2020-10-24 - Welcome to the Thunderdome

The trailer park. As good a place as any to go for a walk and see America as it really is, Ravn Abildgaard figures. They don't have places like this in Denmark. Or rather, they do, but they're fairly expensive holiday homes. Parks of trailers, caravans, and mobile homes that stand in for summer cottages, typically near a beach. Then again, everything in Denmark is a near a beach, isn't it? Either way, it's a different social strata, and Ravn is fascinated, intrigued, and -- let's be honest here -- a little intimidated by this strange neighbourhood. It sounds like poverty-ville hell on paper but while yes, granted, this isn't exactly the bay apartments, there are some kind of neat places here. Small homes where you can tell that the people who live there have done so for some time, and they're making the best of it. There are children playing and kicking balls and growing up here just like anywhere else in suburbia.

All the same, though, he doesn't intend to spend longer here than necessary. It's not the neighbours or the noise that bothers him -- it's how cramped everything is in the Airstream. Which is a little funny given that the Vagabond is even more cramped, but that's a boat and hence, it is exactly as it should be.

Do the neighbours think him odd for wandering around the area at random hours, hands in pockets of his black wind breaker, looking like -- what did Vic call him the other night, the angel of death? Aidan Kinney doesn't. On the other side? Not sure. It's a nice autumn day to sit on the step with a steaming cup of coffee made the right way, percolated blackness without any unnecessary ingredients.

One of those home-y trailers is the Lockhart family legacy one. It's one that Tor grew up in, then inherited when his mom moved into town with her boyfriend. It's a canary yellow affair with attached metal shutters and an attached deck. It's distinctly 1970s, but very well-cared for, even if it's showing signs of bachelor habitation these days. It's also located fairly close to the entrance, which is another marker of how long it's been there as the park expanded back and out over the years.

Tor is currently moving around his yard, picking up garbage and discarded cans from around the fire pit. Looks like there was a get-together the night before. He's the most PNW young adult you could possibly imagine, right down to plaid, doc martens and a Nirvana t-shirt, scraggly long hair and a scruff on his cheeks. All things come around again.

He watches Ravn, curious as the man walks by. "Hey. You the one squatting at Vic's place?"

The tall Dane looks up from whatever reverie his mind was contemplating -- like say, goodness, that's a lot of yellow -- and offers a lopsided smile. "Yeah, I guess I am. Just staying here for the winter -- I have a boat on the marina but it's getting a little cold down there now. Name's Ravn Abildgaard." He wanders over and offers a gloved hand; a very European gesture for a guy with a very European accent. "You been around here for long, then?"

The scruffy guy looks at Ravn a bit suspiciously. He's probably gotten that look before from people in the park. It's a community, and as such, can be a little wary of strangers. He eyes the hand, but then decides to take it. "Tor Lockhart." Not the most American sounding name but he definitely looks like he belongs here. "My whole life."

"Seems to be a pretty quiet neighbourhood on the whole." The Danish guy sticks his gloved hands back into the pockets of his wind breaker. He's wearing a dark purple scarf -- everything else is black. It's clearly a theme or thing for him; maybe he fancies himself an artist. "I've been visiting Aidan Kinney in number forty-two every so often since, well, there's no shower on my boat. So yeah -- when Vic mentioned moving out and asked if I might be interested, I figured why not. Apart from the recent fire, things seem pretty relaxed here?"

Tor shrugs noncommittally. He tosses a few more cans into the recycling bag and sets a tipped over lawn chair right. "In the summer it can get a bit more rowdy when people get block parties going. But yeah, people look out for each other. Mind their own business." There's definitely an air of suspicion for Ravn that he isn't trying to hide. Not hostility, but definite side-eye.

Oddly enough, the other man doesn't seem all that surprised or taken aback by this evaluation; if anything, he seems almost like he'd expect a bit of looking over before getting accepted. "Reckon I'll be out of everyone's hair before then. Come April first, I'll be back at the harbour. Nothing wrong with here except, well, it's not a boat. I've taken to living on one like I never imagined that I would. Although, block parties sound fun -- barbecues, that sort of thing?"

"A boat. You a fisherman or something?" Something about the way Tor looks at Ravn makes him think he doesn't believe that. "Or do you just like boats?" He sets the bag aside, then pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

"No, I just like boats. I'm from Denmark -- can't get an hour from a beach there if you try, so I suppose it's in my blood. I'm a barback, as it happens -- down at the Twofer." That honestly doesn't sound too believable either, but at least more believable than fisherman. Whoever this guy is, blue-collar worker he is not. The posture is wrong, and while the streetwear isn't fancy, it's too well put together to be entirely accidental. The two-day stubble and posture definitely mumbles something about people you'd expect to hang around hoping to see and get seen in some artsy-fartsy larger town environment. "But hey, maybe you can tell me if there are any local village rules I need to know about -- like, don't barbecue on Wednesday or don't feed the stray cats, or whatever the local customs might involve."

Tor snort-laughs a moment after lighting his cigarette. "The only park rule aside from the ones that Vic probably left for you is, mind your own damned business." Actually, it's 'look out for each other' but that applies more to the permanent residents than the transient ones. "You talk to the owner since he got spat back out?" Of the Twofer, that is.

"Once. Reckon he's a little busy readjusting to reality and getting nursed back to health. Also, I mostly work the quiet morning shifts which is not when most people are around anyhow. I mostly talk to Vic." The Dane hitches a shoulder lightly. "Mind my own damned business, I can do that. Town I'm from it's 'live here for seven generations' and maybe we'll start greeting you in the street' so that's pretty easy in comparison."

Tor watches Ravn for a moment. Despite the scruff and the rough edges (and the setting) he doesn't give off a hickish air. In fact, there's an intelligent look in his eye. "So. Ravn. What're you running from, then? Or to."

"I am that obvious, am I?" A lopsided smile comes to roost on the Danish fellow's face as he rests on his heels a moment. "Family, mostly. Got a lot of history back home and no particular desire to be part of it. Nothing bad, just -- not what I want to do with my life. I'm not on the run from the law, in case that thought crossed your mind. Just from in-laws."

Tor taps out ashes onto the ground and takes another slow drag from his cigarette. "Lemme guess. You found yourself passing through here, and now you're finding it hard to leave?" A smirk appears. "And you're wondering, what the fuck, man? Why am I stuck in this nowhere little American town? The answer is, this town is quicksand. The more you struggle, the faster it pulls you down."

"Well, yeah. I did. And I did." Ravn's smile doesn't diminish. "It's how it goes here, isn't it? Seen it happen to three other folks after myself. Somebody wanders into town and makes up some excuse to stick around in spite of everybody telling them to get on the next bus south, west, anywhere. And then they start asking questions and before you know it, they're turning up wide-eyed asking what the hell was that bizarre experience with the monkeys and the TARDIS and the psychopathic nun. It's been like that here always, has it? I figure I'm pretty stuck already, yes."

Tor lifts a shoulder. "I guess when you grow up around it, it's more normal. But yeah. I've seen lots of people from elsewhere get stuck here. It seems if you're even a little fascinated or interested, that's all it takes and..." he makes a whistling sound, "...you're here. You keep making up reasons to stay or something keeps you here."

"Took me about -- three hours? I study folklore. This town is folklore. I'll probably end up buried here." Ravn doesn't seem particularly bothered by that idea. "I was planning to continue backpacking down south and cross the border eventually but eh -- that's not how it works, is it? This place seems to drop bait and lure in the warrior types and the artist types. I guess I'm the latter because I'm sure as hell not the former. Which are you?"

"Neither," says Tor with a shrug. Then after a moment, he adds, "I'm a legacy. I've got ancestors going back to the founding of this town." A fact that he's only recently been made aware of. "Guess that means I was destined to be stuck? Not that I've tried too hard to leave either." An inhale.

"So you're a Baxter or an Addington?" Ravn raises his eyebrows. "None of my business, of course, and you did just tell me to mind my own. I'm only nosy in a professional capacity -- the whole family saga there is interesting. Can't help have a few theories about what's going on here, why the town works as it does. There are probably better theories by better people but hey, I've only been here a couple of months. Have you ever actually wanted to leave?"

The first question makes Tor laugh. He scratches his forehead and motions back behind him at the trailer. "Which do you fuckin' think?" It's a pretty safe bet there are no Addingtons living in a trailer park, unless it's by choice or no one knows they're Addingtons. The second question makes some of the humour fade. He shrugs. "Maybe. But if I did, would I forget half my fuckin' childhood? Would I be the same person out there?"

"I don't. I do realise that the Addingtons have the money, but you did say your last name was Lockhart. If your last Addington ancestor was five generations back you'd still be an Addington as far as the story is concerned. But I'm going to go with Baxter, then." Ravn cants his head and considers the other question far more carefully. There's a bit of new information right there which, in two months, no one else thought to mention to him. "Are you suggesting that if we leave -- we start to forget?"

"What, no one's told you? Shit, man." Suddenly Tor looks a bit more...sympathetic. He nods towards the lawn chairs around the inert washer drum firepit. "Yeah, the fuckin' Veil protects itself. Your memories just kinda...change to paper over any of the really weird shit, or you find yourself not thinking of it. So any of the weird shit, if you left here? It'd start to fade."

"No one thought about it, I guess. I did have someone check my social media back home -- you're a local, I bet you heard about this whole bizarre rumours thing. Lobster flight club guy -- that's me. And that's definitely part of it." Ravn takes his gloved hands out of his pockets at last and looks at one. "Before that, celebrity chef -- but it changed. Anyhow, I did hire someone to find out just how far this goes. People I grew up with back home in Denmark swore I was Swedish. It can go all the way around the planet to Denmark, I guess I didn't think it would just... fade. But that does make sense. It'll do anything to just not draw attention or let the outside world interfere, won't it?"

"I dunno if that whole...history changing thing..." Tor makes a vague hand motion, "...and what the Veil does generally are connected. I mean, maybe. But those stories are fuckin' crazy, and seem to do the opposite of not drawing attention to people around here, y'know?"

"Yes. They all have that in common," the Dane agrees. "They're all about the attention. They're all dramatic, embarrassing, over the top. Twenty year olds with twelve kids. Bigamy. Celebrities. Spies. Nothing that seems plausible at all if you pause to think about it. A sane but plausible story for a bloke like me? Accountant running away from bossy wife, something like that. Instead I get celebrity TV star who's sleeping his way through town. And when that was over -- combat crustaceans. But, I guess we learn to just appreciate it when it's pretty harmless, don't we?"

"Man, you stick around here long enough and shit stops surprising you," says Tor as he rubs out his cigarette on the edge of the fire pit drum and chucks the butt into the pit. "I've lost count of how many Dreams I've had. I'm just glad I didn't get caught up in that revision shit. Life's complicated enough."

"Three or four for me. Not certain about the last one. Feels more like a revised memory than an action sequence." Ravn glances around. "Bit disconcerting to be honest, waking up with a very real feeling memory of having gone on a blind date with someone thirteen years ago, except you know that it didn't actually happen. But you still remember it."

Tor squints at Ravn. "That's new," he says, perhaps a bit ominously. He hasn't been phased by general town weirdness, but that got his attention. "Someone local?"

"Yes. She remembers it as well." Ravn hitches a shoulder slightly. "I'd say discretion is the better part of valour, but as it happens, what we both remember is smoking pot in my parents' greenhouse. Except for the fact that the woman in question was nowhere near my home town thirteen years ago. Could be a lot worse, I suppose. Could remember murdering somebody together and disposing of a body -- I mean, that wouldn't even be too far out of character for Gray Harbor. I think that's the part I struggle with the most -- how reality seems to be fluid here. Just because something was true yesterday doesn't mean it's still true tomorrow, or that it ever happened at all."

"Yeah, man. Maybe I was a millionaire yesterday," says Tor as he rocks back on his lawn chair in front of his 1970s trailer. "The way this works, we might never know. Maybe you are/ Swedish and the Veil changed your memory and no one else's." Toothy grin.

Another lopsided smile from the Danish guy. "And if I were, I'd still be the only bloke in town who can tell the two languages apart, wouldn't I? But yeah. It's a little frightening when you think about it that way. I guess there's a reason people get drunk or wasted a lot here from what I've seen. All about the coping mechanisms. I'm still getting used to the idea that pot is legal here but it's probably for the better that it is."

"Maybe we'll all wake up tomorrow and it won't be," says Tor. There's a hint of nihilism to that statement, especially since he kind of grins as he says it. "But hey, that'd be good for me. Get back into the gig I had in high school." Cause of course he was a weed dealer at one point. Look at him.

"Well, if that happens, don't be surprised when I come knocking. Weed's illegal in Denmark but that doesn't stop anyone from using it. You don't even get fined for possession if it's for personal consumption -- only for dealing. And of course a lot of people are pushing for legalising it for medicinal reasons so they can stop ordering discreet packages from England and Switzerland." He's a chatty type, the Dane, that much is obvious. No particular rush to get back to wherever he was going -- to the Airstream trailer, presumably. "From what I heard, there was a pretty considerable weed stash that burned here in the fire where Vic's trailer was damaged too. It still smells a bit like pot when the wood gets wet."

"Could be worse," says Tor with a shrug. If he's worried about the fire, he's not letting on. He, on the other hand, is somewhere between normal chattiness and laconic. "You gonna try and find something more than tending bar since you're stuck in Gray Harbor quicksand? Or are you still under the delusion that this is all temporary?"

"Nah, I'm realistic enough about how this work to doubt that I'll be going anywhere unless something dramatic happens and I don't get a choice. This being Gray Harbor, I doubt that's going to happen -- unless for some reason the Veil decides it wants to get rid of me but having me killed or disappeared is too much effort." Oddly enough, the tall copper blond doesn't really seem all that bothered by this bleak prospect -- spending the rest of his life in small-town America. He does dress like somebody who should be screaming 'at least let me go to Seattle!' at the powers that be.

"I don't think I'll be cleaning tables and washing glasses forever but at the moment it's as good a job as any, and it's fun. Vic's teaching me a bit about bartending on the side, might come in handy some day. In the long term, though -- I don't know. Gray Harbor's probably not got a lot of job openings for a folklorist, but I am honestly quite content where I am at the moment. Might be I end up working for the historical society or the high school at some point -- I have taught before, though I'll admit I hated every minute." A small smile at the last bit. "Nothing worse than twenty bored kids staring me down, I figure."

"Hate to break it to ya, buddy. But I don't think it's a lot of effor for the Veil to disappear people." Tor's phone makes a chirrup sound. He pulls it out and looks at it. "Gotta run. I do Uber Eats and I just got a delivery." He doesn't say anything like 'welcome to the neighbourhood,' because he's not that friendly. But Ravn does get a nod as he heads towards the cherry red 1960s Mustang parked in his drive.

Ravn looks after the kid in the car -- he's no expert on cars but he does know enough to realise that back home, that one would be a collector's item. The realisation causes him to smile slightly. Trailer park kid considers himself a penniless Baxter, yet drives around in a small fortune. He shakes his head and heads back towards his own trailer, settling on the steps once more with the coffee that now admittedly has gone quite cold.