Luke Jäger (lukejager) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-03-09 18:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~luke jager, ~wilson grady |
Who: Will Grady and Luke Jager
What: Laundry, charity, and dystopian fiction
Where: Laundromat, General Store - Searchlight
When: March 4, 2021
Ratings/Warnings: None
The smell of soap overwhelmed the senses.
Will sighed, sitting on one of the benches in the laundromat. His clothes tumbled in the dryer. Next to him, an elderly woman using soap flakes shook her box. He caught the stark scent of the wash powder and he felt like sneezing. He held it back though.
The quarters for the machine sat heavy in a pocket. He felt like laundromat prices were a rip off. But this particular laundry was in the General Store which begged the question toward the coinciding hours.
He plugged in another few candy pieces on his phone - Candy Crush level 679 was challenging. Will furrowed his brow and started a new level from his most current loss.
Luke tried to stretch his trips to laundromats to three or four weeks. And now that he was in Searchlight, it was time to unload the ‘dirty clothes’ rucksack and get it all done. In his dark brown cargo pants, white cotton long sleeve thermal shirt, boots (hunting knife in right), the hunter had his long hair pulled back and up on his head in a small bun.
The place was pretty basic, to the point. He had gotten most of his laundry washed, but he was getting down to the last of his quarters to get the last load washed and dried. Luke had a limited budget - already exhausting his lodging money, keeping his fuel money stowed away, relying on a bit of his food stores. He was homeless and hunting job-less. But he was used to the thin times.
Sitting with a paperback of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Luke sipped on a bottle of water and lightly looked over his book at the other people in the space.
“That any good?” Will inquired.
Blue eyes lifted up, fixing on the stranger with the paperback. The book looked worn, pages dog-eared and yellowed with the sun as if the book rested on the dash.
He’d been meaning to read that one but he hadn’t yet gotten around to it.
A good reader was appreciated - knowledge was power, or something.
Luke didn’t blink as he listened to the stranger’s question. He turned his light blue eyes towards the voice and found a pair of bright blue eyes and dirty blond hair. “Yes, if you like dystopian. But I find it reflective.” The hunter had more hopeful books to read, but he rotated through a top twenty that he kept with the others in a beat up and dark colored footlocker he kept in the back section of his dual-cab truck.
Those blue eyes held a bit of promise. He wasn’t good with people, but small interaction felt manageable. “I don’t mind dystopian. It’s an arguable point.” Debatable perhaps.
Will put down his phone. The dryer was nearly finished it’s cycle. Soon he would have to fold and go back to the Las Vegas hotel he had rented.
Nodding, Luke smiled. “Arguable how?” he asked, wanting to further the conversation out of amusement and also see if this individual had knowledge of the town. He placed his torn business card into the book and closed it.
Luke stood and went over to his washer. Almost done thus one dryer load left after his current one. Then he patted his pockets. “Damn,” he breathed softly to himself.
“Pros and cons of the lifestyle,” Will replied. His attention went to the loud dryer. The dial was still twisted to the right ever so slightly - he could smell soap and the metallic scent of wet coins. A small child rushed past, giggling, with a bear clutched in the crook of an arm. Her mother sailed past next. Will stepped back just in enough time to not get knocked over and he smiled a bit to himself at the event.
Then his eyes dragged to the stranger. “Out of change?” He smirked and fished a few quarters out of a pocket, extending a fist clutching the stack. “Here.”
“I can see that,” Luke spoke. He looked over at the small child and her mother. How an innocent life they led. There were creatures everywhere and the little one probably believed those out of the books and cartoons. He remembered when he was her age.
“Yeah,” he sighed and turned to see the other man holding out his fist with coins within. “Thanks,” Luke smiled and graciously held out his open hand under Will’s.
“Sure,” Will replied. He dropped the stack of quarters into the bearded man’s hand, then turned to look at the dryer as it blared at him. He winced. “That ones me.”
A basket would be swept up. It wasn’t a laundry basket, more like a wire shopping hand basket which became suddenly loaded with tumbled, warm clothes. Thankfully he didn’t own much.
Will made his way from the dryer, closing the door with a bump of a hip so that kid didn’t smack into it later, to a flat table to begin the arduous task of folding.
Nodding, Luke smiled and took the quarters. There was another pretty decent and good person in this town. Where were all the supernaturals?
Within seconds, his washer finished spinning out the remaining water. The hunter popped open the door and by nice timing his dryer sounded off to him. Grabbing one of the laundromat’s wheeled wire baskets, Luke went over and unloaded the dryer. To the washer, he gathered up the wet stuff and transferred it. He kept an eye on the other man as he slid the quarters in the dryer slot, tossed in a dryer sheet, shut the door, and started it.
“Want some help with that?” Luke offered as he wiped his hands on his pants.
“With what,” Will began, looking up mid fold. “Folding my underwear? I’m good. But thanks. Laundry isn’t my favorite.” He smiled a bit and went back to the task. Fortunately he had seen his mother fold clothes enough to at least make them look like they weren’t a heap of fabric. Maybe they weren’t lined up straight but it would work.
His new friend seemed to have a lot of clothes, at least that was the observation. A local, maybe. There was little in this town to get excited about.
Luke hadn’t paid attention to the type of clothes the other man had to fold. “Fair enough, fair enough.” He grinned and moved the basket over to another empty table and began folding. He liked to have clothes for the occasion and for all seasons. Who knew where he would be sleeping (beyond his truck of course) and what sort of con he’d be pulling for the situation.
Will had really been teasing. Mostly. It wasn’t all underwear. A sleeve of a shirt lay unfolded against the countertop. He didn’t seem to care, stuffing all of the items into a duffel bag.
When he had arrived at the laundromat it had been with a bundle of clothes held loose in his arms. A nice woman had given him the metal basket. And he’d procured the duffel bag from an unsuspecting man who wouldn’t miss it.
“See you around,” he called to the bearded man, offering a nod of farewell.