Creek Daze

Act I: Exposition
Scene One: Saturday - 7:56 AM

The ring of the telephone was pestering, engulfing every inch of the house at numerous angles. One called from the end table next to the sofa in the living room, another digital tone singing from the kitchen, a third an old fashioned ring from his parent's bedroom, and the forth a dull drone that roared from beneath a discarded pillow located somewhere in his own room. He let out a deep groan, his head still trapped beneath a tangle of covers as he waited for somebody to answer the beckoning call. On the fourth ring he gave up all hope and began to struggle to the surface, towards the unwelcomed sunlight that had invaded his room two hours earlier.

It was now the sixth ring and he wondered what had happened to the answering machine only remembering that Pacey had disengaged it three days prior because he was sick of listening to his nasally voice every time he called, and that his cheery vibrato was sickening. Dawson had run an exasperated hand through his hair, his nostrils flaring out slightly as he exclaimed, “I do not have a nasally—.”

But Pacey had cut him off before his sentence was finished with a small clasping gesture of the hand then drawing a finger to his lips. “Do you hear it?”

That was Pacey though, and there was no denying it. They had met when they were four years old at Molly's Market when Pacey had strayed away from his mother's side briefly to inspect the many offerings in the candy isle only to turn around a moment later to find himself completely alone. One would think that the motto “Leave No Man Behind” would be printed on the crest of a police sheriff slash “Vietnam veteran,” but his mother had obviously missed the memo, and was halfway down the frozen food section without a clue of her son's absence.

Dawson was in the process of placing the box of raisins his mother had “mistakenly” picked up in favor of a more edible product when he spotted the brunette, chewing idly on his lower lip with his chin propped high to mask his growing fear.

“Hey,” Dawson had said.

“Hey,” Pacey replied.

And then, as is the case with most young children, they were friends and had remained so ever since. They were nothing alike, held little in common, and brought out neither the best nor the worst in one another. They were simply two guys who hung out because no one better came along. But they stood by one another, and now more then ten years later they stood in that same place.

Still struggling towards the phone, Dawson fell to the floor with a thud, his feet bound together by a conniving sheet with a death grip on his ankles. He let out a huff, his blonde bangs flying in the breeze his breath caused before falling back in their same jumbled mop. On the tail end of the eighth ring he dove for the receiver, pressing the ‘talk' button with a deep breath to regain his composure.

“Hello?” He asked leaning back against the foot of his bed in relief that his pursuit was over. “Mister Olson, hi,” he said, recognizing the sound of his employers voice. “Excuse me? No… no, I shouldn't be on the schedule for this morning, I worked yesterday.” Dawson set his jaw, his brow sinking progressively lower as he listened. “Doesn't Pacey work today? Well then why do I have to be there? What do you mean he can't work by himself? That only happened once… and he felt really bad about that.” He sighed, “Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just, I was supposed to be filming for my movie today and the deadline for entries at the festival is coming up… One o'clock… I can? No, I guess… I guess that's all right. Yeah I'll be there. All right then, bye.”

Dawson dropped his head back, allowing it to fall against the mattress as he tossed the phone helplessly to the side. Saturday shifts at Screen Play Videos were feared and had gained an almost legendary status amongst the employees. It was the busiest day aside from Friday nights; most customers were mothers looking for an attention grabber to tame their children for the weekend. The other half high school students their age, in search of a good make out movie for the upcoming Saturday night bash or their book report due Monday. They were all notoriously obnoxious and notoriously frequent, and no person in their right mind would ever want to serve them.

Climbing to his feet, Dawson pulled open his dresser drawer pulling out a rumpled plaid shirt and a pair of jeans, slipping them on before trotting down the stairs.

“I'm going to work,” he called into the kitchen.

Dawson's mother poked her head out the door, “Didn't you work yesterday?" She had become exceedingly needy ever since his father had left her. Apparently extra marital affairs were frowned upon by spouses, but Gail Leery was still convinced that he had abandoned her. Therefore, she clung to her son's heels, following his schedule closely out of fear that he would leave her too. "I remember you being away all of yesterday beaming that at least you were free for the weekend.”

“Well apparently being responsible leads you nowhere in life but to endless hours of misery,” he explained.

She offered him a sad smile, “Have fun sweetheart.”

~*~

Scene Two: Pacey J Witter

Screen Play Videos was located in the center of town, right across from a posh bistro and a school for ballroom dancing. It was owned by Mister Garrett Olson a man who was intimidated by women and therefore controlled by his wife and spoiled daughter, Nellie. The video store was rather small, packed with far too many shelves for the building's capacity and cluttered with empty popcorn boxes for a proper atmosphere. The selection at Screen Play was rather limited because it mainly held the most obscure of titles and only recently added Star Wars to it's inventory. But business was always booming.

There was another video store just outside of town. A commercial joint that carried every title from Aa! Megamisama! to ZZ Tops: Greatest Video Hits that was rarely frequented by Capesideans due to their loyalty to small town businesses (barring the American Eagle and J. Crew warehouse of course), so Screen Play stayed the center of the released movie universe.

Pacey Witter trotted down the sidewalk towards the infamous Screen Play Video Store with a small frown on his face, tossing his keys in his hand as he approached it. Jiggling the handle to the store he was surprised, and then slightly mortified to realize it was already open. He could have sworn that he was the only man on the schedule for this particular Saturday, and the thought of having to deal with the necessary paperwork involved in a robbery made his stomach clench with annoyance.

Upon entering the store, he smiled in relief.

“Hey man what are doing here?” Pacey asked spotting Dawson sitting with his chin in his hand behind the cash register.

“Supposedly you can't be left here alone,” Dawson explained with a sigh, “Mr. Olson made it a new rule, ‘Pacey Witter does not work a shift alone.'” He repeated the instructions he heard over the phone.

“It's not my fault!” Pacey said lifting an innocent hand to his chest. “The six year old seemed perfectly content with renting ‘Barney's Bonner' his mother, not so much.”

“I think it had something to do with how you handled the situation.”

“What?” He asked in defense. “I simply charged her an extra fifty cents and told her to rewind the next time she returned a video.”

The son of the town Sheriff, Pacey was rarely corrected personally. There was a chain that would lead to the proper authority who would then distribute the proper punishment. In this case, Misses Roberts, the mother in question had confided in the local grocer Miss Molly of the events that had induced her son earlier that week. Molly consequently spoke with Doctor Rand, Pacey's marine biology teacher and a man Molly happened to be having an affair with. Doctor Rand then discussed the events, sans Molly's participation, with his wife Tabitha who owned a ceramics shop next to Screen Play . Tabitha conversed with her cousin Aaron a fisherman at the Marina who was dating the hostess of the Bistro across the street who was casual friends with Nellie, Mister Olson's daughter. By the time it had reached Mister Olson 3 days later, Pacey had sold the young boy an amateur pornography video starring Doctor Rand, Miss Molly, and his wife that Pacey had filmed one day himself after school. Under normal circumstances, Mister Olson would have fired Pacey on the spot. But seeing as he was the sheriff's son, and Mister Olson's establishment was dreadfully understaffed, Pacey's position within the Screen Play family was firmly intact without the slightest of scolding.

What the townspeople hadn't realized was that Pacey and his father had a nonexistent relationship outside of the DNA they shared. His father cared little about his youngest son, and if the community had punished Pacey in any way, he would hardly hold a grudge. Pacey was the black sheep of the family for no reason in particular. He was the youngest of five, and by the time he had come into the world, his parents were so worn out by their eight-year-old socially inept son, two screaming daughters, and a third daughter that they rarely saw or heard from, that Pacey was immediately resented. His name was the first piece of evidence. John and Mary Witter had discussed Paul and Tracey and by the time he was born held no interest in who won and put the two names together giving them Pacey. Doug had already received his father's name for his middle name and they saw no reason in repeating it, so his middle name became only a letter: J. It required no period in spelling, just Pacey J Witter, and the mystery behind what the initial stood for always led to a dead end simply because it didn't exist.

~*~

Scene Three: New York, New York

Jen Lindley was something else. She hailed from a different state entirely and was the only student in Capeside High School who hadn't lived in the small waterside town since birth besides the exchange student from Prague who could only say ‘butter' and ‘light bulb.' She was a mystery through and through, from her New York City past to her inexplicable attraction to Dawson Leery.

Jen and Dawson simply did not mix. She was sassy and held a beauty strikingly resembled to the mythological Aphrodite, while he was clumsy and gawky with a freakishly sized forehead. But they were dating, and had been for nearly 2 months now. There were stories that Dawson snuck into her room at night, living only a lawn away, to fill her head with subliminal messages so that in the morning she would be in love with him, and others that Dawson held some impossible secret from Jen's past and was blackmailing her to be with him.

The truth however was far more frightening. Jen liked Dawson. Jen liked Dawson because he wasn't anything like the men she had known in New York. He was a kid while her past companions were men, he was innocent while the others were anything but, and he looked at her like she was beautiful and not a nice pair of legs he could ease himself between.

She walked into Screen Play , her corn silk blonde hair sweeping across her shoulders with every stride. She quickly spotted Pacey in his rolling computer chair sitting watching a movie in his customary position: feet propped on desk, hands behind head, firmly reclined

"What on Earth are you watching?" Jen asked, her eyes narrowing as she inspected the video playing on the 20 year old television set that didn't go past channel 64.

" One Crazy Summer ," Pacey replied in a monotone drone completely ensconced by his movie.

"She's singing, why is Demi Moore singing?" She asked pointing at the screen in awe.

"Um…” he scratched his pointer finger against his temple. “I'm not quite sure why, all I know is that she is." He sat back further in his chair, "I think it has to do with a house or something… that or the summer being crazy, I don't know the plot was lost on me hours ago."

"Why is John Cusack in it?" She pondered resting her elbows on the counter.

"Pre- Say Anything ," he said simply.

"Ah," Jen smiled, "It's all making sense now." She drummed her hands against the desk, "So is Dawson in?"

"Yeah, he's out back doing inventory," Pacey explained, nodding towards the allusive red curtain. "Hey Dawson," he shouted towards the back. "Your lady friend is here."

Dawson popped his head out from behind the curtain, his lips curling into a smile as he spotted her. "Hey," he said.

Jen offered a small wave, "Hey."

"I think I'm going to buy a boat," Pacey broke in randomly, still focusing on his film.

"Based on this movie?" Jen asked with amusement.

"Not only does John Cusack get laid," he gestured towards the television. "But, his motley crew gets to sing a choreographed rendition of 'Dancing in the Streets.' If that isn't an invitation for a new life's passion, I don't know what is."

“You mean to say you'd spend thousands of dollars to have sex again?” Dawson questioned, his heavy brows furrowed in contemplation.

“If I really wanted to have sex again, I'd use those thousands of dollars to buy a prostitute,” Pacey argued, “not a boat. Besides, if movies have taught me anything, it's that prostitutes are always beautiful and always misunderstood.”

“Yeah,” Jen chirped in, “and always look like Julia Roberts or Melanie Griffith.”

“Well the Melanie Griffith one isn't much of a stretch,” Pacey argued. “Especially post lip enhancement.”

“Very true,” Jen nodded in agreement.

“But Julia Roberts, you'd never see a girl like that working a corner. No, she's something special.” Pacey sighed flipping off the movie.

“You're not going to finish that?” Dawson asked curiously.

“Why bother when I've got my own movie going on right here,” he said tapping on his temple with a playful wink.

“God,” Dawson groaned, “all this sex talk is really getting disturbing.”

“Are you not comfortable talking about it?” Jen asked.

“I just don't understand why it has to encompass everything,” he exclaimed flapping his arms out helplessly.

“Spoken like a true virgin,” Pacey teased.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Dawson's eyes narrowed challengingly.

“Exactly what it sounds like, people are notorious for shying away from subjects they don't understand.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Dawson argued, “Jen's talking.”

“Who said Jen was a virgin?” Pacey countered.

“Hey,” Jen said defensively, “I never asked to be dragged into your little social experiment.”

“Well what is it Jen?” Dawson asked, his glare pointed as his nostrils flared.

“How is it important?”

“You know my past… it's only fair that I know yours!” Dawson suffered from crippling insecurities that stemmed from when he was in elementary school and slightly heavier then the average kid on the jungle gym. He was short, round, and had a messy golden lion's mane for hair. Therefore, he was called ‘Oompah Loompah,' a name that was coined by his best friend, but quickly caught on with his schoolmates. And although he had grown out of that dark phase, he was still haunted by the endless chants: Oompah!

“Well I'm not, but that doesn't change anything,” she said her voice rising.

“What?” Dawson shouted incredulously. “That changes a lot! That puts you on an entirely new plateau that I can't possibly compare to!”

“It's sex, Dawson,” Pacey broke in, “it's not like she's a reformed communist or something.”

“The intimidation factor of being with you was already great enough,” he explained. “Now I feel infinitely smaller.”

“Why? Do you think that this changes the way I look at you?” Jen questioned. “I mean I knew you were a virgin and that I wasn't before Dawson, this isn't a sudden change in events for me.”

“How many?”

“What?” Her eyes widened in shock.

“How many have you been with?”

She huffed incredulously rolling her eyes, “I can't believe you're asking me this.”

Loompah!

“Our relationship should be based on trust and honesty,” Dawson explained.

“This isn't important though!”

He rolled his eyes contemptuously, “Then you shouldn't have a problem telling me.”

Jen placed her hands on her hips, her eyes now an annoyed glare. “Fine. Seven.”

Pacey's jaw unhinged and he dropped his gaze to the floor to hide his astonishment only able to mutter the word, “Wow.”

Oompah!

“Seven? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” The truth was, Jen didn't know. She had been chemically altered during most of her sexual encounters and knew that seven couldn't possibly be a correct estimation but might have been a factor of the true number. At age twelve she had begun sneaking into clubs and the easiest way in was through servicing the doorman. Then the easiest way to get a drink was through servicing the bartender, and then the easiest way to get home was through servicing the cabdriver. All of these various levels in obtaining maximum debauchery were extremely tiring and hard to keep tallies on.

“Come on, say something,” Jen said nervously.

Dawson stood there silently with his jaw set. “I'm not sure how to react to this. That not only has my girlfriend slept with another man before… but it's been… seven!”

“I'm not exactly proud of it,” she argued. “I was young and rebellious and the city had a lot to offer.”

“We're fifteen years old!” He yelled back.

“Don't judge me Dawson!” She sneered back. “What happened in my past has no effect on who I am now, or what we have!”

“Are you kidding?”

She shook her head, her eyes darkening. “You know what, I'm going to go,” she said firmly. “And I'll come back to talk when you're willing to have a sane conversation.”

Loompah!

“Fine, go.” He muttered.

She let out an annoyed breath, before stalking to the door letting it swing shut quickly behind her.

“Start spreading the news,” Pacey began to murmur under his breath. “She's leaving today, gonna get away from that asshat, New York, New York.”

Dawson glared at his friend and hurried back into the red curtained out cove. There were many things that Dawson Leery did not understand, but at this moment two factors stood out distinctly: Women and sensitivity. And it was doubtful that he'd learn about them anytime soon.

~*~

Scene Four: The Jar

The front desk at Screen Play video was filled with numerous little goodies. There were plenty of knick knacks including staples for their non-existent stapler, rubber bands to tie together multi tape sets, and scotch tape to fix the uncountable ripped cassette boxes. They also always kept a box of magic markers in the nook where the counter extended over the desk, for the various signs they hung around the room. There was a sign by the door featuring March's upcoming releases, made in Dawson's distinguishably neat handwriting. Another sign next to the comedy videos labeling it as such with 'Ha Ha' written beneath it dripping with Pacey's notable charm, and a third sign reading 'Warning: Chick Flick… Keep Away' that nobody was willing to take credit for.

Pacey currently was choosing between the wide selection of dried out markers, completely aware of which ones were good to use, but unsure about the appropriate color. Finally picking out the thick blue one that made the entire store stink for a good thirty minutes, he pressed it against the strip of poster board scrawling 'Pacey's Pix' across it in a pointed font.

"Are you sure that your opinion is that influential?" Dawson asked with smirk, passing by him.

"It worked with the jar," he countered simply, snapping the cap back on the marker and tossing it back into the box.

The jar had started off as a give and take change bin for people who needed a nickel to compose perfect change or wanted to get rid of their useless pennies, but had changed identities one afternoon when an old woman asked what charity it was for. Dawson was in the process of explaining its purpose when Pacey broke in. "Capeside Animal Shelter," he explained quickly. "We hope to give every loose dog out there a home."

"Oh that's sweet," the woman said warmly dropping a twenty-dollar bill into the jar that was only occupied by sparse change.

The first jar funded Dawson's movie; the second jar dedicated to narcissistic neophytes, went towards Pacey's new sports bike. The current jar continued to play off of society's inability to pick up a thesaurus and was for the Preservation of Corpulent Edifice, also known although only through literal translation as: Fat Erection. Which already had gained $60 for their new television set to replace the 20-year-old box on the counter. The jar was wrong and they knew it, but they were 15 and didn't care.

"The jar was clever," Dawson nodded in agreement. "But I doubt your sign will alter sales."

"You underestimate the power of persuasion," Pacey said striding to a shelf to tape his newly composed sign. "People see that one person, just one,” he held up a finger dramatically, “holds something on a measurable plateau, and they automatically believe that it's something above par without ever having to know how competent the person their opinion they're following is. It's simple psychology."

"Explain to me again how you're failing half of your classes," Dawson said arching a curious brow.

"I only use my powers for evil," Pacey explained. "The good guy is painfully boring."

Dawson sat down in the seat Pacey vacated. "You mind shedding some of that insight in my direction?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure Jen and I are working," he sighed.

"Judging by your argument earlier, I'd have to agree," Pacey, well, agreed.

"I'm thinking about ending it," he continued.

"What, why? She's quite a catch, history excluded. But then again," Pacey said thoughtfully leaning an elbow against the shelf, "you could always use it to your advantage."

"I don't want that, Pacey," he argued. "I want somebody as clumsy and awkward as I am. Who I'm not at all intimidated by and I know their past like the back of my hand." He frowned. "I want Joey."

Pacey shook his head, "You don't want Joey."

"Why not, we dated for two years. We were great together!"

Pacey scoffed, "You were terrible together. You broke up every other week because you were too literal and she was too impatient, and you're far too unlike. A match made in hell, because you're hell mates."

"We kept each other in check, and she was my first girlfriend. There's no past, like that Beatles song," he fought desperately.

"That was first love Dawson," he refuted. "You two were far from first love, it was the eighth grade! There is no love in the eighth grade. You don't even love your parents in the eighth grade."

"Yeah, that's a concept they teach you in college I hear. But I'm serious. I miss Joey. I think I'm going to win her back."

"You should probably run that through with your two bachelorettes first," Pacey suggested.

Dawson sighed heavily, "That may be a little tough."