Logs:In Which Some Community Building Is Attempted, Only A Little Awkwardly

In Which Some Community Building Is Attempted, Only A Little Awkwardly
Dramatis Personae Scramble, Taylor, Ted
In Absentia	2019-05-31 "That wasn't no /test/ or anything."
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Spacious and open, this coffeeshop has a somewhat industrial feel to it, grey resin floors below and exposed-beam ceilings that have been painted up in a dancing swirl of abstract whorls and starbursts, a riot of colour splashed against a white background. The walls alternate between brick and cheerfully lime-green painted wood that extends to the paneling beneath the brushed-steel countertops. There's an abundance of light, though rather than windows (which are scarce) it comes from plentiful hanging steel lamps. The walls here are home to plentiful artwork available for sale; though the roster of prints and paintings and drawings and photographs changes on a regular basis it has one thing in common -- all the artists displayed are mutants. The seating spaced around the room is spread out enough to keep the room from feeling cluttered. Black chairs, square black tables that mostly seat two or four though they're frequently pushed around and rearranged to make space for larger parties. In the back corner of the room is more comfortable seating, a few large black-corduroy sofas and armchairs with wide tables between them. There's a shelf of card and board games back here available for customers to sit and play. The chalkboard menus hanging behind the counter change frequently, always home to a wide variety of drinks (with an impressive roster of fair-trade coffees and teas largely featured) though their sandwiches and wraps and soups and snacks of the day change often. An often-changing variety of baked goods sit behind the display case at the counter halfway back in the room, and the opposite side of the counter holds a small selection of homemade ice creams. A pair of single-user bathrooms flanks the stairway in back of the cafe; at night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits up the stairs above the coffeehouse. As Ted walks in the door to Evolve, his attention is caught by the painted ceiling, the artwork-covered walls, and -- perhaps most colorful of all -- the customers and staff. There's a short line leading to cash register, and he takes his position behind a redheaded woman with a bushy auburn tail sticking out of a cut in her jeans, inspecting the chalkboards behind the counter. "Um, hi," he says when his turn arrives, "I'll, um, have a turkey sandwich and a large coffee? And, um," he starts, about to ask the barrista about Ben, then thinks better of it as he regards the line forming behind him. Better to wait till he's not interfering with paying business, right? The small brown-skinned person behind the counter takes Ted's order with a cheerful smile, a cheerful bob of horned head. "Um?" Their brows lift, tail flicking behind them. "Sorry, was that all?" Behind the counter Taylor has been busy with the drinks. He's gotten a certain level of efficiency back down, fallen into a kind of routine that -- looks /fine/, looks good /enough/, for those who didn't know him before. Looks -- a /far/ cry from the previous fluid ease he used to work the counter with. He's making only one or two drinks at a time, now! Carefully. With two hands. The bristle of oddly shiny thin-skinned stumps that protrude through his tee shirt ('WHITE LIVES MATTER TOO MUCH', it says in bold all-caps print across the chest) still twitch restless and jumpy at intervals as he works, setting a large cappuccino with a delicate swirling leaf pattern in its foam down on the bar before moving on to the next drink. Large cofffee, right, and -- "Hey." His brows lift. "You were at the vigil." The barrista is familiar -- they were handing out fliers at the vigil, if Ted recalls correctly -- and Ted thankfully got most of his Trying Not To Look Like He's Staring out of the way back then. Still, there had been a lot going on then, especially once the shooting had started, and now that he's standing in line watching his order be assembled he is finding that the twitchy stumps are placing a whole new set of demands on his attention. << Were they always like that? >> he wonders... they look rather like cauterized missing limbs, which is a disturbing thought. << I wonder if they hurt. He doesn't seem to be in pain... probably not. That's good. I should ask him about Ben, but not now... don't want to slow down the line. Wait till the place is less busy... >> "Um... yeah," he agrees. "So were you. I'm Ted." He gets noticably flustered around offering his hand, but only for a second before extending it in greeting. Scramble sits on a tall stool near where Taylor is working, chin propped up in the palm of one hand, lanky form draped languidly against the outside of the counter. She's wearing tight black jeans that lace up the sides and a red short-sleeve cropped top under a black leather vest (on the right breast patches read MUTANT MONGRELS and EMPIRE STATE, on the left DOG OF WAR and PACK MEMBER, while on the back is a horned and fanged jolly roger with hypnotic swirling eyes circled by colorful birds). Her jewelry is simple but striking -- gold bangles to match large hoop earrings peeking out from her voluminous afro, and a gold ankh on a black cord around her neck. Her thoughts are a low, buzzing litany of anger and despair that she's ignoring with practiced nonchalance. Her eyes-half lidded eyes flick to Ted when he speaks to Taylor. "You get swept up when the pigs waded in?" she asks. "He was in with Shane'n'em," Taylor affirms for Scramble, chin jerking toward Ted. He's just started to get a cup out for coffee -- hitches with another momentary spasm of limb when Ted offers his hand. For just a second his eyes widen -- drop to the cup in his hands. He blinks, breathes in, sets the cup down with a wide smile, bright in sharp contrast to the jet black of his skin. Leans across the bar to take the offered handshake in a firm clasp. "Hey. Taylor. Haven't seen you around before." Ted is startled by the new voice -- more so, perhaps, than one might expect under the circumstances, and his thoughts are briefly but intensely occupied by a flash of memory, the squeal of tires, the crumpling of a car body against his own suddenly giant one -- and he turns abruptly to look over his shoulder and nods agreement. "Yeah. The cops... they pretty much sided with that motorcycle gang," he says angrily. "I... guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I was." His sense-memory of holding the motorcycle up in the air, the attacker holding a gun to someone's temple, is tinged with rage and frustration... but again, only for a moment. Then <<Wait... will they think I mean the other gang? She's wearing the same patch they were... no, no, they'll understand, it's fine.>> "No, this is my first time here," he explains, shaking Taylor's hand. "I... well, I'm trying to piece together what I can about the night Ben died, and I was told this was the place to ask. Was he here at all?" The small huff of breath from Scramble /might/ be a laugh or a scoff. To Taylor it feels like both. << Oh lordy, he done got /woke./ >> "Shit, why shouldn't you be surprised?" she asks, tone flat and unimpressed. "Strappin' white boy like you." She shrugs one bony shoulder and straightens up just enough to stretch out one long arm for the cappuccino and drag it over to her. "Still some bullshit, though. Them cops and the Purifiers --" << Bougie ass Nazi motherfuckers playing bikers. >> "-- is cut from the same cloth. They ain't trying to charge you?" She lifts the mug for a drink, the chorus of misery in her head quieting for just a moment in the delight of heat and flavor on her tongue. << God bless you, Brother. I might make it after all. >> Her eyes skate back to Ted, opening slightly wider. Only slightly. "I seen him around, but not that night." She studies him, eyes unblinking. "Was he a friend?" Taylor's eyes shift from Ted to Scramble, his brows briefly rising but his smile unchanged through the brief handshake. He drops his hand back to the counter with a quiet chuff. "Those clowns? They're not a motorcycle gang." He sounds firm on this point. << He /surprised/ now. >> There's a /dry/ amusement -- and zero surprise! -- that comes in this mental reflection, echoed silently for Scramble's mind alone. << How much you wanna bet this time last month this white boy think if we just stand up straight, don't mouth off -- >> This thought doesn't exactly conclude. Doesn't exactly need to. In his spoken voice there's none of the dryness -- just an easy politeness, casual and warm, head bobbing in acknowledgment as he returns to making coffee. "Well hey, welcome. Real sorry you had to find us like this, though, man, that's a rough break. He came by a lot. Lotta people do. I only saw him in the morning, though. Got his usual, seemed --" One of his eyes scrunches up. "As good as /any/ of y'all been seeming in exam season." Ted can't help but feel defensive at Scramble's reply, and it shows in the set of his face and his shoulders, not to mention his thoughts... but ultimately, well, she's not wrong, and he knows it. So he just nods. The comment about the Purifiers not being a motorcycle gang confuses him, but he lets it go as well, sensing that those are deep waters best avoided right now. "Right... they let us go, finally," he confirms. "But there was a lot of stuff going on, and, well... I mean, honestly I didn't understand half of it," he admits. "Shane and all of them can tell you a lot more." He accepts both the welcome and the information about Ben. "Yeah. I mean, we weren't, you know, close or anything, but... Ben was an easy guy to like, y'know?" His thoughts are a jumble, and it's fairly clear that he himself doesn't really understand why he's so invested in this. Scramble takes another sip of her coffee. << Don't 'spect he thought much about it at all. >> There's not really much vehemence in this thought, just a bone-deep /weariness/. The endless chattering about dying rises back up from her subconscious. She closes her eyes. "Yeah. He was a sweet kid. Wanted to make a difference." The droning in her head grows louder. Her teeth grind slow. Her eyes open again and fix on Ted. "You gonna Loretta's vigil, too?" This sounds incredibly neutral. "I'm glad you all got out," Taylor replies, the soft concern in his voice seemingly genuine. "It was a bad scene. Would have been badder if you all hadn't stepped up to shut those assholes down." His jaw tightens briefly, at this. "Even if it earned you some bullshit with the cops." He sets the coffee down on the bar, slides it toward Ted, returns straight away to making the next customer's drink. "He was a good guy. Always kind to us. That's worth a lot on a busy-ass day. You --" He hesitates, eyes lowering to his task. "S'hitting hard, huh?" Ted's eyes widen at Scramble's question, and his thought are even more of a chaotic jumble, mostly shame. Of course, he hadn't given Loretta's vigil a moment's consideration... but, faced with the question, there's really only one answer. "Yeah, of course," he tells her, nodding thanks to Taylor and placing a bill on the counter. Then he pulls another couple of singles out of his wallet and adds them to it. "I... do you know who's organizing it? Like, is there, you know, a... fund, do they need help setting up or anything?" "That wasn't no /test/ or anything," Scramble says, her voice surprisingly gentle all of a sudden. "Just..." << Don't want him climbing the walls tryna do some lone wolf shit. >> She shakes her head, the golden hoops on her ears flashing. Points at Taylor. "S'hitting hard, is all. Be good to have time to process it, with other folks been there." The thoughts are loud and clear now, a litany of ways she could just die and not worry about any of this anymore. She picks up her mug for a long gulp, now that the coffee has cooled some. "Tomorrow afternoon, same place. It's her daughter Asia putting it on, but lotta folks helping out. Dunno what they need, but there's a Facebook event." A small, fleeting twitch of a smile. "Gonna be /mad/ good food." "These vigils aren't entirely /for/ the dead. We maybe loved them, we honor them, remember them, but they're gone. Folks who are still here?" One of Taylor's stump-arms twitches again -- he winces -- gestures to Scramble with his /hand/ instead. "Times like those, it's real important to have community around. Remind you that we're going to keep going, even when they're coming for us. You try to deal with all this alone, it'll eat you right up." He nods towards a bulletin board over at the front of the cafe. "If you don't do Facebook, there's /always/ news there on what's going on." He's still continuing on steadily at his work -- setting one drink down, calling out a name, moving on to the next. His mind reaches out, a gentle /nudge/ at Scramble's. Touching up against the edges of her mental cacophony in an unvoiced but clear-intentioned offer. "That... makes sense," Ted acknowledges. "The, you know, the processing thing, I mean. Community and stuff. It's just a lot, you know?" <<Idiot,>> he thinks, <<of course they know. They're living in the middle of it.>> "Like you said, hitting hard." Then... "Daughter." <<Fuck.>> "Yeah, I do Facebook. I can search for it." He takes a sip of his coffee, stares at the cup for a while. "I , um... I guess there's a lot of events," he adds sheepishly. Scramble's annoyance at Ted's awkwardness stays firmly buried, her expression still fairly blank. There's a wordless worry, a drawing back, at Taylor's offer. And a kind of /hunger,/ too, which she struggles with for a moment. Wrestles back down. /Then/ she very carefully stretches out her power, which /burrows/ into Taylor's mind like a root, twisting something subtly before withdrawing. In her own mind the flat despair eases, the relentless urging to die quiets to a low murmur, and her fury is...no less furious, actually. << Thank you, that was -- a bit much. >> Her eyes open all the way, and she sets the coffee down for a moment. "Yeah. There's hella," she agrees easily, her body language and gaze suddenly animated in a way she hadn't been only a moment before. "No one's got time for them all, but you gotta start somewhere." << I got sanity to spare, sister. >> Outwardly, Taylor just swallows, briefly closes his eyes as Scramble digs into his mind. Opens them again to look with a tensing of shoulders, a jerky twitch of limbs, at the still long line stretching out by the counter. His movements are a little quicker, a little sharper, as he returns to his drink-making routine. "I know," he answers Ted, simply. "And there's not /only/ vigils on the board. People post all kinds of shit. Book clubs. Support groups. Housing and job ads. The sort of things it can be hard to find if you ain't human. You should stick around, you know." His grey eyes lift to Ted. "I can't say it gets easier, it don't really. But it's a lot less of a jolt if you got some /roots/ here. Ain't left struggling after a death, feeling like some kinda outsider right when things are the hardest." Though he remains completely oblivious to the psychic activity going on between Taylor and Scramble, Ted nevertheless notices there's something going on. What it might be, though, he has no idea. At first it seems like he'd put his foot firmly in his mouth and pissed them off, but then that seems to pass, and he decides maybe he was just making something else all about him. "That makes sense," he nods to Taylor. "Actually being part of the community and stuff." He bites his lip for a moment, then: "Are you guys looking for more help around here? I mean, I am looking for a summer job..." he trails off. "Amen, Brother." Scramble lifts her mug in a salute to -- both men, it seems -- before downing another gulp. << That's gonna be a long, awkward road. I hope he loosens up a bit. >> Taylor looks Ted over, his brows lifting as if in surprise. "I'm not in charge of the hiring, but I can grab you an application. /And/ your sandwich." He sets his current drink on the counter, slipping off briefly toward the back. << Hey, >> drifts back lightly to Scramble, << we all started somewhere. >>