Ganesh (itsticking) wrote in we_float, @ 2010-06-24 19:48:00 |
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Current music: | "Human" : The Killers |
Entry tags: | character: del ethier, character: ganesh surendar |
"I did my best to notice when the call came down the line..."
Who: Del Ethier and Ganesh Surendar
When: Wednesday, June 24, afternoon-evening
Where: A hardware store, then back to the Anhalt.
What: Del and Ganesh run into problems and prejudice at the hardware store, then end up talking for a while back at home. PART ONE OF TWO.
Status: Closed; complete
Del loved being outside in this weather; he almost bounced with every step. While seasons never seemed to stop him from wearing shorts and sandals (not to mention sunglasses), for the first time this year, he felt, it was apropos. Tai-chi was better in the sun, shopping was better in the sun, everything was better in the sun.
"Man, all I need is a ice cream cone and life would be just about perfect," he remarked lazily, folding his hands behind his head.
"You seem one of those frozen yogurt types." Ganesh remarked, his step slowing every few moments to bask in the sunlight. He blinked up at the sky, eyes squinting at it. Without sunglasses, it seemed impossibly bright. "I like those... what are they? Gravity dots or something like it. The kind that they freeze in liquid nitrogen."
He grinned, sharing the urge now. "Think Maxxie would notice if we came home with ice cream instead of comm devices?"
"I like frozen yogurt. I like those mochi bits - chewy like marshmellow but not as sticky in your teeth."
It was warm and he'd hoped the two of them would get home in time that he could just lay out in the sun and bask in it without his glasses. It was such a peculiarly wonderful feeling and, living in Washington, not one he got to enjoy super often.
"Not immediately. We should get some on the way back."
"I don't think I know mochi." He agreed with Del simply by following him, quickening his pace slightly as they neared the hardware store. "What are we getting? Something for ballet?"
He tilted his head quizzically as he looked at Del. "How did you get started in dance?"
He dug into his pocket for the list. "We're getting material to make bars and install them into the walls. Brackets and bolts and such. I've got the measurements right here." Del waived the creased piece of paper before shoving it back into his pocket.
"My sister was in it and it was easier for my parents if we were all in one place. I think my mom was hoping it would tire us out so when she came to pick us up, we'd be pretty chill for the rest of the night," he explained, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"Did your sister stay in it?" Ganesh walked up to the front door of the hardware store, then paused. There was a sign taped to the window. He read it silently, then turned to look at Del. "I'm not sure that we should shop here."
"For as long as she could. She was really pretty awesome," he remarked almost reverentially as he read the sign without turning his head. Del wrinkled his nose and pulled out his phone. "You know, you try and shop the local shit and this is what you get. Always say better to go to the chains - they don't give a shit so long as you're willing to exchange cash for services." He pulled up a map and started looking for the nearest Lowe's Depot.
"I like local stores." There was a note of homesickness in his voice. "Generally. Suppose there's still a Jokertown in this city? I... I haven't quite brought myself to look."
"It's in pieces. Jael and I were through there last week. Shit is scattered, people just trying to be under the radar. And my brother is still living there, but he's fairly lucky. His girlfriend's parents own the building so they aren't going to get kicked out any time soon. But it's pretty rough."
It paid to look at people when you talked to them, but his fingers continued to move across the screen. "Man, we'd better go back to the car. It's not walking distance."
"You miss it?" Del asked, turning around to go back.
"Miss what?" Ganesh's steps were slowing. "Jokertown? Never spent that much time in it... here." He stopped for a moment, still staring at the sign. "Wish I could go and tear all those bloody signs down. I know it wouldn't matter but... why? What does it mean? Why?" He shuddered.
"What does what mean? The sign? It means if I go inside, I can expect a shotgun to the temple. You know, if we're going to do the civil disobedience thing, we should probably be more than two of us," Del remarked.
"I thought there were." He said. His face was tense. "Isn't that what the team's for?"
Del's eyebrows became visible over the top of his sunglasses.
"You want to call them?" Del asked.
"Over a sign? I guess not." Ganesh looked suddenly self-conscious. "I just feel so bloody helpless."
Del's head tilted slightly. His attention shifted from Ganesh to the window, then back to Ganesh.
He took a breath, then nodded. "Okay. Okay. We should be able to handle it then. It's just a sign." He gestured. "After you."
"Do you want to wait in the car?" His eyes met Del's glasses, wishing he could see what lay beyond.
Del shook his head. "Nah. I mean, if he really wanted to shoot me, he wouldn't put up a sign, would he?" he replied and smiled in a way that was confident and yet very aware of the situation. "He'd just wait until Jokers came in and then shoot."
This would be fine.
He went and grabbed the door himself to walk in. If Ganesh wanted to feel useful, he could give him useful. Maybe.
This would go well, Ganesh told himself. There was no reason for it not to. Del wasn't an obvious joker and as long as neither of them proved nervous, no one would know.
Just the fact that he was thinking in those terms made him feel sick.
He lengthened his step, wanting nothing more than to move as quickly as possible. The store was calm, only a few people in the corners. He passed a woman, a long shawl draped around her shoulders, then paused. There were too many curves to her back as she moved, three where two belonged. His head quickly jerked away, hoping that his scrutiny had gone unnoticed.
Where Ganesh had slipped towards the aisles, Del went straight to the counter. Only one of the two stations had a light lit and he was glad to find that the cashier wasn't occupied at the moment.
"Hi," he said briskly. "Could you help me with something - I'm not sure you've got it here, but I thought I'd check. You know - shop local," he added brightly, smile winning as he pulled out his slip of measurements.
The cashier, a woman who looked remarkably like his mother if she was a brunette and had put on about thirty pounds, gave him a smile he was sure she reserved for customers and not for pleasure and picked up the courtesy phone. "Just a moment," she said before paging someone to come and help him.
Ganesh was still watching the woman from afar. She reached up to a shelf just as a stocker walked towards her, her muscles rippling in a gesture so blithely normal that it was a full minute before he--or the other--realized that three arms had reached out.
She halted, the third arm jerking back just as the stocker opened his mouth to cry out.
There was a distinctly male gasp that drew both the attention of Del and the cashier, but it was only Del that made a move towards the back.
"Everything ok?" he asked, attention bouncing from Ganesh, to the woman to a stock... well, boy wasn't the appropriate word that was grabbing onto her wrist.
"I... I was just leaving..." The woman said. The hidden arm flailed, pushing at the stocker in clear shock. The stocker yelped--then shoved. Her body went spiraling into the shelves just as Ganesh broke from his pause and began to run towards the man.
"Hey," Del said automatically and moved right into the fray without thinking. While Ganesh looked particularly interested in serving up some justice to the stockman, Del slid immediately sideways to offer a hand to the woman.
"Are you okay?" he asked with kind of a shocked optimism. With the shawl gone, it was easier to get the whole picture. She looked like her abdomen had been duplicated and stacked one on the other - two sets of arms, two sets of breasts, two sets of waists that curved in nicely.
She shook her head, the arms spidering out to help her scoot backwards from the action. "Please... " she began and then stalled out, panic screaming across her features.
"Woah, woah--" Del said, realizing that it was him she was trying to back away from. He closed the easy distance. "Hey. I'm not going to hurt you."
Ganesh's hand closed in around the stocker's collar without thinking as Del began to speak to the woman. The fingers were shaking as he pushed the other man towards the rack, ignoring the fists that were jabbing at him.
"I- I don't- don't want to get into any trouble-" The woman whispered at Del, her eyes widening as the arms reached out for the bars that held the shelves together, clambering until she was a foot off the ground. "Please... just go.. please.."
"You don't have any trouble with me," he replied and pulled at the lens of his sunglasses, attempting to drop them down fast enough to give a flash of understanding without having that awkward expanding effect, but it didn't really work. The hollows drunk in the sun from the overhead skylights like a shipwrecked pirate drank rum and Del found himself pushing his sunglasses back up and turning around to help Ganesh before a fist connected with something softer and more painful than his adrenaline-rushed arms.
The fist slammed into Ganesh just before Del reached him, connecting with his stomach and knocking the air out of him. He choked with the pressure as the stocker slipped away, yelling, "What the fuck! What the fuck are you people doing?" Footsteps were coming from the far end of the store as he took another step, this one closer to Del. "You- just get out of here."
"What do you think you're doing acting like a little bitch?" Del replied sharply, attention split in so many directions as he kept an eye on Ganesh, the man before him, the woman behind him and the approaching clerk who looked alarmed. "Screaming and swinging - what the fuck is wrong with you? You want something to swing at?" he said, dropping the verbal gauntlet. "Or are women and geeks all you can handle?"
"And what are you-" the stocker sneered. "A dancer?"
You didn't spend your entire adolescence as a ballet dancer without hearing those words and, more familiarly, that tone of voice. You also didn't stay in school during your adolescence if you heard that tone and decked someone every time you heard it. Self-confidence and self-control was key.
"Yup. So I should be pretty easy, shouldn't I?" he replied goadingly with a mouth full of smiling teeth, every considerable muscle in his body tensing in preparation to react.
"Yeah." The man said. A name tag that read "Walt" was swinging from his chest, half dislodged by the earlier scuffle. "You're just lucky I'm at work." He turned his head, staring at the female joker. "And you- get out before I call the goddamn cops."
He leaned right into 'Walt'. "Funny - you really think you're going to have a job in about five minutes? You just assaulted a customer. And when your ass gets fired, I'll be waiting for you outside," Del threatened, voice low. With Ganesh up and breathing and looking, he presumed, ready to act as back up, Del took a step back. "We'll see who's lucky."
"I said, go." Walt stared at the other man, then glanced at Ganesh. "He went for me first."
Ganesh leaned over, murmuring to Del, "We should make sure that woman gets home. We don't know who else saw."
Del didn't turn to look at Ganesh, but his attention focused on him as he thought it over. There was an impetus to stay now that they were here and adrenaline was pumping through him and Ganesh had gotten him into this and now he wanted to leave? Now?
He was sure it was the smart thing to do.
"You should report this dickless wonder to his boss. Or the cops for assault. But fuck it, that's up to you, G." He made a military-looking quarter turn on his heels and coolly started walking over to the woman still skittered up the shelves.
Ganesh was biting his lip hard as he looked over at Del. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but now that his temper was ebbing, he remembered how it had been for his parents. Treating this man badly could end badly for the woman that was here... after they left. Protection only worked as long as the protectors were there, and visible.
He clenched his fists but said, "Glasses, just help the woman out the bloody door." They needed codenames, Ganesh thought. Or something.
She slowly descended, pulling fabric around herself as she stared suspiciously at the stocker whom Ganesh was bracing with his chest. Another employee had come up behind, his nametag flopping on an oversized chest. John. Store Manager.
"Can I help you with something?" His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the woman.
"You could have about five minutes ago. I had a fucking laundry list of things I wanted from your store," Del replied over his shoulder. It was always weird, for reasons he presumed had to do with spending most of his time with small lithe women, when women were taller than him. "You okay, Ms. Taller Than Me?" he asked the skittish woman who was making nervous gestures with the edges of her shawl.
"They were just..." she started timidly.
Walt leaned over and whispered something in the manager's ear. He straightened, then said quietly, "We don't allow jokers to shop here. If you'd like to place an order online, ma'am, perhaps we can accommodate you."
The woman nodded like a bobblehead doll as she started to back away and Del felt his stomach tighten. It was always a little difficult to hear rather than to see. More personal and real than the distant words on a scrap of cardboard.
Del looked over at Ganesh and though it was impossible to tell, was looking to him for the lead. They'd picked the fight.
Ganesh hesitated, then said, "What good do it do you to keep the bloody jokers from shopping here? You lose business." It was all he could do to keep his voice even. It wasn't going to solve the problem if he lost his temper again and threw another punch.
Del smiled interiorly and it leaked out onto his lips. This shouldn't make him feel so giddy, but he had to hand it to the Brit for going with it. He was sure for a moment he wouldn't.
Ganesh's response spurred Del to try and goad him further. "Oh! Oh! I know!" he raised his hand excitedly.
"Go on." Ganesh was trying not to grin at the fact that the two men were looking at them as if they were mad. However, it did seem to be giving the woman her chance to leave.
"Communism," Del said, then slapped his forehead dramatically. "Oh wait, that's a red herring. Cooties? Wait, those aren't real." His eyebrows knitted as he looked to be seriously struggling over this. "I know I know the answer... oh!" Del clapped his hands and smiled brightly. "Because all of their clientele are bigoted assholes."
"Just get out," the manager said, pointing to the door. Walt mouthed a word behind him before covering his mouth with his hand. "It's not your concern. Get out before we call the police."
"I wasn't aware that talking was a crime," Ganesh said pleasantly. "Or self-defense."
"Probably doing either of those in defense of a joker is now," Del said thoughtfully. "Like, you know, touching one or touching something that they've touched or looking at something touched by one. Oh, is that the reason? The cleaning bills?"
Del's attention was drawn away by the woman as she picked up a bottle of fluid film and looked a little uncomfortably like a deer in the headlights. She put it back and then, a little more brave, just touched the bottle next to it. Then the next as she took a step back.
That was heartening. Del ran to the other side of the aisle and leaped up gracefully to touch a whole box of some pipe primer. Another graceful leap another box. "There's two to throw away. Three!" A bit of a run, then another leap - a graceful escape as he tapped another box and was glad to see the woman running her considerable number of fingers over the aisle shelves with more restrain than Del was showing.
Ganesh glanced over at Del, wondering what he was doing. Whatever it was, it seemed to be unnerving the two men. The manager walked towards the back, his footsteps quick.
"Come on," he hissed, reaching out for one of the woman's hands. "Let's go."
When Del saw the Manager turn tail and storm off, the leaps became more of a run. "Oh shit," he half-chuckled as he slid through the closed checkstand, giving the woman at the other register a waive as he turned to look back at Ganesh and the woman. "Come on!" he said and hurried his ass to the door, holding it open for the two comparative stragglers to exit.
"Whatever, Dancing Queen," Ganesh sighed, half-pulling the stranger through the door. She looked a little less nervous and a little more exhilarated than she had a moment before. Glancing back, he noticed that her other three hands were cocking a defiant middle finger at the store on the way out.
"Oh come on - G! This was your idea! You should really have all of them - that one was pretty god damn awesome. Though, I gotta teach you how to fight. Give you something more than bravery and momentum on your side," Del chided brightly, slinging an arm around his shoulder and dragging him into a side-hug.
"And you!" Del said, letting Ganesh go and walking with arms now jangling loosely at his side. "You think they'll really throw all that shit out now that it's 'contaminated'?" He wore an incorrigible smile at the woman.
She blinked, then said, "I hope so?" Her voice was shy as she glanced over at the two of them.
"I don't need to fight," Ganesh pointed out to Del. "That's what you're for." He laughed a little at that, his own arms swaying. "Contamination? You can't very well think they'll believe it."
"What the fuck am I, a psychologist? I don't know what the fuck they think but I BET they are curious, in the back of their head." Del made a motion with his finger at his temple to indicate wheels turning up there. He half turned and started walking backwards to face his compatriots. "Unless you actually did do something to their shit..." he asked the woman who looked briefly devious, then shook her head no.
"See. That's what being paranoid assholes get you: wasted merchandise. We are victorious!" Del cried, punching the air, then presciently swerving around an electrical pole.
Ganesh blinked, then said, "We're about to be arrested if those cop cars see us. To the chariot then?" He stepped back over to the car and opened the door, glancing over at Del, then over at the woman, then back at Del.
"We are a-breaching the peace. You comin'?" he asked the woman as he grasped the handle on the back seat.
"I have a car - just parked down the next block," she replied, though looked a little disappointed that was the case. "Um. Thanks..." she added hesitantly, "...you know. Thanks."
"Our pleasure," Ganesh said with a grin. Digging in his pocket, he found a piece of paper and scribbled his name and email on it. "Look, let us know if you need anything, right?" She nodded as he stepped into the car and shut the door, waiting to see if Del would do the same.
"Yeah," Del agreed jokingly, "apparently I provide bodyguard service. Uh, I don't have a pen for my email, but I'm Del." He stuck out a hand and was greeted with, between holding the shawl around her and the paper Ganesh gave her, the only hand she had free.
"Georgia."
"Like the state," Del said in typical, Captain Obvious-fashion. "Take care, Georgia." Del got himself into the backseat of the car and wound his way over the center console to collapse into the front seat. "I think I like this saving-the-day thing. Ha! Brenn is gonna spaz when I tell him." Del dug out his phone and started hammering the screen with his thumbs.
"Who's Brenn?" Ganesh asked as he pulled out into the street. His eyes were following the woman casually as he kept the car at a slow speed, wanting to make sure that Georgia made it into her own. He didn't trust the police in this city. After she'd crossed the street and shut her own car door, he resumed driving at usual speed.
"Brother. Goes to Seattle Pacific. Probably in class right now, the fucking nerd," he said, attention still down on the screen. He hit the send button and let the phone rest in his lap as he waited for the cashmere sensation of Brenn wtf-ing in his head. "So. Feel better now?" Del shifted, antsy and caged in his seat.
"Not quite," Ganesh admitted. "It felt good but... not good enough." His hand drummed against the wheel. "I don't know what else we could have done, any road. But it's a small bloody victory and I'm not sure, in the end, that sign will come down."
"Nah. But Georgie got pretty brave. That's a fucking victory, I think." Del laughed suddenly. "Besides, if you were looking to convince them, you probably shouldn'ta tried to tackle that clerk!"
"It just happened," Ganesh protested. "I didn't think about it." He sighed. "Places like that remind me of home. That's why it bothers me- it's like walking into a place that's yours to see that it got torn down." He turned onto the street that led into the Anhalt. "My parents' store wasn't the same but it had that feeling... just a little shop trying to make it."
"What did they--" Del paused as he felt the press of Brenn inside his head. "Just a sec- G," he said, picking his phone back up and before it rang.
"Hey man. Yeah, they're totally chasing us right now," Del replied, deadpan. "With what money? Ha! I hate you. Nah, we just went into a hardware store that had a sign out front. Rescued a damsel in distress. With that robotics guy. No, not him. Anyway, it was cool. Yeah. Yeah, ok. Really? Yeah, ok. Ok. See you tonight."
Del hung up the phone not nearly as excited as he'd started. He looked at the phone for a moment, then turned back to Ganesh.
"What kind of store did they have?" he picked back up the thread as if it hadn't been missed.
"It's Ganesh," he corrected. "Ganesha, even, if you want to be different. Not G." But he grinned as he said it, adding, "We need code names. Or something."
Ganesh paused, then said, "It was just a small grocery. It sold crisps and packets of sweets, things like that. I helped behind the counter sometimes, weighing fruit for people." He laughed. "They didn't actually need the help but it was one of those little neighborhood stores so I knew all of the customers."
"Just an excuse to chat. I gotcha - that's important in small stores. Along with weighing fruit," Del added dryly. He stretched his body out as best he could and folded his arms behind his head in relaxed fashion.
"Ganesh. Ganesh." Del tried it out on his tongue and tried to insert it into his memory. Made up nicknames tended to stick better in his head, but you couldn't argue with someone who didn't want one. "They still out there?"
"I don't see anyone." He turned the corner into the Anhalt. "I don't expect that they'd be looking for this car, any road." It jounced a little as he hit a bump. "Why, when man can go to Mars, have we still not conquered the pothole?"
"I meant your parents, man. I can see out the windows - I know we aren't being chased by cars." He gestured behind him.
"Oh. No." Ganesh bit his lip for a moment, then said, "A couple of kids robbed the store..." He halted, assuming that Del didn't want the details, parking the car in the garage as he composed himself slightly. "They were killed. It's been a long time."
"Fuck, man." There was a strenuous silence for a time as Del shifted once again, antsy, pulling a knee to his chest. "That's rough. That's really rough. Sorry."
"It was. Still is." He sat there for a moment. "It's... well, there's a whole lot of boring detail I could go into but I won't." Ganesh shrugged, trying to look casual and utterly failing. It had been years, yes, but the pinched feeling always hit his chest when he tried to breathe, just thinking about what had happened. "You?"
"Me?" he asked, wanting to know and recognizing that was not the way to go.
"Family. Have you got one?" He paused, then laughed at how he'd phrased it, forcing himself away from his mood.
"Obviously. Came from somewhere. Brenn, obviously. And my mom lives up in Everett." Del paused. "I have another brother, Cole, living in the east side of the state," he admitted as cool as he could, which wasn't especially. "We don't get along very well."
Which was, in some respects, the understatement of the year.
"I used to have a sister but she flipped a Black Queen."
"I'm sorry about that, all of it. It's hard to lose family." Ganesh said quietly, reaching out to give Del a rough half-hug. He meant Cole as well as the sister that Del had mentioned. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm just around the corner."
He wasn't sure whether Del felt the same as he did at points, the occasional raw, jouncing pain that struck when he wasn't expecting it. There was something about the other man's face that made him wish he'd offered a fuller hug but it was difficult for Ganesh to know what was acceptable.
It was an awkward sort of motion, but Del appreciated it in the passive, quiet way he'd come to practice. "Nah, I'm good. I mean, it's been a while. And, well -" Del held up his wrist and shook the tangle of charms, "I keep her close."