Overdrives Alley - Main Bar(#6632RlJM)
This is the large, open main room of a rowdy biker bar. Near the entrance is a single bouncer who casually looks everyone over as they enter. On the far side of the room is a long, wooden bar with old, leather-covered bar stools in front of it. Behind the bar is a long mural of a naked woman, sprawled out on her side. The liquor selection here is fairly limited, but there's a wide selection of beers to choose from.
Around the room are wooden tables of varying sizes, surrounded by wooden bar chairs. Along the wall across from the bar are a few booths. In one corner, next to the bar, is a door marked 'Staff Only'. Opposite it, on the other side of the room, is a staircase leading up to a more private room. There are two old, battered pool tables to the right of the front door. They charge a loonie per play and have a limited selection of pool cues, none of which are in good condition. A juke-box sits next to a small dance floor that is rarely ever used for dancing.
Places available
NIGHTZONE
The street out front is visible through the only window in this room.
Contents:
Akiko
Tom
Jesse
Jake
Amano
Owen
Luthor
Luthor finishes his final drink and stands, walking away from the bar.
Luthor stands and leaves Long wooden bar.
Jesse looks back down the bar. "So, is Cade okay?" As though he hadn't just said that thing about the strapon. Back to whatever passes for dignity and composure to him. He yawns, rubs his face, grins faintly as the pills find their way through the brain/blood barrier. "Who was the guy?"
Owen merely sighs at the turmoil, apparently unmoved by the incident at the door. Looking both sullen and bored, he summons the barkeep to settle his bill. Apparently calling it a night, the large man rises from the bar...vacating a valuable seat in the over-crowded bar.
Amano's mental wince manifests in a half-swallowed yelp, spinning 'round to confront her. "Hey! That's not fair!" Too little, to late... He backs off a few steps towards the bar.
Akiko Hops back onto a seat and grabs her drink sipping it for a long moment before turning to view the bar scene and look to see if anything changed.
Jake looks at Jesse a bit, "A few cuts, a few bruses... no idea who the guy was. the cops aren't saying anything on the matter. Except he apparently shot his own hand off. People today..."
Akiko Rolls her head in a streching manner looking extremly bored herself now as she looks about crossing her legs and letting the dangling leg bounce in time to music.
Tom continues to lean against the bar, not even looking up for 'shot his own hand off'; being a fair bit of a bore, actually, a really boring fellow. His jaw tenses... loosely untenses. He takes a break from looking thoughtful and intense - no doubt involved in formulating some kind of big creative breakthrough or whatever. But then again, maybe not. His eyes give him away: he can often be found brazenly gazing at Akiko, enjoying the view while he has it. In, you know, a purely... chaste. Anthropological-slash-artistic way. You know, like that. (pfft.)
Amano is all sulky and exausted after that random little oredeal, draping his arms upon the bar, laying his head there, and wondering over the freaks who rest nearby. He actually seems rather interested in the goings on, which is rather special of him.
Rising from the bar, Owen makes his way through the rough crowd. Still, his size and foul demeanor grants him some personal space as he heads for the door. Brushing past the bouncer, he bids the man "Good evening" and disappears into the moon-lit night beyond.
Penny drinks long, listening to the conversation but really more intent on those biker chicks. She's busy. Busy keeping them at arm's length with the occassional dirty look and brow lift. As if to tell them it's better on that side of the bar. That's not what she's here for, a bar fight. Penny doesn't have time for anything as low as fisticuffs with people; least of all people with helmet hair (she must only take on the pretty people, she looks like the kind of girl that may have been paid to mudwrestle.) No, a fight isn't her scene. No, the height of drama was between her and a feather and now? "Oi, freebie over here" a hand up wave-wave-waving backwards behind her at the bartender.
"Well, serves him right." Jesse shakes his head, tossing his artfully bobbed hair, and lights a new cigarette. "You think that Daddy Frank cat had anything to do with it?"
Luthor heads out to the street.
Luthor has left.
Jake thinks for a bit then comments, "Who's Daddy Frank?"
Jesse shrugs again, returning to his slow, gloved scratching at the length of his arm. "Dunno. His name came up in conversation a couple times. Thought he was the competition."
Daisy comes in from the street.
Daisy has arrived.
Penny laughs, catching that "What, you're saying there's only room in this town for one kinda cult head shop?" Penny uh uhs like she knows everything and Jesse's just being paranoid. And still she's waiting for this elusive free beer.
Jake thinks for a long time, "I never heard about him... competition you say... there's a posibility."
Akiko Is a bit of a regular here she spots penny having a spot of trouble . She takes a pull of her drink draining it before looking over at tom with a smirk she slowly wets her lips with a pink tounge gives him an air kiss and moves over to where penny is " Hey back off sluts she's my girl got it? " a few of them seem to want to say something but back off from the tiny girl for some reason.
"Well, I mean..." Jesse just being paranoid is a little like the ocean just being wet. "Like, we were talking about him the last time I was in there. And, I mean, it's not his real name, obviously, so he's already got an alias, and plus Cadence said what he wasn't really a Bokor, but Voodoo says he'll work for paper. So he's some vreiboter houngan, and the whole martyr complex thing just seems a little too pat, you know what I mean?"
His attention, then, snaps to Akiko. He looks her down, then up, then down again.
"You. Bubblegum. Fuck thee off t'a nunn'ry. Past your bedtime, sweets."
Amano arches a brow at their weird gossip, watching it all with sideway interest. When the freaky little lady with the unzipped pants saunters into the mix, he gapes openly. Woo. Crazy. He forces his mouth closed in a naughty grin and backs off to get a better, safer, view.
Jake nod and seems to think about what jesse said. Alot.
Tom read your description.
Daisy's all pomp and swagger, striding in long and straight, like a man. Aviator sunglasses are propped up amongst her bangs; a cigarette droops, angled, from the corner of her lips. High-fives are dispensed at random to assorted punks. Not a regular, but recognized.
Tom is leaning against the bar, his back to the room in general. A broad expanse of back exposed to numerous disenfranchised fringe types who no doubt would like to take a swing at any gentleman matching the description of 'The Man' - and Tom rather fits the bill nicely. Brave man. As Akiko, you know, tongue-wets and air-kisses, and et cetera, she has his full and complete attention. She carries it all the way over to Penny, where, in fact, his attention diverts. Because, he notes to himself, drinking the beer, while Penny looks different, much different, she is in fact, still who she is, and there is little denying... you know, who you are, especially when you know it - or seem to know it - as well as Penny. So, there she is, and there's Tom, sort of studying her, recognizing her instantly but still. Drawn to the sight of a familiar face by an the sight of unfamiliar flesh. God, verb as he is, as Buckminster Fuller identifies Him, does do his action in mysterious ways.
Akiko Looks to jesse and flicks a finger at him " Hey I didn't ask you besides I don't see you help her with the riftraft you balless dick " she sighs " Hey girl anybody else gives ya greif just say so I'll nail'em other then that have fun call me if you need help " she then moves back to hop onto her seat.
Penny looks over at Jesse and down at the little asian chick. Literally - downward sloping of the nose, chin and maybe even adjusts her stance because it's one thing to look at him in heels and quite another to look at her - size differences being what they are.
The pitch of her voice changes entirely, turns out a different kind of molasses than the stickysweet lingering at the bottom of those glasses at the end of the night "What he means to say is 'I'm with him'" tipping a nod at Jesse in a stern kind of voice, with a certain kind of educated laughter involved for those in the know "..y'know what I mean? You ah, have a nice night.." And her tongue follows with a kind of clicking, drags on a cigarette and makes some gesture in the air at Daisy-low-on-the-radar.
Jesse is on his feet the moment the word 'balless' clear Akiko's lips. Drawing himself to his full height. Rolling out of his seat and flowing upright to, well, loom. Menace, threat, and the certain presence of jailhouse violence in the angles of his stance as he stares down at Akiko, his head listing slowly first one way and then the other, as though his assessment of her might change, given the rotation of his neck.
"Stand up and say that again."
Akiko Hops down from her seat and looks up at jesse her own blue eye's now ice " Sure " she looks up " I said you didn't seem to be helping her with the other biker girls so I decided to do if for you " she pauses " Or perhaps it was the fact I said balles did i touch a nerve? " .
Amano shrugs up his shoulders, baffled, his fingertips tap-taping on bartop like nervous spiders as he inches away and twist 'round to face them. Hell no, it ain't his place, He winces for the girl's sake, if she doesn't have the sense to do so herself.
Penny hangs back, huffing out another cloud of smoke saying "Jesus he's really gonna blow a hole through somebody f'he don't get laid soon" under her breath. Or maybe to Daisy. Depends on a body's unique perspective. Penny could be talking to herself entirely. So she hangs, kicks a boot onto the bar rung and knocks out another cigarette from a nowhere pocket for the other chick. "Smoke'em if y'got 'em.."
And what she's doing, really, is bracing herself for impact.
Jake just watches for now.
Daisy screws herself down into a seat beside Penny, elbows backed up against the bartop. Lit cigarette transitions from lips to hand and lights the other one, which queues up behind the mostly unsmoked first one.
"He still carryin' around that shiv?", she asks nonchalantly, tapping the aviator glasses down over her eyes. "Fucker don't know that's a parole violation?"
Hiro comes in from the street.
Hiro has arrived.
And so this is it: what the evening has been inexorably gliding towards. From the moment he stepped in, Jesse's had a vague foreknowledge that it would come to this, to his gloved hand flexing and adjusting its grip on the neck of a beer bottle, to his squint as he reassesses the space between himself and his fill-the-blanks-in target. The night's had barfight written on it since the beginning, had had the story of the first punch determined even since before Jesse rolled out of bed. His jaw clenches. He looks at the bottle, looks at Akiko, and frowns for a moment, lost in some private reverie. Then blinks.
"Oi, Piggy. Wotcha. You wanna get yer wick dipped? Gotta bluelight here."
Some people do not belong in biker bars.
Hiro, however, posesses a certain fuckered countenance: a indefinite bearing that indicates that -- even if he doesn't belong here -- he personally feels utterly at home anywhere substances which damage neurons are sold.
As such: Hiro, in technicolor dreamcoat, lounge-slumping against the bar alongside Jesse. He rubs his fingertips against the base of his nose; sniffs once, nostrils flaring, scrub with the back of his hand. "Oi, whatsit Jesse J. What's this then?"
Akiko Blinks " What? do you speak English at all or ya dumb as well as balless ? " she shakes her head looks at the bottle " You need a bottle too ? big man arn't ya taking on a girl half your size and you need a weapon too , my my arn't we a standing example of macho might. " She clicks her tounge stud on her teeth.
Jake finishes off his beer and puts down the empty glass. He rubs his face a bit and humms a little to himself.
"It's like Batman," Daisy explains to either Penny or no one in particular. "He got this idea beforehand that the fight's gonna go like this, that he's gonna kick some ass, and you can almost see the cue cards. Biff bam boom. Maybe he seen it in a dream, that's why he's gotta do this shit."
She drags from one cigarette and then the other and exhales their intermingled smoke.
Jesse blinks again, looking back down to Akiko. "You still here?" He bares his snaggletoothed grin again. "Ain't your momma worried?" Jesse looks past her once more to Hiro and giggles. "Shit, 'rho. You gotta help me, here. I think I'm gonna hit a girl."
Jake waves over to the bartender, "Another beer." And he moves a few seats down out of the way of the impending fight.
At the outbreak of what looks as though it may be violence - well, ok, it's got Tom's bourgeoise values all stirred up, and he's got his middle-class backbone up, which also makes his head dip right down at the suggestion of... a fight? That's what criminals do, isn't it? Well, anyway, it's not what Tom does, and -- more reasonably, with much less cowardice involved, Tom knows enough about crowds to know what fights do to them. It gets them, well, freed up from certain social inhibitions. It's why you so often see armies looting, raping, pillaging. You break one commandment, you might as well go for broke - and when one fight starts, you start to see wild eruptions of others. But Penny, no doubt either his guardian angel or maybe just looks settled - and so Tom doesn't go anywhere. Just yet. Tom finishes his Heineken - by prior arrangement, or happy accident, or perhaps the contrivance of the bartender on his behalf, another is brought to him, and promptly, as in just as he finishes his old one. Oh, kind fate! Happy fortune! Tom sips the new Heineken (perhaps his last) in his civilized fashion, and when he isn't sipping beer, he's got his mouth set into this purposeful, determined line. And, you know, he's sort of occasionally still checking out Akiko's unzipped pants, the tattoo around her tits, the whole thing.
//.etro: Petruchio will be joining your location.
Penny mutters to Daisy, "... no... looking,... does... in... direction. That... gesture... passingly... the... a... comraderie... them.... cigarette... lips,... the... stressing to her... impolite and obvious... you slice... down... smoke,... connection... and... starts to... she... motherfucker..."
When no one's looking, Penny does that sidelong thing in Tom's direction. That incredible and timeless gesture of the demimonde. It involves passingly good lighting, the tip of a bottle in a gesture of comraderie and eyelashes. Great huge sweeps of them. Her cigarette burns between her lips, an extension of the words "We're /here/, Daze" stressing to her but talking to Tom's stare, impolite and obvious "it's a violation any way you slice it." Quick fingers draw down the smoke, ashes, re-establishes connection once again. There and there. Penny starts to nod at Tom as she puts a hand on Daisy's arm "So if he's Batman, who's that cool motherfucker over there."
"Why hit her when you can hit that," Hiro mumbles, coming up with a cheap GPC -- once, twice, thrice through the fingers, turning end over end -- and wedging it into one corner of his mouth. The cigarette vibrates at a low hum; pig-boy slaps at the bar for a book of matches, and brings them up for examination. His head tilts to one side; he stares at the little paper sticks. "She looks like a slip'n slide. You got a light, man?"
Amano licks his lips and pushes away from the bar, weaving backwards among the tables until the back of a chair japs into his spine, and he takes the hint, takes a seat, and minds his business while he... browses.
And on down the line goes the cigarette, Daisy's second cigarette, to Hiro. It slips between the Asian kid's fingers without a word, and she turns back to Penny, chevrons of concern having already formed across her brow.
"And shit," she says, perhaps too loudly. "I ain't seen one of them since we left San Fran. Never shoot an honest cop, though, that's what I say.
Akiko Shrugs " Swing or get out of my face but youw anna fight me show some back bone and fight with your fists not with some weapon " she spits to the side " Use a wepon I got nothing wrong with sending you to the hospital other wise this is a bit fo friendly sport I don't mind educating a Gaijin every once and a while ".
Jesse reels faintly, rolling his neck back as though with the force of Akiko's words. His brow furrows, his lips twitching as they sound Akiko's speech out, repeating it to himself, as his shoulders rise and fall, nodding with the rhythm of the phrases. Then he grins, and shakes his head no.
"Nope. This is the part where you go home. And I get drunk." He giggles again. "I had the wrong movie for a sec there. Are you sure you're not up past your bedtime?"
The borrowed cherry dips, rises in the smoky atmosphere; Hiro cups a hand around the tip of his smoke, puffing to ignite via the coal. Then, the cigarette goes to his lips; travels to the same corner as it's twin, and both tilt upwards as he inhales. "Don't be so grouchy baby," he advises. He doesn't even look over; he's staring silently across the bar; as if he were struck with a vision. "You're clearly too sober f'r this kinda shindig. Clearly in need."
The bouncers slowly come walking over to the altercation in progress.
Akiko Snorts " Just as I though balless and dickless " she shakes her head and turns towards the bar " Go away you obviously don't have what it takes gaijin ." she motions for a drink from the bartender.
You paged Petruchio with 'PHENOMENON: With something as simple as the right look at the right time, Penny can lower her target's confidence completely. It's schoolyard rules. Don't mess with the cool kids. (Mind 2) ACTION: She'll come off the bar about a step and get the look in over Jesse's shoulder, briefly, to unnerve the target. Just to check and see he's got things under control and casually move back toward the bar. THEORY: Acting as backup for people (not like bouncers or security but like solid friends with certain knowledge that doom lives in their fists) it is entirely possible to make them look better/more fearsome than they actually are.'
Petruchio pages: Ok... t#5, roll to me.
//.etro: Penny rolls "arete" privately to Petruchio at diff 5.
For a total of 3 success(es) including 1 ten(s).
Petruchio pages: Is she nervious about you or about Jesse?
You paged Petruchio with 'Jesse. Should he hit her, she'll have a really hard time getting up the nerve to a) get back up and b) hit him (raised diffs by +1 or number of succs? your call totally)'.
"I..." Jesse looks confused. He rubs his face, pinching his nose under his glasses. He takes a deep breath, and tries again. Nothing. He shakes his head. Looks to Hiro for support. I mean, you tell me. Guy standing, bottle in his hand, debating whether or not to break it on the side of some girl's head and she's walking away from him. She's walking away. But she's still talking. Jesse's flummoxed. This isn't the way it works. Something's gone very wrong.
If there is a bottle on the bar in Act One, it must be used on the girl with tape on her nipples by the end of Act Two. This violation of fundamental dramatic rules seems to vex Daisy: you can see the bloodlust seep out of her expression, and her interest return to the bar.
A flick of her fingers summons beer to her side. The bar's bad; the bartender's considerably better.
Igg and Ook, the bouncers, look from one person to the other and say in their best shakespearian terms, "I'd der a problem?"
Jesse is pointing after Akiko and gaping, no comprehensible sound escaping his lips.
Hiro exchanges a wordless shrug with Jesse. "You fucked it up," he offers, mildly. "And it won't work -- that's the wrong kind of liqour, and her hair's the wrong color. Not to mention the bar name isn't even a meaningful anagram. Give it up." Upwards look; ironically or hopefully or seriously or balefully - he flashes a peace sign.
Penny looks both ways across the bar, at the bouncers. They see this sort of thing day in, day out - nothing new to them. It'll probably sort itself out. She kinda smiles at one and looks over Jesse's shoulder at Akiko. It's a look not often seen on her face, one so grim and self-assured. Determined. "Go on, JT" chiming accelerated taunts through the bottle. She doesn't touch him - that would be stupid, clearly - but lets the springs inside him tighten, moves back toward the bar.
Akiko Snorts and and hops off her stool walking for the exit " Fuck this place and this shit, no problem I was talking to nothing. " she complete ignores jesse he's beyond her notice now as she saunters towards the door.
Jake puts down his empty mug and heads out himself.
A chemical tang hangs in the air: one of Hiro's cigarettes is giving off a strange aroma, and he doesn't seem to notice. Both get plucked from his mouth in unison; he leans forward to go into assvision mode as Akiko strides off towards the exit.
Let's be honest: Tom is not at all concerned. This is how things operate in the realm of the rational. One guy pisses off one girl, harsh words are exchanged, someone almost gets hit in the mouth with a bottle, and fuck it, it all resolves itself, you know? No one gets hit in the mouth, no one bleeds out, no one dies. Especially not Tom. So Tom relaxes. Tom drinks his beer. Tom looks like a real load got taken off, like his shoulders are no longer stooped under the burden of extremely imminent violence done to his person. Tom lets his own spring come un-sprung, whatever pressing business he was deep in the contemplation of, completely the furthest thing from his mind, such as it is. He fetches a discreet little black box from the pocket of his coat and flips it open. Lifts out a tiny blue pill and discreetly swallows it with a gulp of beer. Before you can say 'the synergistic effect of alcohol with mind-altering psychotropic narcotics', he's got the pill box safe away in his jacket in the midst of all this chaos, and good for him, by god.
Jake slips through the crowd and heads out.
Jake heads out to the street.
Jake has left.
Amano shrinks down and slinks out of his seat, and since the bouncer's concern has drifted off elsewhere, he hopes his exit will warrent less attention than his enterance.
Amano heads out to the street.
Amano has left.
Sacha comes in from the street.
Sacha has arrived.
Akiko heads out to the street.
Akiko has left.
Jesse slumps back onto his barstool, the narrative thread of his evening lost. He blinks sleepily and bares a wide yawn, propping his head up on one hand. "Huh."
Nonchalantly, Penny observes of the door hitting Akiko's ass on the way out "Well that was ..fun." A puss a sour turn, a drop in the corner of her mouth where there was the curbed mark of a grin just a moment ago. To her collegues she sighs, flicks a butt off to the side and gestures for another "What the fuck are we /doing/ here?"
In the pocket, an open plastic bag. In the open plastic bag, an anonymous powder. Thumb goes in pocket, thumbnail (a rather unorthodox cokenail, but the only one she can't maneuver to bite down effectively) comes out with a loose payload of upper, and goes to Daisy's nose. She inhales sharply.
Entire maneuver takes, what, four seconds? Entire maneuver's hard to detect, but a sudden rush of induced paranoia causes her to turn back around and pay especial attention to the beer sitting in front of her.
"This place's a buzzkill," agrees Hiro, freeing himself from the counter's gravitational pull with a carefully placed elbow. "I'm gonna go watch the golden girls." With that, Hiro begins to totter off towards the door.
Sacha walks in. It's been a loong time since he's been seen around here. Not since almost getting into another fight with some random person over shit and other shit. The tattooed man heads towards the bar nodding to the bartender looking for familiar faces.
Hiro heads out to the street.
Hiro has left.
Yeah. Well. Whatever Tom was here for, well, either he got it (free beer) or it's gone (certain intangible sense of promise - the whole night lie out in front of him, like, to rudely paraphrase, some patient etherized upon a table)... and so, finishing his second beer, feeling the effects of the pill begin to radiate out, feeling a certain clarity of thought, a lack of distortion, an increase in mental fidelity... he's leaving crisp dollar bills on the bar, he's making sure he didn't leave his cell-phone out on the bar, he's performing, yup, all the stuff you generally do before you split.
Penny ohs! like there was something extremely important that was supposed to happen much, much earlier in the evening. "Daze, listen hold up wait, wait" tugging the girl back over to a table near the front. Or whatever. In between biker and bouncer glares, Penny reaches into the deep trench-coat-pocket and pulls out a folded newspaper clipping "We should definitely do this."
The flush that passes over Daisy's cheeks lights her acne scars in sharp relief, even underneath the too-much-makeup. The posture changes too: from shoulders-forward punk swagger to an aw-shucks slouch, eyes averted and expression pointedly unreadable.
"I ain't what you'd call prime material for that," she says, "on account of they'd have to do some pretty serious work on my scars."
From the hand that crosses over to rub at the opposite forearm, it's apparent that it's not just the acne.
And that's that, isn't it? Affairs settled, et cetera, Tom makes for the door. Without objection, it should be noted - the bikers are as gracious letting him out as they were letting him in - that is to say, he has a sore spot on the /other/ side of his ribs, a pleasant little symmetry to contemplate as he eases out into the night and gratefully makes his way home.
Penny snatches the paper back from Daisy, just looks at her and says in the most obvious tone "We totally need the money. And I'm not going by myself. Fuck that, my luck I'd get raped and murdered. And I'm *so* not bringing Piggy. He'd .." well whatever it is she says, it's funny and clever and totally girl-talk-private. "Please come? You don't have to like.. do anything. Picture you're an agent," guiding Daisy out the door on the heels of Tom.
Once that's out of the picture, the swagger comes back, and Daisy's inscrutable expression stabilizes, finally, into a scowl. "Yeah. Picture I'm seventeen feet tall and made of gold, 'cause that's way more believable."
Rose White walks in, smiles, and heads over to the bar.
Rose White sits down at Long wooden bar.
Tom tries not to let the door hit him on the ass, on his way out.
Tom heads out to the street.
Tom has left.
Penny links arms with Daisy because they are going home together. Not "together" but ..together. Charging out the door. So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, good night.
"Good. Because it's on my list of things to do before I die."
