Re: [Jester's Court: Cat & Jack]
They probably sold beer and liquor in the park. Cat was a product of the '70s, even if he'd been too young then to remember anything that came with the disco balls and velour furnishings. But the '70s were the heydays of drugs and booze, and no one really knew about addiction then. Drink, smoke, and everyone did it, and Cat eyed a cigarette vending machine and whistled. Talk about retro, and the only shame was that no one in 2018 carried quarters or dollar bills, and so Cat had none in his pocket. Lack of forethought, really, and he'd need to find a pocket to pick. His green gaze skimmed the crowd, and Jack talked about owning businesses, and Cat figured he was drunk.
He sniffed, but the entire place smelled like spilled beer, and he couldn't tell if Jack was the one drowning in Miller or Bud, or if it was just the ground and the new-summer heat making fumes rise from the trampled dirt. Whatever, Cat wasn't here to save the world. Bars would be out the question for this particular small business owner if he gave a shit about people's wagons and whether they were hanging off them. Did it make Cat a bad friend? Probably. It made him think about Dahl, and he should probably check on the angry woman one of these days.
"Fuck," Cat agreed. "Stephanie's Stephanie. She's hoping he'll come back, and I'm hoping he does and before she exits that stage of grief and moves onto whatever comes next." Cat wished that for himself, too. Eddie had become a father-figure, which was admittedly weird. Cat, girl-Cat, had been born before Eddie, but the youth standing there in his retro-cardigan and kicks, he knew he wasn't that old woman anymore. He wasn't not her, but he wasn't her, and Eddie had been the one solid after shit went, well, to shit. "I hope he finds happy inside him," was what Cat finally added, which was maybe too soft, but, again, whatever.
And, anyway, this was an amusement park. Alright, sure, Cat needed to find a way out, but there was no reason not to enjoy himself along the way. "I'm epic," he finally said, which was utter bullshit, but he was high and young and whatever. He held up one finger, and Jack said he'd wanted to see this place for real.
Cat wandered a few feet away to a food stand. Pizza, hot dogs, beer, coke, and Cat rocked on those kicks and got in line behind a woman with huge hoop earrings and so much hairspray that she'd go up in flames if someone smoked within like a mile of her. Anyway, lithe fingers slipped into the woman's oversized purse, and Cat pulled out a wallet and flipped through it. The woman kept chattering with her friend, and Cat pulled out some money and then tucked the wallet back into the purse. Done. Easy-peasy, and when the woman ordered her coke and started screaming? Cat had already moved up to the other window and ordered a hot dog, which he was eating as he walked back to jack. "Want a smoke?" he asked, handing the remaining half of the hotdog to Jack and continuing to the cigarette vending machine.