2021-05-19 - ADAs, IFOs, and Other Bizarre Acronyms

'Abandoned shortly after sunset' is the sort of thing Cassidy is looking for. She has a long tan overcoat tied tightly at the waist and she walks. Her shoes clack against the wooden slats of the boardwalk. At a point along the way, when she is clear of homeless folk rummaging through the dispensed with items of the day, she lights a cigarette. She leans forward onto a rail that separates the walk from the beach and stares out over the moon's reflection on the bay.

May and its first days that actually feel like summer might be just around the corner bring the first batches of tourists to Gray Harbor -- and by extention, it brings the people who work on the boardwalk: The carnies, the grifters, the buskers, the pick pockets, and all the rest. Among them, for some reason that may or may not correlate to knowing some of the homeless guys down there, is Ravn Abildgaard, making his way along the boardwalk towards the marina as the sun sets and the daylight fades. Nothing conspicuous in this; the Dane has picked up a newspaper somewhere and walks with it under one arm, mind clearly somewhere else.

No one would look twice if not for the short burst of commotion when a kid on a skateboard brushes past too close, and falls on his backside, narrowly avoiding taking Ravn down with him. The Dane, as helpful as you'd expect from a guy who apparently spends most of his free time volunteering at a nonprofit, stops and leans down to offer the kid a hand up after looking him over quick for anything more serious than a scraped knee.

The kid apologises and takes the hand, letting Ravn pull him back up. Behind the Dane, another kid -- no doubt an accomplice -- quickly rifles through the pocket of a man in an expensive looking sports jacket who stopped to watch the ruckus. It's a grift as old as time itself.

A crash! A commotion! Cassidy calmly turns her head to observe it. This was supposed to be a quiet walk... The first thing she sees is Ravn, and that's all she sees, for she turns to look away from the ruckus and back out over the bay. She sticks her cigarette in her mouth and hurriedly searches her pockets for her phone. Using the front camera, she quickly checks her hair and pushes it into some semblance of 'windswept' versus 'wind-disastered'. A quick finger to the corner of her eye to wipe off some imperfection. Cigarette comes out of the mouth. Smoke is dispelled. The phone gets a wink before it's tossed back into a large pocket.

Did someone get robbed by a kid? Missed the whole thing.

She flicks the ash off her fag and turns to face the Dane and walk in his direction as the kid is up and scurrying away. "Rav! Hi-eee! What are you doing here?" Though the cigarette is held at waist-level now its smoke floats up between them.

Ravn is not really all that great at the whole people thing. Just as he's checking out kid number one for injuries he somehow manages to bump into kid number two, and in the surprise of that, bumps into Mr Sports Jacket -- who in turn scowls at him and shakes his head before turning to walk away. The kids, unsurprisingly, take off in the other direction, one on the skateboard and the other running to keep up.

"Sir, you dropped this," Ravn tells the other man and hands him something before turning to walk away -- in the direction of Cassidy as it happens. "Bennett," he greets her with a small, lopsided smile. "Just walking home -- I live down there, on the marina. Didn't figure you for someone to stroll around the boardwalk in the evening, though. Are you on your own?"

"Oh yeah? Spent much time figure about me, have you?" Cassidy's smile is one of those half smiles while she looks him from the corner of her eyes, her true line of sight would otherwise be just slightly off to his right. She brings the cigarette slowly back to her lips. (It's called flirting, Ravn.)

Or it would be flirting if Cassidy didn't have a way of melting that look into something more inscrutable, but perhaps dancing on the edge of irritability. The cigarette makes another appearance for a new drag. "Some times days suck and you need to take a walk. You ever have one of those days? Rav?"

She snatches the cigarette away and shakes her hair back while she expels the smoke in a direct line up. Then she points blue eyes straight at Ravn to hear about if he has bad days.

"I spend a lot of time figuring anyone I meet," Ravn replies quite earnestly. "Cold reading used to be how I made my living. After a few years on the road, it's a habit. Please don't take it personally."

He buries his gloved hands in his blazer pockets and glances after the man who just walked off in the opposite direction of the kids. "I also just stole a guy's wallet from the kid who stole it from the guy in the first place. Mostly to see if I still have the touch." He laughs a little and then shakes his head with one last glance to the sports jacket guy rapidly vanishing. "Everybody has those days, Bennett. Or do you prefer Cassidy? I never can work out when first names are acceptable in English. But if you're looking for somebody to stand around while you vent, I can be convinced to not rush back to my boat right this instant."

Cassidy shoots her eyebrows up quickly and lets them back down just as fast as she rolls her eyes, "I bet you say that to all the ladies."

The smoking continues while he speaks. She looks past him to the sports coat man who has drifted some distance away by now. "Wow...Such talent." ... "Do you practice that on mannequins with bells attached to them - like in the ninja movies - or is it trial and error and after running into so many people and taking their wallets so many times you just, like, build a certain finesse?"

Cassidy shakes her head. "If you ever need to call me 'Bennett' it will likely be an unpleasant circumstance (for you), and it wouldn't be without some form of prefix like 'Ms.' 'Miss' or 'Mr.'" So...'Cassidy' then.

"Bit of both. The distraction's the important part -- and being quick." Ravn answers the question in the spirit in which he believes it was asked. "I spent some time picking pockets in Copenhagen for shit and giggles as a teenager. It's easier than it looks like, though you should practise on a buddy for a bit first."

Then he nods and walks up to the railing of the boardwalk, resting his elbows on it behind himself as he too lights a cigarette with that monogrammed old zippo he tends to lug around. "Cassidy it is. English has odd rules about names. I never can work out when to use a prefix and a last name, or whether someone's trying to insult me by calling me son or sir, not going to lie. Half this town just uses last names all the time -- it's simpler, so I kind of just adopted the habit rather than trying to figure it out. So, what's ruined your day, then?"

Cassidy has a bit of a disgusted look when Ravn pulls out a cigarette - and a zippo!! That means he not only smokes, but has smoked. For a while. Habitually. This is all read in Cassidy's expression. It culminates to a little balled up fist shoving the man's shoulder (and if you've ever gone to university, you know that's a /good/ thing). "Oh that's it, mister..." just to add to his confusion, "...you are /definitely/ doing karaoke with me."

Cassidy shakes her head as she stick her cigarette back between her lips and looks out over the Bay, "I can't believe it. Asthma indeed..." there went that excuse.

"I don't talk about my days, Rav. Especially not with men. You want to know why?" At least she gives him the courtesy of noping out of this one.

There's something inherently wary in the way Ravn responds to even a friendly shoulder bump; almost as if the man half expects that hand to suddenly contain a knife or a cattle prod. He stiffens and very obviously makes himself not flinch. "I'm definitely not doing karaoke with anyone," he replies, firmly. This is his hill, he's going to die on it. "But for what it's worth? You're definitely not the first person to tell me to stop smoking. And you won't be the last person I tell that with the stress levels this town induces, I need to have some bad coping mechanisms."

Then he cants his head slightly and quirks an eyebrow. "So you don't talk to men, but you want to tell me? Does that mean I'm not a man, or that you would in fact like to vent about men in general? Sure, tell me why. Given that I barely know you, I don't imagine I'll feel like it's me you're accusing of something."

A plate flings passed the passer's by, aimed or through happenchance at head level for most people. Luckily a parting of people at just the right moment means the plate misses people, specifically two people, by just luck. as the identified flying object is flung past the Boardwalk and makes a sound as it lands in wet sand filled with rocks.
It smashes.
If she hadn't pushed Ravn with her elbow...

Flying plates don't come from nowhere.
In this case, this one comes from the back of Sweet Retreats. A collection of more of the same white porcelain plates laying at Everett's feet in a carrying case. He looks astonished, green eyes wide, brows uplifted, his left hand covering his gaping mouth since the damn thing came clean out of his grip and towards the walkway, certain someone was going to get brained.

"The fuck?" Cassidy knits her brow and holds up her own cigarette and gives Ravn a sassy shake of her head. "I'm not telling you not to smoke, I'm saying..." and she starts to giggle, "...I'm saying your /asthma/ is a bullshit excuse. Just tell the truth - you're shy and afraid of crowds."

She shakes her head through all of what he says next, "No...Nope...You see? What you just did is why I don't talk about my days. And I don't want to tell you about it."

She dabs out the current cigarette, pulls out a pack of menthols. She silently curses to herself she only has two left. Then she remembers she has more at home and kind of forgives herself. Then she lights it.

"You see - men want to make everything a puzzle and try to solve it. They want to hear about a bad day and give some fucking advice." She puts her free hand to her chest and shakes her head, kind of working herself up about this, "I don't need fucking /advice/ and I don't need my puzzles solved. I just need - when I tell someone something fucking shitty - for them to just be like, 'wow...that sucks' and then shut the fuck up for two minut---WHAT THE FUCK!" Cassidy eeps! away from Ravn as a plate goes whizzing by her. She has folded her arms up and little fists are balled up on either side of her face as she stands frozen after a near miss.

Ravn blinks and snaps his head to the side while straightening up -- living in this town for less than a year and already expecting trouble any moment, it seems. He looks around with an expression that pretty much agrees with Cassidy's statement -- and then down to the smashed plate. Following its apparent trajectory back, he eventually realises that it came out of there -- where a very tall man is standing. There aren't a lot of people in Gray Harbor who are taller than Ravn; Leon Gyre is one -- Everett Woods is another.

"The hell, Woods? Did I forget to pay for coffee the other morning?" The Dane clearly assumes that either there was an accident or Everett was aiming at something -- or somebody -- else. Because obviously -- why would anyone lug a flying literal saucer at his head?

The thug's reply is simple. He looks right, then left noting all the people looking at him. Leaving the other dishes there on the ground, he heads right to his side, back to the back door he came from, opening it with his left hand, not bothering to remove his right from his apron.
Everett doesn't cook, he doesn't serve. He helps out the restaurant by doing manual labor. Moping, sweeping, throwing the chipped dishes at foreigners, throwing out the trash. You know the usual.

When he's called out, Everett retreats, ducking back into the building. He was never here. That was some other gorilla balancing plates on the boardwalk. Maybe a relative. He was in Miami.
Or at least he wishes he were before the backdoor slams, the simple spring closing it behind Everett's ducking under the doorframe. I was never there!

"Aannnyyyywayyy...." Cassidy says, her eyes on the heavy brute spotted as the culprit. Her arms lower slowly as Everett backs away and disappears. She looks back to Ravn like she thinks what just happened is the strangest thing to have ever occurred in this town.

"So that's why." Ahh yes...Picking right back up where they left off.

Ravn does a slow double take as well. "So... That happened. Right."

He looks down. The shards of plate are right there, at his feet. It happened. Gray Harbor, you do you.

"Aaaaanyway, yes." The Dane nods and -- turns back to lean on the railing one more time, while making a mental promise to go check on Sweet Retreats tomorrow, maybe. Just in case the kitchen is full of bat hyenas, or Kailey Holt turned into a giant pineapple, or something perfectly normal -- for Gray Harbor. "Yeah. I get that. Tell me about a problem, I figure you want me to try and solve it. Tell me you just want to be told wow, yes, your day sucked, that's what I'll say. That's not so much a men thing as it's communicating what you actually want, though."

Cassidy shakes her head, "No. I don't believe you. See? You're even trying to solve the problem of not having known that I don't want a problem to be solved. It's like problem inception." She takes a drag from her cigarette. "And it is a man thing." She gives Ravn a sympathetic look. "And I did tell you what I want."

"But that's okay because not, like, /fully/ listening is also a man thing." Now she's just toying with him. The slyness of her smile is mainly visible on the side of her face that isn't totally viewable by him as she looks over the bay.

Ravn shakes his head and looks out over the water beyond which the moon hangs like a -- moon. A very moon shaped object, suspiciously easy to mistake for, you guessed it, a moon. "It's a people thing," he says. "My fiancee did this constantly. Start talking -- tell me to listen, then change the subject five or six times, and proceed to tell me I wasn't properly listening or I'd have been able to keep up. But for what it's worth? Sorry your day sucked. And you're right -- I am shy and afraid of crowds. It's just that usually, when I say that, people tell me to get over it. When I tell them I have asthma, they lay off. Both are true, incidentally -- I am afraid of crowds, and I have asthma."

"Yeah , well you should get over it." Cassidy rolls in her lips after that one, not quite able to hide her smirking as well as she did the last thing.

"Don't sit up waiting," Ravn returns, smiling. "And don't sit up waiting for life advice from me, either. My life is a mess, I'm not qualified."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Cassidy turns to face Ravn directly and leans against her elbow on that wooden rail. She smiles a faint smile. Blue eyes are alight with interest.

"Why, are we doing the thing where you solve my problems instead now?" The Dane can't help laugh a little as the smoke from his cigarette curls moon-wards. "Not much to solve. It's a mess, but it's my mess, and I'm comfortable in it. Guy tells girl the sob story of his life in order to get a pity date is a story as old as time. Let's talk about something interesting instead."

"I'm not trying to solve anything." Cassidy says with an innocent shake of her head. "So it's girl troubles?" She presses her lips together and tilts her head a touch, "It's not me though. And if it is me, don't worry. I wouldn't date you no matter what story you told me." So he's safe.

Ravn throws Cassidy a somewhat amused side glance. "No, I don't have girl troubles. My fiancee died six years ago -- she's not about to come storming around the corner demanding you step away from me." And because Cassidy does in fact not shine, he leaves out the bit where until a few months back, though, that was in fact a very real risk.

Instead, he adds, "Nothing dramatic about me. I'm just not very good at attachment, and I'm not very ambitious. So I've spent most of my life achieving very little and generally faffing about, in ways that most people -- and certainly most women even considering the prospect -- would consider careless and irresponsible. So, not quite qualified to give anyone advice on how to get their life together, considering that I don't want to get even my own life together."

There was a commiserating sort of look on the death of a fiancee, but no words to go with it. After that, she takes a drag while he speaks and exhales a stream of smoke into the night air.

"Yeah, you're a mess." She nods. Then she shakes her head, "I don't know what 'faffing' is. Is that some sort of Danish slang?"

"British, I think." Ravn ponders, rifling through his mind for synonyms. "Flitting about, not getting anything done, having no plans, just taking things one moment at a time. Being irresponsible. You know -- hitch hiking your way down the west coast of the USA only to decide to stick around some small town in the middle of Fuckall, Nowhere because you kind of haven't got anywhere else you need to be and you kind of like people there."

"Ah.." Cassidy says as she looks down and plugs out her cigarette. She stands up and hoists her bag a bit higher on her shoulder - all in preparation to leave. It's another look of solace for Ravn before she departs, but this time it comes with the hope that he won't disappoint her. "Careful Rav. The devil makes work for idle hands."

There's a final smile after that and then she steps around him and walks away.

"In this town, the Devil looks over his shoulder lest somebody calls out his name," Ravn murmurs and raises one hand in a lazy wave.

He sticks around for a while to watch the moon and finish his cigarette. Then he too wanders onwards, in the other direction, towards the marina. There's a cat on a boat who wants her dinner, and a guy needs to take proper care of the woman in his life.