Logs:O: Pt. appeared animated; applause, laughter, energy, all demonstrating excitement. A: Prophylactic homicide (selective targets only) may return benefits in mood, community pride.

O: Pt. appeared animated; applause, laughter, energy, all demonstrating excitement. A: Prophylactic homicide (selective targets only) may return benefits in mood, community pride.
Dramatis Personae Gino, Zack
In Absentia	2024-12-10 "Big day for Italian Americans."
Location <NYC> Washington Square Park - Greenwich Village
Behind a majestic white marble arch, a smaller cousin of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, this beautiful green space is a popular destination for the young, the hip, and the artistic. A huge circular wading fountain is the centerpiece, ringed by benches, playgrounds, dog runs, gaming tables, and lush green lawns. In fair weather, the park is almost always crowded with tourists, students, chess enthusiasts, and local families come to tire out their children and dogs. It's a bright crisp day in Washington Square Park. There's energetic music coming from beneath the arch, where a K-Pop dance group is filming, looking far too chilly in their short tops and short skirts. Not so very far away there's another group -- less vibrant but with a strange animated energy all their own. Most of those dawdling around consist of somewhat nondescript men wearing face masks and winter hats and canvas cargo jackets, for a very same-y effect. Around the fringes are a cheerier group of hecklers onlookers, cheering on this motley display. Somewhere around the periphery of that, a couple plainclothes law enforcement officers are trying suuuuuper hard to look casual and standing out all the more for it. Zack isn't too fussed about the cold, or the cops. He's very underdressed for the weather, in a New York Islanders sweater and khaki cargo pants. He's got a hot dog in one hand, and he's just tucked his phone beneath one arm so that he can cup his hand to his mouth and holler towards the line of men: "C'mon, how 'bout that getting-away-with-murder smile?" One of them, at least, does pull his mask down far enough to shoot a quick bright smile towards the crowd. "-- See," Zack is saying, "my vote's for him, I think a proper lookalike needs a killer smile." Gino wolf-whistles, sets his hot dog aside (okay, he's just sticking it temporarily on his shoulder) to give this contestant a short, somewhat chalky-sounding round of applause. He's not dressed for the weather either, Hawaiian shirt patterned with green and purple frondy plants and cargo shorts -- "Yeah, smile, baby!" he agrees, as he's retrieving his hot dog, though then he is saying more bitchily to Zack, "Maybe a soupçon more confidence. Needs to communicate with his eyes that he has balls of fucking brass, y'know?" He takes a bite of hot dog, then, this thought apparently too urgent to wait for him to finish chewing, "-- mmf, mm-nn nn-mm no." "Little smile, little swagger," Zack is translating this back at hollering-volume to the contestants, "CEOs from here to Texas should be cowed by your chutzpah." He takes a large bite of his hotdog, and then (with his mouth full still) gestures at his mouth and then Gino's -- "Mmf?" He's swallowing his bite, barely chewed. "You lost me until, like, 'no', man." "Needs s'more nose," Gino translates. "Don't tell them that, that was racist as shit, but I'm just saying." He punctuates this by rubbing his thumb down the side of his own (impressive) nose. "My man has a real Mediterranean honker. Looks like he should be growing tomatoes and shepherding and shit in the hills of Greece. They have sheep in Greece, right?" Zack is unlocking his phone again, starting to look this up even though he's already answering, very confidently: "Nah, only goats." But he has not gotten so far as finishing does greece have goats in his browser search bar when he's frowning at the suggested articles, swiping downward, clicking: "Oh shit!" he's saying, and then, "Oh shit. What the fuuuuck." This is trapped halfway between dismay and amusement. "-- bro you're dead on about the nose damn this man does not know how to take a bad picture --" He's unhelpfully not yet showing the screen to Gino, just looking down at it and then up at the lookalikes and then down at the screen. "-- sorry to say but all my mans here need to work on their abs before they try this again." "Wait, what?" Gino is leaning sharply in -- literally sharp, in the spiky protrusions on his shoulders and elbows, so he's just as sharply leaning away again, calcareous eye plates grinding against each other as he tries to raise his eyebrows. "What what the fuck? Show meeee." "Oh shit," Zack is saying again, this time with a guffaw. He's leaning in closer to Gino -- kind of heedless of the spikes, maybe he should be paying them more mind but what's a little jab here and there -- to turn the phone screen towards Gino. Pulled up currently is a picture of a smiling young man (shirtless! solid 6-pack unlike -- well, okay, the Lookalike Hopefuls here have too many winter layers on to tell really, but Zack's being judgey all the same) wearing a backpack set against a backdrop of lush tree life. "His name's, like, goddamn, Luigi Manicotti, do you know the guy?" "Ohhh-ho-ho shit," Gino is echoing immediately; he's leaning in again, bumping back against Zack's shoulder, eyes widening. "Goddamn they got him? His name is Luigi? His name is Luigi? No fucking way," he lifts his eyes back up at the contestants, then back at the picture with a snicker. "Man, fucking bummer for him but holy Mary, Mother of God, big day for Italian Americans." "Seems to have the political coherence of, like, dive bar bathroom graffiti but damn if he isn't the most photogenic murderer I've ever seen. Smile like woah, maybe two braincells, might be the ideal man." Zack is thumbing through another article -- this one has the Alleged Shooter very fetchingly being taken away by police. "Look, someone wants to pull down Columbus, put up this guy instead, I think the country would get behind it." "Goddamn he really can't take a bad picture." Gino wolf-whistles again, quieter this time, then glances thoughtfully over at the arch like he is already picturing the ideal statue placement. "Luigi Manicotti," he says; he pronounces this with great gravity. "Y'know, I think I know some Manicottis."