ArchivedLogs:Fruity Drinks

Fruity Drinks
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Siddhartha
In Absentia	2013-02-15 Who needs counseling when you can just get drunk?
Location <NYC> Heaven - Chelsea
This Chelsea playground offers a divinely gay twist to the normal concept of the afterlife. On the first floor, you can avoid the masses on the dance floor and lounge on comfortable couches in the all-white Ethereal Bar or cross over to the similarly pearly Celestial Lounge to dance beneath the sparkling fractured-mirror decor that turns the entire floor into a glittering paradise. Purgatory is in the back, descending a few steps from Heaven to a subdued karaoke lounge. For those who have a taste for something more than the brightly frosted wonderland with its bubblegum pop music, a flame-licked stairway carries you upstairs, where Hell inexplicably sits above Heaven, all dominatrix-black with patent-leather couches and glowing red lights. Intermittently along the walls are images of those who - through the owners' wishful thinking - are burning in eternal fire: the likenesses of various noted social conservatives are not uncommon. The DJ here spins heavier music and on the dance floor, among the crush of scantily clad bodies and less-than-legal stimulants to keep them dancing all night long, anything goes. Friday night. Friday night in a /club/. This means thumping music, this means sweaty bodies gyrating beneath the colourful lights. This means a lot of booze. Probably a looot of things harder than booze, too, but Jax isn't slinging /those/. He's behind the bar adjacent to the main dancefloor, with its shattered-mirror glittering and sparkly disco balls. He is pretty glittery tonight, too. He /looks/ like he belongs in the frosted-shimmering Heaven -- tight white jeans, a similarly tight white tank top with a pair of cheerful red cherries on the front, his lips and eye shimmering with silver-white makeup, his nails a similar shade of glittering frost. His tattoos are still colourful, though, but his hair is dark, jet-black streaked with a glittering silver-white shade that hair dye shouldn't be able to manage. Though inside, he wears sunglasses, large and mirrored, although at the /moment/ a rather drunk patron is attempting to take them off his face and try them on. Jackson just laughs, nudging the glasses back into place and leaning over the bar to murmur something in the man's ear instead; the man smiles, apparently accepting his answer in lieu of stolen sunglasses. Jackson is walking away already, though, further down the bar to mix up a pair of rum and cokes for another pair recently arrived. Though still steady on his feet, Siddhartha is not entirely sober by the time he makes it to the Ethereal Bar. He has changed out of work clothes, but still looks far too uptight for the club around him, in a blue-and-white striped button-up shirt--the absence of a tie an obvious attempt to appear casual--pressed black trousers, and engineer boots. Leaning against the bar without sitting down just yet, he draws the attention of the almost impossibly glittery bartender. “Open a tab for me?” he asks, handing over a USAA credit card. “And I’d like a sidecar. Go light on the sugar.” "Evenin', sir, sure," Jackson says, tone as bright as his glittery makeup, and perhaps the sir is just because Siddhartha is Too Stodgy but given his thick Southern drawl and the fact he just used the /same/ honorific on a very inebriated young man who couldn't be much older than /he/ is, it's probably he just says it to everyone. He takes the card, punching something into the cash register as the card joins a host of others in neat alphebatized slots. "Light on the sugar, got it. How y'doin' tonight?" He's half-filling a shaker with ice cubes, mixing cognac and lemon juice and a dash Cointreau; his question comes as he shakes the concoction with a rattle of ice. “Terrible!” Siddhartha admits, laughing. “I just popped over from the Barracuda. My ex was there with an incredibly hot date, who was giving me the evil eye at every turn. The /date/, I mean, not the ex. We’re cool.” There is a very long pause. “I /think/.” He somehow manages to slump into a sitting position without compromising military posture too much. “Sorry, I know nobody’s really looking for an actual answer when they ask that, right? So how ‘bout you?” "I am, sir," Jackson says, light in tone, his smile warm and easy. He grabs a cocktail glass to swipe a lemon wedge around its rim before sugaring it. Lightly! "That sounds kinda bogus, what's it to him if you're out for a drink?" Or a few drinks. Whatever. "Me, oh, it's a Friday night." He is tapping excess sugar off into the sink, then setting the glass down on the counter so he can strain the cocktail into it. “Well, the ex and I were together forever and separated on good terms, so maybe new boy feels threatened?” Sid speculates, watching the young man pour the drink as if hypnotized. “Oh, I should know better by now than to try to figure people out, especially people out for love. Madness that way lies!” He chuckles. “Friday night...I guess that means great for everyone else and a little manic for you. Well, I’ll /try/ not to be a pain in the ass. You may tell me to go to Hell anytime you like. I understand it’s just upstairs...” "People do get kinda weird when it comes to the whole love thing." Jackson shrugs a shoulder, sliding the glass across towards Sid once it is poured. "S'like suddenly people aren't /people/ anymore, they're -- I don't know, possessions to be /guarded/." His smile flashes a little brighter at Siddhartha's assessment of his Friday night. "That's about the sum of it," he agrees with a laugh. "Though to be honest, I'm usually a little manic. There's worse things. I like to stay busy. Hell's upstairs, but, really, sir," he leans in as if confiding a secret, "Heaven's got better bartenders." “I don’t think we can really blame jealousy on love, but it certainly seems to bring it out in people!” Sid accept the drink and salutes the bartender with it. “My thanks!” He takes a sip and sighs. “Ah, just right--thank you! I hate it when there’s too much sugar on the rim. Can’t taste the cognac over it. My grandpa would call me a fruit for not drinking it straight.” His laugh seems a little sad, yet genuinely amused. “Well, I’m not gonna say you look like an angel, ‘cuz you probably get that twenty times a night. If you don’t mind me asking, though, where are you from? I’m a Marylander, myself...” He is only just beginning to sound like it. "I get it a lot when I make people's drinks right," Jackson answers cheerfully, followed quickly by, "-- one sec, sir!" as he scoots down the bar to get one man a beer, one man an amaretto sour. He returns soon enough, and his fingers tap against the cherries on his chest. "I've just /embraced/ my fruitiness," he says, picking up the conversation as though he'd never left it, "There's worse things to be. And I'm from Georgia. Far away from all these Yankees, too. Where at in Maryland? My cousins got a farm out in, uhm. Charles County somewheres." “Montgomery County,” Sid replies, smiling fondly. “Or ‘MoCo’, as the local fruits would have it!” He takes a long pull of his drink. “Extreme southern edge of it, specifically. I actually saw more of D.C. and northern Virginia than I did the rest of Maryland put together, which is a shame, because there’s a lot of beautiful piedmont out there. I’ve never even been to Georgia except for Atlanta. I am such a city boy.” He shakes his head. “You like New York, though?” "I was way up in the sticks. Down at the bottom of the Appalachians. Not hardly city for forever around. Atlanta was a haul. S'nice there, though." The question draws a smile out of Jax, crooked as he reaches behind the bar to grab a metal water bottle and take a quick swig. "I got complicated feelings towards New York," he says with a hint of laughter. "Some days I love it. Some days I hate it. Or maybe it hates me. But I felt the same about home, so I guess everywhere's complicated. You like it, up here?” Heaving a long sigh, Siddhartha shakes his head. “I’m the same way, I guess. Some days I love the City and never wanna leave. Other days, I want to get on a train, head south, and never look back. Just to get somewhere /warm/, if nothing else!” He drains his glass. “Can I get another one of those? Today was the second kind of day. Now, though...I think I am just about inebriated enough to make my peace with the Big Apple again.” He snickers. “Oh, man, the true locals hate hearing it called that. New York, New York: Fruit City!” "What's today done to you?" Jackson gets out another glass, sugaring its rim this time before he starts mixing. "The warm'll come soon enough. I'd be lying if I said winter didn't give me the same temptation, though. This'n more than most." He grabs a shaker to start repeating the process. "Fruit City, s'appropriate. This place is a Mecca for freaks." Though the way he says /freaks/ sounds more affectionate than derogatory. “Aside from the ex’s new flame? Work’s just been a bitch, is all.” Sid props his chin up on one hand and watches his drink come together with half-lidded eyes. “The weather doesn’t help though, that’s for sure. It would be nice if I could hibernate. Crawl into bed after the day after Christmas and sleep until Easter.” He smiles, as if already dreaming of spring. “I don’t mind freaks. I’m pretty ‘normal’, you know? I mean, the way most people think of it. Guess I’m a freak some ways. I like brussels sprouts. Apparently that’s weird to some people.” "Hey I'd sleep right through Lent if I could, at the least," Jackson says, laughing as he shakes up the drink. "Ain't nothin' wrong with brussels sprouts, I make this pretty killer brussels sprouts dish. Caramelized, with pecans. Even my seven-year-old loves it. I don't believe in normal people, though. Everyone's got their freak thing somewhere." He strains the drink into the glass, garnishing it with a lemon twist and sliding it to Sid. "Like brussels sprouts," he teases. "What's it you do? Work-wise?" “If I did Lent, I’d wanna sleep through it, too!” Sid admits. “You know, my momma said there’s nobody normal in the whole world, but she still had a real hard time of it when I brought home my first boyfriend!” He picks up the drink and does a sloppy salute with his free hand. “Thank you kindly, Sir! As for what I do...I just hate telling people anymore. Some folks shrink away in horror, like I just admitted I kick puppies all day long. Most people just kinda get real subdued and different...I mean /deferent/. Or is it ‘deferential’? Anyway, then there’s about five maybe six percent that think it’s really hot.” Taking a long swig of his drink, he leans over the bar conspiratorially and says, “I’m a /police detective/.” "Might be different, might be deferent, I think those both suit," Jackson says. His head tips down towards the bar, his smile a little lopsided. "I ain't seen no puppy-kicking going on," he says, lightly, no more subdued at least than he was before. "I can see how that might lead to some rough work days. Was today particularly bad? And, yeah, my ma -- I mean, she was fine with a /lot/ of freak from me," and here his lips with their five liprings curl into just a bit wider of a smile, "but she /still/ ain't made peace with the whole queer thing. I guess some things are just /too/ much freak for some folks." “Oh, yeah, it was /extra/ bad, with secret bad sauce on top.” Sid sucks down a good quarter of the sidecar, as if he had to drink faster just to outpace thinking about his day. “Started out with an epic ass-chewing from the boss, and only went downhill from there. It’s like being pecked to death by chickens.” He shakes his head, incredulous. “In the end, my parents were okay with the queer thing. They actually got madder about me going into the Marine Corps. They were...you know, not /hippies/, but nonviolent types, basically. All Gandhi and Doctor King and all that. I respect their way, but I...I dunno, I was lost, and the military gives you direction. And now I’m out here and I’m lost again.” "Really?" Jackson laughs, quiet, his nose crinkling up with the wide smile that accompanies this. "My folks woulda been /thrilled/ if I went into the military 'stead'a art school. Be a /proper/ man and not -- well." His fingers flutter towards the cherries on his chest. "Don't being a cop give you no direction? I thought it was all, y'know." He shrugs a shoulder. "Serve an' protect and all that." “You an artist?” Sid sounds especially delighted by this. “That’s good. Art’s...good. I couldn’t ever draw to save my life. Wanted to sing, once upon a time, but I gave it up. Don’t give up your art. It’s...bad for the soul.” He sips the drink and wrinkles his brow. “I thought that, when I signed up, you know? At least I figured it would be better than stomping all around someone else’s country. Turns out it’s kind of...oddly similar to being a soldier. Not all cops are about serving and protecting, as it turns out. And it’s not just a few bad apples, it’s the whole ad-adversarial attitude we have about law enforcement. Like it’s citizens versus cops, each protecting their own.” He shakes his head. "Yeah, m'an artist. I don't think I could stop if I wanted to," Jax admits with a slight blush. "It just kinda comes out, you know? Been like that m'whole life. Why don't you start again? Not doing something for a while don't mean you gotta give it up forever." He leans in, to confide a little lower: "S'bad for the soul." And then he is darting off again with a 'one sec!' lift of finger. There is more beer to be served. A lot more beer. A margarita, too. But he's back, once a few more patrons are further down their path to inebriation. "Shouldn't be citizens versus cops," he adds, a little slower and more thoughtful, something dimming the cast of his smile. "Guess I can see why it turns into that sometimes, though. On both sides. Shouldn't be a enemies thing, though, that kinda seems like s'defeating the whole point." “Oh, I’ll sing again, once I get enough to drink! I know there’s karaoke in here somewhere,” Sid grins, swishing his drink around a little. “I just...don’t have to spirit to really go after it for real, I guess. Maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a singer.” He shrugs, eyes going a little distant. “I’m not supposed to say stuff like this, but the bullshit laws make things worse. There’s so much crap on the books that aren’t about justice or protecting anybody. But cops are supposed to enforce the law...even when the law /is/ bullshit.” Another long swig. “Maybe I’m not cut out for it, huh?” "Karaoke through there." Jackson points, a short way aways down the stairs to the karaoke lounge. "I like working that bar. Watching everyone get up to sing." He quiets through the rest of Sid's words, though. He leans against the bar, exhaling slowly as he props his elbows down against it. "So what do you do?" he wonders, watching Siddhartha steadily though his sunglasses betray little past Sid's reflection in their mirrored surface. "When you gotta enforce a law you don't believe in? There /has/ been a lot of ridiculous lately." He looks a little wry, at that, lips twisting downward for the first time all conversation. “My parents were born in the sixties,” Sid says, punctuating this non-sequitur with some vague gesturing of one hand, waggling fingers. “They told me about growing up during the Civil Rights Movement in the south. I just keep thinking about those cops--black, white, whatever--that maybe weren’t actually bigoted, but they were just upholding the law. How they must have felt.” He sighs, and seems to deflate a little. “I’m with the Special Investigations Division. That’s where we stow the Bomb Squad and CSI and Special Victims Unit and everything that don’t fit anywhere else.” He downs the rest of the sidecar. “Also, the Mutant Crimes Division. That’s me. Oppressing the new ‘them’ for the new ‘us.’” Jackson's lips press together, thinly, his head bowing for a moment. "So what /do/ you do?" he asks, more seriously than his previous customer-service-cheer. "If you run into some kid who's just a little too blue or changes his hair colour in front of you or," with a decidedly wryer twist of lips, "tosses up a shield to stop a bullet. You written out any tickets lately?" It sounds like actual curiosity rather than accusation, for all his smile is still kind of thin. “What do I actually /do/? Paperwork, mostly.” Sid scrubs his face with both hands. “It was bad before that ordinance got passed, but now it’s non-stop. Every morning there’s a dozen crime reports forwarded by patrol officers from citizens who think mutants have read their mind or ruined their marriage or eaten their cat. It’s one giant fucking witch hunt. Almost literally, and I mean people do call the cops over witchcraft whether or not they think mutants are involved.” He looks at the bartender, meets his eyes for the first time in several minutes. “What do I do if someone looks too blue or whatever? Same thing I do if someone looks too black or too white. I keep walking. What am I /supposed/ to do?” He shakes his head. “Ticket them? No, I haven’t. I believe in law and order, but sometimes...sometimes that’s not right.” He slumps down a little more. “I should quit. I should go in...on Monday. And give my notice.” "Sounds like a headache," Jackson says, looking back steadily at Siddhartha. "My kids are pretty blue. They had the cops called on them three times last weekend alone and that wasn't for nothing worse than, you know, being out in public. Can't imagine y'all are having any more fun with that than we are." He's quiet, for a moment, still looking at Sid. "What would you do if you quit? What would /they/ do if you quit? Fill your spot with someone more'n /happy/ to chase down all us freaks? Cuz trust me," he says, drier, "there's plenty who're only /too/ happy to ruin some mutant's day. Be a shame if the force was filled up with just the ones who /didn't/ have a problem with what's going on." Siddhartha stares at the barkeep, eyes bleary but bright. “Not too many of us happy about the new ordinance. The kinds of cops who like having more laws to enforce are the ones who joined so they could back up their bullying with badges and guns.” He straightens up a little. “You don’t understand, though. I can’t do a damn bit of good where I am. I’m not on the street, and I’m not calling the shots. Just somewhere in between. That boss who yelled at me this morning? He wants me to make some arrests, probably so he can get a pat on the head for making the politicians look ‘tough on crime’. Also, you are starting to look familiar,” he mutters, “which probably means I should stop drinking sidecars. Can I get a Jack n’ Coke?” "Wish there wasn't quite so many of those types, though," Jackson says with a slight wince. "And I don't think it's the sidecars, sir." Even so, he's getting out a glass to mix the next drink. "Everyone can do some good, I think. No matter who you are. 'leastways," he adds, with a crooked smile, "S'what I tell myself every day and I ain't nothing but an artist so maybe I'm just fooling myself but s'nice to think." “I swear they’re a minority,” Sid says, “but that don’t help much when that’s the one you’re dealing with. We should have a stricter vetting process, but then we wouldn’t meet the recruitment quotas, I guess.” He frowns, still studying Jackson, though his eyes drift sidewise at every motion in his peripheral vision. “Art’s not nothing, though” he adds, waggling a finger. Then he frowns. “Not...nothing. Yes. I mean it /is something./ And did you say your kids are blue? I ran into a blue boy, while back. Nice kid. Seemed like trouble, the way some kids are.” A slight, wan smile touches his lips. “Way I was. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone. That’s why me an’ the ex split. He wants kids. I’m not father material.” "Real blue. Sharpteeth. Kinda sharky," Jackson says, and adds with more amusement, "Kinda trouble. But he's sweet as anything. His brother too. You know, I didn't think I was no father material at all, either. And I didn't even want kids. Kinda just stumbled across them. I guess it's like trial by fire learning. The whole parent thing. This city don't make it easy though, y'know? Every time they're out it's like man, what's it going to throw at them now? I think I'll be grey 'fore I finish college. What /do/ you want? I mean, in life. If you're thinking of quitting I guess you don't just want to be a lifer policing." “Kid I met was kinda toothy and sharky, too,” Sid muses with an upraised eyebrow, “looked maybe 15 or so. Blue seems like a common color...as uncommon colors go.” He blinks rapidly a few times and sits up straighter, with obvious effort. “I’d worry myself sick if I had children. Be one of those horror-story parents who runs a house like boot camp.” He shakes his head. “No, Sir. We’d kind of agreed I could do the godfather-slash-weird-uncle thing for my ex’s kids, but he keeps dating people who hate me, so that seems unlikely. But what I /want?/” Sid tilts his head back, as if expecting to find the answer on the ceiling. “Hell...I dunno. I thought I knew--but ‘serving and protecting’ wasn’t what I thought it was. Now?” He exhales a long breath. “Man...singing would be nice.” "Sharky. Trouble. Sounds like Shane. I'm too much of a hippie anarchist to run a boot camp. Don't know if it'd be better or worse if I did. Teenagers are a handful but I think cracking the whip'd just make 'em not trust me." Jackson shrugs, and for a moment he stifles a yawn, turning his face in against his shoulder. And then he is off again! More liquor to dispense. His reply when he returns is a casual-light: "So sing. Ain't too late to start. More'n just karaoke. I mean, it's a hard world to break into but lots of things worthwhile are hard." “Yeah, given what what I remember of being a teenager, which at this moment is admittedly pretty hazy.” Sid nods, leaning on his hand again. “Much better to let them make their mistakes and be there to help them when they do. But knowing the right thing to do doesn’t make it easy or obvious, necessarily.” He drinks his drink and watches Jackson work. “Sing? Maybe! Anything can happen, right? Watch, just because I’m babbling about being a terrible parent, I might be a family man five years down the road.” He doesn’t really look like he’s thinking five years ahead, though, as he down the rest of his whiskey and cola. “Well, being a proper vocalist may be hard, but karaoke is easy, and there’s a Michael Jackson song with my name on it in Purgatory.” Hauling himself to his full height, he roots a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and sets it down beside his glass. “In case I’m too drink to tip you later. Keep the tab open, though. And...you know my name. If anyone ever gives your sons crap for...bein’ blue...you tell me. I’ll...take care of it, okay?” He smiles sadly. "Everyone can do /some/ good. Somehow." "Everyone can," Jackson agrees, and /he/, at least, is smiling with this, warm and easy. "Thanks, sir," he adds, as he takes the tip and pockets it. "Have a good, uh, singing. See you later, m'sure." Because his tab's still open. Hopefully he'll reclaim his credit card later. Jackson's glittery fingers curl in a wave, and he flashes Sid a bright grin before sliding off down the bar again to continue inebriating people. Like a responsible parent.