Iron Fist Week Day 7: minor character/missing scene
Albert is a man. A man... with a van.
He's proud of his van. Sure it was a bitch and a half to get certified and sometimes trying to drive three freaking blocks in this city when he's having a bad enough day can threaten to put his blood pressure through the roof, but he's ground out an honest living for himself with it. That's no mean feat, in this neighborhood.
Plus, Al likes his job. It involves a lot of visiting every nook and cranny of the area, meeting loads of people at varying levels of talkative - it's a job that requires someone personable, and Al doesn't think it's too immodest to say that he fits the bill.
Staring down a fully loaded armoire, though, Al can admit to himself that there are times he's less fond of this job than others.
By the time he's got the thing down on the sidewalk, doors and drawers bound shut and with an initial layer of wrapping to protect it from pedestrian traffic while he sets up the loader, Al has mentally added two upticks to his pain-in-the-ass fee.
"Woah, can I help you with that?"
Al pauses in his transferring long enough to take a look at who's spoken. It's a white guy, 20s, a little scruffy but looks comfortable, and, most importantly, seems genuine.
Al smiles at him. "I appreciate the offer, but these need to be moved in a specific way to prevent scuffing."
"Oh." Al goes back to loading the armoire. "...Would you show me?" Al pauses again. Looks back at the guy. "I'm Danny, by the way," he adds, and smiles beatifically.
Al blinks up at the sky. Had the sun shone more brightly for a second, there? He turns back to wrapping the furniture with blankets and bungee cords. "You need to move a lot of furniture, Danny?" he asks while he works. Engaging in friendly conversation with strangers is second nature to him, at this point.
Danny, who has the courtesy to remain standing out on the street behind the van as they talk, bounces a little as he replies. "Yes, actually! My girlfriend and I have been redoing her apartment."
"Wow, big project. Hey, if you guys need stuff moved around, I've got you covered. Back and forth from the storage unit, delivering your new stuff from the store, bringing your old stuff wherever it's going... My rates are fair and, as you can see, I'd actually take care of your things." He pats the carefully cushioned furniture from his current job in indication.
Danny laughs a little, looking at it. "At least that isn't a piano, right?"
"Hey man, pianos have wheels. I can walk them right up the ramp."
Danny eyes the ramp Al uses with the handtrucks. "Isn't it too skinny?"
Al laughs again. "What kind of piano are you picturing, a grand?" As if anyone who owned one of those would be hiring Al to move it. As if anyone who owned one of those would be living in this area at all.
Danny shrugs, unbothered. "I haven't seen one since I was a kid. Maybe it seemed bigger back then." A beat passes, and then Danny continues talking, the oversharing sort of babble symptomatic of the sleep-deprived. "Anyway, we'll definitely call you for help with our stuff. And you can show me all the right ways to handle everything! I'm probably going to be doing a lot of rearranging furniture and stuff since Colleen is out at Bayard all the time now; she keeps talking about helping the community during the daytime - Colleen's my girlfriend, she's the best - and, I mean, she's right, of course, plus, we just got back to the city and I am not used to not having to do something -" he cuts himself off, lighting up. "Hey, could I get a job with you?"
Al startles. He can usually recognize when someone's coming at that angle. Granted, they usually don't seem to stumble into it by mistake.
"The shop down the street is hiring," he offers. "On the corner."
"Thanks! I'd like to work for this business, though."
Al pauses. Revaluates "Danny". There are only so many reasons someone would be looking for a moving job specifically, and in this neighborhood, the most likely scenario is one that Al has been very carefully steering clear of for 30 years.
"I appreciate the interest," he repeats cautiously, "but we're a small business. I'm afraid we don't really have the means to hire right now." It's a bit of a risk, revealing a vulnerability like that. Luckily, Albert is overstating it a bit; it won't be that easy for any of the triads to put financial pressure on him, and, well. He's stubborn. He swore a long time ago that he wouldn't go there.
"Oh, that's not a problem!" Danny says brightly. "You wouldn't need to pay me. I'm more looking for the experience, you know? I've never had a normal job, and Colleen thinks it'll be good for us to start over."
The alarm bell clanging in Al's head rises to a shriek, then falters. If this is a ploy, it is astoundingly poorly executed. If this guy is in with any sort of organized crime, he can't be more than a fledgling recruit. Al feels a moral obligation to try and steer him better, even if his self preservation instincts disagree.
"Look," Al says, watching Danny's face carefully. "I'm running an honest business, here. I'm not interested in having our name attached to anything. And, if I could offer you a word of advice?" Danny, who mostly just looks confused, nods. "Don't go saying that stuff about working for free. Depending who hears it, that's a good way to end up either severely taken advantage of, or in a coffin. Anyone you might be trying that hard to get a resource for won't be happy about you overplaying your hand."
Danny still looks confused. Al mimes swinging a hatchet. Danny's eyes go wide with clarity.
"I'm not with the triads," he says disconcertingly earnestly. "I'm the Iron Fist. I'm sworn to defend the city from people like them."
Well, at least this is an interesting conversation.
"If you're not with the triads, why do you want this job?"
"I guess I'm looking for something new. For fifteen years, I had one purpose. Now, it's done. Now, I need to build a new life, and..." His voice dips in a certain way with the next words, a way that makes Al's stomach sink with the familiarity of it. "...keep a promise to a friend."
Al looks at Danny, a pit in his stomach and memories in his heart. Resignation settles underneath his skin.
"You have a résumé?" he asks. At least Danny doesn't seem inclined to just throw things around, like some other shipping companies that Al could name. Royal Al Moving provides quality for its clients, thank you very much.
"I don't think so. What is that, equipment? I could buy some."
Al stares at him. He'd been expecting either an agreement to email or bring by a copy later, or a conversation along the lines of 'do I really need one?' followed by a verbal listing off of previous work or even just ability.
"Do you have any previous experience?" Al tries again. "Had any jobs before?"
"Yeah, I have," Danny says, and doesn't elaborate.
"What about ID?" Al asks, despite knowing full well he'll probably pretend not to notice if anything seems off about it.
Danny laughs a bit, seemingly unphased by his own complete lack of knowledge regarding ordinary job application/interview etiquette whatsoever. "Oh, I definitely have that. Had to fight really hard for it, too. It was almost all gone, but once everything got sorted out, we made, like, 10 new copies of everything." Danny pats around at his pockets, not appearing to notice Al's incredulous expression. "I don't have any of those with me right now, but... Ah ha!" He pulls something out triumphantly. "Business cards! I'm pretty sure my brother thought I was just going to destroy them, but my friend Jeri said it's important to always have one. It might have gone through the laundry, though, sorry."
Assuming this day can't get any weirder, like a fool, Al takes the card.
Even worn and slightly crumpled, the obnoxiously expensive quality of the original card is still clear. There's embossing and gold foil, for god's sake. The Rand Enterprises logo glints up at him almost mockingly even as the three dimensional lines of the border rise and fall under his thumb. Either seems unnecessary and frankly tone deaf for a Humanitarian Aid company, let alone both. Then again, maybe they reserve this version of the card for the executive level, those who hobnob among the elite, who need to make a certain type of impression on the too rich in order to convince them to donate well.
Because that's another thing this card reads, right there in plain English: a 9pt bold 'Daniel Rand', and under that, 'CEO'.
'What,' a little voice in Al's head wails semi-hysterically, 'the fuck?'
"Is this a joke?" Al asks out loud, vaguely surprised by how calm he sounds given the way the voice inside his head might be having a meltdown. "Am I on Candid Camera?"
But, no, wasn't he just thinking that this card is way too expensive - and thus definitely too expensive to be a prop?
"Hey, I know that one!" Danny Rand says cheerfully. "Joy and I used to watch it together!"
'Joy,' the voice in Al's head supplies. 'Joy Meachum.
'Well, at least this explains why he said he doesn't need money.
'Wait, why is he looking for a job in the first place? Is he not CEO? Did they kick him out or something? Did they disown him for wearing a hoodie with holes in it? Is that what he meant earlier when he said the thing he was doing before is over now?'
Al has never felt more rueful that he doesn't pay much attention to celebrity news.
"So," Al tries to find a way to word this that isn't 'have you been cut off or what?' "Why is Danny Rand looking for a job here?"
By "here", Al means a lot of things. This type of neighborhood, in general. Chinatown, out of all of them. At a low-wage position in a manual labor business with very little room for growth, if they're really getting into it.
"I like your name," Danny replies. It's far from the kind of answer that Al was expecting, but he finds himself unperturbed. Maybe he's hit a point where nothing is surprising anymore. "It reminds me of a friend. He was more of a Big Al than a Royal one, but I saw your logo and it seemed right."
(Al still pays Danny, because he refuses to be a shady business and because if he's finally getting around to setting up an employee system, he's needs to make it one that will work for anyone he might hire in the future, too. They won't all be Danny Rand. Danny keeps finding ways to immediately give it back, because he's literally a billionaire.)
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