Starbucks(#547RIJM)
In the fashion of all Starbucks, this coffee house is styled after the Italian coffee bars where regulars sit at small table and booths and drink espresso with their friends. It provides a seductive atmosphere, sleek yet comfortable. The coffee preparers, known as 'baristas', Italian for bartender, are busy behind the counter preparing various caffeine filled beverages. The aroma of their creations teases your senses. The counter and the entire room feature plenty of burnished wood and brass. About the place sophisticated artwork hangs on the walls. The sound of soft-rock music can be heard over the continuous murmur of the patrons. Through the front window pedestrians can be seen, glancing back at you as the aroma coming through the front door distracts them.
-- Places Available Here --
Contents:
Jennifer
Obvious exits:
Out
+time
//.etro: It is 3:01 pm, late afternoon, on Monday the 22. day of September, 2008.
Compton walks in from the dull heat of a Canadian autum day. He look tired and haggered as he steps in to line with the other caffine junkies and awaits his administration.
Jennifer sips some mocha and seems to be towards the end of reading the daily paper.
As the line slowly crawls forward, the big guy eventually gets to a server, "Large coffee, black." he says simply.
The server of cource, in typical Starbucks pomp asks, "Is that a Columbian, Etheopian, or house blend?"
"Fuck, I dunno, house..." He says with growning annoyance.
"Right, House. Was that caf or no caf?" The highschool student asks as she decends in to the second level of the archane ordering system of the 'bucks.
Compton sighs heavily, and repeats himself firms "Large. Coffee. Black."
The girl behind the counter blinks, and gets that surly minimum wage coffee server look on finally, "You mean Venti?" she asks, twisting the last word in to a sarcastic statement.
"What the fuck ever you stuck up twat. We're in Canada! Not Italy, which I'm sure you don't even speak italian! So why can't you say LARGE?" Compton's yelling now. The manager behind the bar, you know, the one elevated enough not to wear an apron, walks towards the two.
Starbucks manager says, "Sir? Please calm down, she's only doing her job." The pimply manager states. Instantly taking her side.
Jennifer chuckles a little watching now "Chill man... you will get your caffiene fix. Though I must admit even italians aren't this obnoxious
Compton clamps his lips closed. His face and head turning a vivid purple/red color as he simmers. "Lagre coffee. Black." he repeats for the two of them, which amazingly gets the job done this time. The manager nods to his underling, which then turns to pour some black fluid from a pot in to a styrofoam cup, and place it on the counter. Comtpon drops a 'toonie' and 50 cents, and takes his cup to the prep island. "Fucking place. " He grumbles at you as he passes to find himself a lid.
Jennifer laughs amused and nods lightly. "Indeed... mind company if your staying?
Compton snaps a platic lid on his java, and looks at you for a long second. Debating with himself. "Sure" he eventually says with some certanty."Back there" he jerks a thumb over his shoulder towards the back of the room. Then turns and plods off that way.
A small table by the window (#1) has 3 empty places.
A larger table by the front door (#2) has 2 empty places.
A quiet booth in the back (#3) has 6 empty places.
A table near the serving counter (#4) has 3 empty places.
A cozy table for two (#5) has 3 empty places.
A seat at the counter (#6) has 3 empty places.
Present: Jennifer
A comfortable sofa (#7) has 3 empty places.
A table at the back (#8) has 3 empty places.
sit at #8
You sit down at a table at the back.
Jennifer stands and leaves a seat at the counter.
Jennifer gets a new mocha from them before heading over, they have a lot less trouble with hers
after she says Venti White Chocolate Mocha. She settles at your table.
Jennifer sits down at a table at the back.
Jennifer joins you.
Jesse comes in off the street following the rich aroma of coffee.
Jesse has arrived.
Compton situates himself so that Jen is between him and the front counter. He makes sure of this by peering over Jennifers shoulder a few times.
Jennifer watches this "What are you doing?"
Compton reaches in to his pants, no not the pocket, but down in front. From there he pulls out a small vial of some black viscous fluid, before reaching back in and adjusting himself, "Who me?" he asks with feigned surprise as he puts the boys right again, "Just getting some flavour".
Spotting Jesse by the counter he uses his free hand and waves it in the air.
Jennifer chuckles lightly "Right..." sips her coffee and seems amused
Compton says, in Enochian, "Jesse. In the dark watching."
Four in the afternoon on a Monday. The jobless are just waking up and fiending for the first installment of the day's long infusions of precious caffeine. Jesse lets the door swing shut behind him, drifting into the brasserie and glancing about the midafternoon loafers and layabouts. On seeing Compton, he raises a lazy hand, responding to the wave with a peace sign, then gesturing for a cigarette. "...abiding?"
Compton makes with the 'hangloose' sign, and then pauses looking slightly confused, he then mumbles to Jen, "...you smoke...?"
Jesse positions himself between Compton and the barista, drifting ahead of him in line. "Yeah, cheers. Uh. A medium... no, wait... large... hey, do you guys have Soy back there? Is it good? 'cause, you know... when you steam bad soy, it gets tha nasty flavor? Like, uh... you know. What's it like? Sort of.... burnt blackberries?" Rambling, confused, taking his time with his order. And, if that doesn't take enough time, he's got pockets full of change to lose count of repeatedly.
Compton doesn't wait for a response from her before finishing his 'handiwork' with index amd middle finger held together and pointed right, finsihed witht he 'A-Ok'sign.
Jennifer watches the signs and then shakes her head. "No, I tend to avoid anything affecting my sense of the now, to dangerous these days.
Compton looks back from Jesse to Jen, and raises his brows, crinkling his forhead in deep ridges, "Right, well. Good for you." he says. Barely even remembering the original question, turning back to his uncrotched vial again.
Jesse eventually negotiates for a steaming cardboard cup of something caffeinated and sweet. He gets his drink at the side counter, turns around and leans against the front counter again, once more blocking the barista from Compton as he grins at the old man. "Du sieh'st, mein Sohnday..." He laughs, shakes his head, then shrugs. "Glad to see somebody's awake. Fucking Daze snores s'goddamned loud she's drunk, not even worth pretending to sleep. Plus the goddamned channel button's stuck on the dream box, and all I get is the fucking apocalypse channel."
Jennifer looks curious and asks softly "Dream box?"
Compton peers up once more, at Jesse's incessant diatribe, and snaps the head off the vial.
Compton says, in Enochian, "Whatever fucking god is in charge of this coffee, hear me and do what I say... please."
After Comptons short line in some odd-ball language, the up ends the vial over his steaming coffee and lets the thick fluid lump it's way out.
//.etro: Compton rolls "intelligence+science" at diff 6
For a total of 2 success(es).
Alyx has arrived.
Jesse taps two fingers against the side of his head and nods to the biker. "Yeah. Dream box. Don't work if you're stuck in the now, though." His voice drops into the range of irony and sarcasm for the last phrase, then rises again. "And Jeezis, you seen Freyaday's fucking strapon? Gnostic apotheosis of wood my ass that's fucking creepy. Element that does not unnecessarily reproduce. Fuck your mother I can't even look at her straight since she got Freya." He sniffs. "His name's Apollo. The one you're talking to. Who else?"
//.etro: Compton rolls "arete" at diff 5
For a total of 1 success(es).
Jennifer blinks looking between Jesse and Compton trying to piece together whatever it is they are babbling about now.
The fluid disapears in to Comptons coffee. With but a short undulating of the surface as if it's being stirred from below, it look absolutly like it did before. The old guy picks up his cup , and takes a sip. Smiling for the first time since he's been here.
Starbucks is blessed with the arrival of another patron - Alyx. Though it's mid-afternoon, she looks like she might not actually have been out of bed all that long, as she trudges towards the counter, in search of life-giving coffee. Only to order....decaf.
Jesse moves away from where he'd been leaning against the counter, a nod and a raise of his foamed something to Alyx when she walks in. Leaning instead against the closest table, he sets his coffee down, pulls a film canister from his satchel, shakes a couple of pills from it, and washes them down with the steaming drink. "Here's to the reverend Sun Yun Moon."
Jennifer excuses herself pushing her chair back. "Be right back." heads in for the bbathroom
Jennifer stands and leaves a table at the back.
Jennifer has departed.
The smell of cooked liver seems to be eminating from the back of the room. Where Jennifer and Compton are sitting. This mixes with the coffee bean smell closer to the door. But closer tot he rear, the acrid bile smell is hard to ignore.
Jesse winces, shaking his head and sighing as he watches Compton drink his coffee. "Did the Brit turn you onto that shit?" Another sip. "Thought you were supposed to be..." He looks at the old man, frowning with curiosity. "Tell me that's not some goldberg backalley shortcut to the kaywhole."
Alyx flicks Jesse a casual salute as she collects her mug of caffine-less coffee, sipping the brew with apparent relief. "Mm. yo, sailor," she muses to the obscured Elvis, while offering Compton a friendly smile as well.
"Hey." Jesse cracks a crooked grin. "How's my favorite shark in the meme pool?" He pauses, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he looks down for a moment. "...pool meme?" Jokes have a way of getting out of control shortly after the consumption of an entheogen, you see.
Compton looks up from his 'coffee' at Jesse and his smile fades a bit to a smirk, "It's not. Drinking 'Ire-ish' cream today." he replies, a funny inflection placed on the word Irish. He then gives Alyx the old 'finger-gun salute'.
Jesse nearly spits his coffee with sudden laughter at Compton's comment. "Nice."
"Want some?" he offers his now suspect cup of fluid to the 'King'. Comptons eyes have become somewhat glassy in the last few minutes.
Alyx winks at Jesse. "Alive and seeking blood?" she quips, gesturing to her coffee, before blowing Compton a kiss. It must be one of those random-impulse things. "You?"
Jesse shakes his head no. "No. I'm supposed to be crazy for a week, not Irish. That big red shit's rotting my teeth out, I swear." He turns back to Alyx and gives a lazy shrug. "Bringing the war, rallying the masses. Repelling invasions from the shores of my brain. Usual shit for a Monday."
The pimply manager from behind the counter, starts shooting annyoyed looks at the rear of the establishment. Comptons already had a run in with him, and the pencil-necked twerp would ove nothing more than to have an excuse to have the cops called in on him. The acrid smell comming from the area is most likely what's tipping him off. Unfortunatly there's a fre back there, and he can't just go throwing people out. It might be that skaggy looking biker bitch after all.
"Sounds thrilling," Alyx remarks to Jesse's comment, smiling languidly. "Me, I'm happy with just marshalling my thoughts together into an orderly line and letting them die one by one under a wave of sweet coffee."
"Ideas are born dead." The old hipster comments uninvited, "It's whwere you hide the bodies that's important." Apaprently that made sense enough to him to say aloud.
I heard there was a secret chord
that David played and it pleased the lord.
Jesse's headphones are broadcasting music still, curled laurel-like about the base of his neck. Stretching in place, the gaunt houngan tilts his head to one side, staring absently at the large Starbucks logo on the opposite wall. "This place is so weird. Full on Tibetan Black Hat Fong Shway. Mining the dragon lines and clusterbombing neighborhoods. They're so good. So very good at what they do. You walk in anywhere, and you're on their planet and in their warm and cloying radiance. I... it's absorbing. It's a flytrap it is." He glares at the mermaid in the logo. "...wake us and we drown. This would be a horrific place to wake up, in sight of the sirens."
Jennifer steps back out of the bathroom looking around then heading back over.
"But they have nice shitters." Compton adds, "Best place to take a public dump if need be." he says this nodidng at Jen as she returns, "And they're always single seaters, so you can lok the person in the eye, who waiting to go in next, after you've nuked the place. It's important to know your victems afterall, right?" he asks, now nodding to Alyx and lifting his cup of 'stuff'and taking another belt.
Alyx finds herself a seat near Compton, kicking her feet up on the tabletop once she's settled. "Foul beast. I bet it's you that keeps blocking up the toilet at McDonalds, isn't it," she accuses mildly.
Alyx sits down at a table at the back.
Alyx joins you.
Jennifer snags her seat, her mocha is there after all and settles down by Alyx now. "So whats up Alyx?""
"This one time in fresno," Jesse begins, mumbling a low, steady torrent of rounded syllables, his lips drooping sluggishly around the words, "I'd shot in the bathroom and when I came out, the coke was wah wah wahing and bleaching my vision and everything was poing pinprick, past tunnel vision, you know?"
"So I'm sitting and whiteknuckling it, praying that I don't OD right then and there in the middle of the fucking starbucks and behind the wah wahs, behind the white light, the only thing in the tunnel was the mermaid and she's singing under the music in here."
"It's why they have their own CDs. They're running NLP scams all the time. Soporifics. Audio vicodin. And so I tune into the signal, and she's smiling at me and... and the reason they've got good bathrooms is 'cause they've got soulcatchers up for all the poor junkies who OD looking for a safe warm place to be left alone."
Innocent until proven guilty, ma'am." Compton retorts, "To have Daisy tell it, its an Hamas plot."
"There ya go." Compton says in coda of Jesses explaination.
Alyx eyes Jesse bemusedly. "I can think of worse fates than to be sung to death by a mermaid," she observes, head cocking to the side slightly. "And it serves you right for shooting up in a place where caffine rules supreme. There's only room for /one/ drug in this here cafe," she adds, the latter comment spoken in a western-style cowboy's accent.
"If the mermaids sing you to death, you don't get to wake up when you die." Jesse rubs his face sorrowfully, looking around and frowning. "You're stuck here, back in this place, for another spin of the wheel."
Jennifer sips her mocha and falls to listening now.
Jesse shrugs, shaking his head no. "No, that's the problem. The lesson isn't learned. You don't get to wake up. They catch you and keep you here. Asleep. Drunk. Smoldering in the wet ashes."
You say, "Caffine is the new religion, and the opium for the masses. This place is an opium den, just with fucking pompus Italian words of things like LARGE!"
Compton hits the last word hard and loud, shooting it over that he manager behind the counter. The peckerwoods eyes narrowing back at the outburst.
Jennifer laughs "He got into a near riot with the staff when they insisted on calling it a Venti.. it was great
Jane comes in off the street following the rich aroma of coffee.
Jane has arrived.
"Oy, calm down, you two," Alyx murmurs to Compton and Jesse. "They like to pretend they've got italian backgrounds - who are we to dispell their little dreamworld?"
We heard Ian Curtis
Killed himself again
In your bed.
Jesse's headphones maintain the quiet radius of their sound. Shoulders drooped, he hasn't looked away from the logo behind the bar since he started on this. Cap pulled low, he slouches against the table, the effects of the entheogen on his pupils hidden by the shadows of the brim. "Language is a gun. They know this and so do we. Only problem is, we're holding the end that goes boom."
Jesse is leaning against a table, legs crossed at the ankles, a cup of apidly cooling foamed something ignored behind him. He is staring across the room at the logo behind the wall. He is tripping, though it might not be obvious since he's also probably insane. He's carrying the bass and tenor ranges of a conversation to which Compton has the percussion and the alto ranges - Jesse is a low, steady mumble. Compton is the jarring explosion of ire and invectives.
@emit There is a rather strong odour of cooked liver comming from where Jennifer is stting, which also happen to be where Compton, Alyx and Jesse are all aroudn too.
There is a rather strong odour of cooked liver comming from where Jennifer is stting, which also happen to be where Compton, Alyx and Jesse are all aroudn too.
We don't talk about love. / We only want to get drunk
Jesse lifts his cup to his lips, blowing across its surface before sipping again at the nearly congealed fam and sugar concoction. He rolls his head, stretching his neck, then finally looks away from the logo, blinking as he returns his attention to his surroundings.
"So E Rock. 'tsa plan today? Penn and I started a new gig last night. Want we should keep it rolling?"
Jane sniffs a couple of times, then heads towards the counter, to order
Jennifer finishes off her mocha and hms contemplating a refill now. Ah the simple decisions
Compton sucks the last of the vile fluid from his cup, and crumples the remains in his hand, leaving it on the table for one of the minions to pick up, "Sure thing Jazzy-J." the big guy responds, "Tell me."
Jesse says, in Enochian, "Monkey wrenching. Reclaimed a sign. Liberate the logosphere."
Jesse switches abruptly to english, after a few phrases in another language. "Anyway so I was reading Deleuze again and he's got this rhizome schtick, dig? And so I'm thinking that we need to figure out this schizoanalysis thing. Run it past Piggy, maybe use it as a schema for the son et lumiere cutups we've been talking about?"
Compton says, in Enochian, "Dig. Want we should take an infidel along?"
Jane pauses in her passage to the bar to glance around at the language students, then returns to her passage to the bar.
Jesse shakes his head no. He says, in Enochian, "Don't trust a one of them."
Compton says, in Enochian, "I don't either. But after Daze and Hiros stunt, thought it might be fun to drag the enemy along, make them destroy their own world."
Compton quips back at Jesse in their strange and etherial language.
Compton stands and looks to Jesse, and says with a shrug, "Whatever. Is all static anyways. Static and wind."
Jesse laughs, still shaking his head no. "Dude. Porcupines fucking, dig? C'mon - for serious. Deleuze. Schizoanalysis. Rhizomes. Piggy hero running cutups on the big screen. Can you build a, uh..." He gestures vaguely. "You know. A thing. To synchronize video cuts to a drumbeat?"
Jane collects her coffee, and leans against the counter, watching the bilingual banter, with a faintly amused air
Compton mimics Jesse's hand motions, "Yeah, yeah - a thing. Speak right you fucktard. You mean a Digi-analog editor?" he says with some sense of authority.
"Language is a gun. They know this and so do we. Only problem is, we're holding the end that goes boom." Jesse nods slowly, scratching the stubble on his cheek, and takes another slow sip of his coffee, then tilts his head to one side, turning to Compton. "So E Rock. 'tsa plan today? Penn and I started a new gig last night. Want we should keep it rolling?"
"Sure thing Jazzy-J." the big guy responds, "Tell me."
Jesse says, in Enochian, "Monkey wrenching. Reclaimed a sign. Liberate the logosphere."
Compton replys to Jesse's question again, with a smoothness and clairty totally undercutting the odd redundancy.
Compton says, in Enochian, "Dig. Want we should take an infidel along?"
Jesse shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck, and glances across the bar, watching the transactions at the counter, money for coffee, priced by the adjective. "Anyway so I was reading Deleuze again..." A tug at the brim of his cap, another sip, "... and he's got this rhizome schtick, dig? And so I'm thinking that we need to figure out this schizoanalysis thing." Staring into the foam as though reading his future in its waves and eddies. "Run it past Piggy, maybe use it as a schema for the son et lumiere cutups we've been talking about?"
Jane sips her coffee quietly, still watching, and apparantly listening to, the interplay.
Compton reaches up and scrathes beneith his mullet, "Idea. There's the big Sony on the east side. All electronics. Easy to do."
Jesse turns, folding himself into a seat and sprawling back in it, one leg splayed out, the other bent beneath. His dirty fingernails drum along with the soft tinny music from the headphones around his neck. Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk. "Peaches can probably get knockoffs cheap, though."
Jesse sits down at a table at the back.
Jesse joins you.
Compton apparently ready to leave, stops and returns to his seat as plans seem to change like the wind.
You say, "No you feeb. The sign, sign. Easy of here. The big Sony sign."
Jennifer looks between them and shakes her head slipping back tothe counter.
Jennifer orders herself another Mocha
Jane says, "Now, didn't someone write...."
Jane says, in Enochian, "You wouldn't want people to mistake you for a bunch of vandals, would you?"
Jesse blinks, wincing at Compton's diatribe, then pans across to Jane's addition. A laugh, blurted out, and he shakes his head. "Fuck off, geezer. I'm the fucking Moonie this week, I'm supposed to be nuts." Then he tugs his capbrim at Jane. "Jaytee. Eye See. Pleasedta."
Compton says, in Enochian, "I'd rather be mistaken for a pron star able to put my cock in my ear, but that's about as likely."
Compton grimices like he just bit his tounge, "Fuck, ow." apparently he did, "Mean't porn sthar... but whatefer, you goth the point." he says, a lisp appearing.
Jane nods gravely, "You can call me Doctor Smith. Delighted."
"So, Smitty, what's all this about who wrote what where and why?" Jesse grins over his coffee, his splayed boot reeling itself in slowly, until its heel is hooked on the lip of his chair's seat, offering his elbow a comfortable perch on the resultingly raised knee.
Compton leans back in his chair, the cheap pine of it creaking beneith his mass, be crosses his arms acorss his chest and goes in to full grouch-mode.
Jane says, "You haven't read that quote? But it's from the book you were quoting... and so beautfully too, if you don't mind me mentioning it. You have a lovely accent, far nicer than mine.... I bet you went to a Private school, didn't you?"
Jesse shakes his head no. "Home schooled." A grin, hidden under a tug of his hat, his face realigned under the brim's shadow. "What book was I quoting? When? Geezer, was I quoting something again?" He knocks twice on the side of his head with his hand's heel. "Sorry. Bad habit of doing that, I've got. Transparancy to broadcast media. Bitch of a thing." He sniffs. "So. Uh. Right. When were we? Here. Wo weilest du, meine sohn? Did we have a plan and I've forgotten it, or are we about to make one?"
Jennifer has disconnected.
Compton lisps out with his swelling tounge, "Yer dah Moonie, where you lead I'd follow. Want I should call Pobsy or just hail a cab?"
You give me a rope, I'll hang myself. / It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
Don't have to be fucking brilliant to see / I'm not as smart as I seem to be.
The digitally pilfered sounds from Jesse's personal audiosphere fade in and out of intelligibility, snippets of lyrics escaping into the lacunas of conversation. He frowns, watching his toe move from side to side, then looks back to Compton. "Huh? I think the Brit's holed up again. Daze was snoring like she was drunk and I didn't see piggy so I figure the brit cooked something up last night while me and Penn were out. Don't think he's in the game right now."
He pulls a knockoff palm pilot from his satchel, held together with electrical tape, and pokes at it with his stylus. "Lemme ask the ancients." He squints at the flat green screen. "I ching says... hexagram fifty six. Lu. The Wanderer. That's Ahasuerus. What's it say..." He reads, from the six thousand year old chinese divination system, digitally encoded onto the Malaysian ersatz handheld computer.
"The situation is shifting, and Yang (the active masculine force) is gaining ground." "I think that's Penny." The future is embodied in Hexagram 49, Ko. Revolution. What takes place is believed in only after it has been accomplished. There will be great progress and success. Advantage will come from being firm and correct. In that case, occasion for repentance will disappear.
"
You say, "I guess that sets it then. We have a plan."
Jane chuckles, listening idly, whilst she keeps sipping her coffee.
Jesse shakes his head no. "One, I think it's bad to pull the same stunt twice, two it's monday which is my day which means, uh... I forget, but it had something to do with the water. And three, I think we should make Hiro dress in drag because it's his fucking week to be Judy and he hasn't left his room once."
Compton uncrosses his arms and stretches. Folding them behind his head, and interlackinbg his fingers together under his mullet. "Fine we stay. Don't know what the entire Wandering kike thing had anything to do with anything then."
Alyx stirs from what could only be a coffee-induced daydream, chiming in, "Judy? Who's Judy?"
You say, "This week? Pig boy."
"He pissed Jesus off and got cursed to wander the earth 'till the second serpent came back." Jesse frowns, shrugging. "Dunno, man. Maybe it's a keep your head down? At least we got Ko for the future. That's pretty bitching. Hiro's Judy. I was, now he is. I'm the Moonie. On account of I gotta be a lunatic for a while. E Rock's mein sohn, and he's a great big kaywhole."
Jane contemplates for a moment or two, then remarks, as though to herself, "I think this routine was funnier when it was the Marx brothers doing it."
Jesse shakes his head no to Jane, and shrugs. "Ego Identity is one of the seven chakras. The seven qlippoth that bind the soul to the body. They burned the books where Jesus laughed. All part of the prison. Just another black iron wall to tunnel through."
Jane corrects slightly. "Chain. Black iron chain. And it's 'to cast off'."
Compton starts to glare poignantly at Jane, and her all too helpful corrections.
"Prison. Black Iron Prison." He shrugs. "Or chain. Whatever. Point being, it's their world and their language and their game. Cheat codes or no, we're still playing until we can find the off switch. And that's just not anywhere on the grid."
At your table Compton grumbles, "This one is the enemy, I swear it."
Jane says, "Which all sounds terribly mystic and rebellious, until you realise it was written pretty much identically in the 9th century."
"We're still living in the first century. It's a prison. The Empire never ended." Jesse's voice finds that familiar low monotono mumble with which he lets these diatribes spill. "God - the divine intelligence orbitting and forgotten outside the spacetime donut, God shoots phosphene lasers of sentient infomation that look like Kandinski paintings. From outside, dig? Into the prison. To wake us up. The Naassenes were burned, the Docetists crushed. Origen's been edited out, and we bomb the fuck out of the Sufis whenever they settle down long enough that they might actually start writing something."
At your table Jesse says "Yes. People like her are why we have the sixth protocol."
Compton lowers his arms, and toys with his crushed cup on their table. Letting Jesse tell it how it is.
Jane says, "And the Bulgars, and the Gnostics?"
Jesse, of course, is speaking from that curious transparent place where he doesn't know the difference between 'I went to the library and read VALIS' and 'God shot lasers into my brain.'
"The Gnostics turned invisible and dissapeared." He shrugs. "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. It's all the same game, they just trade hats offstage."
Jane says, "I believe they had a little help..."
Jane says something in a language you don't understand.
Jane says, "To coin a phrase."
Jesse shakes his head no, shrugging.
"I don't know what I think I am, Smitty. But I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I'm not some private school jailyard bully. I didn't learn the cheats just so I could fuck with the sheep, or wage some pointless pretend play war against an enemy I created." He pulls the threadbare brim of his hat low over his eyes. "I'm not a scholar. I'm not writing a term paper. I am the weight swinging at the end of the golden chain. I am the bullet fired from a gun two thousand years old. You're having morning coffee and arguing semantics. I'm trying to figure out the next brick to break." He snorts. "People like you are why we have a sixth protocol."
Compton reaches over, his big and unfolding into a flat palm, and brigs it upside the back of Jesse's head.
Jesse yelps, bringing his hands up to hold the sides of his head. "Ow! Fucker!" He glares at Compton, but slumps in his seat and, blessedly, stops talking.
"Sorry ma'am." the big guy says mollifying, "He's a fucked up lil junk whore. Just ignore him." he's saying this towards Jane, and not the dozing Alyx whose missing all the fun as usual.
Jane says, "Yes... yes, I noticed. Which is a shame, because in there somewhere are some interesting paraphrasings of early medieval heretic mystics." She smiles blandly, "I did my PhD on something not dissimilar. It's nice to hear them in a modern context."
Jesse is sulking. Eyes downcast, studying the stains on his knees. Fingers winding and unwinding. Lips pursed, jaw clenched, a savage frown drawing the sharp angles of his face into jagged relief. He does not, however, make a sound.
Marion comes in off the street following the rich aroma of coffee.
Marion has arrived.
Marion walks in the door and glances around before moving to the counter and placing an order for a White Chocolate Grande Mocha along with a couple of rasberry scones.
Daisy has arrived.
Jesse is sitting, his back to a table, his hat pulled low, glaring down at his knees. Sulking, in other words.
Marion pays for her food and drink, then snags a paper before walking over to an empty table and sitting.
Compton shakes out his hand, and returns to playing with the crumpled coffee cup in front of him.
Alyx seems to be snoozing upright in her seat. Don't expect much there.
Marion sits down at a quiet booth in the back.
Jane is leaned against the counter, sipping coffee, and has apparantly just been talking to the group of misfits, for she is regarding them with a look of faint amusement.
It's a Starbucks. It's just like any Starbucks.
Enter one (1) faux bohemian, beret cocked 45 degrees, cigarette likewise at a 45 degree angle in her mouth, sunglasses, likewise, tilted -- these by virtue of having only one arm, rather than by her choice -- on her head.
One double mocha skinny.
No, you have to call the size by it's Italian name.
It therefore takes Daisy a long time to order, during which sh eidles.
The pencil necked manager that gave Compton a hard time earlier approached the counter where Daisy is standing and says in this weedly little voice, "Excuse me miss? Excuse me? This is a NON-smoking establishment." he sneers, pointing at the red crossed out ciggy icon, and the 'Maximum Fine $5000" printing at the bottom.
Jane glances at her watch, and sighs. "Still, however delightful it is to wander through the garden of bright images, are we not distracting your mind from other, more important, matters?" And with that, she drains her cup, places it on the counter, and starts towards the door.
Jesse looks up. Sees Daisy. Resumes the mumble. "Oi. Daze. My head fucking hurts. Sonny hits too hard. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to. Lunacy. Water. Sun Yun Moon, right? Right. So, the mesc's hitting my fucking Visuddha chakra and everyone's all weird and..." He glances sideways at Compton and abruptly cuts off the ramble, dropping his eyes back to the floor.
Jane walks out into the busy world leaving the rich aroma of Starbucks behind.
Jane has left.
Marion seems oblivious to everything around her as she calmly reads her paper and eats her food.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er vales and hills....when all at once, I saw a crowd...." Alyx murmurs, stirring from her daydream once more, smiling beautificly at those around her. One might almost imagine her to be stoned, except she hasn't been seen taking anything since she entered.
Of cource there's probably enough psycho-actives airating from her table mates, that nothing can be assumed at this point. Compton frowns and crosses his arms again, and mutters somthing akin to an appology to Jesse for manhandling him. As much fun as that sounds, it rarely is.
Jesse shakes his head no, shrugging it off. "Still think she needed a reroll. See how she likes it, she's the one against the wall."
You say, "Not arguing. Just not yet. Pretend Peachy was here."
"Peachy?" Alyx wonders, sipping from her by-now-very-cold coffee, and making a face. "....shit. Someone should invent coffee that dosen't get cold so fucking quickly."
Jesse's mouth opens to respond, then closes again, and he nods. "Right. What would Peaches do?" He frowns. "Prolly sew my lips shut again like last time. You have any idea how much that hurt?"
Marion murmers softly to herself as she turns the page on her paper, shaking her head on occasion as she reads something.
Compton's demeanour lightens some at this, "Ah, you liked it. We all know." and then raises a hand and snaps his fingers in the air a few times, raising his voice towards the peckerwood manager bugging Daisy, "Oh garcon? Service?" he calls out, knowing full well that's not how it usually works in here.
"Wel, maybe. But the whole Xombi show afterward - sewing my clothes shut, turning my pockets inside out... fucking lame. Why doesn't Peachy every have to be the Moonie?" Jesse shakes his head and finishes the last of his coffee. "Where can we go that lets us smoke?"
"The Pot?" Compton says perking up considerably.
"Sure. Dude who owns it wanted to give me a deejaying gig there. Figured I should check it out." Jesse nods. "Actually, we need to get four together and talk about that place. Got a couple of questions I need to ask the egregore about."
Marion glances up from her paper and looks over at the counter person and smiles, tshe stands up and goes back over and hands thecup back and makes hand signs.. which the counter girl returns. She laughs at some extra handsigns she makes and nods. "Oh yes. It does take that many to screw in a lightbulb." she winks.
"Right. Whatever. Sure." Compton agrees with Jesse in short order. Apparently the idea of nekkid dancing ladies is good with him, "Ya think Daze would want to go?" then looks down at Alyx, "Or you? Nothing finer than a chick goin' to a strip club." He says this, which in all likely hood considered a compliment from him, but falls short in to the tactless dustbin.
Marion chuckles and pays for her refill, then wanders back over to her seat and folds the paper over to the comic strips.
"I've already been," Alyx replies brightly to Compton. "Mr Browne is a lovely host, you know. I can really reccomend the place, and yes, I'll tag along."
***At this point we lost most of our cast for OOC reasons. I'm assuming we all went of to the Honey Pot. Compton most likely got loaded, molested one of the dancers, then got thrown in to a dumpster by the bouncers.***
