2021-06-25 - Cantina Break

So. Many. Stupid. Problems. And every single one seems to require an adult -- even when the people who have the problems in the first place are adults. Ravn Abildgaard is starting to feel like a kindergarten teacher minding a group of very big toddlers. The yachters argue with the homeless guys. The homeless guys argue with the trailer park residents. The trailer park residents argue with the yachters. And here's Ravn, sneaking out into the high school cafeteria for a break from it all; he's got a bottle stashed in a cupboard that's entirely too good for this kind of place, and he needs a stiff drink. And maybe a wall to bang his head against for a few.

When this storm is over he's going to sleep for a week. No, bathe first. Then sleep for a week. It's not that the showers at the gym don't work. It's just that no high school gym ever actually left you feeling clean.

He fishes the bottle out of the cupboard and pours himself a shot; 12 year Glenfiddich, his poison of choice.

Desi walks into the cafeteria looking freshly showered and in what could only be described as pajamas. It was loose fitting elephant pants with flip flops and a Jigglypuff over sized shirt. Her mouth is wide open in a yawn as she just seems to wander around. "Oh, hey. It's like one pm and your drinking? You must either be stressed or bored as shit."

"Mostly the former," Ravn admits and hauls himself up to sit on a kitchen table. Jeans and shirt gives him a somewhat worn-down appearance, combined with a couple of days' worth of stubble and hair that categorically resists attempts to subdue it with a comb. "Remember what I said that guy told me? Coping mechanisms."

He arches an eyebrow at the -- shall we say, fresh out of bed look of the redhead, and cracks a smile. "You seem to be doing quite well, though. Found yourself a quiet corner? How did you manage to keep any bored kids from waking you up? I swear, those brats that found the basket balls last night, never before have I been so close to homicide."

"That's super easy when you you can drag a mattress and know how to unlock the boiler room to sleep in." Another yawn and she eyes the alcohol. "Not my cup of tea but mind if I join you for a drink or two?" He face does look tired despite how quiet of a 'corner' she has claimed for herself.

"The price I pay for for that quiet though is heat I need to shower off everyday."

Ravn reaches up with a flat palm and another glass floats obediently out of a cupboard. He supplies a generous amount of whiskey into it and hands it over. "They do say you shouldn't drink alone, so there's that. Has anything happened in the showers yet that you've noticed? I'm kind of expecting gremlins. This town has a tribe of aquatic murdergremlins and turning up in the showers right now would be -- definitely their kind of thing. If you smell mildew and mould, tell somebody."

"WIll do." She drinks some of the whiskey and sits next to him looking over the cafeteria. "If I had a mind or affinity to electricity I probably would love this storm so much. Too bad I am a fire girl. Hence my preference for the boiler room." She gives him a small grin. "Wait what do you mean gremlins? You talking like from that movie?"

Ravn laughs and then shakes his head. "Not quite -- but we got the name from there, of course. You get those wet, bad stuff happens. These come wet, and bad stuff definitely happens. They steal things -- but the things they steal are the things that get people killed. The hull valve on a boat. The brakes on a bus. The screws that keeps a heavy light armament from falling down and hitting somebody. I've met them a couple of times -- you can't negotiate or reason with those things, you can only kill them before they kill you. Hideous little fuckers."

She takes a moment to think about some unknown plot. "I would think they would dislike a fireball to the face." She hops off the counter and makes a wizard with a wand imitation. "I'm a wizard Ravvy!" She gives a heavily accented giggle. "I may have watched too many wizard movies and played too much dungeons and dragons."

"Trust me, you meet those little assholes, a fireball to the face is the right approach." Ravn grins slightly. "Have yet met Maggi Gyre? She's a fire girl as well. Set a whole lot of them on fire -- they lit up like fireworks, it was beautiful."

He must dislike those things a lot, to speak of them like that. Or maybe gremlins aren't worth the concern you'd show to people or animals.

The Dane sips his whiskey. "So, gremlins aside, how's the storm treating you? Last I heard you were going to move in with Park?"

"Indeed. I've already got my stuff there. What small amount of clothing and my guitar is there at least. With this storm I've not been there in a good while. I was debating making a run to grab my guitar but there hasn't been much of a let up in the rain that makes me feel safe enough to ride my bike you know?" She takes a swig of her whiskey. Someone never told her that you you are supposed to sip it and not slug it like a shot.

"Yeah. With winds like these I'm not sure it's safe to even drive. If I have to go somewhere, I'll probably go on foot -- at least I can avoid the worst by staying leeways of buildings and maybe take a few tactical shortcuts through backyards." Ravn nods and glances at the window; the view outside is not promising. "You any good on that guitar, then? There's a number of people in town who play -- more than you'd think in a town this small. Might be able to find some folks to play with if that's your thing. I dabble a bit on the violin myself."

"Apparently the people who live with Park all play something in some capacity. I only play when I'm drunk or bored. So you got a fancy instrument to go with your fancy name." She downs the rest of her beverage. "My instrument is the start of an engine or the rev of my bike after I install a potentially mildly illegal mod." Making a revving hand motion with her hands. "Vroom Vroom always sounds better when you make it louder."

Ravn laughs. "There's more to the violin than fancy pancy classical stuff. Ever get a chance to see Itzhak Rosencrantz perform bluegrass, you're in for a treat. He performs at the Casino lounge bar every now and then -- if you can stand dressing up, it's worth going for. Can't deny being classically trained myself, though -- I'm European, we're sort of contractually obligated to be boring, I think."

He glances back out at the storm and then back to Desi. "I really do plan to go get myself a bike when this thing blows over. Been thinking about it for a while. If not now, then when? This town teaches you to appreciate every day as it comes."

"You want me to install some good shit on it when you get it?" She has a hint of excitement at the prospect of setting up someone else with a bike modded to the nines.

Ravn cants his head. "I'll hear your ideas at least? Haven't really decided on what kind of engine to get -- I should probably go for something practical and sensible, but fuck it, if I'm having my midlife crisis early, why settle for the sensible choice? The kind of machine that cruises slowly down Main Street while every mum shakes their head and every pop thinks 'why not me', that's the kind of bike I should get. If you're doing stupid, might as well do stupid all the way, that's my take."

She grins at him with a flirty but teasing grin. "You want that feeling? You let me make it loud as fuck. Make that engine purr a physical rumble in their chests it's so loud." Her eyes sparkle at the thought of working on something like that.

"Hell yes. Need something that makes enough noise to wake the dead and make them complain about the racket." The lopsided grin widens. Ravn can't help laugh at himself. "I've always made the sensible choice. Kept my head down, stayed pretty much invisible. I'm really good at not getting noticed. Fading in with the wall paper, just not being someone anyone would look twice at. I want to be able to do that -- if I feel like it, ride the damn thing through town at six a.m., get five citations for disturbing the peace. If I want to."

"Five? I'm insulted you think it'd only be five." Sitting on a chair near Ravn's counter she messes with her hair unsure if she was scratching her head or not. "You didn't expect me to to be just a mechanic and bike enthusiast eh? My bike is tricked out in subtle ways."

Maybe it's the whiskey that inspires easy laughs. Maybe it's fatigue. Either way, Ravn laughs again. "You make it sound like you've got a secret weasel cannon installed. Thing is, I don't actually know a lot about bikes. I have a license to drive one -- don't know if you even need that here in the US? Got an old Nimbus back home but -- it's a veteran affair from the 1940s or 50s. It's a fun ride but it's not exactly rebel without a cause. Inherited it from my father -- it even has a side car that can be attached if you want to take your wife out for a Sunday ride, I suppose. There's just something so very... set about it. Something grandfatherly."

Her eyes light up when he mentions an old bike. "Oh my god. You need to get that here like tomorrow. I would probably try and buy it off you if I could scrounge the money. That would be my main bike... Restoring it to modernity while keeping it original? That's like my wet dream."

The Dane looks surprised. "Really? Huh. I suppose it's doable. Probably take a while though, I doubt you can ship a motorcycle as air mail."

Of course you can. It's just a matter of money. Although in this case, perhaps a matter of quite a lot of money.

"I'm pretty sure my grandfather bought it sometimes in the sixties," he adds. "Used. I read somewhere that the last one was built in 1960. Getting parts might be tricky -- at least if you want original parts."

Then the Dane reaches for the bottle. "Don't know about you but I need another shot before I go back in there and face the music. Half these people seem to think I know what I'm doing. They are sadly mistaken. The only thing I know for sure is that we're better off in here than out there in the storm."

"If you wanna share a mattress and talk bikes instead of watch lousy kids there's an open invitation in my own piece of paradise" She says as she shakes her head to the drink. " I wanna go look around and see if I can't fix something. Can't do that drunk."

"Downside of committing to do a job, you end up having to do the job," Ravn murmurs with a slightly self-deprecating grin. "Trust me, I'd rather be ten miles further inland at some comfortable hotel but in this town, no one looks out for us unless we do it ourselves. Just come bail me out if I end up getting arrested for beating up some entitled yachter with a baseball bat when he asks me for the eight time if he really has to sleep in the same basketball court as the homeless guys from under the boardwalk."

Some men drink whiskey like water. Ravn seems to be one of them; maybe he wasn't exaggerating when he said it's his coping mechanism. He tops up his glass and returns the bottle to its cupboard. "Once this bloody storm's over, you should drop by Rosencrantz' garage -- that's the guy you said people told you to go meet. He's one of my best friends and I figure that you'd have a lot to talk about -- bikes for one."

"I mean it all depends on what he does. He might not appreciate my little hobby of modding bikes you know? I still don't know if he's on the up and up in this town. Your sheriff made it seem like there was some big ring of criminals or something." Giggling at the thought of the fancy man committing assault. "I might come visit you rather than bail you out just to see how you act."

Ravn taps his lip with a gloved finger. "I don't know Rosencrantz' take on modding bikes, but I do know that his true love is a fancy-ass veteran car that he tricked out himself. Calls it Heartbreaker. Think he might just get that passion of yours."

Then he shakes his head. "De la Vega? He's gruff as heck but -- imagine being the guy on whose desk the buck stops in a town like this. And Mexican too, in a town that's largely white. I don't know that Gray Harbor has more crime than any other town -- kinda get the feeling the supernatural stuff around here keeps most people too busy to really get into things. There's some drug trade and prostitution of course -- never saw a town that didn't have it. And I'd be surprised if there aren't a few white collar things going on at the casino -- it's a casino, after all. But on the whole, what runs this town down isn't the mob."

"That's good I guess. I've been a mechanic on both sides of the law and I can't say if I like the wrong end of it much. It pays a hell of a lot and the easier access to mods helps, but the downsides always irk me." She mused as she remembered some past memory. "The legal way always make shit just a little easier to hide too."

"I keep on the straight and narrow these days but yeah -- I get that." Ravn nods. "Used to be a grifter. Pickpocket. Even a cat burglar for a bit. Stories of a misspent youth, lots of attempts to get my parents' attention. Worked my way down Europe and across the US pretty much doing the socially acceptable grifts -- the three shells game, fake card readings, that sort of thing. Doesn't make you a fortune but when you're hitch-hiking with everything you got in a duffelbag, you don't need a fortune."

"How do you think I got through my ten years of wandering? Granted I hawked really good parts that I took from bikes and cars from the shops I worked in." Her eyes closed and she let out a deep breath.

"Most folks in this town have some kind of story," Ravn says and reaches for his cigarettes -- only to remember that there's a law against smoking indoors in a place like this, and while he usually could care less, he's a little more in the spotlight these days than he likes to be. He drops his hand in his lap instead; later, maybe, and at the risk of getting soaked. Life is hard. "I have this theory that Gray Harbor attracts people who all share three characteristics: They've got the shine, they're got some kind of rough or traumatic past, and they fancy themselves warriors or survivors in some capacity. Some score high on one -- our veterans are pretty warrior like, obviously -- some on another. I'm useless in a fight but I do think of myself as a survivor. Anyone who's lived on the street for a while is."

"Shit I'm a wizard. You don't think I'm a fighter?" She says making a wand motion. "Maybe you should add a fourth characteristic called Wizardry!" She obviously didn't take life too seriously. This probably meant other's lives too but who knew?

"Pretty sure being able to hurl fireballs makes you a fighter," Ravn replies, amused. "And it definitely places you in the 'has shine' category, too. From the sounds of it -- you match the rough past, too."

He cants his head and watches her a moment over the rim of his whiskey glass. "You're not new into the things you can do. Done it all your life? It's always easier to adjust to this place if you already know that you can do things other people can't. Sometimes -- folks who don't know are in for one hell of a shock, you know?"

"Since three or four. I had imaginary friends that told me when things were broken in my toys. Later in life I could make plants do things and got better at fixing the things I was told were damaged." She said in a brief synopsis. "Fire fascination came around ten."

Ravn nods. "I grew up with it too. Of course, I can do nothing like that. I'm not very gifted with the shine -- just have enough that the Veil doesn't screw with my memories. Are you into plants? Might be worth talking to August Roen -- he runs the local plant shop. Aidan Kinney's another name to watch out for -- he does fire, too, and repairs things. Also, one hell of a healer -- I run to him regularly with some injury or other."

"You sound like a tour guide." Giving him a smile. "So how many damn mechanics does this town have? It sounds like I couldn't even get a job in town. That's the fourth person I've been told is a mechanic."

Ravn ponders. "Let's see, I know Itzhak Rosencrantz, and I know Grant Baxter works for him. Not sure who the other two are -- but then, there are eighteen thousand people here, it's not like I know everybody. And with eighteen thousand people, there should be work enough for another, I figure."

"Well that's your job I guess. Mine is just to party hardy, fix shit and not cause a shit storm." She claps his shoulders with a smile. "We both best be getting back to those lousy boat dudes. For your part, lemme know when you get the bike. Pay for parts and I'll mod it for a few drinks in return for the job help."

"Sounds like a reasonable plan to me. Except the part where I have to be polite to the boat dudes." Ravn hops off the counter. "Back into the fray we go. My job? Poke things that shouldn't be poked, get people to talk to each other, and occasionally pretend like I actually work for a living."