Skyward - Day 5 - 2008 April 30

Thought I might as well make an update today considering my situation yesterday. After work I pulled into the parking spot behind my pad, and I saw that the upstairs tenant's back door was wide open, with water streaming out from inside. I went up there and saw that things were moved about, but didn't see the tenant right away. I went downstairs into my place, and behold, a shower had formed above my bed. The ceiling was leaking like cheese cloth, and I scrambled to assemble a fort of blankets to absorb all the nasty water that was finding its way through the top floor onto my bed.

The mattress is ruined, but the landlord offered a new one, the cost of which I'll deduct from my rent. Had to do a ton of laundry but hey, free new mattress. Technically it's Tyler's, and it feels like it's roughly the same firmness as the old one.

To keep my mind off of it I wrote some more, and added in some minor details. As stated in the previous entry, I found a good eye disorter for Clay that could have resulted from trauma as a child. Right now I've made it a little explicit (getting kicked in the head as a kid), but perhaps it could be a little more subtle. I also changed the ending slightly by continuing the flashback from the beginning of the film. Young Clay finishes beating up the bully, and young Devon tells Clay that he still owes the kid eight bucks. Then the bully is standing pointing the same gun Gibson was using, and Clay wakes up in a hospital room. This prompts him to pay the money to whomever it's owed (even though most of the guys are dead, someone still needs to collect the debt), and he goes and talks to Jamie in the next room (resting from a bullet to the leg).

Something is pulling me toward this thought: there ain't no way Jamie would stay with this guy after all the crap that happened... unless she's somehow used to it. Clay's a violent character, perhaps not just with Devon, but maybe Jamie has a complex that keeps her with Clay. All this violence and trauma may be something that attracts her, and if I'm going to make that work I gotta refer to it a few more times. Otherwise she'd be outta there.

I also changed how Devon and Clay arrive at the casino. When they're picked up, Clay has a bear trap and some dynamite from Tussen's place, and the passenger who picks them up steps right into the bear trap, and they knock the driver out. Next thing you know the driver is walking them up into the casino lounge, as if everything's cool, moving Clay and Devon past security and everything. We find out that Clay and Devon rigged him with explosives and Clay holds a detonator... yeah, ridiculous, I know. That's what Gibson thinks too, as he calls bullshit, struts over to the driver, yanks the vest off, hands it to him and tells him to get out. But this way Clay and Devon can safely get into the casino with some guns, and the fire fight ensues promptly. I also alluded to Kelly's death by having Willie toss a corn dog at Clay saying, "If you had taken care of this then Kelly could have made it to the party."

• Ed - Hope you're not sweating bullets about the hospital. We can probably hook something up in Redding. It just seems like a necessary scene to me, otherwise Clay never really evolves.