Participants:
Scene Title | Irish Nachos and Fake Wasabi |
---|---|
Synopsis | The dreadlock quotient rises in some upscale lounge when Daphne and Bones discuss matters of no real importance over drinks and, in Bones' case, a myriad of appetizers. |
Date | December 23, 2009 |
Some lounge in Manhattan
After a long day of doing a job that would put most in the blue collar industry to shame and make them seven kinds of sore, it helps that there are still clubs in New York that cater to a crowd that want to just lay down at the end of the day yet still go out and have a good time. Bones can be found in one such establishment, in a booth that vaguely resembles a chaise lounge that has been wrapped around a table that is about only a foot above the cushions upon which one is allowed to lay upon. He dines alone, listening to the live music in the background and people-watching, watching those at other tables, on the way to the dance floor or being seated by the hostesses.
Those watchful eyes might catch a blur and a rustle of a velvet curtain that separates the rest of the lounge from the restrooms beyond; a few moments later, out walks a petite blond who was most certainly not in the dining area prior to the blur. Most people don't notice, of course — they are far too interested in their drinks, their food, their dates, or even themselves.
Daphne heads to the bar rather than to one of the chaise lounges, leaning against the counter until she catches the bartender's eye. She murmurs something, and a few moments later is handed a brandy snifter. Good for a cold evening, after all! All those Saint Bernards in the Alps can't be wrong, right?
Of course he doesn't see the blur! Who in the world is looking for a blur of motion from a person who can actually move that fast? Well… okay, they might be out there, but Bones is certainly not. Of course the place is casual, the waitress bringing you your food, keeping your table for you, but alcohol only is served at the bar. Being courteous of the other patrons, he put himself in to a pair of sandals and shuffles his way over to the bar, a couple of people recognizing him as he passes their tables and calling out to him, waving which he returns. It's hard to forget the huge white guy with dreadlocks. Leaning up on the bar next to the blond, Bones crosses his arms on the bartop and raises a hand nonchalantly to signal the bartender over. Meanwhile he gives a nod to Daphne. "Good evening." he comments before turning back to wait for the bartender.
The very short blonde girl (with dreadlocks) glances up and arcs a brow. She raises her glass, cupped in her hand, in a mock salute. "Is it? I thought maybe you just blocked out the sun or something," she quips. Surely he hasn't heard that one before. She takes a slow sip of her brandy, holding the liquid in her mouth a moment to savor it before swallowing the fiery fluid down. She doesn't look as relaxed as most the patrons, as she still wears a courier bag across her chest — as if she's just stopping by for a quick espresso before hurrying out on her work day, rather than sitting at a bar with a brandy.
"Some people have to take lessons to come up with tall jokes like that, but with you, I'm sure it just comes with that natural charm." He quips back in return, ordering himself an Old Fashioned, Fire-Island Shirley-style on the rocks, crushed not cubed. Definitely a man who knows how he likes to take his drink. Of course the bartender gives him a look for being so specific, but Bones just blinks slowly at the man until he puts himself in to motion to fill the order. Reaching in to his back pocket, he pulls out his wallet which has more than a few bills it it and thumbs through them, ending up laying ten and a five down on the bar before sandwiching his wallet between the bar and one of those big hands of his.
"I lay awake at night thinking them up, just hoping someone will come along so I can use them. Do you wear your hair like that because no one can reach your head?" she banters back, then frowns at the drink. "What the hell kind of drink is that?" she asks, craning her head to watch the bartender make it, as she has no idea what goes in such a thing.
"You too, huh? Well, takes an insomniac to know one." Bones raises his brows, watching the bartender make the drink. "It's actually quite simple. Starts out with crushed iced —" it's like he's narrating the making of his drink, "then an equal measure of bourbon and scotch, mix with a sugar cube, two dashes of bitters, slash of soda water. That's an old fashioned though with the Fire Island, the orange garnish is replaced by a wedge of pineapple, and the Shirley part, he splashes some grenadine in it. Then he gives a dirty look for calling the drink complicated when he had to think about how to make it." Dirty look given. "An Old Fashioned was the first drink to be termed a cocktail, you know." he says, giving a short history lesson of the drink before he raises his glass and slides his wallet off the bar, giving a salute with his freshly made drink. "Have a good rest of my 'blocking out the sun'."
"D'you used to be a bartender or something?" Daphne asks, ignoring the 'goodnight' part of his half of the dialogue. "That's pretty interesting. Why are they called cocktails? My guess is the straws or various garnishes, supposed to be like rooster tails or something, though coming from growing up on a farm, I can tell you roosters don't have limes and pineapples for tails." She's a quick talker; seems the type to drink Red Bull mixed with alcohol rather than a brandy.
Turning to walk backwards in his tire-track sandals, Bones blinks a little as his goodnight is waved aside and the conversation continues on. "The first documented definition of the word "cocktail" was in response to a reader's letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806, issue of The Balance and Columbia Repository in Hudson. In the May 13, 1806, issue, the paper's editor wrote that it was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar, a kind of bittered sling. It's amazing what knowledge Wikipedia has." he says, and if she wants to keep up the conversation, she will just have to follow him back to his table.
"You got one of those photographic memories or what?" she asks, paying for her drink and slipping from the barstool to follow, though she doesn't presume to follow all the way to the table and into a seat. "I mean, I coulda looked that up at home, but how the hell do you know it here off the top of your head?" She's being nosy but she's bored, and he's interesting. There aren't that many interesting people by her standards.
"I figure that if you like a drink and order it every time that you belly up to the bar, you had better know full well just what the origin of the drink is. Not to mention, I generally like to put meaning to thinks, personify them to be a little more than they are. For me the drink does not only taste good, it tastes like a much simpler, easier, yet grander time." Bones settles down at his table, gesturing for her to join him, his plates of finger foods having arrived while he was gone: sushi, Irish nachoes, buffalo wings, and taquitos. How one person is suppose to eat all that…?
"I suppose." Daphne glances down at her brandy — it no longer seems so interesting. Then her dark eyes alight on the food and she raises another cynical eyebrow. "This looks like an international food fair or something. Or what Americans think is international, not that I think Irish nachos exist anywhere in the world but America." She looks a little skeptical but takes a seat on the edge of the lounge. "Are you really really hungry, or just really really indecisive?" she asks.
"Technically, I am sure that they exist outside of the United States simply because it is in the United States. That sounds very "occident-centric", nationalistic, what-have-you, but likely if it's a dish in the United States, someone put it on their menu just for that very reason." Bones reasons from where he lounges, watching her as she seats herself on the edge of the lounge opposite hip. "I have a disorder. My metabolism is very, very high, so if I were to eat a meal that was given to normal portions, I'd be hungry in very short order." he says, picking up a tuna roll and flips it up in the air, positioning his mouth under it and intending to catch it in his open mouth.
"Maybe. I've seen places serving what they think is American food like barbecue and coleslaw and burgers and tater tots in places like Paris and Beijing, but I haven't ever seen Irish Nachos," the speedster says skeptically, sipping her drink with a shrug. "I'm not saying you're wrong. Just that I've never seen them. But I don't tend to eat in the 'American' places when I'm not in America, unless I really just can't stand the food anymore. Did you know that most 'wasabi', like that," she nods to the lump of green that sits next to his tuna rolls, "is just green colored horse radish? Real wasabi is super expensive and doesn't keep well — even in Japan, unless you're in a real high end restaurant, you're likely not eating real wasabi." They are just two fonts of trivial information.
"Smart woman." Bones notes in response to her not usually eating American fare abroad. Just not good for your health. As for the wasabi… "Yeah, that is why you ask the chef where he gets his wasabi from. If he says Japan then you know he's lying. If he says North Carolina, it's the real thing." he says, munching on his tuna roll and then reaches for another. Odd though that he doesn't actually use the wasabi on the plate. "You're good though. You have obviously done quite a bit of traveling." he notes, not seeming to adhere to the table manner that it is rude to talk with your mouth full. At least he has to courtesy to cheek it while he talks. Very hungry man.
"Don't like it anyway, so no matter to me. I don't like the ginger either, and my fish needs to touch pan before it touches my tongue, because I don't do sashimi," Daphne chatters easily enough. "And I have. Lots of traveling. More than you know. Manchu Picchu might be my favorite spot as far as views go, though Paris is a great city. What about you?" She doesn't seem to mind his mouthful of food or the fact he isn't offering her any. She's content with her beverage and a bit of conversation.
"Me? I am an import. Originally from Brazil, bounced to China for a year or so, then was more or less raised here in New York. Only really been to those three places and spent any real time, so… suppose for me New York is the place to be. Manchu Picchu might have some great views, but New York has many views that the normal person would not even think to look. And you don't need a high-rise, a telescope, and a lot of time on your hands to scope out where girls live in the next apartment building over to see them either. Just a good guide." Bones says as he continues eating, finishing up his sushi and going for the nachoes, washing it down with his drink. "Some of the most fantastical things are either beneath notice or hidden from notice."
"Oh? I mean, I've seen quite a bit that a lot of people probably wouldn't have, but I'm not sure I know what you're hinting at. What kind of views do you mean?" Her brows first rise, and then her eyes narrow as she tilts her head curiously at them. "Buuut, if you mean Gobi the blind bum who can play Rachmaninoff on his accordion, I've seen him. If you mean something like sunflowers growing out of a crack in midtown, been there done that."
Musing for a moment, Bones finishes his bite and then dusts off his hands on the table and then wipes the grease from his fingers before he reaches in to his pocket and withdraws what might look like a secondary wallet because this does not contain cash. Instead, as he opens it, it contains photographs. "I take pictures of some of my more favorite places…" he says before nudging the photo wallet across the table at her. Most of the photos are of large underground art deco structures that appear to be in various states of repair though it does not take much to imagine what they once were. Abandoned subway tunnels, a forgotten indoor pool at an abandoned hospital-looking facility… There are even a few above-ground structures but they look much more dilapidated. All of them have their own charm to them though.
Daphne takes the photo wallet and flips through them, turning each a bit to look at each through varying perspectives. "You know, if you had these blown up into poster sizes, they could be an interesting gallery show," she says. "Urban masterpieces or something like that. Interesting." She examines the last photo before closing the wallet. "How do you find all those places? They look like some of them might be in Midtown?" The last is a question. She passes the wallet back to him. "I'm Daphne by the way."
"Naw. It would break some kind of ethics code, I'm sure, from making a profit on the side from your day job." He says as he gives a shrug, starting to eat once more and allowing her to keep the photos for now. "But anyway, I'm a city engineer but what I do is find places like what's in those photos, crawl down in to various holes, make sure that New York keeps on humming without even knowing it is there. And yes, there are quite a few spots in Midtown." he agrees before he raises his brows, surprised that he somehow gained the honor of receiving her name. "I'm Bones. Not my real name, but it's what everyone calls me. Even my mother." he assures her.
"City engineer?" she asks, setting the wallet down and looking up with another quirk of those brows that don't match the white blonde of her hair. "And I'd certain hope your real name isn't Bones. That'd be a bit weird. Though I guess there's weirder names in the world that are actually on people's birth certificate. I heard of some poor little kid named Armageddon once. His mother thought it had an ice ring to it. Thought it was mythological hero or something, not, you know, the end of all existence."
"Cute." Bones comments a little wryly before cleaning his hands once more and reaches over to retrieve the photo wallet. Thumbing through them absently, reminiscing, he finally closes it and shoves it back in to his pocket. "But yes, city engineer. I'm a Sandhog assigned to do urban exploration." he says, pushing yet another empty plate away from himself."
"Huh. Sounds interesting." Daphne doesn't sound that interested, truly, but she's being polite. "And dangerous," she adds, to give him a bit more of her respect perhaps. "Anyway, I wouldn't think you'd get in trouble for making a profit on some photos, as long as whatever you're taking pictures of isn't private and classified, you know? You could do like a coffee table book or something, who knows. It's pretty cool as far as architecture and whatever, not that I'm an expert in art." Just stealing it.
The buffalo wings are the next victims on the list. "Thats just it. At any time any of those places might be reactivated for various purposes; government, military, private purchase, you name it. If I put out a book of photos of a place, even if I don't disclose a location, it compromises any kind of security of future property rights. As the least I'd get sued. At worst I would be charged with treason. Now showing them to one person and taking the photos back? Unless you have a photographic memory, we don't have a problem." he grins and tosses a few of his dreadlocks out of his face.
"You," she says, looking suddenly serious, "will never know, will you?" She stares at him with that solemn face that looks wrong on her until she smirks once more. "Nope. No photographic memory and not too interested in super secret government buildings or the breaching of the security of such places. Unless maybe they have really good coffee and doughnuts. Then I might want to find a way in. Is there a secret hatch in that pool, maybe?" she kids.
"Well… there's a six foot catch basin that served as a skimmer but it's still under water and I would not recommend diving in to the water even if it were a matter of national security, much less coffee and donuts. Disturb stagnant water and you are just asking for trouble. Poison, mold, explosions…" He replies, seeming fairly serious as he informs her. Bones now munches on the taquitos, leaning up a little more and looks her over a little more closely. "So you're a foot messenger?"
"Stagnant water can cause explosions?" Daphne asks, eyes wide. She's an urban thief. She knows not to drink stagnant water in the wild, but thought that was because of pollution and bacteria, not because things can go kaboom! She glances down at her courier bag. Nothing too important in it at the moment, but usually it is used to hold the things she procures through her own creative means. "I guess I give myself away, huh?" she says with a rueful smile and a backwards shrug, her head tilting toward her shoulder rather than the other way around. "Some of the time. I do various odd jobs. I don't like to sit at a desk."
"Stagnant water causes molecules to settle, such as sediment from concrete or a mineral deposit. Well if you disturb that water and stir things up, bring molecules together that should not be brought together, it can start a devastating chain reaction depending on the size of the body of water." Bones explains, seeming to know what he is talking about. Switching subjects, he shrugs and nods, gesturing with his taquito. "Yeah, kind of obvious but I get you. It's cool. I couldn't do the desk thing either."
"Huh. Never heard of exploding ponds or anything. But… I guess maybe in midtown — chlorine and radiation and whatever else, that might be more plausible. I didn't pay much attention in Chemistry, so I don't know. Not my thing. I like art and running and coffee and … well, I don't really like doughnuts. Bagels are good, though." Daphne sets down her drink, now empty. "Well, Bones. I just stopped in for a drink and some warmth before one last stop for the night, before I can call it a night, so I should get going. Good luck with all your underground art and taquitos." She stands, shouldering her bag as she does so.
"And good luck with your delivery or pick-up." Bones says with a nod and a rather wide smile for Daphne, giving a wink and a raise of his glass. "May your shoes never catch a nail and go flat." he intones the awkward blessing and then drinks from his glass. "Perhaps our paths will cross again. Big city though."
A rather fitting little blessing, as Daphne's feet are her livelihood in a much greater sense than he knows. "It's why I wear sensible shoes, and I carry a spare," she quips back. Not really, but she can always steal a spare pair of shoes. She's done it before. Shoe soles get holes in them rather quickly when you cover as much ground as she does! The speedster manages to walk, rather than zoom, out of the bar, knowing she might be watched, and she doesn't need someone in government to know her power. It isn't until she's out of the building and around the corner, out of sight, that she gets her speed on.