2020-10-08 - Complications are Overrated

Contrary to rumour in at least some places, the Two if By Sea is not open twentyfour-seven, at least not according to its paperwork. It's definitely one of those places where regulars drop in outside of hours. If they're lucky there may even be someone there capable of pouring a decent drink. Ravn Abildgaard often signs on for the closed hours. It's the kind of downtime he enjoys -- just him, the cleaning supplies, and the on-going war in the gents' restroom. He likes people, he certainly likes watching people, and he is finding himself rather fond of playing apprentice bartender to the Sith of Cocktail Mixing, Vic Grey. He still very much enjoys the quiet hours too, and the less prestigious but oh so quiet position of clean-up person.

There's a lot of satisfaction to be had from simply cleaning things. Not to mention, a lot of mental peace and quiet. He told Bennie Oakes recently that he's at his finest when he's alone, and he genuinely does believe that to be true. Scrubbing down the tables and floors lets him keep his everbusy hands doing something repetitive and useful, while his mind is free to wander. And wander it does, often in three directions at once, because that's the kind of person he is. A little too intelligent to keep his head on straight. A little obsessive about details. Ninety miles of overthinking per hour, faster if he feels pressured.

The laid-back management of the Twofer works very well for him. He puts in a good effort and in return, no one breathes down his neck. No minutia managing or anal retentive manager or boss throwing meaningful glances at their watch if he makes a pot of coffee and settles for a break on the patio with it, either. Place needs to be scrubbed when patrons start to arrive later in the day, and it will be.

First, though, watch the autumn sun over the Bay. Circling seagulls. The fleet of yachts is starting to thin out; some boats are already taken on shore for the winter, many have simply left for their home ports at the end of tourist season. Feet up on the edge of the firepit, clearly visible from the road or the beach below, coffee in one hand, anyone would be hard pressed to look more content at the moment than the bloke in the black leather coat on the deck of the Deuce.

The days won't be sunny much longer. All the natives, and those like Itzhak who have been here for over a year now, are eyeing the sky, waiting for the moment the day star winks out and is replaced by thick woolen gray blankets. Speaking of whom, look who's tromping up the stairs from the beach, cigarette in his mouth, an instrument case over his shoulder. Not his violin case, cherry-red and glossy; this is a soft case that looks like it could hold a tennis racket.

"I heard coffee's on you for a change!" he calls up, just to be an asshole, dragging from his cigarette and exhaling a plume of smoke and condensed breath in the cool.

The climates of Washington State coastline and the Danish archipelago are surprisingly similar; Ravn too is eyeing the sky and making sure to squeeze out every hour of sunshine while it lasts. If this place is anything like his home, everything will be knee deep water and driving rain for four months soon enough. You can hope for a few weeks of snow but mostly -- winter is like nature itself suffers from a clinical depression and just can't even.

"You want to earn a cup, go wash out the ladies' room!" Ravn calls back, absolutely teasing. There's another cup sitting right there next to the thermos bottle he brought outside. It's almost like he expected company. Almost like he definitely texted the other guy to say that if the coffee was on, in case he was in the area. Hint hint, nudge nudge.

Almost like! Itzhak happened to be in the area. He's wearing new jeans, handsome raw denim deeply saturated with indigo, cut to make the most of his long legs. The jeans look expensive. The battered hoodie he's wearing, not so much, washed-out black with the flaking letters GHPD on the front. It's thick and cozy and has obviously seen better days, tattered round the edges, the seams worn white here and there, probably a cigarette burn or three.

"Are you kidding, Vic would have my balls if I dared the ladies' room." Itzhak unslings his instrument, sets it on a chair, and sinks into a chair himself. Leaning forward to grab the thermos and mug, he pours. "How ya doin', tateleh?"

"Pretty good," the other man says with a smile, fingers curled around his own mug. It's a black novelty mug -- Ravn may finally have picked up on the fact that everyone else around here has their own mug for some reason, and gotten one of this own. "The whole lobster thing? Definitely working out. Such a bloody relief. Also, surprising amount of people in this town who are really into seafood. Best of all, though, the whole -- I don't think I realised how stressed-out I was getting about the whole celebrity thing. I was in a shop downtown this week and no one asked me to sign anything. No one. Went to the Pourhouse too, no one noticed me who shouldn't." Beat. "Although, Atli Addington invited me for dinner."

"Niiiice." Itzhak drinks to that, decorously slurping the hot coffee. "You still dress like a celebrity chef slash lobster fight clubber guy, though, with the Steve Jobs look." Like he should talk, with the Gray-Harbor-Goodwill-by-way-of-Brooklyn-street-fashion look he's rocking today. "Atli, think I met her at Hya's birthday. Them Addingtons, man, they're nuts, better watch out." Which he says more or less fondly. Hya's an Addington. But so is Margaret, Old Lady Addington.

"I should probably look into buying a couple of things," Ravn cedes. "I mean, when you live in a backpack you definitely don't want to be hauling a lot of clothes around, and you definitely want what you've got to work together. But I don't now -- I've got the boat. And at least this winter I'll be renting Vic's trailer -- she went and bought a house. Don't know that a trailer is what I want to do in the long term, but it's got more shelf space than a back pack so I am running out of excuses. Could use a few fresh shirts at least."

Knowing him, a few fresh shirts will be plain black t-shirts and turtlenecks. Possibly a few cotton shirts like the one he's wearing at the moment under the leather jacket that autumn has forced him to trade in the blazer for. Bloody cold winds.

"Anyway, it's about Addington House. You know me -- somebody wants to give me a tour and talk history at me, I am all over it. Besides, her boyfriend was standing right next to us so I'm pretty certain that's all it is." Ravn hitches a shoulder. "Hyacinth seems -- surprisingly decent for a society girl higher bred than a hilltop bakery though."

"Are they gonna be black?" Itzhak says, casting a knowing glance towards Ravn's novelty mug that is a little too on-point. "Yannow, people actually look at you more if you wear all black. It looks too sexy, specially with those gloves." He grunts, amused, at the news that Vic went and bought a house, and flicks his cigarette into one of the heavy glass ashtrays. Coffee, cigarettes, and the undefinable but undeniable air of hot metal and stripped gears, that's what the guy usually smells like. "Shit, yeah, you can't winter in that little bathtub of yours. ...Hey, I know a family in town I used to rent from, bet they'd love to have another violinist in their basement. Want I should introduce you?"

He hitches his eyebrows at mention of Hyacinth. "She is. She's all fuckin' edges but she's good people. Had to be like that to get through her life."

"Could do sometime? The trailer works for the moment but in the long term I should probably find something more permanent. But also something -- I don't want to buy a house or get into one of those fancy apartments where you feel like you need to dress up to walk through the parking lot. I think you know me well enough to take a decent guess at what kind of place I might like." Ravn grins slightly and then holds up one of his own hands to look at it. "You think kidskin gloves are fetish fodder? Should have been there that time I figured I'd try on black silk because it's thinner, bloody hell. Protip: Anything that looks like latex is not a good idea, either."

Then he straightens up and wipes the grin off his face. "So, I -- bumped into de la Vega, downtown. That was... weird."

"Unless you share the load with someone, houses suck. Apartments are where it's at." Itzhak snorts a laugh, caught off guard by the stir Ravn must have caused wearing black silk gloves everywhere. He sets the coffee down and gets the instrument case. It turns out to be a mandolin, and he settles it in his lap, fiddling with the tuning, gauging it by ear. Glancing up, his eyes narrow in concern. "Weird? Weird how?"

Ravn sets his cup down and jumps into the deep end of the pool. "That's -- what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm positive it's just the stupid celebrity rumour but it's the kind of thing that needs to die. He hinted -- no, actually, he didn't hint. He said outright that he wouldn't mind if you and I got in bed together. I think -- maybe you might want to talk to him about what it is we do. Can't be healthy for a relationship, thinking the other bloke in it is sneaking out to shag another guy. Or planning to. Whatever."

Plonk--Itzhak fumbles the string he was plucking and it makes an unmelodious sound. He turns beet red, so rapidly it seems like his ears must steam in the cool. "Oh my fucking GOD," he mutters, through clenched teeth, staring at Ravn. "Javier!" Like he could scold his boyfriend, wherever he may be.

Then he has to cover his eyes and sigh a deep, careworn sigh, a sigh that his ancestors bequeathed him along with his curly jet black hair and his enormous nose. A sigh that says more, and more Jewishly, than any cursing run of Yiddish could ever accomplish. He takes his time over it, really lets it wander. Then, clearing his throat, he scrubs his red face and turns his attention to his mandolin.

"Okay, look, first off that's true. He really doesn't mind. But I'd also tell him if I was banging you, which, for one thing, I don't fuck straight boys...anymore." Itzhak clearly feels compelled to add that 'anymore.' "You're straight, you're off the menu, that's all there is to it. Second off, yeah, you're hot, you're smoking hot and he can see that just as easy as I can. And he knows we been playing violin and all and, well, look, he probably did mean it weird because he's kind of an asshole like that. He probably wanted to rattle ya cage a little, see which way you jumped."

Itzhak shakes his head ruefully, smiling just a touch; this man of mine, says that gesture. "If you'd known me when me and him were working up to fucking each other, man. I complained to everybody who would listen about this hot sexy bastard of a cop comin' around to brace me. Anyway, point taken. Thanks for tellin' me, yeah? I'm stupid in love with that guy and he can be frikkin' impossible."

Ravn can't help a small laugh. Itzhak's response is pretty much what he expected but it's also heart warming; it's a bloody weird relationship the other man is in as far as Ravn is concerned but it's working and that's the part that matters.

"Yeah, I get that." Getting it doesn't stop the man from looking away at being described as 'smoking hot'. There's two ways a man can respond to that kind of thing. Ravn being who he is does what he usually does, and pretends he didn't hear it. The alternative, after all, involves a lot of blushing and being awkward and uncomfortable, and he prefers just... getting on with it. "I hope I didn't disappoint too much then because what I remember doing is going into a slightly manic rant about the number of people in this town I am as a matter of fact not sleeping with, and how bloody glad I am that whole celebrity thing is over."

Ravn shakes his head. "I don't know de la Vega very well at all, and he's a very difficult person to get a read on. But I know you, and you've got it hard for this guy. I know you have an arrangement but I also felt -- we needed that clear, and maybe on some level, you need it clear with him? Stupid thing to be insecure about, if that's the case."

"For what it's worth? That wasn't about the celebrity thing. I can't even explain to you how many fucks he doesn't give about celebrity. That was about me." And Itzhak's still blushing over it, too, that rueful little curve of a smile tucked in one corner of his mouth. "I ain't gonna fuck you. Not even, like, if maybe for example, we both got real drunk and high and you climbed in my lap and begged me to rail you, you know what I'd do?

"I'd put you to bed and tell you to sleep it the fuck off." Itzhak flicks a glance at Ravn, then back down to his mandolin. "Brutally honest here. All the stuff you got goin' on? I wouldn't do that to you. I like you. I like playing with you. So, nu, if I wanna be your friend, and I do, then it's my job to be your friend. And part of that is bein' the friend that you need. Not the hot lay that you don't."

"I absolutely promise that if we get bloody drunk and high, I will curl up in your lap and sob about my miserable childhood instead," Ravn says very solemnly, though his blue-grey eyes glitter with laughter. "I have missed out on more opportunities to get laid that way than you have fingers. Anyhow, that's sorted. And for the record? You were absolutely right about girls, boats, booze and stars. See? I pay attention. Belatedly, maybe but I do pay attention. And boy, let me tell you, that was an awkward conversation to have with your back-from-the-dead boss."

"I sound so fuckin' responsible," Itzhak mock-kvetches, rolling his head back to stare at the autumn sky. "I blame Roen. Everybody thought me and him were fucking too! Well, I woulda, but he told me I was too wild for him. Lettin' me down easy." He laughs, shifts to tuck his long back into a corner of the chair, and strums the mandolin, stroking bright notes from it. "'Course I was right. I may not be right about much but I'm right about when some hot little thing comes along with a bottle and a suggestion of doin' something in the dark, just the two of you. Seriously fucking awkward though, how'd it go? What did you think of Marshall?"

If Itzhak sounds eager, forgive him, wanting his new friend and his old friend to meet and get along.

Ravn taps his gloved finger against his lip. "I didn't get much of an impression. Everyone tells me he's the best thing since sliced bread, of course -- of course they do, most of them believed him dead when they were saying it, and you know how that works. He seems -- like the kind of guy who will absolutely punch you in the face if he thinks you deserve it. Doesn't care what others think of him. But also like someone who'll come out and tell you if he's got a problem, and the last thing there is a pretty big deal for an overthinker like me. Hey, at least he only offered to shoot me?"

A smile accompanies that last line. Ravn is clearly not spending his time in existential terror of the gun-toting madman that employs him.

Itzhak grins in one of those brief, brilliant ear-to-ear flashes. "Correct, and, correct. Ya battin' a thousand." He strums idly, noodling on the mandolin. "I know he ain't easy to read, and neither is Javier." Usually Itzhak refers to de la Vega as, well, de la Vega, but right now, he's using his first name. Which comes out a little caressing, a little musical in the way it's got more of a French pronunciation than a Spanish. Ha-vee-YAY. "That goes for them about each other, too, I hear they had a slug-out instead of, yannow, saying they missed each other like normal assholes. They both work at it, you know? They want to be unreadable. For them, it's been the difference between life and death. For me, too, for that matter, but I crumpled that shit up and threw it away the second I left prison. Because I didn't wanna live like that, and I decided fuck it, I didn't have to. Them? They never decided that."

Once in a while, Itzhak has devastating perspicacity. This morning, it seems, is one of those times. Devastating enough that he cocks an eyebrow at Ravn. "I get the feeling you ain't decided that, either."

Ravn continues to tap his lip. "I'm just your archetypical sheltered kid who realised that the world doesn't revolve around him and feels sorry for himself a lot about it. I get unreadable -- or, I get why someone would want to be. I guess I do a different routine, all smiles and bad puns and fancy tricks. Same bottom line, though, keeps folks at arm's length most of the time. I've spent some time in an open mental ward but I'm pretty damned certain that comparing that to a US prison is on par with pointing at a chihuahua and yelling about beating eaten by wolves."

Itzhak bonks Ravn's boot lightly with his own. "Don't let's play who had it worse. I never done time in a psych ward, I got no idea what it's like to do that. You're pretty unreadable yaself, boychik. You got your routine, Marshall and Javier got theirs. I just got lucky because I'm a violinist and I got no shame so I made you play, too. Happy I did, too. Reminds me." He holds up the mandolin. "Brought this so I could show you a thing. You can play violin? You can play this too, you just gotta pizzicato two strings at once. See?" Tilting the instrument to the light, Itzhak indicates its strings: eight of them, in four pairs. "G D A E, just like us."

"I'm not," the other man murmurs. "I'm just -- I guess I've known people who wanted to treat me like a victim. And people who'd tell me to suck it up and get some real problems. My problems were bloody real to me, but on the grand scale they were pretty mundane, and it's kind of important to me to make sure that you know that I do actually know that the world doesn't revolve around me. I mean, I did figure that much out eventually."

He bonks back with his own booted foot. "Show me how that thing plays. And pat me on the head for remembering about girls and boats. Because that is apparently a thing, and the other girl is someone whom you need to meet. She's new in town and -- at least to someone like me -- easy to talk to, because she's pretty damn up front about what she wants. Which, at the moment, is to get drunk on a boat and make a friend. Which we did, on both accounts."

"Nobody who thumbs their way across America, busking in bus stops for change, is a victim," Itzhak says, like, duh. Sometimes shit is just so simple for him, isn't it? "You don't talk a lot about your life, and you got your reasons, I figure. But don't think I ain't noticed you get shit done, Abildgaard." He still can't quite nail the 'aa', accent still making it come out like a honk.

Then he laughs, and doesn't literally pat Ravn on the head, but offers him a knuckle bump instead. DOWN on that hand, the left. "Wait, wait, I didn't know there was TWO girls with the stars and the booze. Well, shit, you learned something, good job! I like a girl who knows what she wants and ain't afraid of it."

The mandolin, he grins about, and settles in his arms. "You like bluegrass, this is the great bluegrass instrument." Those long fingers press the paired strings on the slender neck, Itzhak picking out the first few notes of a classic Doobie Brothers (which he'd get slugged, in some corners, for calling bluegrass). He picks with all four fingers, unlike pizzicato, which is typically done one at a time. This rippling fingerpicking style is pure country. Itzhak starts grooving in place, humming, then as he plays, sings to the beach and the morning.

Well, I built me a raft and she's ready for floatin'
Ol' Mississippi, she's callin' my name
Catfish are jumpin', that paddle wheel thumpin'
Black water keeps rollin' on past just the same...

"... There's something you want to know about me, ask." Ravn distracts himself a moment fiddling with his coffee. From him, that's probably not a sentence you'll hear often. "But yeah. You need to meet Zoey. And maybe help me find some nice bloke to introduce her to, girl's had a rough time and some pretty shitty boyfriends from what she was telling me."

He cants his head to listen. This is the sort of music that speaks to Ravn Abildgaard's soul. A soul which has never seen the Mississippi or the Bayou, granted, but also a soul that heard Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son about fifteen years ago and identified with it hard. Or maybe one should say, anti-identified with it. Got obsessed with it, the band, and the genre, anyhow.

Itzhak lets the song drop away for a moment, falling quiet while his fingers keep working, keep plucking out that good bluegrass sound. He raises his eyebrows at Ravn and the look on his expressive face is complicated; a sweetness, a melancholy. For just that moment, leaning back in the deck chair, looking at Ravn like that, the morning sun unkind to his lined face, Itzhak seems like he could be an image from another time, another place. A tintype from a hundred years ago. Jewish Man with Mandolin, perhaps it'd be called by the historians, when it was unearthed out of some great-grandmother's attic. They'd theorize about his age, his profession, if he married or left children in the world after he was dust. They'd write dissertations on who they thought he was, this man with the lived-in face and the soulful eyes and the mandolin in his arms.

In some ways they'd be right, and in some very, very important ways they would be completely wrong.

He dips his head to Ravn in silent acknowledgement, in thanks, an abbreviated soloist's bow. Then, putting the moment away, he murmurs, "Ahh, what girl ain't had shitty boyfriends? Men are shit, and I oughta know. I'll check my little black book, yeah?"

Then he sings again, soft, lilting.

Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me?

Yeah, keep on shinin' your light
Gonna make everything
Pretty mama, gonna make everything all right
And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all...

Ravn's not the only one here from a land far, far from the South or the bayou who finds this music plucks the strings of his soul.

"Girl picks up on emotions. The kind who looks at you and politely informs you that you've been lying to her face for twenty minutes. She's had a few blokes who couldn't quite cope with the idea of having to be honest. I'm bad at dealing with dishonesty too, I can relate." Dishonesty being a subjective term. That said, the Dane is probably not referring to his own considerable skill at misdirection and legerdemain. Working a sidewalk or boardwalk crowd with charm, looks, and manual dexterity is a different brand of dishonesty; an honest one, if such a thing as a dishonest lie can be said to exist.

He taps his foot to the rythm and closes his eyes to just listen.

And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all...

Not where Ravn is. Definitely where Ravn wants to be.

Only when the other man falls quiet does he say, "Friends are important. I'm trying to pay it forward. What you have done for me, -- you and others here. Realising how lonely I was. It's... a strange feeling."

Itzhak smiles down at his mandolin. "Yeah. Me too. Eight million people in New York City and somehow, always wound up feeling alone. They write poetry about that, how New York does that to you, but it wasn't the city. It was me." Then, those eyebrows going sly, he glances at Ravn. "So when do I get to meet Stars and Booze Girl number two?"

"Would be surprised if you don't spot her here or there soon enough." Ravn cants his head to look at the mandolin. It is not an instrument that he is unfamiliar with, but he is not familiar with it. It's not part of the Danish folk music tradition, which of course doesn't stop people from playing it anyway -- but he's not really the kind of music lover who sits in a crowded, smoky tent rubbing elbows with everyone else while listening to world music. It's entirely possible he feels he missed out, but there you go.

"She's all right. Kind of quiet in a crowded room -- like me. Lots of complications -- like me." He looks back up. "I do like her. Have a feeling we're going to end up friends. What I particularly like is that she was pretty straightforward. Told me about her bad experiences, why she doesn't believe in obligations. And I told her that I'm pretty useless when it comes to picking up on subtle. So we pretty much agreed that four or five shots into our respective bottles -- she drinks soda vodka, believe it or not, the horror -- was a great time to agree to be friends. And a pretty bad time to agree on anything else, so we just -- got more drunk and slept it off eventually. Which is probably the closest I've ever been to an ideal date, to be honest." A small, wry grin accompanies that last bit. "At least if it's my ideal date we're talking about. I have done the Valentine's thing with roses and champagne and candlelit dinners, and what have you, but that was definitely not for me."