Logs:Better Place

Better Place
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Steve
In Absentia	2019-04-11 "Art is a way better place than Twitter."
Location <NYC> Chimaera Arts - DUMBO
This is just one of the many abandoned warehouses in DUMBO, and like many of them it has recently changed hands. /Unlike/ most of those, however, it does not have some corporate developer's sign out front promising a transformation into luxury condominiums or a boutique shopping center or the latest concept restaurant. Instead it's marked by a piece of weathered but wildly colorful plywood propped up on a stack of broken pallets, which reads "Chimaera Art Space!" above "chimaera.org" in smaller letters. The warehouse is moderately large and decorated with graffiti art in various styles--some of it recognizable as the work of renowned local street artists. A pair of monstrous scrap metal sculptures, perhaps still works in progress, flank the entrance. The building itself has undergone significant renovation recently, complete with wiring, plumbing, and a modular partitioning system. The grounds, too, have been cleaned up, ramshackle fences torn down and rusting detritus removed in favor of reclaimed (and brilliantly repainted) outdoor furniture ringing an impressively engineered firepit. In the middle of the weekday, Chimaera has not woken up nearly as much as it tends to in the evenings. Behind one screened-off workspace comes a steady stream of muttering and curses; low humming from another. Most are thrown open, unsectioned, currently unused though a wide variety of projects in various stages of completion are arrayed around walls and shelves. To one side of the room a trio of young women in hijab are talking animatedly among themselves as they tend a few fragrantly spiced pots on the kitchen stovetop. To another side a scruffily bearded white man in a Che shirt has fallen asleep on a couch. Flicker is, at first, hard to spot, crouched in a bathroom doorway to one side of the entrance in his usual terribly prosaic uniform of khakis and a plain green polo shirt. His arm for today isn't particularly striking either, matte black with a subtly darker tentacle design coiled around it, only visible when looking very closely. He's currently working on sanding the edge of the door, testing it at intervals to see if it will properly close yet. (It won't.) Steve has just wandered in, looking a bit unsure if he's actually supposed to be here at all. He's wearing a short-sleeved blue and white striped seersucker shirt, gray linen trousers, and black Oxford shoes, holding a scuffed palm card advertising events at the art space. He coasts to a stop after a few steps. Pivots in place to marvel at the murals and sculptures and mobiles that decorate the cavernous space. Does a double take when he spots Flicker. Does /not/ immediately speak. After a moment of hesitation, though, he drifts towards the doorway under repair with a quiet "Good afternoon" that does not echo nearly as much as it sounds like he expected it to. Flicker glances up, his eyes opening a little wider when he sees Steve. He scuffs a hand through his hair, and just as quickly after combs his fingers back through to set it back neatly into place. "Hi. Welcome -- um, back. Are you looking for someone?" "Thank you," Steve says, fidgeting with the palm card. "No, not in particular, it's just I heard there were classes here." He flips the card in his hand over by way of demonstration. 'Community art classes and workshops!' it reads, among its somewhat dizzying list of the art space's features in colorful graffiti style lettering. "I tried the website, but..." He turns both hands up in a gesture of resignation. "Oh." Flicker's brows lift. A moment later a smile flashes across his face. "Oh! Yes. Yeah! We do that. Sorry, the website is --" He winces apologetically. "A work in progress. We kind of need to be on top of that better." He looks over Steve, fingers tapping quick at the side of his leg. "You want to take classes? Something specific, or just... feel like you need the downtime?" "Ah!" Steve looks surprisingly relieved. "I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. With the Internet, I mean." He flicks at the edge of the palm card. "Well, I went to art school for a while, once upon a time. Feel like I'm a decent hand at sketching and illustration, but I'd like to broaden my horizons. Learn to work with paint. Maybe even see some of what the new century has to offer, too, in terms of tools and techniques?" "In terms of tools there's a lot of new ground for digital art. Off the top of my head I'm not sure what's on the schedule for digital classes right now, but," Flicker looks brighter, now, "if you want to get started with painting, Jax's workshops are definitely where you should start. Everybody loves them. Here, give me a hand with this and then I'll tell you when he's teaching next." Flicker taps at the heavy and kind of crooked bathroom door. "Can you just hold it off the ground right here a minute? I need to even out this bottom edge." "Digital art?" Steve chuckles self-deprecatingly. "Gosh, I'm still trying to figure out Twitter." He's already tucking away the palm card and moving toward the door. "Oh, sure thing." He takes hold of the door and lifts it easily -- carefully. "This about right?" "Perfect." Flicker gets on one knee, mechanical fingers bracing against the door as he works at smoothing out the bottom edge where it's been grinding on the floor. "Twitter? Ugh. Art is a way better place than Twitter. More technologically complicated, maybe. But way less screaming about how half the country ought to die. Honestly, sometimes I think the internet was a mistake." "I haven't see a lot of screaming on Twitter yet except when they're screaming at /me,/ personally." Steve keeps the door steady, but cocks his head to watch Flicker work. "Well, I can't say if it's a mistake or not, but it sure has been helpful for catching up on these last seven decades." "I guess it would be. But sorting truth from lies on there..." Flicker trails off with a quick shake of head. He glances up briefly. Looks back at his work. "It's probably been kind of a madhouse, huh? Since --" His brow wrinkles. "I don't even know. Since all of it." "I've been warned, and I know I don't have the background knowledge to really..." The corner of Steve's mouth twitches in a smile. "Sift the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But I'll learn." He shakes his head, the gesture somehow not looking much like negation. "Folks keep saying it's waking up here and now that's mad, but honestly? Yeah. It's been madness since before I went down into the ice. Since before I went to /war/. I'm learning things about my /own/ time now I never knew." For a moment, Flicker pauses. Looks up thoughtfully at Steve. "Things like what? I feel like the view we have of back then can be pretty distorted. I don't think much about what it looked like then. But it's not like it's easy /now/ to get a full picture of our own world even with so many more tools for getting news." "There's...a lot." Steve's lips press tightly together. "It was only reading history books now that I realized how much the U.S. knew about what was happening in Nazi controlled territories before we even joined the fray. What I /did/ hear about was bad enough, but..." His expression is hard and bitter. "The refugees we turned away. The lives we could have saved. The American Government couldn't be bothered until the Axis became /our/ enemy." Flicker falls into silence. The rasp of the sander continues steadily until he rocks back on a heel. Gestures up at Steve. "Thanks. You can leave it." His scarred cheek pulls inward, teeth gnawing at its inside. "Do you think it makes it easier? Or harder? Having seen this before? And then. Now. Watching this start to happen again. And people pretending it's -- not. Or arguing it's fine. Necessary." Steve lets go of the door, carefully, and steps back so Flicker can test it more freely. He doesn't answer the question at once. Crosses his arms, though despite his bulging musculature the gesture looks tense and almost forlorn. "Harder, I think." His jaw sets hard. "Fascism was on the rise here, too, in my youth. It took a world war to put a stop to it. Or...it just put it on hold, made the brands that overtly resembled what we were fighting unacceptable for a while." He gives a small shake of his head again. "I always knew I'd come home to more fighting. Just. Never imagined it'd be like this." "Even watching it happen -- even /fighting/ it now it's /still/ hard to imagine it's. Like this." Flicker straightens, rocking the door on its hinges. Trading out his sander for a screwdriver so that he can adjust the loose hinges on the door and set it less crooked. He nods with some satisfaction when it opens smoothly, closes smoothly, no longer scraping on the floor or the doorjamb. His eyes flick over Steve -- quickly back to the door, a flush of colour half-filling his cheeks, the waxy pale scars in his face drawn in sharper relief. "Sorry. This is -- /really/ far off the subject of painting. Thanks for the hand, this has been bugging me for ages." He taps the door with smooth black fingers. "You went to art school? You'll love Jax, he's a total nerd. I mean that in a good way. About art." "A lot of people find it hard to imagine," Steve agrees. "And a lot of people aren't forced to experience it themselves, or see it happen to people around them. Easier to look the other way. I don't know how you came to see it as you do -- I'm guessing it wasn't pleasant -- but this fight..." His fingers squeeze tighter against his arms. "Well. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important it is." The smile he manages is small, lopsided. "Yeah! Three semesters, but -- life happened. And then war happened." The smile is broader now, less crooked. "Oh, I've met him, actually -- at Matt Tessier's birthday party. He seems a delightful fellow, and an amazing artist. But you know..." His frown is light, confused. "Despite all the qualifying, I've /only/ heard the word 'nerd' used in a good way?" "Oh right -- right." Flicker's blush deepens. "Staying at the Tessiers' does kind of. Skew your company a certain way." The warm amusement in his voice doesn't suggest this is a /bad/ thing. "Okay, let's go. Hopefully if /our/ computer is working," (he neither sounds nor looks entirely confident), "I can show you how to sign up for some classes."