In Act I, you can choose to establish the scene, in which case everyone else tells you if it will resolve in a manner good or bad for you, or you can let everyone else establish the scene but then you get to choose how it resolves. A good outcome for you means you get a white die; a bad outcome is a black die. In Act I, you will then give that die to another player.
The door opens from Drew's office in the back of the store, at the end of the hallway, and past the door to the room that holds the XXX titles. The hallway is segregated from the rest of the store by a curtain of beads. Following a cloud of smoke, Donna strides out of the office, only to stop abruptly when she sees Tammy, one leg kicked up behind her, flirting with Ed at the counter.
She exhales deeply, rolls her eyes, then pops her gum once or twice while she thinks. After a quick check in her mirrored compact, she puts a drop or two of Visine in her reddened eyes and hikes up her spandex leopard-print skirt a bit. She tosses her hair about and roughs up her cheecks- a typical battleplan from the Princess Playbook - and strides out through the beads into the store, as if she were God's Gift To Men.
Head held high, she saunters up to the counter and unwraps one of the blow-pops Drew keeps for sale to the kids. She flashes a glance at Tammy (a glance that Tammy completely understands), then turns her predatory attention to Ed. Lolling the blow-pop around in her mouth expertly, she smiles at the clerk and purrs. "You know Ed, Drew thinks the world of you. He says you're the glue that keeps this store afloat, and he won't let anyone pry you away from him. He also told me you go to that gym over on Brannon Ave - I didn't know you were a boxer!"
"Oh," is the first word out of Ed's mouth, as it usually is. "Oh, hello, Miss Donna," he adds. "Uh. Yeah. My boss Drew always does right by me so I do right by him. I just do the best I can. Here and at the gym." He thinks a little about what he should do next, and smiles. "Is there anything I can get you, Miss Donna? We got us a new shipment, even some a' those newfangled whatchamacallits, them dee vee dees? One about the Serengeti, one about the Arctic...Antarctic?...that ice place. And, uh, you know. Other titles."
Tammy was only in Drew's Video Emporium because she could walk there on her breaks, and Ed never charged her late fees no matter how long she kept the tapes. Sometimes a girl just wants to have King Kong Lives at a moment's notice. But now Donna was here, and she had given Tammy the look.
"Buncha guys wailin' on each other like Ol' Corby an' Joeboy Junior do every other friday night outside the Chicken Hut? Ah nevah saw much point in it," Tammy interjects, letting her hand brush Ed's ever so slightly as he hands him back a 3-week overdue King Kong Lives. "Lovah's always better'n a fightah, sugah."
"Oh," Ed says, for real no shit blushing at Tammy Lee's touch. Two nice girls paying attention to him? Ed hasn't had this good a day in...his mouth goes slack a little as he tries to think back to a day as good as this and finally comes up empty. "Uh, I wouldn't know nothin' or close to nothin' 'bout that, Tammy Lee," he finally says.
Donna aims a warm smile at Ed, and brushes his other hand with hers as she reaches for the DVDs Ed has set aside. "I'll like to check out those nature flicks you recommended - they'll look real good on Rocco's big screen."
As Ed rings her up, she reaches for one more disk from behind the counter. "Tammy's right you know. About lovers. I'll take this one too."
Suck it, bitch she thinks, proud of herself. Tammy's mouth drops open in shock when she sees the VHS tape that Donna hands over to Ed. Mafia Dongs just happens to feature blond pornstar Christy Canyon on the cover, coincidentally wearing large hoop earrings with a short black leather jacket (and essentially nothing else). Though Ed tries to hide it, she catches him comparing the outfit to her own.
Tammy feels the sting when Donna mentions Rocco, no doubt about it. She recovers quickly just in time to get metaphysically slapped with Mafia Dongs.
No. Nuh-uh. Okay, yes, she needed to get back somebody noticed her break was runnin' long, but this couldn't go unanswered. Tammy Lee leans in across the counter, letting her too-tight "Sa-WEET Tea!" shirt draw Ed's attention like a mosquito to a bug zapper. "Ah gotta get back ta work, Ned," she says, twirling one of the loose blond locks dangling above her ear, "But maybe you could pick somethin' out fer me ta watch tonight? You know what ah like, hon. Ah'll come by after my shift n' pick it up." Tammy gives Donna a split-second this ain't over" snarl, then she turns and waggles her ass for the door.
"Oh," Ed goes. Not sure where to look first. Kinda looking first at Donna, then at Tammy Lee, then...somewhere? These two are definitely giving him a...man reaction. Oh boy. Best stay close to the counter until that passes.
Tammy Lee walking away definitely gets him to look at...you know, and the man reaction doesn't abate. "Goodbye, Tammy Lee," he half-shouts after her. "I'll get you your movie later!" His voice lowers to a mutter. "The name's Ed, but...it's not a...it's not a big deal."
Donna watches Tammy leave almost abstractly, a plan hatching in her head. She turns back to the dejected face of Ed.
What a fuckin' loser, she thinks, just like the rest of 'em.
"Ed, honey." She gently lifts his head up with her bright-red fingertips, bringing his gaze up to match hers. "Don't worry about her, she don't care about you. Not like me and Drew." She smiles and continues. "He's got big plans for you, ya know. Thinks he might sell this place to you. Could make a name for yourself. Women like men who run stuff. Who make things happen."
She signs the credit card receipt for the movies and picks up the plastic bag Ed put them in. Lighting a Virginia Slims Luxury Light Menthol 100, she tosses another flirtatious smile at the overwhelmed clerk. Cocking her hip to one side, she turns to leave, but stops at the door.
"Hey babe, you fightin' this Friday night? Do they allow ladies in to watch? I'd like to see those guns fire off, ya know."
She strolls out into the night, and Ed looks down at the credit card receipt (which, of course, is a company card for Rocco's car dealership). On the back, Donna left him a message:
After the fight - 1:00 AM, Sunset Motel, room 2B. Bring your gloves.
Drew leaned back in his worn leather chair and took a drag on his cigarette. "Yeah, Donna, I think we should be takin' someone else along, ya know, some muscle. Makes the convincin' easier. Maybe we should take the dummy outside. He don't talk much, and he's not too bright neither. Hey, how 'bout you prep him a bit when you go out, build up his confidence in us a lil', and then I go out and do the pitch?"
He waited for her nod, then leaned forward again and slid a small bag of white powder across the table. "An' here's a lil' somethin' fer later." He gave her a crooked smile and stared unabashedly down her blouse as she got up. "Ya know, if this all don't work out, you really should reconsider my movie offer."
Thursday, 8:40 PM
Drew's Video Emporium
Drew comes out of the office just as Ed comes back from the restroom. He looks at the flushed face, and gives a knowing nod. "That Donna there sure's a hot one, ain't she?" Ya know, women like that like men who make stuff happen. Gotta impress 'em, see? Now, I know you go an' do the boxin' an' all, an' that'll all help, but ya gotta make stuff happen."
He leans against the counter and lights a new cigarette. After a drag, he continues. "Now, ya know I make stuff happen in this here town, an' ya know I'm lookin' out fer you. Ya wanna learn the ropes, I got an opportunity" - the long word is pronounced very deliberately - "coming up real soon. That somethin' that might interest you?"
"Oh," Ed says. "Yeah, Miss Donna is...she sure is something, boss."
He looks at Drew talking about 'making stuff happen' like he's following the reverend doing his sunday sermon. "Uh huh!" Ed says, nodding along. "Just tell me what I gotta do, boss."
"OK, here's whatcha gotta do: come to Rocco's tonight, after they close, 'round ten. Don't park in front of the lot, park somewhere up or down the round where they can't see your car. You got a baseball bat or a crowbar? Bring that. Yeah, and a coat with a high collar and a baseball cap or somethin'."
Drew gives Ed a grin through his crooked teeth. "We'll make stuff happen. Oh, and don't tell no one what I said to you just now. Now, repeat the instructions back to me." Yeah, Drew had been working with Ed for a while.
"Oh boy," Ed says. First he's gotta give Tammy Lee a movie, then he's gonna go to Rocco's with Drew, then he's gotta go meet Miss Donna for a boxing lesson? This is getting mighty complicated, and you can all but see the smoke come pouring out of his ears.
"Be at Rocco's around ten, don't park nowhere near the place, bring a coat and a cap and a bat," Ed repeats back. "Got it, boss!"
"Thank you, have a good night," Ed tells the last customer in line, who dropped off three videos (Bare Trek, Bare Trek: The Next Penetration, Bare Trek: Deep Throat Nine), but seemed kind of an a hurry, with that trenchcoat of his wrapped around him. Trenchcoat! Ed's mouth slackens as his brain engages, and his eyes make their way to the clock. Oh, damn, he still needs to go home and talk to ma and find his dad's coat and a hat maybe and where did he leave that baseball bat, from when dad used to play with him, that's gotta be...well, dang, where did he leave that, didn't he give that away to Jim Bob, nah, Jim Bob moved away before his dad did and Ed kept the bat so when dad came back they could play again, and...
"Why hellah, Ted," Tammy Lee says, and Ed looks at her because he didn't notice her come in and did her shirt get tighter, wow it sure got sweatier, ain't nice to stare... "You got mah video, sugah?"
"Oh," Ed says. Darn, he been thinking too much about what Drew said and what Miss Donna said, he plum forgot about Tammy Lee, and that ain't good. He blushes. "Oh, hello, Tammy Lee," he says. "Uh, I was - uh..."
Darn, boy. Think of something! You can't go admitting to Tammy Lee you forgot her! She ain't never gonna forgive you that!
"Uh, I was thinking, Tammy Lee," Ed lies. "I was thinking, uh, we got us a lot of those monster movies, and I ain't so sure which ones you already seen, so maybe you want to come with me and we can go take a look, pick out a good one for you?"
Tammy Lee rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh of annoyance, but since Ed's not looking at her eyes anyway and the sigh does interesting things to her shirt, he don't exactly notice.
Jeeee-sus life was so hard sometimes. First that thang with Donna, then she ain't exactly had a cornucopia of tips tonight, then Fred here forgot to get her movie. Not that she really cared what it was at this point, she said it at the time just to get one over on Donna, and then she was the one what had to walk out, and Jesus life was so-
Oh right, whassisname needed an answer.
"Uh, sure, hon."
Donna. Donna spins around inside Tammy Lee's head during the long walk through the new releases, and back through the rows of lonely black VHS cases organized meticulously by esoteric subject matter. Tammy Lee was not trash, and it was high time Donna learned that. They pass Goodfellatios, the one where one of the guys looks really, really close to Joe Pesci, like, it's weird how similar they look, and Tammy Lee's poor unused subconscious holds up that crayon-scrawled mental image from earlier that night, with Ed paying a lot of attention to Donna's outfit after she pulled that one porno off the shelf, and Tammy Lee gets an idea. It rattles around a bit up there on its own, but it's up there all the same.
But she would have to talk to Ned. Maybe more than that, even. Jesus life was so hard.
With an apprehensive sideways glance, Tammy Lee asks, "So, uh, Fred, you look like you gotta lot on yer mind, sugah?"
"Oh," Ed says. Drew said not to tell anyone about what he told Ed, so he keeps mum about that. And even Ed has better sense than to tell Tammy Lee that Donna wants to see him later.
"Oh, yeah," Ed says. "I got some stuff to do later, and I tried real hard to think of a good video for you, Tammy Lee, but I didn't want to be too presuming." (Prey-sooh-min'.) "I was thinkin'" - Ed grabs for a VHS box - "maybe Return of Godzilla? Or Destroy All Monsters? We also got us Jurassic Park, but I gotta be honest, that one's not so funny in my opinion - well, I guess that lawyer person getting snacked on while he was on the shitter, that was a laugh. But it ain't like the old movies. You know?"
"Saw that one at the drive-in," Tammy Lee replies.
Flashback: Opelika's drive-in theater, a smattering of pickups and barely-running hand-me-down cars peppering the gravel. In the glow from Jeff Goldblum's mutterings about chaos theory, a hand smacks up against the inside of a fogged-up window. In the blurry palm-print window left behind, we see that Tammy Lee ain't exactly watching the movie.
"Ooh!" she exclaims, pulling out a battered case. "Godzilla vs. Megalon!" She pauses just a second, unsure where to go next, then recovers, leaning one shoulder on the shelves. She fixes Ed with a look that doesn't quite hide the fact that she's trying real hard to remember anything useful about the man. "So, Ed, you wanna watch it with me?"
"Oh," Ed says. He has to think about that. On one hand, if Drew's right, he'll got something going on, and girls always respect that. On the other hand, if he says no to Tammy Lee, she might be hurt and never talk to him again and shit, Ed doesn't want that, either. No, he's gotta do what he's gotta do, but he has to explain it to Tammy Lee so she won't be mad.
"I'm so sorry, Tammy Lee, I just plum can't tonight," Ed says. "Any other day, but I gotta go and get over to Rocco's in a mean hurry and I gots to stop by my ma's trailer to pick up the stuff first so I'm in a real pickle if I don't hustle." Something like hope creeps into his voice. "You...you wanna watch it tomorrow?" (Tuh-marrah.)
Tammy Lee's eyebrow marks a new altitude record as Ed blabs. Ed... going to Rocco's... and he needs stuff... and it's after closin' time. Detective Tammy was on the case!
"You're boxin' tomarrah, hon," Tammy reminds Ed. "But maybe ah'll come see your fight after all?" She relents and gives him a smile. "Now git goin' before you git missed! Don't worry 'bout a thang, ah'll lock up. Been doin' it enough at the Chicken Hut, ain't nothin' to it."
Admiral Duck Sauce
