Let's Make a Deal by Reginald Beltran (kingcooky555) - Short, Drama - For ten dollars and a business suit, a man sells a cherished item to a pawn broker who in turn sells it to an unhappy woman. 8 pages - pdf, format

The guy goes in to get money and ends up trading the sax for the suit plus losing 10 dollars...
The pawnbroker put a for sale sign on the saxophone. Isn't everything for sale in a pawn shop?
Page 3 you have, a Jenny enters.
Top of page 6-- "Her lips suggestively licks the saxophone metallic skin."
Licking with lips? Also, shouldn't be "lips licks."

Honestly, I don't get it...
Maybe it went over my head.
This is what I got from it.

Guy sells sax to pawn broker.
Girl buys sax from pawn broker.
Guy sees girl with sax.
Guy buys sax from girl.
Girl cries. Runs away.
Woman goes to pawn broker to sell a ring.

I'm confused...

I read Steex's comments, and thought I should read for myself to see if I could find the meaning behind the tale.  I'm afraid to say that I could not.  I get the feeling that the Pawn Broker is something akin to a Jeanie, but I am not sure how his actions achieve anything for or against his customers.  I could find no deeper meaning.

Please enlighten us Reginald.

It's my first try with Trelby so I concocted this small tale to test it. One guy is a failing/failed musician who can't afford to keep playing his sax so he sells it to get a better job, hence he gets a business suit and tries to find a "real job."

The girl is someone who has "a real job" but wants something more and follow her dreams to play music. It's just "too convenient" how the pawn broker can take this guy's love/dream (the sax) and sell it to the girl.

Turns out that a year later they didn't find any happiness. The guy is even more miserable even with a real job and hangs out in a strip club. The girl never made it as a musician so she ends up stripping for money.

So the line "I don't fix things" from the first scene turns out to be true. The pawn broker won't help his sellers make their lives better. Steven8 has the right idea: he's kind of like a genie but when a character deals with him, he/she wont live happily ever after. If the devil played a human character, it would be this guy.

Steex, I see what you mean by the for sale sign on the sax. Everything the broker wants to sell to his next customer is always front and center. That's why the business suit was right next to him when Kurt enters. That's why he was polishing the gun in the end as I tried to hint that the crying girl will buy it. Putting the "for sale" sign and putting the sax behind the counter, makes it very visible to Jenny when she comes in. It's like he has a sixth sense of who will come in next and what they would be interested in.

I didn't really have any deep meaning intended for the short. I was trying to create a devil type of character, portrayed by a pawn broker. Customers come in and out and deal with him at their own risk, not knowing who is behind the counter. Based on the comments, I'll try to make it clearer if/when I go about a rewrite.

Thanks for the read.

Ah, so people down on their lives in desperation go to the pawn shop, and the broker, much like the devil, entices them in a new direction, which not only doesn't bring them more happiness, it gives them more misery.  I really like that concept.  Reminds me of something from Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

Reginald,

I'm not gonna over-think this one.  All in all, I liked it.  Really liked the way you connected the dots between Kurt and Jenny.   Sorry for the short review.

Thanks for the read M.Alexander.

I wanted to test my Trelby and a premise for maybe something more. It seems like a short doesn't flesh out the "devil" character as well as I would like.

Now, that I read the short again, it seems like I have seen something similar in "Amazing Tales" or "Twilight Zone" as per Steven8. I might have to rethink the devil to make him less cliche or at least make him more unique.

Hey KC,

Thought I would have a quick read.

Spoilers

Overall it doesn't seem far off but lacks a final payoff or clarity on the role of the pawn broker. Writing wise there a handful of things I didn't think helped the read but I haven't taken detailed notes. One that I remember was the tearing of the posters, which is mentioned twice in the same paragraph.

I often think in these shorts small details make a real difference and really need to be connected. An example her is the name of the sax, Jenny, the same as the girl. Now you could have chosen any name so it is there for a reason. what could that be?  Maybe it's there to suggest fate doesn't always work out, or it was meant to be, but here I feel it is just a coincidence that has no reason and therefore confuses us, unless it is clear from the story that life is random, which doesn't seem to be the theme.

At the end I would be interested to see what you could make out of this.

All the best.

Hey Reggie.

Some really on-the-nose dialogue and awkward actions in the beginning stopped this one from firing on all cylinders.  (Namely, Kurt said that ten dollars wasn't good enough for the sax.  He needed more money.  But, then Kurt picked out a business suit and then had to PAY ten dollars for the suit.  I thought he was there to get money?  That just made things really really complicated and I thought about it throughout the rest of the story.)

I didn't catch on at first to the year time jump, and that also made everything confusing.  I knew there was a time jump, because you said he needed a good shave, but I think you need a little more than that to let us know it's a year later.  Yes, you did say that Kurt was 30 now, but that's too obscure.  I think we need something more to let us know a year's gone by.

I was also confused at the end and didn't really understand what all was going on.  It just kind of 'happened'.

Now, after hearing your explanation of everything that was going on, I think it's a really really good story and I actually do like the subtlety and connection between Kurt and Jenny.  But, as it is, I think it's too subtle.

I think all that confusion I was talking about needs cleared up, and I also think we need a couple more hints of what Kurt and Jenny have gone through the past year so we know that Kurt was successful at getting a job, but is still miserable.  As it reads now, it just seems like Kurt, wearing his suit, tried getting a job, but failed and is drowning his sorrows in a strip club.  Yet, he magically has money.  (Maybe from that genie you were talking about?)

I don't like the idea of having the pawn broker be a devil genie.  It reads too cartoonish, I think.  You could lose that and still have kurt's and jenny's story stand alone.  They are, afterall, in control of their own actions.  Maybe the pawn broker can represent karma or whatever in some way, but the devil I think is going too far.

So, eventhough it was EXTREMELY confusing reading it, your explanation made it a great story.  Now, you just have to incorporate your explanation into the story more so we can understand it during the read.

Oh yeah, and how do you like the Trelby software?  I love it so far.

- Mark

(EDIT:  Oh yeah.  Just thought I'd mention, I don't know how important it is to you, but I'm not very fond of the title for some reason.  Just doesn't grab me and I wonder if there might not be something better to reference your story.)

All right, I get it now.
I also did not catch that it was a year later.
It was an interesting read and I thought it had a good "vibe" to it.

Hey RC,

Thanks for the read. yes, you did catch an error there with Kurt handing over the 10 dollars. It should be the sax for ten dollars and the business suit.

I think I need to flesh this is out more when/if I revisit it.

It was a good test of Trelby. I think it's a cool software. The interesting thing with Trelby is if you import a Celtx script into Trelby it cuts 5-10 pages. So if you've got a celtx script that needs any pruning, import it to Trelby and Voila! 5-10 pages get cut off.

Anyway, thanks for the read. Looks like back to the drawing board with this one.

How do you like Trelby?
I've heard of it.
Unfortunately, it's not available on Macs.

I'm slowly shifting away from Celtx and into Trelby. What I like about Trelby is what you type into the page is exactly how it would look like when you PDF it. Also, you don't need to be online to see the PDF version.

The Celtx version requires you to be online to convert it to PDF, and also Celtx has a tendency to cutoff your lines/dialogue when you reach the end of the page. For Trelby it's easy to avoid this.

There are some limitations with Trelby (i.e. no italics), but this can be worked around if you play with the settings. I think it's one of the better free ware, script software out there.

Quoted from kingcooky The interesting thing with Trelby is if you import a Celtx script into Trelby it cuts 5-10 pages. So if you've got a celtx script that needs any pruning, import it to Trelby and Voila! 5-10 pages get cut off.

I heard people say Final Draft does the same thing with Celtx.  Which, I guess makes sense, because Trelby converts Final Draft perfectly.

I guess that would be cool if you're trying to tighten up a short.  Unfortunately, it cuts down a feature way way too much, and now I'm scurrying because I thought I had a long enough script in the first place.

My script 'Thistles' was 99 pages, (I wrote it in Word and converted it to pdf), but when I put it into Trelby, it was 80 pages.  (And I made sure I made it a 12 point font rather than the 10.)

Lol.  No wonder why everybody who was reading it said it was a breeze to read and they flew through it.

Quoted from rc1107 My script 'Thistles' was 99 pages, (I wrote it in Word and converted it to pdf), but when I put it into Trelby, it was 80 pages.  (And I made sure I made it a 12 point font rather than the 10.) Lol.  No wonder why everybody who was reading it said it was a breeze to read and they flew through it.

LOL. That wasn't the only reason it was a breezy read, wise guy!
And yo know it. :P

E.D.