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\ New Hampshire - March 1923 /
Shielding his head as he collides with the ground, a clean-shaven Jimmy grimaces in pain as a boot swings into his sternum, a literal kick to the man whilst down amidst a barrage of insults. “You’re a pathetic waste of life!” an enraged, guttural shout extends from the much older man standing over the fallen young man, each word paused briefly for another kick to be interjected within his words. “James, please! Stop!” a woman wails from the corner of the room, cowering in fear at the man’s outburst, shielding herself in the event his vigour is redirected toward her. “Shut your mouth!” the irate figure violently spats back, swinging his hand through the air to smack the fear-gripped woman on the side of the head. Pressing his teeth together, Jimmy rolls onto his front and tries to push himself off the ground, attempting to lift himself back upon two feet before his efforts prove futile. Struck with yet another kick to his abdomen, Jimmy pants for air as he falls to the ground once more, hands grasping at his ribs as if he were trying to keep them contained within his skin. “You sicken me!” the older man grunts, spit flying from his lip as his face takes closer toward the young man laid out before him, foot flying into his side yet again. “James, please!” the distressed woman pleads yet again, still cowering in the corner out of sheer terror, “he’s your son!” With a twitch in his left eye, the slightly off-balanced father turns toward his wife whilst ripping his belt free from the loops in his pants, swiping the leather bind through the air and toward his wife. Hearing his mothers’ screams, Jimmy tries once more to push himself off the ground, unable to keep his lips from blowing outward with each gasp for air. Crawling along the floor, Jimmy presses his body against the nearest wall, his hip resting into the floor whilst his shoulder presses against the plaster barrier between himself and the crisp chill of the New England winter. With his mouth agape, the wounded young man tries desperately to guide himself to a stand, though his efforts yet again find themselves cut short beneath the weight of his fathers’ boot. “Stay down you wretched bastard!” James belts out, lashing his son over the side of the face with the leather belt, forcing the young man back to the ground with a guttural howl. Having forced both sides of his family into different sides of horror, the father stands at the room’s centre with a mean mug, not necessarily revelling in his work as much as he is surveying the scene he’d caused. “The two of you are-” the violent father grunts, pausing for a moment to shake the cobwebs that come over his head, his proper balance evading him in the wake of the assortment of drinks he’d piled into his system. “-ungrateful little shits” James concludes, finishing his thought before a smirk forms in the corner of his mouth, reacting to the scene his eyes fall upon- his beaten son yet again trying to stammer his way to both feet. Licking the insides of his cotton mouth before spitting whatever saliva he could muster into some corner of the room, James marches toward the young man continuing to disobey him- refusing to remain a carcass of a man rendered useless beneath his fathers’ hand. “What did I tell you to do!?” the man exclaims, wrapping his hands around Jimmy’s chin and neck and forcing the young man to look him in the eyes. With blood running down the side of his face, deep red marks dotting his face like accessories, and hiss-like breaths carried through every moment his lips remain parted, Jimmy stares his father in the eyes whilst his tormentor does much the same. Looking on in silence for a moment, James’ smirk soon vanishes, replaced with the sombre shake of his head. “Look at you-” James murmurs loud enough for his son to hear, continuing to hold the same callus stare he’d first met him with, only for a resigned defeat to hide within disheartened eyes, “-still just the bastard.” Without another word to offer his battered offspring, the dejected father wraps his hand around Jimmy’s face and shoves his head back into the wall, allowing the young man to sink to the floor without so much as an ounce of remorse. Stepping over broken glass as he leaves the room, James leaves a wake of devastation in his path that is only filled with panting and lamentful tears. His back pressing into the wall as he sits on the hardwood floor, Jimmy hangs his head toward the ground and allows the ache of his beating to overcome him, each sore and sharp pain that riddles his body taking its course whilst his mother tries to conceal her open weeps on the other side of the warzone. = Seattle Noir is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward = \ One hour later / Stepping through the archway that separates the living room from the kitchen, Cathy falls upon the sight of her mother hard at work, apron adorned and stained with various splatters of flour. “Would you like any help, mother?” the younger woman wonders aloud, watching her mother’s surprised reaction meet her, a dismissive smile paid to her offspring. “As much as I appreciate the kind gesture, I’m not going to be the mother that has her daughter prepare her own birthday dinner” the woman replies, watching her husband step into the kitchen the moment she finishes her reply. “Father. You’re home!” Cathy says with surprise, watching the man lift his leather briefcase onto the kitchen table with a sigh, presenting himself as if the bag weighed in excess of twenty pounds. “Yes, of course I am” the man responds with a half-smile, his hand gently resting upon his daughter’s shoulder, “what father misses his little girl’s eighteenth birthday dinner?” With an appreciative smile, Cathy looks up at her father as his eyes wander toward the woman behind the food amidst its preparation, “we do have everything we need for tonight, right Anne?” “Yes, Walter. We have everything we need” Anne replies, putting her strength into the metal spinner she uses to mix the various ingredients within her metal bowl together. “I just wanted to be sure everything was in order for tonight” Walter retorts, both hands lifting into the air briefly as he reaches into the pocket of his jacket, pulling free a cardboard box of snipes and a matchbox at once, “I want to make sure our little girl spends her eighteenth with those that love her most.” Already doubtful she’ll receive an answer that pleases her, Cathy’s youthful eyes take upward toward her father, watching the smoke lift from the stricken match just as it moves toward the unfiltered end of his cigarette. “Does that mean it would be alright if we invited Jimmy?” the young woman asks, unable to see her mother’s displeased expression lift from the contents of the bowl and fall upon the back of her daughter’s head. Pulling from the dart as he swipes the match through the air to put it out, Walter answers amidst a deep exhale, his hefty frame sinking inward as his lungs expend the smoke that fill them. “Absolutely not” the man replies, offering the answer the other two inhabitants of the room had already quietly anticipated, “I acknowledge that you’ll find ways to sneak around my commands to see that thug, but he will enter this home as an equal over my dead body.” Disheartened, Cathy’s eyes trail off toward the ground as she prepares to let the conversation die there, having received the answer she’d anticipated and satisfied enough to let the discourse end with her boyfriend’s refusal. “That boy is nothing but bad news, dear. I don’t know how many times your father and I need to tell you that before you see it for yourself” Anne remarks, speaking through the grunts that are provoked through her churning of the cake mix. “Why is he bad news exactly?” Cathy wonders aloud, watching the cold eyes of her mother’s stare take toward her, ensuring she stays within the boundary lines of respect already long-since established. “I don’t ask this out of defiance, but I do wish to know just what metric the two of you are going about making this judgement” the girl clarifies, “I spend more time with him than you do. If anything, why shouldn’t it be that I’d know more about him than the two of you?” “Because you’re still too young to see what we can. You’ve got blinders on out of the feeling that you think is love” Anne responds, keeping the opposition side of the conversation rolling as her husband takes a seat at the kitchen table. “That boy comes around here speaking like he hasn’t been to school in years wearing bruises of so many colours you’d think segregation laws didn’t apply around here” the woman proceeds, “he’s a textbook rascal. A no-good heathen that you’re better than.” “I’m not saying he’s a perfect man, but I’ll certainly vouch that he’s a better man than you credit him as being” Cathy retorts, more than willing to compromise her position in order to reflect her lover in a better light, “can’t you two be willing to concede that he might be even a tad-bit better than what look at him as?” “Was he not booked a few months ago for selling counterfeit cigarettes?” Walter inquires, an eyebrow raised as his own dart sits between the two fingers he suspends within midair. “And as I told you before, he was selling them to make enough to help his family pay rent” Cathy explains, the eyeroll she receives from her mother making it clear that the motivation doesn’t justify the action within her eyes. “If his parents are in the position where they need their son running up charges to make ends meet, what does that say about him?” Walter inquires, his wife’s attention returning to the cake mix she’d finally settled into a respectable texture. “You’ve seen the broken homes so many of these criminals come from. I don’t see these hooligans being secret stand-up citizens” the man proceeds, watching his wife slip on mittens and set foot for the oven, “why is Jimmy supposed to be any different?” “He’s not- that’s the answer” Anne remarks from the opposite side of the room, taking the tray of cake mix and slipping it into the heated chamber, “and no matter how much you may protest, we’re never going to look at him any other way, honey.” Glueing her eyes to the woman that raised her, Cathy stares in silence for a few seconds with little more than a disappointed look on her face, the words she wants to respond with being shelved by her father’s interjection. “Honey, you’ll feel stronger ways about much better men than this kid. When that day comes, you’ll be able to see what we mean” Walter remarks, pausing to take another drag off his cigarette, “until then, we’ll be here as these feelings pass. We’re just trying to keep you grounded in reality.” “What did grandpa think of you then, father?” Cathy inquires, turning her face toward the man in full, not an ounce of hesitation to be offered behind any of her words, “did he think of you as an upstanding citizen? Did he think you were worthy of mother’s love?” Letting his hand fall just a few inches from his face to speak, Walter finds his retort carried within the words of his wife, who takes over on his behalf. “Your father was a respectable man who didn’t approach my father wearing bruises and cuts. Your father was never arrested or presented him with improprieties” Anne argues, a stern tone carried within her voice in the wake of her husband’s questioning. “Your grandfather met me on the front porch, told me that it was my responsibility to provide for your mother, and had me live up to that expectation” Walter doubles down, taking over to speak upon his own behalf, “I showed I was capable of it.” “So, in other words- grandpa gave you the chance and you didn’t let him regret it” Cathy replies, looking her father in the eyes before redirecting her attention to the woman behind the counter, “how is Jimmy supposed to do that if you won’t even provide him with the chance.” “He won’t because he’s not getting it” Anne quickly rebukes, undoing the strings on her apron to shed it from her body, “that is the end of this conversation. If you speak another word of it, you will be ordered to your room. Do you understand?” With a frown spread across her visage, Cathy stares at her mother with a partially open mouth, the visible disappointment unnecessary to speak of, instead made obvious through the birthday girl’s silent departure. | \ Fifteen minutes later / Groggily leant against the paint-chipped drywall, Jimmy hangs his head to the side as the air grows quiet, not a whimper to be heard and not a grunt to leave his body. The blood on the side of his face having dried, the battered young man sits with his hands on his lap and chin pressed against his chest, dry sweat covering his forehead and eyes barely able to keep themselves parted. “This is all your fault” the beaten woman whimpers from the opposite side of the room, her scathing words doing little to phase the man that gingerly looks up toward her direction. “You ruined our lives” the scared and fragile woman moans, a remark that provokes a smile to come across the face of the battered young man. “All these years have gone by, and I still can’t understand why I’m to blame” Jimmy murmurs aloud, immediately earning the scorn of his mother-figure. “You’re the bastard!” the woman hisses back, still cowering in the corner out of fear that her lover will return for a second round of lashings. In spite of his wounds and the soreness that riddles his body, the trounced young man looks back at the ground and smiles, holding back brief chuckles as his blood-stained teeth present themselves. “You find this amusing? You ruined our lives!” the woman hisses even louder, trying to keep her enraged tone as quiet as she can so as not to draw the abusive father’s attention back upon them. “Haven’t you ever asked yourself why all of your other kids cut off contact with you?” Jimmy inquires, picking his head up to lean it against the drywall, eyes staring at the heavens whilst the bitter conversation persists, “haven’t you ever asked yourself why only the bastard stayed?” “Because you’re useless!” the mother hisses back, refusing to acknowledge her husband’s behaviour as the reason behind her strife, but instead taking the easy route of buying into her associated-son’s fault. “Or maybe they just see you for the filthy bitch that you are” Jimmy rebukes, his words immediately prompting the woman across the room from him to fall silent, almost incapable of wrapping her mind around the insult that’d been levied at her. “Wh- what did you just-?” the woman whispers, her voice barely loud enough to catch the ears of the young man one room’s length away. “Blame me for your problems all that you’d please, but I’m here because dad stuck his penis in some deadbeat broad a little over eighteen years ago” Jimmy continues, speaking with the nonchalant cadence of a man who couldn’t care less how his proclamations are perceived, “I’m the bastard because dad wanted a new doll to toy around with.” “Get out of this house” the woman across the room quickly whispers back, watching the young man’s frown meet her as he remains seated, her anger spiking the moment she realises he has no intention of moving. “Get out of this house!” the mother exclaims once more, too enraged to concern herself with her husband’s rage in that one moment, completely forgetting the wrath of his fury in a second of outright hostility. Rolling his eyes, Jimmy shakes his head and begins to push himself off the ground, hearing the distant footsteps that make their way from the living room just a corridor’s length-away. Paying no mind to the impending attack that he knows will soon be launched, the young man continues to guide himself upward with the help of the chipped drywall as the door to the room swings open once more, granting James an undisturbed path to the son he’d never desired having. Feeling the weight of his father’s hand press against his shoulder, Jimmy scowls at the spin his body takes before bracing himself, ready for the punch that soon sends him back into the floor. “Shut your goddamn mouths!” James exclaims, turning his focus back toward the cowering woman in the corner as his son lays upon the ground, staring at the sky as his adoptive mother’s shrieks fill the air, provoking not a single ounce of change in his expression. With his fingers slightly curled and both elbows pressing against the ground, Jimmy drowns out the sounds of the woman’s beating as he gives into the ache of his pains once more, feeling them throughout his body as if they were a disease ravaging him from within. Each ache dulling the last one out, the young man feels the weight behind every strike he’d eaten that night overcome itself, rendering him into one desensitised husk of a man. “You ungrateful piece of shit!” James shouts aloud, taking his son by the collar of his partially-torn shirt and forcing him upward, thrusting him against the drywall and holding his face exactly as he had before. “You’re the biggest mistake of my life!” the man’s father shouts, his fingers squeezing down on his son’s face with force, the man’s lips, cheeks, and chin all shifting with the weight of his grasp like dough. “I wish you were never born! You ruined everything!” James exclaims once more, pulling his son forward before slamming him against the drywall again, the impact of the collision falling upon deaf senses. Already rendered one numb carcass contained within the living confines of a body, Jimmy stares at his father and listens to every last word, hanging onto every syllable uttered and taking the abuse for every last ounce. “You should have never been born!” James exclaims, yet again pulling his son away from the wall before thrusting him back into it, holding Jimmy’s face in such a way that prevents him from seeing the amused smile hidden behind his shifted skin. “I should’ve killed you the second you were brought into this putrid world!” the father shouts once more, following suit by shoving his son into the wall once more, his voice lowering to a more personal tone after a brief pause. “Look at me, look at me-” James whispers, watching his son’s eyes dart toward his pupils, looking him square in the face just as desired before once more doubling down on his vitriol, “-you’ll always just be the bastard!” Kept against the wall for a further few seconds, Jimmy lets his father’s declaration sink in amidst the pause in his father’s attack, feeling a sense of rage he’d never carried within his veins before this moment. Allowing the claim to resonate within his offspring, James pulls his son back just one more time before thrusting him back into the drywall, fingers still pressing into the young man’s flesh with an insatiable might. Feeling his head bounce against the wall, Jimmy’s eyes shoot open as he feels his father’s grasp tighten, the six words he’d been forced to simmer down with proving too much for him to overcome. In a moment of pure adrenaline, the son pushes past the aches of his wounds and swipes his arms through the air, tearing his parent’s snake-like grasp on his face away before shoving him back, creating separation that brings an audible silence over the room. Regaining his balance, James stares with eyes as wide as they can part at the young man across from him, letting the disrespect sink in for a moment before screaming in anger. “You little bastard!” the father exclaims, sprinting forward with his hand cocked back and ready to swing, only for the grasp of his son’s hand around the collar of his shirt to precede any attack. With his free hand balled into a fist, Jimmy throws a strike at the centre of his father’s face, immediately rocking the man that had brought him into the world as his mother watches on, astonished at the sight and incapable of speech. With James dazed in his grasp, the battered son stares at his father with an impassioned vigour that had yet been satisfied, the gall to lay a hand on the man that had raised him- all be it in hellacious conditions- only carrying him further. With a newfound fury, Jimmy rains shots down on his father’s face and follows the man to the ground, each strike only furthering the assault that bloodies the man’s face beyond anything he’d ever suffered. As if on a mission, the offspring continues to deal blow after blow upon James, watching his face swell beneath every strike before deciding he hadn’t yet made his bones with the man. “Am I the bastard, dad!? Which one of us is the bastard, you obnoxious piece of shit!?” Jimmy exclaims, wrapping his hands around the man’s shirt collar and pulling his face close, wanting to make sure every word was uttered as personally as his father’s had been delivered. With a strength neither parent knew their child to be capable of, the young man lifts James to his feet and throws him against the wall, both hands wrapping around his face just as had been done to him. “You made this bed to lie in you ungrateful little shit!” Jimmy shouts, pulling his father’s bloated skull away from the wall before slamming it back once more, hearing a sickening crack that he brushes off without a second thought. “You dug this fucking grave, you goddamn monster!” the young man doubles down, pulling his father’s head forward and slamming it back once more, listening to the muffled groans of his drunken parent as consciousness becomes evasive. “Look at me! Look at me!” Jimmy soon whispers, pulling his father’s head forward and holding him in the air, the tight grasp he wraps around the man’s skull being the only thing keeping him from toppling to the ground. Making sure to see James’ pupils looking into his own before continuing, the wounded son keeps his voice low and personable, not wanting to let a second of his assault pass by without being revelled in. “You’re the bastard” the young man whispers, nodding to his father with a look of satisfaction on his face before thrusting the man’s head back once more, a second crack filling the air before the hands relinquish his elder’s skull. Left unsupported, James bounces off the drywall and collapses to his son’s feet, the room left eerily silent as his adoptive mother looks at the same sight that her adopted son takes toward. Directly where his father’s head had been thrusted against, a blood splatter sits on the wall that the man now lays at the base of, slumped over and unresponsive. Huffing for air as he regains his composure, Jimmy takes a few steps back and looks at his father’s body laying on the ground, not holding enough remorse to feel sorry for his actions, not enough care to check for a pulse. Showing his bloody teeth toward the sky, Jimmy’s eyes soon wander to the deathly-silent woman just a few feet away, her eyes staring in shock at her husband’s body before soon sharing the sight with that of her adopted offspring. “You’re both bastards” the young man mutters aloud, staring his mother-figure in the eyes for another few seconds before turning away, eyes locking upon the corridor his father had traversed to spark the altercation that he’d now finished. In the distance of the home, the woman begins to return to her wailing as she crawls to the battered man she’d married many years ago, refusing to break her faithfulness to him in spite of his transgressions. Not bothering himself with his mother’s lamenting, Jimmy follows through on her earlier desire, taking the keys to the family car on his way through the door before hopping behind the wheel, pulling out of his driveway for the final time before hitting the open road empty handed. | \ Three hours later / Letting her head sink into the comfort of her pillow’s cushion, Cathy begins to drift into a sleep she’d been kept from for the last thirty minutes, her mind still racing over the conversation from earlier- one that had tainted her birthday dinner to such a degree that she couldn’t even spare room for dessert. Her lids growing heavy and her breaths growing still and calm, the newly-minted adult begins falling to the sanctuary of slumber just as a sudden tap collects her attention. Parting as if they hadn’t just been fighting the urge to remain pressed together for a full night’s rest, the girl's eyes open to stare at the moonlight that falls over her face in lieu of her open curtains. Uncertain of whether or not the sound had emanated from a place deep within her subconscious, Cathy waits for a few more moments before closing her eyes once more, having offered fate the chance to prove her prior assumption wrong and been left without a response. Steadying her breaths yet again, Cathy isn’t even provided the chance to lull herself into another position of comfort before another tap at her window captivates every ounce of her focus, this time drawing her to sit up in her bed and stare at the view-provider. With her blanket shuffled down to her hip, the young woman sits up and waits for a third tapping to steal her attention just as the first set had, proving beyond a doubt that the call is not just one she had conjured up in a near-sleep. *tap* Out of the corner of her eye, Cathy watches a small pebble fall back to earth after colliding with the transparent divide separating her from the outside, the third instance enough to draw her out of bed and across the room. Light on her feet, the woman makes her way to the window and unhooks the latches, a smile carried over her face as she looks at the man below, able to have caught a glimpse of him seconds before. “Happy birthday” Jimmy mutters beneath his breath, unable to finish his statement before feeling the woman’s arms wrap around him, pulling him closer to the ladder he’d ascended to reach the home’s second level. “What happened to your face?” Cathy inquires the instant she pulls away, taking note of the swells along the sides of her boyfriend’s visage, the blood stain that he wears down his chin and the bruises that adorn his expression. “My father- again” Jimmy whispers back, handing the woman a small box before sneaking the rest of the way into her room, gently pressing his feet into the creaking hardwood floor. “He was hitting you again?” the woman wonders aloud, holding the present by her side as the man’s well-being takes priority over her concern, her answer provided in the form of a defeated and breathy nod. “Yeah, but it’ll be the last time” Jimmy responds, able to feel the aches and pains more than he had whilst at the home, but still hosting enough adrenaline to push him through the interaction. “What do you mean?” Cathy questions aloud, watching her boyfriend gently step closer toward her bed, his voice matching her whisper-like tone as they keep their meeting discreet. “I fought back. I hit him back- a lot” Jimmy replies, looking toward the ground as he presses both hands against his sides, an uncertain glare held toward the floorboards, “I might’ve hurt him too bad.” With care, Cathy places the carefully wrapped box upon her bed and takes the man’s hands into his own, her non-dominant hand soon moving up to gently rest against his bruised skin. “Is he okay? Are you in trouble?” she soon wonders aloud, not immediately stricken with confidence as he looks at her with the same tentativeness as before. “I’m not sure- for both of those questions” Jimmy responds calmly, an apologetic expression soon replacing the one of uncertainty from before, “but I’m not going to be around long enough to find out.” “What? What does that mean?” Cathy replies, both worried and invested in the remarks laid out by the man she takes comfort in the presence of. “It means I have to leave” Jimmy responds, freeing his hands to collect those his girlfriend rests against him, holding hers within his own, “I have to get out of town and I don’t think I can come back.” “What? Where? Where will you go?” Cathy wonders back, clearly distraught at the idea that she could be left without her lover, though too concerned with his well-being to even consider such an idea. “I don’t know. Somewhere far away, I suppose” Jimmy replies, shaking his head as he stares off to the side, “I read somewhere that there were a lot of jobs going ‘round out west. Maybe I’ll take a stab at life out there and see what I can make of it.” “Out west? How far out west?” Cathy continues to ask, each question just asked with the hope of providing clarity to the rather tense situation unfolding at hand. “California, maybe? Or the other ones- Oregon and Washington” Jimmy responds, clearly unsure of what the steps beyond evading justice are to be, “I can find some consistent work and settle down there. Either way, it won’t be close to home.” “Alright, then let’s go” Cathy quickly retorts, gingerly stepping across the easily-creaking wooden floorboards on her way to the dresser, where she lifts a handful of clothes amidst a line of questioning. “What? No, Cathy- you can’t come with me!” Jimmy rebukes, his voice at a whisper-like hiss as the woman dismisses his refusal, “I came here ‘cause I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” “You’re not saying goodbye at all. If you’re skipping town- so am I” Cathy doubles down, opening the clasp to a small suitcase situated atop a chair in the room’s corner. “Cathy, you can’t do that. You’ve got family here, and you’ve got a life here!” Jimmy retorts, watching the woman stack a small handful of clothes in the luggage before returning to her dresser to follow the same process. “My family doesn’t trust my choices. My family doesn’t believe that I know what’s best for me. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t trust me” Cathy replies, reaching into the drawers once more for another handful of her belongings, “if they can’t trust me, then I can’t be here. And if I can’t be here, I’d prefer to be out there, with you, rather than anywhere else.” “Cathy, this is crazy talk” Jimmy argues back, watching the woman carefully rest his present in the middle of two piles of clothes, the flap of her luggage buttoning shut as she readies herself to go. “I’ve got a reason to be running off like this, you’ve got too much going for you” the man continues to plead, trying to urge the woman to reconsider her choice, though her posture appears adamant in the call being made, “Cathy, I need you to not follow me.” “Why not? If it was so important for me to stay here, you’d just keep me from going with you” Cathy whispers back, confronting the man on the pleas he makes to her, “why is it so important that I don’t follow you?” “Because if you didn’t choose to stay behind, I wouldn’t be strong enough to make you” Jimmy quickly retorts, his words providing a pause over the discourse as the air grows as quiet as both individuals do. His lip trembling as he looks off at the door to the girl’s bedroom, the runaway young man tries to clear his head and compose his thoughts, trying his best to make whatever plea he can to keep the woman from following through with her desire. “Cathy, you’ve got something really good here. You’ll have more here than I’d be able to provide you like this. I’ll be on the run, I’ll be on the edge and paranoid everywhere we go” Jimmy explains, shaking his head as he holds the woman’s coupled hands within his own, “you’d be giving up a life I’d never be able to give you if you followed me out that window. No matter where we are, I’ll be left reminding myself that I’d taken you from that every day from now until the end of time.” Bowing his head and pressing his forehead against her knuckles, Jimmy gathers his breath before looking up once more, finishing his thought with the conclusion of the only request he has the strength to make. “Please, don’t follow me out that window” the man asks one final time, looking the woman in the eyes amidst the pause that prevails before waiting for her response, completely unsure of what answer awaits him. “The only life I want is with you” Cathy concludes, leaning in and pressing her lips against Jimmy’s own before stepping past the man, preparing to join him in venturing for greener pastures out west. Closing her door gently before climbing into the other side of the carriage, Jimmy wraps his fingers around the steering wheel and looks through the windshield, his girlfriend staring on with her hands delicately folded atop her lap. Unable to convince the woman any further than he already has tried, the driver sets the gears into motion and begins the drive onward, the car’s wheels turning down the gravel pathway that leads away from the home his lover now leaves behind for what’s yet unknown. == Seattle Noir ==
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\ Seattle - 1930 /
“What do you mean I’m not fighting!?” Kenny exclaims, watching the nonchalant pour of a glass of vodka from the hand of his new, wealthy employer, “you have me booked for a fight, I want to fight!” With a smirk in the corner of his lip, Wilbur takes the rim of his bottle and fills a second glass for his guest, carefully approaching with both hands extended- a drink in each. “And I like putting on a show. The pageantry, the spectacle, the drama, it’s all-” the affluent businessman replies, interrupted by the swatting of his further-stretched hand, batted away by the vehement paw of his older employee. Lulled into silence, Wilbur smiles as he listens to the glass shatter against the concrete floor of his warehouse, watching the pool of clear liquor settle at his feet whilst fighting the temptation to slap the once labourer’s taste clear from his lip. Seething to himself, Wilbur takes the second glass and slowly lifts it to his mouth, taking a sip from his beverage before slowly nodding to himself, continuing to stare at the now wasted glass of vodka. “I would advise that you never do such a thing like that again” the man whispers, looking up at the man with shaggy, grey hair and a thick beard, the most menacing smile one can envision plastered upon the face of the opulently-wealthy figure’s face. In silence, Wilbur lets his declaration settle for a moment before turning away, his back shown toward the fighter as he begins retreating to the corner of the warehouse that will soon present itself to the public as an arena of allure. “You told Arthur and Willard about the fight club” the wealthy man remarks, watched on as he steps away whilst Kenny remains heavy-footed in the centre of the room, allowing his employer to speak without interruption. “You told them about the fight camp’s introduction, and you practically lead them straight to your friends on a silver platter” Wilbur continues, soon finding the comfort of a wooden chair off to the side, taking it in his hand and dragging it until he’s only a few feet away from the brawler. “I don’t quite know what to make of that, but I do know that you had expected them to get into a fight. With those breadcrumbs you laid out, I must ask-” the now-seated man wonders aloud, “why?” Turning his chin away, Kenny’s eyes glue themselves to the pit at the warehouse’s direct centre, rows of platforms all stretching further toward ground level with seats screwed into the concrete foundation. “I knew you were going to need more fighters” the man soon replies, his grizzled appearance doing little to support the claim he makes, its composition not yet bought into by the charming individual of grandeur seated closeby. “You were there when nearly your entire camp of workers signed on to fight, were you not?” Wilbur inquires, his smirk still intact as he leans slightly forward, watching the older gentleman struggle to come up with an answer worth his teeth sinking into. “You can always use more” Kenny chirps back, earning an amused chuckle from the promoter, who lowers his head toward his lap and tries to quell his humour. “Of course I can, but it just tickles me pink to wonder why you chose those two specific guys” Wilbur responds, his voice reaching a low, gravelly tone almost designed to be presented as part of a grander character. “You had to figure out James and the others had a problem with them, track them down and then convince them to take the leap of faith and jump into my fighting frenzy” the hat-wearing, cane-wielding promoter remarks, stepping out of his chair, “that’s a lot of work.” “What do you want my answer to be?” Kenny soon questions aloud, finding the man pondering these inquiries aloud to have fallen silent, waiting to receive the answer he anticipates, “do you want me to feed you some sob story of how long I’ve known them?” With the subtle shake of his head, Wilbur steps forward another few feet, closing the space between himself and the man he interrogates whilst staring off at the distant level below, the level prepared to host a flurry of carnage in days time. “No, I’d prefer the real answer” Wilbur responds, keeping his beady eyes drifting along each row of seats that surround his emporium of entertainment, “the one that you’re trying to keep me from finding. I want the answer that you aren’t leaving this building without giving me.” Meeting his employer with silence, Kenny stares at the side of the man’s face, his clean-shaven skin leading toward a pointed jaw, which soon turns toward himself as their eyes meet each other’s. “We both know this was more than just a chance encounter- you had a motivation behind doing this” Wilbur further prods, looking for the best reasoning that his brawler can offer, “it makes little sense for you to set your friends up like that, and as a man that appreciates a good story, I want to know just how deep the roots in this one goes.” “What does it matter if I’m not on the opening card?” Kenny quickly wonders back, the inquiry one that prompts the promoter to pull his head back, staring at the brawler across from him with a fascinated squint. “You want to be on the opening card that badly?” Wilbur wonders aloud, the silent defiance shown in the visage of his fighter presenting that same conclusion visually, “will you tell me why you sought after those guys if I let you in on the debut card?” With a grimace that soon follows his face in falling off to the side, Kenny stares at the ground with his lips puckered, contemplating his reply before inevitably returning his focus toward the promoter. “I figured that it’d go a long way if you could market a fight with actual hatred behind it” the shaggy-haired brawler replies, a shrug in his shoulder carried as he speaks, “I figured it’d make me look more dependable if I could deliver you a fight with stakes behind it other than pay.” The answer surprising him, Wilbur’s head bows to one side just slightly as he lets the reply sit with him, weighing on his mind and drifting between each side of his head. “You figured it’d make you look more dependable?” the wealthy entrepreneur responds, clearly intrigued by the response that’d been given, “why would that be important to you?” “Because I’ve got too much writing on this thing. I’ve got nothing left to lose, but I have everything to gain” Kenny quickly argues back, unwavering in his remark, “I figured that if I could prove how useful I was, it’d be harder to replace me than it would be anyone else.” Letting his cane wave through the air before reconnecting with the ground just off to the side, Wilbur keeps his attention fixated on the fighter as he stands across from him for a moment, unsure of how to reply. “It’s one thing to fight, it’s one thing to win, and it’s one thing to make money for all sides” Kenny continues, trying his best to present his point, “but if I can prove that I’m worth more than some sweaty brute paid to throw fists and win people money, it’ll be that much more difficult to cut me out.” The squint in his eyes only intensifying, Wilbur thinks quietly to himself for a moment as his eyes trail off toward the ground, following the pathway that leads to the set of stairs connected to the catwalk. “You’re back on the debut card” the figure of wealth soon concludes, speaking just loudly enough for his visitor to overhear whilst walking for the steps that had caught his eye, “until then, don’t tell anyone what you did or why.” The demands made of him resoundingly clear and impossible to misconstrue, Kenny nods quietly before taking a few glances at the warehouse’s entrance, using it for his departure upon conclusion that his business within the building had now been taken care of. On his own, Wilbur traverses the metal staircase and makes it atop the catwalk, looking over the railing at the fight pit in the centre of the building before taking a seat upon a nearby chair, pondering silently to himself. = Seattle Noir is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward = “Thank you for inviting us” Stanley remarks, gingerly swaying the wounded half of his body forward and back as he buries the end of a butter knife through a cooked potato. “We’re not doing anything you haven’t done for us plenty of times before, Stan’” Cathy replies, wiping the corners of her mouth with the rag that had sat across her lap. With a passive smile, the woman lets her guests' voiced appreciation settle before the next few seconds pass, triggering the ringing of a timer left in the kitchen to catch the woman’s ear. “Dessert’s ready” Cathy murmurs, stepping out of her chair and beginning her passage toward the kitchen as another one of her guests calls out. “I’ll help” Josie remarks, following the woman’s lead in climbing out of her chair and following the sound of buzzing into the kitchen. Quickly slipping on a pair of oven mitts handed to her by the woman following closeby, Cathy reaches into the machine and retrieves a metal pan, gently setting it atop the burners whilst her guest watches on. “Geez, where did you learn how to cook?” Josie wonders aloud, looking at the various discarded bits of vegetables sitting atop the garbage bin, her nose catching the aroma of various scents and seasonings that turn the kitchen into a haven of heavenly fragrances. “I can’t tell whether or not you ask that because the food’s bad or because it’s good” Cathy responds with a light chuckle, slipping off her mittens and hanging them just beside the sink. “No, no- the food is excellent” Josie corrects, hands lifted in the woman’s direction in a show of good faith, “it’s just that Stanley and I never knew you and Jimmy before they started working together. The two of you were already living in the hooverville by that time.” Her lips gently parting, Cathy shrugs to herself as she approaches the refrigerator, a light pull on the handle freeing herself to stare into the various shelves of cooled foods and beverages. “My mother taught me when I was a little girl” the hostess retorts, reaching into the frosty interior to free a chilled bottle of wine from within, her hand guiding the door back into its closed position with as much ease as she’d used to open it, “oh, I must’ve been seven when I first remember cooking.” “Really?” Josie wonders aloud, one hand pressing against the wooden countertop right beside where the stove had been fixed into, “that young?” With a polite giggle, Cathy sets the bottle of red wine down before briskly strutting to the other side of the room, “seven is far from young when learning how to sustain yourself is concerned, no?” she questions back, an honest and well-meaning question paid to the woman a few paces away. “When were you taught?” Cathy redirects, paying the question toward a different road to venture toward whilst reaching for a handful of glasses, all different in shape from the ones lining the nearby dining room table. “Well, I suppose I never was” Josie responds, watching her friend pause for a moment in surprise before continuing her duties, laying all five glasses out along a table, much smaller in size from the one she and her husband host at. “Never?” Cathy wonders back, curious as to the answer which she hadn’t been expecting to hear, “how could you have never been taught?” Shaking her head, Josie looks toward the ground as her voice gets rather quiet, a reserved tone in her voice taken toward the woman she’s exposed just as much of her youth to as had been exposed to herself. “I suppose I never had much of a chance, if you’d look at it that way” Josie responds, eyes still kept on the wooden tiles at her feet whilst her head sways slowly from one side to the other, “father died in the war and mother remarried. I called the orphanage my home for much of my life.” “Oh, I’m so sorry” Cathy replies, ceasing her delicate venture from one end of the kitchen to the other in light of her friend’s clear uncertainty over what to say. “Don’t be, it turned out alright. I met Stanley whilst I was there and we married the second we aged out of the home” Josie replies, a smile carried on her face as it finally pulls up from the floor it had taken toward, “it was rough for a long while there. But he found steady work and we weathered the collapse.” “Still, that’s no life for a girl to live” Cathy responds, not freeing the woman from hearing her apology for the rough circumstances surrounding her youth. “No, I suppose not. But we all ended up meeting each other through some measure of god, now haven’t we?” Josie replies, a much more chipper visage carried than the one that her hostess attempts to put aside, “through some divine way, Stanley and Jimmy met at the same place. And with that, we met each other.” “Well, I wouldn’t call it divine of any sort, but it’s nice that you have that to hold onto” Cathy laughs lightly, dismissively turning back to the baked good she’d pulled from the oven. “Well, I don’t expect everyone to be religious. Wouldn’t you say it’s at least more than a stroke of luck that we all managed to find each other in this rather undignified world?” Josie queries aloud, watching the woman look up at her for a moment, prompted by the question to halt all other duties. “I think we’re all rather fortunate for it. The boys in the other room are all decent men, the two of us live decent lives in part thanks to them” Cathy responds, reaching for the different straws that comprise whatever answer she looks to forge, “I think that if none of us had met, we would’ve found different, rather less-pleasant souls to be around.” “So you think all of this is just sheer luck?” Josie inquires, watching her friend attempt to return sights toward the dessert before becoming hooked on the question that her acquaintance soon forgets herself. “What is that?” the flat’s guest inquires, looking into the pan that she soon draws the baker’s eyes back toward. “Thi- Oh, it’s um-” Cathy begins to remark, stumbling over her words before pressing the ball of her knuckle against her bottom lip, “it’s a New England Cranberry Pie.” With both eyebrows lifted, Josie nods to herself whilst her friend reclaims the mittens, shielding her hands as she carries the desert toward the nearest window, leaving it upon the sill to cool. “Did your mother teach you how to make that?” the visitor inquires, unable to see the subtle look of disappointment that comes over her host’s face. “Yeah, she- she taught me the recipe” Cathy responds, eyebrows furrowed as she pulls her face away from the rising steam, the simple breeze coming in through the window guiding the heat toward her face. “Are you okay?” Josie interrupts, the question being one that surprises the flat’s primary tenant, who’d unknowingly matched her disheartened visage with a tone of voice to match it. Removing the mittens once more, Cathy places both hands over her eyes and presses her palms against her face, trying to keep herself composed in the wake of a question offering her more to speak upon than what it’d seem. “I’m sorry, it’s just really difficult to talk about my family” Cathy replies, trying her best to present a smile, though it in no way appears compelling. Pressing her back against the wall, the baker stares at the ceiling for another few moments to regain her wits, not wanting to speak toward anything regarding her youth without being of sound mind. “My mother and father never approved of Jimmy. They thought he was a thug at best, and a criminal at worst. They wanted nothing to do with him, but more importantly- they wanted me to have nothing to do with him” Cathy admits, returning her face to that of her friend’s own, wanting to look her in the eyes as she comes clean, “they tried to talk me out of seeing him, they tried to keep me from- well, they tried to keep me from making what they thought was a mistake.” Remaining quiet and only offering brief nods amidst pauses, Josie allows her friend to continue uninterrupted, the tale being spun clearly weighing heavily on the woman’s chest. “Jimmy was born out of wedlock. In his parents’ eyes, he was the bastard son. So, he wanted to be out of that just as much as I wanted to be away from people that looked down on me for my choice in seeing him” Cathy continues, a shrug carried in her shoulder before she continues. “So when I turned eighteen, Jimmy took his father’s car and drove up to my parents’ home. I snuck out after they’d gone to bed, and we just- drove away” the baker continues, clearly displeased at the way in which they’d gone about leaving together, though not regretful of where it’d taken them. “I haven’t seen them since. Even if I wanted to, they’re a country’s length away” Cathy concludes, looking up at her guest with a half-smile on her face, “but they’re the farthest thing from my mind now.” | “It’s gonna be a tough fight” Stanley remarks, his sling-ridden arm resting at his chest whilst his opposite arm’s wrist rests against the edge of the dining room table. “It won’t be any tougher than that mountain Jesse seems so eager to climb” Jimmy replies with a smirk, lifting a dart to his lips as the man in question doubles down on his choice. “When someone puts it on your friend, you’ve gotta put it back on them” Jesse retorts, pulling a drag from his own dart as he shakes his head, “I don’t care how much weight that guy’s got on me. He put my friend on the shelf, and now he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.” With his own dart pressed between fingers on his healthy hand, Stanley smiles at the ground and shakes his head with humour. “Still, as much as I appreciate it- that’s not the dude you get into a fight with blindly” Stanley rebukes, his head turned aside to face his brawl-ready acquaintance, “I don’t even know what kind of rules this Wilbur-guy has in mind. It could be a fight to the death for all I know. Is that really the kind of guy you just march into war against without knowing what you’re up against?” “What would you rather I did? Let the guy get away with snapping your neck bone- or whatever the hell is wrong with you- and be done with it?” Jesse questions back, his tone calm though his words are defensive. “I just don’t want to see you get roughed up like I did” Stanley quickly responds, sitting in silence for a second as the retort lingers, settling with all before his face turns toward the flat’s owner, “I don’t want to see either of you get roughed up like that.” “Jimmy’s gonna handle that Arthur guy just fine” Jesse quips back, refusing to allow either friend belief in anything less than what he declares, “and I don’t care what kind of tree I’m getting mine with- he’s getting chopped down in a couple of days.” “The important part is that we all just make it out of that in one piece” Jimmy interjects, holding his dart in the middle of the air as he prepares to pull from it, “you already see it with guys like those, after a while of doing this- people are gonna start grouping up.” With his eyebrows furrowed, Jesse leans in slightly whilst Stanley simply looks on, his friend asking the same question aloud that he’d kept contained within his head. “What do you mean by that?” Jesse wonders aloud, watching the orange glow from the end of his pal’s snipe begin to fade, lips pulled away from the unfiltered other end. “When everyone’s throwing hands with each other, it’ll only be a matter of time until people start grouping together. It’ll make the most sense to make sure you’ve got a few allies to side with in the event that things go south” Jimmy clarifies, letting a long line of smoke leave through his barely-parted lips. “Arthur and that big guy- what’s his name, Willard? They’re one example” Jimmy continues, lowering his dart into the transparent ashtray sat upon the table just to his right, positioned right in front of Stanley and just a few inches away from Jesse on the other end. “The three of us are another. In due time, you’ll have people grouping up to make sure they’ve at least got somewhere to turn when things get ugly” the flat’s renter proceeds, “we’re ahead of the curve, but not for long.” “So what are you insisting?” Jesse questions back, curious as to the proposition made by the man at the forefront of the conversation, “do we find others? Surely our group would be amongst the smallest when everyone started clumping together.” Shaking his head, Jimmy lets the snipe rest against the pile of ash within its tray as he leans back in his seat, reaching for the glass of water just beside his plate, which is stained with the sauce from his earlier dinner- not a bite left. “No, those groups will have cancer somewhere in there. The bigger you get, the more likely your ranks are getting stuffed with people that are- let’s just say- less than trustworthy” Jimmy argues, immediately questioned further. “Than what are you suggesting?” Jesse doubles down, shaking his head as his eyes veer off to the side of the room, unsure of where his friend could be directing his attention toward, “if we won’t be ahead of the curve for long, how do we stay ahead?” “By staying healthy” Jimmy replies with as much speed as his friend had launched his inquiry with, “the three of us can trust each other, but I can’t say the same for almost anyone else there. As long as the three of us can keep ourselves healthy enough- after Stan gets better, of course- we’ll always have someone there to back us up.” “What about that older man from the bar you were talking about?” Josie wonders aloud, carrying five empty wine glasses and a cold bottle of red to aid her friend, “the one with the long, grey hair?” With a squint, Stanley lifts the dart through the air, “do you mean Kenny?” he asks as he pulls a drag from the snipe. “No, Kenny abandoned us once those cinder dicks showed up” Jesse replies, shaking his head dismissively as Cathy walks out with the cooled-down pan of pie, “if he’s not willing to fight with us, he can’t be trusted.” With a frown in the corner of his face, Jimmy opts to remain mute on the subject as he stands from his seat, clearing the centre of the table for his wife to better lay out their prepared dessert until his visage is called into question. “What’s that look for?” Jesse wonders aloud, earning the undivided eyes of the apartment’s owner, “you’ve got any different thoughts about Kenny?” Shaking his head with a brief chuckle as he continues clearing off the table’s middle, Jimmy rests his hand on his wife’s back before smiling at his friend, “I wasn’t even there to see whether or not Kenny left before things got bad, I’ve got nothing to say on the matter.” “He was gone by the time things went bad, but he was there when the pair came up” Stanley replies, opting not to take the dismissive side of Jimmy’s argument, or the side of vehement disinterest in Jesse’s, “he would’ve been there by the time things looked like they were headed south.” Pausing for a moment whilst his wife reclaims her seat, Jimmy stares at the table before looking up at his friend’s and nodding, “alright” he responds, offering nothing more than that as he, too, retakes his seat. Left with nothing to feed off of, Jesse and Stanley take their eyes toward each other’s as they search for clarity. “What do you mean ‘alright’?” Jesse wonders aloud, passing an appreciative smile to Josie as she begins pouring the wine with his glass, “care to add something we’re missing?” Rolling his eyes whilst shaking his head, “I wouldn’t necessarily blame Kenny for not wanting to get into a fight on that night- of all nights” Jimmy replies, taking his cloth bib and placing it over his lap once more before reclaiming his dart, “if this were under different circumstances, I might see it differently.” “Woah, woah, woah- other circumstances?” Jesse questions aloud, solidifying his stance in the camp opposed to looking fondly upon Kenny whilst his peers distance themselves toward respective corners. “We were out in public when these two cinder dicks show up, and-” the man clarifies, only to be interrupted by the man’s wife. “No swearing at the table, please” Cathy interjects, earning herself an apologetic wave. “My apologies” Jesse remarks, turning his focus back toward the man whose last name is on the apartment’s bills, “the bottom line is that Kenny wasn’t there when we needed him. We couldn’t depend on him- in that moment- any more than anyone else could’ve.” Preferring to keep quiet on the subject, Stanley bows his chin and pulls from his dart once more, handing the snipe off for his wife to finish off upon the last glass being filled. “In his defence, he wasn’t there to start the nonsense with Arthur and the big guy to begin with” Jimmy retorts, finding his voice interrupted almost immediately. “”Neither was I. That didn’t stop me from being there to back up Stan’ when he needed it!” Jesse argues back, prompting the disappointed look on the host’s face to meet him, “there were three people willing to roll up our sleeves and take those cinder- you know the word- on, and Kenny wasn’t one of them.” “Alright, maybe you caught him on a bad night” Jimmy retorts, finding every argument he makes in the man’s favour to only further invigorate the argument his friend has to offer. “Why are you defending this guy!?” Jesse calls out, their voices raising one pitch higher than each other’s with each rebuke they offer, “is it ‘cause we worked with him on the bridge? ‘Cause if that’s case, I’d hate to see you when you figure out that the majority of the gents we’ll be fighting did too.” “Kenny’s just always struck me as an upstanding guy, alright?” Jimmy quips back, his lowered tone bringing the conversation shared amongst the group to a similarly civilised level. “He strikes me as a decent dude. I don’t know a whole ton about the man personally, but he seems like he’s got a good heart” the once-labourer retorts, maintaining his defence of their older colleague, “I’m not willing to base my judgement of the guy off of one fight he chose not to get involved in.” With those words, the room goes silent. Keeping to themselves, Stanley and Josie remain subdued as their eyes briefly peer from one side of the table to the other, waiting for the next voice to speak up. Having offered his peace, Jimmy remains quiet as he stares across the table from himself, looking at Jesse whilst his wife’s hand rests against his own, Cathy’s allegiance laying with the same man her support resides with. The only man present on his lonesome, Jesse lets the tension settle before reclaiming the rag he’d placed upon the table, wiping the corners of his mouth before stepping out of his seat. “Alright, then” the man murmurs aloud, pulling a final drag off his snipe before grinding it into the base of the ashtray and nodding toward his hosts, “thank you for the meal” he remarks, leaving the discarded cigarette as he walks through the living room. “Jesse, let’s not leave this off like-” Jimmy begins to beckon, his words falling on deaf ears as they’re met without a response, only the sound of Jesse reclaiming his jacket and stepping through the front door preceding the noise that emanates upon the exit’s closure. Falling silent, Jimmy presses his fist into the dining room table and hangs his head with a puckered frown for a moment, disheartened with the way in which their conversation had been capped off. Letting the air simmer for a moment before speaking, the man undoes his balled fist and presses his palm into the table, eyes locking onto those of his wife’s as he puts on a more affable smile, “a piece of pie please, honey” he says calmly, trying to put himself past the discourse’s end. == Seattle Noir == \ Seattle - 1930 /
“Forget them!” Jimmy shouts aloud, trying to lure Jesse away from the heated urge of picking another fight with their common foes before returning his attention to the wounded friend beside him, “are you alright?” Wincing in pain with every attempt he makes at moving his arm, Stanley tries to defy the nature of his injury to no avail, soon finding himself forced to shake his head in refusal. “I can’t move it without something up there stingin’ me” the man confesses, his head slightly hung in disappointment whilst his wife kneels beside him, trying her best to be a source of comfort. “That’s because you’ve fractured your clavicle” Wilbur remarks, following the white-coated doctor as he steps through the door, “in stupid terms, you’ve messed up the bone between your neck and your shoulder.” His hand balled into a fist as the revelation prompts him to turn away and restrain himself from dashing through the office’s door, Jesse scrunches his face with anger whilst his friend takes the lead on questions, asking only the ones that make the most sense. “How long will it be until he’s healed?” Jimmy inquires, standing a few feet away from his wife, who sits quietly in a chair near the corner of the room. “Not for a long while. A couple of months at minimum, maybe?” the doctor replies, watching his patient wince at the slightest touch the professional takes toward his arm, “there’s not a whole ton we can do with these kinds of injuries. The best solution I can offer after you leave here would be to rest as still as you can.” “Can he fight with it?” Jesse wonders back, pressing his arm against the doorway he leans against. “He could in theory, but I’d highly advise against it” the doctor responds, his head shaking as he steps away from the patient, “we’ll put him in a hanger, try to let the broken bone heal, and see where he’s at. These injuries can get serious, however. If he fought through it, he’ll only make the injury worse, and with it- his pain.” “Let me fight him then” Jesse instantly quips, pulling away from the side of the room as his friends watch on, the plea offered to the mastermind behind the fights, “if Stan can’t fight that fat dick, I want to.” Reacting with a smirk in the farther corner of his face, Wilbur turns to look away from the third of his combatants before immediately having his attention called back for, the confrontational front of the once-labourer impossible to ignore. “Look at me, you dolled-up fruit!” Jesse exclaims, reaching out and ripping the affluent gentleman’s face toward his direction, immediately earning an enraged visage for his troubles. “If you’re putting Jimmy up against that cinder dick, you’re putting me up against that cinder block- I’m not allowing anything less!” the determined fighter exclaims, forced to pull away from the cane-wielding, tophat-adorning fight promoter by the extended hand of his friend. “He might not be putting it into words for your higher-education self to understand, but he’s not wrong” Jimmy interrupts, stepping in front of Jesse and forcing the man to step back. “The easy thing to do would be to have Stanley fight the guy I can’t, but that’s not an option right now” the brawler remarks, passing the same glance toward the man now standing behind him that the dressed-up promoter does, “you want to put on the best show, right? Jesse’s fighting that brute the same night too.” His lips puckered as he repeats the command quietly to himself, Wilbur stares into the eyes of the man standing across from him before passing another look toward the friend just a few feet away. “Are you telling me you’re not fighting in the main event unless your friend gets his death wish granted?” the wealthy man wonders aloud, looking down at the man he stands just two feet taller than. “That’s exactly what I’m saying” Jimmy answers, presenting his employer with the unwavering demand he wields. His face easing up as he stares back at the rage-enraptured man standing just a few feet behind the figure ahead of him, Wilbur stands up straight and places both hands atop the support of his cane, pressing its tip to the floor as he provides his answer. “Jimmy and Arthur are main eventing, Jesse and Willard will be the penultimate fight” Wilbur declares, chin lowering just slightly, “Willard will open at the house’s favourite, and you and Arthur will open at a toss-up.” Squinting, Jesse immediately blurts out the question that lingers on his mind, “what on earth does that mean?” With the gentle shake of his head, the rich promoter steps past Jimmy and advances past his friend, “terms neither of you need to be familiar with.” Departing just as he had entered, Wilbur enters the corridor that carries him to the next source of business he’s to attend to, soon followed by the doctor, now finished setting Stanley’s arm into a sling. “I can’t be out of work like this, man” the wounded fighter remarks, his breathing short and frenzied as the worry of what his future appears as consumes him. “As long as Jesse and I win, you’ll be fine” Jimmy replies, his voice calm and undisturbed by the events having recently transpired, “we’ll look out for you until you get better. If the money Wilbur’s promising us is real, we’ll be able to do so without issue.” Nodding to the man with the same look of concern in his face, “yeah, if you win” Stanley replies, a reply that speaks to the concerns he buries deep down. Pressing the corners of his lips together, Jimmy steps closer to his friend than he had since escorting him to the theatre’s backstage area, a hand placed on the injured fighter’s intact shoulder. “We’re going to win” the man replies, the tone shifting from one of calm presentation to that of an invigorated demeanour, “count every last dollar that you’ve got and bet it on us. Come fight night, there is nothing holding us back from beating those two goons into paste, do you understand?” Hesitant, Stanley looks his friend in the eyes and pauses for a moment, keeping his mouth shut before answering with a single nod of his head. “Good” Jimmy replies, pulling his sights away from the broken brawler’s self and setting them upon his wife, their eyes meeting just as they had in the theatre minutes prior, “that cinder dick ain’t gonna know what hit ‘em.” = Seattle Noir is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward = Looking past the smoke that emanates from the tip of the butt pressed between his lips, Kenny reads off the inked scrawlings atop a small stack of letters that beckons for his attention. Flipping one after another in passing, the man’s eyes briefly look over the words scrawled along the front of the paper envelope before moving onto the next, taking note of one name after another without much consideration. Its orange glow brightening, the snipe fills the man’s lungs with a rush of tobacco smoke at the gentlest pull, remaining tilted slightly downward as its holder stares at the stack of mail. Yet another envelope passed over in favour of another, only one remains yet unchecked, its discoloured grey appearance catching the apartment owner’s eyes immediately. Furrowing his brows just slightly, Kenny reads the text on the front of the concealed document before sitting with the name on its front in the back of his mind, unable to convince himself to move for a brief moment. Sitting on the couch with an infant girl in her arms, a lady in a blue dress sits in the centre of the living room as the mechanisms of the door begin to shift at the turn of a key on the other end. Turning her back toward the entrance just slightly to conceal the exposed breast her daughter feeds off of, the woman maintains her dignity as Kenny walks in, quick to keep his eyes averted from the woman’s position. “You’re home?” the lady wonders aloud, curious to the man’s entrance so early in the afternoon, her presence barely noticed by the man in anything other than his response. “Yeah, I just ran out to get a few groceries” Kenny replies with a dismissive tone, placing a few small bags of good atop the nearest counter, his focus set primarily on the one envelope atop all the others, hands freeing themselves of the store-bought goods in order to open the concealed document. “I thought you went to work?” the woman responds, looking over her shoulder whilst the baby continues nursing, watching her roommate tear into the fold of an envelope, hurriedly racing to retrieve whatever is left for him to find within. “I told you last week that I left the project, Pearl” Kenny replies, ripping a gash in the top of the letter before reaching inside, fumbling around for the small object concealed. “The fight club is a real thing?” the woman questions back, a confused look coming upon her face before taking notice of her fellow resident’s defeated reaction to the item he recovers, “what’s wrong?” Pressing his elbows into the countertop’s surface, Kenny hangs his head in his hands as the envelope slides out of his hand, falling to the floor with little to be said for. “Kenny?” Pearl wonders aloud for a second time, seeing little change in her roommate’s glum demeanour, his defeated visage more than speaking toward his current mood. Letting a short few moments pass with silence, Kenny unburies his head from within his hands, running his fingers through his lengthy head of hair whilst staring at the small object in the palm of his hand. “Is this about Vivian?” the woman inquires as the man pulls away from the counter, leaving the rest of his mail behind before tossing a ring over toward his roommate’s place on the couch. Watching the small object fly through the air before colliding with the ground just a few short feet away from her, Pearl remains quiet as her friend approaches the nearest window, peering through the blinds of their flat at the city below. “She’s not coming back” Kenny remarks with a rather fair amount of bitterness, his face stricken with the lines of sunlight that break through the window’s obstruction. Pulling another drag from his dart before allowing his dominant hand to reclaim it, the man frees a bundle of smoke into the air whilst trying to unchain his mind from the resentment he’s all too tempted to carry with him. Aware that her input will solve none of the issues that plague her acquaintance, Pearl opts to remain silent, eyes drifting between the child in her arms, the ring on the ground, and the conquered man standing near the end of their shared residence. “I know it was bad, but I never thought it was that bad” Kenny murmurs beneath his breath, shaking his head whilst he stares out at the streets below, their cramped roadways mostly filled with people, though a car rolls through every few minutes. Without much in the way of saying, the abandoned husband takes another pull off his cigarette and backs away from the window, tilting his head back to better stare at the heavens that have forsaken him with such poor results. “I’m sorry, Ken’” Pearl speaks softly, watching the subject of her apology run his hands down the sides of his own face, eyes guiding him to the set of bedrooms near the back of the apartment, the desire to be left alone all that fuels him. | “No, no, no! What are you doing!?” Wilbur exclaims, his palms pressing into the railing on the side of the catwalk that overlooks the fight pit, “that’s standing room only! I don’t want a single chair in that box!” Watched on by Norman, who leans against the same bannister just a few feet off to the side, the affluent operator continues to watch over the crew he’s tasked with laying out the seats, sipping on a glass of gin whilst his associate juts his chin toward the entrance. “You’ve got company, Willy” Norman murmurs aloud, directing his friend’s attention toward the warehouse’s entrance, a pair of men- one towering over the other in height- stepping through the doors. “Are you lost, gentlemen? Perhaps you’re in need of a map? Or a more accurate way to keep track of the date?” Wilbur wonders aloud, peering over the edge to find his unrequested visitors looking back up at him, “the show isn’t for another eleven days.” “We’re not here to fight” Arthur responds, his hands tucked into the pockets of his denim overalls, no further response added to make sense of his presence. “Then why are you here?” Wilbur responds, taking a pause to inspect both men from high above the floor, able to read out the paint stains on their shirts and the overall disorganised nature of their clothing, “and why do the two of you look like you just went one-on-one with a paint mixer and lost?” “When people don’t have money, they work for a living. You do know what a job is, correct?” Willard retorts, watching the smirk spread from one side of the promoter’s face to the other. “Yes, I’m well aware of what I pay people to do. I’m more curious as to why the two of you have one” Wilbur replies, pulling away from the railing before slowly setting one foot in front of the other, guiding himself toward the stairs that will eventually lead him back to ground level. “I only agreed to fight for you because I want to get my hands on that crumb from the other night” Arthur responds, watching as the wealthy businessman traverses the overhead walkway, “I don’t know how legit you are. I may fight one night and not see a cent for it.” Sliding his hand along the smooth bannister he walks alongside, the promoter nods to himself and chuckles low enough to keep it from his visitor’s ears. “Yes, because I’d go through all the trouble of building out this warehouse to be an arena for combat just to alienate my fighters and be left with no one to put a card together with” Wilbur rebukes, “please, gentlemen- if you’re going to accuse me of being untrustworthy, at least make the implication make sense.” “From what we’ve heard, you dragged the other fighters out of that hooverville downtown” Willard replies, shrugging his shoulders as he watches the promoter begin descending the nearest flight of stairs, “why couldn’t you just toss them a couple bucks to replace the people you screw over?” “Because I’m not far enough along in my ventures up in the pacific northwest to get away with grifting people en masse yet” Wilbur replies, his words only quickly provoking a response from the men just a short distance away. “But you would be willing to chisel?” Arthur rebukes, earning a chipper assertion from the man drawing closer toward them. “Oh, absolutely! You don’t forge an empire without cutting a few corners every now and again” Wilbur assures, a smile still worn proudly upon his face as he reaches the bottom-most step, retrieving the cane that rests along the railing’s side. “But as I just made clear, I, nor my business partner standing up there like some physical manifestation of god, have the reputation to sustain any long-term grift just yet” the affluent gentleman remarks, “consider yourselves lucky you found me early.” With a squint in his eye, Willard inspects the confident posture of the man they’ve sworn to business with- if even just for one solitary night as of now- whilst remaining silent. “Then what’s the plan with the fighters that lose?” Arthur wonders aloud, his inquisition brought to a pause as the promoter turns his sights away from the pair, tending to more urgent matters momentarily. “No! What did I tell you just minutes ago!?” Wilbur shouts at the men a few levels deep into the pit, “standing room only! If I see one chair in that box, I’ll have your manhood sliced off and fed to the dogs!” Hastily running toward any other environment than the specifically-designated nook of the warehouse, the paid labourers tasked with setting up seats hurry for an area that won’t bring about such threats they’re aware aren’t made with an idle mind. “To answer your question, I can make money off of anyone. If you keep losing, the payout is even greater the moment you win when no one expects you to” Wilbur replies, spinning his focus back around to the individuals at hand, “if you can keep winning and winning and winning, I can do more to market you than any talent agency could possibly even conjure up in a wet dream.” “And why this? If you’re looking to make your name around these parts, why start by opening up a fight club?” Arthur doubles down, still not entirely convinced by the presentation of the man across from him. “Putting the police on my payroll keeps them under my palm, letting the wealthy gamble nets me connections with the elite, and letting people throw hands inside this emporium of brutality keeps them from doing so outside of it” Wilbur answers, “in every walk of life, the hands of the people in Seattle are- and will be for as long as I live- directly guided by me.” Lifting their chins just slightly, Arthur and Willard soon take their eyes toward each other, hearing the gravelly tone behind the presenter’s voice and the confidence behind each syllable he utters. Soon finding a slight sense of assurance behind their shared visage’s, the fighters have their attention stolen once more by the man’s continued voice. “Now I want the two of you to answer my question” Wilbur remarks, pressing both hands against the cane’s handle and thrusting it into the concrete foundation for which the trio stand upon, “how did you get into my theatre home, who invited you, and what were the two of you doing there?” “We had an open invite” Arthur quickly retorts, shrugging his shoulders as he reaches into his overalls, retrieving a near-empty pack of snipes from within the closest inner pocket. “We’ve been repainting this one apartment for the last couple of days and one guy who lives in it mentioned the event he was invited to” Willard doubles down whilst his friend presses his lips to the cigarette’s body, striking a match to light a flame, “he had two plus-ones and offered us the tickets.” “Who?” Wilbur soon questions, watching the squint of confusion come upon Willard’s face as the dart’s smoke reaches his nostrils, “who took you along as his plus-ones?” Shrugging his shoulders as he pulls the snipe from his lip, Arthur blows free a puff of smoke into the air whilst responding. “Some older dude with longer grey hair. We found him at Old Eddy’s the night before” the man replies, his revelation provoking intrigue from the promoter, “he said he was fighting for you.” Pausing for a moment as his eyes veer off to the side, Wilbur sits with his thoughts in silence before his hand moves the cane toward his side, its end no longer pressed against the hard floor. “Thank you gentlemen, you may go now” the promoter replies, motioning his chin toward the way the pair had entered, watching the extended hand of his smaller brawler offer him the dart. With a nod of appreciation, Wilbur takes the snipe and watches the pair traipse off into the burning daylight, returning him to the company of his acquaintance and those paid to prepare the warehouse for their grand debut. “Correct me if I’m misremembering here, but do we not have only one long, grey-haired gentleman fighting for us on opening night?” Norman inquires from above, hands folded as he leans over the railing, forearms pressing into the bannister’s top. Pulling in the most satisfying drag from a cigarette he’s ever taken, Wilbur crosses his arms with the lit end facing upward, a smile on his face as he exhales, blowing smoke through his nose. “Norman, won’t you remind me who Kenneth’s opponent is for that evening?” he wonders aloud, continuing to stare at the still-open warehouse entrance whilst his business partner shrugs, lips puckered as he scans his brain for the answer he’s already well aware of. “I believe he’s our second fight in the evening, and it’s against Samuel Rowe” Norman replies, immediately prompting his acquaintance to look over his shoulder with a squint. “Who?” Wilbur replies, continuing to let the smoke slowly lift from the burning end of his dart. “One of the randoms we brought in from the labourers with James and the others” the catwalk-occupying affiliate responds, earning yet another shrug from the man below. Lifting the snipe back to his lips, Wilbur takes another drag and calls out his partner’s name before letting the smoke leave his lungs. “Do me a favour and send someone off to let Kenneth know that we’re giving him the debut night off. We’ll pay him the same we would’ve if he’d have won his fight just to keep him happy” the affluent businessman remarks, lifting the cane to rest just over his shoulder, “I’ve got a plan for him. It’s best if he takes that night off to keep in tip-top shape.” | “And it’s within walking distance of Smith Cove?” Jimmy inquires, holding his wife’s hand within his own as they follow a third man, who dresses in a suit and a white bowler’s cap. “Within walking distance? Buddy, have you taken a look to your left yet?” the third man wonders back, pointing his finger toward the body of water just a few hundred yards to their collective left, “it’s close enough that you can swim to it. Oh hell, it’s better than that- you can practically touch it!” With the briefest smile on his face, Jimmy nods to himself as their journey continues onward, carrying them down a long stretch of sidewalk before inevitably ending in their preferred destination. Through the halls of a well-lit corridor they do walk, the couple with a last name to share follow their realtor toward the flat near the back of the complex they venture through, listening to his keys jangle as he fits them into the lock of the home they hope to soon call their own. “Here we are” the broker remarks, the first to step into the rather quaint, yet spacious home he soon moves to the side of, letting his clients experience the scale of the place with their own two eyes. “Woah” Cathy mutters aloud, her voice breathy and faint, the look of wonder that spreads across her face presenting the awe that is the thought that they’ve potentially found a place worth more than just laying awake at night with the hopes of one day being able to afford. “I don’t want to get my hopes up too soon” Jimmy mutters aloud, quickly setting aside the same astonishment that his wife shares by turning back toward their realtor, “what’s the price on this place?” Gently closing the door shut behind himself, the realtor removes his hat whilst responding, placing it atop the coat rack stationed in the nearest corner of the room. “Twenty-two dollars a month for rent, another two and a half for the hot water and heat” the realtor replies, passing a look and a nod toward the metal box in his clients arms, “I’d need the first two months worth of rent and amenities to start with. After a year, if you keep the place looking spick and span, I’ll drop the rent down by two dollars.” “The price goes down if we don’t damage things?” Cathy questions back, spinning around having now made it to the centre of the room. “It seems bleak, but the market’s on a downslope. I don’t know how, but I trust in god that everything will make itself right again” the realtor assures, crossing his arms and kicking one foot in front of the other as he leans into the nearest wall, “when that happens, I want my clients happy. Others will come with big promises, I’ll be coming with a reputation.” “A ‘look after my back and I’ll look after yours’ policy” Jimmy mutters aloud, nodding to himself as the realtor jostles his head toward the side, a simple bow of his chin assuring him of just that promise, “that’s a good plan.” Tucking his hands into his pockets, the realtor’s eyes take toward various corners of the room whilst the couple inspects the property, looking around different half-walls and peering through the various windows that comprise the building’s exterior from ground level. “This place is so much nicer than the last one” Cathy whispers to her husband, who follows her lead closeby whilst their realtor hangs back, remaining patient whilst the pair inspect the premises. “Anything would be nicer than that shed back at camp” Jimmy whispers back, following the woman to the room near the farthest point in the apartment, a pair of windows set up facing the body of water that separates him from the warehouse arena, “I will miss Old Eddy, though.” “You act as if living twenty minutes away by foot will keep you from going out after the fights are over” Cathy jokes, a smile paid to the man that she passes a glance toward from over her shoulder, “I know you well enough to see-” Falling silent as she steps through the doorway of the master bedroom at the back of the flat, the woman’s voice disappears as her feet quickly carry her to the window she’d underestimated the view from. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Cathy murmurs through wonder, placing her hand against the wooden border that wraps around the window, looking out at the sun’s rare reflection off of Smith Cove, the nearly-still waters shining a ray of light across the surface from the unobstructed light in the sky. With a smile, Jimmy hangs back, watching his wife stand in front of the same view she expects him to join her in looking out at, his hands tucking themselves into his khaki pockets. “Ain’t that a pretty thing?” the man wonders aloud, his voice sounding too far from her for it to be considered close, prompting the woman to spin back and look at him. “You’re not even looking at it!” she giggles, her teeth an unmistakable shade of bright white. Shaking his head, Jimmy presents a smile of his own before concealing it behind his lips, which he takes a moment before parting to respond, “I wasn’t talking about the view.” Consumed by the pleasure she takes in seeing her husband more sufficed than he’d been in years, Cathy walks away from the window and throws her lips into those of the man’s own, her hands wrapping around his neck whilst his wrap around her waist. “Have you made your decision or should we keep loo-?” the realtor wonders aloud, stepping into the room only seconds later before falling silent, apologetically lifting his hand for the unintended interruption. “My apologies” the man murmurs, bowing his head and keeping his eyes glued to the floor, the sight he had accidentally walked into now the one that he turns away from. “It’s fine, we’ll take it” Jimmy beckons, finishing the kiss before beckoning for the realtor to remain where he stands, keeping his wife held within his arms With cash in hand and the clientele happy with the space they’ve been left with, the realtor tips his cap, hands the keys off to the apartment’s new residents and carries on with his day. Through a smile, Jimmy closes the door upon the departure and locks the deadbolt, his eyelids pressing close together as he listens to the sounds of the mechanisms shifting within, the mechanisms that now belong to himself and his wife. “Here’s to a fresh start” Cathy speaks aloud after just a few seconds, watching her husband turn around to see a pair of snipes extended toward him, offering him one in a show of celebration. Teeth presenting themselves in lieu of a laugh, Jimmy reaches into his back pocket and frees a small pack of matches from them, graciously accepting one of the darts before placing it between his lips, striking a match and lighting his wife’s cigarette before his own. With a satisfying puff, the couple breathe the tobacco smoke that soon fills the air, leaving through the lips that part to voice the beginning of a new dawn. “Here’s to a fresh start” Jimmy repeats, pulling his wife in close for another kiss in the flat they now call their own, a home- a true one- worth living out their days together in. == Seattle Noir == \ Seattle - 1930 /
Resting his arm on the crafted curve of the passenger seat’s door as his eyes stare past the rain-battered window, Jimmy keeps to himself as the drive carries him away from the life he’d been tempted to leave behind in favour of one that promises to reward him with infinitely more. With the waterfront quickly approaching, the labourer pays little mind to the scenes that surround him with patience, opting to wait for the climax of their journey to present him with answers he’s yet to have. Within minutes, the hefty body of metal on wheels begins slowing itself to a stop on the side of a small, secluded road just off of Smith Cove, gears shifting into place for one, final time before the parking brake is pulled. “Are we here?” Jimmy asks aloud, turning to look at the man responsible for whisking him away from the bridge he’d slaved over for days in total, offered no more than a smile before the driver steps back into the downpour. With his recruitment following in his forward-directing footsteps, Wilbur slams his fist into the heavy, metal door barricading the sanctum of his fight pit from the dreary, drizzling world he intends to shelter himself from. Patient enough to wait a few seconds for a reply, the wealthy gentleman watches the barrier pull inward to reveal his business partner’s inquisitive face, the building’s interior lighting coming as a sight for sore eyes from their guest. “This is the guy?” Norman wonders aloud, peering past his pally’s shoulder and onto the scarred and cut face of the filthy-handed labourer. “I did a number on him, ain’t I?” Wilbur retorts, lifting his lip just slightly to present his business colleague with a sight indicating much the same is true for his new friend. “It seems you both did” Norman replies, finally stepping aside to allow the men entry to their renovated warehouse, the mountains of dirt stacked up just a few feet from the building having once belonged to the ground that’s now been dug up. Where a flat surface once sat now resides a gradually-descending row of levels falling deeper into the earth with each row of seats, the only unoccupied space being the respectably-sized square at the descent’s very centre. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Wilbur wonders aloud, shedding his coat and stationing his hat upon one of many coat racks, eyes gazing upon the spacious halls he expects to fill with enthused spectators. “I don’t know what it is” Jimmy responds, still wearing his damp overalls and dirt-covered overalls, his boots tracking mud and water across each spot of the ground he walks upon. “It’s the place where your life is going to change forever” Wilbur replies, his arms stretching outward as if he were attempting to touch each end of the monstrous building they share the embrace of. “Forgive my friend, he likes to speak in aggrandisation” Norman interrupts, eyes passing toward their visitor, the man wearing a posture that makes clear the idea that he is a fish out of water, “this is the place he wants you and the others to fight.” “Others?” Jimmy quickly wonders aloud, eyes squinting amidst the pause that breaks his question in two, “who are the others?” “No one- yet” Wilbur replies with equal speed, voicing the same answer that his business partner had parted his lips in an attempt to offer, “that’s where you come in.” Filled with questions and curiosities, Jimmy remains quiet for a moment as the man who’d brought him here turns around, looking at him whilst his own eyes take toward their third contemporary. “Why me?” the labourer soon replies, his right eyebrow arched higher than the left whilst the man he presents the question to begins pacing around the top-most level of the decline, the platform intended to join the others that gradually descend in forming a row of seats. “Because Norman will be taking care of the logistics whilst I look at filling these seats with some rather worthy clientele” Wilbur answers, “we’ve only been in the city for a cup of coffee. We don’t know who we’d look for.” “And you think that I do?” Jimmy replies, shrugging his shoulders as he looks to the man with curiosity, “what makes you think I’d know who to look for?” Turning his lips into a smirk, Wilbur gradually taps his feet against the ground as he walks off to the side, approaching a small row of shelves stationed against the wall closeby. “Let me ask you this, kid” the man begins, squinting his eyes as he inspects the various objects positioned for viewing, “what kind of people stole your cash box?” Not having anticipated a question requiring as much insight into his strife as the one voiced, Jimmy pulls his head back and searches for the way of phrasing the inquiry that lingers at his tongue’s tip. “How did you know about our box being-?” he wonders aloud, watching his chauffeur spin around quickly and toss a small, easily-buryable metal box across the room and into the hands of its rightful owner. “Every dollar your pitiful day job has ever earned you is all there, don’t worry” Wilbur remarks, watching the man look on with surprise at the physical storage he’d been stripped of the day prior before their eyes meet again, “how else did you think I’d found out about where you worked?” “You-” Jimmy grunts, taking three steps forward in anger before finding the calm voice of the well-off gentleman ahead of him to be too influential for him to follow through on his instinctual reaction. “You’d never have thought someone with my wealth would have gone over to ransack your little cabin in the middle of puckered-ass alleyway because why would you?” Wilbur wonders aloud, his voice lulling the enraged labourer into a momentary silence and stop. Unphased by the visibly angered demeanour in which his subject has presented him with, the fight pit’s mastermind enthusiastically steps over to a makeshift bar near the corner of the room, an arch in his eyebrow as he continues speaking whilst in search of a preferential bottle of liquor. “You do know- however- exactly what kind of people would have taken it” Wilbur speaks, finally opting for a bottle of strong gin, “you know because you live with them.” “Are you talking about Cathy?” Jimmy wonders aloud, given his correction by the man opting to remain mostly silent a few paces behind him. “He’s talking about the others in that camp. He’s saying you know who’s desperate enough to ransack you” Norman reiterates, his claim doubled down on by the man mid-pour. “You know who the people most-willing to do anything to get out of that place are” Wilbur replies, taking his eyes toward the man in question, “you know who will fight for every last bit.” “What makes me so different from the rest of them?” Jimmy replies, his hesitancy to buy into what’s being offered to him not relenting without a fight being put up for its reluctance. “I walked into that speakeasy off and on for three weeks. I dressed as a superior and walked much the same” Wilbur remarks, calling back to the revelation he’d become privy to minutes earlier, “you said it yourself, you’d figured I had the ability to get you whacked. And yet, you broke my tooth.” “I won’t apologise for it if that’s what you’re interested in” Jimmy replies, doubling down on his stance with a demeanour built to imply he’d happily do so again. “I wanted someone that was willing to take a swing. I knew what I looked like and what I was doing, and I knew what I was looking for” Wilbur corrects, a finger raised into the air as he holds his half-glass of liquor against his moving chin, “you had nothing to lose, and now you have this to lose.” “And what is this?” Jimmy finally questions aloud, peering over his shoulder at the mostly-subdued gentleman awaiting the conversation’s climax, “you promise me this thing will pull me out of that hole and all these other things, but you ain’t telling me why I should believe you.” “Willy’s many different things, but I can vouch for his honesty with something like this” Norman interjects, watching the visitor’s sights turn back to fall upon him. “I was fine with staying in California, but Willy convinced me to come up north with him. I didn’t know why until a couple hours after we got off the train in town” the man continues, “but I didn’t need it to justify packing my bags. If there’s one thing Willy won’t do, it’s make a gamble he won’t fight like hell to make pay off.” The curious gleam still held within the white of his eye, Jimmy takes his attention toward the ground his boots had stained as the voice ahead of him calls out once more. “If that shack and baking in the sun over that bridge all day is all you want in life, be my guest. I’ll drop you back off at the hooverville and leave you to it” Wilbur explains, laying out the options afforded to the man he presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to, “but if you want more than that, this is your ticket.” Bowing his head, Jimmy stares at the ground before glancing at the pit near the warehouse’s centre, rows of lightbulbs illuminating a ground that will soon become a coliseum that he weighs whether or not to become a modern gladiator of. His right eyelid squinting, the man lets a breath leave through his nose before returning his attention to the offer’s dealer, his lips parting to present the response his momentary silence had been building to. After a brief ride, the metal box Wilbur sits behind the wheel of slows to a stop just outside the boundary lines of the hooverville’s reach, his passenger waiting for a moment before stepping out. “I’ll be back tomorrow to get your answer” the driver remarks, shifting the car into a full stop before extending his clean hand to the filth-covered one his potential brawler holds, paying no mind to the dirt that stains his palm as their handshake follows through. “Thank you” Jimmy responds honestly, reclaiming the metal box from his lap before opening the door, stepping out into the subsiding rainstorm whilst the vehicle’s operator watches on. With his door slammed shut, Wilbur presses his foot to the pedal and drives off for a return to his residence, leaving the labourer behind. With a huff, the worker presses the box against his side and carries it with himself forward, walking the grounds of the camp for what may or may not be one of the last times. = Seattle Noir is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward = Slowly lowering herself into the chair stationed at her makeshift desk, Cathy stares at the ground whilst her husband stands over her, scratching the back of his neck as the air grows quiet. “I see” the woman murmurs, lowering her eyes as her hands couple together at her lap, sitting with the revelation presented to her by the man to whom she’d sworn devotion to. Digging his heel into the ground, Jimmy suffers through the silence for a few moments whilst only able to seek reprieve in the creaking of the floorboards to which his shack had been built from. Hearing the raindrops beyond the shed’s walls appear to grow louder and more raucous with each passing minute, the labourer finally decides that something more than uncomfortable inquisition is warranted. “I don’t plan on doing it for longer than I need to, Cath’” Jimmy remarks, continuing to stare at the back of the woman’s head, her face tilted toward the unsteady ground that once more sits in the dirt used to rebury the metal cash box at the home’s centre. “If what this twit is saying is true, we’ll have more than enough to sustain ourselves after a year- maybe two” the man persists, continuing to present his best effort to reassure the woman already blanketed in countless other thoughts. With little expectation of swaying his wife’s opinion, the labourer- beaten by a week of being short-changed, screwed over and beaten- drops to his knees and takes the woman’s hands into his own. “I don’t expect you to be pleased with this. I’m not asking you to be, I’m asking you to understand” Jimmy proceeds, locking eyes with the woman seated before him, “my job- first and foremost- is to provide for you. This- this wooden box is squat.” “Do you think I’m mad about this, James?” Cathy wonders aloud, as uncertain over what assumptions her partner has as he is of hers. Taken aback and unsure of how to respond, the worker leans back just slightly at a loss, “I- well, I’d have thought you’d be upset” he replies honestly. Squinting her eyes before they trail off toward the same side of the home she gets out of her seat to walk toward, the man’s missus responds as honestly as her husband had. “Do you know why I don’t like when you get into fights?” Cathy inquires mid-walk, hands swaying gently by each of her sides. Adjusting the denim suspender over his left shoulder, Jimmy slowly follows the woman’s path as he searches within his head for an answer, “because you don’t like thinking that I’ll get hurt?” the man responds, watching his wife turn back with the same look of concern written upon her visage from earlier. Shaking her head in refusal, the woman remains standing across the room in silence as her husband watches her, still struggling to find the conclusion she’d hoped he’d find on his own. “I do worry that you’ll get yourself so badly hurt that you’d never be the same again, but that’s not why I hate the fightin’” Cathy corrects, filling the quietude that suspends itself within the air between them on her husband’s behalf. “I hate the fightin’ because I hate that you’re so mad at everything that you feel getting your hands dirty is the only thing that can keep you intact” the woman continues, her husband’s expression falling to a more sombre level than it had once occupied with each word. “I don’t like the idea of you going out and gettin’ yourself beaten, but it beats working on that bridge in the burning sun every day!” Cathy utters, disheartened at having to explain herself like such. “It’s one thing if you’re fightin’ for money, it’s another if you’re fighting just ‘cause you’re so full of hate that you can’t help not to” she concludes, a disclosure that earns the man’s full sight. “It’s not that I can’t help it, doll- it’s-” Jimmy attempts to respond, his voice falling silent to offer his wife’s the room it had occupied. “It’s exactly what I said it is, James” Cathy interjects, her right foot presented slightly further than her left as its sole presses into the ground, “it’s a way to stop bein’ so mad.” With his chin veering slightly aside, the bruised labourer looks away for a moment to collect his thoughts, being left with his wife’s remark whilst having very little defence against it. Parting his lips, Jimmy prepares to speak, though comes up empty, the silence he offers only certifying his wife’s assertions. “I don’t know what you’d rather I do, Cath’” the man finally concludes, shaking his head in disappointment as he lowers himself to the ground, taking a seat directly beside the hole he’d carved into the middle of the floor. “If I were with the other half of the dicks I work with, I’d be taking out my anger on you” Jimmy explains, staring at the ground as he speaks whilst his missus watches from across the room, “I choose to stand on the side that take it out on twits at the bar.” “I want you to be in a place where you don’t need to take it out at all” Cathy interrupts, watching her husband’s eyes take up toward her whilst her voice is forced to raise, having to fight for supremacy with the increasingly-hard rainfall that collides with their shack home. “I don’t want you to be in a place where you have to hold that kind of anger at all” she continues, journeying across the dirty floor to join the man, “I’ve always thought I was enough to make that possible.” “You are” Jimmy retorts, before immediately finding resilience in the woman’s response. “No, I’m not. And honestly, I shouldn’t be” Cathy interrupts, lowering herself to the ground to join beside the man, her open palm resting against his chest whilst her head rests against his shoulder, her body leaning into his with her husband’s arm wrapped around her waist, “a lady’s only supposed to be part of the reason why a man’s happy. If whatever else you do doesn’t give you that, I want what will.” Resting the side of his head against the woman’s dry hair, Jimmy thinks aloud for the lady in his arm to answer, “even if that’s fighting for a living?” With a gentle lift of her chin, Cathy presses her lips to her husband’s cheek, “you know our agreement-” she replies, following through on the peck before pulling back just slightly, looking the man in the eyes and holding the other side of his head within the reach of her fingertips, “-just don’t come home in a body bag.” | Striking the same spike he’d taken a hammer to for the last two minutes for the final time, Jimmy lets his mallet fall to the ground as he tucks his hands upon his waist. Kneeling atop the hot asphalt, the worked bruiser stares out at the fresh water below and props a smile onto his face, paying little mind to the footsteps that draw toward his direction. “Don’t get too caught up in the sight seeing, kid” Kenny remarks, his voice presenting little in the way of good will. Having glanced toward his side just in time to watch the older labourer pass him by, Jimmy reaches his hand out and calls forward, “wait!” he shouts, preventing the worker from walking any further. “I just want to say sorry again for the other day. I don’t know where my noggin head was at” the younger man explains, trying to keep their brief interactions from growing bitter under the guise of misunderstanding. “Just watch your swing next time and you’ll be fine” Kenny replies, shrugging off the man’s remarks before turning around to continue about his journey, a metal box of tools carried in hand. Offering little more than a simple nod, Jimmy finds himself tempted to call out for the man’s return once more, only for the tables to be turned on him by the men that approach. “Jim!” Stanley exclaims, a smile worn on his face as he leads a more nonchalant Jesse to the third member of the tight-knit group. “What can I do you for?” Jimmy replies, pushing himself off the ground and dusting his knees off with a few swipes of his hand. “You need to hide- now” the same man responsible for calling out the man’s name commands, waving toward the distance of the bridge with a level of worry in his voice. “Why? What’s wrong?” Jimmy questions aloud, a squint in his eye as Stanley takes him by the shoulder, trying to hurry him toward a stack of metal near the roadway’s end. “The guy from the bar a couple nights ago is here!” Jesse calls out, matching their friend’s run with a quick walk of his own. “Who? Wilbur?” the labourer replies, brushing off his friend’s hand and attempted dismissal before backing a few feet away. Hearing this supposed altercation occur closeby as he stands at the bridge’s end, both hands hanging by his sides, Kenny turns back to look at the squamish between the three labourers with a bushy eyebrow raised. “I don’t know what his name is!” Stanley replies, quickly trying to hurry his friend toward the safety of cover, only for the hesitance of the man he aims to help and the reluctant pull on his elbow from the third man to thwart his efforts. “Wait, how do you know what his name is!?” Jesse calls out, watching his friends pause halfway toward Kenny before their conversation is interrupted by an exclamation from the other end of the elevated roadway. “James!” Wilbur shouts aloud, his arms thrown out at each side as he approaches, hat sitting atop his head and trench coat thrown over both shoulders, “I’ll be right there, just give me a second!” Looking at their friend as if he had three heads, Stanley and Jesse await further explanation they have their hearts set on receiving, unsure of why the same man they’d taken for a potential assassin just nights prior had spoken toward their fellow workman as if he were an old friend. “Do you moonlight as a trigger man or something, Jim?” the latter man inquires, taking the dismissive eye roll he’s returned with as an answer. Standing by to watch the encounter for himself, Kenny slightly turns his back to the road’s lip and keeps his thoughts to himself, not wanting to interject himself into the unknown. “What’re you doing here!?” Wilbur wonders aloud with a smile on his face, tooth still chipped from the other night, “come by to take one last look at the workplace before you hit the big time?” Carrying their own squints, the man’s pair of friends look at him in curiosity whilst Kenny stares blankly, tempted to begin stepping away from the roadway’s drop into the warm, yet deadly waters below. “No, I- I came here to work” Jimmy answers honestly, stuttering over his words before the reply he gives prompts his wealthy colleague to hunch forward and chuckle. “Work? Why would you even bother showing up?” Wilbur wonders aloud, shrugging his shoulders whilst retaining the smirk he holds in the corner of his mouth, “you are taking the deal, aren’t you?” Left with too many holes to be left unfilled, Stanley presents his voice to the pair in the way Jesse refuses to do, “what deal are you talking about?” he wonders aloud, the inquiry prompting both men in question to turn toward him. Feigning surprise, Wilbur turns to look the inquisitive man in the eyes before spinning back toward his potential acquaintance, his finger drifting between the bruised labourer and his taller friend. “You didn’t tell them about the fight pit?” the opulent gentleman inquires, watching Jimmy attempt to answer before his friend interrupts him once more. “Fight pit?” Stanley questions, watching both men stare at him once more, “what fight pit?” “I was waiting until after the shift to tell them” Jimmy assures, a fleet of different looks paid in the direction of anyone within the immediate vicinity. “Oh don’t worry about that, I just paid off your supers” Wilbur replies, waving off the man’s explanation with more dismissal than a teacher would provide to a misbehaving student, lifting his voice for anyone to hear, “go home, everyone! Work is done for the day and I’ve paid you all handsomely!” Standing around in confusion, the other unnamed workers simply stare in the direction of the dapper-dressed figure of wealth without certainty over what to take from his appearance or declarations. Too tempted to pull himself away from the bridge’s ledge, Kenny sneaks his way toward the same stack of metal Stanley had attempted to usher his friend toward the safety of, reclaiming a folded piece of paper from it with black writing scrawled on it reading, ‘to the kids’. “I don’t think you can do that” Jimmy reassures, watching the well-dressed gentleman dismiss his assumption with a wave. “That pales in comparison to what I’m about to do” Wilbur replies, waiting a moment for the man to digest the vow, uncertain of what it means. Peering around the metal stack, Kenny watches the affluent visitor cup his hands together and shout for all ears to hear it. “If you would like to make thousands of dollars a year, step on up!” Wilbur exclaims, jockeying the labourers together as if they were cattle, mere spectators to the carnival-like display he puts on. “What are you doing!?” Jimmy asks aloud, watching the slue of workers he’d spent every day working alongside begin to chatter amongst themselves, uncertain of whether or not the invitation is one worth even investigating for themselves, let alone blindly accepting. “Jim, what’s going on?” Jesse calls into question, pulling a toothpick out of the corner of his mouth in order to speak freely, one hand tucking his thumb within a loop sewn into his overall uniform. “Go ahead, James- tell them what’s going on” Wilbur doubles down, tucking one hand into the pocket of his beige trench coat whilst the other hangs freely by his side, waiting for the man he’d been presented to by way of dumb luck to follow through on the request made. Keeping to himself, Kenny presses his hand against the pile of building material and listens closely to the words spoken, not wanting to miss anything said in the very near distance. Beginning to converge upon the same area, the various labourers join each other in gradually making their way toward the small group of men near the construction’s end, trying their best to hear what’s revealed by their fellow colleague. With his mouth slightly agape and tongue pressed into the corner of his lip, Jimmy stares at the man provoking him into taking the centre stage before sharing that same sight with his friends, raising his voice just loud enough for any other passerby to hear. “This is Wilbur” the man introduces, watching his prosperous and pleased friend turn back toward the oncoming group of workers and wave with a smile, “he’s a- a- a something. He’s rich and he’s from California.” “I’m an entrepreneur from California that’s come to the Pacific Northwest in search of somewhere to forge an empire” Wilbur corrects, regaining control of the situation he knew was too bold for Jimmy to handle, though was dire to see him try and wrangle in, “all you need to know about me is the following- I have a lot of money, I have a rolodex of wealthy clientele, I can supply you with liquor, and I can make you stupidly rich.” Though hidden from view of the others, Kenny hears the affluent entrepreneur out before turning his attention to the note in his hand, looking at it whilst the public discourse continues just ahead. “I’ve renovated a warehouse in the city for use as a spectacle. I will host various members of the upper class and allow them to take wagers on a variety of hand-to-hand combat endeavours” Wilbur continues, looking around at the company he hosts before coming to a realisation. “The thought is just now occurring to me that you may not understand half of the words that I’m saying, so let me simplify it for you-” he proceeds, lowering the grandeur of his vernacular, “I own a place that I want you to fight each other in. Rich people will be there and gamble on which of you will win. I’ll pay you more than you make working on this death trap, and if you win- you’ll make more money than those that lose.” Unsure of how to react, Stanley and Jesse stare at the pecunious figure before glancing back to their friend, his agreeable shrug prompting them to then turn toward each other. “Any issues with the police- or rather pigs to you classless folk- will be taken care of by me” Wilbur explains, turning his back to Jimmy with the assumption that he’d already won his vote the night prior, arms extended toward the crowd of builders that he stands before, “one time offer, who wants in?” Whilst some dismissively laugh at the proposal whilst others take it anywhere from seriously to inconceivable, the vast majority of the crowd appears torn on whether or not to take the leap they’ve been provided with the avenue toward. Met with a pause he hadn’t fully intended to receive, Wilbur waits for those accepting few to make themselves heard before discovering the first reply to come from those whom his back is shown to. “I am” Kenny calls out, watching the well-dressed man spin around to look at him as he steps out from behind cover, the first to take the leap that others had been waiting for the chance to take. Looking down to his hand once again, the older labourer throws his arm back and releases the folded note over the same ledge he’d stood along the edge of, allowing it to tumble into the waters below. “Me too!” another worker shouts from within the crowd, his hand hoisted high for the affluent figurehead to see upon turning back around, a good number of others following suit in accepting the terms laid out for them. Each new recruit bringing an even wider smile upon the entrepreneur’s face, Wilbur soon finds himself satisfied with the lot he’d obtained before turning back once more, eyes glued toward the three he’d yet to be given a reply from. “We’re in” Jesse remarks, playfully swatting Stanley on the arm whilst jutting his chin toward their friend just a few feet away, “all three of us.” Meeting that gesture with a lifted eyebrow, Wilbur soon takes his eyes toward the same man this encounter had begun with and smiles. “I wanna hear him say that” the dressed-down Californian responds, his back fully displayed to the crowd as his front is provided to one man, and one man only. Other than the slightest furrow of his brows, Jimmy’s face presents not even an ounce of emotion, no hesitance nor overwhelming glee to be provided to the man across from him. Barely leant to the side, the man’s head joins his eyes in lining itself up with that of Wilbur’s own, no stumble in the words he responds with, nor reluctance in the posture he presents, lips moving to allow his voice to offer just two, short words. “I’m in.” == Seattle Noir == |
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