Empowered: Deleted & Alternate Scenes, Part 1
And we’re back from a bit of a hiatus! While my third story is currently in the works (still in the outlining stages, unfortunately), I wanted to present to you over the next few weeks some bonus material, like alternate/deleted scenes and commentary.
First up are two different takes on the way Carl and El’s breakfast the day after the Senior Mixer was intended to go. It was a going to be a much longer scene, but it never felt “right” to me, so I cut it out completely, opting instead for them to have a quick breakfast in the mall food court.
There’s also a brief scene of Carl and El screwing around in the park, which I realized served no real purpose, so I cut it. Also, Carl and El were to get pizza much earlier in the story, following up on the text Carl had sent him after their spat in the mall. I decided to move this to the end after their big fight. Some parts were also incorporated in to their morning homeroom scene on the first day of school.
Minor note: You’ll see things in bold, but you can more or less ignore those. I’d jump around in my writing, and those bolded lines are notes for later for sections that I wasn’t able to develop at the time.
Okay, enough of that. Let’s get this show on the road:
Breakfast, Take 1:
“Wake me up from a nice sleep, goddamn right breakfast is on you.”
“Sweet. Put some clothes on, and I’ll jump us over there.”
“No. I hate your ‘pick ups.’ Ma!” Carl yelled, “Can I use the car?”
“Where are you going, baby angel?”
He wish he had prefaced with ‘El is here.’
“EL IS HERE,” he yelled, embarrassed, “and we’re gonna get some breakfast!”
“Oh, I can make you boys something!”
“No, it’s fine!”
“Aw, come on, baby angel,” El said with a grin.
“What was that, Elcsum Gray?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” El said. He then whispered to Carl, “The ears on that woman.”
“Try livin’ with it.”
“Don’t y’all be fools, spending your money. Come down and I’ll whip you up some French toast, and I think we have some sausage, too.”
“Thanks, mom!” El called back. He then turned to Carl, “French toast! Sausage! Mom!”
“Why do you insist on being you?”
“Ms. Freeman!” El yelled to her, “Would you mind heating up the syrup?”
“Sure!”
“Syrup!” he exclaimed to Carl. “Anyway, speaking of hot, sticky things, me and Hourglass…”
“She good?”
“Yeah, man. Her powers made it last twice as long as normal. It was fucking awesome.”
“Oh, so you got to disappoint a girl for an entire minute this time, huh?”
“Best goddamn minute of her life! Anyway, what about you? You never went in to detail with that chick from last night.”
“Her name’s Spore; she’s new. She was there doing a photo assignment or something. Wants to be on the yearbook staff.”
“Yearbook staff? Yikes. Geek rejection is the worst kind of rejection. But hey, that’s what you get for trying to steal our womens.”
“Racism is fun, El.”
“Sure is!”
THEY NEED TO BULLSHIT FOR A FEW MORE MINUTES
“Boys! Breakfast is ready!”
“Yes! Food, food, food, food!”
THEY GO DOWN THE STAIRS
“Thanks a lot, Mrs. Freeman. It smells awesome.”
“Oh, of course. Gotta put some meat on you boys. Too skinny.”
“I’m trying to keep my lady-like figure.”
“Mom, can I borrow the car or not?”
“Are you going to drive the speed limit?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Carl P Freeman.”
There’s no use lying to a woman who’s a human lie detector, although that never stopped Carl from trying.
“I promise to…”
With her eyes narrowed and lips pursued, Ms. Freeman just stared. Carl knew it was better to just agree.
“I promise to actually go the speed limit.”
“Keys are in my purse, sweetie.”
NEED TO SHOW THAT THEY’RE EATING
“Elcsum, could you give us a moment?”
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you for breakfast. As always, it’s much appreciated.”
“Anything for the boy who actually gets this one out of the house.”
Breakfast, Take 2:
Walking outside, he saw El still fiddling with his hair in the window. “You look gorgeous,” Carl said, “Come on, get in the car.”
“Where do you wanna go?”
“Wherever’s close, I guess.”
Stopping at a nearest fast food joint for a breakfast of sausage, egg, and cheese on a biscuit, the two enjoyed their meal as they pondered what else to do.
“What do you want to do the rest of the day?” Carl asked, wiping crumbs from side of his mouth.
“Let’s be honest,” El replied with a shrug, “we’re in the suburbs, too young to do anything cool in the actual city, so…”
“Mall or movies?” Carl groaned.
Sighing in agreement, El responded, “Mall or movies.”
“What’s playing?”
“Sequels, remakes, and 3D re-releases.”
“Mall then?” Carl BLANK “I hate going there, man. All we do is walk around and not buy shit.”
“Of course we used to not buy shit. With what money? But now you’ve been busing tables, and I got my birthday money. Let’s get something nice to wear for Monday.”
Going to the Park:
“So where to?”
“I got a new Vortex. Toss it around at the park?”
“As long as it doesn’t mean you throwing it half a fuckin’ mile and making me run for it.”
“Oh, Carl. We both know I can’t promise that.”
GROANS AND STARTS THE CAR
“You know, for a guy with no athletic ability, you can throw the ball pretty damn far. Although it ends up flopping around like a ‘tard since you can’t get
a good spiral going.”
“Real nice, El.”
“What?”
THROWS BALL, CARL STILL NEEDS TO RUN FOR IT
Getting Pizza Take 1:
“Hey, what can I do for you two gentlemen?”
“One large…what do you want on it?”
“Everything.”
“Can you do half plain, half everything?”
“You’re so boring.”
“I am what I am.”
“Sure thing, boys. It’ll be a five minutes.”
THEY SIT DOWN
“I’m sorry, man.”
“We don’t have to talk about it. It is what it is.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“Dude, it’s fine. We’re big boys; we can move on. Anyway,” El began, eager to just change the subject, “you see they posted the schedules this morning?”
“No, shit?” he said, pulling out his phone. “On the school’s website?”
“Yeah,” El replied. “Here, compare and let me know if any line up.”
El then opened up to the page on his phone, already pre-loaded from looking at it earlier, and slid it across the table for Carl to see and compare.
“Anything?”
THINKING NOISE
“Ummm…yeah. Other than homeroom, environmental with Doc Drain.”
“That we knew; he’s the only one who teaches it. Nothing else?”
“Nah, doesn’t look it,” he said, sliding El’s phone back to him, “but we do got it at the end of the day, second-to-last period. So on non-lab days, we can just cut out early.”
“Sick.”
“You fuckin’ know it.”
PIZZA IS BROUGHT OUT
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“No problem. You boys enjoy. And watch it; food’s hot.”
“Thank you.”
Each grabbed a slice and quickly placing it on to their plate to cool. The internal struggle of waiting three minutes for it to be edible versus eating it out, to hell with the roof of your mouth commenced.
“Ah, fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!” they both yelled in unison.
Both boys now had their mouths open wide and were frantically sucking in air to cool off the pizza, which now felt like magma in their mouths.
Needless to say, waiting lost.
“So, we’re good, right?”
“Yes! Christ! Stop asking.”
“Just wanted to be sure, man.”
“Oh, dear Carl. Like I’d ever really let this friendship end. I still have fifty more hours of community service to perform.”
“Ah, that’s right. CARL HAS A COMEBACK”
“Ha, if you say so, bruddha. Now, important question: Did you stalk that chick yet?”
“Come on, man. Give me some credit.”
“Carl…”
“I may have done a quick search…”
“Carl…”
“There are four other Spores in the greater Los Angeles area; none of ‘em are under 18.”
“Good. Good.”
“It’s a mute point anyway, she…”
“Moot.”
“What?”
“It’s moot point, not mute point. Your point didn’t have its vocal chords ripped out or some shit.”
“Every time, man. Is that really necessary?”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Anyway, it’s a MOOT point because she wasn’t in to me.”
“You don’t know that. You said she was doing some assignment, right? I mean, granted there’s the overwhelming likelihood that she was blowing you off because you’re you.”
“Naturally.”
“But it could be that she really did just want to do well on it.”
“Yeah…”
“But, I mean…she was probably blowing you off.”
“Appreciate, man. Thank you.”
“And thank you for the pizza!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s all! What’d you think? Were one of those breakfast scenes better than what was in there? Was it a good idea to split getting pizza in to the homeroom scene and when Carl and El finally made up?
As always, let me know on Facebookor Twitter. There will be more material that didn’t make the cut next week, so stay tuned!