Waiter diary story outline / junk drawer

Morning bus ride to school

Am waiting for the bus to go to school. Dude in a convertible stops in front of my bus stop. Please not this again.

"Hey, remember me?"

"No"

"Last night! Remember! Come on!"

I ask if it was Rich's. He said "YES!" I say, well it wasn't me, because I didn't go to Rich's last night. We carry on. He really seems to think that we did meet last night. The bus mercifully arrives and he has to drive away.

Economics lecture

After about 90 minutes in, I'm fighting to keep up. My notebook is covered with charts and formulas quantifying to what extent an action made in one market affects other markets. My brain is racing.

This stuff is so fascinating but I wish it wasn't taught at this brutally quick pace.

We get our first problem sets back. I did not do well. I completely misunderstood how to solve several parts. Many students did, apparently.

My professor explains one particularly tricky one. Nearly everyone in the class groans when they see how we were supposed to solve it.

She smiles and says "Hey, you can go study poetry if you don't enjoy this"

While I scribble down what she said, in some corner of my mind, I imagine her holding a leather riding crop.

Literature lecture

This class sucks. He's been talking about something he calls the myth of sturm und drang.

According to him, except for a few sad cases, adolescence is not the beginning of a slow march toward misery and then self-annihilation. Most of us are resilient enough to deal with what life throws at us.

He says "When reading poetry, it is important to understand that most of us don't stick our heads in ovens or receive shock therapy. We never get near that low."

"So these artists experience depths and valleys we can not comprehend. The reader and the writer are different species."

Maybe he thinks that his words are so powerful that we can only handle them parsed out slowly, because he talks with needless pauses.

AA meeting after school in the upstairs of the church

I decide to talk.

"When I got here, the wind blew through me like a screen door. Still does a lot of days. But I'm here, not throwing up in a toilet somewhere, so maybe that's progress"

"But I'm pretty scared. I got picked up last year. I did the cliche jailhouse baptism thing and grabbed on tight to this program."

"In some tiny way, this was a good thing. We are all headed downward fast. I'm alive, I'm healthy."

"Now I wait for my trial, I meet with my probation officer every month. and do my best to convince him I'm reformed and it would be a waste to lock me up."

"I wasn't some cool beat poet or tough guy thug or even some daredevil adrenaline freak or punk rocker. I wasn't heroin chic"

Later, the leader says "If anybody in here has the nudge from the judge, throw it in the basket and I'll sign them."

Once I go and pick up, the leader and I talk for a few minutes. He says "Remember son, your best thinking got you here. Keep coming back."

I aim to earnestly look in his eyes while I thank him. I don't like being called son by somebody I don't know.

Dinner shift

We have the confusing special again. I repeat the line that got me laughs the last time, but tonight, just gets me dirty looks.

I cash out with Angie again. She says "I went to a place that reminded me of you. It's this grim place on the other side of the bayou, where the old train station was.

It's a speakeasy in the upstairs of a bankrupt shoe store."

"Went there last week. I walked in and the first thing I thought was 'wow, this is a room full of people like Garrett'." People playing backgammon or reading books. Quiet as a library."

"We went there to see this art installation. It was more like this gigantic mad scientist computer machine though."

"The place feels more like the back aisles at radio shack than a bar."

I say "So it's the kind of place where I could do my math homework?"

"Yes you'd be the coolest kid there"

Yanica visits

Sitting out again on the front steps of the apartment and watching people go out and smoking cigarette #2.

I see the late shift guy coming home. I try again to start a conversation. He shuffles past me and into the building.

After a few minutes, I recognize Yanica's car as soon as she comes in the parking lot and I'm standing up and waving gleefully, and then nearly sprinting over to her.

We hug and I can feel my nervous system flooding me with endorphins.

"Oh wow, is your hair purple now?"

"Yeah, you like it?"

I help her carry her stuff into my place. She looks more gorgeous than I can remember.

I ask her if she's hungry.

"starving"

I bring out the dish I bought at the restaurant and I watch Yanica eat it.

"There's absolutely nothing better than Étouffée, right? It's like the best thing in the world" I say to her.

She grins while she eats it. "You take good care of me"

I talk while she eats. "I'm taking a class again with that professor you think I have a crush on."

Yanica says "You do have a crush on her!"

"A harmless crush! I just love how much of an unapologetic capitalist megabitch she is"

Later, we're in bed, and after a few minutes, it's clear she doesn't want to have sex tonight.

I try not to let my frustration show.

She says "It's just hard to come down here and see you once every few weeks or so. It's like ripping off a scab over and over again."

Now the thought of not having sex seems insignificant. Yanica is everything to me.

Part Two (from rising action to climax)

Economics lecture

Toward the end of class, I watch my professor erase a section of the board that was covered in formulas.

She smiles. "I doubt I'm going to convince many of you on this next point, and don't worry, this won't be on the exam."

We all laugh. She leans on the desk.

"Marx said that in the end stage of capitalism, wages would fall until they reach subsistence wages. At some point soon, the workers will all get paid just enough not to starve to death."

"So, there's either a capitalist hell, where we're all doomed, or communist heaven, where we have no owners, and we all get along beautifully."

"But more choices exist. Demagogues have used this false dichotomy to terrible ends."

Literature class

Now we're talking about Augustine's Confessions, and how Augustine abandoned Manicheism at some point.

Somebody behind me speaks up. "He acts spiritual, but walks out on his mistress and their kid. Never looks back. What are they supposed to do? There's no monk jobs for single mothers."

I look. It's Ash. I remember her name from the beginning of the semester when we all all introduced ourselves.

"I bet that kid experienced some Storm and Stress, growing up hearing how his dad was some spiritual superstar, but he knows the truth."

"Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven because of guys like him."

Ash gives me a ride home from school

I'm at the bus stop, waiting to ride back home. I yell out "BELL JAR!" because I see Ash on her car at the stop light.

She looks my way and makes a raised fist salute. Then drives off when the light turns green.

I open Augustine's Confessions and read more.

Then she circles around and offers me a ride home. We talk on the way home.

"I have to take this class because it's part of the degree program. It's a ton of reading of stuff that might be helpful if I lived two centuries ago and were rich enough to wear a powdered wig."

"That professor disgusts me. He's arrogant."

She asks if I can do her a favor.

She needs help loading up a cooler with ice. She has no electricity in her apartment.

#2 PO visit (how do you spell "irregardless")

I wait in the waiting room for two hours before I get in. I update him with my pay stubs and my signed sheet from AA meetings.

He tells me I'm supposed to be full-time employed, not part-time. I say I'm in school.

"For what"

"Economics"

"Like home ec?"

He asks me how to spell "irregardless" while he's filling out a form. I tell him it isn't a word and he gets mad and makes me take a piss test while he watches.

Trainee at work (dealing with trainee)

In this shift, he shadows me.

Maybe figure out some pithy conversations about dealing with customers that reflects my unhealthy view of the world.

"Figure out a persona to step into here."

In fact, you need several, and you need to guess which is the right one to use for each table."

Late night, waiting for Yanica to call

Studying. Call P, no answer. I call again, no answer. And a third time an hour later.

Ash picks me up in the morning for school

It's the morning. Phone rings.

I pick up the phone and say "Hey! I stayed up all night waiting for you!"

"Is Garrett there?"

Then I realize it ain't Yanica. I feel my face flushing.

She says she can pick me up.

She arrives and comes in. She tells me my apartment looks like a crack house.

I have a mattress on the floor, sheets thumb-tacked over the windows, and a table and a chair. And a TV I got out of the trash. "It only gets the channel with all the TV preachers on it."

She goes through my tapes for the car. She finds that skinny puppy album, remission and grabs that. I tell her I can't listen to that stuff because I'm trying not to indulge in negative emotions.

We drive to school, her going 90 mph, music blaring. We get to school.

"Does anyone else besides your girlfriend call you?"

econ class sex monopolies

Talk about how when there's only a single source for some factor of production, then that source has all the power.

lit class cartooning

Prof is particularly annoying today.

Ash laughs when I show her a cartoon picture I drew of the professor.

AA meeting

Me listening to somebody talking about how dangerous it is to be with people in the old life.

"You hang out at the barber shop long enough, you're gonna get a haircut"

#4 work shift (train the new guy part two)

Comic relief: everything comically goes wrong at work. I train the new guy again and he just keeps fucking up everything.

Maybe he tells me that the stuff I taught him doesn't work right.

He asks me what I do for fun. I tell him I don't really do anything for fun.

I buy another two cigarettes from Angie, a bowl of bisque with crawfish, and a loaf of bread, and walk home.

Late night studying

I call Yanica. She gets off the phone abruptly when her friends show up. I feel like shit.

Ash surprises me at home

She shows up with a lamp. Says she saw it in the dumpster and thought about me.

I'm nearly done with some work.

She goes through my cassettes again while I finish my work.

She says "The fuck is this court date" and she's standing with the letter. I tell her I don't want to talk about it.

Econ class rents and competition

She talks about the two gold mines. One where extraction is easy, the other where extraction is hard.

lit class (empty)

AA meeting

I talk about getting letter with my court date. Feeling scared.

I don't crave getting high though.

I can talk about feeling alienated from people around me.

work (empty)

Late night and Yanica calls me

She complains again about how hard it is to be in this relationship.

"I can't be here without thinking about you, but when I'm with you, back home, I don't connect with people here, and then I feel isolated."

bus ride to school (crazy lady)

I take the bus.

Old woman stands up on the bus and starts saying the driver skipped her stop.

He says he can let her out at the next stop. But she becomes incoherent and starts hitting the glass. Bus driver calls the police on his radio. They arrive and take her away. She screams the whole time.

econ class "how to compute social optimality"

Something about utilitarianism and sacrificing the few for the greater good.

TODO: figure out some pithy thing the prof can say that relates to Garrett's doubts about Ash: in other words, the idea of hanging out with somebody that's still a drug addict / alcoholic is not good.

lit class (empty)

AA meeting or PO appointment (empty)

another shift at work

Late night at the wizard shack

Ash calls. She wants to go out. I tell her I have to study and so does she. I ask why she didn't show up for class.

"Because I was hungover"

I have the idea about the place Angie mentioned.

She's game.

The place is pretty cool. It's in the absolute worst part of town, across the street from the prison. It's an old shoe store.

During the drive and then the walk to the place, she apologizes about rooting through my mail.

She says I must be in the program and all that. She saw the book and the chips on the counter.

She tells me about how she was in a psych hospital for a year. And when she got out, she didn't have any identity any more.

She hated being locked up. She said that once she got out, she tried following what they said, but it really didn't work for her.

"It sounds completely shallow, but you know what did help? Fuckin' shopping for clothes"

She said how going shopping helped her rediscover who she was. Like, she realized she had likes and dislikes. She maxed out her parents credit cards.

Afterward, Ash and I talk to the guy that built the machine. He's really grateful that we came out.

"It can be tough if you don't get any positive feedback."

Ash wants to hit someplace else next. I tell her I have shit to do tomorrow. She drops me off.

next morning, bus ride

Econ class

"The first wave stepped out of the era of alchemy and sorcery. They applied reason and logic and made real progress. Then they reach a dead end. They couldn't progress with tools they had."

"The second wave begins by critiquing the flaws in the first wave's model. By the end, they gleefully burn it all down."

"The third wave comes along and says the first wave wasn't perfect, but they still made useful insights."

lit class

AA meeting

work

Late night at home

Yanica calls. I talk about how Ash and I went to this cool speakeasy.

This contradicts a remark from another night when she said she just wants to stay in Austin and focus on putting roots there.

I mention how we're likely going again tomorrow night. Yanica says she'll drive down tomorrow.

Late night, Yanica and Ash and me hang out at the wizard shack

The three of us go.

Lobster night at work

People keep asking me if they ate the most lobsters.

I call from the break room back home during the shift. Yanica answers.

Yanica and Ash are hanging out. They sound like they're having fun.

Late saturday night, Yanica and me in my apartment

I ask what they did all day.

Yanica wants to fuck, uncharacteristically.

After, I'm smiling from ear to ear.

Then Yanica tells me I shouldn't be hanging out with Ash since she does coke all the time.

I tell her I have a hard time believing her.

Then she says Ash told her she could never be attracted to me. Ash tells Yanica about her ex-boyfriend.

Yanica tells me how Ash still loves this other guy and she could never be into a guy like me and it really messes me up.

I say she's just a friend. "I love YOU, P, not her".

Sunday morning in my apartment

I'm ironing my shirt getting ready to work and Yanica is packing up.

Yanica packs up and leaves and says I need to figure out what I want.

Part Three (from climax down to resolution)

Morning. Ash and I argue on the way to school

She says something how Yanica seems pretty cool.

I'm seething over the what Yanica told me Ash said about me.

I find a roach in her ash tray. I flip out. "Do you know what would happen if we got pulled over?"

She replies by saying it was just her friend's and he must have left it there. Which, of course, makes me more jealous.

I get out of the car.

Econ class

"This is a good time to talk about causality. I've shown you some methods of isolating relationships between data. Education predicts income."

"But there's a trap that shows up over and over again in science. People discover correlations and forget about asking why."

"Sunspots have roughly ten-year cycles. So do most business cycles."

WHAT IS THE THEME: dogma can not always be trusted. Hunches are often as good as data-driven decisions. Looking at what the data shows can lead you to believing sunspots drive stock market.

literature class

Shane not there.

Another shift at the restaurant

I'm in a BAD mood. I say something rude to a customer, a manager has to intervene.

PO visit #3

My trial is coming up. I need a travel permit so I can leave the county.

He's a real hard ass on me this time. Grilling me about my life. Tells me I look like shit. He called to verify my employment and my boss I had a bad shift.

I keep repeating "I'm doing the best I can."

#3 bus ride to school (man shits his pants)

An old man gets on the bus. He's clearly shit his pants. I don't know what to do.

Econ class

Lecture on Keynes' idea that in the long run, we're all dead.

AA meeting

Instead of me talking, in this scene, I'll listen to somebody else talk. I'll listen to somebody talk about how he knows his boyfriend is bad news, but he can't bare the idea of leaving him.

Somebody else says "I seen the dirty movies, and really, you can't say who's fucking who"

late at night, me ignoring the phone when Ash calls

Late at night, after the bad shift, I'm doing homework and waiting for Yanica to call. But she doesn't.

But Ash calls and I don't answer.

I listen to a really sad voice mail from her. She wants to know what the hell is going on.

Austin house party

My trial is Monday morning.

We go to a party with this crowd of people. She introduces me as her friend.

It's awkward because she's a social climber and trying to break into a crowd of cool kids, and I'm kind of socially inept, and I don't know anybody there. They're all art school and film school kids.

I see Yanica hitting on somebody else and I have a panic attack in a bathroom at a house party. Yanica is utterly unsympathetic.

She gets mad that I tell her I want to leave the party.

She says she doesn't like this relationship. I say it doesn't feel like it's doing anything good for me either.

I go back to her apartment alone.

Part Four (From D to E)

meet in lawyer's office before trial

I wake up and Yanica isn't there.

I shower, I put on my suit, and ride the bus across town to my attorney's office.

We review my case. She reminds me there are mandatory minimums involved and the only hope is that the judge defers charges.

We walk to the courthouse. I nearly throw up on the way.

I look around for Yanica. I don't see her..

I can barely understand what I am supposed to do other than stand there and say "yes sir" intermittently.

And then glance around for Yanica every time the door opens.

Then the judge speaks.

The asshole probation officer actually wrote a nice letter to the judge on my behalf.

Saying I would probably not survive a week in jail and furthermore, despite being a complete smart ass, is a model for other probationers.

Deferred adjudication probation. No jail time. I walk back out of the courthouse with my attorney. I thank him.

Bus ride home

I take the Greyhound bus home.

On the bus, I recognize a guy from the courthouse.

I tell him how I have had this dread hanging over me for a long time. But now I can relax.

I tell the guy that my girlfriend is a total bitch. She didn't show up at my hearing.

He tells me she doesn't respect me and tells me about the girl he was seeing before he got locked up.

Econ class

Grades returned. I get a near perfect score on some problem sets.

After class, I visit her in her office to understand my mistake.

She explains it. Then she asks what will I do after I graduate. Says she has some friends that are looking for people that know this stuff. So if I hustled, maybe she could introduce me to them.

Literature class

Ash gone.

AA meeting

Somebody else talks about switching from one drug to another. And then to another.

I realize that was what I did. Off drugs, to Yanica.

Off Yanica, to Ash.

Work.

It goes well enough

End of shift, boss tells me how my PO called to ask about me.

I'm mortified, but he tells me to relax. Half his staff have legal problems. The other half are here illegally.

Late night

I get home. I call Ash. No answer.

Yanica calls. Asks how it went. I told her she won't see me again for a while. She says "oh my god no" I say "oh I'm not going to jail. I just don't want to see you anymore"

Next I call Ash again. No answer. I call her again (and again) and no answer. I get really stressed out about her.

I go out on the stoop and smoke. That guy shuffles past. Ignores me entirely this time.

Studying and glancing at phone.

And calling Ash and no answer.

The end.

AA meeting #2

Remember how that guy told me i should feel grateful that i am not in prison, and i got really upset? I could rehash that scene. I just couldn't click with that crowd, and they made me feel like garbage.

Trip to a psychiatrist

I see a psychiatrist to talk about anti depressants. He asks me how I feel. I tell him how I have a job and I go to school and hit AA meetings at least 3x a week. He asks me again how do i feel. I talk about how I wish I could get more AA meetings in. He asks a 3rd time. Then he points out how I am not telling him how I feel, just what i do.

I reply and say those things make me feel better.

Then I tell him I feel lonely. I don't feel like I belong anywhere. Just too different to relate to anyone.

Class discussion

We were reading Augustine's confessions. Fits into the theme of rule in hell vs serve in heaven.

Shane is really smart. Makes some clever connections that confound the prof.

Brent and Jake and me playing pool after work.

Brent has a twin brother that's a brain surgeon.

Brent and Jake are both fuggin amazing pool players. Jake wants to fuck Brent. They fucked before but Brent just isn't ready to admit he's a fag (Jake's words)

Shane and me driving to school

She rants about that bar that has a different event every night, but really it's just a euphemism for bar trivia.

Shane and me go play pool

Shane and I go to numbers on industrial night. She gets mad at the bartender and we get kicked out. Over something small too.

She tells me how her neighbor across the hall is making her life hell.

P and I on the phone again

During the week, P and I talk, and she gets angry when she finds out I'm hanging out with Shane.

I tell P Shane is really cool, but not my type. She's pretty fat.

P shows up for the weekend

The three of us go out. P glows all weekend. Hard to describe how she lights up a room. Shane really likes P. Admires her.

P works her charms on me as well. Tells me she's ready to fuck. And we do, and of course, she's playing me. Meanwhile in Austin, she's fucking several others.

She spends the day with P while I work. Shane gets drunk after P encourages her and Shane tells P about her ex boyfriend.

P tells me how Shane still loves this other guy and she could never be into a guy like me and it really messes me up.

Next week at school

Shane tells me at school how she thinks P is really cool and had fun with us. I'm seething because I want to know about this boyfriend.

She can tell I'm angry. I don't tell her why.

I take the bus home. I deal with creepy dudes offering me rides, asking me if i was at some club the previous night.

P tells me it is her or Shane.

Shane calls me, I don't call her back.

I ride my bike to that restaurant and eat spaghetti by myself.

I come home and listen to her recording.

She never shows up at school again.

I travel to Austin

Greyhound bus trip to visit P. I get the brush off. We went to her vegan friends fun house. Then to that rich professor's house for the vegan potluck.

Six months later

I graduate. I move to a nicer place. P moves in from Austin. Shit is not good. We fight constantly.

P tells me she knows I fucked Shane (I didn't). She said Shane was a piece of shit anyway and P only befriended her just to get between us

Other scenes

• Making friends with Jake

• AA meetings with Tim

• College classes … you're smart, you could really go far if you applied yourself more

• Lobster night at the restaurant. The gigantic dude that ate 34 lobsters while his two aerobics instructor girlfriends watched.

• I see Shane at the YMCA and she gives me a ride home. Tells me that story about good it feels to smoke after running hard. She comes into my apartment. That crazy lady stops us and won't shut up. In some sense, my apartment was kind of like a flophouse for lost souls. P visits me and lying about if she drove there.

• Sister joins crazy church

• Other sister cutting herself

• More AA meetings, feeling out of touch.

• Seeing other people drop out, crash and burn.

• Hearing AA doesn't work like it says it will -- that kid said he still feels like shit all the time no matter how much he prays

• Shane and me go thrift shopping. Her telling me how it helped her rebuild an identity once she was out of her hospital.

• Omar starts cutting my hair, cleaning me up. Helping me become more.

• Craig dying.

• Craig's funeral where everybody was showing off.

• I run into that guy Jamie and he's clearly back on stuff.

• Jesse and Tracy next door Ironic: I'll tell Jesse that he needs to get out of this toxic relationship.

• Picking her up in Chris's car. Me showing off how I'm starting to be somebody.

• Halloween. I tell her we can't hang out anymore.

• Last voicemail from her

• P explaining how she befriended her to get between us.

Professor stuff

• Nietzsche is saying that the perfection of the individual matters and societies are only worthwhile to the extent that they help build these perfect beings.

Ideas for comic relief / literary gimmicks / running jokes

• At the probation office, listening to somebody try to make excuses for getting fired or getting arrested for public menacing. Maybe every time that I go, the other guy is also there.

• The kitchen staff. Or maybe just the conversations in the back.

• Waiting for the bus that never seems to show up. While dudes are convinced they met me last night try to get me a ride.

• That time all those carnies set up their show in Montrose, across the street from that really sketchy bar.

• The new mural at Mary's every week and watching and listening to people's reactions