⊱fourteenth vision | audio

[taravata]

I never knew a time when my Ma wasn't off her nut.

After my father left, after I was born- guess all that did something to her. She was a religious crazy. Did things like keep me in the house for days, readin' bible verses like it'd chase something out of me. Didn't really get the chance to make many friends, on account of that. Also on account of

Comments

[withloadedguns]

Nothing wrong with being alone.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[And it's all of that--dust, oldness, rough things, pointed shoulders and elbows, angry tongues--that drew him in at first because it all reminded him of, well, maybe not home (because he never found home that great) but something familiar. It's funny how these little pockets of familiar things can turn up in the City.]

Hello.

[His basic greeting, and he turns himself back around again. He's got a glass in his palms, and it's mostly full, but that's a difficult thing to use as a measurement. It could just be the latest full one.]

No. Not really. You get lost?

[Action]

[taravata]

[ It's the familiarity that Ben digs his nails into. That's why he had lived out in the outskirts of the City for months.

The modern amenities - the ease of this life, coming from an existence where one fought to live with desperation and will. Ben finds the sterility and privilege of this place somewhat disconcerting, if not mildly offensive. Life don't come this easy.

The boy doesn't spend too long lookin' at his glass. Instead, he orders one for himself - something cheap and typical. Another token from home. ]

Not really.

[ Yes. ]

Just took some time, that's all.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[Yeah, that's a familiar story, too, even if some of his reasoning is a little different. Either way, it all ends up in the same place.]

All right.

[Sure you did.]

Nothing wrong with that.

[Action]

[taravata]

[ He takes a sip of his drink. A strong stout. ]

How you been getting along?

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

All right--

[He takes a drink of his own. Looks like whiskey. Are we surprised? Anyway, he looks away, off down the length of the bar for a moment, then lights a match for his perpetual cigarillo off the top of it.]

--now that I've been paid for some work I did.

[See, unlike a lot of people who asked for pets or weapons or items considered significant or valuable or useful...he just asked the Deities for a giant bag of cash. In payment for all the empty gas cans and bits of flint he brought in during the week the City traveled from world to world, of course. This is how he rolls.]

What about you?

[Action]

[taravata]

[ Whiskey and a cigarello? That would be like No Name without his mystery. He casually observes the older man, swirling the dark liquor absentmindedly as he speaks. ]

What do you do?

[ No Name doesn't have to answer. Ben's just trying the best he can to move the conversation along. The boy ain't too good with words, but he's trying. Ben's no too good with making money either. He's what the modern world would call a day laborer, drifting from job to job in hopes up making enough to get by. ]

Don't really got a job, myself.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[Ever so slightly, faintly, and subtly, he glances back towards the gun on his hip. There's something like a half-smile. What does he do?]

I've got my line of work. It pays.

[A more direct look at this kid.]

How do you get by?

[Action]

[taravata]

Hard to keep a steady job 'round these parts. People always leavin' and comin'.

[ He doesn't catch the man's glance, but Ben knows well enough that a man with a normal job or a normal life wouldn't have a need for secrecy.

He knows well. ]

Pick up jobs here and there. Deliverin' things. Settings things up. [ He shrugs then throws back a gulp of the liquor. ] Physical labor, mostly.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[He makes a murmuring sound of agreement and lifts his glass again. No, it isn't easy with people always coming and going. You think you have something and then, the next day, whoever offered it is gone. Worse if you took on a job, finished it, and then can't find anyone to pay you...]

Sounds like honest work.

[And he means it.]

[Action]

[taravata]

[ Everything is short-term here. Makes a day labor job seem like the smart idea. ]

I get by. [ Ben shrugs. ] Don't ask for much more.

[ Well, that's a lie really. He looks into his glass as he speaks. ]

'cept leavin.' But clams won't buy something like that that.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[Ain't that the truth. It's time for this drifter to ride out of town again. Point of fact, it's been time for this drifter to ride out of town again for weeks now. But there ain't no riding out of town here--not really, not the way it should be.

And while he doesn't say much in reply, he hopes that the sigh behind his words makes his real thoughts clear:]

Yeah...

[He looks down grimly into his glass too.]

[Action]

[taravata]

What time do you come from?

[ An abrupt turn in conversation, but a crucial topic nonetheless. Time matters little for someone who fits in smoothly with the City's timeline (But is there time in the city? Or is it all manufactured? Something imposed by the residents?) For Ben, a man out of time and place, he'll never stop feeling like he's walking through some sort of twisted dream.

But that's not too different from home. ]

Me? The 30s. 1930.

[Action]

[withloadedguns]

[1930--might as well be 2030 it seems so far ahead. Another century entirely.]

1930--that's a little after my time.

[He'd be a hundred years old or close to it if it was 1930. Still, he answers with his own era: 1870 and change, nearly ten years after the war (Civil War, War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, or whatever anyone's calling it), but not much more.]