Logs:Good Things In Life

Good Things In Life
Dramatis Personae Avery, Avi, Spencer
In Absentia B, Shane, Jax, Erik	2023-10-02 “So now what? Do we just talk about our Jewishness or something?”
Location <XS> Sukkah - Grounds
Up on a small rise in the field stands a...hut? Tiny house? The X-Sukkah this year is slightly overengineered and larger than it's been previously. Perhaps its chief architect was hopeful of more guests with the drastically expanded population at the school. Or maybe he had help. Or maybe he was just trying to stay busy. Whatever the reason, this sukkah has a roughly hexagonal footprint, a wooden frame of sturdy interlocking triangles, and two layers of wooden lattice for walls, painted up in an autumnal spectrum of reds, oranges, and purples. The reed roof lets in ample daylight (or starlight), though there are lanterns suspended from crossed beams above the circular table. The doorway is roughly shaped like a wide "X". Aforementioned chief architect is setting out a light lunch that puts the perfectly serviceable lasagna on offer at the cafeteria today to shame: pumpkin kibbeh, potato onion kreplach, and garlicky white bean dip with fresh-baked flat breads, all arrayed around a beautiful fused glass bowl in colors of autumn foliage piled high with apples and pomegranates. Spence is in a blue Chimaera Arts hoodie with the collective's eponymous chimaera on the back, unzipped over a pale green t-shirt printed with a bundle of plant matter and a yellow fruit over the words 'SHAKE IT!', medium blue jeans, and black sneakers with rainbow laces, and a kippah in concentric rainbow stripes. Huh, there is also an actual bundle of plants and a yellow fruit on the table. Weird. Avery was still in a rut from the news. What do you think about that? People dying in a time of celebration that boils down to “they try to kill us over and over again, we survive, let’s eat”. The time where people should feel safe and in a community. Avery refused to cry about this despite it being the best way to process it. The most she’ll show on it is blatant rage and endless retrospection, and she wants people to know to leave her alone. Becoming a walnut in isolation is her ultimate goal now. In this retrospection, there was the memory of Amelia Borowski. The only actual tie Avery had to the Yom Kippur Massacre. It sometimes slipped her mind that her mom even was a real person. Just a footnote in her family’s life. Keith and Oli told stories, but her and, debatably, Arthur were left in the dark. Only thing Avery could really tell anyone about her mom was that she looked a lot like her, and that she was Jewish. And if it meant anything, to get past the rage and emotional dissonance, Avery was going to, at least, try to find someway to connect to her mom and become less of a terrible person. “So… this the place where Jewish celebrations happen…?” Avery stumbles her way inside, trying to take in her surroundings. “Is that bread?” Her love for food did take top priority over all, though, sadly. Not the best question to ask in a place where she could learn and do some self-reflection. Avi may or may not have been heading towards the sukkah at all -- he's got a basketball tucked under one arm and was probably ambling in the vague direction of the athletic center. He gives up on this pursuit halfway through cutting across the grass, though, when the giant lump of wrinkles slooowly trudging at his heels gives up on walking and plops himself down heavily a short distance outside the sukkah's frame. There's a short session of cajoling at the Lump, a short session of trying to nudge at The Lump with a sneakered foot, but eventually Avi gives up and instead wanders towards the sukkah. He's got on a baggy pair of black jeans, heavily distressed and sewn with patterned denim patches, sparkling white sneakers and a baggy Xavier's hoodie; his short locs are slowly growing out into -- okay, still short locs, but at least they are now long enough to have an actual definition to them rather than the small nubs they started as. He lifts his chin to Avery and then Spencer in turn, before calling to the other boy: "Yoooo why you in here now?" He's already looking over the food before Spence can give an answer to this question, though. "-- any this gonna help bribe a big bag of cement?" He's jerking his thumb over his shoulder in indication when he says this, back to where Chonk is lying flat in the grass, staring with mournful eyes in the direction of the sukkah. "Hey!" Spence pipes when Avery enters, his reflexive smile fading with concern when she stumbles. "You alright? If you're like, passing out from hunger you've come to the right place and yeah that is bread!" He confirms brightly. "This is where we celebrate Sukkot, yep! You don't have to do any religious stuff though, if you just wanna chill and have some food. Heeeey!" Probably this last part is a little confusing until Avery spots Avi joining them. "Cuz it's lunch time?" He sounds suddenly a little uncertain. "It is lunch time, right? The bread and the kibbe are dog safe." He points out the stack of flatbread and the plate of brown, football-shaped dumplings. "I could also like. Fetch him. He doesn't seem like the kind of dog who would freak out about that. Or like. Notice." “Okay…” Avery nods, grabs a white paper plate and fork, taking three pieces of bread and a kibbeh. “So… ah… Sukkot… what is it?” She asks, slathering her bread in butter and salt. “I mean, I know the bear minimum about Jewish holidays…” She continued, taking a massive bite out of the bread and lighting up at the taste. “I’m assumin’ a lot of people will come here after what happened… ‘cause fear of another massacre.” Avery finished one slice of her bread, trying the kibbeh. It was very meatloaf-y, and spicy to add a bit of flavour. So, a good 8.5 outta 10. “Hol’ on…” Avery put her plate on the table, her mouth still full of food. She noticed Chonk, and started walking towards him, admiring his lackadaisical qualities. “I’m gonna pet him. He’s in a prime time to give affection.” Avery bent down to the pitbull, “Heey buddy… You’re just a lump of laziness, aren’tcha…?” She rubbed his hair, scratching his ears. “Good doggo…” Avery stared to walk back to her food. “Sorry… animals are the only good thing in the world.” "Yeah, you shake that shit at lunchtime?" Avi is pointing to the lulav and etrog but giving a little hip-shimmy as if this is somehow the Shaking in question. "I definitely thought that was a dinner kinda activity -- oh him?" He's been beelining for the kibbeh when Spence says it's dog friendly, but then stops and glances off towards the lump-o-dog in question. "That be way easier yeah." His brows have creased in a mild confusion, eyes tracking Avery as she goes to pet Chonk (the bulldog's small nub of tail waggles happily in reply, though he doesn't move) and then as she returns. "... why would people come here? Ain't nobody I know sitting 'round like, damn, Nazis be Naziing, time to go back to high school." He sucks dismissively at his teeth after this, though he's giving Chonk a smile. "Whaaaat? There's hella good things in the world. Ramen, ice skating, watching horror movies all October, erry damn thing Megan Thee Stallion ever touched." “Megan Thee Stallion’s not all that good. Jack Stauber and Mac DeMarco though? Wacky stacks stuff, ode to the weirdos and outcasts.” Avery took a massive bite of her kibbe, eating the rest of it quickly. “Ramen’s the lamer cousin of one dollar pizza, and you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten into knife fights.” Avery smirks. “Much like how Staten Island and New Jersey are the general public worst nightmare and there’s always Queens or Manhattan, there’s always something better than what you’ve listed.” Avery turned her left hand into a sickle, stabbing the bread on to it. “Horror movies all year, for instance. David Lynch films with Cheez-Its! You gotta think bigger man. Think weird and big.” Avery began to eat the bread like kabob. “… y’ think Dali gets a lot of praise for his art because it’s calm? Nah…” Avery put her plate on the table. “You here for the food too? Or self-reflection?” She asks Avi, sitting down in a chair and licking the butter off of her sickle. Spence blinks at Avery. "I don't...think so? There's not a lot of Jewish people on campus and I feel like probably we're pretty safe from violent bigots here." He's chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully and then vanishes from the side of the table -- -- to appear beside Chonk. He crouches down to scritch the dog's jowly face and this time they both disappear -- -- and reappear in the sukkah next to Avi. He's still chewing on his lip. "I guess violence makes some people find more comfort in like. Religious...stuff? Or even just cultural stuff. I don't know, I think that's complicated for Jews. Since we get targeted for Religious Stuff. Probably not this religious stuff, though!" He's brightening again as he straightens up, only slightly side-eyeing Avery's sickle-ing of his bread. Or maybe he's side-eyeing her list of Good Things in Life. "This is my favorite holiday, speaking of Good Things. And I dunno if a lot of Nazis would even recognize this as a Jewish Thing TM." He picks up the wrapped bundle of plants and the weird lemon and shrugs with one in one hand and one in the other. "My birth family does the shaking in the morning. Maybe it's a minhag thing. Or a 'since we're already here anyway' thing? You wanna shake?" Not clear whether he's offering this to Avi or Avery or both, but he sure is excited about it. Avi sucks at his teeth again, head shaking as Avery talks. "Girl," he explains this patiently with her comment on Megan Thee Stallion, like perhaps she is not yet aware: "you white." This is apparently the only acknowledgment her musical opinions need, in his estimation; he's grabbing a piece of pumpkin kibbeh onto a plate, breaking it in half so he can plop down on the ground beside his recently retrieved dog. He takes a small bite, offers a slightly bigger one to Chonk. "Anyway," continues, light, "you seem to have weird on lock good enough for the rest of us. I'mm'a leave the, uh," his brows have furrowed, and he's side-eying Avery's sickle-hand, "-- knife fights to you." He wipes his palm against his knee once Chonk is done slorping the kibbeh up, and leans back against the dog's broad side so that he can continue in on his own. "Damn you asking me to shake the thing, feel like I'm finally getting that Chabadnik treatment I been missing out on 'cuz of --" The wave of his hand towards -- his face? -- is kinda generic. He doesn't take the lulav, though he does peer up at Spence curiously. "... why's this one your fave?" “Huh. Must be just my childhood , or you guys are missin’ out,” Avery turned her left hand back to normal, “then again I’m missin’ out on the whole… Jewish traditional holidays…” Avery bit her lip, grabbing another piece of bread. “What’s with the shake-thing? I don’t get it… I got robbed of a Bar Mitzvah, so did my youngest older brother… My ma was the only reason we celebrated even the most basic Jewish holidays until I was 7…” Avery’s face was full of confusion, whether it was just on the holiday itself or how she would explain why she was trying to celebrate it. It was just a gut reaction, deep down: family history or just rage from the massacre. “But ah… brighter topics.” Avery put on a smile. “I know my tastes are shit, I’m the whitest-white in heritage: half-Polish/half-Italian. It’s guaranteed I have bad music tastes.” Her smile became semi-genuine. “I mean, my favourite instrument is a goddamn clarinet…!” Spence is biting his lip again, though less thoughtfully this time and more like he's suppressing some kind of facial expression that's trying to accompany the widening of his eyes. "I think," he says carefully, "we got the better end of the missing out. I'm sorry you didn't really get to connect with your heritage growing up, but it's never too late!" After a very slight hesitation he adds, "You're Avery, right? What are your pronouns?" He looks down at the bundle in his right hand and the fruit in his left. "Oh, right! So Sukkot is like, our harvest festival." He leans on the "our" very slightly in Avery's direction. "It's about food, and hospitality, and also kinda like, remembering our nomadic roots. I guess those things really um -- really --" He puts down his props. Then quickly picks them back up. "I really like those things. And also building and decorating and dwelling in the sukkah. It's like...ancient Jewish glamping." He seems to realize just an instant too late that this was probably an excessively dorky thing to say, because he flushes and promptly starts rambling. "Oh and like, a lot of my family isn't Jewish, and this always felt like a holiday that was easy to share with them cuz it's mostly just chilling in the sukkah and sharing food and not a whole lot of praying or talking about how people tried to kill us and..." This trails off into a long breath out. "Anyway so the shaking!" Spence holds up the items in his hands -- Four Species to the rescue! "You just say some blessings and wave the lulav --" He waggles the bundle of plants, then the weird fruit, "-- and etrog in the four directions and also up and down. It's a mitzvah to like, give thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. You wanna try?" His smile widens a little crooked, a little sheepish as he looks back at Avi. "Oh man you're right I am kinda giving Chabad here." "Nah, you white but there's way whiter white than that, you could be --" Avi hesitates, gives this a moment of consideration before his mouth twists down in a departure from his usual cheerful expression: "Norse." He pops another bite of kibbeh into his mouth, chewing over it slow. "And failed, that's the important thing, right? They boffed it, he still here," corrects quickly to, "... we still here." He sets the plate down, hopping to his feet. Chonk rolls to the side to start snarfling up the rest of the food. "Aight, hit me." He's beckoning towards the lulav. "What's the blessing, I ain't done this in an age, I'on ever remember it." "Yeah," Spence agrees, though he's frowning a little. "We sure are. Oh! First time this year so, Shehecheyanu first!" To Avery, he adds, "This one you say for like, doing new things. Jewishly." He presses the ritual vegetation into Avi's hands and launches straight into the blessing, evidently assuming -- correctly or otherwise -- that he does know this one. Then, "Okay. So this one is v'tzivanu al netilat lulav. I'll say it with you, though." Maybe saying it with empty hands doesn't feel quite right to him, because he clasps his hands together and bows his head very slightly, chanting these Hebrew words more slowly and deliberately: "Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al netilat lulav." Avi does know the shehecheyanu, and he's already shaking the lulav excitedly as he says it, though it isn't quite necessary yet. "-- aiite lulav I got but what's netilat --" Doesn't matter, he's echoing this (mostly) correctly, too, with a continued shake-shake-shake of the vegetation. Towards the walls, towards his companions, towards Chonk, errybody getting blessed up in this hut. He offers the lulav back to Spence after, and his smile is brighter -- for a second. Then, with an uncertain frown, "... I heard they planning a whole thing for Simchat Torah like -- over Freaktown again. You, uh..." Maybe at first he was aiming for casual before realizing there's absolutely no point to that farce and instead, quiet and uncertain: "You going?" "Netilat is like..." Spence squints at the middle distance as if this will sharpen his somewhat shaky command of Hebrew. His hands open and close rapidly a few times. Then a few more. "Grabbing? Taking the lulav." He accepts the four species back from Avi with a smile and sets them back down in front of his aesthetically arranged bowl of harvest fruits. He's a little slow to turn back, adjusting the etrog, propping it against the bundle of foliage just so. "Yeah." Not even trying casual on for size, but he doesn't sound hesitant, either. "I was originally planning to go down to Queens, but. I think it's important, you know?" His starts rocking back and forth gently -- a habit he'd mostly extinguished at Lassiter. "You should come with, if you weren't going home anyway. My sister and brother are going to be doing security, and they're going to have so much more help than before. And my dad will be there and -- a whole lot of badasses." "Your dad gone be there? Again?" The small widening of Avi's eyes looks -- surprised? Impressed? Maybe he's a little of both. "Feel like if I was him I'd want to --" He stops here, though, teeth sinking against his lip while he looks to the lulav and etrog. "... guess maybe what I'd want is community." He's quiet a moment after this, just looking at the table and its abundant feast for this small turnout. "Ain't really been to Freaktown. Guess it's probably 'bout time." Avery was zoning out hard.. She understood the lulav shaking. It was like a better form of sage burning: blessing you and, by proxy, calming you down instead of just calming you down. But the rest of it? She had already exhausted her emotions on it with rage and multiple cases of harsh winds. She just to find a connection to her mom and make something of friends now. Processing is just wacky. Avery went back to petting Chonk, who she still found ironically adorable for being a flabby-skin sack dog. “You are so much calmer than Keith’s dog… so much calmer…” She said to him, still scratching him behind the ears. Avery turned her attention back to the pair, trying to change the topic to something she could talk about without flipping out. “What’s his name…? He’s a cute bag of bricks. He a pitbull, right?” "Yep." Spence leans back against the edge of the table. "I think a lot of us need community right now. I mean, with other Jewish mutants, yeah." The sweep of his hand includes both Avi and Avery. "But like. Also the rest of Freaktown standing with us, you know?" He looks over at Avery, a slow frown developing at her question. "Hey, look. If you don't wanna talk about it, you don't have to. I get it's upsetting! But we're upset, too, and that's why we're talking about it." He gives a kind of exaggerated shrug. "You're welcome at Freaktown's Simchat Torah, too. It's kinda more intense than Sukkot, but if you like dancing, it might be your speed." He ventures a small smile, again. "And if you're looking to reconnect, receiving the first aliyah of the torah is a great start." Chonk, busy licking a hole in the bottom of the paper plate, just drools in response to Avery's praise. Avi's eyes have slightly narrowed, and if, "-- Chonk ain't no pitbull he a big dumbass bulldog," sounds very mildly irritated, it's probably not at the dog misidentification, he's continuing swiftly on to: "... sure, yeah, but if you don't want to talk about it go eat lunch with the goyim in the lunchroom. Kinda wack coming to Spence's sukkah and getting all weird 'bout Jewish shit. His dad got himself flayed by Nazis keeping our people safe and you wanna dodge the topic like this too hard for you? Sometimes," the irritation has faded from his tone, just flat, now, "being Jewish is hard. Guess you missing out on that, too." “Well I’m sorry. Havin’ the pressure knowing I could’ve done something is crushin’ me! The people ended up like my ma, Jewish and gunned down. I coulda done something but I didn’t. Shoulda went… I was offered to, but I didn’t because I don’t practice… didn’t even have a Bar Mitzvah. ” Avery went from yelling to just sounding stressed. “Sorry… just… don’t… know what I’m thinkin’…” Avery sits down in the chair. “I’m just gonna shut up… talk about whatcha want…” She said, trying to beckon Chonk over. “Sorry about mistakin’ him for a pitbull. I’m not good on dog breeds…” “I’ll toughen up. Listen on.” She puts on a smile. “You were sayin’ your dad fought of Nazis? Good man… did what all the world wants to do.” Avery felt a static emotion bouncing throughout her head, her ego bruised and processing that the group was not on her side. Spencer's eyes have gone very, very wide. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Scrunches his eyes up. Looks over at Avi, kind of imploringly. Finally turns back to Avery. "I -- um -- I'm sorry about your mom?" He probably didn't intend that as a question, but there's an uncertain lift to his intonation anyway. "But I really don't think there was anything you could have done if you'd gone. There were folks there with actual combat experience, including my pa, and he almost died! It's hard to figure out what to do when you're caught off guard, and it's all chaos, and everyone around you is freaking out. If you'd tried to pull some heroics --" Here he breaks off. Pulls in a sharp breath. Crosses his arms firmly over his chest. "It's not about toughening up. I'm not talking about this because I'm tough. I'm fucking terrified!" For all that he's standing taller now, arms uncrossed, thumbs brushing rapidly over the pads of his other fingers. "It sucks you didn't get to connect with your heritage growing up. But you can make your own choices about that now, whether that's becoming a bar mitzvah or studying torah or just showing up." "The hell you think your crazy ass woulda done that an entire crew of grown-ass trained fighters couldn't do? Whole entire neighborhood full of mutants but you'd've --" Avi's voice is sharper again, his shoulders tightening and his arms curling tight around his chest. His words cut off in a sharp inhale, his teeth clenched tight. His smile has faded entirely, expression clamped down pained and uncomfortable, and he's not looking at either Spence or Avery now but off into the distance. He doesn't even manage to work any amusement back into his expression with his small huff: "She becoming a bar mitzvah that's gonna be several whole journeys roll-up into one." “What the hell does that even mean…” Avery asks about the Bar Mitzvah comment, grabbing another piece of bread. “Anyways… I know it’s just… I could’ve helped someone there. Y’know… irrational thoughts… irrational guilty thoughts…” Avery took a bite out of the bread. “I’ll show up… start readin’… People find comfort in religion, yeah? Gives us a way to vent out our frustrations… and stuff…” She rambled, trying to find any way to fix the first impression. “You ever think Magneto has a point…? Like those viking-wannabes will still think that they’re better than us, or that we should be gone. Ya might have to fight fire with fire one day… and Magneto knows it… he’s done it.” She mumbled, surprised herself she was on this level of understanding. “So now what? Do we just talk about our Jewishness or something?” "Oh! She? I mean --" Spence is flushing as he studies Avery again. "He means if you're a girl you would be a bat mitzvah. I just thought you weren't a --" He scrubs his face with one hand and makes a low frustrated noise. "Talk about Jewishness...what the hell do you think we've been doing here?" He bites his lower lip hard. "Magneto nearly got my pa killed fighting fire with fire! What do you think his 'point' is?" He frames "point" with finger quotes. "I know what the fucking stakes are. My whole family came out of Prometheus. They've fought and died to get people out and shut those labs down. Some of our teachers --" He shuts his mouth, jaw working, hands fluttering. "What's Magneto done besides try and fail to blow up a bunch of UN representatives?" "Girl, what?" Avi's eyes flick sharply back to Avery as his tongue sucks exasperatedly at his teeth. "Mr. Jax given half his life to save thousands of our people, nearly got killed because your goddamn hero cares more about violence than his own community and you roll up in Spence's sukkah to spout some nonsense about how we oughtta be more like that murderer? You got worms in your brains or what?" He's not sticking around for an answer, though, apparently just about at his limit for this conversation. He nudges Chonk with a toe as he starts out of the sukkah. "Yo, Spence, maybe we can do dinner in here?" He's leaving both Chonk and his basketball as he heads back towards the mansion -- though Chonk, at least, does eventually lumber to his feet to slowly tromp along behind. “Jesus, fuck I’m screwing up hard-“ Avery bit her lip, about to hold her head in shame if it wasn’t for her dignity. “Yeah nah, whaddya pazzo? I just…” Avery stops herself, cussing herself out in Italian. “Look, would it be better if I just not be around? Or better yet if ya just stabbed me? Because that sounds about right for the punishment of talking just to talk about things I shouldn’t get involved with.” She suggests, backing away from the pair. “I’m leavin’. Since I can’t hold one goddamn conversation without offending someone.” She said, beginning to gesture her hands around. “Sorry I’m an asshole. That’s just how it is.” Avery was sinking back into deflection mode, but she knew this. “Then again, lotta things are brushed off as that, when ya could fix it… albeit in a long, drawn-out process… but you could fix it.” She finished her main point. “But I didn’t say he was a hero, I asked if you guys thought if he had a point. And that was a mistake.” Avery said, running out before she got grilled further for running her mouth. "What," Spence asks the empty sukkah. He scrubs his face with one hand and leans on the table with the other. An instant later he, the table, and everything on it are gone --