Broken Home (aka Gentle Hustle)

Somewhere in the middle of the country and in the middle of a big, extended family, Ramon Rivas II is trying to figure it all out. He hopes to find all the good things in life that most people want. But every time Ramon makes his push, it seems that life pushes back a little harder. He’s not passive. He’s just chill. He’ll work the angles to get by, remaining hopeful that his smarts and a little luck will be enough. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Set in the working class suburbs outside Cleveland Ohio where he grew up, Ramon faces down the ongoing challenges that he sees as his birthright. Born into a family where everyone has always struggled to get by, Ramon isn’t sure if his latest entrepreneurial enterprise of designing cool t-shirts will pan out. In the meantime, Ramon will try to go back to his college to see if he can get a refund for his degree eight years after graduation. After all, he’s not using it. His beater of a car barely gets him from place to place. And since he can’t afford Triple-A, he figures out that it’s cheaper to call an Uber to get a jump for his dead battery, buying and returning the jumper cables before and after. Life is a game and Ramon is always drawing up new plays.

Years after leaving home to live with his female best friend and her three chickens, Ramon now finds himself needing to move back in with his dad. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, his mother needs to move back in as well. Watching his divorced parents become roommates again may prove to be too much for Ramon to handle. And there’s not enough weed in his stash to make it all seem okay. While Ramon’s childhood bedroom will work as his home base for the time being, he does not want to see it as a permanent situation. But he’s going to have to try to make the best of it because it may be more permanent than he is ready to admit.

Ramon, 30ish, is neither an alpha male, nor a beta. He found a happy medium that worked for years inside his family and he’s now putting those coping skills to use out in the world. Ramon keeps his money in an old i-Phone box in his room because he doesn’t trust the banks. Besides, he’s got mad overdraft fees, so fuck the banks. He’d like to get in shape so he bought a spin bike thinking he’d work out while playing video games. But he just wound up playing video games. The bike sits in his room, a reminder of his good intentions, draped in his dirty clothes. Dating remains a mystery to Ramon answering what he thinks will be a 1am booty call but turns out to be just a friendly hang in the mind of the girl who wants his opinion of her dream to start a food truck as a small business. He’s a good dude, but seriously, WTF?