INT. SANTA ANA APARTMENT COMPLEX – DAY.
A pair of sun-weathered middle-aged men are napping on separate couches. The room looks like an abandoned pawnshop – every bit of space is filled with cheap electronics, mismatched furniture, rubbish, and grime. Cockroaches abound.
RYAN LEAF: [wakes up with a start] Shit!
TODD MARINOVICH: [comes to gradually] Hmmggrhhh.
RYAN LEAF: [sits up] SHIT! FUCK!
TODD MARINOVICH: Chill, man. What’s wrong?
RYAN LEAF: I forgot to go to work!
TODD MARINOVICH: [begins giggling, softly at first, but eventually reaching a crescendo where he begins to clutch his belly from laughing so hard and breaks into a bout of coughing that sounds like the end stages of emphysema]
RYAN LEAF: Shut up, man, this isn’t fucking funny!
TODD MARINOVICH: Bro, you got fired, like, two weeks ago.
RYAN LEAF: [furrows brow] Wait…oh. [remembers] Shit.
TODD MARINOVICH: [sits up and hunches over a coffee table marked by coffee rings and gouges in the wood. He digs into the pocket of his filthy jeans and pulls out a small white pill. He scans the table, locates a razor blade, then begins cutting it up into powder right on the table]
RYAN LEAF: What is that?
TODD MARINOVICH: [shrugs] Beats me. Aspirin, probably.
RYAN LEAF: Well, shit. I could do with something better. You got any money?
TODD MARINOVICH: [snorts with laughter]
RYAN LEAF: Yeah, me neither. [reaches between the couch curtains and pulls out a remote control. He points it at an amplifier across the room.] At least we got some tunes.
Is it ridiculous that I actually spent a little bit of time debating whether these guys lived in Long Beach, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, or maybe the shittiest part of Oceanside?
The good thing is if I change my mind, it will be pretty easy to weave an eviction notice into this sprawling storyline.
I think the next best choice would have been the shitty part of Oceanside except they’re not ex-military.
If it was Garden Grove, you would have had to set it in a Vietnamese coffee lounge…
I’ve never actually been to Garden Grove – I just assumed it was a shithole because Sublime sang about it.
it’s your regular run of the mill middle class Vietnamese neighborhood. With coffee joints featuring bikini-clad servers.
SO YOU KNOW WHERE TO PUT THE TIP.