Hot Summer Nights

---

(SIREN WAILING)

BOY:
(WHISPERS) Shh. Listen.

This all happened a while back

in the town I'm from.

(THUNDER RUMBLING)

I can't swear

to every last detail,

but I can swear

to most of them.

(POLICE SIRENS WAILING)

So I don't care

what the newspapers said,

or what your parents told you.

Before the storm came in

and blew the whole world

to the ground,

this is what really happened.

(ENGINE REVS)

(TIRES SCREECH)

(FOLK ROCK MUSIC PLAYING

ON STEREO)

I'm going down

to see your father.

You gonna come?

(FOLK ROCK MUSIC CONTINUES)

Daniel, If I wanted

to talk to something

that didn't talk back,

I'd get a cat.

(LOWERS VOLUME)

You think this is easy

for me, huh?

You think I'm just...

It's not, okay?

It sucks. It does.

But it... It just kills me

to see you pissing

the whole summer away

just doing nothing

with yourself.

I'm meditating.

I'm leaving in 10 minutes.

I'd like it

if you came with me.

(SIGHS)

BOY:
Daniel Middleton's father

was just the kind of guy

they don't make anymore.

He lit his cigarettes

with a match.

Like a cowboy in an old movie.

And he changed the oil

in his car all by himself.

He fought in Vietnam,

for Christ's sake.

He went to church.

He loved his wife.

People liked him.

But when he died,

Daniel was so f***ed up

he quit his paper route

without giving notice.

And after a week,

Mrs. Schrader

would phone the police

to report

that the Puerto Rican kids

had been stealing

her newspapers.

He burned the records

his father bought him

for his birthday.

Elvis, f***ing Johnny Cash,

Frank Sinatra.

He thought

it would help him move on.

He told his mom

it was an accident,

but the school psychologist

told her

it was something else.

This is what we call

a cry for help.

You're spending the summer

with your Auntie Barb.

DANIEL:
F***.

Watch it, that's family.

And mind your mouth,

you're in a goddamn cemetery.

Do I get any say in this?

Daniel, if I wanted your

opinion, I would've asked.

Sending me away

for the summer.

What a clich.

You know what I did

the summer after high school?

You mean before you

started drinking at breakfast?

You know...

I hope by this age

you have a little bit

of your father in you.

Just a little.

(POP ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)

BOY:

When Daniel Middleton arrived,

the town wasn't too different

than any other.

It was hot in the summer

and cold in the winter.

And when it was Christmas,

you were just six months

away from the 4th of July.

And on the Fourth of July,

you were just six months

away from Christmas again.

People love Jesus

and macaroni salad.

And they hung American flags

above front doors

that they never locked.

Everyone had two kids,

and mowed their lawns

on Saturday mornings.

Some of the old people

even still had a milkman.

A lot of things

happened that year.

America went to war,

Freddie Mercury died of AIDS,

and I turned 13 years old.

And, in Hyannis,

Massachusetts,

it was the hottest summer

in 68 years.

(POP ROCK MUSIC CONTINUES)

There was the parade

on Saturday,

and then on Sunday,

the summer birds would show up

and change the whole town.

It's delightful.

BOY:
They came

from Connecticut and New York,

and had white cars

and white clothes

and white teeth.

And their kids

always had names like...

- Tanner.

- Kendall.

BOY:
There were two types

of people in this town.

There were the summer birds,

like these guppies.

And then there were

the townies.

Save your sh*t, we're late.

(AUNT BARB COUGHING)

BOY:
Look, see,

Daniel Middleton

wasn't either.

He wasn't a townie because

he didn't grow up here.

And he wasn't a summer bird

because his family

wasn't rich.

We din't have a name

for people like that.

But whatever it was,

you didn't want to be it.

Something changed inside

Daniel Middleton that summer.

I never did figure out

what exactly caused it.

Wonder if he ever did.

(HIP-HOP MUSIC BLASTING

ON STEREO)

GIRL:
You a summer bird?

What? Yeah. What?

- Are you a summer bird?

- No.

Are you from here?

Yeah. Wait...

- Are you from here?

- What? What?

- Are you from here?

- No, no.

- Okay.

- Okay.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(CAR ENGINE REVS)

(BLUES MUSIC PLAYING)

(ENGINE REVVING)

(ENGINE CONTINUES REVVING)

(BLUES MUSIC CONTINUES)

BOY:
It was 96 degrees

the first time he saw that

cold-blooded motherf***er,

Hunter Strawberry.

And Hunter Strawberry

wasn't sweating.

Oh, I forgot to mention,

these summer birds

absolutely love to get high.

I mean, these f***ers

smoked tons of weed, man.

Every chance they could.

Even the adults.

And they had to get it

from someone.

They'd come in

for a new muffler

and leave with a bag

of the best sh*t

south of Route 6.

Plus, they felt less guilty

buying their drugs here

than off

some little Portuguese kid

down at the harbor.

I mean, if you

were on the Cape

during the late '80s

and early '90s,

you knew who he was.

The boy's a criminal.

Waste of talent.

Wicked f***ing hot.

- Bad.

- Cool.

BOY:
Everyone knew

the stories.

You'd hear them in a

locker room or at a barbeque.

Or at a sleepover

or something.

Like the one where they said

he was kicked out of school

'cause he boned

Principal Finney's wife

in the butt without a condom,

and never called her back.

But how many

of these stories were true?

No one really knows.

I heard he drove a motorcycle

180 miles per hour

at night, in a thunder storm,

without a helmet.

I heard his cock

was 10-inches long.

Eleven, idiot.

I heard he burned down

an ice-cream shop

for putting sprinkles

on his cone.

Hunter Strawberry

does not like sprinkles.

BOY:
But there was

that one thing

everyone could agree on.

I heard he killed a man.

BOTH:
I heard he killed a man.

I heard he killed a man.

F***in' killed him.

BOY:
But at the end

of the night,

everyone had gone home,

we're still just a townie.

And he knew that's all

they'd ever see in us.

He sold weed

to this guy yesterday.

And banged his daughter

the night before.

But, you see,

that's the thing.

In public, they all look

the other way.

Nobody was proud

that they knew him.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:

Mainly clear skies today.

It hit 90 in Boston.

Tenth time that's happened

so far this summer season.

And it's still toasty

in the late afternoon hours...

(MUFFLED RADIO CHATTER)

(CAR APPROACHING)

(TIRES SCREECH)

Hide this.

(UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)

(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

CONTINUES)

Drink's free.

The heat.

HUNTER:
You get high?

(UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

(SNORTING)

HUNTER:
What happened to Adam?

- What's your name again?

- Uh, Daniel.

Dan. Well, my mom...

I'm gonna call you Danny.

- Danny. Okay.

- Yeah.

Danny? Why Danny?

'Cause it's cool.

Take that. (SNIFFS)

Yeah, yeah.

(MATCHSTICK STRIKES)

(BUBBLING)

NARRATOR:
(ON TV) Marijuana.

Derived from the hemp plant.

It inhibits

and distorts the action

of the brain

and nervous system

in a manner somewhat different

from opium.

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