Chapter: Chapter 2: Pagan Baby

Transcript

Panel 1: A large establishing panel of a different bar across town. The booths lining the window have tall, wooden backs. A group of friends in the booth on the left chatters happily over their drinks. Denver, Tomás, and Stef sit in the booth on the right. Denver sits on the outside seat, a cigarette in between the fingers of the hand that holds his beer, an empty ash tray in front of him. Tomás is hunched over next to him. Stef sits across of them, his arms folded, a large hardshell bass case taking up the rest of his booth seat.

Stef asks brusquely, "So he’s a piano bar performer?"

Panel 2: Denver's neither frowning nor smiling as he starts to answer, "Well, yeah, but--"

Panel 3: Stef's dialogue balloon cuts him off and interrupts Denver's panel. Stef says, "I mean, those guys usually know a lot of music, but they all sort of sound like dollar store Top 40s."

Panel 4: Tomás has his arms folded on the table. He says, "I like those piano bars where there’s two pianists and they duke it out for the crowd."

Panel 5: The same panel of Stef from panel 3, except now he's turned towards away from Denver and towards Tomás because he replies, "Oh, you mean dueling pianos?"

Panel 6: Denver's eyebrow twitches in irritation as he forces an smile. He starts to pick up his beer, his lit cigarette still between his fingers. He says, "If the two of you keep interrupting me, I swear I’m gonna call an official timeout."

Off-panel, Stef replies, "Heard. Sorry, man. Go on."

Panel 7: Denver takes a sip of his beer as he says, "Thank you." Stef leaps out of his seat to slam his hands down on the table. In a jagged, large dialogue balloon, Stef yells, "After all that, you're gonna take a DRINK before you finish your sentence?!"