Salty language ahoy!

I'm chalking this one up as a particularly sloppy character exercise. I have no interest at all in continuing it. It's a snapshot of two unhappy people, Paul and Tina. This is vaguely based on some eavesdropping I did over the weekend, but mostly I made it up. I am not convinced Tina is the right name for the female lead, but I can't think of anything else right now. I'll probably come back later and change it to something better.

Again, warning for persistent profanity.


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PAUL AND TINA ARE IN LOVE
It’s so stupid. Paul keeps accusing Tina of flirting with customers while she pours coffee and takes orders at Dunkin Donuts. Every day he yells a little louder, as if hitting a certain range of deafening will suddenly cause her to crumble and confess that, when men come up and order the four pack of munchkins and a small coffee, she goes out back with them and delivers the best and worst sort of customer service Paul can imagine.

Paul is a confirmed cheater. But that doesn’t matter. Oh no. That has nothing to do with his rampaging against her imagined flirtations over bagels and cream cheese and coolatas.

Sometimes she thinks it’s a competition, to see who can say “fuck you” the most. Tina slams the front door and he comes out after her, drags her back inside and kicks the door closed himself, louder. So she goes into her bedroom--their bedroom but for the moment it is hers--she slams the bedroom door once, opens it, slams it again and opens it and slams it a third time in Paul’s face.

Tina cries a lot during this extended argument and he says fuck you, stop crying you bitch I don’t fucking care if I make you cry. And she screams back at him; Tina’s not crying because she’s sad and he’s hurting her feelings. She cries because she is so angry and so sick of this fight because goddamnit it’s not true! He’s the one who cheated, not her!

Paul’s taken to dropping in at Tina’s work, no doubt trying to rack up evidence against her in his mind. She knows he doesn’t understand that customer service means being friendly and smiling, making small talk if Tina wants to keep her job. He tries to drag her down, yelling that she’ll never stop working there, working that shitty job and coming home smelling like burned coffee and deep fried sugar. It makes him want to puke on her.

At least it pays the rent, keeps them off the street and from starving to death. So what if it’s not a great job with perks like paid vacation and health insurance? You’re fucking lucky to have a steady job right now at all! Where’s your half of the rent, you fucking bum? Oh that’s right, you don’t have it because you haven’t been able to get hired again since the last time when you punched out the manager and threw a wrench at the customer who said you’d done a bad job on his car. Paul keeps getting fired for being an asshole.

Tina’s myspace has “Paul+Tina 4ever!” plastered all over it. Maybe she hasn’t been on in a while, because today is the fifth day in a row they’ve been fighting.

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Honestly, I think both Tina and Paul are unsympathetic characters. If I were to continue it, I'm sure they'd get into a physical fight with each other. Mutual domestic abuse. Blargh.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Later!