1969. Paulie Parcells, MIA in VietNam, assumed to be dead, appears a year later at his family’s New Jersey home. Julie, his old girlfriend, who’s been involved with his brother Nicky, returns to Paulie. And his father, Gus, who recently refused to buy a new truck for the younger Nicky, buys one for Paulie and invites him into the family business. Nicky, devastated by these betrayals, discovers a secret about Paulie’s tour in VietNam. In a desperate attempt to win back his father and Julie’s love, he embarks on an action that will bring havoc to this family forever.

"WHO COLLECTS THE PAIN"
(Synopsis)
New York City. 1993. Twenty five years to the week after the shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King. Racial conflicts are erupting all over the streets of NY. Mickey, an idealistic, white, Columbia student, meets Lorraine, a beautiful, black, aspiring writer. who's spent all her life in Harlem. Despite enmity on both sides (Mickey's cousin Ryan, also at Columbia, harbors strong racial resentment; as does Lorraine's brother Mercy, and her recent ex-boyfriend Danny). Mickey and Lorraine begin a deep and passionate romance, which unhinges the volatile Danny. Tensions deepen even further when Ryan discovers that his brother Scottie's watches (Scottie was killed in racial incident out in Brooklyn) are missing. Believing that Danny stole the watches, Ryan grabs a gun and races off into the Harlem night. He arrives at Mercy's apartment at exactly the same time that the enraged Danny has confronted Mickey and Lorraine. Domestic and social tensions explode simultaneously in this brilliant, award-winning drama.

Harp Farrell and Becca Rodriguez...N.J. high school lovers back in the early 1970s...meet for the first time since their graduation night, 47 years ago, when Harp was accused of killing Becca’s gay and troubled brother Donnie. Harp, the Golden Boy, got off (though many believed he was guilty) and fled town to a difficult life up in New Hampshire. Becca recovered and married Ben, African American, and Harp’s best friend way back then, and has had a great life. Neither she nor Harp, though, has been able to forget their first, and strongest love, and after a little wine, conversation, and a sudden passionate kiss...they are back in the past, 18 years old once more, where they relive that fated night, and the truth behind Donnie’s tragic death, the truth that now turns both their lives upside down, is finally made clear.

Somerset, N.J. One morning, the state awakes to thousands of birds lying beside the turnpike, all the way to NYC. Making crying sounds. A zoologist is called in. He says there’s nothing wrong. “‘Cept they’re broken. Way down inside their eyes. There’s something broken.”
Dave McCarthy, “McCarts”, 37, a working class guy who grew up in and never left Somerset, is separating from his wife. A trauma in his past has made it impossible for them to truly consummate their relationship. On the night that he’s leaving he hears that the local hero, Alex Bennet, who grew up there and became a heartthrob star of the TV show “Cop Guy”, is back in town. McCarts loved and idolized Alex when they were boys. But he believes that Alex was one of the kids responsible for this trauma, years back. He decides to pay Alex a surprise visit. In his motel room along the turnpike.
He arrives. Alex is very uncomfortable. McCarts keeps slowly stalking him around the room, telling him he’s watched him on TV for years, “...but you haven’t been in anything for a while, what’s up?” Alex keeps avoiding the question, keeps disappearing into the bathroom. Then McCarts starts demanding that Alex say the key line from “Cop Guy”, the line that ended every show, the line that all the girls loved, the famous “Allright, McGreevey. Take me downtown.” Alex, thinking this will finally get McCarts to leave, says the line. McCarts goes bananas. Loves it. And won’t leave. Alex demands to know what he wants. McCarts begins circling him while recounting the traumatic incident from his past, when Alex and “Chuckie Wendell” got McCarts drunk when he was 11, so much so that he fell unconscious, then they tied him to a tree and left him. Then Mr. Climan, a local weirdo, who apparently had a history of something like this in Utah, found him and had his way with him deep into the night. Scarring McCarts forever. Alex claims that he left by the time McCarts fell unconscious, that it was Chuckie Wendell who tied him to the tree. McCarts doesn’t buy it, snaps out a switch blade, puts it to Alex’s neck, and offers his ultimatum: he demands that Alex teach him to say “Allright, McGreevey. Take me downtown” exactly the way he’s seen Alex say it so many times, for so many years on so many televisions. “Like a hero.” If Alex does this, he’s free. If not, he’s dead.
Alex starts teaching him but McCarts can’t get it. Each time he tries to do it, it’s false, it has nothing heroic about it. McCarts, incensed, threatens him with the knife. Through an old acting technique Alex finally gets McCarts to do it with some strength, some heroism. McCarts is ecstatic. He can’t stop doing it, all over the motel room, “Allright, McGreevey. Take me downtown.” Alex finally thinks he’s going to leave. But McCarts has one more thing on his mind. Fame. McCarts- “I’m up in the air now. But I want more. I want to fly. Give me fame, Alex. You got it. You can get it. Get me fame.” He raises his knife. Nervous, Alex goes to call his agent. To get McCarts fame. McCarts, feeling thankful, tells Alex he believes him now. That it wasn’t Alex who abandoned him that fateful night, years ago.
The door bursts open. It’s Julio, a guy they both knew from childhood, whom they called “Hummingbird”. He’s a transvestite now and runs a Krspy Kreme shop off the turnpike. He’s running around the room screaming that Alex, for the third time, broke into his shop and stole from the cash register. Then he explodes into the bathroom that Alex has been disappearing into and comes out with a mirror filled with cocaine. “So this is where my money went?!” Hummingbird hurls the mirror, then reveals the truth about Alex. That he’s a coke addict and a thief, that he ruined his career, then came running back home, that he and Hummingbird have been having an affair till Hummingbird finally kicked him out... And then he reveals the big truth. That it was Alex who tied McCarts up and left him that night. “He told me two weeks
ago. After three bottles of wine.”
Alex lets out a yell, leaps and starts brutally strangling Hummingbird. McCarts tries to
intervene, Alex picks up a bust of the Maltese Falcon (which he bought in Hollywood years before, when he was successful), to crack it on McCarts’ head. But McCarts, protecting himself, slips the knife into Alex’s chest, killing him. Hummingbird flees the motel.
McCarts calls his wife. Says he’s returning. Tells her to get some wine for tonight. “Things’ll be OK now.” He then tenderly cradles Alex in his lap. Closes Alex’s eyes. And whispers, “We’re free now, Alex. We’re up in the air. We’re flying. We’re home now, Al. We’re free.” The sounds of the birds, the broken birds along the turnpike, flying up, flying free, are heard.