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All the Best Poets Sit in the Smoking Section:30
INT – PANCAKE HUT TABLE SIXTEEN – NIGHT
TITLE: Wednesday, August 23, 2000. 12:45am
SARAH seats JEFF at table sixteen.
IRENE
(approaching JEFF)
Well you’ll have to make due with me tonight, Evette is sick.
JEFF
Oh, is she alright?
IRENE
Yeah, but I don’t think she is really sick, I think Denny’s just starting to get on her nerves.
JEFF
Asshole bosses.
IRENE
Uh-huh.
JEFF
Well I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Denny much longer.
IRENE
Why do you say that?
JEFF
Well just between you and me, Denny is also working at Sugar Jacks.
IRENE
What is that, some kind of breakfast cereal?
JEFF
No, no, it’s a strip club. I think he’s bartending there.
IRENE
Oh now it’s all starting to make sense!
IRENE lowers her voice and leans in to JEFF.
IRENE (CONT’D)
I’m not supposed to say anything, but I think he asked Evette to come down there and strip or something. I know whatever he said really pissed her off.
JEFF
Oh, that’s too bad …not that it wouldn’t be nice to see Evette dancing naked.
IRENE rolls her eyes.
IRENE
Well I got to get back to work. Coffee and Coke with no ice?
JEFF
Yep!
IRENE walks away to pour JEFF’S pop and make his coffee.
EXT –PANCAKE HUT PARKING LOT – NIGHT
LISA-ANN pulls up outside. She exits her car and approaches the entrance.
INT – PANCAKE HUT TABLE SIXTEEN - NIGHT
The straw falls from JEFF’S glass onto the table. A short snippet of Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ plays
EXT –PANCAKE HUT PARKING LOT – NIGHT
LISA-ANN exits her car in the Pancake Hut parking lot and approaches the front door
GARY, in his cook uniform, is out front smoking a cigarette
GARY
Hey LeAnn.
LISA-ANN
Hi Gary. It’s Lisa Ann, but that’s okay. So is Jeff here?
GARY
Maybe, but he might’ve left because Evette’s not working tonight.
LISA-ANN
So it’s that obvious, huh; that he likes Evette?
GARY
He wrote a poem about her. Well, not really about her, more about her eyes.
LISA-ANN
He hasn’t shown me that one yet.
GARY
Well he showed it to me. It didn’t really make any sense. What does ‘crystalline’ mean?
LISA-ANN pushes open the front door, leaving her greasy fingerprints on the glass.
LISA-ANN
Transparent.
INT – PANCAKE HUT – NIGHT
Guess Who’s ‘These Eyes’ plays in the background.
LISA-ANN bypasses SARAH and heads straight for table sixteen.
JEFF
Oh, hey Leese!
LISA-ANN
Hi Jeff, what’s up? I heard you wrote a new poem.
JEFF
I’m always writing new poems.
LISA-ANN
Well this one is about Evette.
JEFF
My last twelve poems have been for Evette; either Evette or Sarah.
LISA-ANN
Sarah? The seventeen-year old hostess? You should at least wait until she turns eighteen, somebody might get the wrong idea.
JEFF
You know me; always writing about what I can’t have.
LISA-ANN
What you can’t have or what you shouldn’t have? …and the one about Evette?
JEFF
Which one?
LISA-ANN
Supposedly you wrote one about her ‘crystalline’ eyes that has sparked some controversy here at Pancake Hut.
JEFF
Maybe that’s the real reason she’s feeling sick today.
LISA-ANN
She’s under the weather?
JEFF
No, not really, well according to Irene, her manager tried to get her to dance at his strip club.
LISA-ANN
Which manager, Denny or Gary?
JEFF
Who do you think? Denny.
LISA-ANN
Denny has a strip club?
JEFF
Well it’s not exactly his strip club; it’s a club he just started working at. My guess is that he wants to score some brownie points with his new boss by recruiting his most attractive waitresses to dance there.
LISA-ANN
And which club is this?
JEFF
Sugar Jacks.
LISA-ANN
Sounds like a cereal.
JEFF
Actually the ‘jack’ refers to a certain activity that goes on inside there.
LISA-ANN’S eyes widen.
LISA-ANN
Really?
JEFF
Yep.
LISA-ANN
Hmm, so the girls do a little more than just dance there?
JEFF
Uh yeah, John dropped nearly two-hundred dollars!
LISA-ANN
That shit head! He owes me twenty bucks!
JEFF
You too?
