Event - Appalachia: Into the Pines

[apocalypsehowmods]

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Appalachia: Into the Pines

Footage plays on the television as a new story comes on, showing a series of sweeping vistas, intercut with clips of wolves that have clearly been filmed at some local wildlife sanctuary. "As far as anyone knows it, the last wolf to ever freely roam the Allegheny Mountains was slain in West Virginia in 1897. Daniel Stoffer Hamrick saw to the beast's passing, and the woods in our part of the world have gone quieter ever since. Appalachia does not forget its history, though. It buries it beneath coal and flyash, debts and white powder and pills. And the blood of people taken before their time, by the mines, by the mountain, by things we don't have names for, just hurt. But Appalachia does not forget.

"This is Cindy Parsons with Channel 5, Wolf News." Footage cuts to a newscaster standing outside a gated apartment complex with FYRE's logo emblazoned on it. "As we know, our beloved Wolf Pen is home to one of the biggest FYRE worker housing complexes in Wyoming County. It is a monument to the history of our town, and this week, we'll be on the lookout for visitors from all over the country, coming to see the grand re-opening of the historic Bluestone Mine as a museum."

Footage cuts to a nondescript businessman, identified by the news footage as Carl Watts, CEO of FYRE. He's smiling blandly as he stands at a podium and gestures to the entrance of the mining tunnel behind him. "The Wolf Pen community has been a partner to us for decades now, and we knew it was finally time to give something back to all y’all. We'll have our soft opening on Monday with a full Rumble Down Under party in the old mines scheduled for June 15th. We'll have a live bluegrass concert and anticipate a huge influx of tourists to the area to help out our neighbors itching for a few more pocketbooks to tend to." A wink.

The footage returns to Cindy. "FYRE has stated that this new museum will provide an educational tool and tourist attraction for those wanting to learn about West Virginia, Wolf Pen, and the hard-working men and women who have made this beautiful part of our nation their home. Time will tell. Time is always telling when it comes to the promises of people who have used our land and our bodies to line their pocketbooks. They fill our blood and our lungs with black tar and-"

Cindy cuts out and is replaced by in-studio anchors. "Thank you, Cindy!" a blonde woman says, smile just a little strained. "I think we're all looking forward to seeing the big opening by FYRE on Sunday and that rocking good party next month. It should be a gneiss one! Now to Tim with the weather. Tim?"

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Comments

[abrightboy]

“Are you okay?” Malcolm asks, turning his glass around between the fidgety fingers of both hands. “Do you need some ice for your hands?”

[bindlestifflost]

"I've had worse." He waves it off. With the napkins pressed tight over them, the bleeding is down to a slow, coagulating ooze. "If you wanna...say whatever it was you was sayin' out there, I'll listen now."

He's had time to shut down and pull in. He's numb more than anything else, and with the help of the gin, he'll be number still in a little while.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches him for a moment, studying his face, then shrugs a shoulder, looking down into his drink.

He knows a wall when he sees one. He’s not sure whether he’s being invited to share or to be humoured.

“I was just trying to work out what it was doing. Everything that I said and did was taken from memories or was based on memories. I was just… wondering if it was the same for you.”

[bindlestifflost]

"Not word for word direct." He slowly turns his glass in his hand, a back and forth shift with the bend of fingers and thumbs.

"But it was...a lot like my old man when he was drunk or jes' in a mood. I didn't feel what I was sayin'. I wanted to stop and tried as hard as I could to break through. Didn't matter what I wanted. It was gonna use me jes' the same."

He glances up at him, a flick of gaze that returns to his glass. "So it was more like memories for you?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up when George answers, his expression a little brighter, almost relieved. Like he wasn’t expecting to get so much back.

“Not word for word… or… not all of it. But I recognized the scenarios. I recognized what it was making me respond to. But I couldn’t control it, either. It was more like… night terrors. Like. Watching a horror movie play out through your own eyes but not being able to stop it or… or wake up.”

[bindlestifflost]

"It didn't seem like it was me you was seeing or talkin' to," he says in confirmation of the impression. He takes a slow sip from his glass.

"Prob'ly need to report this. Warn other people from goin' there so it don't happen to them, too. Could'a made us kill each other. Could'a made us do all kinds a' things." There's not much emotion in how he says it. It's bluntly matter-of-fact. The warmth in his belly is starting a slow spread. He's nowhere near where he wants to be. First steps.

[abrightboy]

“It wasn’t you,” Malcolm confirms. “It was my father… and a boy at school.” Malcolm gingerly touches his jaw where a purple bruise has bloomed. “Did your father beat you for real?”

[bindlestifflost]

"Yeah. Weren't no different for a lotta kids." He shrugs. It's not a thing, because he refuses to let it be a thing.

"You want some ice? Sure they got some up at the bar." That purpling bruise tugs his conscience. He may not have wanted to lay it down, but it came from him, still. Violence from his past, that will always be a part of him no matter how much he does what he can to set it aside.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles and presses his glass of scotch on the rocks against it.

“I’m all set,” he says.

He presses his lips together and regards George thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure a man who beats his own family is any less of a monster than a man who kills twenty-three strangers,” he muses.

[bindlestifflost]

"I don't know." He's self aware enough to recognize his initial impulse to defend his father as maybe not the greatest. It's not the way he'd ever treat a defenseless kid, or even an adult for that matter.

But equating it with murder is hard to swallow. He swallows the gin instead and excuses himself to go place another order.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watches him go. Watches him come back. He’s still leaning his face against his glass.

“He was going to kill me. Right before I came here, he really was going to.”

[bindlestifflost]

"I don't think my old man ever would'a gone that far." Not that he's comparing, per se. "I'm glad yours didn't get the full chance."

[abrightboy]

“He had lots of chances,” Malcolm says. “Before he got arrested, he took me on a camping trip. He could have taken me out into the woods and said ‘hey, look at that bird’ and I would have looked and he could have just cut my throat, just like that. I’m not saying he wasn’t abusive; he’s a narcissist and a predatory psychopath, but being The Perfect Father was important to his self image.” He looks over at George. “What was your dad like when he wasn’t… doing that?”

[bindlestifflost]

"Workin' mostly. He was always a hard worker. Or ignoring me and telling me to stay out from under foot. So I did. Tried to help out where I could. Hard for little kids to do much on a farm." He takes another leisurely sip now that he has a few more lined up in front of him.

"You think you ever would'a knowed if you didn't find that girl?" It's hard to imagine a man could have kept that kind of secret forever with his family. Sooner or later something would've had to give.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm turns the glass around in his hands a couple more times, then takes a sip, then leans forward.

“I don’t think the girl in the box was the only thing he was trying to drug out of my memory. I think he wanted me to follow in those particular footsteps. He was grooming me for murder, but it didn’t take. So yeah, sooner or later, I think I would have found out, because he wanted me to know. Right before I came here - right before he decided to kill me - he told me I was never a good son. He wanted us to be the same, but we never were.”

[bindlestifflost]

"Never a good son by them standards ain't a bad thing." He doesn't doubt it probably still stung. His own father's disappointment always hurt worse than his fists or any strap.

"You done somethin' right." He swallows back more gin, finally starting to feel the first traces of numbness in his nose and lips. He's going fast and slightly built. It doesn't take too long.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm gives him a small smile and takes another sip of his drink.

“I’ve long been happy to disappoint him,” he admits. “What was school like for you?”

[bindlestifflost]

He shakes his head. "Somethin' I did until they foreclosed the farm, then I hit the road workin'." He'd been a small kid, but the other kids had learned early on he had hard fists and a mean temper. "You?"

[abrightboy]

"I was good at the course work. I enjoyed learning. I never... got on well socially. After my father's murder trial, it wasn't really tenable to stay in the school I'd been going to. My mother experimented with home schooling and then boarding school... and then home schooling again... and then a different boarding school." He smiles sadly into his glass. "Ass kickings build character, right?"

[bindlestifflost]

"Kids are little hellions. I was. Took me too long to figure out a better way. Always pickin' at what they see's a weakness. Makes sense I guess when the whole world's set against 'em and all they can do is endure it." Come to think of it, being an adult isn't so different, either. Just a wider set of choices and bigger problems with no one around to tell you what to do about them. He snorts softly, a mildly disgusted sound.

[abrightboy]

"Nobody's born broken," Malcolm notes softly. "Somebody breaks us. Devouring something smaller or more vulnerable is an easy way to feel powerful for a moment. It's a sign of weakness," he says almost sharply. "It's something weak people do."

This time, when his fingers absently find his face, it's the scar on his lip, not the bruise on his jaw. "I got beat up a lot after school, but one day they knocked me down into a concrete bench alongside the playground. Split my lip, knocked me out. Blood everywhere. I think they thought they killed me, because they ran away. I'm not saying I was popular before my father was arrested, but I kind of preferred being called 'twinkle-toes' and getting shoved around a bit to being called 'psycho' and getting hit in the face."

[bindlestifflost]

That one's a little above his pay grade. He doesn't feel qualified to agree or disagree, and as is so often the case when he finds himself there mentally, it gets a grunt into his glass before he takes a sip.

"You was a dancer?" That's the only context he has for that word, and it's easier to latch onto than the rest of it.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm blinks at him, almost like he doesn’t realize how George knows, then realizes what he said and shrugs a shoulder, waving it off with a huff that is clearly a show, and one he’s put on many times in the past.

“My mom made me take ballet when I was a kid,” he explains. You know what moms are like, he shrugs casually.

It’s a lie. He loved ballet. He still loves it. But admitting that has never been a good experience. He hadn’t even wanted to tell Gil, though that had gone… all right. Not horrible. He didn’t show up at the precinct to find a tutu on his desk or anything.

He fidgets at his drink, then looks up from under his brow to see what’s going on on George’s face.

[bindlestifflost]

"Huh. I ain't never really seen none of it," he says. "Posters in cities sometimes I guess." Mostly women in tutus. He doubts the men wear them and can't remember if he ever saw a picture of one.

"I dance. It was always a fun way to spend a little time with the ladies when we'd go into town." He's using the term loosely. The only ladies willing to associate with the bindle stiffs got paid for their time.

"Dumb thing to pick at somebody about. Was you any good?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles a small smile of relief.

“My teacher said I showed great promise,” he admits softly. He takes a sip of his drink, then turns it around in his hands again once he sets it down. “I had to stop the lessons after my father’s arrest. The other kids’ parents didn’t want me there.”