2020-07-27 - Have a Beer at the Hotel California

It was a Monday night, which is not typically busy but when the game shop's burned down and there's already limited stuff to do in Gray Harbor to begin with? The crowd on the dance floor is decent. This is all well and fine with the raven haired woman working behind the bar, making idle chatter and flirting lightly with the patrons that are seated up at the bar as she serves them. More people means more tips after all right? Her hair is pulled back in ponytail, though a few stray strands have come loose. She wearing a pair of jean shorts that stop just above mid thigh and a light blue halter top.

The Firefly's doorman asks for ID. To most men around thirty, this would not be an issue, but the blond man in black spends some time nonetheless insisting that yes, a EU passport is in fact ID. The picture matches; as does the various airport stamps. It's clearly not the first time he's had this discussion and after a short while, the doorman can't be bothered to argue with him any longer, waving him inside.

He heads pretty straight for the bar, claiming an empty barstool. Not too scruffy looking, clearly somebody who's either so colour blind they don't dare wear anything outside of the sable spectrum, or some kind of eccentric or hipster type -- not a single fleck of colour on him, jeans, boots, turtleneck and blazer all black or very dark shades of grey. In spite of dressing like a funeral home escapee or art director, though, he looks quite laid back as he waits for the woman juggling bottles to take notice of him.

Dahlia's gotten pretty good at this bartending gig considering she basically bluffed her way into about a year ago. She clocks Ravn when he sits at the bar as she putting together a Moscow Mule for one of the others. "Be right with ya, hun." She calls to him and in a few moments more, she was. Her hands lightly grasp the bar, leaning against it and giving him a friendly grin. "Well, you ain't from around here, huh?" She mused. Having grown up in Gray Harbor she's fairly familiar with most of the population, but also? Ravn doesn't appear to have that usual downtrodden air about him that seems to stain everyone else in this god forsaken town.

"What can I getcha?" Her smile maintained as she straightens a bit, ready to put together whatever he might order.

"Don't think I could be less from around here if I tried," Ravn replies with an easy smile and an accent that wishes it belonged to a British BBC speaker but can't quite manage. He looks around at the clientele in the fashion of someone who's not just new to town, figuratively speaking, but new to everything; someone who might have to look up on the sly how American tipping culture works. "What passes for a decent American beer in these parts, I wonder?"

That gets a laugh, "Don't worry. Stick around long enough, I'm sure you'll fit right in." Dahlia thinks for a moment when he asks about the beer. "Hm, well..." She rattles off a few brand names that he probably doesn't recognize because none of them are things like 'Miller' or 'Bud'. Then she grins again. "They're a little picky with their beers up here. Most people go for a Lager, Pilsner. That kind of thing. Want me to surprise you?" He's getting surprised anyway it seems. She walks over to a mini fridge area and pulls two bottles from it, setting them down in front. Both micro brews, one a Lager, one a Stout.

"Let me see what this one's like," Ravn says amicably and reaches for the Lager, studying its label with the expression of someone who is quite a curious nature and also has picked up somewhere that for some bizarre reason, the best microbrews usually have the funniest labels. "So, what's custom here -- pay up front, or on card at the end? I got it wrong in Seattle once and ended up with a split lip so I'd rather ask, even if it puts my Europeanness on bold display."

He's the chatty type, it seems. Or the bored type, or possibly just the I know nobody around here type. And, perhaps a little less customarily, the type who wears gloves indoors -- thin black kidskin ones.

Dahlia shrugged a bit. "Whatever you want. I don't care, so long as it gets paid. If you think you're gonna be drinking a lot - opening up a tab to pay at the end makes more sense. If this is all you're gonna drink the paying up front's fine." She was just here to serve alcohol. "But I promise, I won't let Red here bust up your pretty face." Dahlia teased, looking towards the bouncer and then back to Ravn. "Name's Dahlia by the by. What's yours? Where ya here from?"While humor was subjective, the stout seemed to have the more humorous labeling.

Ravn concludes that the bar is not busy enough that chatting with the bartender would be considered rude; he dips into a pocket offering payment -- and the 20% tip recommended by WikiHow, saviour of travellers to foreign countries with bizarre customs -- while glancing perfunctorily at the man styled Red; yep, he likes his pretty face as it is, let's keep it that way.

"Name's Ravn," he says cordially, pronouncing the word in a way that ought to be spelled something along the lines of Raown but probably isn't. "I'm Danish, though I ended up here trying to hitch a ride to Portland. Think I might be staying for a bit -- kind of an interesting place you got here, everybody seems to be warning me off your local horror stories. Just, they don't seem to agree much on what the stories are." He grins in a fashion that seems to imply that the man -- naive summer child that he may still be -- doesn't actually believe in urban horror stories. Yet.

Dahlia listens with a vested interest and there's something about her that might make one assume even if it was busy, she was going to be more than happy to carry on conversation when she could. She looks surprised at the 20% tip because, let's be honest, there's a fair chance that most people in here are going to tip far less. Even if they like her. "Thanks." Dahlia flashed him a bit of a smile and rung him out for the drink.

"Nice to meet you, Ravn. Run for the hills." Dahlia winked, taking up a bottle of water from behind the bar to sip from it. "If everyone believes it, must be true right?" It's subtle but at least one near by patrons gives Dahlia a bit of a look like 'shut the hell up'. She doesn't particularly care. "What do you think about the stories they're tellin'?" Brow raised, simply curious.

The Dane settles, resting one elbow on the counter and holding his beer in the other hand, looking quite at home in the way of someone who is quite aware that he doesn't look at home at all, but hey, who cares. "Got a kind of a Stephen King vibe to it all," he muses. "Imagine what it'd be like to live in Castle Rock, Maine, if all his novels were true since they all seem to take place there. I get the feeling this is a bit of a local thing, telling stories to tourists? Not sure it's going to work as intended on me though, -- stories is kinda what I do -- I'm a folklorist."

Blue-grey eyes sparkle with amusement as he adds, "So what's your name, or is that getting too personal?"

Dahlia just gave him another grin. A sort of grin that is more reminiscent of looking forward to asking him this question again in a month or so maybe. "Something like that." When he says it's a local thing. "But, I got a feelin' you won't be a tourist for long. Call it a hunch. Lot of people that pass through here and decide to 'stay a while' usually end up stayin' permanently." She mused. "Town's got a way of pullin' you in." Or, in Dahlia's case, pulling you back.

"Dahlia." The bartender grinned a bit. "Honey, it's pretty hard to get too personal with me. I'm an open book." She briefly stepped away to tend to another customer, but then found her way back over. "So what kind of folklore are ya working on?"

"Oh, I did a degree on 1700s folklore in Scandinavia, but I don't think I can quite apply that here," Ravn says, and tastes the beer; as it turns out, it's not bad at all. "Talked to a fellow at the library yesterday about getting a temp job down at some place on the beach, maybe, stick around for a while, see what's real and what's tourist talk. People do keep telling me that Gray Harbor makes folks stick around -- usually before they give me a long, unfocused look as if they're trying to read my mind."

He doesn't seem bothered, really. Maybe from the point of view of a Scandinavian travelling backwater West Coast communities, Americans are Strange(tm) and a bit of odd staring is on the very shallow end of the sliding scale from Gee, I wish I could see Europe to We fought a revolutionary war to get rid of you bastards anyhow.

"That's how it all starts innit? You come in to town, meet some people, take on a temp job. It turns into a permanent thing. Before ya know it you're moving into one of them apartments and settling down." Dahlia laughed. "Scandinavian folklore sounds interesting. Not that I know anything about it. Or, well. Any real folklore I guess." She decided. "Never really was much for history books or the like. Or reading in general unless it's something fantastical or a trashy romance novel." Amusement danced in Dahlia's eyes.

"I think you'll find we're at least more interesting than Seattle. Even for a small town." Dahlia conceded. "I was born and raised here. Tried to leave but, well, family issues dragged me back and here I've stayed." Even though she curses the town every other day for something or other.

"Seattle wasn't bad but it was too big," Ravn concurs. "You realise, a town like Gray Harbor would be considered medium big where I'm from? I don't mind things happening around me but that was bloody overwhelming, felt like I was drowning in people. Guess this is really Nowhere, Washington to you folks, though."

He decides not to comment on trashy romances; no need to be an arse. Instead he studies the woman with intent grey eyes -- not so much in the way of a man at a bar evaluating a woman's sexiness or lack thereof, as in the manner of someone deciding whether he's just being professionally chatted at because that's part of the job. He seems to reach some kind of conclusion, whatever it might be, and says, "So what's your take on the tourist story? Bodies in the pond, haunted cemetery, serial killer? Something else?"

"Seattle's big, yeah. I been up there a time or two." Dahlia agreed with a chuckle. "Yeah. Gray Harbor's pretty small comparatively. But I like it better that way." She leans against the bar a bit, not seeming to mind the intent studying. "Something else. Somethin' sinister." Dahlia said simply. "You're right. This place does have a real King vibe to it. And I've seen some stuff that you wouldn't believe. Stuff that doesn't make a lick of sense unless maybe you're on an acid trip. And I certainly haven't dropped any acid any time recently." She mused, flashing another smile. "But I don't think it's fair to color judgement. Gray Harbor is something that really has to be experienced." That didn't sound ominous at all!

"How small was your home town?" Dahlia asked in a bit of a change of subject. Or at least an aside. Curious as to what he considered small.

"Town I was born in is about... 1700 people? It's considered the middle of nowhere even by Danish standards, though. We got an annual farmer's market day and -- that's about it." Ravn sips his beer. "Lived in Copenhagen for a couple of years though -- that's about 600,000 people. Not quite managing the crowds of Seattle, either."

He leans back on his barstool a bit, looking around the club at the colourful clientele; grey eyes take in the dancers, the people leading conversations in the corners, the doorman, the dee-jay, before he looks back to Dahlia again. "So, assuming that one doesn't intend to drop acid, what's the thing travellers shouldn't be doing around here? These kinds of stories always come with a warning -- don't cross the bridge, don't drink the kool-aid."

It's pretty obvious from his casual air that Ravn has decided that the whole haunted town thing was invented by local entrepreneurs; somebody opened a Casino and sending travellers on their way with stories of Castle Ro--Gray Harbor's mysteries might just prove a viable financial strategy. It's probably better than Disney World, mostly because Magic Kingdom is already taken.

"1700 huh? That is super tiny. I dunno if that's barely even consider that a small town here." Dahlia marveled a bit at the idea of living somewhere with so few people. "Hmmm..." She thinks for a moment when he asks about the places to stay away from. "Well be careful in the Firefly forest. And definitely stay away from the abandoned saw mill out there." Dahlia said and from her expression she was being sincere. "Lotta bad stuff's happened there, ya know? Probably best not to chance it."

"No, I don't know," Ravn says with amusement. "I heard about the pond and the cemetery, but not the sawmill. Let me guess -- a foreman decided he was fed up with poor pay and worse living conditions and tossed the owner into the machinery? There was a strike but the organisers went the way of Jimmy Hoffa, leaving only their shoes?"

Then he wipes the grin off his face, realising perhaps, that he's being a bit patronising. "Sorry, I shouldn't make fun of things, particularly not if something actually happened. It's just a little... Everyone here is extremely nice, but also extremely eager to warn me that I should get on the first Greyhound out of town and never look back -- while also telling me that I'll never leave. Town's got a bit of a Hotel California air to it, you know?"

Dahlia thought for a moment on how best to word it. "It's alright, you're fresh in town. Place has always had issues that I know of. Lots of people died, more under suspicious circumstances than not." She admits. She gets another couple looks but ignores them. "Eventually they had no choice but to shut it down. Was before my time though. It's been abandoned and rotting ever since. But I remember goin' around that way as a kid. It's uh...well. You can feel it in the air." She explained.

"Here's the thing. We're nice folk, and Gray Harbor has it's good moments. Especially in like Summer and spring. Like now. We want people to enjoy it but, also? We want them to know what they're signing up for if they get pulled in to staying."

Ravn rests his elbows on the counter and his chin on his hands, not quite oblivious to the hard looks the bartender seems to be getting. Something there doesn't quite click with the notion that all of this is some sort of communal joke to be played on travellers; the first rule about jokes is that you're supposed to laugh at them and share in them, not glare ominously in the direction of the individual who dares reference them. "So what is it I'm signing up for? Can anyone actually tell me, you think?"

Dahlia leaned in just a little bit, speaking in a lower voice. "Eventually. But...like I said. Just give it some time, Ravn. You'll start to understand what everyone's been talking about. And once you do?...Then people will be more open to talking." She straightens up again, finishing off her water and tossing the bottle in a little recycle bin under the bar. Flashing another smile. "I'll be interested to hear your take on things after you've been around a little longer."

The Dane ponders the bartender's words and eventually nods, speculatively sipping his beer as she returns to serving other customers. There's definitely a story here. Definitely. Call me Stephen King, Junior.