Bottle Rocket Scene 6

[EXT. HIGHWAY. DAY]

[The car is on the shoulder, raised up on a Jack with the hood open. Anthony's looking underneath the car. Dignan's standing in the middle the road with his hands in his pockets. No cars in sight. Anthony starts messing around under the hood. He tests some wires and connections. He steps away from the car.]

ANTHONY: Man, I don't know anything about cars.

[Dignan stares down the road.]

DIGNAN: You really know how to pick them.

[Anthony walks over to Dignan. He stands beside him for a minute.]

ANTHONY: I think we better go home.

DIGNAN: Don't panic, Anthony.

ANTHONY: I'm not. But there's --

DIGNAN: You can't just run home every time things get tough. First of all, we've got enough dough to --

ANTHONY: Our money situation is not good.

DIGNAN *clapping him on the back*: You're so spoiled. What is "not
good" to you? Only a few hundred --

ANTHONY: We've got sixteen dollars.

DIGNAN: That's not correct.

[Dignan stares at Anthony.]

DIGNAN: Give it to me.

[Pause. Anthony reaches into his pocket and pulls out the money. Dignan takes it. He counts it. He looks at Anthony.]

DIGNAN: Sixteen dollars.

ANTHONY: I know.

DIGNAN: Where's the rest?

[Dignan stares at Anthony. Pause.]

ANTHONY: I had to give some to Inez.

DIGNAN: How much?

ANTHONY: $383.

[Dignan frowns slightly. Pause. He screams:]

DIGNAN: What!

[Pause. Dignan runs at the car and kicks the door as hard as he can. It makes a big dent. He runs down the shoulder and grabs a big rock. He runs at the car and smashes the rock through the windshield. He stands still. He turns to Anthony. He walks back over to him, yelling.]

DIGNAN: You gave $383 to the goddamn housekeeper! What the fuck is your problem?

ANTHONY: She needed it.

DIGNAN: A $500 tip! For the housekeeper!

ANTHONY: Her name's Inez. Stop calling her the housekeeper.

DIGNAN: That's what she is!

ANTHONY: I know that. But --

DIGNAN: You're in love with the fucking housekeeper!

ANTHONY: Shut up!

DIGNAN: What are you going to do, get married? Have a bunch of little
idiot janitor brats! And go around scrubbing the --

[Anthony slaps Dignan hard in the face.]

ANTHONY: Stop! *pause* Now listen to me.

[Dignan punches Anthony is the face. Follows it up with one after another. Anthony ducks and puts his arms out. He falls on one knee. Dignan immediately turns and walks to the car. Anthony stands up. He's got a bloody nose. He stares at Dignan. Not angry. Just weary. Dignan pulls his tennis bag out of the car. He shuts the door and walks down the highway. Anthony walks to the car and takes out his backpack. He pulls it tight around his shoulders. He looks down the highway at Dignan. Then turns and walks the other way, into the distance.]

BLACKOUT.

FADE IN:

[EXT. GOLF COURSE. DAY]

[A cold day on a nice country club course. Anthony watches Bob hit a hard slide straight into the rough. Bob stands there in a frozen follow-through. Then he suddenly swings his club and hums it down the fareway. He starts to walk back to the golf cart.]

ANTHONY: Bob, where you going?

BOB: I'm not playing any more golf.

ANTHONY: Why not?

BOB: Cause I'm not getting any better. It's a waste of time.

ANTHONY: You've only been playing for two weeks, Bob. It takes a long time to learn this game.

BOB: You think I'm improving?

ANTHONY *pause*: Yes. You just got to stick with it.

[Bob looks down the fareway. He takes a deep breath and starts walking toward his club about twenty yards away.]

[INT. GOLF CART. DAY]

[In the cart. Bob's driving. There's a brief silence.]

BOB: You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.

ANTHONY: No, I don't mind.

BOB: I know it must of been a bad experience. But it doesn't sound like it was your fault.

ANTHONY: Well, I didn't mean to electrocute him. But the whole operation was my idea.

[MONTAGE: Electronics wizardry. Splicing wires. Buzzing electrodes. A filament lights up blue. Pliers and clippers rewire a circuit breaker, short out the P.A. system, electrify doors and windows. Anthony continues in VOICEOVER.]

ANTHONY *VO*: It took six months of research. I did all the wiring myself. Switched AC to DC. Doubled the voltage. Shorted out the generator. The whole school was shut down.

BOB *VO*: That's pretty complicated for a senior prank.

ANTHONY *VO*: I don't like that word prank, Bob. I was trying to do something more than a prank.

[EXT. SCHOOL. DAY]

[A large school building. Tall oak trees and benches in the shade. Green and blue lights blink in the windows. White flashes and loud jolts of energy dance from room to room. Mozart plays in the distance. Students begin to swarm out into the yard.]

ANTHONY *VO*: I wanted to create an event. Something everyone would remember. And at first it worked perfectly. The whole school was standing around outside. Kids running all over the place. Everybody laughing.

[EXT. GOLF COURSE. DAY]

[Anthony and Bob are standing on the seventeenth green.]

ANTHONY: Even the school custodian Swifty thought it was great. He kept laughing and shaking his head the whole time he tried to disconnect the generator. And then suddenly *snaps his finger* total silence except for Swifty hanging off the generator with his leg stuck to it being electrocuted.

[Anthony stares down the fareway.]

ANTHONY: Actually he died of a heart attack brought on by the shock. He was an older guy.

[INT. GOLF CART. DAY]

[Anthony and Bob are driving back to the clubhouse.]

ANTHONY: I felt terrible. I'd known Swifty since first grade. He was Dignan's medicine man for Indian Guides. They called each other Rattlesnake and Killer Whale. Whenever Dignan came to visit me he would act like he and Swifty weren't that good of friends, but that was just to make me feel better. The whole rest of the school had turned against me.

[EXT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAY]

[Anthony and Bob are sitting by the pool, drinking beers. Future Man's swimming laps even though it's cold out.]*

ANTHONY: At first they were going to charge me with manslaughter. That's partly why I was in custody so long. Sixty days.

BOB: Sixty days?

ANTHONY: Yeah. One minute you're studying Great Expectations and the next minute you're drawing the Holy Mary for some kid who tried to stab his girlfriend.

BOB: Why were you drawing the Holy Mary?

ANTHONY: Prison tatoos. I got to be pretty good. It's not like drawing on paper.

CUT TO: Future Man toweling off. He wears a Speedo swimsuit. He
walks over to Bob and Anthony. Anthony's just finishing a drawing of a leaping jungle cat in black and red ink on Bob's shoulder. Future Man stops and looks at them with no feeling.

ANTHONY *pause*: It's a panther.

[Pause. Future Man looks at Bob.]

FUTURE MAN: How's that 700 bucks coming?

BOB: I'm working on it.

FUTURE MAN: Hard to find it sitting by the pool drinking beer and bullshitting. *He walks inside.*

ANTHONY: I thought he didn't have to pay anything because of the technicality.

BOB: Yeah, but he still has the aggravation. Three days sitting in a cell.

ANTHONY *pause*: Were you adopted, Bob?

BOB: Why do you say that?

ANTHONY: Well, because you guys don't look alike.

BOB: No. I wasn't adopted.

[Long pause.]

ANTHONY: Was Future Man adopted?

BOB: Jesus Christ! No.

[INT. CAR. DAY]

[Dignan and APPLEJACK are sitting in, a '72 Monte Carlo by the curb two houses down from Bob's. Applejack is a small black man with white hair. It's hard to tell exactly how old he is. Around sixty-five.]

DIGNAN: There's a lot of valuable shit in there, Applejack. The silver and the china. The crystal. And the grandfather clock. Goddammit, I bet that clock's worth ten grand.

APPLEJACK: Why the fuck do we need to blow up the car? It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

DIGNAN: Just settling an old score. You might say revenge.

APPLEJACK: That sounds like a lot of bullshit that'll land us in jail.

DIGNAN: We might have to take that chance. Cause I feel pretty strongly about this.

APPLEJACK: Is that Buckethead?

[Anthony is walking Hector down the driveway.]

DIGNAN: Get down.

[Anthony does some stretching exercises in the driveway.]

APPLEJACK: Is that him?

DIGNAN: Wait a second.

[They watch Anthony and Hector start down the street.]

DIGNAN: That's Anthony.

APPLEJACK: That's your friend Anthony?

DIGNAN: Yeah.

APPLEJACK: What's he doing here?

DIGNAN: Looks like he's staying with Buckethead. That's what I figured. He's probably got his own room. Let's see where he's going.

[Applejack puts the car in gear. They drive slowly.]

DIGNAN: Don't get too close.

[Anthony looks back.]

DIGNAN: Stop. He saw us.

[Anthony keeps jogging with Hector.]

DIGNAN: Wait. Did he see us?

APPLEJACK: We're going too slow. It looks like we're following him.

[Anthony goes around a corner, down an alley.]

DIGNAN: Speed up.

[They pull down to the end of the alley. Anthony and Hector are racing down the alley.]