LOG. WHO: Sidney Donahue, Charlie Clarence. WHAT: Log. Sidney and Charlie re-connect (so to speak) over a drink. WHERE: Shelly's, Piper Pier. WHEN: November 4, 1954. STATUS: Complete. WARNINGS: Minimal bad language.
This afternoon, Charlie Clarence’s job had taken him to Playland Parkway. No, Personville PD was not paying him to ride a roller coaster. Charlie was currently handling an investigation into whether or not a patrolman who may have had exceeded his duty while assisting an inebriated amusement park-goer to the drunk tank several evenings ago.
At first, it seemed like an open-and-shut case. Inevitably, though, the further he got into the investigation, and the more witnesses he talked to, the more uncertain the facts became. What Charlie did know by quitting time, however, was that he was frustrated, and that getting something to drink would help with that. Shelly’s beckoned.
He didn't patronize it nearly as much as he did when he lived in Piper Pier, but Charlie still visited Shelly's as often as time and geography allowed. He collapsed into a bar stool, and grinned gratefully when a beer materialized in front of him. Then Charlie looked directly to his right. “Hey,” he said, as much to the bartender as the guy with a familiar face sitting next to him. “Sidney. Right? Can I get another drink for this gentleman here?”
It was always a gamble whether or not Sidney would run into anyone he knew during his off-hours drinking sessions; it was an even bigger gamble if he would actually want to talk to them. Granted, if he'd truly wanted to be alone he would have just gone home, or to a lesser-known bar, but...well, here he was.
He'd braced himself as soon as he felt the presence of another next to him, prepared himself to grunt wordlessly and get back to his thoughts, but suddenly the intruder was speaking and before he could decline, there was another whiskey in front of him.
"Charlie Clarence," he said, the words coming out as more of a sigh than anything else.
"Yeah. And you're Sidney," Charlie repeated. It was all coming back to him now. He wasn't one of those geniuses who remembered every name or face he ever saw, but he'd seen Sidney often enough around his old apartment building that he wouldn't forget the guy ever existed.
Clearly he hadn't forgotten Charlie, either. He wasn't a genius, but neither was he so obtuse that he couldn't detect an undercurrent of unwillingness to engage in excess chatter. He could appreciate that. God knew Charlie felt that way often enough himself. "Found myself in the neighborhood again tonight. Work," he ventured. "You still at Northam Bachelors?"
Slightly annoyed with himself for having shown his hand so early - Sidney generally liked to keep his ability to remember the minor details of others' existence to himself - he figured he would have to compensate by staying at least a few minutes more. Besides, he still had a drink in front of him. Couldn't let that kind of charity go to waste, could he?
"Still at Northam Bachelors. Been there since I first moved here." Which was a lie, sort of. "Though I guess if you can get out, then there's hope for all of us." Which was a joke, sort of.
"Not much to it. I got fed up with the hot plates one night, and one thing led to another." The real story was a little more elaborate. One night, early in his Internal Affairs tenure, the stress of the new job got to him so badly that a hot plate was victimized in an uncharacteristic expression of ill temper. And, by ‘victimized,’ Charlie supposed that he may have punted the goddamned thing halfway down a hallway.
"So, same apartment." Charlie took a sip of his beer. "Good old Northam Bachelors. Still working in the same place, too?"
Sidney chuckled. The hot plates were actually kind of funny, in a sad way. Something in it about how a man only needed a stove if he had someone else around to cook for him.
He couldn't recall having ever mentioned where he worked, but reasoned it could have come up in idle conversation at some point - or maybe someone had seen him around, or said something, or mentioned him in passing. At the same time, Sidney knew he wasn't the type to go around shouting 'Private Eyes Detective Agency!' at anyone who gave him a second glance.
"Yep, same place," he said at last. "Pay's decent. Secretaries aren't too bad to look at. Every day's an adventure." It was the sort of thing you could say about almost any job, anywhere.
“Never a dull moment? Great. Lucky you.” This was turning into an awkward moment. Charlie looked down into his beer again, trying to figure out what else to say. He had invested money in alcohol for another human being, at this point, so he didn't want to give up on the conversation quite yet.
"So. Great. Nothing new at all? I've been working a case in the neighborhood,” he said, repeating himself just a little. “Cop stuff.”
What was this guy getting at? Sidney had to wonder if maybe Charlie Clarence wasn't fishing for information on his case - not that he knew anything about the case. But it was in his neighborhood, and he wasn't exactly a model citizen. He also harbored a natural inclination towards suspicion of police officers, due to a lifetime of unpleasant interactions with pretty much all of them.
He did a quick assessment of his whereabouts over the last several days, taking a long sip of his whiskey to buy himself more time. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as he could tell. Except there was that one… "Nothing new at all," he said, his voice containing a hint of a challenge. "What can I say? I'm a boring guy."
"Nah. Just, er, steady." Charlie nodded for emphasis. "People would kill for that kind of predictability in their lives."
But then Sidney had said that every day was an adventure, hadn't he? It wasn't Charlie's responsibility to probe into someone else's private life. He'd let that one alone.
"This cop, you see, he may or may not have used a little too much force while he was trying to drag someone to the drunk tank a few nights ago." Charlie paused to take another sip of his drink -- funny how either time flew when he was having fun, or how quickly he was putting this beer away. He was already almost done with it. "Hear anything about it? It was in the paper, too." It hadn't been his intention to question Sidney, but what the hell. He had a captive audience. He may as well ask.
As it were, Sidney had heard something about this particular incident - nothing definitive, but word had gotten around. "Getting dragged to the drunk tank? Pretty common around here," he said with a half-shrug. He could feel himself lapsing back into that old habit, the one of handing out non-information while being questioned. But this case did seem to be different, and Sidney couldn't catch even a whiff of corruption Clarence - which was saying something, in this town.
He decided to be nice. Today, just this once, he wouldn't continue being suspicious of someone who gave him no reason to be. "Sorry I can't be more help. Heading to the drunk tank is bad enough getting beaten up over it."
“Sure is.” He couldn’t speak from personal experience, but carting people off to the drunk tank for an evening’s introspection wasn’t much fun, either. He didn’t see how adding a beating would’ve enhanced the experience, but that was what he was there to investigate.
Charlie reached the bottom of his beer, and pushed it away, shaking his head at the bartender in response to a query about whether he wanted another. “Somehow I think I’ve bent your ear enough for one day,” he said, getting back up to his feet. He reached for his wallet to pay for his drink, and Sidney’s -- yeah, he remembered. He wasn’t about to say he’d pay for someone’s drink and then stiff him on the bill. “I’m a long ways away from finishing this case, so I’m sure I’ll see you sooner, not later. See you around. Enjoy the rest of that drink.”