It's Brittany, Bitch | Ερις (eristic) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-03-14 11:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | eris, vainamoinen |
ain't no disaster
Who: BB & Brent
What: A game of pool with two… whatever the opposite of sharks is.
Where: Pax Letale
When: Friday evening
At some point late Friday afternoon, Brent had fallen asleep on a couch in the communal rec room. The door had opened and closed a few times, but Brent had only rolled over and moved another pillow beneath his head. Stephan, having far more pressing matters to attend, had simply left him to lie there. He had bathed, for once, and was wearing what appeared to be reasonably clean, if faded, green scrubs. Only a single hole could be seen, and that was at the very edge of his left hem. (A close inspection would reveal a single old stain on the breast pocket, but this was an ancient bit of blood, left over from whomever had owned the scrubs before.)
He woke just as a small young woman entered the room. He was still intensely groggy, but he had not met her before, and his curiosity made his mouth run far faster than his brain.
"Hi," he said. "I'm Brent. I haven't met you yet."
"Yeah, I definitely would've remembered you," BB replied, giving the strange looking man a wide berth. "Are you some homeless guy Stephan took pity on? This is private property, you know." She shook her head, moving through the room to the far away pool table, which had been her main objective upon entering the rec room. BB had thought she'd have it all to herself, but her mood was spoiled slightly by the presence of another.
"Yes I know," Brent said. He rose from the sofa, pulling a hand through his already thoroughly wild hair. It stood on end in more places than one, a consequence of too many cowlicks and no product. "I'm Brent." He gestured down to himself. "And I'm in 102. So hi, neighbor. What's your name?"
BB didn't immediately reply, continuing on her trajectory toward the pool table and removing a cue from a nearby wall. She leaned it against the table and started to set up the balls in the triangle holder.
"Brittany," she finally said, watching him from across the room. "So, like, no offense, but how does someone who dresses like you afford a place like this?"
"OK, rude," Brent said, raising his index finger at her, wagging it gently as he moved to follow her. Without asking, he took another cue from its place, and took up a spot at the edge of the pool table. "And these are scrubs in case you didn't notice. I do have a job, you know. I work at the hospital. What do you do, that I guess you're so rich and well off?"
"I'm a reporter," BB sniffed back at him, all but sticking her nose in the air. She wiggled the balls in their triangular guard, then lifted it to leave them perfectly placed for the beginning of a game. "Just because you're wearing scrubs doesn't prove anything. Don't you have, like, an ID or something? For all I know you got those out of a dumpster and you're trying to pass yourself off so you can steal supplies to sell out of an alley or something. Because, frankly, that's how it looks like you get your money." She picked up the cue again and moved to the other side of the table, lining up to take a shot at the cue ball. BB closed one eye, as though this would help her aim better.
"Well just because you say you're a reporter doesn't make you one," Brent said. "What do you do, like sportscasting or something? Weather? I bet you're a weather girl." As far as insults went it was fairly weak, but it was the best Brent could conjure up for the time being. "I work at LA County Hospital, and yes I have an ID but I'm not showing you." He pointed to the table with the tip of his cue. "You stripes or solids?"
BB struck the cue ball with a solid crack, sending it flying across the table. Unfortunately, her strike did little more than to knock three loose. She frowned, standing straight and putting one hand on her hip.
"OK, one, I write investigative reports on high profile people of interest, two, weather forecasters are way more math and science than I ever wanted to invest in school so that's not an insult, and three, who said I was playing with you?"
"Who plays pool alone?" Brent asked, his face showing earnest confusion. He moved to stand in front of the cue ball, leaning down and sending it flying with a hard, completely unaimed strike. A striped ball spun as it moved toward the back of the table, bouncing wildly but missing every pocket it passed. "I bet you don't write about people I'd be interested in," he said. "I mean, who even determines who's interesting and who isn't? You, I guess?" He snorted.
"Uh, yeah," BB replied, rolling her eyes at his terrible play despite the fact that it was little better than her own. She moved around the table remaining on the opposite side from him, lining up her own shot rather than admonishing him for interrupting her game. "And, like, popular opinion. Don't you watch ET or even the news? Good Morning, America, will tell you what's been going on. But then again, maybe you don't even have a TV," she lambasted him, smirking as she lined up a second shot. This time, she finally sunk a ball with a thick yellow stripe, despite the fact that she'd been aiming for a solid evergreen one.
"I have a TV," he muttered, quite low as though to keep her from hearing. And so he did: an old box unit, only a step above black and white, that he had rescued from a sidewalk where it had been cast aside. It still stood on its original wheeled table, limping on one dry-rotted plastic wheel. "And I saw ET." He stuck out one finger, mimicking the little alien's movements from the quite aged film. "Popular opinion is dumb, though. If that's what your job is based on, it's even worse than mine."
"Oh my god, not the alien," BB almost shouted, exasperation filling her voice. "God, you live under a rock. Entertainment Tonight?" She explained for him, deprecatingly, passing the pool cue between her hands. Brent only shrugged, apparently unfazed by her disrespect.
"You're definitely not a nurse, unless you're just pretending to be one like I said. There are so many things beneath my job, Brent, you'd have to climb a ladder to even be on my level. What is it that you do that's so goddamn special?"
Brent still seemed bent on pretending he knew at all what he was doing. Though it was technically still her turn, he snuck in all the same, lining up a shot with a solid-colored ball. His strike went as wild as the one before it, and the cue ball spun enough to sink another striped ball, for which he had not at all been aiming. He threw up his hands, the tip of the cue sliding perilously close to the lights above the table.
"I'm a transporter," he said. "You know, like Jason Statham. Only mostly for old people. In wheelchairs."
BB stared at him from across the table, before realization slowly dawned on her features.
"Oh my god, you're serious, aren't you? Are you sure you're not a fucking mental patient who escaped from a nearby asylum? Are asylums even a thing anymore?" She fell quiet as she pulled out her phone. "Note to self, check to see if area rehab centers used to be asylums. Piece angle: modern lunatics?" She spoke into the phone's recorder before slipping it back into her pocket. She then continued her turn, having no idea that Brent had stepped into the game unbidden.
"For real, though, what the hell do you do?"
Again he threw up his hands; this time the cue struck the lamp and sent it swinging. "Oh my God I'm a transporter," he shouted. "An orderly? You know, I wheel you around from your stupid room to your stupid doctor or whatever?" Cue still in hand, he pantomimed pushing a wheelchair. "Seriously."
Frustrated, he grabbed a solid-colored ball from the table and dropped it into a pocket. "There," he said. "I win."
"That's not how you play the game," BB all but whined, stepping away from the swinging light. "Seriously, I'm this close," she held up a pinch between her forefinger and thumb, before jabbing her own cue in his direction as though they might start jousting, "to calling the cops to have you recommitted. Can you go fucking transport yourself out of here?"
"I was never committed," Brent yelled. His tone gave more than a little cause to suspect there was quite a story behind his denial. His fists clenched into tight balls, his knuckles white where he grasped the cue. Just as quickly he transitioned to full-on sulking. "And anyway I was here first. You leave."
"Um, no," BB replied, indignant, her eyes still wide from Brent's earlier near-scream. The good sense portion of her mind was telling her she needed to remove herself from this situation before this turned into an assault, the other, more stubborn part absolutely refused to give in. "I'm a tenant of this building, you're a crazy lunatic who doesn't know when to quit." A lot of people would say the same thing about me, she muttered in her head, instead turning back to the table and hitting the cue ball against another solid navy, which in turn rolled into a red stripe that bounced softly off of one velveted corner.
"Why were you in here, if you have an apartment in this building?" She returned accusatorily, stamping the butt of her cue on the ground.
Brent shrugged. "It's a nice room. And my rent pays for it. Why shouldn't I hang out in here?" He saw no reason to mention the fact that there were pillows here bereft of lice or fleas -- at least for now -- and furniture that had not been salvaged from sidewalks and thrift shops. That was none of her business, and frankly, nothing he wanted to even think overlong on.
He had declared himself the winner, but the argument had continued and thus he needed to prove himself. Already he had forgotten his earlier designation, so when he leaned over the pool table, it was to line up a strike at a striped ball. He found a little more success this time: Through more blind, dumb luck than anything, a striped ball bounced off one rail and into a center pocket.
"No, I'm stripes," BB replied angrily, moving toward the pocket that her ball had disappeared into and withdrawing it to place it back on the velvety surface. "And if you're gonna be in here, maybe you could not dress like a homeless person? At least you don't smell like one. What, you figured out how to use the hose?" She moved back to the far side of the table, taking the cue ball with her as she lined up a differing shot to sink the ball he'd just played.
Without hesitation, he moved alongside the pocket she had fished in, staring daggers at the ball she had retrieved from him. He plucked it up from the surface before she could shoot. Rather than return the pilfered ball to the table, he put it into the pocket of his scrubs. "Homeless people don't wear scrubs," he said. "They wear… I don't know. Salvation Army shit. Fingerless gloves. Right?" He nodded, after giving it only a moment's thought. "Right."
"Put it back," she shouted, loud enough for Stephan in the lobby to hear. "I don't know what homeless people wear, I'm not a fucking destitute fashion designer." BB pointed her cue in Brent's direction, poking him in the stomach, trying to angle for the pocket with her ball in it as though she could free the sphere from a distance. When that proved ineffective -- made so by dint of her impatience -- she dropped the cue on the table and wrapped her arms in a cross over her chest.
"If you're not homeless, how do you know so much about what they wear?" she continued in as of snotty a tone as she could manage.
"Because I watch TV," he snarked back. He looked down to his scrubs, rubbing at the chalk mark added to already numerous stains. The green barely showed against the blue-green of his uniform, but he worried overlong at it all the same.
Brent glanced back to the door leading into the rec room, hoping against hope Stephan did not come to address BB's concerns. He had no desire to return to his grimy little studio, particularly as he had no food to present to his gathering of illicit, four-legged roommates. The ball remained in his pocket, though he put aside his cue for now. "You're kind of a mean girl, Brittany. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"And you're kind of an idiot, Brent. Anyone ever tell you that?" Her lower lip stuck out in a round pout, her game ruined. She glanced at the table, back to Brent, and then pulled out her phone, quickly tapping away.
"Well, I wish I could say this's been fun," she said, glancing up from her phone to him as she slid the device back into her pocket, "but some of us have lives. I hope I don't see you again, Brent." BB navigated around the pool table and headed for the rec room door, leaving in much the same way as she'd entered.
Disappointment colored Brent's face. He took the ball from his pocket and dropped it onto the table, watching BB leave all the while. "Sorry," he said, though he could not be certain he meant it, and he spoke so low she may well not have heard. He trudged over to the rack to carefully replace his cue. Then he returned her own as well, frowning as he put it in place.
"Better luck next time," he said.