to live here,
in New Orleans.
I'd find excuses to go down to that kitchen
just so I could look at her.
April 25th, 1918. Happiest day of my life.
The day I married your mother.
Why didn't you just tell me?
I plan on leaving everything I have to you.
- I have to go. - Where?
Home.
And what does he think, anyway?
He thinks he can just show up
and everything's supposed to be fine and dandy.
Everybody's just supposed to be friends.
Well, he got another thing coming, that's for sure.
God be my witness, he got another thing coming.
He left us $18 that night you was found.
Eighteen ratty dollars
- and a filthy diaper. - Good night, Mama.
Good night, baby.
Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times?
Once, I was walking my dog down the road.
I'm blind in the one eye, can't hardly hear,
get twitches and shakes out of nowhere, always losing my line of thought.
But you know what?
God keeps reminding me I'm lucky to be alive.
Storm's coming.
May I help you, sir? Up the stairs, first bedroom.
Thank you.
Wake up.
Let's get you dressed.
Now that's something.
Thank you.
You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went.
You can swear and curse the Fates.
But when it comes to the end,
you have to let go.
Well, it sure is a beautiful service.
He'll be buried right next to your mother.
You're my mother.
My baby.
Now, I'd never seen New York.
- Excuse me, I'm a friend of Daisy's. - Right this way.
- Daisy has company. Daisy! Daisy! - Yes!
- We need the wardrobe. - Is somebody looking for me?
- Benjamin. - Hi.
- What are you doing here? - Thought I'd come visit.
Spend some time with you, if I could.
Oh, well, I wish you would've called. You took me by surprise.
- You can just throw them out. - No. Thank you, they're lovely.
I couldn't take my eyes off of you. I thought you were mesmerizing.
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say.
I better get changed. A group of us are going to a party.
- Would you want to come? - Someone told me about a restaurant
I thought you might enjoy.
I made a reservation, just in case.
Just, all the dancers go out after the show. You're...
You're welcome to come with us. I'll get changed. All right?
She choreographs for the Ballets Russes.
She's divine.
You were breathtaking.
Sweetie.
This is David. He dances with the company.
- This is Benjamin. - Who?
- I told you about him. - Oh, yeah. How you doing?
- I'll go get you a drink. - All right. Thanks.
So, you were a friend of her grandmother's?
Or something like that?
Something like that.
Hey, excuse me.
Come on.
Hey!
Now, I had no idea you were coming.
Lord, Benjamin.
What did you expect? What, you want me to drop everything?
Now, this is my life.
Babe! You going downtown?
Come on. You'll have a good time.
There's lots of musicians, interesting people.
You don't have to do that. This is my fault.
I should've called.
I thought I'd come here
and sweep you off your feet or something.
- Daisy! Come on! Let's go. - Be right there.
Seems nice.
Do you love him?
I think so.
I'm happy for you.
Maybe I'll see you at home.
Okay.
I enjoyed the show!
He came to tell me his father had died.
- You couldn't have known. - I was 23. I... I just didn't care.
What did you do next?
Some photographs, I think, in the front of my bag.
I was as good a dancer as I was ever gonna be.
For five years, I...
I danced everywhere.
London, Vienna, Prague.
I've never seen these.
Mom.
You never talked about your dancing.
Well, I was the only American
to be invited to dance with the Bolshoi, sugar.
It was glorious.
But Benjamin was never far from my thoughts.
And I'd find myself saying...
Good night, Benjamin.
- "Good night, Daisy." - He said that?
"Life wasn't all that complicated.
"If you want, you might say I was looking for something."
Benjamin? Mrs. La Tourneau just passed.
- Letter for Mr. Benjamin Button? - That'd be me.
Thank you.
Miss Daisy Fuller.
- Just a minute. Please have a seat. - Sure.
Sometimes we're on a collision course and we just don't know it.
Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it.
A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping.
But she had forgotten her coat, went back to get it.
When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung.
So she had stopped to answer it and talked for a couple of minutes.
While the woman was on the phone,
Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House.
And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now,
had gone outside to get a taxi.
Now, a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier,
and had stopped to get a cup of coffee.
And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing.
And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare
and had stopped to get the cup of coffee,
he picked up the lady who was going shopping
and had missed getting the earlier cab.
The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street,
who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did
because he forgot to set his alarm.
While that man, late for work, was crossing the street,
Daisy had finished rehearsing and was taking a shower.
And while Daisy was showering,
the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package
which hadn't been wrapped yet,
because the girl who was supposed to wrap it
had broken up with her boyfriend the night before and forgot.
When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab,
was blocked by a delivery truck.
All the while, Daisy was getting dressed.
The delivery truck pulled away, and the taxi was able to move
while Daisy, the last to be dressed,
waited for one of her friends who had broken a shoelace.
While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light,
Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater.
And if only one thing had happened differently,
if that shoelace hadn't broken
or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier
or that package had been wrapped and ready
because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend,
or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier
or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee
or that woman had remembered her coat and got into an earlier cab,
Daisy and her friend would have crossed the street
and the taxi would have driven by.
But, life being what it is,
a series of intersecting lives and incidents
out of anyone's control,
that taxi did not go by,
and that driver was momentarily distracted.
Daisy!
And that taxi hit Daisy.
Daisy! Help!
And her leg was crushed.
Daisy?
- Who told you? - Your friend wired me.
Very kind of you to come all this way to see that I was all right.
You'd do the same for me.
My God.
Look at you. You're perfect.
I wish you hadn't come here. I don't want you to see me like this.
Her leg had been broken in five places.
And with therapy and time, she might walk again.
But she'd never dance.
I'm gonna take you home with me.
- I want to look after you. - I'm not going back to New Orleans.
Then I'll stay here in Paris.
Don't you understand? I don't want your help.
I know I'm feeling sorry for myself, but I don't want to be with you.
Tried to tell you that in New York. You don't listen.
You might change your mind.
We are not little children anymore, Benjamin.
Just stay out of my life.
I was awfully cruel.
He didn't understand. I couldn't have him see me like that.
"I didn't leave right away.
"I stayed in Paris for a while to look out for her."
I never knew that.
Oh, darling, could you get the nurse?
I taught myself to walk again.
I took the train to Lourdes.
Let's take a look. That's normal. Pulse rate is slowing.
She is gonna struggle to breathe.
- Will you be all right? - Yeah.
All right, he says, "I went back home." And then there's a lot of pages torn out.
"I listened to the sound of the house." I read that already.
He...
He spilt something on it, so it's hard to read, Mom.
Something about sailing, does that make sense?
I learned to sail an old boat of my father's from the lake house.
I can't lie.
I did enjoy the company of a woman or two.
Or maybe three.
Don't know why you bother, Sam, just gonna be there again tomorrow.
Mama.
And in the spring of 1962,
she came back.
- You want to know where I've been? - No.
How come you didn't write or nothing? Just disappearing like that.
It was something I needed to do for myself.
Yeah, well, I never took you to be the selfish type.
I sure hope I'm not wrong.
I'm usually not wrong about people.
- Good night, Mama. - Good night, baby.
Y'all have fun.
- You haven't said two words. - I don't want to ruin it.
- Sleep with me? - Absolutely.
I asked her to come away with me.
We sailed into the Gulf along the Florida Keys.
I am so glad we didn't find one another when I was 26.
- Why do you say that? - I was so young.
And you were so old.
It happened when it was supposed to happen.
I will enjoy each and every moment I have with you.
I bet I can stay out here longer than you.
I bet you can't.
Barely a line or a crease.
Every day I have more wrinkles. It's not fair.
I love your wrinkles. Both of them.
What's it like growing younger?
I can't really say. I'm always looking out my own eyes.
Will you still love me when my skin grows old and saggy?
Will you still love me when I have acne? When I wet the bed?
When I'm afraid of what's under the stairs?
What?
- What are you thinking? - Well, I was thinking how nothing lasts.
And what a shame that is.
Some things last.
- Good night, Daisy. - Good night, Benjamin.
Mom?
- When did you meet Dad? - Some time after that.
- Did you tell him about this Benjamin? - He knew enough, darling.
Mama?
Queenie?
Hello?
Oh, hi, Mrs. Carter, it's Benjamin. Where is everybody?
Oh, Benjamin. Queenie died. I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry for your loss. She was a great woman.
Our deepest condolences.
We buried her beside her beloved Mr. Weathers.
And so we might have memories of our own,
we sold my father's house on Esplanade.
It is a wonderful old place, darling.
I think we are going to be so happy here.
Oh, what a long family history you have.
They come with the house.
- Come on. - You have to see the master suite.
We bought ourselves a duplex.
I loved that house.
It smelled like firewood.
Don't... Don't stop, darling.
"It was one of the happiest times of my life."
We didn't have a stick of furniture.
We would have picnics in the living room.
We ate when we felt like it. Stayed up all night when we wanted.
We vowed never to fall into routine,
to go to bed or wake up at the same time.
We lived on that mattress.
Our neighbor, a Mrs. Van Dam, was a physical therapist.
We lived four blocks from a public pool.
You know, you might've got a few more years out of it,
but you chose to do something so special and unique
that there was only a short window of time you could do it.
So, even if nothing ever happened,
you'd still be right here where you are now.
I just don't like getting old.
They put too much chlorine in here.
I promise you I'll never lose myself to self-pity again.
And I think right there and then
she realized none of us is perfect forever.
She found peace.
She opened a studio and taught young girls how to dance.
And tendu.
Come back the other way. And spot, spot, spot. Excellent.
- Good night, Miss Daisy. - Good night.
You certainly are beautiful to watch.
Dancing's all about the line.
The line of your body.
Sooner or later, you lose that line, and you never get it back.
I figure, you were born in 1918, 49 years ago.
I'm 43.
We are almost the same age.
- We're meeting in the middle. - We finally caught up with each other.
Wait.
I want to remember us just as we are now.
I'm pregnant.
You know, I swear the nurse slipped and said it was a boy.
But I think it's a girl.
- I know you're afraid. - I'm not hiding it.
Okay.
- What's your worst fear? - Baby born like me.
Then I will love it all the more.
Okay. How can I be a father when I'm heading in the other direction?
It's not fair to a child. I don't want to be anybody's burden.
Sugar, we all end up in diapers.
I am gonna make this work.
I want this, and I want it with you.
I want you to have everything you want, all of it.
I'm just not sure how to reconcile this.
Would you tell a blind man he couldn't have children?
Here you go.
You'll be a father for as long as you can.
I know the consequences. I've accepted that.
Loving you is worth everything to me.
I have to go pee.
The oldest woman to ever swim the English Channel
arrived here today in Calais...
- Keep it. - ... having made the swim in 34 hours,
22 minutes and 14 seconds.
The 68-year-old Elizabeth Abbott arrived at 5:38 Greenwich mean time,
exhausted but happy.
Miss Abbott, how would you sum up, in words, this achievement?
I suppose...
Anything's possible.
- All right? - Yes. Thank you.
- You ready? - Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you all.
- Yeah. - You're very kind.
In the spring, on a day like any other...
I'll be back in an hour!
Honey?
Go and call an ambulance!
The baby's coming.
Operator, I need an ambulance.
- The baby's coming! - 2714 Napoleon.
There you go. Keep breathing.
Deep breaths. Push.
There we go.
Everyone's fine. She's a perfectly healthy baby girl.
Honey?
She gave birth to a five pound, four ounce baby girl.
Did you count the toes?
She's perfect.
"And we named her for my mother, Caroline."
This Benjamin was my father?
And this is how you tell me?
Excuse me.
... because all the ingredients are there for a major storm,
possibly even up to a Category 5.
Hey, I know it's hard. You can't smoke in here.
Nobody can tell you exactly where it's gonna hit,
but we have to go with the guidance that we have,
incorporate that information and then pass it along to you.
"You grew as the doctor had promised, normal and healthy."
You're gonna have to find a real father for her.
What are you talking about?
She's gonna need someone to grow old with.
She'll learn to accept whatever happens. She loves you.
Honey, she needs a father, not a playmate.
- Is it me? - Of course not.
- Is my age beginning to bother you? - Of course not.
- Is that what you're telling me? - You can't raise the both of us.
It was your first birthday. We had a party for you.
The house was filled with children.
- How are you? - Hey, man.
Before you turn around, they'll be in high school, dating.
I sold the summer house on Lake Pontchartrain,
I sold Button's Buttons,
I sold my father's sailboat, put it all into a savings account.
And so that you and your mother might have a life,
I left, before you could ever remember me.
"I left with just the clothes on my back."
I don't want to read this now. Can you just tell me where he went?
I don't really know.
It's for me. 1970. I was two. "Happy Birthday."
"I wish I could have kissed you good night."
They're all for me.
Five. "I wish I could have taken you to your first day of school."
Six. "I wish I could have been there to teach you to play piano."
1981, 13.
"I wish I could have told you not to chase some boy.
"I wish I could have held you when you had a broken heart.
"I wish I could have been your father. Nothing I ever did will replace that."
I guess he went to India.
"For what it's worth, it's never too late,
- "or, in my case, too early..." - ... or, in my case, too early,
to be whoever you want to be.
There's no time limit. Start whenever you want.
You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best or the worst of it.
And I hope you make the best of it.
I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you never felt before.
I hope you meet people with a different point of view.
I hope you live a life you're proud of.
And if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength
- to start all over again. - "...start all over again."
He had been gone a long time.
I'll see you next Thursday.
- Good night, Miss Daisy. - Oh, good night, sweetheart.
I'm sorry, we're closing.
Can I help you?
Are you here to pick somebody up?
Why did you come back?
Mom?
You ready yet?
Mom, what's wrong?
I was just hearing a very sad story about a mutual friend
who I hadn't seen for a very long time.
Caroline, this is Benjamin.
You knew him when you were just a baby.
- Hi. - Hi.
Hey.
- Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were done. - Oh, this is a friend of my family's.
Benjamin Button, this is my husband, Robert.
- How do you do? - A pleasure.
Well, it was very nice to meet you.
- We'll be in the car, darling. - All right.
Bye.
I'm just locking up.
Wow.
She's beautiful. Like her mother.
- Does she dance? - Not very well.
I guess that'd be from my side of things.
She's a dear, sweet girl.
She seems a little lost. But then, who isn't at 12?
A lot of her reminds me of you.
My husband, he's a widower, or was... Was a widower.
He's an incredibly kind, just bright, adventurous man.
- He's been a terrific father. - Good.
- You are so much younger. - Only on the outside.
You were right.
I couldn't have been raising both of you.
I'm not that strong.
So, where are you staying?
What are you gonna do?
I'm staying at the Pontchartrain Hotel on the Avenue.
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
But...
They're waiting.
I remember that. That was him?
The hurricane has changed directions.
It's going to make landfall sometime soon.
- Am I supposed to do something? - Arrangements are being made
to move people, but it's up to you.
No. No, we're... We're staying.
I'll let you know if anything changes.
"That night, while I was sitting and wondering why I came back at all,
"there was a knock at the door."
Come in.
Are you all right?
I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing here.
Nothing lasts.
I have never stopped loving you.
Oh, but, Benjamin, I'm an old woman now.
Some things you never forget.
... so few people even know
that you were ever in jail in the first place.
I'll tell you, I am sick about it, too,
because, please, if they're not gonna give you an award
like "Man of the Year," at least what they could do
is stop having you listed as an ex-convict
which I think is, again, so unfair.
Good night, Benjamin.
Good night, Daisy.
And as I knew I would, I watched her go.
That's the last thing he wrote.
Sometime after your father passed,
there was a call.
Hello.
Yes, speaking.
I'm sorry, I don't understand.
It's the corner house.
Come on in.
- I'm Daisy Fuller. - I'm David Hernandez,
with the Orleans Parish Department of Child Welfare Services.
He was living in a condemned building.
The police found this with him.
This address. It's got your name in it a lot.
He's in very poor health. He was taken to the hospital.
He doesn't seem to know who or where he is. He's very confused.
I was telling Mr. Hernandez that Benjamin is one of us.
If he needs a place to stay, it's all right, he can stay here.
Benjamin?
You play beautifully.
He doesn't seem to like to be touched.
He goes in and out of states of recognition.
The doctors say, if they didn't know any better,
he has the beginnings of dementia.
Do you remember me?
I'm Daisy.
I'm Benjamin.
It's nice to meet you, Benjamin.
Would you mind if I sit with you? I would love to hear you play.
Do I know you?
- I want some breakfast. - And every day,
I would stop by to make sure that he was comfortable.
- No, I didn't. - You just finished eating.
Don't think I don't know what you're doing!
You're all fucking liars!
He doesn't believe he just had his breakfast.
Now, why don't we see
if we can't find something else for you to do?
I have a feeling there's a lot of things I can't remember.
Well, like what, sugar?
It's like there's this whole life I had,
and I can't remember what it was.
It's okay.
It's okay to forget things.
Many times, he would simply forget who or where he was.
There he is, he's up there on the roof.
It wasn't easy.
- Benjamin! - I can see everything!
- I can see the big river! - That's right,
you can see everything, sweetheart.
I can see the graveyard where Mama's buried,
- and all those other people. - I want you to come down!
- What if I could fly? - I knew a man who could fly.
You come down and I'll tell you all about him.
Somebody go up there.
He was five when I moved in.
Nearly the same age I was when I had met him.
"This is the picture of Old Man Kangaroo
"at 5:00 in the afternoon
"when he had got his beautiful hind legs."
The days passed.
And I watched as he forgot how to walk
- and how to talk. - What's my name?
I'm Daisy.
Can you say "Daisy"?
In 2002, they put up a new clock in that train station.
And in the spring of 2003,
he looked at me
and I knew that he knew who I was.
And then he closed his eyes as if to go to sleep.
- I wish I'd known him. - Now you do.
Mom, I think I should go see what's going on.
Good night, Benjamin.
We're expecting flash flooding after the levee break.
It occurred in the Ninth Ward.
Some people are born to sit by a river.
Some get struck by lightning.
Some have an ear for music.
Some are artists.
Some swim.
Some know buttons.
Some know Shakespeare.
Some are mothers.
And some people dance.