ArchivedLogs:Apartment Hunting

Apartment Hunting
Dramatis Personae Ash, Trib	2013-06-22 '
Location <NYC> Sunrise Apartments - Lobby
The lobby of this apartment building is shabby, to say the least. The tiling has not been replaced in quite some time, chipped and coming up in many places; there is a faint smell of mildew coming from somewhere by the stairwell. The exterior door has a large crack in it of questionable origin, and the paint is peeling on the interior walls. The elevator is often slow to arrive, though at least the thing /runs/ alright. For now. Saturday afternoon, Ash wanders his way home, carrying a bag of groceries, and looking like he spent half a day at the construction site. His jeans are covered in muck, frayed at the bottom and hanging heavily over heavy, steel-toed boots. His top is half drenched in old sweat, turning the blue fabric gray in places. He moves his paper bag of groceries over to one hip as he uses his keys to open his mail slot. It's a futile exercise as there is no mail, but he looks expectant for a few seconds, and then deflated. He relocks the box and turns toward the stairs. Behind Ash, not close enough to count as stalking but near enough that the door doesn't actually bang behind him, is Trib. Dressed in jeans over brown workboots (not unlike Ash's, but cleaner), and a yellow button-down shirt that renders his skin a jaundiced color, the big man has an Apartment Guide clutched in his half-hand as he moves into the lobby. He stops just inside the door to peer at the guide for a moment, then around at the lobby in all its shabbiness. There's a small grunt of -- satisfaction? confirmation? -- that's muffled by his closed lips. Whatever the emotion behind the noise, it comes with a quirk of one side of the boxer's wide mouth. Spotting the grungy kid with the grocery bag, the man lifts his chin, and clears his throat. "Hey, kid. This is the Sunrise, right? You live here?" "Oh!" Ash turns around and raises his brows, looking Trib over for a moment, studying him. His tone is somewhere between apologetic and concerned. "Oh, my. Are you lost? That's terrible. Yes, this is the Sunrise Apartments. Are... do you have problems reading? Can I help you get directions? It must be terrible to be all turned around in a city like this. I would like to help." He steps forward, keeping his groceries to one side, extending the other hand. "Where are you trying to go?" Trib BLINKS at the sudden rush of words from the younger man, and his brow knits for just a second before he holds up a hand, chuffing something that might be a laugh. "Hey, slow down, kid. I ain't /lost/. I just wanted to make sure I was in the right place." He holds up the guide as he shifts it to his left hand, as if this will explain his presence. "I'm lookin' for a place to rent." Ash's extended hand is claimed in his own meaty right in a firm lock of his fingers and thumb. "'m Retribution Jones. You can call me Trib, though." "OHh. Well, that's different," Ash replies, nodding during the hand shake, then releasing and moving his groceries back toward center. "Nice to meetcha. You wanting to move here? It's kind of shitty and there's virtually no help from the land lord or super. You'd be on your own and you could go for days without a shower and the cockroaches, man, they're social. I swear they hold little parties at night and you can hear them singing karaoke." He shrugs and glances over toward the stairs. Trib snorts. "Sounds just like the sort of thing I can afford," he says, raising a hand to rub a finger along the ruined ridge of his nose. "An' I'd rather hear cockroaches doin' karaoke than some hooker doin' her crackhead pimp, which is the shit I'm listenin' to right now." He drops his hand, tucking his fingers into the top of his pocket. "People who live in this building ain't a bunch of dealers an' shit, are they?" he asks, eyebrows hiking. "I ain't looking for a place that gets cleared out by the blue on a regular basis." He sniffs. "'specially nowadays." "I think you have you expectations set pretty high." Ash confides in Trib, head tilting forward, shaking slightly. "You'll probably find all that here. I'm sorry. My fucking uncle Myers has only been here a few months and he hasn't gotten hassled by the cops yet, so I guess that's a selling point." He smiles and reaches into his bag, pulling out a shiny new apple and rubbing it against the thigh of his jeans. "You want one?" Trib wrinkles his nose at Ash's information, and he takes a careful breath, releasing it slowly. "Yeah, I figured my price range wasn't gonna get me too far away from that," he says, scratching at his chin with the guide. "Still. It beats the shit out of a hotel." The offer of the apple gets a hike of his eyebrows, and he jerks his chin in a nod. "Yeah, thanks. That's good of you. What's your name, kid?" "Dude, kid?" Ash's eyebrows crinkle up around the bridge of his nose. "We're probably the same age, or are you the kind of guy who looks at someone /slightly/ younger and thinks, oh, hey, better flex my superiority before that other one gets uppity, you know, just in case there's a problem in the future, you know, when they come into muscle?" Ash shakes his head and tosses the apple gently to Trib before searching in his bag for a second. "Sorry, kid, but that kind of stuff isn't really going to fly outside of elementary school." Trib winces. "Sorry," he grunts, snatching the apple out of the air, and shines it briefly on his shirt. "Force of habit. It ain't personal." He crunches into the apple in a huge bite, chewing as he continues talking. "There's a lot of that shit around boxers, an' I don't always leave it at the gym." He swallows, and raises the apple in a salute, offering a wide, lopsided grin. "An' I now enough to know that muscle ain't necessarily a factor in how quick someone can kick your ass, so I figure any future problems can just stay there 'til I get to 'em, yeah?" "Nope. Doesn't take muscle anymore." Ash admits, giving a little shrug before taking a modest bite of his apple. "Though, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'future problems' and where can they stay? At the boxing gym? WHy do you keep your problems there? I don't think that'd be too efficient because things don't just stay where you put them. Problems usually follow me around on the streets, so yeah. Do you really keep shit like that at the boxing gym? I isn't that unfair to the people you box?" Trib blinks again under the new onslaught of words, and he shakes his head with an amused crinkle of his eyes. "Jesus. You are one stream-of-consciousness kind of dude, ain't you?" He lifts a shoulder. "I meant I should leave that name-callin', psych-out bullshit at the gym an' in the ring, where it belongs. Instead of bringin' it out into the world an' usin' it on people I just met." He waves the apple. "An' when I was talkin' about future problems, I meant that I ain't /lookin'/ at future problems when I meet someone. So any problems I might could have with them then can /wait/ 'til then." He lifts his shoulder at the final question. "Nah. I never box angry," he says. "That's what the heavy bag is for." "Yeah, well, yeah. That kind of trash talk isn't really going to win your any friends." Ash turns his apple and takes a smaller bite while he considers what else he says. "Yeah. I guess. Well, look. I have some milk in here that's going to get warm if I don't take it upstairs. You going to be okay? I think the super is down the hallway over there, but you have to call if you want to confer with the landlord or his rental agency. I don't actually know, as I am not on a lease here." Trib polishes off his own apple, core and all, in a couple of quick bites, and nods his head. "So I'm learnin'," he says in response to the advice. "'Swhy I'm tryin' to break myself of it." When the other man begins to make his exit, Trib nods, eyebrows lifting at the confession. "Oh? Is that why you ain't told me your name?" He wipes his fingers on his pants, and wags his fingers over the center of his chest and winks. "Your secret's safe with me, man. Thanks for your help." He begins to move towards the hallway, lifting a hand. "Maybe I'll see you around." "I haven't told you my name? That's kind of crazy. Sorry about that." Ash frowns as he lets out a sigh and opens the door to the staircase. "It's just a really crazy day and I think there might be some ice cream in the bottom of the bag too. I would love to stay and chat, but it's pretty hot and the only place for dairy seems to be in a refrigerator, but hey, at least the apartment building has refrigerators that work, most of the time, so that's great. Anyway, yeah. I'll see you around, dude. Good luck with your search." "Nope," Trib says, at Ash's frown, and waggles the fingers of his half-hand in a nonchalant gesture. "It ain't nothin' to worry about. You got your reasons, I'm sure." He nods, and continues down the hall. "Maybe you'll tell me one day," he calls over his shoulder. "See you, dude." And then he's seriously moving, heading towards the super's apartment, rolling up the guide and shoving it in his back pocket as he goes. Time to wow the management. Or at least show him the cash.