1984 – Young Love (screenplay)
FADE IN:
CREDITS:
ext. Suburban boarding school – day – spring (1984)
Ariel view: A well kept co-ed boarding school for grades nine thru twelve. A long, outstretched driveway lined with trees on both sides connects the school to a busy town street in suburban New York. As you were quietly gliding up the drive way, we see a cluster of buildings in the distance. We think that’s where we are headed but instead the focus turns left through the trees revealing a whole new perspective. Two red brick dorms on the horizon, piqued roofs, standing side by side on top of a small grassy hill. As we pass by some kids playing frisbee we get closer to the dorm on the right, zoom into a single white framed window, blinds pulled down.
Music in: “Obsession by Animotion”. It plays till the phone is picked up.
INT. Dorm room – day
A simple room, walls adorned with posters of 1980’s rock groups and bikini models. On a built-in dresser beneath the window are school books, note books, a small bag of marijuana and a bong. Looking over the shoulder of an sixteen year old boy sitting on a little wooden chair, newspapers and magazines with words cut out and scattered all over his twin bed. he is arched over his bed, gluing words into place, We can not see his face or precisely what his massage is. The final image we can see him put down on his letter, is of a couple having sex on a chair. He seems satisfied as he meticulously folds the note and places it into an envelope.
CUT TO:
EXT. A public mail box – DUSK
On a busy suburban street, the back of the same sixteen year old wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans. He is opening a typical blue, public mail box and placing a letter into it. After he closes the mail box he turns to walk away and you see Chris’s face for the first time.
CUT TO:
EXT. A LARGE STONE CHURCH CONVERTED INTO A HOUSE – day
Dressed in fashion, a beautiful young girl with long blond hair, blue eyes and a curvy figure is walking down a small dirt driveway. Behind her is an an enormous stone house. She opens her mail box, takes out the mail, fingers through the envelopes and pulls out the only one addressed to her. She opens it, reads it, smiles and walks hastily back up the driveway and through the front door of the stone house, through the living room, down the hall and into her duplex room.
INT. Toot’s House – day
As we follow TOOTS into the house we see the home is decorated like a toy museum with modern furniture
surrounded by plexi glass cases displaying antique marionettes, mickey mouse figures and thousands of toy memorabilia items.
INT. Toot’s bedroom – day
Walking into her bedroom she closes the door behind her and runs up a small flight of stairs to the mini loft where she jumps on her bed and picks up the phone off her night stand, dials it…
INT. LONG HALLWAY WITH PAY PHONE – AFTERNOON
A public pay phone is ringing in a long hallway, there’s no one in the hall. A door opens a young boy walks over and answers the phone… young man (enthusiastic tone) Hello, Billy Bob’s Bar and Grill! toots (O.S.) (fake laugh) It’s Toots, is Chris there?
YOUNG MAN (he knows her)
“Hey Toots, I’m not sure, I’ll go check”. The YOUNG MAN walks half way down the hall and knocks on one of the red doors.
YOUNG MAN;
Hey Chris, Toots is on the phone, you there? Chris (O.S.) Yeah, tell her i’ll be right there!
Nik isn’t sure what to expect, he sent that letter a few days ago and is sure she must have read it by now. Will she reciprocate or tell him he’s nuts and to go to hell!
CHRIS;
Hi. Toots (sultry – enthusiastic) Hi!, I just read your letter and I’m totally into it! That was such a cool letter! I can’t WAIT to get naked and fuck your brains out for hours! Can you get here somehow”?… Like now!
A pause in conversation… I’m on my way! I’ll have to ride my bike. Do you think your mom and dad will let me stay over again? Ride your bike!? It’s about thirty miles from school to my house, it will take you for-ever to get here! It won’t take that long if I leave now, maybe two or three hours at most. It’s the only way I can get there today… Do you think your mom would let me stay over again? Probably, let me ask my mom if you can stay over… hang on!
Chris is sitting in the hallway full of anticipation. As he waits with the phone to his ear he hears Toots and her mother talking in the background but can’t make out what they are saying.
TOOTS; (highly enthusiastic) She said it was ok, so get here fast, anyway you can, I love you, bye. CHRIS; I love yo… The phone hangs up before Chris could finish.
INT. CHRIS’S dorm room – Afternoon
Back in his room he grabs a small back pac off the closet wall, a t-shirt, socks and pair of shorts from his dresser and stuffs them vigorously into his back pac. Looking around to make sure he wasn’t forgetting something, sees his Sony Walkman and grabs it off the desk, can’t forget this essential piece of equipment!
EXT. Outside of CHRIS’S DORM – Afternoon
CHRIS is on the way to see the love of his life and have sex with her for the first time. Very excited, He walks to the back of his dorm where he finds his light blue ten speed. He pulls it from the bike rack and walks it up a small patch of grass to the road which leads around the school. Adjusting a set of headphones to his ears, he loads his walkman with a cassette of ADAM & THE ANTS, presses play, Meeeooowww, pussy cats commin ta london, lookin for love and fame… After fastening the walkman to his pants he pushes off with one foot and starts coasting down the tree lined driveway to the main road.
EXT. Suburban back roads – Afternoon
It’s a hard bike ride as he cycles through busy little towns dodging traffic and peddling up long unforeseen inclines. On a particularly steep hill down, he fails to navigate a sharp turn and crashes, losing all his things on the street. Except for a bruised knee he is ok and scrambles to collect his belongings.
EXT. TOOT’S house – Afternoon
A small stretch of road and Chris stops his bike in front of Toot’s driveway. Exhausted and excited he walks his bike up to the front steps and continues to the little black deck where the front door is. He rings the bell and waits. No one answers so he rings the bell again. and a large woman with blonde hair pulled back answers the door, it’s Toot’s mother.
MOTHER (english accent) Hello, CHRIS.
CHRIS; Hi, EUNICE, how are you, so, it only took me three hours but I made it, CHRIS says with smile on his face, like he just accomplished the impossible! Is Toots home? She looks at him strangely. She is talking with her father, wait here a minute, I’ll see if they’re finished. Is everything ok? I’m not sure, just wait a moment and I will be right back.
Chris is standing in front of a large black double door thinking how strange it was that she did not invite him in as she normally would, when suddenly, Chris hears Toots screaming from inside the house. RUN!! … RUN!! just at that moment Toot’s dad comes running out with a sawed off shotgun tightly gripped in his hands, you, sick little punk! My daughter is only fourteen, if I ever see you near her again I’ll blow your fucking head off!!
At first Chris falls back in aww of this 6ft, 300 pound, balding, grey bearded monster with a shotgun coming at him! Then faster than he could think, Chris jumped the steps in one leap, grabbed his bike and as he gets to the main road hears a loud shot-gun blast, and he starts peddling for his life.
EXT. JONES POINT – NIGHT – FALL (three months later)
On a dead end road, ending at the Hudson River, a place where teenagers gather to party. With a few teenagers standing in a circle around him, Chris is holding a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, telling the story of how he was almost killed by his girlfriends father.
CHRIS; … It took me another four hours to ride home after that. Toots said her mother found the letter and showed it to her dad. Her dads nuts, some eccentric toy designer, he locks himself up in the bell tower while he works and her mom is afraid to drive in a car for more than twenty miles at a time. They’re loaded though and live in a refurbished church.
FREEBIRD (a 21yr old drifter who happened to know someone at the keg party) So, did you guys ever get to fuck? CHRIS; We never had the chance. Her parrents wouldn’t even let her go to graduation because I was graduating. I saw her twice over the summer but she had to sneak out of the house and even then we couldn’t spend any real time together. But now that she’s back at school it will be easier to see her. Her parents won’t be around. The fucked up thing, is that through us, our mothers our best friends now.
FREEBIRD, see