Participants:
| Scene Title | Coping |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Felix and Smedley share the ways in which they cope with their troubles. Felix shares his beach, and Smedley shares his scotch. |
| Date | August 31, 2010 |
Staten Island - Beach
He shouldn't be here. He really shouldn't be here. But Felix is standing on the beach, looking out to see. He's not in uniform, but in jeans and jacket and t-shirt, hands thrust into his pockets. Curled into fists in those pockets, for that matter. There's none of the wariness one might expect of one of FRONTLINE's men on Staten, though. This isn't a mission. This is just personal.
But for others, there are few places left to go to escape those men on a mission.
The evening sky is already dark, thanks to the thick layer of smog that shrouds what would otherwise be a spectacular sunset. And everywhere else, place where the mandatory registration of all persons, non-evolved and evolved alike, are taken in stride, it is.
But not here, and certainly not for Wes Smedley.
In honor of the day, Smedley has stashed himself on the fringes of Staten Island, as far away from civilization as he dares trek these days. The only company he's brought along with him is a bottle of Johnny Walker. It hangs somewhat limply from a circle he's made with his thumb and the first two fingers of his right hand as he trudges out of the woods and onto the beach, stumbling once the terrain shifts from grassy earth to muddled sand.
Fel whirls, quickly. Faster than is normally possible, in fact. He doesn't have glasses, anymore. Doesn't need 'em. But the habit of squinting hasn't yet left him, and he peers narrowly at Smedley. That's….not the Angel of Death. That's not Deckard, either. That's some drunk guy. Fel draws himself up to his full height, and stares, affronted. This is my private sulking beach, what are you doing here?
What does any self-respecting drunkard do on a beach? Sulk.
And apparently relieve oneself.
Smedley makes his way to the water's edge and lets the bottle drop into the sand. It falls at an angle, the amber liquid inside sloshing with the impact. When he rolls his shoulders back to loosen his belt, the beige sport coat he wears moves enough to reveal a holster at his waist. Drunk and armed. But since when is that new in a place like this?
A decade and a half of being a cop has him taking a step or two towards Smedley. Maybe to admonish him for being drunk and packing. And then he thinks the better of it. Armed, himself, but even he can't dodge bullets. "Literally pissing into the ocean, eh?"
His eyes half closed by the alcohol that courses through and now out of his system, Smedley rolls his head to his shoulder to look over at Felix. He sniffs, then burps, and then fastens his jeans and belt once again. "Sh'try it sometime," he slurs, swaying a bit as he stoops to retrieve the bottle. "Refresshing."
Smedley grins stupidly, but then deems it necessary to determine what exactly the talking wiggly shape is. "Who're you, anyway?" he manages to say, though it takes an almost over exaggeration of articulation to get it to come out correctly.
The Russian's making a funny, pinched disapproving face. Like a librarian trying so very hard not to shush an obnoxious patron. "Name's Felix" he says, finally.
Smedley nods several times before he starts to make his way back toward the woods. Traffic on and off of the island is being heavily monitored, so once he's sobered up the following day, he'll have to find his own way back across the Narrows into the city. But today… today he deserves - needs - to be plastered. "Like the cat," he says after a moment, lifting the bottle to his lips for a swig. "Felix the cat."
"Like the cat," he acknowledges. HE can't help but pull a sour face. But it's only the millionth time. "What brings you here? You get killed here, too?" Hey, Deckard could've been ambitious, right?
The drunkard shakes his head with a laugh that comes out in one long breath, not unlike emissions from a more southern orifice. "Naaaaaah. I died a long ways away from here. Just hasn't catched up to me yet s'all." He lifts the bottle and waves in a general westerly direction with it, then takes another dring before offering it to Felix. There's still the better half of the bottle left.
"Taaakhit," he slurs, his eyes closing as if he were pushing a thousand dollars on the man, and it was mere pocket change. "I'm done. And it'll just 'tract shit if I keep it. Go'ohn."
IT's utterly a bad idea. This shit is probably completely toxic. However, Fel's a Russian, and presumably was thus weaned on alcohol and tractor fuel. He sniffs it, discerningly, and then takes an immense swig. Better qualified as a gulp.
"God man," Smedley grunts out with a distinguished frown and a nod. "Good…man-cat. Cat-man." No, he's not so drunk as to call another man kitty, even if it does play across his mind and bring a lop-sided smile to his face, or even a silent snicker. He walks a few feet away, then stumbles into a sitting position on the sand. "So you're dead, huh? S'goin' around."
Oh. Oh, that's good. It's like a blow to the gut, and then the head. Felix looks down into the murky depths of the bottle with dawning respect. "I got better," he says, utterly deadpan. And then he takes a whole second mouthful.
"S'black label," Smedley says with a shrug as he folds his arms across his chest. "Ain't bad. Ain't single, but it ain't bad. Why? Whatchoo got?" But Smedley almost immediately unfolds his arms and holds his hands up, palms out to ward off Felix's offerings of liquor. "Can't. 'ad enough. Y'll kill me all ov'rgain."
"Someone shot me. First in the hip, and then in the spine," Fel explains, looking for somewhere to sit down. The sand might do. "I bled to death about….there." He nods at a spot some yards distant down the beach. "Someone else dumped my corpse in the water, but it washed up. And then a third someone brought me back from the dead. It wasn't -actually- Jesus." He sounds rather disappointed about this.
"Well, ain't you a lucky bastard," Smedley says with no small amount of drunken awe and humor. "Not much survives that water." Speaking of which. "You ain't headed back across tonight, are you?" Smedley had planned to wait until morning, and the weather is decent enough he could probably do alright on the fringes of the island. But still. Felix is his new buddy, and if he's got a way across the Narrows, it might just be worth it.
"Hold'ohn," he says all of a sudden, lifting one side of his jacket to fish in the inside pocket. In the process, he reveals the content of one of his holsters - a revolver. It's not pearl handled, but with the amount of tooling on the leather it rests it, it might as well be.
"Well, damn, Wild Bill," Felix says. He should be dismayed. Or officious. He's too drunk, now, after a third large swig of liquor, to manage either. "I wasn't thinking I was. Why're you walking around with -that-? Staten's lawless, yeah, but…."
By then, Smedley has extracted a cell phone from his jacket. He looks up at Felix with slightly wider eyes, then back down to the phone. Sure, it's not top of the line by any means, and it doesn't have apps, but it is good enough to send and receive calls and text messages. Smedley frowns.
"In case I need to call sumbuhdy?" Smedley furrows his brows upward as he answers the question with one of his own, unsure as to why anyone would think having a phone was out of the ordinary. "I need to call sumbuhdy," he says after a moment of silence, dropping his eyes to the phone and squinting at the tiny illuminated keys. The tiny screen of the phone responds with results as he keys in the number.
"The -gun-," says Felix, with a roll of his eyes, waving the bottle enough so that some slops out onto the sand. HE looks annoyed. How dare it? "…..did you need a ride back to the mainland?" he asks, as the thought takes a moment to trickle through.
Before Smedley his send, he looks at first one revolver, then the other on the opposite hip, then back up at Felix. "So? You ain't packin?" Apparently the choice in weaponry isn't at all odd to the drunken cowboy, and why should it be? But Felix's question distracts him further. "Can't go on'th roads," he explains, looking askance at the increasing darkness. "Gotta go 'cross the water." There are any number of reasons for a man to chose the Narrows over the Outerbridge Crossing, but Smedley doesn't elaborate.
"Not like that, Jesus," Fel says, with a shake of his head. "Expecting to get into a gunfight?" He whistles. "And why the water?"
"Be a fool not'tuh," Smedley answers with a narrowing of his eyes. It is Staten Island. "Occupay-shunnel hazard." As for the water, Smedley lifts his eyes from the phone where he's finished keying in the phone number to one Peyton Whitney and looks out across the span of black between where they sit and the iconic skyline. "No cops," he says plainly, but his voice is softer. No cops. No barricades. No checkpoints.
It's lucky that Smedley hasn't connected name, face, and repute. Otherwise, well, one of those fancy revolvers might be turned on him. "Yeah. But like that," Fel says, blunt to the point of rudeness. "Oh, well, if you gotta cowboy fantasy, might as well live it out. And….why're you onna run?"
"Pick'uh reason," Smedley says with a grunting snort of a laugh and a roll of his eyes. He finally pushes send on the phone and puts it to his ear, leaning back to rest his upper body weight on one hand resting in the sand. When the other end picks up, a grin spills across Smedley's face. "Paaaaaaytuhn," he drawls, his state clearly communicated in the simple greeting.
Felix stiffens at the mention of that name. "Peyton?" he says, a clipped pair of syllables. "Tell her Felix says hi."
"Hey, hey, Peyton," Smedley says in a rush, looking from Felix to the sand below him. There's a fair chance the girl isn't allowed to react to the man's initial greeting before Smedley is talking again. "Felix Catman says hi." There's a flutter of speech on the other end, and Smedley furrows his eyebrows as he tries to pay attention to it. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I… I dunno. He showed up. I gave'm th'rest of it." But he doesn't say what. He does look back up to Felix and smile.
"She says hi."
"Ivanov. I'm Felix Ivanov," Fel corrects, graciously. But he smiles in return, a funny flash of teeth too broad for his jaw. Brilliant nonetheless.
"The shscotch," Smedley is saying into the phone, furrowing his brows as if whatever the question was was a silly one. What else would he have given Felix? "S'Ivan-off," he adds with a nod to Felix. "Not Cat. Nope." He pauses, then looks around. "Beach." It's simple, and probably for the best.
Felix's smile is now curiously disingenuous, and shy. "Yes," he affirms. Hey, at least he's not a belligerent drunk. He seems actually….amiable, now that he's relaxed.
A grin sweeps across Smedley's face, wrinkling the loser bits by his eyes and around his mouth. "You too," he croons before he pushes End. All-in-all, it was a successful drunk dial. Nothing embarassing said, and nothing too important to remember. Though it may soil his undoubtedly already tarnished reputation with the young woman.
He puts the phone back in his jacket and then struggles to his feet, doing his best to stand upright in the forgiving sand. "Time for bed," he says matter of factly before he lifts a hand in a sharp, almost flailing sort of wave to the other man. "You," he adds, pointing a shaking finger at Felix. "You shtay dry."
"I do try," Felix answers, sunnily. And then he looks down at the bottle. "Do I get to keep it?"
With a sniff, Smedley nods. Several times. "S'yours." He gives the man another wave as he starts to walk off. "Careful now. S'cops about."