2021-11-19 - Family Is The Worst

The bar is a bar. Nothing much out of the ordinary on an ordinary night. But then again the bar is in Gray Harbor, so who knows? Bennie is out on the deck, her hair stick straight and pulled into a severe ponytail. She's dressed in a dark flannel with a dark tee stolen from Easton worn underneath. Bright colors, an over abundance of accessories, and fun patterns are all suspiciously missing on her person tonight, as is her telltale smile when anyone isn't looking.

"Kinda cold to be sitting out here, isn't it?" says Tor from the doorway. He's been working a lot, picking up shifts so he can get an idea of peoples' reactions when they order his beer. But tonight, he's looking more like the scruffy trailer park kid, as opposed to hipster-in-the-making beer guy. He's also holding a pint that's half empty and the other hand holds a pack of cigarettes, so he's clerly not on the clock.

A pack of cigarettes and a drink does not necessarily off shift mean, for this is the Twofer. The deciding factor in that equation would be Tor, that Bennie barely looks at when he asks his question and in response she raises her hand and a little fireball shoots out of her palm and ignites the wood stacked in the pit. "Hadn't noticed really. Lemme bum one of those?"

True enough, but the young man who most of the town dismisses as a petty thug and troublemaker has been surprisingly professional since taking the job and starting the brewery. Well, except for those twelve weeks when a bunch of people don't know what the hell they did. Tor could've been table dancing for all they know. He pulls a cigarette out for her and then says, "You want a lighter, or are you gonna do another fire trick?"

"Only if I don't value my eyebrows." Bennie's smile surfaces, muted, and falls away as she plucks the roll from his finger and waits for the lighter. "I mean, I don't think I can pull off a naked forehead. I suppose Geoff could tattoo me some new ones."

Tor lights his own cigarette with an ancient-looking silver Zippo and passes it over to her. It has a curious symbol on it that looks like it was engraved by hand. It's occult-looking. He snorts. "I had a cousin who did that. She plucked her eyebrows too much in the 90s so she hardly had any. She had 'em tattoed back on. She looks like a fuckin' cartoon character."

There's the crunch of boots on the gravel of the beach, then the creak of the steps, followed by the appearance of the town's scruffiest sailor. Joe's in peacoat and jeans, curls peeking out from under the brim of his black fleece watch cap. Maybe it's the scent of smoke that's lured him out....or he's got a case of restlessness that even trying to sleep on the boat hasn't cured. "Evenin'," he says, affably, as he scratches at his beard.

"But think of the benefits of always looking surprised." Bennie says a bit dryly as she lights her cigarette, and keeps the zippo if only to toy with it for a moment, trying that bar trick where you flip it open and turn the wheel on your thigh. "Any big plans for the holidays?" She makes small talk without really putting any zhuzh into it.

"It's more like that phone game bird with the angry eyebrows," says Tor as he mimes downward pointing eyebrows. He looks up and nods to Joe as he takes a pull from his cigarette. "Evening," he says on the exhale. Then he shrugs at Bennie and drops to sit in a chair. "Usual shit. Half torn between my mom's family and my dad's. Don't expect my dad himself to roll back into town, but my uncle thinks I'm drifting away since I stopped working at the pizza shop." And the crime that comes along with it. "You?"

"If it isn't the Old Man of the Sea." Bennie greets Joseph fondly, even if her demeanor is a bit distant. "Dad's are good about that. Disappointing their kids, huh?" She comments back to Tor, closing up the lighter with a click and lobbing it back to the owner. "Easton and I are looking forward to some quiet time at home."

"Neither side of my family are saints. Hell, they're not even very normal or respectable. So it's saying something that my uncle," that's the criminal one, "...pretty much disowned him when I was a teenager. Something happened between the two of them, but it was enough that pretty much the whole family is on my uncle's side. And it's not like my mom'd want him back in town." Tor catches the lighter deftly and tucks it back into his pocket.

Bennie's knee starts to bounce when Tor expounds on his family dynamic, the cigarette making a cyclical journey to her mouth, away and back again as she sucks the smoke down as if her nerves were just caused by a nic fit. "Maybe we should stop talking about dads." The fingers of her free hand extend, shaking, before she balls them back into a fist.

Tor exhales a mouthful of smoke and eyes Bennie. "All right." He slouches down in the chair, positively radiating slacker energy to her anxiousness. "What do you wanna talk about then? Business shit? small talk? Or should I fuck off and leave you alone?"

He's listened silently to this, propping himself against the deck's rail, dealing with his phone. A little out of it, by the look on his face...though he finally tunes back in, expression turning sheepish. "Sorry," he says. "Speaking of family. Arguing with one of my own." He tucks the phone away in his pocket with the air of a man setting aside something distasteful. "Uh. Thanksgiving. Nah, I'm planning to be here, having bought myself some time by promising to sacrifice part of Decembers to 'em."

Bennie grinds the heel of her palm against her eye socket, muttering, "No, s'fine." To Tor before taking a deep breath and summoning up a smile from where ever they live on-call deep in her being. "We should do another Friendsgiving here. God, didn't we just have one?"

"I know where we can get turkey pizza," drawls Tor. As if expecting reactions, he adds, "...it's actually better than it sounds. Dough, gravy, turkey, onions, stuffing, mozza. Cranberry sauce for dipping. Some people even get it with shredded brussels sprouts, but I think that's a step too far."

That offer makes Joe smile crookedly. He's on the verge of the full mountain man aesthetic, a far cry from the trim, clean-cut sailor he was when he arrived almost two years ago. "Hell, I'd try it," he says, as he ambles closer. "Friendsgiving sounds good. Do it a day or two 'fore the real thing, maybe? I mean, what family holiday isn't better when you're drunk?"

Bennie's incredulous look of 'really' given to both the men before she concedes on the notion of the untraditional pizza with a shrug. "Works for me. What do you think, like a dozen pies? We'll tap a couple of Tor's kegs as a cross-promotion. It'd keep me from having to make as many sides as I did last time, and less risk of poisoning someone."

"Just think of it like a giant open-faced turkey sandwich," says Tor as he takes a drag from his cigarette. "Hell, I might be able to get my uncle to give me a cut rate. They didn't do shit to help me get the brewery off the ground. Least they can do is cater a damned event."

"Sounds good to me," Joe opines, in that languid drawl. "I've had a lot of weird food in my day, but I never have had turkey pizza. Could do some potluck to it, too, for sides and desserts and soft drinks. Maybe make it for some good cause..." He lowers himself into one of the deck chairs with the kind of carefulness that makes it clear one of the old injuries is acting up.

"All of Gray Harbor is a cause." Bennie says on the tail end of an exhale of cigarette smoke that comes with a little cough. "Great, so Friendsgiving Potluck, that seals that. Easiest to have it here at the bar, with the kitchen...and all the booze." Maybe she can even convince Easton to donate a few bottles along with the kegs. "You hurting, Joe? Sorry, I'd offer my.." Her fingers twiddle. "But I'm not exactly trusting my juju at the moment." Says the girl who just started their fire with it.

"The cause is supporting a small business," Tor agrees. He hefts out of his chair and politely butts his cigarette in a sand bucket. "And I'd offer, but I don't do that shit for free. Plus you and I don't know each other well enough for that." The former pizza boy says that without malice and a hint of amusement. "Anyway, I just came by to do keg inventory. Gotta go check on some stuff back at the brewery," aka a converted mechanic's shop on the outskirts of town, "...then gonna turn in. Just shoot me a date, Bennie, and I'll twist my uncle's arm on the pizzas."

"Cold weather always gets me achey," Joe says, but there's no real note of complaint in his voice. "Sounds like a plan for sure. Nah, I don't think this is somethin' y'all can help with. I'm as healed as I'm gonna get, barrin' another year in Walter Reed. Friendsgiving potluck indeed. I'll bring the popcorn and the jellybeans." He slouches down in his chair, like that'll help any aches and pains.

Bennie doesn't give Tor her usual exuberant bid ado, but she does give him a little finger wave and a quiet thanks for the cigarette before nodding about solidifying plans. "Will do. I just have to run this all past the man upstairs. Be well, Pizza Boy."

She pulls up a glass of scotch from where it's tucked between her thighs, "Find yourself a healer who knows their way around endocrine glands. You'd be amazed." Told to Joseph before she takes a sip. "Might not due much for the injury, but at least you wouldn't care?"

He purses his lips. "I'm reluctant to ask for someone to fool with me that way 'less they gotta. Between my prescription medication and some sweet maryjane I get by all right. Not like I got anywhere in particular to be - the pleasures of retirement, you know?" Joe favors her with a flash of a grin, bright against the caramel-colored scruff of beard.

Tor uses the sand can, Bennie just flicks her butt into the firepit. "You are never going to stop rubbing that in, are you?" Despite her apparent Mood, Bennie gives a little laugh that echoes down into her glass as she goes for another sip. "Although actually making it to retirement age in this town is probably a singularity rather than a trend and worth bragging about."

"Well, I sure earned it the hard way," Joe points out, mildly. "Any harder'n I wouldn't'a made it at all." He inclines his head to that. "Also that, for sure," he agrees. "Not a lotta folks even my age here that I've seen. Which makes sense - either you die, or you got sense enough to get the hell out of Dodge and survive all this nonsense." There's the scrape of his boot heel, as he draws up one foot a little. "You been takin' care of yourself?"

"When are we going to get that sense? I mean, how much suffering and loss do we need to suffer before we realize our gifts are a curse, not a blessing? All we are is food to the Dark Men, sucking us dry like parasites until there is nothing left but resignation." Bennie lifts up her glass and gives him a self-deprecating grin. "Guess that answers your question."

He considers this answer, brows raised, for a little. "I don't know 'bout that," he says, finally. "When I first got here and had it all explained to me, what was known...Rosencrantz was real damn sure the answer was defiance. I disagreed with him them, but I've come around to his way of thinkin' in the meanwhile. It's a cliche to say that that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but in some ways, it does. To live on the edge of danger has a way of makin' life felt more keenly, and I've done some of the most dangerous jobs there are. Even now, I'm not tempted to try and leave."

"So what you're saying then, is that we're all masochists." Bennie lofts back lightly, knowing that's not truly the crux of what he's trying to say. "How'd you guys fare coming out of the slip?" It's been well over a month since the haze of the time gap lifted, but she hasn't had a chance to ask everyone yet.

Now his smile's positively smug. "Somethin' like that," Joe agrees, in that tone that means that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "No harm done, no drastic changes. I wrote a book I'd been meanin' to write and now I'm in the process of doin' the editing. How 'bout you? How'd that treat y'all?" Presumably he means Easton.

"Wait, fuck, did we already have this conversation?" Bennie's eyes scrunch up like there is a pain throbbing just behind her brow. Her ire must be deep set when a true cuss word flows off her instead of being bitten back and altered. "I remember something a book, I think. Have I seen you since then? I'm..I'm sorry." Bennie sets aside her glass. "I guess I'm just a little foggy. I think I should go lay down in the office."

The smugness is replaced by alarm, and he blinks at her blankly for a moment. "Yeah, I think we did," he says, slowly. "That's right. You let slip Easton had had his innings with de la Vega. Man, I feel like Javier's gone a round with every queer within thirty miles. That's all right. You go on, I'll make sure the fire's out 'fore I leave." He shakes his head, more as if to clear it than in denial.

Bennie knuckles against her eye, "Well if it's any consolation, I never slept with him? And I hear he has a thing for blondes." She tries to muster a sincere smile, but it just looks tired. As she stands to walk off, she lets her fingers trail on his shoulder in parting. "Thanks, Joe." She says with an airy quality like her brain has already wandered off before her.