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Tucker Kingly's Bad Luck Week

Ch. 1 · The Wrong Middle Name

The Copper Kettle staff locker room, one hour before opening. Missy K has Tucker backed against the bench over Sunday night; he is still tying his apron.
  1. Narration: This is Tucker Nolan Kingly: eighteen, a junior at Northgate High, and one year into the worst-paid job in town.
  2. Missy K: Tucker Norman Kingly!
  3. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Nolan. It's Nolan, Missy K.
Missy K lays out Sunday night. Tucker gives her the short version and stops at the part that matters.
  1. Missy K: Sunday night. One in the morning. You walked out my front door with a customer over your shoulder.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: She couldn't stand up.
Missy K pushes the accusation further; Tucker answers with the plain facts.
  1. Missy K: You took her home. Your apartment. Alone.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: I gave her the bed. I slept on the floor.
The questions get smaller and harder: no ambulance, no phone call to her.
  1. Missy K: You didn't call an ambulance.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: She said no hospitals. She was crying about it.
  3. Missy K: And you didn't call me.
Missy K turns her back to him and names what the whole pub is going to think.
  1. Missy K: Twenty years I've had this place. You know what my regulars are going to say about my closer?
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Let them say it.
Missy K turns back and asks the one question that decides everything.
  1. Missy K: Say it plain, then. Say you'd do it again.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: I'd do it again.
Tucker refuses to apologize for the one thing he is not sorry about.
  1. Tucker Nolan Kingly: She was on a kerb in the rain with no coat, Missy K. I'm not going to say sorry for that.
  2. Narration: This is the part of Tucker that gets him in trouble: he has never once been able to walk past somebody on the ground.
The sentence lands: bar off, tables on.
  1. Missy K: You don't touch my bar. Tables, booths, floor. Every shift this week.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: That's a pay cut.
  3. Missy K: That's a consequence.
Opening hour at the Copper Kettle. Tucker is on tables. Booth two has already worked out who he is.
  1. Caption: Opening hour.
  2. Narration: Tables only, which means the tray, the small talk, and every person in this room getting a long look at him.
  3. Hailey's friends: That's him. That's the one from Sunday.
The booth gets its drinks and decides to make a show of it.
  1. Hailey's friends: Is it on?
  2. Hailey's friends: It's been on since he walked in.
  3. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Two colas, one lemonade, fries nobody's going to eat.
The phone is running. Tucker sets the drinks down anyway.
  1. Hailey's friends: Go on. Say something for the camera.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Enjoy the fries.
Missy K sends him to another table; the booth says the thing loud enough for him to hear.
  1. Missy K: Table six, Kingly.
  2. Narration: He has had a lot of practice at hearing people laugh at him.
  3. Hailey's friends: Ask him where she slept.
The whole room turns to the booth. One regular says what everyone else is thinking; Tucker keeps the tray level.
  1. Copper Kettle regulars: Leave the kid alone. He's working.
  2. Narration: One year on this floor and he has never dropped a tray. Tonight the room is trying.
Missy K ends it in one sentence; the girls leave a message behind them.
  1. Missy K: You've had your sodas. Pay at the counter, ladies.
  2. Hailey's friends: We were just leaving.
  3. Hailey's friends: Tell Hailey the fries were cold.
Missy K shoves a plate of food at him and pretends it means nothing.
  1. Missy K: Eat something. You look like a wet receipt.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: That's the nicest thing you've said to me all week.
  3. Narration: She has never once explained why she does this.
The room thins out. Booth two has left something behind on the table.
  1. Missy K: Chairs, Kingly. Then the trash.
  2. Narration: Booth two paid in cash and left the glasses.
Closing. The pub is empty and the chairs are up.
  1. Missy K: Trash, then home. Don't let me find you asleep in the booth again.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: That was one time.
Missy K locks up, says his name, and lets him go.
  1. Missy K: Kingly.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Yeah?
  3. Missy K: Nothing. Go home.
Tucker comes out with the trash and finds Dani waiting for him under the lamp.
  1. Caption: 12:52 a.m.
  2. Danielle "Dani" Voss: Hey.
  3. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Dani? What are you doing out here?
She will not come inside. She is shaking too hard to pretend she is fine.
  1. Danielle "Dani" Voss: I can't. I didn't come here to be seen.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: You're shaking. Come inside, I'll get you a coffee.
She says why she came: a man has been asking about Tucker's shifts.
  1. Danielle "Dani" Voss: A man came by on Tuesday. He asked which nights you close.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Who?
  3. Danielle "Dani" Voss: My ex.
The money. She took it when she left him, and the number is small and ruinous.
  1. Danielle "Dani" Voss: When I left him I took money. Nine hundred dollars he says was his.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Okay. And?
She says the part he cannot argue with: her ex has already decided where the money went.
  1. Danielle "Dani" Voss: He's decided I gave the money to you.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: I'm a waiter. I don't have anybody's money.
Dani delivers the warning she came to deliver, and the chapter lands on it.
  1. Danielle "Dani" Voss: He wants his money back, Tucker. And he's decided you're the one holding it.
  2. Tucker Nolan Kingly: Then he's wrong.
  3. Danielle "Dani" Voss: He doesn't change his mind. He just shows up.

End of Chapter 1

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Chapter 2 · written, not drawn yet

Day Two, Again

The hallway outside room 214, third period. Tucker is walking backwards through an argument with Jason and Shawn when a classroom door opens behind him.

about 24 pages · drawn in about 10 minutes · free for everyone after

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