Doing the daily New York Times crossword puzzle was one of Vienna’s favorite parts of the day. It was a way to relax and just not think about what was going around her. Although, that sometimes had it’s downside. Hearing a voice, green eyes raised up to someone standing in front of her. “Hi. Can I help you?” @slchat
Hope looked up from where she sat close to the girl. It was obvious she had been crying. Wiping away at a tear, she wasn’t kidding anyone though, not with her red nose and puffy eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m — usually not like this,” she explained, feeling awkward.
Caleb stood behind the bar of the Dungeon serving drink after drink for the time being. It had been a relatively slow night, one of the ones Caleb hated because it often caused his mind to wander and completely threw his off his ‘work mojo’. Of course, these nights tended to happen during the beginning of the week and the middle of the week. The only bright side to his situation at the moment was that the energetic guy only had an hour left of his shift, and then he could become a regular guest and finally tap into the liquor that had been calling his name all night. Not to mention, he could begin to make his way back to his place, finally. At the end of the day, he always enjoyed crashing on his bed and watching a good movie.
One hour turned to thirty minutes, which also marked the moment another guest walked through the doors this evening. From the moment the person entered, Caleb was intrigued. He casually watched to see where they would sit, delighted when the person had chosen to sit at the bar. “Well, well, well. Nice of you to join us.” He lightly teased, drying an empty glass and making his way to stand in front of the person who had just sat down. “Welcome to Dungeon. I’m Caleb, and I’ll be your bartender for the next..” he glanced back at the clock on the wall for a brief second, “.. twenty-eight minutes.” He softly chuckled, turning back to look at the new arrival. “What can I get for you this evening?”
@slchat
“I’ve actually been here for most of the night,” Hope mentioned when he welcomed her so warmly, and smiled a little to boot. “You must not have noticed me. It’s okay, I blend into places,” she teased, holding her now-empty drink, but still sucking on the straw like there was more she could get out in between the lone ice cubes. “I’d order one more of these but I don’t actually remember what it was called,” she said, giving the drink a rattle. “Probably means I shouldn’t order any more, right.”
Ollie was thankful for the double leash his moms found for him when he adopted his second dog. However, now he had three dogs so he still had to juggle a couple of leashes each time he took them all out at the same time. He loved to bring them to the dog park, allowing them to run around and play. They weren’t able to have such space unless he brought them to his moms’ backyard for the day.
The moment they got to the dog park, Ollie had unclipped their leashes so they could run around and play. It was a chill, calm park near the apartment complex. He knew most of the people and their pets that were there often, so he felt comfortable letting the dogs run wild. His larger dogs, Wolfie and Ginger, were running while his beagle, Cooper, was fetching after a ball that Ollie was throwing for him.
The small dog could play fetch for hours, so Ollie would continue to throw the ball over and over until one of them got tired. Ollie had a lot of energy, so it was usually a close call! One Cooper’s way back to Ollie, ball in mouth, he stopped at another human and dropped the ball in front of them. Ollie giggled, quickly following his dog over and grinning at the person.
“That doesn’t look like me, silly!” he told his dog first. He then spoke to the other standing there. “He loves to play! Sorry about that!“
@slchat
“Oh. Hello.” The blonde said when she realized a ball had been deposited at her feet, a happy looking beagle, tail wagging looking up at her. She’d come to the dog park with her coworker Maggie and her dog, but the bonus was all the other cute pups running around there. "I think legally this means he’s mine now.” Hope said, smiling. Clearly joking, but at the same time, she squat down to pet the adorable dog on its head.
Tony was grateful for the day off work, but it meant that he had to bask in his loneliness even more. Sure Dozier helped with that somewhat but it still didn’t make matters better. Dressing in his normal suit attire, he made his way to Los Globos. It was a club he frequented often. Typically when he was looking to bring himself out of a dark mood. Ordering a whiskey sour, he glanced around hoping to see someone he potentially knew. Instead he turned to the person next to him to start up a conversation, “What’s your usual? I’ll buy the next round if you don’t mind keeping a poor man company.”
@slchat
Hope had not had a good day. For starters, some crazy karen had bust into Quartz and demanded a refund for the shopping spree she’d had a week earlier — a receipt totalling $500 that she’d had to reverse and practically broke the machine. Then, her mother called her on her lunch break and asked, nay begged, for her to come back home to Alabama, the last thing she wanted to do. So on suggestion of her roommate, she put on a dress she had just thrifted from Funkytown, and to offset any femininity it may have had, her chunky black doc martens to go with it.
She was mid-sip on her purple rain when someone got her attention. “When you say poor man, are you saying that literally, or figuratively? Because I’d hate to have anyone pay for my drinks if they were hard up.”
And no, I'm not a jerk
I would ask if you could help me out
It's hard to understand
'Cause when you're runnin' by yourself
It's hard to find someone to hold your hand
And now it's good to be tough like me
But I would wait forever
I need someone else
To look into my eyes and tell me
"Girl, you know you've got to watch your health"
Ever since Hope had gotten to be an extra on a Sadie Scott episode, she had felt it. That draw, that turned into a nagging feeling in her gut every time she thought about it. She didn’t know what to do about it, knew it wouldn’t come to much if she gave it an actual shot. She’d tried modelling in this city years ago and failed— what hope in hell did she have at succeeding at something a hundred times more difficult?
Still, it was worth a try to at least talk to someone about it. A specific someone. The offer had been extended by him, or at least, she had assumed it some kind of prelude to an offer (or maybe he sweet-talked all hopefuls this way, hoping they’d hire him to get his 20% cut). Whatever the case, a serious conversation couldn’t hurt, could it?
And so it was that she’d popped into LA Mill after work (the superior coffee place over Intelligentsia), and grabbed two black coffees to go, holder and all. Hope knocked on his apartment door and stood back, waiting. With any luck, he’d be in and not busy, and as luck did have it, she was successful on the first count. “Hey. Are you busy? I’m not interrupting, am I?” She talked fast and much, a sign of her nervousness. “I thought you might appreciate a pre-dinner pick-me-up.” She pushed the coffees she held in both hands toward him.
They say, "You're a little much for me, you're a liability
You're a little much for me"
So they pull back, make other plans
I understand, I'm a liability
Get you wild, make you leave
The funeral was a week before her seventeenth birthday, which was the cherry on top of all the other fucked up shit he’d bequeathed her, including a dormant case of PTSD that would flare up in the years to come. But for now, there was sweltering Alabama heat, bikers, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Hope’s closet had been more or less devoid of black up until now. But a funeral was the kind of place where you had to wear black. It was how an itchy, sheer black dress patterned with flowers bought at the Tuscaloosa Target found its way onto her body, an old pair of black kitten heels borrowed from Esther, and her nails manicured black to match. Her hair she had pulled up into the tightest bun possible, not only out of consideration for the day, but the sweltering heat she knew they were going to roast in for the next 2-3 hours.
The family stood in a small bundle, Hope, Esther and their mother, Uncle Phil, his wife and their two young daughters. After them, it was a mishmash of Greensboro folk looking like a suspects’ parade — a couple of respectable men in suits who were the Birmingham division of door-to-door salesmen who’d worked with John, every manner of town drunkard or lout, and of course, the bikers. He’d rode with the bikers for a time before marrying Tallulah, and the brotherhood had stayed steadfast, it seemed. Or at least the half dozen men clad in leather all stood, hands clasped in front of them as if in solemn prayer, one of them chewing tobacco, another swatting a fly that kept landing on his face. They were a Looney Tunes cartoon, an amusing diversion Hope and Esther would occasionally landed their gaze on.
Becca, of course, was absent.
The priest, dressed in all black and equally sweating buckets, stood at the head, and said his bit. “We are here today to pay our tribute and our respect to a man of God, our brother, John Wayne Halpin. To know John was to love him.” Bet, thought Hope.
“We are also here today to show our love and support for John’s very precious family. Not only have we sensed our own personal feelings of loss over John’s passing, but our hearts have been drawn toward them, and will continue to be with them. ”
Hope looked up, giving the priest her best what-the-fuck stare, even though the man did not look at her but down at his speech. He droned on for some time, with no one else willing to give a eulogy, or at least nothing they wished to divulge publicly. At any rate, the sweltering heat in the cemetery pressed down on young and old alike to such a degree that most were probably thinking how to shuffle off the mortal coil themselves. Even composed Esther was breaking out in a sweat, condensation beads rolling down her temples, Hope noted every time she glanced sideways at her sister.
The voice of the priest came in and out of her line of hearing, like a radio being tuned up and down. “...Let me say again that the measure of a life is not in its duration but in its donation!”
Well, he sure gave a lot, pop did. A shudder ran down her spine, as soon as the speech was over and she was watching her father’s coffin be lowered. Hope wondered if it was relief she was feeling right now. Maybe it was. The nightmare was over. It had been over for Esther long before this, since she’d left home as soon as she turned 18, leaving 14 year old Hope (excuse the shitty pun) hopelessly alone. But Hope had been happy to see her go, happy to be the lone slab of meat left to the wolves. Her sisters deserved lives free of John Wayne Halpin, at least in physical presence. His spectre would remain no matter what they did, rearing itself in their nightmares and even waking thoughts.
After a bout of silence, Uncle Phil came to the head, where flowers and a portrait of John lay beside his freshly engraved tombstone.
“There’s a song he wanted me to play for you all on this occasion. He wasn’t a man of big speeches, despite half his life bein’ spent makin’ them. But when it came to talking about himself, he wasn’t much for it.”
It was clear this speech had not been written down nor prepared, and Phil looked out uneasily at the small gathered crowd. He was a younger, less rotund and bespectacled version of his deceased brother, with eyes that were kindly and did not belie a raging alcoholic. Sometimes, Hope envied her cousins and the life she imagined they must live.
Phil looked down, stayed concentrated that way for some time until it was apparent to the rest of the congregation that he was crying. He sniffled, pushing back in with the snot the rest of his feelings he was keeping at bay, and looked up again.
“Well, rest in peace, big brother.” It was then that Hope noticed, almost for the first time, a stereo system on wheels, hooked up to an old school boom box. Was that a tape he was putting in? In the year 2015? But Hope was beyond questioning things, today. It was a weird farewell, one most fitting for her father.
[x]
The song started with a crackle, a familiar one. He hadn’t played it much lately, but Hope knew it, with every bone deep down in her childhood. By the point the chorus unleashed itself, the bikers stood erect, in solemn reverence to the rock ’n’ roll standard, one of them pulling his hat down and pressing it to his chest. It was weird as all hell, Hope had never met or so much as spoken to any of them. Or at least didn’t remember doing so; she was sure there was some photo in one of their home albums where she was two or three and sitting atop one of their Harleys. Be a simple kind of man…
Memories came shuffling back, the good, the bad, but mostly the unendurable… she didn’t want them. She wished she could trade all of them in for a blank space. Be one of those people that had grown up without a father. Her mother was a terror, that much was true, but deep down she loved Hope and Esther and even Becca in her broken, half-measured way. Like that one time she promised to bake for a school sale Hope was co-chairing, then ended up carting in 200 store-bought cupcakes that had all been on clearance due to being expired. Occasionally, she tried. Had her father ever tried? It was hard to tell. His love had come in measures and conditionals, domineering itself over three helpless girls. But maybe that was to do with all the control he had lost in his life — losing his job, his identity, his manhood, being reduced to something that was nothing. That would make anyone go crazy for control.
She remembered once when Esther had talked back. His new hobby had been making belts. For some reason, he’d roped Esther into helping him. She was thirteen and Hope nine. He had been showing her how to cut leather the right way, but something must’ve happened, and she had slipped and cut it the wrong way. Hope wasn’t sure. She had been outside, not in the shed, tossing a hula hoop about. But she heard the escalating voices, and knew what was going to come. I did it the way you asked, dad, I swear! His argument back she couldn’t hear, it was a slurred mumble. The quieter he got, the worse a storm was brewing, Hope knew. She distinctly remembered the moment she could no longer hear his answer, her mouth going dry for fear of what was to happen.
She knew never to look, Becca had told her not to. Turn away, she would say. Usually she would push or shut Hope out of the room before the worst of it. But she could still hear. And Becca was gone now. She heard each sickening slap and thud, as if they were landing on her own body. And despite herself, her feet took her to the open door of the shed, peeking in to see images that would burn themselves into her memory. Her dad whopping Esther with the belt full force, Esther with her arms around her head, trying to protect herself. She wanted to yell. Wanted to tell him to stop it. Wanted to run in and hit him with that stupid damn belt herself, for being such a fool. But she was afraid, her mouth was sand, and in all her futility the girl knew that if she intervened, she could be next. It didn’t matter that he’d never laid a hand on her, personally. She could always be next. So she let him do it... and that was on her.
Hope snapped out before the memory turned into a guilt-and-shame spiral — back to the sweltering heat, back to the green grass, back to the funeral. The song was winding down, and was she seeing things, or was someone coming over the hill to the mostly empty cemetery?
Not a mirage, there was someone. As the heat waves distorted and the crickets were loud enough to protest, she made out who it was. Lloyd Carver. He was coming this way, flowers in his good hand. The dark-haired man who worked at the auto shop was someone she’d had her eye on ever since she could remember feeling any kind of way about the opposite sex. Thirty-two, handsome of face but slightly too long of nose, he walked with a kind of intensity set on purpose. He’d known Hope’s father, but she had never assumed the two were close. Well, here he approached, his eye catching Hope’s for a brief second, coming up to offer his silent condolences to her mother with a nod. The flowers were added to the growing pile, and he stood alone, in the gap between the businessmen and the bikers, until the song echoed its last sentiments. Then the crowd started to break up.
It really was weird that he was here. She would have communicated as much to Esther, but her sister seemed lost in reveries of her own. Maybe she was making peace, saying her own goodbyes. Hope let her. Once people started dispersing, spontaneous plans were made. Phil and his wife were going to go for drinks at Crosby’s with some of the men in suits, and so was their mother. Esther would drive Phil’s kids home. Hope extricated herself from all of it by saying she had plans and would find her own way back. Amazingly enough, no one pressed, each lost in a post-funeral fog of their own.
She didn’t know what she was doing, but she approached his ’69 bright orange Camaro anyway. It was a beauty of a muscle car that caught her eye as much as its owner. Luckily, he was just getting into it, so she only had to speed up her steps for the last couple of feet in case he drove off and missed her.
“Where ya goin’?” Hope asked him, leaning her elbows into the passenger window. He looked askance at her, and was slow to reply.
“Back into town.”
“Seriously? That’s borin’. You don’t wanna do that.” She had no idea what compelled her to say this, but here she was, saying it.
“I’m goin’ back to the shop,” Lloyd drawled. Oh, what a handsome, beautiful fool he was, even with the scar on his face, his funky limp, and his bad arm. She was amazed he didn’t have a girlfriend.
“How ‘bout a ride? And takin’ me with?”
It took him some time to debate this idea. Maybe it was because it was her dad’s funeral, or because he felt she would not back down, but Lloyd gave in with a sigh. “Alright. Get in.”
She hopped in and they went for a ride.
**
[x]
They drove straight through town and headed south on the 69. Hope switched on the radio. She wanted to laugh at what greeted her: more Lynyrd Skynyrd. If she’d believed in God, she would think that was her dad right now, keeping his hawk-like watch on Hope in a car with a boy.
“Y’know... my dad would say he used to hang out with Ronnie Van Zant. Drink with him in Birmingham.”
“Oh yeah?” Lloyd asked. He didn’t take his eyes off of the road.
“Yeah. But I kind of think he was full of shit.”
“How come?”
“Well, I did the math one day. He would’ve been ten or so when Ronnie died. So I think it was all shit. Made up. Unless he was ten years old and drinking beer with one of the most famous bands in America...”
Lloyd, characteristically quiet and stoic, did not seem to change, her attempt at humor not landing. But then his chronically contemplative face turned out a smile, and Hope grinned.
“That is kinda dumb,” he agreed, and it felt like a personal victory. Melting the ice man’s heart.
They passed a few cars here and there, but mostly the road was empty, and they rode on, each lost in their own thoughts, set to the music.
“Go faster,” Hope egged on eventually. Lloyd obliged her request.
“Faster.”
He went past sixty, and was hitting seventy now, looking over at the girl in his passenger every now and then, as if wondering when she would call his bluff and call chicken. But Hope didn’t. She revelled in the speed the car went, just as that solo was ramping up in the song, her favorite song. The guitars strained and yowled to match the diabolic speed of the car and everything was on fire all at once, it was amazing.
Nearly up to eighty now as the Camaro flew down the highway, Hope tugged her hair out of its bun and her blonde locks whipped through the wind, the girl wondering what would happen if another car were to come speeding down the wrong way in this very moment. They would surely die, but wouldn’t this be a wonderful way to die? Absolutely. She would love nothing better.
Hope cackled. Uncontrollable laughter rose low in her stomach, the feeling of freedom hitting her full force along with the wind. Lloyd kept the car streaking down the highway between 70 and 80, and her laughter carried itself out on the winds, out onto the Alabama wilds, out with her all along the way. They passed fields upon fields of nothing, farmhouses and cows, desolateness and non-desolateness. Hope felt small yet infinitely stretched out across her home state all at once. She hated it here on most days, but today, she appreciated it like nothing else.
Free, she was free.
**
They stopped at an auto parts store in Uniontown, Lloyd picking something up for his shop, a short cigarette break, and a far more mellow return drive home. Hope kept some sliver of hope that he’d invite her to his house, maybe they’d even fuck, deep down having hoped for that outcome since she got in his car, what she yearned for with all her being. But nothing of the sort happened. He dropped her off home and rode off without so much as a goodbye. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her. Maybe he genuinely liked her, but wasn’t one for sentiments. Whatever his reasons for offering her a joyride, she appreciated it.
“I dunno. Come work at Peachtree,” he suggested, only half joking. “We have a lot of fun there and you could be part of the little family or whatever.” He gave her a small smirk then shrugged a shoulder.
"Are you serious,” she said with a short laugh. “I don’t think that’d work. I would do nothing but get high on the job, then get fired. Seriously, how do you not get tempted to just blaze all day?”
“That’s easy.. Why don’t you just travel for a bit?” Demelza suggested with a happy glint in her eye. “If you’ve really had enough of your normal every day job then, going out and seeing the world is something I highly recommend. It’s so.. freeing.”
"I’d love to,” Hope said with a wistful sigh. Oh, the people who could just afford to roam around road-tripping state to state; Hope envied them endlessly. “Would definitely love to, someday. I pretty much used up every cent I had to move here, so now I’m kinda stuck here for the time-being. I guess I’m just that cliche who moved to L.A. with twenty bucks to her name, and now I don’t know what to do.”
Aspen was stood at the craft table when she noticed the girl who’d won the chance to be a ‘featured extra’ in Sadie Scott and they were filming a big shot for the first episode of season 2 a little early and they’d gotten her in. Being who she was Aspen laughed. “Oh man.. I mean what do you like? I’ve only ever really wanted.. this” gesturing to the set around them, “So.. I might not be the best person to ask - but.. I’m here to listen to you talk if you want?” she suggested picking up a red vine and nibbling on it.
It was a bit of an awkward moment. Hope hadn’t expected the star of the show to overhear her conversation with Charlie by the craft table, who she’d dragged along on set for moral support. A break had been called and not having eaten all day out of nervousness, she was now happy to sip on a prickly pear & orange San Pellegrino. Turning to face Aspen, Hope flashed a smile that matched the pretty girl’s, pulling her lips off the straw. “You know what, it’s probably the contact high speaking, but I’m really having fun here. The energy on set...I wouldn’t mind doing this,” she admitted, somewhat sheepishly. It wasn’t like her to admit something like that to someone she didn’t know, but this was Aspen Barris. “Although I really don’t know if I’d ever be any good as anything more than an extra.”
Nell nodded along encouragingly. Not that she had ever even been to Daily Planet, but if Hope found it interesting enough to work there, it would probably be better for her in the long run. “Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, surprising herself that she had managed to say something that was considered to be helpful. “Modelling experience is better than no experience at all. I’m not saying you wouldn’t have a chance, but statistically speaking…” She trailed off, trying not to sound too blunt. “Hey, why not try modelling on the side? If you already have the experience, maybe there’s a local boutique that needs a model,” she suggested with a shrug, trying to be a little more optimistic and helpful.
With the mention of trying modelling again, Hope’s face fell a decent amount, as much as she’d try and hide her feelings. The fact that she hadn’t quit so much as flunked out of being a model was what hurt the most, but she wasn’t about to go down that road or explain it to someone she barely knew. “That’s an idea,” she smiled, “I’ll consider it. Maybe I should take one of those career tests, that tell you what you’d be good at. What do you do, by the way?”
“Hey, don’t shit on crystals!” Daphne almost shushed the other girl, letting out a dramatic gasp. “I just can’t suggest something out of nowhere. You need to tell me you interests first.”
"I’m not shitting on them, they’re fine. I just personally don’t give that much of a shit,” Hope shrugged. Other people found them healing, calming. Maybe she was buying into the whole thing herself, but sitting in a store chock-full of crystals all day was weirdly driving her crazy. It was hard to explain. “Anime, bad trap music, and guro art. I’m not really sure how you can make a career out of those. I just need something that pays the bills but also won’t have me sitting around so bored for hours.”
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