2020-07-14 - Computer Trouble

Cecil has called Rusty for help with his laptop. It's not booting up properly, and he finally has a day at home to meet the electronics guy. He just happens to have a pot of tea on in the kitchen area, and on the couch, a pair of gangly yearling cats lie snuggled up together, a ginger tabby and a torbie. As he awaits Rusty's arrival, Cecil sits in a comfortable chair with a book, though rather than reading it, he contemplates the comfortable, unbothered felines.

Rusty Caldwell advertises old school. Newspaper, bulletin boards around town, and flyers under windshields. 'I'll Google it so you don't have to.' is his tagline but the list of services is extensive. Full home repair, installation, and networking. Rusty's not terribly busy, it seems. He was open to coming whenever Cecil wanted and shows up promptly on time. He knocks quietly. So softly, he does it twice. On the other side of the door, is a middle aged guy wearing a backwards trucker cap and sunglasses. The look is completed with a uniform style shirt with his name on it. He carries a backpack. The silver streak in his hair glints the second light hits it, like chrome. But only for a blink. He speaks softly, "Cecil with the laptop? I forgot to jot it down, uh...PC? Mac? Don't matter that much."

Cecil gets up to answer the door, and the cats look up, then lie back down. Doors are not their concern. They're laid back animals, not skittish around strangers, because when Cecil gestures for Rusty to come in, they don't even look up again. Not when there's all this napping to catch up on. "Er yes, thank you," Cecil says. He's English, there's no doubt about it. He looks young, but his bearing implies he's got more years on him than one would think at a glance. "Please come in. I have a PC. It's right over here." On the kitchen table is a closed laptop. The book he's left by his chair is about the taxonomy of insects. "Can I get you a cup of tea, Mr. Caldwell?"

"You gotta feed me. It's the rule." Rusty deadpans, sitting down with the laptop. There is a line, on the flyers only, about home service requires one small meal. It's in tiny type, with an asterisk. "Startup issues. I remember now. Windows is made for every fuc--erm, damn config under the sun. Flexible but fragile. Sometimes." As he talks, he's checking the power supply and starting the laptop up. He is also unpacking his own machine, a Macbook Pro, removing his hat and clipping his sunglasses on his shirt.

"And then, any hardware issue can make Windows just shit the whole fucking bed. But Apple's lockdown on their shit is a pain in the ass too. But hell if it ain't easy to use. For my purposes. Get me on your wifi?" He pauses a moment. "Tea? Hot tea? In the summer? Oh, right...people drink coffee. Stupid...yeah, I like tea. Earl Grey, if you got it. Two, three sugars." Another pause. "PC. Work or personal?" His voice is quiet, tone dry throughout. He sounds like any other local. He's tricky to read.

Cecil hesitates. "Is that... is it really? Is that a local convention? I haven't been in Gray Harbor very long." He gestures for Rusty to help himself to the laptop and slips past him into the kitchen to see what he has on hand to feed anyone. As he pokes around in cupboards, he says, "The wifi is C.Harvey and the password is, all lower-case, fully spelled and spaced, mister darcy jumps in a lake."

He gives up on the cupboards and grabs his phone. "Is Chinese all right?" he asks as he brings up GrubHub. A home chef, he is not.

"I haven't been here long either. About a year." Rusty says, logging into the wifi before looking to Cecil and snorting a laugh. He smiles. "No. I'm kidding. Kinda. It's a joke. Part of the joke. You pay me to Google your problems, fix it, and I demand food. I'm not worth it. That's the joke." Rusty flails as the phone comes out. "No, please. Don't. It's a joke. Tea's good though. I have a, uh..." He reaches into his backpack and produces an empty travel mug. "I don't chance myself with liquids and machines. I'm clumsy."

He turns back to the laptop and begins troubleshooting. And multitasking as his flattened affected chatter resumes. "I don't fully 'get it' but that is the most British-y wifi and password I've come across. What part of the UK are you from? Citizen? Green card? No, work visa, I bet. You fly back to re-up every year still?" He only really pauses to think and type. "Are you backed up? This smells like a reinstall but my gut makes me wonder about the actu--" He stops and sneezes, trice, quickly. "Mm. Cats."

Poor Cecil. He looks so confused. Maybe it's a cultural thing, though he does rather look like someone who doesn't get out a lot. He just regards Rusty for a moment as he processes everything. Finally, he steps closer and takes the travel mug. "Probably wise," he says. "I have some biscuits, if you'd like." He goes to pour himself and Rusty some tea. "Milk or sugar?" He doctors his own tea with both. Then he takes a box of Pims from the cupboard. Mmm, dark chocolate and orange.

The laptop is just being an asshole, like Windows can be sometimes. Something someone knowledgable can fix but that a layman like Cecil has no idea how to deal with. Cecil sets out some of the cookies on a plate. With a small smile, he says, "Thank you, I think. I'm from London, and yes, I back up every day." At the sneezing, he looks dismayed. "Oh, sorry. They're new." He glances over at the cats. "That's Theodore and Esmerelda. They showed up yesterday."

"Sugar. Not a whole lot though. Oh, Pims! I like those." Rusty smiles again. He should do it more often. "You backup. Good. I'm wiping this fucker." And goes about that process with ease. "You're a kid. You should...know how to do this. Or...British men never look their age, really." He shrugs. Rusty is pretty dismissive of himself. Usually shrugging or waving away any opinion he seems to have. "Thank you? For? Oh. Oooh. I don't mean to offend. I don't filter. I have one but I kinda like to let words flows when I have someone to talk to. Not often. But, I...If I'm not being complimentary or, uh, neutral? You'll know it." His body language closes, tightens. "Don't worry about the cats. I'm pretty fucking allergic but, uh, I have pills and a pen and inhalers and shit. Body is quirky. No worries. British names for those cats too. Damn." Another little smile. "London. But educated. Most Londoners I speak with sound like UK's version of USA's trash. I roll in weirdo circles though. I know. I don't judge. Don't judge anyone."

Once Windows is reinstalling on its own, he stands with the cookie plate in hand and eats away from the whirling machines. "You said the cats showed up? You didn't get them? Did they name themselves too?" The question is worded seriously but after a moment, Rusty smirks. The little delay makes it ring false and his eyes drop down to the plate.

Cecil brings Rusty his tea and the plate of Pims. "I'm thirty-seven," he says. He definitely doesn't look his age. Here is a man who has not spent a lot of time outside when the sun was out. He's quiet, for the most part, listening and watching with curiosity. "Er, yes educated. I'm a..." No, this stranger doesn't care what Cecil does for a living, he's decided. He leans against the kitchen counter and takes a drink of his tea. Tea will fix everything. With a glance toward the cats, who are continuing their ongoing snuggle nap on his couch, and he says, "Oh, I adopted them. Yesterday, I brought them home. They were actually already named that, believe it or not. Maybe that's why I liked them."

"Ah. Like attracts like." Rusty says with a little nod. His eyes flick to the computer and back. Tea. Yes. That will fix everything. "Thirty-seven? Yeah. You look younger. We aren't even a decade apart, you and I. I'll be, uh, forty-six this year." Rusty wears every year on him somewhere and a few more on top. From his slouched posture to his dark circled eyes, to the gray in his beard. The longer hair may have shaved off some years if it weren't for the streak of white that is constantly falling in his face. Pushing that hair aside is a mindless tic. "New cats. That's why I'm not in a whole damn allergic fit. Not enough dander yet." He says, sniffling. "But, uh, what do you do? You are a what?" Rusty asks. "I'm a...podcaster in addition to this and temp work that'll have me. I'm hard to employ...at least, to the locals who've known me all my life." He grunts at that.

"Thank you," Cecil says, a little self-conscious but pleased to hear it. That he still looks young. He pushes his glasses up his nose and smiles. It's an awkward smile, but it's nice. He should smile more. He's not bad looking, he's just hiding himself, but that smile shines through. Then it disappears and he glances over at the cats. "They've only curled up there and on the bed so far. They've bullied me to one side of it, I'm afraid. They like to sprawl on the other." Bullied may be a strong word. They look like innocent little kitty cats.

When Rusty asks what he is, Cecil settles into a much more comfortable space. "I'm a forensic specialist," he says. "Forensic entomology, specifically, but I do it all. That's why I came here, actually. There was a job opening, and I was ready to leave Texas. I think I spent most of my time in Texas in a perpetual state of being ready to leave Texas." Brow furrowing, he asks, "Why are you hard to employ?"

"Texas? I wonder what it's like to leave the state." Rusty says, with real wonder. "I should try it. I've only ever lived here, Seattle and...upstate." He takes a sip of tea, hoping for fortification. "I'm crazy." Rusty clears his throat. "Well, I was...or...I don't really know anymore. I started talking about weird occult shit when I was a kid and I got rebellious as a teen and I wound up committed. Even after I turned eighteen. My aunt went to court. I would come out after stays. A few months. A year or a year and a half...then, I'd do something and go back. I don't remember. It...it just sucked twenty-seven years out of my life. Also known as, the majority of my life." He sighs. "I try not to think about being there. It's not that it's bad. Well, yeah, it's bad. It was routine and drugs and pain and fear." He shrugs and shakes his head.

"Last year, my aunt died. I ended up in Seattle, somehow. But, I was not under guardianship anymore. So, I came back home. Here. But, everyone knows I'm crazy Rusty Caldwell. They get to talking and people won't hire a guy who was locked up for the better part of three decades." Siiiip. "It's a complex mess, really. I'm too old to /start/ my life. So, I'm going to coast to the grave." Sip. "So, why bugs? Always an interest or accident?"

Cecil says dreamily, of leaving Texas, "Oh, it's nice." He sips his tea, and he glances over at the cats who are still snoozing. Maybe that's why he got them, to have something in his house to look at. It does rather lack focal points. "I suppose I was lucky," he says in a low tone. "When it came upon me, I was ill, and one could excuse my visions and babbling as delirium. By the time I got better, I'd learned to keep my mouth shut. My academic talents allowed me to mask my discoveries as science. Find the answer and reverse engineer the question. I keep to myself, so no one minds I'm a bit of an oddball." He glances to Rusty and smiles thinly. "You know I know you're not crazy, and I refuse to believe there's no hope for you." He considers the question of bugs over another sip of tea. "I think bugs are interesting," he says. "When I was a child, and I'd play outside, I always liked the dark, murkky areas where bugs thrived. I'm a dipterologist, specifically. I study flies. I was always a fan of beetles though, as a child. Beetles and spiders. Flies are interesting to a forensic mind, though. What they can tell you about a crime scene is invaluable."

Rusty makes a noise when Cecil says he's not crazy. It sounds like a cough or maybe a held back sneeze. He turned to the computer then but he was clearly still listening. "My podcast...it's about the occult, in general. Incidents or subjects. I aim for weekly recordings with one deep dive a month. It often intersects with true crime so I know the value of flies on a scene. You can literally set a watch to them." His voice cracks a bit as he talks. "Man, if I could find the right subject, it'd be cool to interview you. My listenership is making slow, steady gains. It wouldn't be a total waste of your time." He had turned to the computer screen, his back to Cecil. He comes back with red, watery eyes and a flushed face.

"I thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy right up until I came here after I was released. I thought Gray Harbor was different, maybe, but it took that unexplained trip to Seattle to realize that there was really a difference. And then I knew I wasn't crazy. And my abilities are changing. The...The Veil is in flux and I get scared that I'm just going crazy again. Not again, really but..." He swallows hard. "See, I never used my filter. I speak the truth, as I see it, at least. Always have. And...that's probably why I was gone for so long. I couldn't lie and have that on my heart." Beat. "I knew you shined. I did learn to stop telling people that when I meet them. I don't remember when my hair turned silver. I was a kid though. I suppose it's my sign."

Cecil winces as he notices Rusty's watery eyes and flushed face. "Oh, dear. The cats are doing a number on you, aren't they. Do you need me to open a window or do you need to take medication?" He tops off his teacup and offers to do the same for Rusty. "I suppose I've become accustomed to omitting the truth. It's not just for my own sake. It's to protect the innocent. They don't need to know about what's out there. It is different here, though. There are a lot of us here. I stay away from the Veil as much as possible. There's nothing on the other side of it I want or need." He shivers a little. Then he mentions, "Trauma can cause patches of hair to lose pigment."

"Sure. Cats. No. It's fine." Rusty says, flatly. He does take a tea top off and grabs a pill bottle from his backpack. "See, I started engaging online occult circles to explain. To get the truth out but...the longer I deal with them, the more I understand the urge to hide it. It's like..." He pops that pill and sets everything down. He becomes quite animated as he explains this. "There is a barrier between people and the dangers of the unknown. If you start scratching at it, chipping at it, you can't fucking stop. That was me. I couldn't stop. I was a show-off. I was digging in people's emotions and I felt them so profoundly that--I'm off-track. The barrier. So, you chip and scrap and one day, you might see the other side. But it can't be unseen. And the danger is in direct proportion to the hole you opened. But, you don't know if a chip will fall or if the whole damn thing will crash on you. It's a gamble. Nowadays, I hope my content eases the itch others feel. So, they don't...end up like me."

He brushes his hair aside, suddenly aware of his tic. "I don't remember what happened. My hair was cut short until high school but...I have lost a lot of time in my memory. My aunt? I can't tell you her name anymore off the top of my head. I don't remember her being loving to me but I know she was! I'm an orphan but I was a happy orphan. I don't remember my parents at all. Never did though." He shrugs. "I wonder when I dug too deep. I wonder that a lot."

"I lost most of my childhood from the illness," Cecil says quietly. "I remember the dark places and the bugs." He regards Rusty with sympathy. "Does it work?" he asks. "The podcast? The digging? Does it scratch their itch? I fear what human curiosity might bring. Though I suppose there's just some people you won't convince to stay away, no matter what you do, and that's not your fault. None of it is, really."

He purses his lips, then asks, "I'm not used to talking about it. Even with people who also shine, it's just politely omitted. I'm sure some of my colleagues are aware of how I work, but it gets results so no one bats an eyelash."

"Half the people here shine, man. Or know of it. Omittance is second nature in Gray Harbor, I think." Rusty says with a bit of a smile. "You are in good company here. People think I'm crazy unless they see the sparkle and shine. If I'm crazy, I can be dismissed by a normal person and they can walk away from me and never feel the itch. That is my gift to the world. My podcast helps with that locally. I can just be a kook from the trailer park. But across the world? I can only glean that hearing me ramble about alien blacksites prevents them from looking into the abyss themselves. Second hand information is safer. But, of course, some will want to look closer. Those folks will do it with or without me."

"I don't talk to people much at all. I don't have family. I have a whole damn community online. My own subreddit but actual humans I can touch? No. No no. It's nice to talk to someone about it though. I can't talk about the shine or the Veil online. That is a door I will not open for anyone. So this is good. Good for both of us. It's a burden many share but will not speak of."

Cecil says, "If we're going to talk about it again, I think we should do it elsewhere." He nods toward the allergen-generators on the couch. "Maybe it is good to talk about it. I would never tell my family, goodness no. We barely speak as it is, and we keep it to pleasantries, mostly. They'd never understand. They think I'm too far off the beaten path just being an entomologist." He thinks for a moment, then nods as he says, "I can see how coming off bonkers would throw people off the scent. I don't know that I'd say I had a gift for the world, but that is a unique way of making use of what you've got."

"It's all I've got." Rusty admits, with sadness. He's dismissive of himself and speaks of this entire subject with a certain distance. An observer. In this world but not quite of it. Only in brief moments does emotion come into matters. He deflected the earlier moment. But the utter defeat of that statement is apparent. "It's all I have, man. If I can be the cautionary tale or scapegoat, if that protects someone? Twenty-seven years were not wasted upstate." He chuckles softly. "It's funny. Even if I could turn back the clock, start over, keep my fucking mouth shut? I don't know what I would want instead. I can't fathom an alternative or...I simply cannot recall a desire for it." He nods to the cats. "Yeah, I'm allergic to a lot of shit so I am very clean. You can come to my trailer to talk anytime. Address is on my business card. I'll leave one."

Cecil tilts his head as he studies Rusty, listening as he speaks. "It's not nothing," he says gently. "And if you turned back the clock and kept your mouth shut, there's no way of knowing who you'd be. It wouldn't be you. I can understand why you'd hesitate to take that deal. On some level, I believe we need to honor who we are, who this... this thing has made us."

He lowers his gaze, and there's a quiet withdrawing about him. He's not one for long periods of meaningful human contact. The fact he talked about any of this at all is nothing short of a miracle. "In any case, yes, please do leave your card. Here..." He takes a card out of his pocket and offers it over. It's got his name and number on it.

Rusty takes the card with a little hesitation. He even explains it. "People handing me business cards will never not feel loaded. Just...nevermind it. I've been ignoring the blinking laptop. I should finish up and leave but...yeah, anytime. I don't drive so...I'm usually home." He starts to wander back to his work. "That's a goal. Learn to drive." He snorts.