bartending

[salver]

All Bobby wanted to do was come in for a six-pack so he didn't have to go out for one. He's got his own idea of what he needs to be doing -- there's a sheaf of papers ripped out of a book to translate and send down to Cheyenne to be pieced back together, and there's his battered old copy of The Milagro Beanfield War to reread for the fifth time --

Comments

[shadowsusannah]

Susannah usually avoids bartending, for a couple reasons. But tonight, she's tempted.

"Mr. Singer," she says. She wonders if that really was his name, or a convenient alias suggested by their discussion of Dylan. She's watching his reacting, serruptitiously. Her sightline is kind of crap, though, which is one of the reasons.

"I have to figure there's two kinds of people in this world," she goes on. "People who see that and get scared, and people who see that and get thirsty. Guess who I am."

[salver]

"Well, now, Mrs. Toren, I'd say you're a lady that's got a taste for better liquor than cactus moonshine -- you serious?"

Bobby's smiling anyway.

[shadowsusannah]

"It's not that I don't know better," she admits. "I just can't help myself. Curiosity and cats, and all that."

She eyes the bar. "Be prepared to pick my black ass up if this goes wrong on me." She grips the rail around the bar and vaults herself onto a stool; it rocks a little, but settles.

Still got it.

[salver]

"Well done, ma'am, if you don't mind my saying so." Bobby says this as he pulls down a clean glass -- and pulls over a big glass beaker, and a turkey baster. "Last chance. You sure you don't want something a little less suspect?"

[mr_v_and_mr_c]

"And why are we forbidden to inquite as to it's variety, my good man?" This from a short, fox-faced and rather sinister man.

"That is, why not ask," explains his friend, a tall, wolfish, equally sinister fellow.

[salver]

Bobby's smile is easy.

"You could ask. I don't know the answer."

[mr_v_and_mr_c]

"Point, point." the shorter man grins, revealing teeth like an accident in a graveyard. "I don't believe we've met. Mr. Croup at your service, and my boon companion here is Mr. Vandemar."

[salver]

"John Nichols is the name," Bobby says smoothly. "And how's your collective evening going?"

(He's looking forward to the day when he can go by Pete Coors, personally. He's done it once or twice overseas, and it hasn't gotten old yet.)

[cutting_edgex23]

X, dressed in a pink T-shirt and black track pants--the shirt, at least, was a present from Jamie--looks up at the specials board and frowns.

Slightly.

"Moonshine is alcohol."

Beat.

"I did not know you could do that. With cacti."

This pause is longer, and she studies Bobby for a second or two. Carefully.

"You are not blind."

[salver]

"I got it on pretty good authority that you can make alcohol out of whatever organic plant material that rots, miss. That don't make it good."

And he shakes his head. "Nope. I'm lucky. 'Course, I didn't try it for myself."

[cutting_edgex23]

"I do not like alcohol," she says.

And then, a little more awkwardly--

"There are healers here. If you did go blind. Or if someone who drank the moonshine did."

This is relevant. Clearly.

[salver]

"Well, now, that's good to know -- maybe I ought to make an addendum to the sign?"

Bobby makes to pick up the chalk, but stops himself. "But where's my manners. Was there something I could get you?"

[srsdrinker]

Who is he to turn down the special?

(Especially when it reminds him of the trip to Shadow with Sallie Reynolds, and the delightfully strong moonshine he'd tried. What little of that trip he remembers.)

"I'll have the special."

Oh yeah, he's in full Musketeer getup. Tunic, breeches, boots, and rapier.

[salver]

He's in full Musketeer getup.

Bobby tilts his head to the right as he reaches for a clean glass.

"Sir, I'm hoping you're not gonna take this the wrong way. You know what a cactus is?"

[srsdrinker]

"I read about them...in a..."

Athos thinks a moment.

"National Geographic the lady provided me."

[salver]

"Now, that is a damn fine publication." Bobby pulls over the gargantuan glass beaker and the (clean) turkey baster. "I got issues of it going all the way back to the seventies, and I learn something new every time I pull one out. You read it much?"

[will_scarlett]

"Cactuses are those things that grow in the dessert, aye, sir?"

Will is curious and confused, this could end badly.

[salver]

"Yep," Bobby agrees. "Some of 'em are real big, and some of 'em aren't. Spiky, though. You ever seen one for yourself?"

[will_scarlett]

"Oh aye, once, sir, when I was aidin' me friend Doc Scurlock. New Mexico's just bloody dusty though, needs more trees."

Accent and outfit do fit rather well for an outlaw from Sherwood and he'd stand out really horribly in the Old West but that's Milliways for you.

[salver]

"Yeah? So you was..." Bobby gestures downward. "Southern part? Las Cruces and whatnot?"

If the kid says he was in New Mexico, Bobby's not going to be the one to call him a liar.