ArchivedLogs:Jail Support Support

Jail Support Support
Dramatis Personae Alice, Sam	2017-08-25 "Gotta get right up in /its/ face."
Location <NYC> Manhattan Central Booking - Chinatown
It's been quiet a long while now, an hour or more since the last detainee came (and went.) What had been a small group already has dwindled -- tired, hungry, work to get to in the morning, a long shift here already. In jeans and a soft yellow tee under an open black button down, Sam is settled into a hard plastic chair, a plastic tub of supplies at his feet and a clementine in his hand. He's been turning it over, and over, and over, never actually getting around to peeling it. Eyes slightly droopy, a yawn occasionally stifled behind one arm. His previously upright posture has started to droop, though every so often he shifts and corrects himself. Alice has been making the rounds, drifting between clusters of volunteers with a brown beverage carton and a stack of paper cups. Besides the bright pink bandana tied around her left bicep, she's wearing red capris and a fitted black t-shirt that reads 'NYU HAM' in large bold white letters on the back, with a small graphic on the left breast of a heart containing two horizontally parallel strands of DNA (one multicolored, one grayscale), her hair done up in thick red-and-black yarn twists and bound in a loose ponytail. She crouches down in front of Sam and flashes a tired but friendly smile. "Hey, there. How're you holding up?" Waggles the carton. "I got some coffee here, and there's tea and lemonade, too." Sam has moved from turning over his orange to contemplating it intently, at this point. He looks up with a surprise that shifts swiftly into sheepishness, and then a smile. Warm -- if tired, too. The toe of one sneaker thunks idly against the tub by him -- it's marked with large red crosses -- then hooks behind one leg of his chair. "Tired, ain't gonna lie on that. Some coffee'd be real welcome." He straightens, dark eyes sweeping over Alice. "/You/ good?" "Been a looooong day!" Alice plucks one cup from the stack and puts the rest aside, balancing the carton on her knee with one hand and decanting coffee skillfully with the other. "Me? Oh, I'm good. I wasn't even out there." There's the slightest hint of guilt in this admission. "Are you a street medic? I'm sure I seen you around before today." She holds the cup out to Sam. "You want any sugar or milk? Well, not /milk/, they're like little things of soy creamer I swiped from my job." "Folks need support on a lot of fronts. You're here now, and there's been a lot of people glad of that." Sam's smile lights further at the coffee; he takes it with a soft sigh. "Get people caffeine after an ordeal, you're /basically/ an angel. -- Black's just fine." He sets his clementine down in his lap, both hands curling around the cup. "Where you work at? Seems like you got practice in life-saving techniques." He's nodding toward the carton balanced on her knee. One eye scrunches up at the question, head tipping uncertainly to one side as he chuffs out a very small laugh. "I guess now I am. Wouldn't have predicted it, not too long ago." "Oh yeah, this needs doing." Alice nods, sitting back on her heels. "I'm just more used to the getting-in-haters'-faces front is all." Sets the carton down, too. "I work at Liber T -- s'this bookstore/teahouse up East Village, near Astor Place station. Get a lotta sleep-deprived artists, but that's nothing to /this./" On second thought, she pours /herself/ some coffee, too. "Why? This not your usual front, either?" "Sounds relaxing, though. Is it nice there? I mean," Sam's smile slants a little skewed as he sips at his coffee, "if you didn't work there, would you still hang out?" He leans back, fingers tapping slowly against the side of the cup. "It's where needs fighting. But nah, if you'd told me when I was getting ready to ship out to Iraq that I'd be here now fighting the Man, I'd have wanted what you were smoking. Way things are now, though --" His head shakes, tongue clicking quietly against his teeth. "You been at this long?" "Liber T?" Alice wrinkles her brows thoughtfully, takes a long sip of coffee. "Well, good friend of mine works there, too, but if /neither/ of us worked there? Might still would. It's chill and the drinks are nice and they let you sit and read as long as you want. Besides..." A quiet snicker. "...I'm /kind/ of a sleep-deprived artist, myself. In terms of being a rabble-rouser...or rabble-rousing enabler? Man...just over a year now." She tilts her head slightly. "You in the military? Or were?" "Seems like this past year's been pulling a lot of people into this." Sam's eyes sweep the room. The sprinkling of sleepy-eyed or caffeine-wired volunteers. "All /kinds/ of rabble getting ourselves roused. I was. Out, now. No doubt making Uncle Sam proud of how I'm using the training he give me." He sounds kind of wry as he looks down at the plastic medic tub. Back up at Alice. "What sort of art?" "It's not like most of the terrible the government's doing is even /new/, but..." Alice gives a helpless shrug. "Just in a lot more people's faces now. And you can't let that slide. Gotta get right up in /its/ face." She takes a big gulp of her coffee. Her expression had been sliding toward grim determination, but lights up with mirth again. "Music and theatre. /Together/ is my preference, but I'll take either on its own, too. What do you do now? When you're not patching up the revolution?" "Hey, yeah?" Sam's expression lights at this. "You actually onstage somewhere? You know, my whole life I grew up in New York, I never paid the theatre that much attention. Got a friend now, he's real into it. Been seeing some things I never would've thought to otherwise. Some of these shows are like magic, you know?" He ducks his head, takes a swig of his coffee. "Help other returning vets get back into the world. Sing at church. Help hurt birds --" A small crooked smile. "Get back in the world, too, I guess." "Yeah! Well no, not at the /moment./" Alice does not sound in the least discourged by this. "But I've been -- at Tisch, and a couple small community productions -- and Imma keep auditioning." She swirls her coffee around the bottom of her cup, grinning wide. "For real. I think all of theatre is pretty magical, though Broadway stagecraft is some /next level/ magic." She down the rest of her coffee and sets down the cup. "That's sweet -- I mean in a badass kind of way. But seems to me..." Her gesture encompasses Sam and kind of everything about them. "...you're pretty solidly it it. What do you go by? I'm Alice." "Good on you. Maybe you land up in something, you let us know?" Sam is gesturing with his coffee cup around the room. "Come out and support you. Maybe see each other some time somewhere other than crisis mode." He leans forward, extending his hand together with a broad smile. "Sam. It's good to -- woah, hey." There is, finally, a person being ushered through the doors in the back -- a bright cheer going up from the waiting people. Sam is on his feet swiftly, coffee cup set down and his previous exhausted slump vanishing from his posture. "Some time!" /Other/ time. Maybe. With luck.