House repair
{{ | date=07/24/2018 | time=13:00 EST | cast=
| place_name=1257 Lansing Street | log=Alma can't even. She looks at her bike and then down at her laptop with the inventory for bathroom grab bars. She calls Jamila to see if Jamila would be up for lunch at her place, by way of doing her a favor and giving her a ride to the hardware store.
As it so happens, Jamila has only a morning class on Tuesdays, and so it is that she pulls up and parks on in front of 1257 Lansing Street. She climbs out of her Prius dressed to impress, as she usually is, and walks up to knock on the front door of the bungalow.
Alma opens the door in her house demolishing gear of a smudged tank top worn with some old carpenter pants from the thrift store that have been cut to be shorts and are frayed at the bottoms. They are held up by suspenders from the same said thrift store. "Uh, hi." Alma smiles at Jamila. "I need to go to the hardware store to get some grab bars and then I'll try and install them. It looks pretty easy once you read up on it."
It's a sight to behold, and so Jamila does, standing there on the stoop. A smile parts her lips and she nods and she opens up her arms to offer a hug. "Hello," she says warmly. "I'm here to help. At least, as best as I can. Should I go home and change at some point?"
Alma grins and steps in to a hug. "What? No, you don't need to change. I just need a ride there and back and you to keep me company. You met Wednesday back on the 4th, remember?" She follows Jamila to her Prius and explains that Wednesday broke both of his legs and is staying with Alma because he lives on a plot of land in Measure 2. "It's not very wheelchair accessible. He'd say hi, but he's sleeping in the backyard." Once they get to the hardware store, Alma grabs Jamila's hand and guides her all over the place to pick up a couple of grab bars and some various drill bits and accoutrements for a small home improvement project. At the checkout, Alma frowns and hands over her credit card. Her entertainment budget for the next two months is shot. Maybe three months? Well, outdoors is pretty entertaining and free for the most part. at least.
"Wednesday," Jamila says with a pause, then she nods. "Yes. The guy who came cosplaying as Odin, right?" He left an impression. "How'd he break his legs?" This is not something people usually do, especially not both. She sounds rather curious. She drives to the store and then follows around, quite happy to hold Alma's hand whenever the other woman grabs hers. Finally, she helps to load the things into the car, and drives them back to Mexicantown, parking right where she'd been earlier.
Alma chatters to Jamila all about Wednesday and crows. "Do you know how
people get whomped in the head by reality sometimes when they," She wiggles
her fingers, "you know." She gives a significant look. "That's how. He talk
to crows. He got whomped while talking to them." She goes off on a brief
tangent, "I gave him a great idea now that he's staying with me. I said he
should get some of those crows to be on the lookout for ICE agents."
Once they are back at her place she heads inside and peeks out the backdoor to see if Wednesday needs anything. He still look pretty peaceful. She waves at GP, her other new housemate and comes back in. and now, "Project time!" Alma sits at her kitchen table with her laptop open to a page about installing grab bars. "Sit down? stand up? Get a drink?" Alma is pretty fuck-it whatever at this point. There is so much going on. She starts gathering together all the tools for a mise en place of repair.
Jamila quietly listens to Alma chatter. She has a smile on her face, and seems to largely enjoy it. She occasionally makes a noise to indicate she's still engaged with the conversation, but she's driving.
Once they are back at her place, Jamila pulls up a stretch of wall--presumably one not destined to get a grab bar--and leans to watch Alma work. "So, as it happens, I am _not_ familiar with whatever it is you're talking about," she says, lifting up a hand and wiggling her fingers. "What do you mean 'whomped in the head by reality'?"
Alma marks the places on the wall where she wants the bars to go. "When people like me push at reality, sometimes it pushes back. Like, we slip and fall." She uses a stud finder to locate studs along where the first bar will go. "Well, that happened to Wednesday. Pretty badly. I don't know how long he'll be layed up."
Jamila leans against the wall in silence for a minute or five, watching Alma construct. "I think I understand what you mean," she says, with some doubt in her voice. "So he broke his legs. It's very kind of you to let him stay with you and your niece while he recovers." She sighs a happy sigh. "Very kind."
"People are too isolated here," Alma complains. "People in the, uh, supernatural community. We should work together. I've been working with a friend to learn things about meta-ecology and the nature of being. Only one person really wanted to talk to me about it. But recently Wednesday, approached me and some other friends and said we should form a circle. It's actually more like a net. Like if a cord breaks there are still connections." She's finished marking out the positions of the bars and the studs. "He's got good timing. I mean, I would have helped him anyway, but his accident really demonstrates to me how important connections are. Ok, give me a moment." She drills pilot holes for the bars.
Jamila makes a low, throaty sound, sort of a hmmm. Then she watches as Alma drills into her bathroom wall. Several pilot holes later, when Alma sets down the drill, she speaks. "I think you'll find that some of the entities in the, supernatural community, as you called it, strongly prefer not to work with others. Some prefer to work alone. Yet others do prefer to band together." She shrugs. "We all have our roles to fill."
"Hmmmm, yeah" Alma says, skeptically and non-commitally. "I really do think more people could work together. I mean, they don't have to be best buds or anything." She drives in the mounting screws and starts installing the bars. "Like, I'd love to be able to talk to other people who know about spirits and gateways. I found something downtown that is sucking up ghosts on the other side. I don't really know many people who specialize in that."
That seems to get Jamila's attention. "Oh reeeally?" She stands up straight, no longer just languidly present, but instead very interested. "I don't know a ton about spirits. More than most, but I'm no expert. I imagine some of the dogs might be interested, though," she says.
Alma applies moderate pressure to test the strength of her new grab bars. "Feels good," she says, and then goes to wash her hands and splash her face in the sink. "Lets go get comfortable". She settles on the sofa in the living room. "Remember how I said I was going around the city looking for places where ghosts might be?"
Jamila follows suit. Indeed, she's wearing a suit. When it becomes apparent that it's lounging on a sofa time, she shrugs off her jacket and drapes it over a chair, and steps out of her shoes. That's much better. She pads over to the sofa and gracefully sits down next to Alma. "Yes, of course," she says with a half grin and eyes focused right on Alma. "I gather you figured out where they're all going?"
"I think that it's too soon to say. I couldn't stick around long enough to
investigate the gate." Alma starts to tell Jamila about late in to the
evening after the party at Jim's place. "I followed a murmuration to the
riverfront where I looked at the stargate scultpture through the Gauntlet.
I did a ritual and then black ribbons and streamers came out of the gate at
me and I didn't stick around to see anythng else. So," she says, "I can't
honestly tell you if all the ghosts are getting taken through that gate,
and I can't even tell you where it goes."
Big sigh. "I have a teacher, and they said they'd take care of that spirit that came after me, and that I should investigate why it came out of the gate. but for right now, I should not cross. ...I mean, I don't know how to cross, but I know other people do." Through her story Alma is at times normal baseline Alma and at other times pretty tense. It was a frightening experience, and it has left her angry and worried.
Jamila sits facing Alma with her legs pulled up under her and her head propped up on her hand which is resting on the back of the sofa. She listens with rapt attention as Alma tells her story. Indeed, she seems to be very interested in watching Alma tell it. When she's finally done, Jamila reaches out with a hand to rest on Alma's leg. "That sounds like it was very frightening. I am glad that you are okay." Beat. "You said it was at the Stargate?"
Alma nods, "Yeah, the Stargate in Hart Plaza. Someone I know can take a look at it remotely, but I need to figure out some way to set up protection in case that entity can follow the act of observing... that's what it seemed to be doing with me." She frowns. "Yeah, it was frightening. I was pretty freaked out at the time. Now I feel more anger than fear. Fuck whoever is doing that. I want to do something about it." She looks disgruntled, "I just don't know what. ...yet"
Jamila gives Alma's leg a gentle squeeze, then leans back, taking her hand with her to rest in her lap. "Well, it sounds like you're on the case, so I'm sure you'll figure it out in time," she says. She falls silent for a moment or three, and then glances around. "So, what else is new with you?"
Alma asks, "So, what would the dogs know about the gate? You mean wolves right?"
Jamila shrugs. "I don't know. They just tend to be a little more savvy with those things than I am. I can't cross over, and they can," she says.
Alma hmmms. "I don't know any of them. Can you pass word along to let them know about this gate? Tell them I'm looking in to it to see where all the ghosts are being taken."
"Yes, of course I can," she says with a smile. That smile looks like mischief. It looks like feline trouble. But she's just agreeing to do what Alma wants.
Alma sighs. So much to do. "You know about Zug Island? I'm trying to figure out if one can develop a meta-ecological model to determine when another habitat might happen that would draw corruption to it. That way we can prevent a huge outbreak before it happens and before anyone can take advantage of it. I'm also trying to figure out how to clean up industrial waste with what I can do. If the common element is old decaying industrial sites, then that might also stop them."
Jamila looks at Alma for a long moment and then chuckles. "You willworkers amuse me, you know. A perfectly simple explanation is right there, and you want to look for a meta-ecological model. It's people, Alma. Everywhere they go, they bring this with them."
Alma sighs again. "It's not people, Jamila. Not /just/ people. And ecologists make models. Urban ecologists gather data from cities to model when rat outbreaks will occur so that the city can act in advance by doing things like replacing old dumpsters to cut off a food supply. It's ecology. I know fuckall what to call it when it has to do with everything now, so I call it meta-ecology. Like metaphysics. but for real." Alma shakes her head, "but whatever. It's not just humans existing in a place. It's action, history, uh..." She waves that list off with her free hand. "I don't know have to know exactly what does it, I can find good enough aproximations of things that track it and build a model based on that."
Jamila just smiles and nods. "Oh sure," she says. "I'm sure that you can build a model based on that. But I can tell you all the same, it's people. Sometimes corrupted by Asura, but sometimes not. People can be downright terrible."
Alma can't really argue with people being downright terrible at times, but she doesn't know, "Who is Asura?"
"The Garou call him the Wyrm," Jamila says. "Once, long ago, he was Cahlash, the Unmaker. The force in this world that brings all things to their end. But he was corrupted, and now he has become a perverted mockery of his former self instead of bringing a natural end to all things, he corrupts and perverts."
Recognition dawns. "Maya was telling me what the Garou call that. It might be why we call tamas /dark/ inertia. Don't quote me on that, I'm not a good student. It seems to me that otherwise it would just be intertia." She adds, "Maya is one of the people Wednesday recruited for our circle." She looks at Jamila, "Do non-willworkers join circles with willworkers? I don't know how all this stuff works."
Jamila chuckles. "I haven't had the breadth of experience working with others as you might think," she says. "I'd ask them. That said, I tend to work alone."
Alma considers this. "Hmm, yeah, you worked with me this time by giving me a ride. Which, huh, when you come to think of it, is part of how I work my will. I guess I sort of pulled you in accidentally."
"Working alone doesn't mean _being_ alone, Alma," Jamila says. "This?" She gestures toward the bathroom and then out toward her car. "This is something I might do for a friend who didn't know I turn into a panther." }}
