My Best Friend, Jack

Characters:
Jack Jones (main character)
Age: 24
Year of birth: 2000
Job: Cashier at mom n' pop mini mart, paid under the table
Fun/Hobbies: Hanging out with Diego, going to the river, wood carving

Diego Gonzales (Jack's best friend)
Age: 23
Year of birth: 2001
Job: College student, studying to become a therapist
Fun/Hobbies: Hanging out with Jack, skipping rocks at the river, reading

Annie Jones (Jack's mother)
Age: 46
Year of birth: 1978
Job: Disabled, lives off government assistance and Jack
Fun/Hobbies: Drinking, watching TV, reading tabloids

Jacob Jones (Jack's dead father)
Age: 29 (at death in 2006)
Year of birth: 1977
Job: Painter (houses)
Fun/Hobbies: Paint mixing, painting (art), wood carving

Maria Gonzales (Diego's mother)
Age: 47
Year of birth: 1977
Job: SAHM
Fun/Hobbies: interior design, sewing, knitting, quilting

Jose Gonzales (Diego's father)
Age: 48
Year of birth: 1976
Job: Graphic designer
Fun/Hobbies: Soccer, having friends over to visit, photoshopping funny images to make his family laugh

Mandy Marsh (Jack's girlfriend)
Age: 22
Year of birth: 2002
Job: Fast food worker, taking creative writing classes in hopes of becoming an author
Fun/Hobbies: Writing, reading

Santiago Gonzales (Diego's cousin)
Age: 27
Year of birth: 1997
Job: Licensed professional counselor
Fun/Hobbies:

Setting:
Present day (2024)
The fictional small town of Grayston, Oregon:
Jack and Diego both live in Grayston, but want to move to Vancouver, Washington, which takes about 1.5 hours to drive to from Grayston.
Grayston doesn't have much, but it does have a nice park with a river flowing through it that Jack and Diego like to go to. Jack likes to carve wood he finds, and Giego skips stones. They talk while they do this. Sometimes they have some beer. It's a tranquil place for both of them.

Annie and Jack's apartment:
Annie and Jack have a very small, two bedroom apartment that is largely paid for by housing services, although some rent is charged every month. Jack keeps it pretty clean, but it is poor quality (peeling paint, the floor in some spots is coming up from the foundation, patchy carpet, shabby/outdated belongings)

Santiago's house in Vancouver, Washington:
Santiago lives in a small 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. One of the bedrooms is emopty, and is meant to be Diego's new room when he moves there. Jack is going to sleep on the couch until he can move into his own place.

Logline:
When Jack is presented with an opportunity to escape his abusive mother, he must maintain his declining mental health and increasingly violent tendencies until the day he can finally leave.

Roadmap:

Act 1:
Stasis: Jack struggles with day to day life because of his mental illness and abusive mother. He finds solace in wood carving, but dreams of a better life.

Catalyst: Diego tells Jack he is moving far away, but offers for Jack to come with him.

Act 2: (part 1)
Break into 2: Jack accepts Diego's offer and begins preparing to secretly leave his mother's home.

Fun And Games: Jack, feeling as though he has a new lease on life, is much happier as he plans with Diego to sneak away. He and Diego start moving Jack's possessions in the night after Annie (Jack's mother) passes out from drinking. Jack joins a dating app and starts getting involved with a woman (Mandy) who lives in the place he and Diego will go. Jack still does his wood carving, but now it's more of a fun activity instead of only a way to cope with life.

Midpoint:
Annie wakes up one night to vomit, and discovers Jack packing. A verbal argument ensues. Jack says he's more than old enough to move out, Annie says she needs him to survive. Jack says Annie should have thought about that before she treated him badly for years. Annie breaks down crying and leaves the room. Jack feels triumphant because he has finally stood up to his mother (he usually cowers) and is finally moving on to a better life. When he tells Alan about it, Alan decides to buy Jack a special gift: Good quality wood carving tools. Jack is over the moon.

Act 2: (part 2)
Lowpoint: Jack and Diego go out one night to celebrate the fact that they will be leaving the next day. Diego drops off a very drunk Jack, tells him he can't wait for them to start their new lives, and leaves. When Jack enters the house, he sees broken pieces of metal and wood everywhere, and quickly realizes they are the remains of his brand new wood carving tools. He screams for his mom, who doesn't respond, and he finds her laying in the bathtub, covered in vomit and blood. He shakes her awake and demands to know what happened to his tools. Annie, barely conscious, giggles softly and mumbles "I took the hammer to 'em!" Jack is enraged, but reluctantly showers his mother off, and bandages the wounds on her fingers from her trying to break the carving tools with her hands before she got the hammer. He then carries her to bed, and tucks her in.

Break Into 3: Jack decides to use one of the sharp blades from his old carving set to kill his mother. This final act of abuse was too much for Jack to bear, and his mind is fully snapped.

Act 3:
Jack sits alone in his room, carefully turning over a carving blade in his hands. It's one from his old, cheap, unbroken set. On his bedside table sits a carving of his mother, not finished, but pretty close. Jack always carves the face last, and that's the only unfinished part of the figurine. He holds it for a moment in his free hand, as if contemplating whether or not he was really going to kill his mother. In one swift motion, he slashes the blade across the neck of the figure, severing the head, and angrily throws the headless body accross the room. He starts sneaking to his mother's room. Jack tip toes down the hallway, blade in hand, pondering what would be the best place for him to cut. He contemplates slitting her throat to end it quickly, or perhaps torturing her a bit first. His mind races with possibilities. He enters her room and looms above her sleeping form, turning the blade in his hand. Annie wakes up, and groggily asks Jack what he's doing.

Climax: Before she can finish her sentence, Jack stabs her in the throat with the carving blade. He rips it back out, and stabs her again and again. Annie gurgles as she tries to scream. After Jack has had his fill of stabbing her, she slumps off the bed, bleeding everywhere, dead at last.

Denoument:
The next day, Diego arrives to pick up Jack, and discovers the gruesome scene. He finds Annie dead, and Jack passed out with a bottle in his hand. Alan stifles his distress, and quickly goes back outside to call 911.

Jack is convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mandy (Jakes long distance girlfriend) sees what happens on the news, and cries in the arms of her mother.

Diego eventually moves as he originally plans, but can't help but think of Jack, and wonder how life could have been if Jack could have gone with him.

The End

Rose H

Writer, Artist, Musician

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