Engine Trouble
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Date: 12/13/2018 Time: 19:00 EST |
Like many neighborhoods around the outer edges of Detroit, Islandview has the
feel of a small Midwestern town or city: houses of varying styles spaced out
along tree-lined streets on lots with cropped lawns. The occasional playground
or empty lot or community garden provides recreation space. Detroit's urban
blight creeps in at the edges, making itself known--street surfaces are
cracked, curbs overgrown, and in many places the trees have completely
overgrown the power lines. There are a few vacant houses, their boarded-up
windows like vacant dead eyes where once there was life and health. Just east of Islandview, West Village, Indian Village and East Village occupy
slices of land along the north-by-northwest axis of Detroit's linear street
plan. Like Islandview, these neighborhoods end at Mack Street to the north. To
the south, on the river side of Jefferson Avenue, Erma Henderson Park offers
views of the river and Belle Isle. The prestigious Joseph Berry neighborhood
has several riverfront properties with this view, as well as a private park and
playground. The Indian Village neighborhoods end at the now-defunct Conner
Creek Industrial complex. Chandler Park, a small community north of Conner Creek and beyond East Village, is now the easternmost outpost of civilization in the new city limits of Detroit. Beyond that boundary is the urban prairie: a land of buckling pavement, overgrown empty lots and falling-down structures. There, nature slowly reclaims the abandoned streets excised by Measure 2. |
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Cast: | |
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Thursday, December 13, 2018 sometime in the evening Alma isn't drenched from the waist up because she got a rainshell out in time. She's splattered in mud and her hands are cold. She's got a light clamped up on her bike so that she can see to change the tire. "Ungh." She pulls hair out of her eyes again, and starts back with trying to dislodge the wheel from the rim. Jolene is something of an unusual sight to be seen for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's not common to see a full blown southern gal wandering the streets of Detroit. Secondly, mostly what can be seen of her is her derriere as the other half of her is stuck in the open hood of her truck, banging on an engine that presumably isn't working, and using an equally percussive language that would make a nun faint. "Stupid valve," Alma tells it. Then feels bad. "Ok, that wasn't fair. Most of this is on me" She doesn't know if the wheel cares if she apologizes to it. But, why not. She's stuck. She'll have to walk her bike to a bus stop maybe. The hellaciously loud banging and swearing finally draw her attention to a truck with a hood up. She walks over to the other side of hte street until she can see the person swearing. "Hi" Alma starts. "Could I charge my phone in your truck? I need to get a ride and my battery died. My tire's crap." Jolene startles, at the sudden voice behind her, head banging into roof of the hood, and knocking her cowboy hat off her head. "Oh, howdy!" the redhead says pleasently enough turning around to see who addressed her. Her eyes slide from the woman, to the bike, to the cab of her truck and then back to the woman with a shrug. "I'd be more than happy to oblige, but the cigarette lighter is busted." Considering the condition of the truck, it's not all all surprising. Built in the mid 90s, the thing probably has more miles on it than the odometer can handle, and looks like it's being held together by bailing wire and chewing gum. "Tell you what," she says, "I need an extra pair of hands here, and if you're willin' once I got her up and running again I'll take you to wherever you need to go." <<DICE>> Alma rolls dexterity + athletics, difficulty 6 <<DICE>> 1 success (2 3 5 5 6, Specialty: No, Willpower: No) <<DICE>> Comment: extrmely fraught situation: will Alma catch the cowboy hat before it falls on the muddy, slushy ground? a lot is riding on this. possibly even a ride home Alma sees the hat start to fall, "Your hat!" She skips a couple of hops to catch it before it can hit the ground. Her fingers graze the edge and she almost misses it but manages to catch it in her other hand. "Here," she offers it back to the woman. "Yeah, I'll help." She leans her bike against the truck. "What can I do?" Jolene beams at Alma's acrobatics. "Mighty kind of you!" she says greatfully taking her hat and slapping it back onto her head before reaching around into the engine compartment and pulling out a rather hefty looking mag light and handing it over. "Shine this," she says pointing to a spot on the engine, "Here. You have no idea how hard it is when you need three hands for a job and God gave you only two. Name's Jolene, by the way. Like the song." Alma holds up the maglight to her face. "Hunter. Alma Hunter. I hunt for lost souls." She stretches out the last word. "This spot?" She points it where Jolene told her. "Anyway, You can call me Alma. I was trying to get back to campus, but at this point I think I just want to go home. I don't knowhow far out of hte way that would be." "Day's done," answers Jolene. "Was just going to go out drinking, but after breaking down and getting wet, going home and getting dry sounds mighty fine right about now." She turns to her attention to the engine, and picks up where she left off. There are bits and pieces of engine parts carefully laid out onto a mat that's covering the parts that she's not working on. Now that she has both hands free AND light in the area she can see what the problem is after a bit of jiggling bits about. "Lost souls?" she asks conversationally. "How do you tell when you've found one?" "I'm in Mexicontown, but if that's too far you can drop me off some other place." Alma follows all the bits and pieces getting reorganized into a working engine. "It's a joke on my name, really 'Alma', means soul. If I were to imagine--I'd say that when you find a lost soul you'll feel longing. They missed the call about the potluck. It was last week, and they only just heard about it when their friends asked why they didn't go. That feeling. with goosebumps maybe. But, you know, not everyone gets invited to potlucks and then misses out. Maybe it's some completely other feeling. It could be like bird watching, maybe." "Mmm," grunts Jolene thoughtfully, doing arcane mechanic things to the truck's engine, slowly putting it back together. "Ways I see it," she says, "a lost soul is somebody who's lost their way in life. I reckon that most people have a purpose.... a calling. Something that drives them fowards." She grunts again, wiggles something and points to another spot, "Could you shine the light over here, please, ma'am? Anyway. Ways I see it a lost soul lost that thing. If people got a path to follow, when somebody wanders off they... well.. they become lost."" Alma aims the maglight at the new spot. "I'd want someone to talk to me if I lost my way. When it gets really bad, I need reminders for what tugged me here in the past." She motions to her chest. Her face sobers as she reflects on that, and then she changes the subject. "How often does this need repairing? The old ones are easier to fix, aren't they?" That first bit is enough for Jolene to look up and consider the woman with her bright green eyes for a thoughtful moment. "Ayuh," she says, turning back to the engine getting it nearly back into engine looking shape. "I reckon having somebody to talk to can help pull a body back on track as well." The last question garners a heartfelt laugh. "I reckon they are. I knew this one was going to be a fixer upper but I just couldn't beat the price." Now that all the bits and pieces are in place she holds out a hand to take her mag light back. "If you would, ma'am, could you be a peach and go in and try starting her up?" Alma returns the light to Jolene's hand. She grins sheepishly at being called a peach, and that might even be a blush but it's hard to tell with just hte light from the flashlight and the truck's cabin. She settles in the driver's seat and turns the key, hoping to hear the sound of a healthy engine turning over. The sounds that the engine makes are anything but healthy. "Okay stop!" instructs Jolene, and waits for the engine to die before plunging back in to fiddle with it again. "Try it again!" This time, while the sound is still not what one would call healthy, the engine /does/ turn over. It backfires a couple of times, then settles down into an asthematic growl. "Good enough for govenment work," she says, and starts collecing all her tools to fold into the tarp that was covering the grill. She slams the hood down and on her way back to the bed she says, "Go ahead and scooch on over and make yourself comfortable. I'll get your bike." She tosses her tools into a small tool box that's at the head of the truck bed, and true to her word, she easily lifts the bike and places it back there as well. Alma scoots over to the passenger side and watches her bike get stowed. When Jolene returns, Alma asks, "If Mexicantown isn't too far out of your way, I'd really appreciate a lift there. You can drop me off at the campus if that's more convenient. Anywhere not here, really." "Here ain't nowhere," muses Jolene bitterly, buckling up and putting the truck into drive, and starts heading into town. "Now, I'm new around here, so I'm not too familiar with the geography, so's you'll have to point me in the right direction." She looks over to her passenger and gives her a warm smile, "I'm a firm believer that one good turn deserves another, so don't you worry about me going out of my way to drop you off." "Oh you're new! How long have you been here?" Telling people about new places to visit is one of her favorite things. Up there with birds. She starts chattering, interspersed with "turn left" and "no, the other left". "Mexicantown is on the southwest side of town. Lot of good places to eat. Good shopping. walkable. I work in Upper Midtown, that's where Wayne State University is. I've got a grant to do research in Detroit. I'm studying crovid populations. Do you like the outdoors? I was just coming back from taking some soil samples for a group at school. Oh! You should see Belle Isle. It's beautiful. They've got a nature preserve. There are so many brutalist buildings here, I don't know why. My office building is pretty interesting though. They've got that modern stuff joined up with an old car dealership that they converted to offices. did you know that?" Jolene can't help but grin as the woman chatters on, not seeming to mind the enthusiasm. "Corvids, hunh? Like crows?" she asks. "You don't mess with crows. They're smart as hell, and they remember every slight if you do 'em wrong." She looks over grinning, still, "But I reckon I don't need to tell you that." "Oh yeah! You get a crow mad at you pretty soon you'll have a reputation and crows you never met will be scolding you too. People wear some funny mask for some of the studies. I could show you a really, really creepy one. cracks me up" Alma suddenly points, "That's the Eastern Market! You should go there! But not right now, I mean! There's some shops open all the time, but the best time to visit is on the weekends or Tuesday. Oh! and here is where I got a flat tire last timee!" She points again. "Oh! If you want a tattoo go there. uh. My friend works there." Jolene's eyebrows shoot up at the mention of a tattoo artist friend. "Well, if I'm ever in the market for a tattoo, then I'll know where to go." As for the Eastern Market, well, "Naw. I'm more of a steak and potatoes kinda gal. Wings. Fried chicken." She laughs good naturedly, "Hell, fried /anything/. I'm from the South. It's what we do." "Hmm, I bet they have fried food. I'm gonna check next time. I get groceries around there. Where from in the South?" "Sweet home Alabama," answers Jolene. "Though I moved out when I was a teen, and started travelin' all over the place. Not one to settle down." "I haven't visited Alabama yet. I grew up in Chicago. Lived in New Zealand before Detroit. I've been here over a year now. It grows on you. Turn right up ahead. We're close." Jolene follows the directions and pulls to a stop once she gets to Alma's place. The engine idles like an epilpetic tap dancer. "Well here we are, I guess," she says, hopping out of the cab to grab her passenger's bike out from the bed of the truck. "It was good meeting you, Alma." And when the farwells are done she hops back into her truck drives off, leaving a thick cloud of smoke in way of parting. | |
