2019-08-09 - Like a Bag of Rocks

It's hot and therefore hte training time is actually slower because it's hard to train indoors when it's 90 fucking degrees outside. The doors are all propped open with plastic buckets filled with sand to try to optimise the airflow and keep the humidity out. Presently he's greating mud out of gravel by taking a garden hose to some of the equipment he's moved to the side lot; 84' Camaro parked off to teh side

It is hot. Hotter'n hell. Just like home: miserable. Itzhak walks in the front door, tall lanky guy, looks like rough trade for days. He takes off his mirrored sunglasses and hooks them in the front of his shirt, looking around the place, wary as a deer or an ex-con. "Hey," he calls. It wouldn't do to surprise Joey. "Anybody home."

There's one high school id in there training. Skinny as a spider monkey, but all lean muscle and determined. Not uncommon for the High schoolers sometimes use the gym for warming up for wrestling season. Both hands stop the heavybag from swinging and he points to teh side door. "Mr. Kelly said he'd be outside if you're lookin for him?" He looks to Itzhak and his tattooed hands and just stares for a long moment and then back up insanly curious.

Itzhak's used to that glance at his hands. He ignores it. Mostly. One side of his upper lip twitches. That old reflex, it's always in his belly, ready to snarl.

"Yeah thanks," he says, and heads out the side door. Catching sight of the promised Kelly, he says, raising his voice over the sound of water, "'Ey. Kelly."

Joey isn't a huge guy, but anger builds character and muscle apparently given evidence of his tanktop and athletic shorts that pool around his knee. Around his neck is a silver chain with a gold ring on it that bounces as he offloads two large bags of pea gravel off to the side. Apparently he's trying to clean up the side of the building's flower beds or hiding a body. World may never want to know. Rubbing the back of his wrist across his forehead he looks to the address and upnods, and then nods as if silent permission to get all up in his business. "Hey. Sup, Rosenkrantz?"

Itzhak jerks an upnod in return. "Sup. You wanna hand with that?" Not that Joey isn't extremely capable of wrestling around bags of gravel. His offer is an olive branch of sorts.

Joey considers and fianlly nods and thumbs over to the pallet halfway down. "Yeah, man. I'm just linen em all up here. Gonna finish gettin that stuff out and re-run the trench with gravel to get water away from teh damn building when it fucking rains. Didn't try to keep it up this long to watch it sink." He pauses and looks Itzhak over once before moving the bag into place. "You look like you need to hit something. Sup?"

Itzhak saunters on over to the pallet, crouches, hefts a bag with a grunt. He walks it over to where Joey's lining them up. "For how much it rains in this state, drainage is shit," he mutters, half-dropping, half-tossing the bag to a crunchy stop. Repairs and yardwork, something all men can bond over, right? He goes back for another bag right away; working feels good. "Some kinda fucked up shootout at Twofer. Girl I know got shot." He makes a face. Probably just busting out with that to Joey Kelly wasn't the best move, but there it is. When he drops the second bag, he looks over at Joey, and he looks for something not on the surface.

Joey is tired and, as his nickname suggests, just a lead brick. All the crazy shit flying around Joey Kelly remains steadfast. As much as he stays quiet and looks like he hates the world there's a weird calm that settles on him like a jackal in wait, hackles raising slowly. He turns to Itzhak, full stop, and asks, "Who got hurt? Who's he shooter?"

Itzhak winds up staring for a long and weird couple of moments. He knows there's something happening in there, but Joey's reputation comes through. Himself, anyone with a hint of the shine can tell he glows. "That's the thing. Place is fine. Nobody had any bullets in 'em, but they sure got shot."

Joey might not be the brightest bulb on the tree but he can figure out: okay, so it's weird. "A'ight, that eliminates people to go fucking visit for a meeting. Bullets is real enough. Who the fuck got hurt?" His weight shifts between his feet and immediately he takes in the possibilities. He doesn't like these possibilities. "This at the fuckin Pourhouse? If they fuckin shot Mariah this town about to have another fuckin problem. Staff ok?""

Itzhak rakes his fingers through his curls, his mouth twisting into a scowl. "Nobody got hurt too bad, I mean, relatively speaking, right? Nah, it was at the other bar, Two If By Sea. Easton runs it, you know him? Staff's okay. Only people like me got pulled in." When Joey shifts his weight, so does Itzhak, turning to face him.

Joey is so damn focused on the situation, and people(plural) are getting shot up and being in the complete dark. How he veers away completely from noticing the utter glare of glimmer that comes off of Itzhak and focuses down on the abstract is anyone's guess, "WOOOOAH woah waoh you sayin this was some hate crime bullshit because I'll go to town here with a goddamned bat pro bono." Weirdly he's got little tolerance or bullies. The irony is staggering.
REALLY, JOEY, THAT"S WHAT YOU GOT OUT OF THAT??!

"What?" says Itzhak, flabberghasted. "What--NO! No, not Jews! ...Seriously?" Seriously, Joey, the red right hand of Monaghan, is offering to take a bat to imaginary anti-Semites? "No, I mean," he points at his temple. "People who got the song. You know, you gotta know, living in this town doin' what you do. People who can do the weird shit."

Why, yes. Yes he would. Apparently there's a very different situation ofpummeling the crap out of someone that voluntarily goes into business with Mr. Monaghan and do not keep up their end of the courtesy... those askin for it, as opposed people minding their own business harassed for no good reason.

Professional thug is professional.

Joey squints at Itzhak like he's talking about UFOs now and the words give him pause to turn around and turn back, "What weird shit??!"

Eyes huge, Itzhak stares. "Oh fuck me. Are you fucking kidding me. But you have it! You're a fuckin' ANVIL but I hear it in you! Whaddaya MEAN what weird shit?!"

Joey glances around right... then left and then boggles his head to Itzhak. Slowly he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I swear on my mama's grave if the next words out of your mouth are 'first the Seahawks put points on the board, and now this?!'...we're gonna go round about man." Rule number #44: don't badmouth the Seahawks.

"This is a bad idea." Itzhak's staring at Joey, but talking to himself. "This is a terrible idea." Well, when did anything being a bad idea stop him.

He bends over, eyes still on Joey, and grabs one of the bags of gravel. Then he picks it up, one-handed, wrist gracefully bent as if he's holding his bow, clearly under no strain at all. He tosses it gently in his hand like it's a beanbag. "This. THIS weird shit."

Wendell St. Claire went all the way to New York to recruit this guy and that is why.

Joey picks up the bag, and while he doesn't toss it with one hand lifts it like he's been- well, okay, he has literally been doing this all day. "Roz, it's a bag of rocks. It's not weird, it's filthy. What are you tryin to drive at here? You comin out here to help out?" His head tilts and helpfully he points, "And those go over there." He shrugs and goes back to his labor. No wonder Felix likes this guy; he can ID a threat and ignore things that are not his business like a pro. "I mean I don't mind the help and if this is about that thing I asked you about that ain't personal, man. I mean," He pauses and shrugs, "It don't have to be weird."

Itzhak closes his eyes and says a long run of vastly aggravated Yiddish. "You're joking me. You're fucking joking me. Is this normal to you?" His tone escalates sharply. Glaring at Joey, he tosses the bag in the air, and it hangs there, drifting a little, gently as a soap bubble. "Can regular guys turn off gravity? You're doing it NOW!"

Joey blinks and looks around and looks incredibly confused. "Yeah?" Yeah? Apparently this is yes. But then again this is Gray Harbor. He walks over and sighs, "If you're going to stand around all day with your dick, or my bag of rocks, in the wind" He shoves them into place and the propell into the trench bed beside the building with a crunchy thud of being dropped. "I'ma ask you to step aside." His hand swats tiredly at the air, "It's hot and I've been out here for two hours. You just gonna stand here pullin my crank or get to the point?"

The bag of gravel collapses to the ground with a crunch. Out of sheer orneriness Itzhak picks it up again, with muscles this time, and hefts it over to where it should be. "I can't believe this," he's muttering savagely to himself. "Joey Fuckin' Kelly. Listen, tateleh, the POINT is, most people can't fuckin' do that. Most people don't get to talk to each other in their heads or whistle up boulders or go to another world, okay? You're weird, I'm weird, half the damn town is weird but it ain't like that anywhere else. Manhattan, you know how many other people I heard with the song? Three, maybe four. Everything's ripped open here."

Joey pauses and goes very still. Turning he walks over to Itzhak not caring if the man has a few inches on him. "Itzhak I'm gonna ask you this one time cause I consider yuou an alright guy..." He eyes the bag and back confused, "Are you trying to steal my gravel? Cause if you're hard up we can work something out."

He goes to turn and holds up two fingers that becomes one finger which becomes a point, "Ya know," He adds casually, "If everything shares a trait? It ain't no anomaly." For all the homework he avoided Science still stuck.

"I don't want your fershtunken gravel and that's not how that--Okay, you know what, fuck it. Fuck it, fuck this, I came here to tell you the cops are looking for suspects with good cars." Itzhak storms over to the next bag on the pallet, grabs it by the corner and tosses it over as if it was full of cotton candy and not rocks.

Joey seems passively pleased by the fact that Rosenkrantz is off the 'your town is weird' kick when the town is just as the town always was. He sighs squinting his eyes. "So what you're sayin is my car needs to get scrubbed." He sighs. "Fuuuuckin great." His jaw sets and he sideglances to Itzhak, "How much this set me back if I have you do it, or you need a favor or somethin?"

"Depends, how much do I need to scrub?" Itzhak abruptly sits down on the pallet like he just can't cope with the world anymore, arms resting loosely on his knees. He regards Joey from under those eyebrows, thinking.

"I know you ain't the type," he says, after a moment. "But some bozos are. There's a girl, I don't want nobody messing with her."

Joey frowns, "AInt' what type? I'm ain 't a crazy idiot go shootin up a bar. That's fucked up." He shakes his head relenting, "Pretty sure if they wanted to they'd jsut fuckin plant a brick in my trunk and just pretend to search it. Still." Looking up it's clear: He doesn't want any accidents. Quietly he asks, "What's her name?" His head rolls to the side listening.

"Ain't the type to mess with a girl, that's what." Joey has successfully worn Itzhak down to the point where he just says it. The Lead Brick wins again. "Her name's Isolde. She's crazy. Easy target." His mouth twists, considering saying more, but doesn't. "She also ain't gonna get mixed up in business, you don't gotta worry about that. Just, you hear anybody talkin' about her, set 'em straight. Fair?"

Joey grunts some agreement. Yeah that's on his short list of NOs. Looking to Itzhak he walks over and offers a handshake that is more a series of one handed slaps, some finger origami, and a few fistbumps than a 'shake' really. He cements it, "Consider it a non-issue. Isolde. Where she work?" Because that's how he'd know. "What we got to go on." He pauses rubing his hand oer his face. "Please tell me she ain't one of the dancers because I ain't up for a Syphilisian task." Sisyphean, Joey, though you never know.

Itzhak returns that clubhouse handshake with swift and idle skill, like he's participated in a lot of them. He snorts, but it's kinda weary. "Nah, she's not a dancer. All them girls can take care of themselves, pretty sure. She works at the lavender farm a little ways north, you know it?" Looking up, squinty, he's studying Joey against the brilliant blue sky.

Joey nods and vague gestures from the rocks to the car and sighs, "Fine. Sure. Let's finish this up and I'll clean out the car and we'll drop it off. If shit's hot in teh city better now than later. I got a life now. I don't need them messin that up. I mean, shit, it's fucked up but it's fuckin mine, man." He pointsdown there muttering something about stopping at the end of the wall, and the rest goes into giving Itzhak permission to speak on behalf of the Giants but the Pats are not to be praised on his property and musing the new lineup for the fantasy league that the bookies are all a twitter about.