Sleepers

Lorenzo:
The temperature topped out at ninety-eight degrees the day our lives were forever altered.

Carol:
The man I know is not the boy you remember.

Lorenzo:
None of us are.

Tommy:
This is amazing.

John:
Hello-its been a long time.

Sean Nokes:
Who the f*** are you guys?

Tommy:
I thought you'd be happy to see us. I, I guess I was wrong.

John:
Ya know, I thought you'd do a lot better, ya know. Ya know with all that training, all that time you put in - to stand up a watch somebody else money.

Sean Nokes:
I'm asking for the last time, what the f*** do you want ?

John:
Why don't you take your time, it'll come to you. =pauses=. I could see how he might forget us.

Tommy:
Yea.

John:
Ya know, we were just something for you and your friends to play with.

Tommy:
It's a little bit harder for us to forget when you gave us so much more to remember.

John:
You can't quite place us can ya, chief? Let me help you out - you're looking at John Riley and Tommy Marcono.

Sean Nokes:
Oh yea. Yea, that's right. =pause=. That was a long time ago. So, how've ya been?

John:
We're not kids now.

Sean Nokes:
So what do ya want?

John:
What I've always wanted. To watch you die.

Tommy:
=places gun on table=. Oh-you ordered meatloaf. The brisquet here is real good here only you'll never know it. You f***ed up.

Sean Nokes:
Naw-you were scared little pricks-both of you's, all of you's, scared shitless but I, I tried to make you tough, I tried to make you hard.

Tommy:
Well I had you all wrong then Nowkes. All this time I just thought you liked f***ing and beating up little boys.

Sean Nokes:
You two motherf***ers are gonna burn in hell.

John:
Yea-after you. =shoots Nowkes in knee=.

Sean Nokes:
Aaaagh.

Tommy:
Did that hurt Nowkes? =shoots Nowkes in elbow and shoulder=.

John:
=shoots Nowkes in arm and chest=.

John:
=shoots Nowkes in chest=.

Tommy:
=shoots Nowkes in forehead=.

Nokes:
What do you want?

John:
What I've always wanted. To watch you die.

Shakes' Father:
He should not have to do time. Nobody in this family should have to do time. I've done enough time for *everybody*!

Lorenzo:
Most priests like to preach from the pulpit. Father Bobby liked to talk during the bump and shove of a pick-up game.

Father Bobby:
I got a story I wanna tell you.

Young Tommy Marcano:
Not the one about the lepar? That gave me nightmares.

Lorenzo:
Young protesters spoke about how they'd change our lives and fix the world. But while they shouted their slogans, my friends and I went to the funeral services of the young men of Hell's Kitchen who came back from Vietnam in body bags.

King Benny:
Father Bobby would have made a good hitman. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.

Father Bobby:
I stopped off at Attica today on my way up here to see an old friend of mine.

Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra:
You have any friends who aren't in jail?

Father Bobby:
Not as many as I'd like.

John:
One down, Shakes, one down.

Lorenzo:
One what?

Tommy:
One Sean Nokes.

Michael:
You read the Count of Monte Cristo lately?

Lorenzo:
I dunno, 10 years ago

Michael:
I read a little bit every night. I read words like revenge, sweet, lasting revenge.

Michael:
It's payback time.

Lorenzo:
Mike, are you sure you wanna go this way? I mean we buried this a long time ago.

Michael:
You still sleep with the light on?

Michael:
You gotta get me one for our side.

Lorenzo:
One what?

Michael:
One witness. A witness who'll put John and Tommy somewhere else on the night of the murder. A witness they can't touch

Lorenzo:
Don't they got a name for that?

Michael:
A judge would call it perjury.

Lorenzo:
I see, and what are we calling it?

Michael:
A favor.

Carol:
Mug me or marry me, Shakes. I'm too tired for anything else.

Danny Snyder:
I can't do this now. You gotta know that. It's been a long time for me. I mean -ah- you need somebody younger, ya know, somebody like I used to be.

King Benny:
younger is not better. Doesn't have experience, doesn't know his way around the courthouse.

Danny Snyder:
Hey, I'm lucky I can find the courthouse. I had only four cases last year-you know how many I won? None, that's how many, none. In two of them, uh, I, a, I think the jury blamed me personnally.

King Benny:
They must have been innocent. It is tough to get an innocent man off a rap.

Danny Snyder:
I wasn't even planning on going to court with this one. I was just gonna plea it down the best I could and walk away. I wasn't, I wasn't planning on taking this to trial.

King Benny:
Well your plans have been changed.

Danny Snyder:
Well I'm afraid I'll make a mistake and... say the wrong thing and, ya know, uh, uh, make a wrong turn somewhere. You don't want to take that risk.

King Benny:
Life is a risk.

Danny Snyder:
I'm sorry?

King Benny:
Life is risk.

Danny Snyder:
Life is a risk.

King Benny:
Um-huh.

Danny Snyder:
A-huh.I haven't been in here before. What do you need me to do?

King Benny:
Listen. You're going to be given the answers and the questions. All you have to do is read. You can read can't you?

Danny Snyder:
It's, it's, is it in English?

King Benny:
Just don't drift, don't drink, and don't lose.

Danny Snyder:
What if I do lose?

King Benny:
Then you'll go down for the dirt nap.

Danny Snyder:
Never heard that expression before... dirt nap. I'm not cut out for this anymore. I mean a guys gets hit by a bus, ya know, and sues. I like that. Some lady slips in a supermarket, I'm with her, a guy...

King Benny:
The discussion's over.

Danny Snyder:
I'm an alcoholic. This is a murder case. This isn't for me.

King Benny:
It was once. Before you let the drink lead. Be sober by tomorrow and don't look so worried, Snyder. You have nothing to lose, just like the rest of us.

Danny Snyder:
I don't want to be a burden to you, but, I do, you know, aside, or along with my alcohol problem, I have a slight drug problem, I mean nothing big, just...

King Benny:
Go away.

Tommy:
This is amazing!

John Reilly:
Hello! It's been a long time!

Nokes:
Who the f*** are you guys?

Nokes:
Hey, who the f*** asked you to sit down?

Tommy:
I thought you'd be happy to see us... I guess I was wrong.

John:
You know, after all that training, after all that time you put in, just guarding someone else's money... that seems like a waste!

Nokes:
I'm asking you one more time who the f*** you are!

John:
Why don't you take your time it will come to you!

John:
I can see how you might forget. We were just something for you and your friends to play with.

Tommy:
It's not that easy for us to forget... you gave us so much more to remember.

Father Bobby:
What about the life that was taken, Shakes? What's that worth?

Lorenzo:
To me? Nothing.

Lorenzo:
A number of the inmates, as tough as they acted during the day, would often cry themself to sleep at night. There were other cries, too. Diffrent from those full with fear and lonelyness. They were low and muffled, the sounds of pain and anguish.Those cries can change the course of a life. They are cries that once heard, can never be erased from the memory. On this one night those cries belonged to my friend John, when guard Ferguson paid him a visit.

Fat Mancho:
The street is the only thing that matters. Court is for uptown people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. If you got cash you can buy court justice. But on the street, justice has no price. She's blind where the judge sits but she's not blind out here. Out here the b*tch got eyes.

Lorenzo:
Do you love him?

Carol:
I don't think about it, Shakes. If I did, I'd say yes.

Young Michael:
What do you want?

Nokes:
A blowj*b. Down on your knees.

Lorenzo:
I didn't know you like pigeons so much.

King Benny:
I like anything that don't talk.

Lorenzo:
This is a true story of how friendships run deeper than blood. This is my story of the only three friends in my life that have truly mattered. Two of them were killers that never made it past the age of 30. The other is a non-practicing attorney, living within the pain of his past, too afraid to let go, finding reassurance instead of confronting its horror. I was the only one that could speak for them, and for the children we were.

Lorenzo:
There are no clear pictures of the sexual abuse we endured. I buried it as deep as it can possibly go.

Young Michael:
They took turns beating him... until there was nothing left of that kid to beat.

Michael:
Revenge. Sweet lasting revenge. Now it's time for all of us to get a taste.

Lorenzo:
The plan, as it turned out, was as simple and as dumb as anything we'd ever done.

Nokes:
So what do you want?

John Reilly:
What I've always wanted. Is to watch you die!

Michael:
Do you still sleep with the lights on?

Lorenzo:
Michael was the most sexually experienced of us, which means he had kissed a girl on more than two occasions.

Lorenzo:
I couldn't look at him. He might look right through the fear and the shame, right through to the truth.

Fat Mancho:
You want a Rolls-Royce, you don't come here, no no. You go to England, or wherever the f*** they make it. If you want champagne, you go see the French. If you need money, you find a Jew. But, if you want dirt, or scum buried under a rock somewhere, or some secret nobody wants anybody to know about, there's only one place to go: right here, Hell's Kitchen. It is the lost and found of sh*t. They lose it and we find it. Forget about it, man.

Lorenzo:
It fell into my lap.

King Benny:
Father Bobby would have made a good hit-man. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.

Lorenzo:
The future lay sparkling ahead, and we thought we would know each other forever.

Father Bobby:
It was the Sistine Chapel he painted.

John Reilly:
Sixteenth Chapel?

Father Bobby:
Sistine Chapel.

John Reilly:
Who painted the other fifteen?

Lorenzo:
In truth we were all surprised in Michael's action. But in his mind losing that game and handing a feeling of victory was more important to a girl in a wheelchair was more then the right thing to do.

Priest:
You will be defenders of the faith. You will be soldiers of Christ.

Danny Snyder:
Did you observe these experiences?

Ralph Ferguson:
Ye, ye, ye, yes.

Danny Snyder:
Did you more then *observe* these experiences?

Carol:
Don't you guys have to go kill somebody?

John:
No, We've always got time for a song!

Young Michael:
We can eat hot dogs, or we can eat air. Choose...

Young Tommy Marcano:
Air is probably safer, Mike...

Young Michael:
We haven't hit the hot dog vendor in couple of weeks.

Young Tommy Marcano:
I don't know Mike... The cart guy ain't like the others. I mean he gets pretty pissed, like crazy when you try to take him off.

Young Michael:
We can eat hot dogs... or we can eat air... Choose.

Young Tommy Marcano:
Air is probably safer, Mike.