ArchivedLogs:Night Life

Night Life
Dramatis Personae Arturo, Trib
In Absentia	2014-06-07 '
Location <NYC> A Laundromat -- Clinton
Saturday nights are the night for excitement, and Trib is all about the excitement. See the way he gathers his dirty clothes and crams them into a bag. Marvel at how he carts them down to the street and over two blocks to a laundromat that may or may not be a place where shady narcotic deals take place. (It certainly /looks/ like that could be the case, with its battered machines and flickering fluorescent lighting.) Thrill as he sorts his clothes, and jams them into machines. A roller-coaster ride for the whole family. Can you /blame/ anyone for seeking out this level of nightlife? Currently, Trib occupies one of the worn-looking plastic chairs, waiting on his washers to finish. He's definitely dressed for laundry day in a pair of too-tight sweat pants and a similarly snug yellow shirt with a big black asterisk on the chest. He has his eyes closed, long legs thrust out in front of him, and his massive arms folded lightly across his stomach. He might...he might be /sleeping/. Arturo is...somewhere else. He went through a similar process to Trib, with laundry shoved into baskets and a shuffle down the street. His laundry consists of clothes that /were/ nice five years ago, plus assorted scrubs. He shoulders open the laundromat door and makes a beeline for That One Washing Machine That Works Perfectly. He's on such a direct course that he stumbles over Trib's outstretched legs. He stumbles and whacks against a dryer, a move that makes a song like a gong. Smooth moves. As soon as Arturo's feet make contact with his legs, it becomes immediately apparent that Trib is /not/ asleep. His golden eyes snap open, and he jerks his feet back. Which, admittedly, doesn't help any with keeping Arturo from smacking into the dryer. The boxer is on his feet an instant later, moving to the doctor's side and eyeing him critically. "Shit. You okay.?" "Yeah, yeah. Fine that was stupid of me." Arturo hefts his laundry basket onto a nearby table. A pair of dirty boxers flop out. The smoothness continues. He sweeps hair back from his forehead. He takes an actual look at Trib and blinks. "Oh. Hey." "Shouldn't have had my feet out," Trib rumbles, dropping his gaze to the dirty boxers and crinkling his eyes at the corner. Wordlessly, he reaches out and twitches them back into the basket. "Thought doctors had...whatayacallit. A service. For shit like this." Arturo looks confused for a moment, then he looks into the basket. "Aw, shit. I grabbed all of it. I didn't mean...shit." He leans back against the machines and exhales. "It's one of those days, I swear I'm lucky I didn't walk out into traffic." Trib chuffs a laugh, and rolls a shoulder. "Don't fuckin' apologize. Everyone has shit days." He narrows one eye, thinking. "Doctors probably have more of 'em than a lot of folks." He leans his weight against the table, and folds his arms across his chest. "But at least you /didn't/ walk out into fuckin' traffic," he notes. "So that's goin' for you." "At least I have my health," says Arturo as he tosses up a hand. He paws through the laundry, trying to push the scrubs away from the rest of it. "It tells you about the excitement level of my life right now when what I rush for is the one washing machine that isn't shit." "Yeah," Trib grunts, chuffing a laugh. "'Cause /I'm/ tearin' up the fuckin' club scene, right?" His humor is blunted a bit by the shadow that flickers across his face. Setting his jaw and giving his head a firm shake, he turns his attention back to Arturo, and lifts his eyebrows. "If you want laundry to be excitin', I can go an' capture a rat. We can hide it in one of the machines an' wait for someone to come in." "Ohh, I'm sure they get in there already without us helping them along," says Arturo with a grin. And hey, at least he still gets to use the good machine. He loads it up and tosses in a scoopful of soap. "It's early yet. I hear tell the real fun doesn't get started til 11. That's usually when I've switched to the flannel pants." "True," Trib grunts, offering a bit of tooth in the grin he flashes at Arturo briefly. "Around here, people'd probably just kill it and do their laundry anyway." He actually chuckles at that mental image, a sound like rocks rolling down a mountainside. Arturo's comments on night life gets a snort from Trib. "/Pants/? If you're wearing pants, you're doin' somethin' wrong." He slides his half-hand in a soaring kind of gesture. "Swing free, brother." Arturo grins at that and shakes his head. He tosses in a few coins and hits the button to start the cycle. "I might do that if I had curtains that closed properly. If they saw me naked, they might call animal control." "Not around here," Trib says, offering that flash of teeth again. "Around here, you'd just get a bunch of perverts lookin' at you." He drops his eyes to rake them over Arturo's frame. "If they was smart." He wrinkles his nose as a memory surfaces, and he tips his head. "But didn't you say you got some kind of...whatayacallit. Camoflage?" He leans in, just a bit. "That keeps you lookin' less fuzzy?" Arturo shifts a bit self-consciously and moves his basket to one side to allow another person access to a dryer. There might be a bit of a blush. "Ah, yeah. But it's sort of unpredictable. If I used it in here, I might look like a bum rather than myself but less fuzzy. It works based on what people expect to see. Or want to see, I guess. Human beings desire the mundane, it seems" "So it's like a...fuck. Whatayacallit. Group mirage or somethin'?" Trib's brain is slow to catch up with that concept, and he looks around at the other patrons. "So, if they all expected to see fuckin'...I don't know. One of the Yankees. You'd look like that?" Trib seems kind of impressed with that, and he lifts a hand to rub it along his chin. "That's kind of fuckin' cool." "Yeah, pretty much. It's hard to control, though. And if I move from one group to the other and the predominant expectation is something else, it shifts. It's also hard for me to hold onto it once I'm uh...out of range I guess is the best way to explain it." Arturo lifts a shoulder. "Aside from not looking all pointy-eared and clawed, it's not particularly useful." Trib watches Arturo carefully as he explains, and there's a small narrowing of his eyes at the older man's body language and final remark. "Fuck that," he says, suddenly. "I'd rather see the real fuckin' you than some fuckin' mass /expectation/." "Well, it is handy to be able to hide sometimes. Like, when a mob gets heated up. Or when I just don't want anyone to pay attention to me. It's kinda like being able to turn invisible." Arturo digs around in his pocket for change and eyes the vending machine. "And I suppose if I needed to do any spying, it'd be handy," he grins. "Eh. Maybe to get away from a mob," Trib allows, bobbing his head lightly. "I can see that. An' bein' alone. But still." He reaches out, then, to flick lightly at the top of Arturo's ear. "I want to see /that/ shit, someday." He chuffs another laugh at Arturo's final comment, and closes one eye suspiciously. "Doctors do a lot of spyin'?" "What shit? My freakishly wolflike ears?" Arturo says that with wry amusement. He reaches up and ruffes his hair to cover up his ears. He's got a lot of dark curls. It comes in handy. "No, doctors do not do a lot of spying. So I'm probably in wrong wrong job. You want a Kit-Kat?" "You ain't a freak," Trib growls, his brow lowering just a bit. "I've seen some freaks, an' you definitely ain't one. Neither are your fuckin' ears." The big man pushes to his feet, in order to follow Arturo to the vending machine. "I'll take one, if you're buyin'," he rumbles. "Next one's one me, though." Now he leans against the vending machine, shifting his hips to adopt a lazy cowboy lean. "You get your room mate situation worked out?" Arturo punches a handful of dimes into the machine until the ratty little display tells him it's enough. He pushes B4 and it spins to drop the chocolate into the bottom. He repeats the process for a second one. Then he feeds a ratty dollar into the drink machine for a can of no-name brand pop. He tosses Trib one of the Kit Kats after he retrieves it. "Nah, no roommate. To be honest, I haven't really tried that hard yet." Trib watches idly as Arturo deposits the money, and he /might/ use his cowboy lean on the second purchase to joggle the machine and maybe knock another one loose. Snagging the tossed candy bar out of the air, he bites into it without unwrapping, his teeth cutting through the plastic wrapping as if it weren't there. He lifts a shoulder at Arturo's answer to his question, swallowing before he answers. "Room mates fuck shit up, anyway," he says. "From the fuckin' bills to the fuckin'..." he wrinkles his nose. "Well, /fuckin'/. Better off by yourself." "I thought roommates were supposed to help with the bill situation," says Arturo. He pops open the can and swallows a mouthful. "Although yeah, if they aren't good at paying their share on time, I can see how it'd be a problem." It takes him a second, but he clicks back to the past thing Trib said. "I wasn't looking for a roommate to fuck. Cause yeah, that sort've complicates matters." "The 'on time' part is where most of them motherfuckers end up," Trib drawls, taking another big bite from his candy bar. "At least, as far as I've ever seen." He snorts at Arturo's protest, and shakes his head. "I didn't mean you'd be fuckin' /them/," he rumbles, squinting hard at Arturo. "'Cause that's a whole /other/ fuckin' mess of shit. I'm talkin' about how havin' them around kind of fucks up your game." He shrugs. "Unless you got a system, I guess." "Do I look like the kind of guy who has a system for sexual enounters?" Arturo grins and snaps off a neat stick of the Kit-Kat. "Or a guy who has game?" he says that second bit with a mouth full of chocolate and wafers. "Don't know," Trib grunts, tipping his head and narrowing his eyes at Arturo. "What do they look like?" "I dunno. More of a swagger? Charm?" Arturo hoists himself up onto a table and lets his legs dangle. He takes another bite of chocolate and ponders. "I'm not sure I've ever met the type, to be honest. Not unless I was treating him in emerg." "Guys who swagger ain't got /game/," Trib snorts, blowing a bit of chocolate from his lips for his effort. "That's why they fuckin' swagger. Charm, though..." He's unable to find an argument against that, and lifts a shoulder. "I think it's like art. Charm is fuckin'...whatayacallit. Subjective." He shifts his weight to move closer, planting his feet and pushing the last bite of his candy bar into his mouth. He licks his fingers as he continues. "Different people find different shit attractive. Just...some motherfuckers appeal to a wider fuckin' audience." "I suppose that might be true. But I suppose there's also a difference between charm and charming. Someone who has charm...wait...no, this semantic argument is running away with me." He scratches the side of his neck and grins. Trib's eyes crinkle in sudden amusement. "Yeah, well, if we get too fuckin' into it, you're goin' to find out I ain't all that smart," he rumbles. "So we best change the subject while I'm still ahead, a bit." He thinks for a moment, his lower lip jutting out as he contemplates. "Was you serious the other night about thinkin' of comin' on as my cut man?" "Just because you haven't swallowed a dictionary doesn't mean you aren't smart," says Arturo. But he leaves it at that, with a grin and a lift of his Kit-Kat in a salute. "Serious? Yeah. I really could use the cash. I'm not getting as many shifts as I'd like at the clinics." "I dunno," Trib rumbles. "Ain't no one goin' to be invitin' me to any fancy state dinners or shit." He's amused by that idea, and rumbles a chuckle as he leans against the table. "It ain't /that/ great right now," he demurs. "The money. You get ten percent of whatever I take from the fight. If it's the purse, that can be pretty good. But if I lose, it ain't much at all." He quirks a grin. "Lucky for you, it's easy money either way. Dumb fucks like to work my jaw, an' that's like fuckin' steel." "Well, as long as I don't have a clinic shift booked at the same time, what have I got to lose? Some money's better than no money." It says something about Arturo that he eats the Kit-Kat one wafer at a time, and with small bites. Maybe because he looks feral, he goes out of his way not to eat like something that's feral. The way Arturo eats is something that Trib seems to be willing to watch, his eyes tracking the wafer as its lifted for each small bite. "Well, most of the fights are planned out in advance, so I could give you plenty of notice," he says, reaching up to rub his thumb along the edge of his mouth. "An' the bigger the purse, the more time out the card gets signed." He grins, and lifts a shoulder. "So if I give you a few months' notice, you'll know there's a chance of some real cheddar comin' in." "See, now I'm the one struggling with vocabulary," says Arturo. He sprays a bit of crumbs out of his mouth when he talks. "I don't know very much about boxing. Other than what a jab cross is. Oh, and TKO. I played that...that boxing Nintendo game when I was a kid." Trib chuffs a laugh, and shifts his weight a bit, glancing at his washers to gauge the time left. "You don't got to know a lot about it," he says, shaking his head. "You'll pick up the lingo quick enough, bein' around it." He leans a bit closer. "If you want to learn how to box, I can show you that," he offers. "You're pretty wiry. I bet you'd be good at it." "Mhmm. Probably too good. I'm stronger than I look." Arturo says that like it's a bad thing. He squeezes his own bicep and grins a little. He's not concerned with hiding his fangs with Trib, so it's not the usual close-lipped smile. "Pfft." Trib makes a dismissive noise at the demurral, and his expression turns a bit mockingly flat. "Dude. I train with fuckin' Luke Cage. I ain't all that worried." He eyes the doctor's hands, and frowns briefly. "About the punchin', anyway." Arturo lifts up his hand. He makes sure no one is looking and then flicks his hand downward. His nails have extended to inch-long curved hooks that look like they could do a fair bit of damage if he was so inclined. He makes a fist and they retract again. "You should see my toenails," he deadpans. Trib looks impressed at the natural weaponry, and smirks a bit at the deadpan comment. "Maybe later," he rumbles. "It's early, still, an' my clothes ain't finished." Arturo arches an eyebrow and looks a little bit confused at the comment. But before he can ask for clarification, his washing machine dings. He heads over and opens it up, then looks down the row of dryers to try and spot a free one that isn't held together with duct tape. If Arturo's clothes are done, that means Trib's are, as well, and he pushes away from the table to prowl to his two claimed machines. He looks at Arturo for a long, studious moment, and then pulls open both machines. He scoops out the clothes within, and heaves them into the closest dryer, duct tape or no. "Bet that's hell on the sheets," he says, after a long enough silence that it might seem he's done conversing. "When you have a weird dream an' shit." Arturo pretends like he doesn't notice the long look, but it's clear that he does. He piles his laundry into the dryer and then slides coins into the slot. He cranks the time up and hits 'start.' The comment makes him whuff a little breath of laughter. "I destroyed a mattress when I was younger. I was having exam stress dreams. Mauled the hell out of it." "I've done that," Trib grunts. "Ate an entire damned pillow one night in my sleep, an' woke up lookin' like a goddamned /sheep/." He snorts, although it's hard to tell if it's dismissive or amused. "Like that joke, only I wasn't dreamin' of no marshmallows." The mental image of that (real or exaggerated) makes Arturo's face screw up in a most amusing look. "Can't say I've ever...done that, myself. I just shred things like a cooped up dog. Though, honestly, that hasn't happened in awhile." "Yeah, well, what can I say?" Trib looks amused as he starts his dryers. "I'm a fuckin' special kind of guy." He grunts a laugh, and moves back to his plastic seat, nodding at the one next to it. "I figure you grow out of that shit," is his offering on nighttime maulings. "I ain't done it since I was...sixteen?" He lifts a shoulder, and thrusts his legs out in front of him again. "About the time I got my head out of my ass, anyway." "That's about when it starts to happen. For most people, anyway. Some people just get it further up there." Arturo takes the offered seat, but he doesn't slouch down quite as much. "So is boxing your day job, or...?" "/That's/ the fuckin' truth," Trib says, folding his arms across his chest and inhaling deeply. "Some poor motherfuckers /never/ get it out." He smirks a bit, and shakes his head at the question. "It's most of what I do, but I also work for Heroes for Hire." He lifts a shoulder. "Which sounds fuckin' more impressive than it is. We used to be a detective agency, but now we're some non-profit..." Another shake of his head. "I ain't sure I understand it. I just do what they tell me, an' pick up my check on Friday." "Sounds like a pretty sweet gig," says Arturo. He finishes what's left of the can of pop and tosses it into a nearby bin. "What brought you to New York? My answer to that is work, by the way. I'm from Maine." Trib lifts a shoulder to the sweetness of his situation. "Gives me plenty of time for trainin', anyway. An' I like Cage, so it all works out." He turns his head just enough to view Arturo sidelong. "I'm from Jersey," he says. "So I didn't come as far. Figured I'd come to New York to be a fuckin' boxer." He flashes a bit of teeth in a tipped half-smile. "Lots of good gyms up here. Soon as I was out of high school, I beat feet across the bridge." He wrinkles his nose as he does some math. "It's been kind of slow, gettin' started, but it's pickin' up." Arturo whistles low. "Beat up all the guys in Jersey, so you came for new challenges, huh?" His smile is bright and large, fangs and all. "Me, I don't think I've ever thrown a /proper/ punch in my life." Trib laughs. "Somethin' like that." The fangy grin gets a tick of the boxer's gaze, but he's unbothered by them. It's more of an acknowledgement than anything. He rocks his knee to push it against Arturo's. "Hey, I can show you," he says. "I can chew up some steel, so if you lose control, you ain't goin' to hurt me... /what/?" he snarls, suddenly, at the Hispanic woman frozen in her folding of her clothes who's staring in Arturo's direction. "Mind your own fuckin' business." She doesn't move, and Trib repeats the order, barking it in Spanish. Then the woman blinks, and returns to hastily folding. Trib rolls his gaze back to Arturo. "As I was sayin'. I'll teach you to fight proper, if you want." "Now I'm just picturing you punching your way across the country. That'd be the most badass road trip imaginable." He opens his mouth to say something else when he notices the woman staring. He immediately puts his head down and makes sure his hair is covering his ears. The tension in his posture is evident. "I'm uh...I don't know if I need to be /more/ dangerous." "Learnin' to fight proper is about learnin' control," Trib points out, shifting his chair a little closer to Arturo's and giving the woman another dark glare. "An' control makes you less crazy-dangerous. 'Swhy my granddad turned me onto boxin'. So I didn't up an' kill some fucker on the street." He crinkles his eyes. "An' I probably would have, too. I was a fuckin' shit as a kid." Arturo folds his fingers under, pressing nails against his palm. "You may have a point. I uh, I'd be lying if I said I never lost control. It's more than me just looking like an animal. Sometimes...I act like one." He sounds utterly ashamed of that fact, and he looks towards the woman who gave him that look. Part of him feels she's right to be afraid. Trib's expression flattens out at that admission -- or maybe it's the ashamed way it's delivered. "Yeah, so?" he asks, eyebrows hitching up in bored expectation. As if there's more that Arturo needs to explain. "Do you /think/ you're an animal?" "I've definitely got that in me." Arturo says that matter-of-factly. "Whatever my mutation is, it's...well, my instincts are stronger. Or different. I don't know. I..." and then his phone starts to go off. His tone of choice is the bass guitar riff from Superstation. "Shit, sorry, it's the clinic. I gotta take this." He stands up and heads off to a corner to answer the call. The dryer dings before he gets back. When he heads back over he looks apologetic. "Sorry to uh, wash and run, but they've offered me a shift across town that's going to start in like, an hour and a half. It was good chatting with you." Trib grunts thoughtfully at Arturo's explanation, although his brow furrows. The furrow deepens at the sound of the phone, and he watches Arturo as he takes the call. He waves off the apologetic look with another good-natured grunt. "Don't sweat it," he says. "You got my number. Call me, an' we'll grab fuckin' dinner or somethin'." He watches as Arturo gatheres his (mostly) dry clothes and leaves, and then settles back in his chair. Folding his arms across his chest, he gives the woman folding her clothes one last, hard stare, and then closes his eyes. Back to the nightlife.