2020-04-30 - Opening Doors

So, it's been a little time since Bennie's birthday. And finally a text from Joe, requesting a meeting somewhere other than the Twofer.

Now it's a lovely afternoon, trending towards evening. At the end of the docks, where the public beach starts to curve away, there're picnic tables, some with canopies over them. The sailor is sitting at one of them, a couple bottles of coke at hand.

He's sort of propped up awkwardly, and the reason's apparent the moment Easton gets close. Someone's given him a hell of a beating, face bruised and battered on one side....and by the way he sits, those aren't the only wounds he's taken. Holding what looks like a cold pack on the side of his face, gazing patiently out at the water.

The text isn't returned straight away but eventually Easton gets around to replying to the text. He shows up looking a little worse for the wear in his own way. He's been doing a decent job until recently of hanging on to his sobriety, but that doesn't appear to be the case tonight. He's good and solidly drunk but he walks just fine, except for the ever present hitch in his gate.

Dressed in a hoodie and jeans with boots he makes his way up to Joseph and stops. He looks him up and down and nods, "You come by those honestly or that just some Gray Harbor style loving?" He glances at the coke and shakes his head pulling a flask out of his hoodie pouch and taking a sip before taking a seat, falling ungracefully into it with a thump.

Curiosity in the eye that's open - part of that whole complex is something of a real shiner - but no judgement there. Marines and sailors are hard drinker by culture and by habit. A shrug for Easton's refusal and he takes one of the bottles - it's the kind that still comes in curvaceous glass, with real sugar. Then he's popping it open with a keychain bottle opener. "More the latter," he says, easily. No hint of embarrassment. "Thanks for comin'. Looks like you already a few sheets to the wind."

Ironically Easton meant to ask if Joseph fell into a Dream and was injured there, not if that was some domestic situation, so his response is an annoyed, "This fuckin town." He shakes his head and drinks to that. "One of those days. Felt like it was either drink or just beat the ever loving shit out of everyone who annoyed me.." He lets out an annoyed grunt, not sure why he's in that much of a mood but he is. "Not yer problem. Anyway, what's up?"

But it is this fuckin town, as it were. Just....at one remove, in a way. "Yeah, I hear that," he says, quietly. "I have those days....though in my case, it's not generally liquor I resort to." He's got a sheaf of opioid prescriptions he's not afraid make use of.

At that, he takes a careful pull off his coke bottle, and then looks out to sea. "I'm not tryin'a pry into your family's business. But I was a patient in a hospital that's name I don't really know, other'n I've heard it called the Asylum. The way I got admitted wasn't usual, but while I was there, I was under the care of a Doctor Marshall. What kinna kin is he to you?"

There's a smirk and glance, obviously Easton wasn't expecting that initial response. "Yea? You strike me as more level headed.." It's the Southern accent, people always mistake it for laid back. "What's yer poison?" He thinks through his mental list of things he formerly used, at least grateful that the list is shrinking, even if he can't kick the booze.

As soon as Joseph says 'patient' Easton's face falls. He sees where this is going. He takes a long pull on the flask and sets it down to light up a cigarette. He puffs up and growls, "That sack of used assholes is my uncle Monty. He's dead now... mostly." Yes, mostly. He lets out a stream of smoke and says, "I'm sorry. I've been there it's.. that's fucked up. Even for here."

"Mos'ly scrip drugs. Not usin' so bad I kill myself, I got legit prescriptions from the VA. Gotta go up to Seattle, do some checkin' in some time soon, get some of 'em renewed. Got out on a medical, too, or I'd still be in the Navy. Was tryin'a make it to thirty years, didn't get there." A nod at the prosthetic leg- it may not be visible, but he knows that walk. A sidelong look, and he wonders, amused, "Level-headed? That's how I seem to you? But then, I forget you've only known me a li'l while. Jus' ask de la Vega, sometime, how level-headed I am."

Then Joe's nodding. For once, he's not fishing out his own cigarettes. "How's that 'mostly'? He a ghost?" It's a serious question. "And yeah, it sure as hell is. I was there for....three quarters of a year or so. I'm not tryin'a dump nothin' in your lap, but I am after findin' out more, if there is more to be found on this side of the Veil. You know there's a way into it under your bar?"

"Goodness the VA loves to push them scrips out." Not that Easton was complaining. "Yea, I know a little bit about that, just didn't make it fuckin' close to thirty." He grins and says, "I've only seen ya in the bar." He then reconsiders the injuries and the mention of De La Vega and gives Joe a questioning look, "Yea, I'll do."

"No, not a ghost. A rotting animated corpse? It's disgusting, he's dropping body parts and rotting, but still up and moving and his same old shitty self." He raises his eyebrows and lets out a soft sigh, "Yea. I do. How do you know that?" Easton's not exactly thrilled at the thought of that becoming common knowledge for a lot of reasons.

"Yeah, they sure do," Joe agrees, voice a little dry. "And that's true, you have." He shifts the cold pack with his hand, leans his elbow on the worn wood of the picnic table. "Fuck, he's a zombie? Goddamn, how does that even happen? Though....if it's on the other side, looks like a lotta things over there don't stay dead like they should."

Then the one open eye fixes on Easton again, and there's a spark of blazing madness there, for just an instant. "'cause I remember it all, now. The gettin' there and the stayin' and the leavin'. Young lady by the name of Megan Keene showed up in the Grizzly, tore that fuckin' scab right the hell off."

Easton's head wobbles at the Z word. He shrugs a little and says, "Not really? He's got all his mental faculties, such as they are. No shuffling or trying to bite ya." Look, he takes his horror movie monster classification seriously. As to how it happens, "Maybe he fucked his car one too many times." What? What. Moving on. "I don't know if there is a rhyme or reason over there."

The crazy look gets a narrowing of Easton's eyes and for just a moment a tension, like he expects Joseph to make a move. He's drunk, but obviously on edge. But the fact that Joe remembers sobers him up (metaphorically), "You remember. Holy shit. Are you saying you went through my bar to get there? Do you know any of the other twelve points?" He doesn't feel the need to pretend like he hasn't been looking into the Asylum. "Megan Keene?" The name means nothing to him. "Have you talked to Clayton about any of this? Or Isabella?"

The sailor's body isn't coiled in tension, not like a man about to attack. Almost relaxed, clearly attending more to his own pain than the other man's. "Jesus. That sounds like Hell to me."

"I am sayin' that. Marshall brought me here, took me through a door in the basement of the Twofer." A nod for the bar itself, which just sits there, looking like any perfectly benign dockside dive, with nothing worse in it than the threat of the toilets on Saturday night. "How many more ways in are there? A total of twelve, or thirteen? And no, haven't talked to either of them about this recently. They know I was a patient there, but not that I remember."

A set of memories that are making him start to tremble as if cold, for all that the air down by the water is soft and pleasant. No tears, though. He's fixed that gaze out on the glitter of the water again.

Easton's fight response is on overdrive thanks to whatever happened in his last slip into the Veil. It's put him weirdly on edge, even when he should be at ease, hence the tension. He scoffs and shakes his head, "Well fuck him." He never cared much for his uncle in the first place, having gotten tied up in the whole Gohl debacle because of him hardly endeared Monty to him.

"That's so.." Oh shit. So there's probably even more to why his family purchased this place than he realized. Knowing there was an entrance is one thing, but if Monty used it. Easton grumbles and takes another pull on his flask. "There are thirteen. They rotate on a calender schedule, something something left never right, maybe? You have to figure out when one's open and then you can know the order?" His brain is foggy from drink and because frankly he's tried hard not to go down this rabbit hole.

"Why? I'd assume someone who got out would never want anything to do with that place again?" He's not asking for details. You don't ask those questions.

"One per lunar month, then?" Joe guesses, after a sip of soda. "Does it rotate in order? I was there.....fuck, I can't remember the exact date I was taken in. Some of it is still blurry, 'specially at the start an' finish." Still shaking, enough so that he deliberately sets down the bottle. So much for any pretense of Right Stuff cool.

"Because.....I honestly don't know why, directly. Because I was there and then I was gone and now I'm back in this town. Maybe They brought me to finish the job, but why do that anyhow? Unless they wanted to see how Their experiment had changed....." Joe rubs at his scalp, winces. More bruises under that dark gold hair, perhaps. "Maybe to get there and burn the place down."

"Maybe." Easton agrees that thirteen sounds specific and that makes sense. "I don't know. I'm pretty sure Isabella and Alexander know the most at this point. And we've talked about what the fuck to do about that door. I just.." He shakes his head and says, "I'm clawing at trying to build a fuckin' life here. And this place keeps piling the shit on. I don't need to go lookin' for it."

But then Joe is talking about his experiene. Easton sees him shaking and just hands over the flask without a word about it. "Well fuck what they want. First and foremost. Don't give them shit." It's not really clear if Easton is taking this very personal or something but the vehemence behind those words is unexpectedly biting. He stubs out the cigarette on his boot. "If you want to burn it down? Time was I'd help ya. But... I don't know, there's consequences. There's always fucking consequences."

Joe slants a look at him, again. That glitter is gone, as if it'd never been, but there's skepticism there. Still no judgement. "Do you really think it's going to let you alone, if you're sitting on one of the thirteen doors that lead to the Dark Tower, or whatever the fuck is ultimately beyond there?" he wonders. No sarcasm - it's a genuine question.

The flask is offered, and he doesn't bother to demur. He takes it, lifts it to Easton, and then takes a hearty pull, before handing it back.

"I don't intend to give 'em any goddamned thing, but that doesn't mean I can stop 'em if They decide they want to whirl me away back to Oz." He nods. "I've talked to Roen about it, some. He's tried some experiments, and....he describes that other world as a unity. Something interconnected in ways it's hard for us here to understand. So I'm not yet about to propose stormin' the castle with a few cans of gas and a big box of Diamond matches. But I want to know more. Feel like I gotta, in fact. So, Clayton and Greene, eh?"

Easton looks at Joe as if he really doesn't appreciate that question. He shakes his head, "No. And shit" He pauses, "I didn't even think about what might come out of that door. I was too buys worrying about if we should go in." One crazed patient has already wreaked havoc, what if there's more to come. "We should seal it." Who knows if that's possible.

"Yea but if you go missing, at least you have a couple former Marines stupid enough to go find you. And a host of other idiots." That's encouraging, kind of. "Reede" Easton corrects on Isabella's surname, "But yea, they're the ones to talk to. I'm just the dumb muscle when things need punching."
Oh goodness does he wish something needed punching right about now.

Expression faintly sardonic. "Yeah, that's a whole 'nother bag of chips, innit? Thinkin' that somethin' might come out some fine summer night, want to see what all the noise an' carryin' on upstairs is." Joe frankly shudders, either at the burn of liquor of the chill of the thought. "Reede. She lives not far from me, on the other Surprise."

He sniffs, finally puts down the gel pack. It's not really cold anymore. God, he's a mess. "Yeah. I'm not so damned stupid I'mma head in there on my own, not no way, not no how." A flicker of a look at Easton....and there's humor there again. "Man, Marines. You can't shoot it, fight it, drink it, or fuck it, you don't know what to do with it." Affection, too.

Easton hates this line of thinking. His bar got shot up by ghosts already, he doesn't need creepy crawling things coming up through the floorboards. He nods and says "Yup, that's the one." There's obvious fondness there when he talks about Alexander and Isabella.

"I meant if you got pulled in. You better not be that fuckin' dumb Space boy." At the comment about the Marines Easton snorts and says "There are other options?" with a grin. "And are we ready to start in with the Navy jokes? Cause, buckle up, I've prepared a list."