2019-08-06 - Kite Kamikazi

There is certainly a thunderstorm on the way, but it's not here. Instead, it looms in the distance as ominous dark clouds roll ever closer and as the crack of lightning highlights the sky. The wind is picking up. But no rain, not yet.

The damn wind. Noah is trying to unsuccessfully light his cigarette under a street lamp. There's a soft, violent mutter as the flame is blown away again by another breeze. He stands alone with shoulders hunched, useless smoke hanging from his lips while he continues to try. And try. And try...

Walking in a thunderstorm isn't particularly fun, and Alexander is perhaps wistfully reflecting on how nice it would be to have an actual car. His shoulders are hunched in a habitual sort of slump, while his eyes are raised, scanning the horizon for the first drops of rain. The wind, at least, is a touch cooler than the late summer air, which is a nice change. He's walking down the same path where Noah is, and might have just walked on by. Except that Gray Harbor is feeling particularly unlucky as of late, and there's a small group of college-aged folk a bit on the grass nearby who have had the brilliant idea to try and fly kites. Before a thunderstorm. In the rapidly approaching dark. They are not, in any way, sober.

So it's somewhat inevitable that as Alexander is passing by Noah, one of the kites hits a bad patch of wind and comes crashing down, accompanied by the shrieks of the woman trying to save it, and slams into the path just in front of the two men. And pretty much explodes on impact. "Fuck!" Alexander jumps back and to the side, almost careening into Noah in startlement.

Noah has only a few passing glances for the drunk college aged kids. He's involved in something extremely important here, which is getting his nicotine fix. He has finally managed to light up his smoke when suddenly all hell breaks loose. He makes a startled agh and covers his face, drops his cigarette and all but crashes into Alexander who is also almost careening.

When it turns out it's just a kite that has caused him all of this unexpected aggravation, he slowly stares at Alexander. His eyebrow hikes up in a silent question, did he do this? No, probably not. He glances at the cigarette on the ground, he looks off at the kids and his eye twitches, "What the fuck?"

The college students stare, open-mouthed, at the wreckage of the kite, which is now a sad heap of pressboard sticks and synthetic fabric, fluttering on the stones of the path. Then one of them starts to laugh, and soon the rest are joining in with loud, tipsy snorts and giggles. They start tugging the kite strings around, clearly trying to engineer other disasters as spectacular.

For his part, Alexander stumbles back from the near collision, breathing heavily, eyes wide as he stares at the kite, then at Noah. Right. It's a kite. Just a kite. He meets the stare with a suspicious one of his own. "Someone's having fun, I guess. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to--" he glances down at the cigarette and bends to pick it up, offering it filter first towards the other man. "You run the gun shop. Don't you?"

Noah watches the college kids with an unhappy, pissed off expression. It's the kind of attitude that suggests if Alexander wasn't there to distract him, he'd react in a less than stellar fashion. But since he is...!

He turns to him, frown still sharply in place and a little distracted as he offers the kids one more dark look. Noah's eyes flicker down to the cigarette and he plucks it from Alexander's fingers. "I guess," he concludes of the fun having. "Thanks. Yeah, that's me. Abernathy Ammunitions." The last comes out a bit muttered as he shoves the smoke back in his mouth and fights to light it. Again.

"That's a business name, not a person name," Alexander replies, watching his expression with a wary sort of concern. "Alexander Clayton," he adds, as if giving an example of what a person name looks like. He pulls his hand back when the cigarette is taken, giving the kids another sidelong look. A kite dips in a dangerously low arc over his and Noah's heads, close enough that he flinches back a little.

"Hey, old guys, better stay out of the way," one of the drunken students calls. "These things are crazy! Out for blood!" More laughter, as if this is just the funniest thing ever. Alexander's shoulders hunch. "Might want to move on out of range, before the next one of those comes down on our fucking heads," he mutters.

"It's also my name. Sometimes businesses are named after people," Noah informs him, tone deadly serious as he gets his cigarette lit again. "Noah Abernathy. Abernathy Ammu- hey! Fuck off, you damn punks. This is my street lamp."

No, it's not. It's really not.

"I'm not moving," he says flatly, before taking a puff and staring up at the kites. It's possible, just possible, that he's already regretting this less than smart decision.

"Noah Abernathy. I'll remember that," Alexander mutters, then takes a step back when he yells at the college students. His eyes flick nervously between the gun shop owner and the group. There's a grumble-crack of thunder up above them, and a strong gust of wind that yanks the kite strings back and forth. Alexander gives the sky a worried look. "Maybe the street lamp isn't worth defending?"

The loudest of the college students gives Noah the finger. "Fuck off, yourself! It's a free country!" He yanks his string around and deliberately and with MALICE AND FORETHOUGHT tries to crash it into where the other two men are standing. He'll probably regret this in the morning.

Despite being the one to start off the verbal mudslinging, Noah is shocked, shocked when it results in someone trying to assault him with their kite. Flabbergasted. How did it come to this? "You little fuck," he mutters as he steps out of the kite's path and flicks his lit cigarette at the kid.

Poor Alexander is abandoned as Noah stalks toward a group of drunken college students, because apparently he's willing to pick this fight. "Beat it!"

Alexander lets out another curse as the kite comes plummeting down. He moves in the opposite direction of Noah, and the kite slams into the pavement between them. "Look, we should just--"

And Noah's gone. Stalking towards those kids, all 6'3" of him, with the thunder growling and grumbling overhead, and a wind strong enough to knock the flicked cigarette in a sideways arc. Somewhere, through the fog of alcohol and late teenagehood, the students seem to realize that this may have been a Bad Life Decision. Alpha Jerk suddenly laughs, nervous and high pitched. "Hey, man. It was just a joke. Don't get so fucking bent out of shape. I wasn't gonna really hit you with the damned kite." He's backing away, and his friends are, too. One with the remaining kite just lets the string go, and the wind takes the thing high up in the air before it falls somewhere near the duck pond.

Alexander watches this with a wince. "You should go," he tells the students, a bit urgently, his wary gaze mostly on Noah. "You really should just go."

Noah is silent, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides in a gradual warm up before he uses them for real. But when they begin to step back and away from him, he half steps forward as if to follow before abruptly turning face and walking back to the street lamp. He leans against the pole, takes out his pack of Marlboro's and fishes out a new one. There's a glance spared for Alexander, "Like I said, this is my spot."

The students scatter, although they try to do it in that cool 'we just decide you weren't worth it' sort of way, which is not really helped by the stumbling. A white fork of lightning splits the sky up above, and Alexander winces, giving the clouds a deeply worried look as Noah returns to 'his' spot. There's a thoughtful look from the other man. "Is there something special about it?" this seems to be a legitimate question, as Alexander bends down and starts picking up kite pieces to throw in a nearby garbage can.

"Kids," Noah mutters under his breath while be proceeds with smoking. It seems like this time, after various mishaps, he's going to be successful. He side eyes Alexander when he begins to pick up the trash, leveling an unspoken assessment on him. "I like it here. It's where I meet people when I feel like meeting them. You local?" he asks, blowing a plume of smoke out into the air.

"At least they won't get hit by lightning, now," Alexander points out, quietly, as he stuffs the remains of the kite in a trash can. He moves to pick up the other one, pausing when he's asked a direct question. A quick nod. "Yeah. Most of my life, except college and a little after. You're not." It's a small town, so it's not really a question. Gossip gossip gossip. He continues to the trash can. "Where are you from?"

"My good deed done for the day," Noah remarks, dry humor laced with an otherwise serious tone. He settles into the well known pattern of inhale, hold, exhale. "How long does someone have to live in a place to be considered local?" he wonders idly. It's definitely longer than the handful of years Noah has spent in Gray Harbor, if there's ever a time you can transition over. "New York."

"It's a small town. Your grandkids might get to be local," Alexander says, not without a flash of dry humor, "but there'll be a few holdouts who still call them 'those new folk, the Abernathys'. Like you moved in last week. Sorry. Just how it is." His head tilts to one side at the answer. "Huh. Why? How do people in New York keep hearing about a town in the ass end of nowhere in Washington state?" There's humor to it, but his dark eyes are serious, albeit hidden by the bangs the wind keeps brushing into them. "And what part?" The fact that grilling someone he just met about their origins might be considered rude doesn't seem to occur to him.

There's a small huff of laughter from Noah, in between the puffs of carcinogenic smoke. "Dunno," he answers eloquently about everyone else from out of town. "I drift. If you do it long enough, you can end up almost anywhere. As long as you don't think too hard." Alexander is nosy. Nosy enough that it warrants a quick squint. "Little east of Long Island City. What part of town are you from?"

Alexander thinks about it, nods. "I drifted. For a while. After college. You eventually fetch up somewhere. I guess Gray Harbor has its charms." He can't help but sound a bit dubious about what those charms might be, however. The squint gets a quick duck of his head, a cautious look from under bangs. But he doesn't hesitate to answer the question offered in turn, so at least he's not stingy as well as nosy. "Raised around Spruce Street. Family has a house there. I live on Elm." With his rather ragged clothing, it doesn't speak of an upwardly mobile trajectory. Another abrupt question: "Why guns? Never understood the appeal."

"I like it here," Noah says on Gray Harbor's charms or lack thereof depending on your opinion. He taps some ash onto the ground as he observes his thunderstorm companion. There's a hmm at his answer, eyes flickering over the clothes. "I like guns. I like to shoot things, I'm a good shot. I don't have to think too hard. They say 'do what you love'." He exhales, "You ever shoot one?"

Alexander shoves his hands in his jeans pockets, as if someone might manifest and force him to pick up a gun. "You've got strange tastes, Mister Abernathy," he says, regarding liking Gray Harbor. It could be teasing. The flatness of his voice says that it isn't. At the question, he shakes his head. Then hesitates. "Maybe. No. Not shot. Held. Hit someone with. But not shot." He grimaces. "I don't like them. Force multiplier, fucks up the threat calculation. People think they're badass with a gun and don't back down when they should. Can't control bullets once they've left the barrel - unintended consequences, collateral casualties." It's a rapid-fire list of quiet complaints.

"You're a bit weird, huh?" Noah seems to conclude after Alexander completes his assessment on guns. "That's not the everyman's answer on disliking them." He sells guns. Noah gets emails with opinions on his business. "What's your deal? Why so nosy? Why so worried about threat calculations?" He sucks in another mouthful of smoke and waits.

"I'm a bit weird," Alexander agrees, tonelessly. His head cocks to one side. "It isn't? Huh. What's the usual answer?" Like he never considered that people could dislike guns for reasons other than that. He shuffles a bit on his feet, looking one way, then the other. "I investigate things. I'm not a private investigator. Don't have a license. But I investigate things. Interesting things. Threat calculations are important. Knowing whether you should run, or whether you have to fight, and how much force has to be used to resolve a conflict is important. Don't you think?" His gaze returns with rude directness, staring openly at Noah's face as if he might pry the answer out of him with just the weight of it.

"Mass shootings, school shootings, loose gun laws mean more criminals have guns. As if criminals are going to care about laws if they want to get their hands on a weapon," Noah shrugs his shoulders, expression neutral. If he has a deep, burning position on gun law, he doesn't launch into a speech on it now. Not more than he's already alluded to. "You're an unlicensed, not-private detective." He looks at him for a moment before snorting, sucking the rest of that smoke down before he toss the cigarette down onto the ground and stamping it out. "Sure, I guess. I don't like to think that much though. I like to see and do, rely on my instincts to react. To do the judging for me. If it goes well, great. If not? I had a good run." He doesn't shy away from the stare, "Thinking too much can get you in trouble."

"Rational. Logical objection. Yes, criminals will obtain weapons - in 2009, a Florida man strangled a woman with a pair of sweatpants. In 2012, a man was killed in Germany by a stranger who had altered the tip of an umbrella to contain a needle filled with a lethal dose of mercury. Just popped the guy in the brain stem with a syringe full of the stuff while he was out on a walk." And yes, Alexander knows these things off the top of his head. "But guns are a force multiplier. Create self-fulfilling needs for escalation. Reduce the number, probably reduce overall quantity of homicides." A pause. "But largely irrelevant. My concerns are more personal than societal."

He grimaces at the rest. "Dangerous. To give yourself over to instinct. Useful, helps to survive in high threat situations, but can also get you in trouble. As much as thinking."

"Only problematic if you don't like danger. If you don't like danger, you probably shouldn't be involved in situations with threat multiplers," Noah says, the very barest hints of a smile creeping into a place. It's a subtle show of teeth before he ducks his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But I wouldn't know about any of that, for sure. I'm just a law abiding business owner, trying to make my way in the world." Who menaces college students in the park at night, it's fine. "And you're just an unlicensed detective, detecting things and walking around with a head full of facts. Like a fucking living, breathing Ripley's Believe It Or Not."

Alexander rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "I don't like danger. But that doesn't really stop danger, and I like being helpless even less." His eyes flick down to Noah's hands as they get shoved in his pockets. "Sarcasm," he notes, quietly. As if to himself more than to the other man. His eyes flick back up to Noah's face. There's the ghost of a smile on a face that doesn't look like it sees a lot of them. "I guess so." The thunder cracks over head, and he casts a quick look up at the sky, gives a little shiver. "I should go. It's gonna open up any minute, and I still have a bit of a walk. Nice to meet you, Noah Abernathy. Don't die." With that cheerful parting, he starts walking away from Noah's street light, his shoulders bowed and head ducked, as if trying to protect himself from the rain that hasn't yet fallen.

"Thanks. Nice meeting you too, Ripley," Noah replies dryly, still remaining under his street lamp and tracking Alexander as he walks away. He doesn't make a move to leave the park, even with the thunderstorm ready to rip open at any moment. He has an appointment.