Dolly Parton Pool Party

[hazlogs]

It is currently 19:03 Pacific Time on Sat Nov 22 2014.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is partially cloudy. The temperature is 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 10 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.05 and rising, and the relative humidity is 80 percent. The dewpoint is 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waxing New (Ragabash) Moon phase (4% full).

Harbor Park -- The Meadow

One of the last bastions of green left in the city, mottled and withered grass and weeds covers the earth like a badly stained carpet, with the construction work turning what is left into just bare dirt. The vegetation seems marginally healthier the further it is from the river and much healthier towards the central area of the park around the fountain. Construction work is ongoing here: a raised earthen berm about five feet tall is being built all around the park perimeter, with two breaks each at the Bridge Street entrance and the First Street end. Wooden posts are being erected at regular intervals all along the earthen wall, while tasteful iron gates and fences are being added at the entrances. Overpowering the scent of living vegetation are the exhaust fumes from a busy street to the west and an unpleasant stench from the Columbia River to the east. From the street view or river view, the park is now isolated, as if it existed apart from the city. People in tall buildings have an excellent view of any goings-ons for now, though. In the center of the park, a small glade of six tall trees and a flower bed surrounds the fountain.

The murky waters of the Columbia River flow swiftly along the east side of the park. Bracketing the park to the west is First Street and the city of St. Claire.

The hesitation of Rhys only seems to draw more of Trixie's attention where the woman-sporting-many-coats sits in a tripod crouch on one of the park benches by a rummages trash can, the free hand coming up to point at the man. "Pah! Stomachs don't need easy. Rocks are good for it, something to chew on. This," She stabs the same finger towards her forehead. "does not eat water. Water runs, goes away. Bone and gristle, ideas, dreams, confusion. Chew and chew. Strong." It's dark in the park, but the fact she's yammering with a stranger seems not to concern her.

She's short - maybe a whopping 4'10" with shoes on. She's solid and compact, leaning towards fat but never quite excessive, and overall Native American in skintone. She dresses in whatever found clothes she comes across with little if any regard for ownership. Summer is the best time to find clothes! Everyone just leaves them outside on the lines, nice and clean, just for her. She'll sleep where she pleases and wander where she pleases. No sign will deter her. Her hair is long and grey despite looking no older than her early twenties at level best, though silvery versus the dullness of faded hair. It is shot through with the occasional threading of black, though these seem to change to white in the winter. It's always clean and tidy, even if the rest of her looks like the cover page for Homeless Today. Her eyes are large, almost fishbowl large when she gets excited, and are a bright and clear hazel that appears perfectly lucid despite what comes out of her mouth.

"Right." Uneasiness draws the word out and causes Rhys to cast a glance along his intended path. "Well. I don't know much about eating dreams, but I know a rock won't satisfy an empty belly for long."

Rhys is just over six feet tall and averagely built. Entering into adulthood has stripped some of the softness of adolescence from his features. He has short brown hair, styled intentionally messy, and hazel eyes that are set into a slightly angular face. He most often wears jeans and t-shirts, sturdy trail boots, and a jacket. Everything is clean, with a broken in look.

Fitz slouches into the park, feet dragging, tugging up the collar of his jacket, a cheap-looking bookbag sagging from straps slung over one shoulder. He pauses under a lightpole, leaning against it, and tugs a paper map out of the back pocket of rumpled jeans, his mouth twisted in a tired grimace.

This guy's like an unholy hybrid of sneery video store clerk and 1950s greaser. He's white, about twenty years old, and somewhere around the six foot mark (maybe a bit under, but hard to say for all the slouching he does), and he looks like the kind of guy who revels in being an absolute steaming pile of shit to everyone around him. His straight brown hair is rarely brushed, rarely washed, and slightly too long, especially in the way it tends to hang in oily strings over his forehead. He's not ugly, and maybe if he shaved off that grungy stubble and smiled more (and not in that lips-pursed smirky cocky way that he usually substitutes for smiling), he'd look pretty good in a boyish kind of way. But he doesn't and isn't. So much for that idea. He's got nice blue eyes, at least.

He's usually dressed in torn jeans, scuffed boots, and wrinkled t-shirts, sometimes paired with a cheap black jacket or flannel overshirt or hoodie. His voice is deep, rough, and growly in a way that's actually pretty pleasant on the ears, and may be his best feature. (If only what usually comes out of his mouth wasn't shit.)

"Busy stomach isn't hungry." Trixie says, whatever she might mean by that. She twists herself back around to reach back into the trash can, scrounging this way and that before she lets out a pleased sounding squeak and withdraws a gnawed turkey wrap - the kind that would have come from a gas station plastic carton. She sniffs at it curiously before she seems to remember Rhys is there. There's a pause before she offers it out, as if he were some guest in her home and it was a plate of cheeses. At least, that might be cheese in that smooshed snack, hard to tell.

An act of willpower keeps Rhys' expression smooth, if his expression can ever be said to be smooth. He doesn't look in revulsion or disgust at the offer but declines with a small shake of his head. "Thank you, but..." Trailing off, he casts his gaze away again then motions to a food cart. "I respect your self sufficient attitude, but would hot dogs be amiss instead of someone's unwanted left overs?"

Fitz wrinkles his nose over the map, squinting at it in the yellowish lamplight. Some portion of the conversation between Rhys and Trixie manages to make its way over to him. In a loud voice, without looking up, he says, "ASK HER HOW MUCH FOR A DOLLY PARTON POOL PARTY."

Trixie withdraws the offered food and considers it once more, though his gesture draws her focus and large eyes flick over towards the cart. There's a moment of decision and consideration before she carefully places the wrap down on the bench seat next to her. The empty popcorn container is placed over it and then, after a bit more rummaging, a wrinkled piece of newsprint. Things are rearranged slightly until she seems satisfied with her 'hiding place'. Only then does she get off the bench and stands fully upright, showing herself to be rather short and sturdily built even under all of the assorted coats she's got on. It's not /that/ cold. She lifts her head so she's standing fully upright, eyes bright as she smiles to Rhys. At least until Fitz shouts. She flinches and swivels to face him, hunching slightly with rounded shoulders and a curve to her back. Her eyes narrow and she stares at him, but the grey-haired girl with the scarf on her head remains silent.

Rhys startles at the sudden interjection. And it isn't just a little startle, he practically falls over his own feet as the instinct to flee grips him for an instant. He first lurches toward Trixie, then sidles with the halting motions of an aborted run to put an arms length between himself and the other two. Fitz gets a wary side eye after he's settled again.

When the talking stops, when there's no response, Fitz looks up from the many-folded paper city map and looks at the pair of them for a few seconds, smirking. "What? No Dolly Parton Pool Party?" He's not shouting anymore, though his mocking voice carries well enough, especially since they're paying attention to him. "How about a Santa Fe Tramp Steamer? ...No? I'm sure he'll settle for a Dallas Donkey Dunk."

As Rhys comes her direction quite suddenly, Trixie shuffles back several steps so there's space between her and him. She shoots the man a suspicious side glance but once he's calmed she resumes a distrusting side glance in Fitz's direction. "You dunk donkeys? Trixie has not asked one if they like water, but she does not think that is a good idea. They are large." And whatever he meant seems to have been missed by her. "When I meet one, I will ask." She states them resolutely, even if she seems still uncertain of Fitz.

"No," Rhys says to Fitz, resolute in spite of his continued apprehension. "None of that." He angles a look at Trixie again, then once more to the other man, jaw tensing as though he might speak further. If he was planning to, it's decided against and he back tracks to take a wide berth around the strange woman and loudmouthed man.

Fitz rolls his eyes as Rhys retreats, then looks back over at Trixie, sizing her up. "You got anything connected up there, sister, or is it all just..." He frees up a hand to wave it in a little circle, letting the map sag and flap about limply from the other hand. "...Metal balls clanging against each other?" The obvious mocking's gone, but there's no friendliness there to replace it. And he sounds tired, too.

"Is that what you hear?" Trixie asks wary but calmer, standing herself up straighter and taller and she's left alone as if trying to make herself look bigger than her diminutive, faintly squat size. Too many coats might help, or just make her look... poofy. "Sounds are loudest when we make them. Twig doesn't crack unless stepped on. Do you hear many loud sounds? Scared things make loud sounds."

"Scared things shit themselves or go to fucking ground," Fitz retorts, getting both hands back on the map and folding it up in a way that's nothing like the way it was meant to be folded. His lip curls at it, baring a few teeth. "They freeze and hide and hope. They pray to whatever fucking useless gods that scared things pray to, even though they ain't never prayed before in their whole worthless lives."

"When you catch them." There's a pause from Trixie before she adds, "Can-food does not. They do not make sounds or pray. Not that Trixie can hear." She glances towards the bench and the buried turkey wrap, looking briefly focused as if she were actually trying to hear if it was making a sound. "Does the snow pray when the summer comes? Is that why ice cracks? Glaciers make sounds. The earth cries under them. Maybe it prays."

Fitz gets the map more or less in a shape that lets it be stuffed back into his back pocket, though with a lot of impatient grimacing. "I dunno, sister, and honestly I am too fucking tired to even try to think up a good response to that pile of existential vomit you just spewed all over my boots." He turns bloodshot blue eyes back on her. "So why don't you make like Fido and go lick it all up and then... fuck, I dunno." Irritated, he pushes upright off the lamppost and adjusts the straps of his backpack. "Bite me."

"I am not sick." Trixie says with a narrowing of her eyes and a slow approach back to the bench she had occupies. "If you do not want dirty boots, do not walk in dirt." She sits herself back down on the bench with her feet under her rump, more crouched as if prepared to spring versus sitting like normal folks, with her arms resting over her knees. "Biting you will only make you angry." She says dismissingly as she looks out over the meadow past Fitz.

Fitz grimaces as if pained, shakes his head, and heads off in roughly the direction of the bridge across the river.