2021-04-26 - Beer On a Boat

There aren't that many yachts and boats at berth in the marina yet -- it's too early in the year for the tourists to have arrived from Seattle, Olympia, and other towns along the coast. Hence, the population is pretty much Gray Harbor's own yachters -- a relatively small tribe, all things considered. The quality and price range varies quite a bit all the same; from small boats to what's essentially floating homes sans carports and lawns. One of these boats is the Vagabond, a sailboat just small enough that you can live on it -- but not too comfortably (for one, it doesn't have a shower). It comes with certain amenities -- such as the small black cat that owns the prow, and the copper blond Dane who sits, feet up, in the aft, nursing a cold beer.

Life's good. Life here is infinitely preferable to wintering in the trailer park.

The sky is open overhead, the wind is a bit chilly but hey, that's what a proper (black) sweater is for. Book in lap, the Dane looks decidedly content with life in general. Even if Denny warned him against the mermaids.

"Damn hobo," Isi says, coming up to the edge of the Vagabond, lifting up her hands to help carry her voice. "How do you dress like you do and own a thing like this? Unless you're squatting." That is said a bit quieter as a thought, because Isi's not sure he WOULDN'T be squatting.

Ravn raises the beer in a lazy salute. "I don't," he says with a grin. "I rent her. What's wrong with the way I dress? Come on out if you'd like a beer, it's not like I'm doing anything useful." The book gets plopped down on the bench; someone's utterly and completely slacking off. Maybe if half the stories the man tells are true, one learns to grab the peaceful moments while they exist.

In the prow, the small black cat raises its head to appraise Isi with a green, evaluating look. She is weighed and measured, and found sadly lacking in tuna.

Handwave however Isi found out Ravn is here. She is PROBABLY not stalking him. Maybe.

She works her way up to the boat carefully, because taking a swim isn't on the agenda YET.

"How do you even make money? I doubt running a not-opened non-profit pays the bills."

Ravn pats the bench aft; there's space enough in the u-shaped area for some five or six people, all depending on just how close friends they are. Then he dives under deck a moment, only to emerge with two cans of beer and reclaim his seat. If he finds Isi's very careful navigation towards him amusing at least he's got the courtesy to not comment on it; not everyone was born in an archipelago after all, and this is a slender, narrow boat compared to some of the floating villas around here.

"I do online tutoring for the University of Copenhagen's program for Afghanistan vets," he says with a smile as he sits back down. "It's not a fortune but then, I don't have a big house to pay rent on, either, and the only person who's dependent on me is Her Little Furry Majesty there. Spent the last three years before I ended up here living in a backpack so I guess I'm somewhat used to living on a small budget."

Isi settles herself on the far side of the boat from Ravn - they aren't THAT close of friends yet. She's comfortable enough to pull a leg up against her chest and not settle into a wary pose. That's progress. When the bear is offered she takes it and settles back, a head cocked at him. "Do you live here?" A gesture at the boat itself, "Or do you have a bed that doesn't rock somewhere?"

The cat gets a sideways glance. They're going to just have an uneasy truce for now, wherein they generally ignore one another. As is proper.

"I live here," he confirms. "Although I have to drydock her in winter, so I rented a trailer to get me past those four months. I like it here. There's something soothing about being on water, and I don't need to take care of a property. I'm not exactly Mr Handyman so that's not a bad thing. What about you? Have you found a place to stay? Tell me you're not renting at the murder motel."

He glances at the cat. "Don't mind her. Kitty Pryde has a thing about people -- she doesn't like them. She tolerates me infringing on her boat because I supplicate her with tuna."

"Nah, took me a few days at the motel to find a place, but there's a basement on this place on Elm that was cheap enough for me to afford it. I might look into a roommate at some point, but, meh." Isi wrinkles her nose at the thought of sharing her living space in close quarters with another person.

The cat gets eyed momentarily. "Never had much interest in cats. They were more a nuance than a help back home, though they did keep down the mice, which is something. They were never anything like pets though."

"Oh, this one's not a pet either. She barely lets me touch her. She just wandered on board one day last autumn and well, who am I to argue." Ravn shoots the cat a fond look that definitely belies any words spoken to the effect of not my cat. "I'm a cat person. Not sure why but cats like me. Maybe it's because I'm a lot like them -- I wander off, don't get heard from for three days, come home dirty and full of fleas, sporting a few new scars and a big grin."

He nods at the idea of a room mate. "I've been kind of talking with a guy about maybe renting something together next winter. His relationship with his girlfriend is kind of long distance most of the time and I'm single and prone to being out here most of the year anyhow. So, we wouldn't drive each other crazy."

Isi glances between Ravn and the cat with a disbelieving eyebrow arched upwards at his disavow of love for the cat. "Sure. You might not speak so glowing of it if you want someone to believe that. But, to each their own. Keep the flees to yourself though, okay? I've had lice a few times - I don't even want to imagine flees." There's a serious shiver there.

"Man - I'm not really what you call a people person. I like my space," and she'll just gesture to the space she's left between the pair of them. "MAYBE if there was a serious relationship involved but.... otherwise I like my underwear to stay where I'm the only one that sees it dirty."

"Yeah. I'm much the same way." Ravn nods and offers over one of the beer cans. "I'm not really the get a girlfriend and play house type. I do like people, but I need a lot of time to myself too. And I definitely don't need somebody telling me that I can't make coffee at three am or sit up all night reading if that's what I want to do. You get used to being by yourself, it can be hard adjusting to sharing your life with someone else. Tried it once, wasn't a success."

Isi reaches out for the beer and clicks her tongue in an agreement sound. "Thanks." She opens the beer, but it's more a thing to occupy her hands than to down. "It seems like you have a community despite that - is there anyone in the town you don't know?" Half tease, half honest question. "Anthropomorphized horses not included."

Ravn laughs softly. "I do seem to be that guy. The one who talks to everybody. It's largely because I collect their stories -- in my line of work, if I want to make sense of any of this, I do need to find out everything I can, hear every crazy tale. I'm not really -- a people person. I talk to a lot of people but I don't so much -- you're not going to find me doing karaoke with half the town, or getting wasted at the night club, you know? I don't work very well in crowds. Got some anxiety issues that make it difficult for me."

"Anxiety isn't quite something I would have pegged you for dealing with." Isi says, an eyebrow now fully arched at even the idea of it. "You seem very just all out there with some what may."

She leans back finally and does take a drink, cocking her head sideways just a little to show genuine interest. "So you collect everyone's stories and you... write them down?"

Ravn shakes his head. "I probably should be, but I honestly haven't got the time. I just try to -- make sense of things, to the extent that anyone can. Try to direct our attempts to defend ourselves, make life tolerable here. Try to just -- live? There's always some crisis, because, well, that's how it works. And in a way, it helps me -- it's easier for me to focus on an external threat than to face my own issues. I've got -- problems with too many people, particularly if they're paying attention to me. It's why I teach online -- no classroom."

"So what sense have you made so far? Not," Isi is quick to interject here, "That I'm ready to drink the kool-aid just yet. But it's been long enough and enough people seem to be on the bandwagon for me to consider giving the benefit of the doubt."

"Pretty much that reality is fluid as hell around here -- but most of the things that happen are ultimately lifted from our own minds. Which means, we can often predict where the narrative is going in general, and we can sometimes influence it. That's what the HOPE centre is trying to do -- rewrite some of the narrative. The Veil likes stories -- so we're giving it a story, eighties movie montage style, of a little town that comes together to make everything better. Maybe it works. Maybe it won't -- but then, we've still improved life for some people, and I'm all right with that." Ravn laughs softly. "I guess it gives me a sense of purpose on a more personal level, too. Never really had too much of that in the past. What about you? What keeps you going? What did you come here, hoping to find? Because I'm guessing crazy stories and alternate realities were not on the list."

"By that logic you're saying that by being here it's possible that some of my parents stories might show up and suddenly be really-not-real." Yes, Isi is rather proud of that turn of phrase.

As for what she came for Isi shrugs. "It had a job that would let me get out into nature and wasn't too busy. Not a lot to read into that. Went through my undergrad on scholarship, but borrowed for living expenses. Everything went on credit for my graduate degree. Now I have to pay it all back which means working."

"Student debts." Ravn nods. "Yeah. I get that. Gotta say, the nature here -- really doesn't hurt. I love living by the sea. But then, I'm from a country where you can't get an hour's drive from the sea -- it's simply not physically possible. And of course, by our standards, Gray Harbor is a medium-sized provincial town so maybe it doesn't feel so ... small, to me."

Isi shrugs slightly. "I think the last census put the reservation at.... maybe thirty-thousand people total? I think Tooenish isn't much bigger than Gray Harbor, ish?" Isi's making some generalizations here as she doesn't have a firm grasp on exactly how big Gray Harbor is. "So it's pretty much like going home, without the problems of the reservations, but apparently with lively spirits."

"I think we're about -- eighteen thousand here? My home town is closer to sixty thousand but, most Danish towns are ten to twenty. A lot of them are a hell of a lot less -- and I live, or, well, lived in a village of maybe thirty." Ravn laughs again. "Everything is a lot bigger over here. You think western culture is just... western culture, but there really are a lot of differences. Pretty sure you've noticed that too? I don't know the first thing about First Nations, not going to lie -- but from the way you put it, you feel just as much of a foreigner here as I do, just with less of an accent."

"Yeaaahhh... It's... different, you know?" Isi's pretty sure he might understand and she leans forward just a touch. "The reservations are like little island throwbacks. We've got out places where it almost seems modern, but most of it is still stuck at the turn of the century. A good portion of people are unemployed - I never actually saw my dad hold down a job. He'd do odd things for the neighbors. Mom worked at the grocery store. But there wasn't anything pushing anything ~forward~. Sometimes there'd be talk of this or that federal project but," she trails off with a shrug of her shoulder.

Ravn dips into a blazer pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lights one, and leaves the pack on the bench with a gesture of 'help yourself if you want'. "We don't have reservations in Denmark -- no native population that got colonised, or, well, we did have that but it was about five thousand years or longer ago. But we do have areas and districts that are considered 'troubled'. Low income, and the ever repeating vicious cycle of consigning immigrants there, then blaming them for not integrating well with the rest of the country. So -- I get what you mean, at least some of the way, but admittedly not all the way."

"Colonized isn't quite the right word - more invaded and betrayed repeatedly with broken promises." It's said with all the bitterness of a native person that knows exactly what WAS owed them, but has long ago given up actually getting any of it. "The thing with integration is that if we do fully assimilate, we lose our culture." She stops herself, reviews her words then laughs at herself. "I say we, like I didn't leave the reservation fully intending to leave the culture behind myself. You Europeans are lucky, your stories and such already form the basis for what we've got. You say Baba Yaga and I've at least heard of it. There's a frame of reference. If I throw out the Tah-tah-kle'-ah? People give weird looks."

"You'd be surprised, maybe, at how First Nations culture is a big thing in Europe," Ravn says and glances out over the water. "Only, well, you'd probably also be depressed because it's pretty much Great Basin cultures and they get mangled to the point where I suspect the actual Lakota might be reduced to tears. Cultural appropriation is very definitely a thing. But yeah -- not going to argue against you on that. The USA has a pretty damn shitty history where this is concerned. Not shining my national halo here either -- Denmark was one of the nations that did the most shipping of Africans here, and if you ask Greenland, our days as a colony power are definitely not over."

"Great Basin, south western - yeah. Those tend to get mushed together into one big "Indian" culture. It's not. But. You're the choir, and I'm preaching. I don't know much about Europe beyond what was important in my public policy classes. I never did have a desire to visit though - I'm not a traveler." Isi shakes her head then firmly turns the conversation aside.

"You mentioned scars once. From the fear - pain - whatever things?"

"No one's an expert on everything. Scandinavian folklore's my particular field, doesn't mean I'm not interested in the rest -- just that I am as ignorant as the next guy." Ravn offers a small, lopsided smile. Then he looks back at Isi, rather than the water and shrugs a little. "I got up one day. Packed a bag, walked out. Didn't stop walking until I ran out of Europe. Got on a plane to New York, started walking west. By walking I mean hitch hiking, catching rides, staying a day here, two days there -- but, never stopping, not until I got here. It wasn't that I wanted to travel in particular -- I wanted to stay ahead of a ghost. The thing I said about Gray Harbor not being the only place the Veil is thin? My home's nothing like this, but it's haunted as heck."

Sorry, Ravn just smacked right up against Isi's capacity for belief - even as enlarged as it is now. "You ran from a Ghost."

Just repeating that to make sure that she actually has got it right.

Ravn winces. "A ghost who was... very angry with me, yes. Blamed me for her death. I had to do a stint in a mental ward because I was the only person who could see or hear her, and, well, when she attacked me, other people thought I hurt myself. I signed myself out eventually and just... left. She did catch up with me here, eventually, but -- well. Gray Harbor, people here know how to deal with a pissy ghost. She's not a problem anymore."

See, now the question is hanging out there and Isi can't quite resist not spelling it out. "Well - did you kill her?"

Just get out on the open right now if she's on a boat with a murderer.

Ravn shakes his head. "No, at least not directly. I suppose it's up for philosophical debate. We argued. She was drunk. She slammed the door on me, and went for a drive in a fast car, at night. Hit a road tree, died before the ambulance got there. But we did argue, and she would still be alive if we hadn't."

Oh god, now Isi's just being rude when she asks, "Was that the... relationship you were talking about earlier?"

Perhaps the Dane doesn't mind. Probably took a lot of therapy to get to that point, but hey, he's there. He nods. "Yeah. We were engaged to be married. I was breaking it off, that's what she got angry about. So on some level, yes, I did cause her death, I suppose. It's all a matter of perspective -- I am inclined to argue that I didn't bloody well force a bottle of wine down her throat and I sure as hell didn't tell her to take a Porsche out for a midnight drive at a hundred and twenty on a small country road."

Isi winces at that, but relaxes, since he's not a self proclaimed murderer. It's always possible he's a liar, but, y'know, anyone could be. There has to be some trust extended eventually.

She lifts up her class in a mock toast though, "To being single! Glad you got to banish your ghost though." The way she says it implies that it could be metaphorical or real. The line is blurred.

"Nothing wrong with being single unless you're single because Mr or Miss Right isn't available." Ravn grins and raises his beer to return said mock toast. "That said, if you're looking for the local dating scene, it's pretty small -- at least if you're looking for people you can talk to about the weird here. Most of this town has no idea anything unusual is going on, and they won't believe you if you tell them. The Veil protects itself -- can have the wreck of a Spanish galleon crash on the beach just over there for two days, none of them see it. And if they do, they've forgotten as soon as they turn their eyes away."

"It's a crapshoot for who Mr. or Miss. Right is anyway." Isi replies, leaning back again and pushing her shoes off and settling into a cross-legged pose on her seat. "But the people who glow - or get warm or whatever, they see it and remember it?"

"Yeah. The Veil can't rewrite our memories. So we remember. Whether the Veil wants us to remember -- well, that's up for grabs too. As long as we don't understand what it is and how it works, any theory is as valid as the next." Ravn hitches a shoulder lightly. "The main theory is that because of the way this thing works, there are forces on the other side that definitely want us to remember -- because they can't feed on our misery if we're blissfully ignorant. But that's just a small part of it all -- I could talk for a month and I'd still only be covering the small part of it all that I know, you realise?"

He throws Isi a somewhat sombre look. "You know what's also really important? Living. Not telling you to rush out and settle with husband and white picket fence, don't get me wrong. Just, remember to do things here that make you happy. This place is going to eat you raw if you let it spiral you down into fear. There's a saying -- what's the point of fighting if you don't have something to fight for? For me, well, -- this boat, this cat, my friends, that works."

"They should put you in charge of making inspirational posters with that kind of talk." Isi says, her words laced with sarcasm. One hand comes up and seems to outline a banner in the air. "Embrace what matters - Boats, Cats, Friends."

The hand drops and she shrugs. "So far other than your word- and others," because there have been multiple, "there hasn't been much to fear. So I figure I'll just keep doing my thing and see what comes of it."

"Well, all the more reason to talk about more normal things too, isn't it? Life isn't just monsters, not even in Gray Harbor." Ravn grins a little. "Also, you want a motivational speech, you need de Santos -- the guy who's the official face of the HOPE centre. The Veil branded him as 'our local Mr Rogers' and believe me, he matches the part. I'm actually pretty cynical most of the time. Not really very fond of people on the whole -- it's just that in this town, it's easier to feel like humanity is your tribe. It's our nature to gang up against a common enemy, you know?"

"Humanity is your tribe." Isi says then laughs and shakes her head. That last word has very different meaning for her, but beyond repeating his phrase she doesn't comment more. "This de Santos - he's one who sees the sunshine coming out of anyone's ass hole?"

"That's what the man does, and he does it exceedingly well. You'll like him -- because it's bloody hard not to. In part because he's a genuinely good person -- but also because he's not an idiot. Most people who get described that way turn out to be -- I don't know, half cultists, half idiots. He's neither. Man knows perfectly well that most of the time, humanity is shit. He just thinks we can do better." Ravn sips his beer. "And yeah, I guess -- that's a little... You know, I never considered that saying humanity is my tribe might be a little racist. Sorry. I like to picture this like we're all on the same team against the other side."

"Meh - not racist. More just a very different version. The word 'tribe' is more of a way to keep us separate, you know? Even our name, "Yakama" isn't our traditional name. We call ourselves Mamachatpam - but. Digression."

Back to this de Santos fellow. "I guess there's nothing wrong with having a little optimism. I tend towards cynicism. Things are generally worse, not better than hoped."

"I think that for me, it depends on what the subject is. Do I think we can make Gray Harbor a good place to live? Definitely. It's already a good place for me." Ravn looks at his beer. "This place? It feels more like home to me than anywhere else I've lived, including my family home which has been in my family since about... 1450, I think, probably longer. Here? I have friends, I have people who'd bloody well notice if I got up one day and left."

"You're lucky." Isi says, this time without bitterness. "It's easy to just disappear without a trace. Just don't tell anyone where you're going, stay offline, and..." She shrugs as if that's the most reasonable way to express that you just get forgotten.

"That's pretty much what I did for three years, yeah." Ravn offers a small lopsided smile. "And most of my life before that too, if I'm honest about it. I'm not a people person. I'm that guy who you don't notice if he's there, and you sure as hell don't notice when he isn't. Except, here, somehow, that doesn't work. And on some level, I'm all right with this."

Then, the man puts on a beatific little smile. "Of course, that does mean I had to give up my career as a grifter and pickpocket, but what can you do."

"A grifter, pickpocket, PhD. Those are not words that should be used in the same sentence - seriously. Education is suppose to be this magic bullet that makes life better." Isi downs the rest of her beer and looks around as if to find a place to chuck it.

"To some people, though, education is what you do because you're expected to. At least that's how it was for me -- although at least I won the battle of what to study. My parents wanted me in finances or politics, definitely not in the humanities. Manage the family funds and so on." Ravn laughs and picks the beer can out of Isi's hand. "Let me take that, I toss them to recycling. Want another?"

"Yeah, that's the exact opposite from the reservation. We have maybe a... thirty? fourt? percent graduation rate?" Which is an interesting parallel to the unemployment rate as an OOC note, "and I'd be surprised if more than fifteen percent had a bachelors degree - let alone something higher. Tell me more about your degree though," Isi replies, holding out her cup for him. "And sure, I've got nothing better to do then get tipsy on your boat."