Participants:
Scene Title | Logical |
---|---|
Synopsis | Title to describe both the state of things and what must be, as well as the word of God. |
Date | January 11, 2011 |
Battery Park City: Outside Redbird Security
There's a storm coming, the news is saying. Been crackling through the morning radio, advice to get indoors by curfew— not that they shouldn't already be doing that— because it's going to snow. The last time winter kicked up in this town, it snowed for endless months, and now the taste of it is back in the air and the wind is coming in cold from the north. People walk the grey afternoon streets in a hurry to be indoors, save for a few. One of which would be a young man standing beneath the cover of the building, Redbird Security Solutions. It blocks some of the wind.
It's still a shitty place to busk. But he's trying. A guitar case lies open, velvet lining with a few coins inside, possibly placed there by him. His sweater has the hood up over his shaven head, his fingers in mittens with the close off scissored away so as to be able to play his acoustic guitar even as a winter wind howls down the street.
"And I got one hand in my pocket," is maybe an odd choice, for a rather burly young man who looks like he could brawl sooner than pick up a guitar. Joshua Springsteen taps his foot as he sings, in a clear, if quiet voice. "And the other is fuckin'— freezing its fingers off~…"
Even a storm can't stop Sven now that he's managed to get his hands on a pack of smokes. He's been craving for one for like a month, not that he could get a smoke while inside the power grid, but now that he's got his fags, he's leaving the building of Redbird. In addition to the cigarette, he's carrying a big white sheet of paper with a whole load of lines in it.
As he sits down next to Joshua, he lights up the smoke, and starts to study said sheet of paper. A cursory glance is directed in the direction of the street musician, but the Swede doesn't speak up while he's smoking and studying. Instead, he's musing to himself, "Ugh… this is looking to be as labyrinthine as it looks like from the inside… not that that should be surprising, but alas… I suppose that means I should study for a while…"
"'Alas'?"
Sven isn't— actually talking to Joshua, but this means very little to the guitar player, who looks like he could be around Sven's age. Maybe a little older, little darker. Strong bones in the face and an even stronger brow, something slightly gorilla to his version of good looks. The song itself is halted, but strumming continues in a kind of absent, lazy way. Boot still impacts the ground in soft taps, but his attention splits and diverts to this new sidewalk sidewinder.
And the sheet of paper that gets such attention. Still, he's caught up on— "Who says alas, anyways. And labiarynthe." That's not what he said, Joshua. "You lost or somethin'?"
The accent in which Sven's words are spoken does suggest that he might be lost. Or at least a foreigner, "I'm a long way from home, and it wasn't entirely planned." The Swede responds without looking up from his map. Yeah, it's a map. A puff of smoke escapes Sven's mouth as he continues, "Got lost in the city's power grid about a month ago, only managed to really get my way out of there yesterday." He says it like it's the most normal thing in the world, but it isn't, not even for Sven. "So I guess you could say I'm sort of lost. I'm studying this map here to learn my way around the power grid, to prevent me from getting lost again."
Long verbal silence follows — or at least, long enough for Joshua's puzzled hesitation to be marked as a pause, even as it's underscored by his guitar playing. His nails come down hard on the strings in an improvised finishing twang.
"That sounds like a bitch," he decides upon, agreeably. One doesn't need to understand something to assess how much it sounds like a bitch. "I get lost too, this place. Everything's bigger, there's— buildings. It takes a while." He slings the guitar back to rest on his shoulder blades, as if he could well be a soldier and it could well be a rifle. He shuffles a couple of steps over to be in a more socialable range as Sven, one hand gripping strap, the other hovering out a little.
Expectantly. "Smoke?" is a direct question. Probably one that will be followed by: light?
The pack is held out for Joshua to take a smoke from, and the lighter is inside the pack of smokes, so Joshua can easily take that one as well. "Yeah, well…" Sven shrugs, "At least you've got people to point the way around here, or you can take a cab if you're truly unable to find the way. No such luck in the power grid, the only thing you're gonna meet there is electricity. I've hunted electricity a lot in that month, poor power company must have been wondering where their power went, I guess." Sven grins, "Not that I'm more familiar with other power grids, but I can understand why New York's power grid might be so shitty, what with the bomb and all the terrorism this place has gone through…"
"Oh, yeah, totally. And the winter. You woulda been boned— " Joshua squints a little, as he does numbers. "Like a year ago." By now, he has a cigarette, cinched between his teeth and stuck to bottom lip, onehandedly flicking light to touch flame to the end. "Black outs everywhere from the snow. Fires from stupid fucks with heaters taking out buildings and lines, probably. But I guess if there's less grid you gotta worry about…" He jolts a shrug. He doesn't know what it's like to be—
What did Sven say? Trapped in the electrical grid? Each to his own. The pack and lighter both are offered back, and Joshua swivels at the waist some to regard the building behind them, as if just realising that this were the only place he could have possibly done so. "You work here or something, Fabio?"
"Not exactly." Sven responds to the question with a shrug, "I was supposed to be back in Sweden by now, but stuff happened. The guys from this security firm were kind enough to let me stay here for a while, until I've figured out my next step anyway." The Swede smiles as he puts the lighter back in the pack, and the pack in the pocket of the jacket he's wearing. "Name's Sven, Sven Petersonn." And his hand is extended to the guitar player, "You a street musician or something like that?"
Joshua's palm connects with Sven's palm, kind of wrestling his hand into some complicated urban handshake that ends with fists meeting in a light tap. "Joshua Springsteen," he says, then kind of shrugs a shoulder.
Like, what can you do, with a last name like that? But it's his, evidently, and he pinches cigarette out from his mouth to tap ash to the ground, letting smoke plume from his nostrils in sharp exhale, less draconic, more bull-like. "Sometimes," he says, regarding his profession. "I bounce at this joint, Center Stage? It's kind of a brawl house, with an Evo night. That was normally my gig, but they hired me on as muscle too. The pay ain't better but it's steady enough."
He sounds proud of himself, that he can truthfully brag about his position in life in such macho turns of phrase. "But daylight, gotta have something to do, right? As you can see, I don't give up my night job." There's about four bucks and change, glinting at the bottom of his guitar case.
The electric mimic chuckles at that last comment, "Yeah, that doesn't quite look like a big wage." He agrees as he glances over from his map to the guitar case, "That center stage place doesn't quite sound like my kind of thing though… I sort of suck at fighting and shit like that. I'm more of a books kind of person." Sven shrugs absently, "But if you like it, and it pays the bills, I'm not going to stop you from doing it, as long as you're not pulling me in to fighting there or something. Your business can stay your business and all that."
"For real?" is probably at Sven's assertion that he's into books — some cynicism that might be more directed at the worthiness of books as opposed to the likelihood of Sven liking them. Joshua shrugs, and then, cigarette filter clamped against between teeth, he swivels his guitar back to cradle it for playing, plucking at strings. He speaks with his teeth pressed as they are, a little muffled but no less clear. "It ain't for everyone, but it can get pretty primal. It ain't my business, anyways — run by the Chinese. You know, Asians, takin' over every damn thing."
Strum strum strum, and Joshua seems like he might say something, the way his brow wrinkles and hazel eyes go unfocused, but otherwise, leaves it untouched. "But hey. Yeah. I like it. 'Steet musician'. You should probably get back to Sweden, bro, while you still can. You can't even catch a cab anymore without a damn card."
"Grad student, history major." Sven explains, shrugging the cynicism off easily. Another puff of smoke escapes the Swede's mouth as he smokes himself, "'Primal?'" This time it's Sven's turn to question word choice, "Haven't ever heard that in that context before, is it slang or something…?" He smiles, "And I'm technically registered, just lost my registry card when I manifested, I suppose I should try to get a replacement soon."
Joshua looks a little blank at the questioning of his word choice, skimming a glance out the corner of his eye, then refocusing back on Sven. "Yeah, it— it just means awesome, you know. Cool. Groovy. Radical. I guess they don't say that in Sweden." Nonchalantly, the guitar goes STRUM strum str— the vibrations of the strings halt beneath his fingers.
His mouth hooks into a half-smile, and it's almost unkind, if not really deliberately so. "Yeah, see, chief, that's half the problem. You're Registered. They'll get you a card, no problem. Ask how you lost the first one, maybe. Fuckin' lie, yo. But you're in the system, now, they'll do what they want with you. I mean, they got the fuckin' transport system, now. Special prisons, neighbourhoods. Logically, it's just gonna get worse. This city's bad news."
Then, he thinks about it, and his smile dims into something softer. "But hey, you travel wires, by the sounds of it. Hard to tie you down to any place."
"I guess you're right." Sven responds with a shrug, "I'll worry about it when the time comes." He always 'worries about it when the time comes', "As the lord said, 'Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.'" Did he just reveal something about his religious predisposition? Yeah, he did. "Probably my favorite verse in the entirety of the bible, it just makes sense, you know?"
Joshua's thumb picks over the strings, scaling notes, as he squints at the blonde man when a little bit of godfearing shows through. Still, there's no mocking, no sneering — he just kind of shrugs his thick shoulders as he considers the little proverb shared on this wintery New York sidewalk. "Yeah, that's a pretty good one," he agrees. "It's not like tomorrow's gonna slap its cock in your face until it's today, right? That's just logical." He pauses so he can take cigarette out his mouth, dust off the embers on its tip with a tap of his finger, before he's shouldering off his guitar, hand gripping it strongly by its neck.
Cigarette back in mouth so he can scoop up his change, and shove it into a pocket. "I gotta find a better street corner before I give up. If you feel like gettin' a beer sometime or get lost in Long Island City's electrical grid, check out under Coco's Boxing Gym. It ain't fight club — they don't make you do battle on the first day or ever or anything.
"But maybe it'll broaden your horizons." He bends to put his guitar back in place, tilting a crooked grin the other man's way.
"Yeah sure. I should get back inside anyway, I finished my smoke anyway." Sven gets up and heads to the door, "Have a nice day, Joshua, and I hope you'll earn yourself some more cash." A faint grin, "And perhaps I will, we'll see. Maybe we'll meet again, maybe we won't… only time will tell, after all!" And with that, he enters the Redbird Security building.
"Normally does," Joshua agrees, neutrally, watching the other man enter the building, before he pitches his cigarette sideways-wards. Crushes it out with the heel of his boot and, with a hefting up of his instrument, heads off in his own direction.