Participants:
| Scene Title | The Color of Anarchy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Devi's bike shop gains a new contractor. |
| Date | April 14, 2019 |
Anarchy Customs II
Located in the northern part of the Sheepshead Bay, the immortal sea offers a lapping, timid and yet relentless, resonance from somewhere nearby… until its interrupted by the banging, crashing, or booming that usually emanates from the nearby garage. Set into the crumbling brick structure that looks like one of many in this barely rehabilitated region are two large, rolling bay doors. The corrugated metal entrances are covered in vibrant colors of chaotic graffiti, the artwork framed by the copper-green patina of rust around the edges reads:
Anarchy Customs II
Just inside, the large garage is home to many vehicles with varying numbers of wheels; parts in different states of dismantling, repair, reconstruction, or destruction; and some things that are simply unidentifiable in their current state. The walls are cluttered with various tools, mobbed further with stolen street signs and more untamed, fresh graffiti. The smell of oil clings to the air as eagerly as the grease stains spattered on the concrete floor.
A small, unassuming, black-painted door with an obvious deadbolt is set off in the back corner. No graffiti here, just a pristine white plastic plaque with red letters: Employees Only.
The young woman walking alone through Sheepshead Bay probably shouldn't be down her alone. She's a small thing, brunette and around 5'2, wearing scuffed and torn jeans, well-broken-in hiking boots, and a gray hoodie beneath a lined denim jacket. A backpack is carried on both shoulders, and she is accompanied by a sweet-looking Golden Labradoodle in a of all things a Service Dog vest that looks relatively new. It's not on a leash.
She pauses outside the motorcycle shop, her gray eyes taking in the graffiti. It's the style that catches her attention — she knows Caspian's work quite well. Her peer within the garage is wary… and then intrigued. She doesn't enter the building, just hovers near the wide doors as if debating something.
At the far end of the garage the image of a large, wing-spread raven is made from black letters entwining intricately in various moving words and phrases. It might be easy to get lost in the twists and turns and motivatios, but a sudden clang just below might break the spell well enough.
Devi sits on the worn, black leather coach set just below the mesmeric mural. A low, rolling toolbox service as a tabletop in front of her knees. Bent over, falls of nightly hair disguising her face, she jabs her screwdriver vehmently at some innanimate contraption before her. "Oh, you wanna play it that way, huh? I'll show you where this-…"
The shift of motion at the boundary of her precious domain has her head jerking up. She considers the girl at the bay door with an avian tilt of her head. "Hey, Peeper - can I help ya?" she calls over.
The teen — and she can't be much older than a teen, really — doesn't respond to the shout, her gray eyes studying the visual displays inside. She appears to be ignoring the person within the garage, too, although the dog wags his tail once back and forth at the voice. His nose lands in the back of the teenager's knee and draws her eyes downward immediately, and then she looks around to finally note the woman. Devi's clearly been looking at her for several seconds or more, given the tilt of her head, and Brynn waves a little tentatively.
Devi doesn't bother to try and follow the young girl's gaze. The mural is stunning. She's aware. By the time the teen has bothered to acknowledge her, thought, her cheeks are drawn in with a subtle pursing of her lips. As Brynn gives her a hesitant wave, the raven-haired woman draws up to her feet. The screwdriver is flipped around idly over her knuckles, but as she moves to rise the injured nature of her sling-held left arm becomes painfully obvious. Still, she approaches the bay at a lazy pace, inclining her chin and calling over again. "Ya'right over there? Something I can help you with, wee one?" Assuming the girl doesn't turn and run, she meets the girl at the opening of the garage and leans her uninjured shoulder into the doorjamb.
She doesn't run off — she doesn't seem the least afraid. Maybe she's just dumb enough to still believe she's invincible? But she holds up a finger in the classic 'just a minute' movement and pulls her cell phone from her back pocket. Fast thumb-typer, this one. When she flashes it to Devi, it reads:
'Sorry, deaf. I was admiring Cas's work and your sign. And wondering if he was going to do the body painting work for you.'
The tall, darkly clad woman leans in and squints at the cellular device's glowing screen. She pauses, indulges a slow blink, and then let's her gaze return to Brynn. Nothing about her expression or demeanor is changed by any of the text-delivered information. "You understand me, Peepie?" She lofts a brow and tucks the screwdriver into her back pocket before pulling her hand back forward to hold up her index finger. "Rule one 'round here: Don't apologize for bein' you."
Devi smiles. "Come look all you like." She makes a beckoning gesture. "Not sure, yet. Think he's still recuperating after our week long…" The raven-haired woman stops short, realizing her audience. "Our, er… art session." That. She turns and leads the way into the garage proper.
Peepee? Beebee? Meemee? Brynn's not sure which of those things Devi might have said, though she's watching the words carefully. She waffles her hand back and forth and then types, 'Enough. :)' And then the blush suffuses her features — though unable to hear, she's not clueless. And Caspian has a type. Yeah, she can figure out what got left out. And doesn't want to know!
She does venture a bit further into the garage to see more, and her thumbs are moving on the phone again. 'I don't want to step on his toes. I just wondered if you might be looking for employees. But not if Cas is doing the job.' She appears adamant about that idea. She isnt' taking a job from a friend.
Devi finds a work bench halfway down the garage, a subtle spot for admiring the work blossoming out from the focal point raven and bleeding across every bit of wall space. The biker squints at the screen again, as if the illuminated nature of the little device bothers her eyes. Or maybe she just needs glasses.
"We hadn't talked 'bout it, actually." Now Devi leans back and gives the teen a more appraising look. "He's got his own biz. I might try to con him into a side gig here or there, but havin' a steady could be nice." The woman makes a subtle gesture towards Brynn's person. "You any good?"
Tilting her head as she watches Devi, Brynn purses her lips and shrugs a little. 'Some people think so.' She tucks the phone back into her pocket and slips the backpack off her shoulders, setting it next to the dog, who is sitting politely at her feet. Unzipping it, she pulls a sketch pad from the pack and holds it out. The images within run the gamut from classic tattoo art to the mural that is on the side of the Cat's Cradle wall — clearly her own work — to sketches of a salon done in shades of black and purple to more abstract bits and pieces.
The sketch pad finds a clean enough spot on the workbench to enable Devi to flip through one handed. Truth be told, Devi gives the old-school, tattoo-style work a closer eyes than the rest. The tip of her tongue lingers at her teeth as she flips from page to page. "Lotsa style here," she admits. "Good eye." She lifts her head, belatedly realizing that talking down to the paper was entirely unhelpful. "Steady hand. Excellent line work. Buuuuuuut… you ever do body work before?" She taps one of the drawings and then points at a nude, steel, disembodied gas tank - the proper motorcycle no where in immediate sight.
Shyly, Brynn shakes her head in the negative. But she does eye the steel tank. Before she tries to talk to Devi again, she reaches out a hand to touch the tank. Her eyes skim up to the raven on the wall and then she opts instead to stick to a simpler, faster geometric pattern to lay out onto the tank. When she lifts her fingertips from the metal, it has a brilliant silvery sheen with pink and purple triangles on it.
The medium doesn't matter; I do it by hand because I enjoy it, but I can pretty much do anything you want. And then she rolls her eyes and moves to pull out her phone to type the words too.
Devi's jaw drops.
The biker moves over to the tank, running her fingertips over cool metal. Brows knitting a wrinkled ridge between them, the biker reaches to her back pocket and takes up the screw driver again. There's a half second hesitation before a screeching clang echoes from where she jaggedly jabs at the tank with the tool.
"Friggin' evos!" Devi turns back to Brynn wide-eyed. Using the screwdriver to motion at the tank behind her, decidedly scratched, but NOT chipped or discolored, she remarks, "You do //that with those," the screwdriver is swung around to the sketchbook on display still, "the job is your's and I'll even learn sign." Her lips draw up in a bright grin that warms her chocolate gaze.
'It's not technically legal to get paid for it right yet,' Brynn admits. 'I gotta get Aunt Gilly to help me get my application in for the COM tags. But… if you're willing to pay me for the work, I'm willing to do it. For something like this, I'd do designs by hand that your customers want, and then after hours the tank would get done.' The teen tips her head and adds, 'I also do some work for the tattoo shop, and pick up freelance stuff where I can. You won't have a problem with it?'
Obviously the young woman is looking to make a living. And then something else occurs to her. 'Name's Brynn, by the way. And Sign is easy enough to learn, if you want to. There's lessons at my aunt's library, or I can teach you. Or my brother. That's what he likes to do too.'
The screwdriver, having attacked two inanimate objects already, is safely tucked away in her back pocket once more. The latest text is read with a squinty, cheshire grin. "'Not technically legal' is kinda how we roll around here - after hours." The biker holds out her hand to the teen. "Name's Devi. I don't compete in the tattoo biz any more, just for fun, so there's bad blood there."
After a quick handshake, if accepted. "Library, huh?" This seems a foreign concept that the biker considers a bit longer than is really necessary. "That sounds chill. Leave me the address, 'kay?" With that, Devi cross the garage back to the sofa. Digging into her leather jacket tossed over the arm, she procures a small key and returns with it offered out. "This'll open the door to the back room, but not the cupboard. Get yourself a lock and claim a space inside. We value privacy 'round here, you hear me?" Her face screws up and she audibly groans at herself. "You know what I mean…"
Brynn laughs, the giggle nearly silent. And then she looks shocked. Just like that? her expression asks incredulously. This woman doesn't even know her and just gave her a key! 'Are you sure?' she types and offers to Devi. 'How do you know I won't rob you blind?' She's not the trusting sort, clearly.
It's the subtlest of changes, the most delicate degree that sets her grin from energetic and vibrant to sweetly dangerous. And just like that, the paradigm of Devi is revealed - an ever precarious balance of goodness and viciousness, all balled up in dark ink and leather. Still smiling, she tips her head to the side, raven locks sashaying around her shoulders and stretching her tattooed neck. "You don't speak, but you don't look dumb to me, Peeps." Just like that, she winks.
"But, to prove I ain't a fool either…" She holds up one finger. "Like I said, the cupboard's locked up tighter than a nun's asshole." Indeed, the lock on the metal cabinetry is one of her own design. She holds up a second finger. "You know Caspian, so he knows you. Which means you ain't going to get too far."
"So, are you sure?"
Brynn likes the shift, seeming completely unperturbed. Her own return smile holds just a tiny hint of the feral. 'I am now,' she retorts. There might have been an edge to it had she been verbal. 'Although you might want to get better locks. Pretty sure my foster dad taught me how to pick those when I was 11.' She winks at Devi. There's some sass to her! She moves to shove the phone back into her pocket and retrieve her sketch book and the key. Her hand on the gas tank leaves the words Tomorrow early enough? on it.
A snort of amusement gives way to a proper chuckle in her airy, husky way. Devi nods approvingly. Her chocolate gaze flits to the tank, though. The second display of the teen's ability is only slightly less shocking than the first and leaves the biker shaking her head in amazement. "See ya then. And, make sure to bring back your fur-friend, too."
Devi watches as the young girl makes her way back out before shaking her head a last time and turning back to her original, small mechanical project. She pulls up the screwdriver from her back pocket, brandishing it like a murder-knife… "Now where were we?"