apocalypsehowcomm | A handkerchief held all my gear (OPEN LOG Catch-all April)

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A handkerchief held all my gear (OPEN LOG Catch-all April)

Who: George Milton and ???
When: Most of April
Where: In ADI, on the grounds, and Gloucester proper
Summary: George is familiarizing himself with his new environment and is never content to be in one place for too long.
Warnings: Possibly some of the eye flower weirdness if anyone wants to do a fair/festival prompt, possibly drinking to excess, will update if needed and also warn in individual thread headers.

1. Home Sweet Home?

It's weird, having such a huge space just to himself and maybe two other folks. For now it seems like it's just Nick, and well, he could have done a whole lot worse. Settling in is always a little awkward. He didn't have much of anything to put away. That took no time at all.

So now he's sitting on the sofa in the common room fiddling with the phone, not because he likes it or particularly wants to but because it has been emphasized so much as important, he'd be a fool not to keep at it. He's less outwardly or visibly frustrated working on it alone, just grunting and muttering to himself off and on as he fat fingers his typing or has trouble making one of the apps do what it's supposed to.

He doesn't know how long he has been at it. Long enough for his butt to be sore and his legs to feel like they could use a good stretching when there's a knock at the door. Immediately, he tucks the phone in his jacket pocket as he stands and crosses to it.

"Who's there?" His voice is deep and sharp enough to carry through the wood just fine.

2. The Library

The short guy sitting at the computer terminal doesn't much look like he belongs there. He's staring very intently at the monitor, his typing a painfully slow hunt and peck style. He seems to be trying to research basic history of the region, currently on one of the local government pages of helpful links.

Every now and then he awkwardly moves or clicks the mouse, often followed by a low, "Dammit," or, "No, not you. I want...you." He's so engrossed in the work that he doesn't react at first to the person who comes in behind him. It's only when he hears a definitive noise that he jumps a little and whips his head around, looking almost guilty.

"Sorry. Did you need this?" He's not completely sure he ought to be here, and it shows.

3. The Grounds

At various locations around the grounds, a short, slight man in a brimmed work hat can be spotted wandering and familiarizing himself with the area. He has a fast, no-nonsense gait, like somebody used to being on his feet, and he's never in any one place for very long. When spoken to, he touches his hat brim and gives a nod. He's fine with stopping to chat, especially if he has already met you, but even if he hasn't, he won't brush off a friendly overture.

4. The General's Store

George's voice is increasingly strident as he argues with the beleaguered cashier behind the register. "An' I'm tellin' you 50 bucks for a plain ol' fishin' pole is highway robbery. Not to mention you ain't even including tackle or bait in that. I ain't gonna stand here and let you swindle me. You been swindlin' everybody who works at ADI? That it?"

"Sir, if you'd just..."

"Don't you sir me. Do I look like a sir? Jes' admit you're doing people dirty. I'll tell you what. You put all a' that mess back on the shelf. I don't want none of it. I wouldn't take it if you paid me." Without another word, he's storming for the door.

5. A Bar at the Docks

It took long enough to find the kind of place with the vibe he was looking for, nothing too fancy, just a hole in the wall with beat up barstools and an older woman behind the bar who seems happy enough not to ask too many questions. Like everything else in this damned town, the price of the drinks is sky high. By this point he doesn't care.

He's seated belly up at the far end of the bar pounding gin like there's a run on it, and he may have found the last bottle. There's a certain fixed quality to his thousand yard stare. Hard to tell if he recognizes you or not if you approach.

6. Wildcard!

((OOC: Bring your own prompt, or feel free to use some of the fair prompts from the TDM. George would be playing any number of games there. If you have any questions or want to run something by me, you can hit me up at

velocinapper, PM, or Disco. Brackets are also fine!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yep." It's easy enough to answer. He's not sure why he's thinking about it now, something Lennie's aunt said a lifetime ago about how it don't cost nothing to be nice.

And then again in a somewhat harder, flatter tone, "Yep." Most of them mean, either active mean like that bastard Curley or passive mean like that other bastard Carlson with his luger and inability to leave old men alone with their old dogs. "Mostly drifters like me." Not like him then, but like him now. Alone.

He pauses to lift his head and sniff the air a little, catching wind of the body of water they're looking for. He'd rather follow that than some phone map. He nods toward a bare field just starting to come up grass after the winter. "Let's cut through that. See them sedges? That's what we're aiming to get through."

Lots of people don’t choose to be nice. Malcolm has always seen it as a thing he can choose. Not just a way to not be the Surgeon, but a way to connect with the gentle, as it were. Nobody was born broken. Anyone can choose not to break other people more. Most of them don’t.

George seems like a sweet soul that’s learned hardness the hard way.

“How do you know what a good spot is to fish?”

"Some trial and error, some luck. Experience, too. You get to know what kinda spots they like. Shelter, brush, sunken logs. Some fish is more shallow swimmers than others. You want a channel cat, you're gonna sink deep." It occurs to him he has no idea what kind of fish live in Massachusetts versus California. He supposes they'll find out.

"Weather can make a difference. They'll bite more after a rain than before." His boots crunch over the new blades of grass, squeaking in places as he grinds the ball of his foot harder here or there over the uneven ground.

He plunges straight into the tall weeds on the other side of the field without hesitation.

Malcolm looks at where George disappeared into the weeds for a second, then shrugs and plunges in after him, stopping short when he almost bumps into him, grabbing his shoulder to stop him tumbling into the river.

“You found it!”

"Yep, ain't too hard when you know what to look for." He grins and nudges him back, looking up and down the bank for a clearing. "Let's go that way. That willow down there. Bound to be a good place to set up."

He takes off, not too worried about mud or weeds, only skirting brambles since he doesn't want either himself or Malcolm getting all hung up.

Malcolm follows him happily, looking around, tripping over some roots, but not falling and he can probably thank the five years of ballet class he won't admit to for that.

"What kind of fish do you think are here? Are we looking for catfish?"

"I dunno. I never had no reason to try to find out what fish lived clear across the country from me. Guess we'll have us some fun findin' out. Way cats are, it'd surprise me if there ain't some here."

He sets a few things down near the willow and steps to the water, squatting to dip his fingers in and lightly taste it across his tongue. "Little brackish. Might be a mix a' fresh an' salt ones."

Backing up, he takes a seat. "Go on and set yourself down. I'm gonna show you how to rig a pole."

Oh. They’re sitting on the ground. Okay. Gamely, he sits next to George at the base of the tree, pulling his legs up to sit cross legged. He watches closely as George walks him through rigging the rod, imitating his actions on his own rod with a careful studiousness.

Once they're both properly rigged, he pulls the cricket cage and worm container out of the bags. "Maybe we ought to try one a' each, see what they're hitting harder today. I'm gonna show you how to do both. If a bait stealer gets your bait, you gonna need to do it next time."

He's inexperienced, not a kid. Best way to learn is by doing. He catches one of the crickets first.

“Crickets! One of my snakes ate crickets when I was a kid.” He catches a cricket with practiced ease, but then watches George for what to do with it, again following his lead. “Are we using live prey for bait because the fish that eat them are bigger?”

He snorts a half laugh and shakes his head. Of course he had snakes. He threads the hook just under the carapace behind the cricket's head, the barbed point emerging with a small, milky drop of fluid clinging.

"Nah. It's 'cause they'll bite the most reliable on live food. Goes back to how canny they is." Also because he has the most experience with live bait. He could always get his hands on something if he and Lennie needed to fish.

He resettles himself and flicks his wrist, sending his line out in an even arc to plop into the water. The red and white cork bobs and settles. He shakes it a couple of times to check to be sure he's not resting on the bottom. "Now we wait."

Malcolm settles down next to him and looks over.

"How long does it usually take?" he asks. "Will we feel it when they pull on it?"

"Ain't no real usual to it. Sometimes they strike right away. Sometimes you can go a whole day with nothin'. You gotta jes' watch your cork. They'll tap a couple a' times first sometimes, testing out the bait. Then the cork'll shoot under the water, and you know for sure you got somethin'." That's the best part to him.

Propping the pole on his leg with the handle tucked under his thigh, he leans over toward the ice chest. "Want you a soda?" He fishes one out for himself.

“I’d love one. You know, people think sugar is bad for you, but glucose is the fuel of the frontal lobe,” Malcolm tells George, accepting the beverage. “If you consume it in a slow and steady manner rather than binging it, it actually increases concentration and focus.” He pops it open and takes a sip. “All other carbohydrates are actually broken down into simple glucose by your metabolism. Sugar is the only fuel our bodies can actually burn for energy, but we’re so brilliantly designed that we’re actually supposed to consume other things and subsequently convert them to our fuel rather than to only consume our basic fuel. Amazing, right?”

He eyes him sidelong for several long seconds. His can hisses as he pops it open, sending a little spray of beaded soda but no overflow of foam. "What's amazing is how much 'a that sailed so far over my head might as well be a home run with me stuck in the outfield with my glove down." He shakes his head.

"I know a little somethin' about sugar myself." He takes a lazy swig. "Tastes mighty good." The grin he'd been holding in slides into place. He gets hold of his pole again with his free hand.

"Don't you worry 'bout it none. You jes' keep talking exactly like you talk. I'll either ketch up or keep up. One way or another."

Malcolm watches him for a moment, assessing. Is he making fun of him?

He's not making fun of him.

Malcolm smiles a little. "It does taste mighty good," he agrees, taking another sip. "It also feels good because it stimulates dopamine in the brain. That's why it's almost addictive, like a drug. But too much of it in the brain is bad. Like... like flooding a car by putting too much gas in the engine."

"Huh." Some of that, at least, he does understand. "I ain't never had that much. When I was a kid, we'd get a soda maybe once or twice a month if we minded and didn't get ourselves a hidin'. Or we'd save up our pennies and buy a little sack a' candy to split."

He takes another swig, his gaze resting on his cork and also a little distant at the same time. "Lennie's aunt, she'd make a mean sponge cake with strawberries come spring, long as we picked the strawberries and didn't eat too many." It's out before his mind has a chance to catch up to him, an easy memory brought on by soda across the tongue and sitting by the bank of a waterway with a pole in his hand. He's hardly a man of guile. He knows enough to keep his cool and not act like he just got caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

Who's Lennie to anybody here? Nobody. Nobody, and he doesn't have to be.

“Was Lennie a friend in your neighbourhood?” Malcolm asks. He doesn’t recall hearing about him before, but maybe they were childhood pals.

"Yeah. I was close with his aunt. One a' them take in all the stray kid sorts." Not that he was technically a stray. "I had parents. It wasn't like that, but... You'd always have a biscuit or somethin' waitin' on you."

How she managed when so many were so lean, he never did quite figure out, especially with as much as Lennie could put away.

“There always seems to be one of those moms in the neighbourhood, doesn’t there? My friend Gil… his wife was like that when I was a kid. Always made sure there were cookies or crumble when I was coming over,” Malcolm reminisces with a faint smile.

"Yeah. Yeah, I reckon there is." He sets his can within easy reach near his thigh but not so near that if he goes to trying to land a fish he'll knock it over.

"Don't know why. I was a mean little cuss. Jes' as soon spit in your eye as look at you. She never run me off. Never walloped me. Never walloped Lennie none, neither. Not that I ever seen. Never had to, I guess. You know? They got some way about 'em." And not a soul would ever have called that woman weak. It's the sort of thing that's a mystery to him.

"Glad you had somebody like that. Kids need somebody like that." He bobs his pole a bit, seeing if he can entice any of the fish.

"Kids respond to positive attention with better results than negative attention. If things aren't good at home... a place with an adult who doesn't do much but give a damn is like... a refuge. Being treated like they matter makes a kid want to be the kind of person who deserves to matter."

He shrugs, imitating George's action of bobbing the pole.

He glances over. "My mother had a hard time coping with... learning the truth about my father. She was simultaneously over-protective of us and usually too drunk to really pay attention to us, especially in the early days after his arrest. Gil and Jackie spent a lot of time with me."

He isn't saying a single thing he can disagree with. That was exactly how it was. Making Clara smile was the highlight of his day, especially when she got older and sicker. What would she make of him now, sitting high on the hog sipping soda with the ghost of her boy still as heavy in his chest as the remembered weight of that gun in his hand?

He's glad of the distraction of what he's saying, something of enough consequence that he can't tune it out or gloss it over.

"That'd be hard on any woman. Any kid, too. I don't always think much of a lawman. Sounds like yours was awwright. Like you said, a refuge."

His cork bobs a little. After a couple of seconds of waiting, he gets suspicious and pulls it up. The cricket's gone. "Damn bait stealer. Gonna try one a' them worms next." Soon enough he's digging in the carton to do just that, the sharp, dirt smell of them filling the air between them. Once he has it threaded, he plops the hook back into the water.

“He’s always been there to save me when I really need someone.”

Before Neal, he was maybe the only person in the world Malcolm could say that about.

At the fishing action, Malcolm leans forward with intense interest, pulling his own line out of the water once he sees the state of George’s.

“How do they steal it without biting the hook?” he asks, clumsily putting his own worm on before sending his line back into the water.

It's funny how quick the heaviness in his chest can tug, how it comes out of the blue to sit a spell with him a while. He was that for Lennie until he wasn't, and he doesn't yet know what else he can be, or if that failure is his new definition. His chickens come home to roost.

"Usually the bait stealers got the smaller mouths. They pick a little. Pull it apart like a kid pickin' at a chicken leg." His voice is just the same. He's had that skill a long while. Useful with keeping Lennie calm.

"It's a little harder for 'em to do it with worms. We'll see how this goes."

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