People Watching
Who: Pepper and Dutch
Where: The streets
When: Morning
Pepper sat under the shelter of an store awning, watching the rain fall in the street, listening to the sounds of someone else's party dwindling nearby. She'd found a party hat in the gutter - which she was not wearing, it was sat by her side looking damp and decrepit - but she did have a streamer laid around her neck. Her own little new year's celebration - kinda. She's spent some time with friends, seeing in the new year. Midnight under Sixth Street bridge, it was good as anything and probably a lot better than going to some fancy pants party that was probably boring as anything and all about appearances anyhow.
She scrubbed a hand over her shaved head, then pulled on her cap against the rain, and to keep the cold off as watched for people wandering home. She liked people-watching. Knowing who was going where, seeing who. Sometimes she talked to them - other times she played the game of seeing whether she could unnerve them by staring. She wasn't sure which one she'd pick this time - it all depended on who walked past next.
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The person who walked past next just so happened to be one Elias Giacomo, better known as Dutch to most of the city. And his walk, for that matter, was better known as a stagger, the sort of lurch most often associated with severe hangovers. This sort of morning was the only time when the city ever seemed too bright for Dutch, even the constant clouds overhead making his eyes sting and head pound as he shambled along the sidewalk away from his apartment building.
He'd been what most people would call gloriously drunk the night prior, though Dutch hadn't been at a party. He hadn't even set foot inside of One More Round; his favorite hole in the wall packed with customers for once. And what for? The reset button of shitty year atop shitty year? Halfassed resolutions and playful kisses? The resolutions would be forgotten, the kisses might lead somewhere and be regretted at this very moment. So he'd stayed in, sitting in his distillery over the garage and drinking from his own stock until he'd passed out.
How Dutch had gotten home, he didn't know, but he'd woken up on the sofa with an old photo of his long-dead wife cradling their daughter in his hands. And if the drinking the night before couldn't accomplish it, that was enough to mix with his headache and make him empty his stomach. Showering took too long, his clothes felt too tight, but Dutch would be damned if he'd sit in his apartment or empty shop all day. He needed coffee, hashbrowns, eggs and bacon and grease. He needed Nighthawk's.
I need to remember how to find the fucking place, he thought blearily, stopping at an alleyway just past Pepper and wracking his lungs to try and dislodge whatever it was coating his throat.
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Pepper watched the man staggering down the street and made up her mind - mostly based on the fact that she didn't think that this guy would even notice if she just watched him. So, instead, she jumped to her feet and almost bounced over to him, smiling and playing overly-perky. "Good night last night then?" she asked him, actually genuinely interested in the answer - though her tone made it sound like she'd known this guy for years, rather than her having just approached a complete stranger.
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Finally succeeding, Dutch spat out a thick mouthful with a grimace, wiping the corners of his mouth on his palm as he looked back towards Pepper. "Not even close," he grumbled to her, cleaning his hand on his pantsleg and shaking his head blearily. She looked familiar through the haze, but Dutch didn't have a clue from where. The grime made him think she was a street kid, and the haircut worked with it to make him think she was a he.
"How 'bout you?" Dutch asked in kind, stepping away from his lean in the alley at last and looking at Pepper more intently. The pound in his head still wouldn't let him place her or even guess at her name, but she seemed familiar enough with him. "Have yourself a happy New Year? Fresh start in the land of promise, right? That's what they say, at least," he added, taking fledgling steps in the direction he thought Nighthawk's was.
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"Oh yeah - I was up at the Drake, dancing the night away with the glitz and glamour, course," she said, brightly, rolling her eyes only slightly. The nearest she'd got to the Drake was the alleyway round the back a few years ago - and even then she'd not been there a few minutes before she got chased off by some suited penguin of a man who told her to scram for bringing the area down. Like she was some plague carrier or something. Still, she'd got to practice a good few curses on him before she'd taken to her heels before he could give her a good clip round the ear. "Would have thought that you'd've been out though - guy like you..."
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He shot a sideways glance at Pepper, fumbling out a crushed pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his shirt. "Guy like me? I know you or somethin', kid?" he asked gruffly as he shook the pack, watching broken halves of cigarettes fall free. Dutch grumbled in disgust, wadding up the pack and pitching it in an open dumpster that sat in an alley as he passed by.
Dutch didn't say another word as he waited on an answer, wordless until he stopped at a newspaper stand and nodded to the clerk. "Pack of the reds, unfiltered, and a racing sheet," he instructed, nodding over at Pepper, "Grab the kid a candy bar too." And apparently that little offer entitled him to an answer, or so it seemed as Dutch laid down a handful of change and a rumpled dollar, looking back to Pepper expectantly.
Pepper glanced back toward
Pepper glanced back toward the dumpster, half tempted to go after the discarded pack of cigarettes. Not for herself - she didn't smoke - but someone would have a need for them, somewhere. But, she was successfully distracted by the ordering of candy and dragged her attention back to the guy. "Nah, you don't know me yet - name's Pepper though. And you just looked like the kinda guy who'd have been out having a good time last night. Today you do anyhow - like you've not have much sleep, y'know," she told him with a grin.
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Tapping the smokes in his palm, Dutch fixed a quzzical look on Pepper as he smirked just a bit. "Pepper," he repeated dully, almost disbelievingly. A name like that? Yeah, this was a street kid, no two ways about it. "Dutch," he introduced himself in kind, tucking his paper under one arm and opening his smokes, "Dunno how much sleep I had, but it was definitely a few days shy of what I need." Of course, the aches and nausea demanded he wake up and seek out food, so here he was. "I don't go in for what folks around here call a good time. You hungry?" he asked, not thinking twice about the offer for breakfast. Dutch had money, DiGiovanni payments he wanted nothing to do with beyond the bare necessities of supporting his spartan lifestyle. So buying breakfast for one of the locals? Why not.
Pepper pocketed the
Pepper pocketed the chocolate bar - that would've been enough to see her through a lot of the day, but if there was offer of more, she was never going to turn that down. Still the food in the hand disappeared so as he couldn't decide to take it back. "Not had breakfast yet, nah," she shrugged - not willing to actually come out and admit to hunger, put herself on the line like that. "So - you at a party last night? That why you're tired? What was it like?" she asked him, always wiling to live vicariously.
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"Well, if you want some," Dutch instructed, wincing at a flare of pain behind his eyes, "Point me towards Nighthawk's." What street was this, even? Maple? Second? He wasn't sure, and didn't really care much as he tapped a smoke from his fresh pack and lit up, dragging deep from it. "Nah, no parties," he went on as they walked, letting smoke seep past his lips. The rush of nicotine helped him focus, but not like a proper drink would. It was too early of course, and he doubted he'd keep any liquor down for long.
"Just me, drinking for eleven." Which was depressing as all hell, but Dutch didn't care. There was nothing to celebrate, after all. "Been to parties up at the Drake before, though, a long time back," he went on since Pepper seemed so curious, "Champagne waterfalls, full band on stage, everyone dressed to the nines. It's a sight, no doubt." But he knew what it really was, too; luxury covering lies and depravity, excusing all the terrible things the DiGiovannis and their fellows did with a simple question. 'Isn't all of this worth it?'
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"Oh! Sure!" Pepper exclaimed, grabbing hold of the guy's sleeve, turning him around and marching him off in the other direction. She definitely knew where Nighthawk's was, that was for sure - especially if there was food on offer. "And you know, they say you really shouldn't drink alone. Was it by choice, or just a lack of company? Because there's always a gang of people under the Sixth Street Bridge and they welcome everyone," she told him. Not that the idea of sitting under the bridge in the middle of winter with a load of bums would be everyone's idea of a good time, but Pepper knew there were some good sorts there. "And have you really been to the Drake? I don't think so - I don't think anyone could ever have enough champagne to make a waterfall," she added, disbelievingly.
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So she was a lifer on the streets? That couldn't have been easy, Dutch knew how many pitfalls there were and how many more people willing to ignore you out here. "By choice," Dutch explained simply, shoulders shrugging. "Nothin' to celebrate, I figured I'd get tanked and make today come faster." He actually laughed at her disbelief, rubbing the back of his neck as he let Pepper lead him onward. "It's not a real waterfall," Dutch clarified, gesturing vaguely with his unclaimed arm, "More like a big pyramid of glasses, and they pour from the top down and just let everything fill into the glass below."
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"Did it work?" Pepper asked as they turned down the street and headed for the other corner of the block, where Nighthawk's was. "Did morning come quicker? And how big's the pyramid? And how do they get to the top? To pour the first one? Doesn't it just make a real big mess?" she asked, trying to imagine that and figuring that most of the liquid would just end up on the floor.
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"Don't even know when I passed out, so yeah," came the answer as Dutch grinned fleetingly, wincing moments later. He whole face lined as he struggled to remember the scale of the waterfall Pepper was asking about, but it had been in another life entirely. "Kid, this is the Drake we're talking about. So it was big. Private party, probably a hundred or so people? So they had this table, stacked up with glasses so it was maybe eight foot high."
His free hand was sort of aimlessly gesturing as if he could convey the scope, though that was impossible. "They had a ladder, little bucket chain of people handing over bottles of booze so the guy up top could keep pouring. A good glass has a taper to the base, so the overflow runs off to the glass underneath. It does make some mess, that's why I just stick with a bottle."
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Pepper grinned at that, imagining the sight - or trying to anyhow. "So, what happens to the glasses then? Do people have to climb the ladder to take them from the top, or do they just leave it there? tell me they don't just leave it there - I mean, that'd just be a waste." But she could imagine it, the kind of lives people like that led. Enough money to do whatever they liked, drive fancy cars, live in fancy places, probably didn't ever wear the same clothes twice. "So why don't you do that now?" she asked as she pushed open the door to Nighthawk's and led him inside.
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"When you're at the Drake, there's people to do it all. Drinks get brought down to everyone who wants one. If you're on the top floor, private room? They do everything short of chewing your food for you." He smirked a little bit, the smirk growing as Dutch nodded in greeting to a passing waitress, pointing out a back booth to her and heading towards it. "I'm not exactly upper-class citizenry these days, so my invitations get lost. just as well, those parties are goddamn boring."
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"How can a party like that be boring?" Pepper asked, intrigued about the whole thing despite herself. "I mean, all those people, everything going on - there must be loads to see and do!" She paused as she sat down, thinking about that a bit. "Or is it just full of boring people who want to talk about boring things? But that would have made you a boring person to be invited in the first place, right? And you don't seem like a boring person to me, so that can't be it," she concluded, reaching for the menu and making a show of looking it up and down, though her reading wasn't exactly great. Still, she was figuring she wasn't going to get a chance to order anyhow, and she'd have whatever if he decided to just order her something.
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"The thing about the ritzy types around there?" Dutch explained as he sat, grinding out his cigarette in an ashtray, "They may not be boring all the time, but the shit they can talk about with each other is. So the grub's good, the booze is top notch, everything else is as fun as confession at St. Peter's." Dutch flipped his menu open for the barest moment before the waitress came by, smiling up at her. "Janice, darlin', it's one of those mornings," he greeted, "Better make it four eggs runny, burn the bacon, and a stack of flapjacks for the kid. How 'bout a coffee and a milk, too?" He gave Pepper the briefest look to see if any of that was a problem as menus were handed back.
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Pepper just nodded and handed back the menu as if she'd given it a whole lot of honest consideration and come to her own decision about what to eat. She waited for Janice to move off - having given her a look of almost surprise to see her in her as an actual regular customer - before she answered Dutch. "I never been to confession at St Peter's. But I guess that's as boring as hell too then?" she asked with a smile. She'd never in her life admit to it, but she sometimes sat just outside St Peters, listening to people sing - she liked it, it was pretty. But no way was she admitting to that - and she wasn't gonna be going inside to watch. Not where she could be caught at it.
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Even knowing it'd stab behind his eyes again, Dutch had to chuckle slightly. "Boring as hell's pretty damn apt, yeah, that's somewhere else I haven't been back to in a long time." He'd observed the holidays in his youth, and in the first year after his wife's murder he'd prayed fervently for absolution or death. But the years had worn him down, and Dutch knew that if there was a God? He wasn't on speaking terms with him, or likely most of the city. "Don't decide you wanna start," Dutch advised, nodding when the drinks came over and lighting another smoke, "Man can't forgive another man's crime. Don't none of us get to wriggle away from our debts..."
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"What? Start going to St Peter's, or start going to parties at the Drake?" Pepper asked with a snort of laughter. "Mister - I don't know which one's more likely. No, actually - just can't see me dressed up all la-di-da, you know? But I don't have no debts." You needed money to have debts, in Pepper's opinion. All she owed was favours.
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"Sounds like you've got a decent handle, then," Dutch complimented, smiling over his mug's edge. It really was amazing how fast a strong cup of coffee could help set the world straight. "And I would avoid both if I were you, unlikely or not." He set the mug aside, frowning a little. Though Dutch knew the tide of the homeless was unstoppable, it was harder to ignore when you were sharing a meal with one of them. Especially one who likely hadn't done anything to deserve where they were at. "Y'know, if you're ever thinking you do wanna go into St. Pete's, it'd be a good plan to have something for the collection plate. If you're lookin' to make two bits, I can always use another pair of hands."
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Pepper's friendly face turned cautious and closed up more as she sat back in her seat. She eyed the man across the table from her and resisted the urge to put her thin coat around her body. "What do you do?" she asked, trying for 'light', but the tone came out with more than an edge of caution and judgement to it.
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He recognized the caution and the defensive gestures, and the only reason Dutch wasn't showing his own similar traits was that she was a kid. She likely didn't have the tendencies he worried about from the other transients. Okay, and he was hung over enough to not even have access to his defenses. "Run a little auto shop a few blocks from One More Round, nothin' too incredible. But the money's okay and I get to set my own hours. I've already got a girl who sweeps up a few nights a week, but I wouldn't mind covering the nights she doesn't work. I hate pushin' a broom."
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Pepper didn't relax too much, still acting wary. "Sweep floors?" she asked, not immediately buying that that was all it'd be, though sweeping floors in an autoshop sounded okay to her in actual fact. She could do that, she could definitely do that. "Just that?" she added.
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"Maybe run down to the deli and grab lunch for me and the boys now and then," Dutch amended with a smirk, nodding after that, "But otherwise, yeah, just that. Little shit, nothing major." He wouldn't trust her with anything major right away, really. And as for the real business in the shop; the money, the drugs, the weapons he smuggled for the DiGiovanni? That wasn't anything he wanted Pepper knowing about. "Don't gotta answer now, either. Just come on by the shop if you want, promise I'll be in better shape than I am." Then he sat back with an eager smile as their food was carried out, grinning and giving the waitress a pat on the hip once she set everything down.
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Pepper looked between him and the food, then quickly pickd up a fork and started shovelling food into her mouth, messily at first, and then finding her sense of self. "Sure - maybe. I'll just - I know where you are, so maybe I'll turn up," she told him, trying to sound nonchalant and non-committal through her mouthful of breakfast.
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Snapping a piece of bacon in half, Dutch watched in amusement as Pepper tore into her food, chewing his own idly. He didn't think it was a sure thing that she'd show up, but if she did? So much the better. "No skin off my back if you get a better offer. Land of opportunity..." he mused with a grin as he chewed, grabbing a piece of toast and puncturing his eggs with it. Just as Dutch had thought; a good, greasy breakfast went a long way towards smiting his aches. Surprisingly, a little company made it go a bit further.