2019-07-22 - Apologies New York Style

Itzhak's honestly afraid to try moving the Lincoln. He thinks it might fall apart. As a result, he's working on it in situ. The carriage house doors are flung open to the beautiful cool sunny day. A rolling toolchest is parked alongside the car, and he's shoulder-deep in the engine compartment. He has earbuds in, humming to himself, wielding a socket wrench to the beat. Tap tap on the frame, crank crank crank as he has to wrench on something.

None of this necessarily means he's in a good mood, as the NYC street racing scene could attest.

Granny Dove has come home, and so the house no longer required the 2 occupant rule to keep it from destroying peace of mind. It didn't mean he wouldn't come by after work since it was on his way back to his own place. Ignacio actually does HAVE a place but for whatever reason more often than not couch surfs or passes out on the porch of the library. Either way he finds the carriage house doors open and walks over, earbuds hanging around his neck, journal in hand, pencil behind his ear. He watches, curious, and maybe a little nostalgic.

Itzhak glances up, eyes narrow and sharp, just the way he used to when he wasn't sure who was rolling up on him. A good way to get your head bit off, that. But in this case he just hitches his eyebrows at Iggy and tugs out an earbud. (A violin cover of the Phantom of the Opera main theme is what's playing.) "Hey. Just the man I wanted to see."

Ignacio arches an eyebrow and replies easily in that dry humor manner of his, "I'm holdin, not sellin, man. Why? I owe you money still?" He jsut shakes his head. No there's no belief either are true but it doesn't do anything to stop a damn good performance from the smaller dude to look entirely put out by this. Really he might consider acting but he lacks the discipline for it. Storytelling? Oh there's a reason he's a successfully published author. Looking up there's a detached casual curiosity, "Diga?" That is to say: Nu? Spill the details, man.

Itzhak snorts. "Yeah, yeah, always the comedian." He straightens up, ducking the hood absentmindedly. At this point he just ducks when he straightens up from anything anymore. The likelihood of a car hood overhead is high.

Wiping his hands off on the rag hanging from his back pocket, he eyes Iggy. Then jerks his head in the direction of Ignacio's general torso situation. "You look like you fell in a blender. You really holdin'?"

Ignacio holds up his hand and the journal like what can ya do. Really the expression looks regretful. He absolutely in no way is sorry for this. "Sorry, man. When God was handing out humor I got this sterling sense of timing and you got that shirt." If he got punched for that? Worth it. "What's up man?" He looks down at himself. He showered, so like what?! Oh. OH. yeah.

He considers the truth of it and shrugs, "Yeah, I guess." He pauses and adds, "In both senses. Everyone's got some shit they run into, right?" He leans with his back to the frame of the garage space and looks to the ancient machine Itzhak's working on breathing life into slooooowly... like a technology death priest. Tenechromancer?! He'll have to work on that one. "They say everything happens for a reason. There are bad reasons I hate to tell em."

"You know, I spent longer'n any of the rest of the guys here listening to your bullshit, de Santos." Itzhak doesn't punch Iggy, but he does ball up and fling the rag at him. "Dickhead."

He snorts in a kind of reluctant, pissed-off amusement. Going to rattle around in the toolchest, he says, "You got that right. So I guess that's why you can't drive no more. Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht."

Man makes plans, and God laughs.

Itzhak's never had pity for anyone in his life, and he's not starting now.

Ignacio grins at the insult. Aaaah the familiar. He catches the rag through and in a very easy lob hands it back. Yeaaaah it was bound to come up. "Yeaaaaah when I was like 21-22 I broke the ever living shit out of it. Thirteen very boring ass surgeries. Not all of em a huge ordeal but more of like the same old bullshit with rods and pins." Shaking his head he bitches, "Halos are the worst. it hurts, it itches, ya look like a fuckin potato science fair project. It ain't easy to do dick, man. But-" Taking a deep breath he sets the pained fact out there casually, "Yeah. I can't clutch so...racing's kinda out without direct Divine intervention. Sooo no point in keepin the car. Shit happens." He's got feelings on it but they've long been resigned.

Itzhak grabs the rag out of midair and tucks a corner into a back pocket. He makes a wordless Yiddish sound through his nose, not looking around. "That fuckin' sucks, bro." Taking the tool he wants out of a pullout, he turns, mouth tight and twisted down. He tosses the tool idly in one hand as if flipping a knife. "Ya run 'er into a wall or something?" That'd be the most obvious source of injury for a driver like Iggy: a wreck.

He makes an equally Yiddish gesture at him, shrugging with one shoulder and one corner of his mouth. "That's fuckin' awful. Sorry to hear it. You're a hell of a driver."

Ignacio shakes his head, eyes following the car. he's no mechanic but he loves machines and his heart is that of an adrenaline. Quietly he murmurs thoughtfully about hitting a wall, "If only, man." On a sober note he looks up to his once mechanic and says genuinely, "Thanks. I really appreciate that." The half smile flickers across his face and he offers, "Ain't been all bad. I didn't know I could write. Had a lot of down time. I mean I never set out to be one or wanted to, but the things we find we get by on, ya know? Hilariously it was a project for me to have to vent about shit, and it kinda took off on its own." Looking back to Itzhak he adds, "Aint' drivin but it's at least somethin."

"Yeah well, with the way you run your mouth, I'm sure you're a natural." Itzhak isn't going to stand around and hand out simple compliments. No, all such observations must be made with a double-edged razor, in the traditional New York fashion. He eyes Iggy from under his curly forelock. He seems to be waiting for something, or thinking about something. Probably. What goes on in Itzhak's head isn't always predictable.

"Nu," he says, after a minute. "You gonna call me a schmuck or what?"

Ignacio arches an eyebrow and says with the same even off-handed glib commentary as is his normal fare, "What for bein jealous my mouth is buy runnin around doing other things instead of rackin up a garage bill?" The words are relaxed but the glance still challenges Itzhak back. Not that he really answered Itzhak's damn question about what happened to him so much as point out the results. He's missing his calling as a stage magician, truly.

Itzhak growls harsh and wordless. He flings his hands at Ignacio, making a frustrated snarly grippy gesture at him. "I'm trying to apologize here, de Santos! For Christ's sake!"

Ignacio arches an eyebrow, honestly surprised by that. There's a silence of expectation that follows...

...

...

"...was that the apology?" It really has to be asked.

Itzhak scoffs. Then, going doleful, he shrugs eyebrows and shoulders. "...Yeah. I mean... I ain't no good at not being a prick. Sorry." He turns his wrench over and over in his hands, eyeing Ignacio as if daring him to refuse his apology. Such as it is.

Ignacio considers all of this and shrugs. All things being what they are, deSantos really takes a lot to get riled up and usually only to the effort of getting back to the world being as chill as possible in the shortest amount of time they can get it. He reaches out and takes the hand with a squeeze accepting the announcement of apology intended as the apology. "A'ight. I mean I'd be a shit pal if I didn't support you playing to your strengths, man." Itzhak can't not be a prick and deSantos really can't not be a smartass. "How's the car comin along? Any hope?"

Itzhak thwaps Ignacio lightly on the chest. "S'why you hired me in the first place, yeah?" He shakes his head and looks into the engine compartment, eyebrows going all doubtful. "Gonna be honest with you, I wouldn'ta taken this on if Finch weren't so cute."

A lot goes unsaid there. Itzhak is letting Iggy know that there's no rush to tell him about the scars, and that he's not actually jealous of him and Finch, and he's well aware Iggy is putting on his bullshit and he's deciding to accept it. Bro talk, tough-guy New Yorker style.

Ignacio moves his shoulders forward in a shrug and looks around and back, "How about cause she's just a really cool person and can really use the help, and maybe... it's nice to just work with decent people instead of some of our favorite shitheads, eh?" The eyebrow arches challenging Itzhak on that with a faint smile, "Grey Harbor ain't hard up though for the scenery tho. That's for damn certain. He rocks forward on his toes and back to his heels watching. He pauses and adds on a sober note, "Rico and Maritza they... um... They didn't make it back." He pauses and for the life of him, for all standing up to doom is easy telling the truth and confronting it is fucking hard. "I thought you should hear it from me since you'll prolly find out if you call home soooo."

"It would be a helluva lot easier just to find her another car." Itzhak's sticking by his motivations here. "This thing oughta be junked, but," he twirls a couple fingers. Kvetch, kvetch. "Look real classy when it's done, though." He looks the Lincoln over with that particular glint in his eye, the one that says he's seeing something beyond the actual, far into the potential.

"...What?" Itzhak looks back at Ig, at first not sure what he said. As his audio processing catches up, his default annoyed expression morphs into dawning horror. "Wait...they what? They didn't make it back?"

w:reaches up and rubs the back of his neck rather happier to focus on t\eh car than the rest of the story. A nod, pained and subtle as it is, follows. "Yeah. Was a bad situation all the way around. Just," He pauses and looks for the words and when he doesn't find any, or at least none he likes,, does Itzhak the courtesy of saying, "I dunno. I guess to deserve to hear it from me. It's pretty fucked up, but," He pauses eyes lisfting to the rafters. "LookI appreciate you trying to make a shit situation less shitirific. That's all."

"Jesus Christ." Itzhak's staring. "De Santos, what the fuck happened?"

Ignacio adjusts the back on his shoulder. He looks tired from the walk here and says with an even smoothness he might report the rest of his bad news of his brother having a flat tire they had to fix instead of, 'oh, hey, old friends of ours no longer exist'. "Yeah, we got jumped by shadows peeling themselves off the wall on spring break.-" So in a rush to push through that information flying casual. the bag shifts on his shoulder. Steeling himself he asks in a curious tone he's practiced, "You check the bushings yet? It's been sitting here forever, I imagine the front bushings are shot." He's looking at the car again with his head tilted and heart pounding like a stampede of horses in his chest.

"The bush--FUCK the bushings!" Eyes wide, Itzhak grabs Ig by the shoulders. "My God, Nacio!" He struggles for something else to say, can only come up with, "My God. That's what--that's what took you apart?"

Ignacio is jostled, but puts a hand up so he doesn't fall over. His brow furrows and a challenging look goes back to Itzhak without any fight in it. Years of defeat and resolve have worn down the alarm and the copious amount of shit in his system at any given time sure helps. "Not... quite but it sure as shit didn't help. And you can't say fuck the bushings the suspension will get wrecked!" Sadly his attempts to divert are not seeming to stop the mechanic on a roll... which is exactly what the car won't be doing well if he doesn't fix those damn things.

Ignacio's not going anywhere as long as there's a panicked mechanic with a death grip on him. Itzhak snaps, "Shut the hell up," and hugs Ig--not nearly so deathgrippy, thankfully. "Christ. I didn't know. I'm fuckin' sorry."

Ignacio stands there awkwardly for a moment and then hugs him back. Fingers find fabric and make fists. The truth is the truth is scary and he doesn't have the ability to be direct just like the 6'1 man grappling him in a hug. Finally he stops fighting it and resigns himself to it. Is there more to it? Yes, but Itzhak isn't a councilor and he's not in any position to open up any more than he has. Covering the wound with humor he holds in the hug and pats Itzhak on the back, "It's okay. I'll teach you about suspensions. it'll be alright." No, it's not about the damn suspension but it's better than talking about the body count.