2019-08-30 - Pourhouse Shabbos

Friday nights at the Pourhouse are chaotic, to say the least. The place is crammed with people in various stages of inebriation, most of them hemmed in at the bar. Amongst those patronizing the place tonight are a gaggle of off duty cops who are getting increasingly rowdy as the night goes on. They're regulars here, most of them; a few patrol officers, a detective, and that fucking Latino captain. He claps one of his buddies on the shoulder, informs them he's going for a quick smoke break, and proceeds to do just that, shouldering his way through the crowd.

Itzhak rolls in on his half-sauntering stride, an irritated glare already on his face. It's loud in here. It's rowdy in here. Just what he's looking for. He fits right in at the Pourhouse.

Shoving his way up to the bar, he jostles someone. "Hey, ya mind?" he says, sharp and aggravated, not even really aimed at the guy though. Just random bitchery. He's trying to get a drink here, people.

"Mira hacia donde vas," grouses the jostlee, who happens to be the cop on his way out for that smoke. Too many people in here, not enough air. It makes him tetchy. He recognises the man belonging to that irritated glare almost immediately. How could he not? "Rosencrantz." Hey, now he almost looks amused. He's in a dark tee shirt and jeans; the brim of a ballcap makes his eyes hard to find, and the profuse ink makes him look up to no good.

Itzhak halts abruptly as a none-too-welcome voice says his name. He shoots a look over his shoulder--and has to think about it for a moment. The ballcap throws him a little. But he gets it after a beat or two too long. "De la Vega. What, you ain't got more trees to shake?" Of course, he's dressed as he always is, in a snug ribbed tank top that shows off all his ink, tight jeans, and steel-toe workboots (convenient for both the shop floor and self-defense).

Steel toe workboots are indeed handy when one needs to defend themselves. Hypothetically. So are semiautomatic, .45 caliber handguns. Like the one he tends to keep under his jacket. Unfortunately for him, it's not in play tonight. "Do I look on duty to you? Además, algunos de ellos aún tienen que dar fruto." His smoke is waggled between index and middle finger, still unlit. "Buy you a drink?" He looks even more amused at that. It's all in his eyes; his mouth barely twitches.

Itzhak eyes Ruiz wary as a deer or an ex-con. "...Sure. Ain't real often one of you boys buys me a drink." The Spanish is complex, but he gets the gist: now is a time of waiting. So many of Itz's danger senses go off, pingpingpingpingping. Ruiz is bad news. "Gimme a beer," he shouts over the noise of the bar, to whatever hapless son of a bitch is tending tonight.

The wary look gains a chortle of amusement from de la Vega, and he digs in his pocket for a crumpled bill. Enough to pay for the beer and, "Another tequila as well, por favor," pitched toward the 'tender. His voice doesn't particularly lend itself to shouting; smoke-roughened and with the consistency of fine sandpaper, it takes him some effort to be heard above the din. "So Easton Marshall's a friend of yours, si?"

It's one of those things where Itzhak knows Ruiz pulled his record, and knows Ruiz knows it, and knows that Itzhak knows that Ruiz knows... GTA, larceny, resisting arrest, assault on an officer. Not a peep since he got out from his five and a half years though. Guy really did clean up his act. Apparently. Still looks like six feet of trouble.

He takes the mug of beer with a nod of thanks. "Easton," he says, frowning--then, "The bartender? Nah, I hardly know him. Literally learned his name like two weeks ago."

Oh, of course he's pulled Itzhak's record. Pulled it and pored over it and made some calls, and assault on an officer was reread twice before he went digging for details. Who. When. What detention facility, early release? Six feet of trouble is right.

He hasn't been handed his drink yet, so he watches the younger man. Elbow against the bar, smoke fiddled with between his fingers, dark eyes all slanted up at the corners with lingering amusement. Like he knows something the Jew doesn't. "Hardly know him. Yes, I figured. How's Joey doing?"

When he was caught, it turns out, is when he lost his cool. Panicked, probably, for those who can read between the lines, and someone must have talked sense into him on the scene. If this guy was black or Latino, he'd still be in, but he's a Jewish boy and so he's out. He was in a New York facility, which given that accent of his, is pretty obvious. Ruiz will have got to see that he has a mom and a younger sister. Any further digging turned up that Dad is dead and the sister had a child and a messy divorce. Pretty standard tough-guy-down-on-his-luck stuff.

"Kelly?" says the embodiment of all this paperwork now. "Exercising his God-given right to be a massive prick, far as I can tell." Itzhak takes a swig of beer.

Well, you know, it ain't the oppression olympics, but men like Ruiz tend to end up murdered or incarcerated, not fancy ass captains of police forces. "Kelly," he confirms, sipping his drink once it arrives. Smoke held in two fingers of the same hand. His eyes don't leave Itzhak, not for a moment. "That sounds about right." Where Joey's concerned. Not that he's had the privilege of shaking him down for information recently. No more questions seem forthcoming immediately; he looks like he's itching to go light up, and downing his drink's become a formality. Some of his cop buddies are eyeing up his new 'friend', but nobody's said anything yet. They know what the captain's like.

Itzhak is like a cat in a circle of bulldogs here. He's nervously rubbing a thumb up and down the glass of the beer mug, making it squeak. In a rhythm. "You gonna smoke? Come with ya." He's knocked back a few good swallows, but suddenly the atmosphere is feeling a little oppressive and extricating himself is more important than beer.

The nerves are noted, surely. The crackle of tension that sits around Itzhak like a haze, palpable. "Si. Fine." His gaze ducks away with the admission, glass tilted back, drink downed in one long swallow that pulls at his adam's apple. The cops are his buddies, sure, but he's not the most sociable sort. He's put in enough facetime for tonight, and apparently has no qualms about sliding his empty glass away and shouldering his way by a big black cop who knocks him in the shoulder with a fist, and out that back door.

Itzhak takes another gulp--okay one more--juuust one more then he's out, weaving after Ruiz through the packed crowd. He's a lot more tense now, like he came in expecting trouble and found way more of it than he wanted.

He taps a cigarette on the back of his hand, once they're out into the night. "So. Come here often?" Terrible joke pick-up lines will salvage the situation.

Well, there's trouble and there's trouble. Which of them de la Vega is, perhaps time will tell. Perhaps those steel-toed boots will. He rumbles a noise in his throat on an exhale, after he finally ducks outside and takes in a lungful of fresh air. The bar was starting to smell like sweat and cheap alcohol, and he lights up like he's been craving this all day. "Last Friday of each month. Precinct goes out for beers, and I either buy or I have to drink them under the table. Because Thatchery es un maldito cobarde." The lighter's offered up to Itzhak. But he's gonna have to come and get it. Because the cop's an asshole like that. "I think you showed up on the wrong night, Rosencrantz." He flickers a smile, but it isn't friendly.

There's one thing about Itzhak not found on any of his records, but it's bright as midmorning to Ruiz. He shines, and he shines strong. Potential energy like a boulder about to tip off the top of a cliff. The people who don't have it are fuzzy around the edges compared to how his strength outlines him as if he stands in front of a searchlight.

"Kinda think you might have a point." He eyes the lighter, eyes Ruiz, terribly aware that Ruiz is being a dick about it. But he yielded to him before and he yields to him now, dipping in for a light. If Ruiz armlocks him again, well, we'll have to burn that bridge when we come to it.

The thing about people like Itzhak, is they draw others to them like moths to a flame. The way Ruiz watches him, like he's trying to pull apart the layers and figure out what makes him tick. Like he's trying to edge closer to whatever burns hot at the core of him; his own shine is much fainter. An echo of power ripped to shreds, like an afterimage of a roaring inferno seared into the retinas. There is his potential, and there is what's left of him.

No armlock materializes when the zippo is relinquished. Just a quick smile that creases his eyes, and a pull off his cigarette before he blows smoke toward the other man, rather than away. The lighter looks old. It's got the eagle, globe and anchor insignia of the USMC engraved on it. "You know, I have known a lot of guys like you. Basura judia."

Itzhak draws in, cherry of the cigarette glowing in the dark. He runs his tongue over a canine tooth, looks over just in time to get smoke blown on him. "...Crude, asshole." He steps out of the line of fire, shooting Ruiz a nasty look. "God, you want me to take a swing at you so fuckin' bad, don't you? Either that or you wanna rail me. Still working it out." Itzhak exhales, looking down that magnificent schnozz at Ruiz, head tipped back. "You got a thing for Jewish guys, is that it?"

Take a swing? "I don't think you have the balls." He's got his smoke to his lips, and another pull in the works when either that or you wanna rail me pops out. And he laughs, smoky and rough and scratchy-warm. "In your fucking dreams, Rosencrantz." He laughs some more, honestly amused by that, then brings his cigarette to his mouth again. The cherry illuminates some of that odd ink that crawls up the back of his hand to his first knuckles of each finger. "I served with a few. Stingy, guilt tripping little motherfuckers. Hot accent, though, this Israeli guy I knew. Do you speak Hebrew?"

"Yeah, sure, balls are the reason I don't try to pop a police captain when the entire precinct is drunk on the other side of an open door." Itzhak stares at the wall, with its peeling paint. "Oh believe me I'd dearly love to, but I learned that lesson. You're never off duty, you think I don't know that?" He glances back over, scowling--then snorts, reluctantly amused when Ruiz laughs. And shrugs, taking a drag. "Rusty at it anymore. Better when it's in a song, anyway."

He lets the smoke out on a soft-voiced song. "//Shalom aleichem,
malachei hashareit,
malachei elyon,
mimelech mal'chei ham'lachim,
hakadosh baruch hu...//"

The melody is low and has that melancholy all Jewish music seems to have. Itzhak sings it clear and quiet, almost absently, watching the smoke rise from his cigarette.

Ruiz's cap is tugged off for a moment so he can scrub the heel of his palm briefly through dark, scruffy curls. He chortles some more, laugh lines springing up at the edges of his eyes, which are visible now with his damned hat off. They look black, but are in actuality a schizophrenic hazel. Sometimes greenish; tonight, gunmetal grey. "Fuck, they're not paying attention to us." He tugs his hat back on, nudges the brim. Red sox. Maybe he's a fan. The comment about him never being off duty causes his amusement to flicker a moment. Like something about that hits too close to home.

He's quiet though when Itzhak launches into singing. Takes a lean against the wall with a bulky shoulder, flicks some ash off the end of his smoke. Bright, hot sparks shower the ground at his feet; burning, burning, gone. By the time the other man is done, that melancholy seems to have seeped its way into the captain. He's still, and his thoughts seem elsewhere. Maybe remembering those men he served with. Maybe something else entirely. "Toda raba," he offers eventually. The accent's mangled, but the sentiment's recognisable at least.

Itzhak makes an eloquent little flourish of one hand, silent acknowledgement/miniature stage bow. Another thing about these Jewish guys, they could say a lot with a tip of the hand and an eyebrow.

"It's Shabbos, after all, and I'm nowhere near drunk enough to start shit with you." He drops his cigarette into the disgusting coffee can left out for the purpose. "So why don't you ask me what you really wanna ask me, huh?"

Shabbos. That's a good excuse. Ruiz watches the little flourish, then his gaze travels back up again. Takes a bit of effort to focus, because while he isn't drunk yet either, he's definitely got a good buzz going on. "Not on the clock tonight," he tells him, low voiced. Smoke rolls out of his parted lips and nose; again, no attempt to turn away from Itzhak. "Don't worry. I'll stop by again soon. We'll have a nice chat. Tu hijo de puta resbaladizo."

Itzhak squints, trying to figure out 'resbaladizo'. "I got the first part. I grew up on the Lower East Side, I know all them cusses. Hijo de puta, basura, basura Judia, oh yeah I heard all them. Gonna have to brush up if we're gonna have nice little chats like this. I gotta remember how to call you a motherfucker in ya native tongue. For now I just gotta settle for calling you a mamzer. The really good curses are curses, you know what I mean? Like, may you have thunder in your guts and lightning in your pants. That one's pretty mild. If you never heard a Yiddish great-grandmother from the old country really lay into someone, you haven't lived."

"Pendejo," the cop supplies with a dimpled grin. They seem less closely hoarded when he's been drinking a little. The alcohol loosens him up, shakes out some of the military man in him. His own smoke is dragged from once more and then flicked to the ground, and obliterated under the heel of his boot. Even in them, Itzhak's got a couple of inches on him. But he's probably got a good 30 or 40 pounds on the younger man. "Si. I know what you mean. Let me see if I can remember.." His tongue touches his upper teeth for a moment as he thinks. Then, "May deyn tapevorm antviklen farshtopung bshes vagonetke kars loyfn durkh deyn kishke vi gnbim lager aoys in deyn boykh aun ganvenen deyn gats eyner durkh eyner." Yiddish, not Hebrew. And he mangles that accent even worse.

Itzhak's eyes pop wide as Yiddish--hilariously bad Yiddish, but Yiddish--starts coming out of Ruiz. Out of anything he could have expected, that wasn't one. Then he's cracking up, actually doubling over as Ruiz continues, blithely mangling the proverbial bejesus out of a long and elaborate curse. Laughing until he's wheezing and red-faced. Ruiz doesn't have to punch him, he can incapacitate the lanky jerk just like this.

"Oh FUCK ME," he gasps, wiping at his eyes. "That was...uh, that sure was something, all right." He grins outright at Ruiz, which crinkles the corners of his eyes into crow's-feet. According to his paperwork he's 36, but he's hard-worn, younger than he usually seems. "Somethin' terrible!"

Yes, well, that was pretty bad. Itzhak's lesson of the day: never let a Mexican try to tell you a curse in Yiddish. The other man's grandmother is probably rolling in her grave right now. De la Vega, unable to keep his cool when Itzhak starts doubling over in laughter, chortles a little. Then it turns into a low, rumbly belly laugh. And every time it seems he might wind down, Rosencrantz just winds him back up again. "You're dreaming again," he retorts to the fuck me, laughing some more. His cap comes off, knuckles scrubbed across his eyes, and a few residual little chortles escape as he watches the other man. "You don't like my Yiddish? I'll have to work on it." He seems to have something else to say there, but keeps it to himself.

Itzhak laughs more too. "Ehh, what can I say, I do miss the dick. I'll say for Joey Kelly, the thighs on that guy are USDA Prime."

Ugh, he's forgotten for a moment that Ruiz is, well, Ruiz. For a second there they were just a couple of guys having a laugh over a smoke. He doesn't quite put the scowl back on, but he scratches the back of his head and sighs.

"Guess I'll get somewhere else to do my drinkin'. Thanks for the tip off, huh? I'll keep outta the way on GHPD Night."

For all his hard as nails, ex-marine exterior, de la Vega is awfully short on words when he's faced with that awkward, pregnant little pause. He flickers a smile at the comment on Kelly's thighs. "I hadn't noticed." He probably will now. Next time he's over there, hitting the bags or shaking the tree, or whatever the fuck he does when he isn't roughing up lanky Jews.

"I know of a good place, over in Seattle. I think you'd like it. You want a ride some time, let me know. Though that stingray puts my truck to shame, I have to say. Ella es maravillosa." Car nut? Maybe a little. He pushes off the wall. "We'll talk soon. Si?" Sounds like a threat, as much as a promise. He never did get his lighter back, so he steps in and holds out his hand. And waits.

Itzhak rolls the lighter around in his fingers. "Sometime. You like 'er? She's not bad, huh?" In Yiddish, this means 'my car is hotter than yours and we both know it.'

He lets Ruiz step in, standing his ground, although this puts them very close indeed. Then he holds the Zippo up, eyebrows going arrogant and sly. When he lets the lighter go, it floats, with all the elegant antigravity of a soap bubble. It hangs there, turning slow and gentle as if on a line, until Ruiz grabs it.

"See ya, Gunny." Itzhak upnods to him, and saunters off, around the building rather than going back through it. Fuck that.

"She's not bad." In Spanish, this means 'bitch please, you'd be spitting rubber for days'. That Charger, at least, has a monstrosity of an engine shoved under the hood. His truck.. well, no contest really. The little trick with the lighter causes him to raise a brow slightly. Tension in his shoulders, hackles up. The moment it's within reach, it's snatched out of the air, and his eyes narrowed slightly at the other man's rapidly retreating form. "Cabron," he mutters beneath his breath, shoving the thing in his pocket and watching Itzhak go for a moment before turning to head back inside. His buddies are probably wondering where the hell he's gotten to by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZzFiCFlaA