S1, E3 | The SiDe That comes from Dirt

\ Seattle - 1930 /

His arm pressing against the now-shut door, Jimmy’s head begins to fall as the sound of his wife’s footsteps trek across the dirty floorboards, gradually closing in on the small desk near the back of the shack. Retreating to the comfort of her leather-bound book, Cathy lifts her dress just slightly so she can be better seated atop the chair, not paying any mind to the conversation she’d just taken part in the way her husband does.

Letting a long, quiet breath free itself from the confines of her lungs, the woman’s eyes glance over the first few lines of text on the page she opens to, one leg crossing over the other as she rests gently in the seat. Her face illuminated by only the flame a short distance away, Cathy keeps to herself as the heavy steps of her partner slowly make their way closer toward her.

Without a word, Jimmy nears close with his head slightly hung before he lowers himself to a knee, taking the hand his wife rests atop her own thigh whilst she finishes the paragraph that had taken her attention. In silence, Cathy finishes the final few words before letting her eyes fall upon the man beside her- his visage, its expression difficult to discern, held steadily upon her.

“I don’t think I’ll ever know how until it happens, but I’m going to give you the world some day” Jimmy remarks, the genuinity in his proclamation impossible to refuse, though the promise one not anything but to refute. Feeling her husband’s hand sweep the loose hairs behind her ear where they belong, Cathy gently sways her head from one side to the other in refusal, unable to put her thoughts into words for the few seconds it takes her to process them.

“I don’t need the world. I need you, and that isn’t about to-” the soft-spoken lady replies, interrupted by the sound of an unusual pattern of knocks at the front door. The knuckles that clatter against the poor-quality wooden planks presenting the shack with a dull and damp sound of repetitive thumping, those they belong to spark great intrigue from the shack’s occupants inside.

“Is that Stanley?” Cathy wonders aloud, standing from her seat and placing the book back upon the desk as her husband makes way for the home’s entrance, answering the request for his reply that is presented. With one foot in front of the other, the battered and cut brawler takes his bruised knuckles toward the handle, fingers wrapping around the handle he soon pulls open as beckoned for.

His calm and composed demeanour falling by the wayside almost instantly, the hairs on both of Jimmy’s arms raise just as his guard does, a stoic posture taken toward their visitor. “Who is-?” Cathy begins to inquire, drawing nearer the door before her husband’s extended arm holds her back, keeping her from travelling any closer to the guest that only he is familiar with.

“Stay back, don’t move any closer!” Jimmy growls, never once taking his eye away from the well-dressed apparent gentleman standing before their raggedy shack. Her lips forming a circle as if she were intending to ask for context, Cathy finds herself unable to speak as she simply looks to the man at their front door from over her husband’s arm.

“What am I, a dog? Should you chain me to the fence out of fear that I’ll bite the postman?” Wilbur inquires, swiftly taking the hat off his head and holding it at his chest before looking around his immediate surroundings, his face souring ever so slightly, “I suppose you don’t get many of those around here, do you?”

“Walk away before things get ugly for you” Jimmy warns, his voice dropping to a low, stern tone that doesn’t take much to understand, prepared to defend his wife and all they have to their name. “Well, I’d tell you to take a deep breath and relax before things get ugly for you, but with the state of this place, it’s hard to say they haven’t already” Wilbur retorts, a disgusted scowl worn across his face as he looks at the muddy terrain that surrounds the quaint shack.

Without another word, Jimmy steps down from the elevated level his floor resides upon- propped up by an assortment of cinder blocks and packed dirt- and descends to the wealthy individual’s level. “Calm down, killer. I’m not here to fight you” Wilbur calmly quips, both hands slightly extended toward the nearing labourer with a smile on his face, “you and the missus are in no trouble. Well, no physical trouble anyway. I didn’t come here for round two.”

“Then why are you here?” Jimmy asks with his voice unchanged from the confrontational reflexion within it, not willing to let his guard down for even a second. Staying quiet for a moment as the air begins to settle, Wilbur stares at the ground as his left hand falls to his side, right hand pressing the cap against his chest once more. His head relinquishing its bow as his smile meets the eyes of the man across from him, the figure of opulence responds to the query amidst calmer heads.

“You seem like a hard worker. You keep your nose clean and only get your hands dirty when it means blowing off some steam” Wilbur replies, his free hand tucking into his pocket for sanctuary from the dreary weather, “the kind of person I take you to be shouldn’t be rotting away in this festering camp of bleak sorrow and drivel.”

“Unfortunately, some people can’t just parade around their wealth all day. I’m sorry if my clothes aren’t made from Indian silk enough to impress you” Jimmy rebukes, his confrontational nature still intact in spite of the pause his adversary had presented him with, “you haven’t answered my question. Why are you here?”

His upper lip curling just slightly, Wilbur looks the shack’s owner and constructor in the eyes before taking a momentary glance toward the man’s wife, her kept-together posture- hands coupled at her lap and eyes holding worry and curiosity over the conversation happening before her. “If you were given the opportunity to get yourself out of this canker sore of a camp, would you take it?” the wealthy man inquires, looking the subject of his question in the eyes as he asks.

Looking at the man sideways, Jimmy watches the figure standing in front of him return the hat to the top of his head, a squint coming over his own eye as his wonder peaks. “What kind of question is that?” the brawler wonders aloud, not needing to wait long for his answer to be offered from the visibly confident gentleman asking it. “It’s just that- a question” Wilbur replies honestly, subtly adjusting his cap so it fits more snug, “would you take it?”

“I live in a shack built on top of a pile of mud. You could push my door in with the weight of your forearm. Look at where we are” Jimmy answers in kind, his voice- in spite of the discourse’s more friendly turn- still holding its strong tone. “And what if I were able to offer you a way out of here? What if I made you that offer right here, right now?” Wilbur quickly asks in a tone just low enough to be kept away from the ears of the man’s wife, “something beyond what your dreams can create?”

Surprised, Jimmy keeps his narrowed eyes for a moment before his head pulls back, pupils more present as the tension begins to lift, joining the man in curiosity. “What is this?” the labourer queries, his confrontational nature finally subsiding as the man he stands before begins to smile, “what’s happening right now?”

“I can fill a warehouse full of some of Seattle’s most-wealthy, and I mean pack the house. I can get them to wager big money on fights every single week” Wilbur replies, his voice lowering even further than it had before, now at a level almost just above his breath. “Hundreds, maybe even thousands if we can get the seating layout just right. And if I play my cards right, this thing can bring in millions-” the man of wealth continues, his face inching closer to Jimmy’s, “-I just need fighters.”

His chin jostling to the side whilst his eyes remain supplanted upon the man that had served as his foe not more than an hour ago, the battered hooverville resident looks on in both suspicion and intrigue at the figure across from him. “I don’t understand” Jimmy replies simply, unable to voice his doubts in the legitimacy of this proposition any better than with those three words in unison.

“That’s fine- I don’t require you to be well-educated in order to deliver a well-placed shot to the mouth” Wilbur replies, a glance and half-assed point toward the woman standing in his adversary’s doorway preceding his follow-up remark, “why waste time as a drunkard and getting into fights ‘cause the world’s got you down when you can get your hands dirty and own the world in the process?”

Parting his lips to reply with the subtle shake of his head, Jimmy remains silent as the man that occupies the spot in front of him continues to speak, desperately trying to lure the labourer to see the offer through his own lens. “One day of work a week will net you more in a month than you’d make in four laying down those railroad tracks- or whatever the hell it is that you do for a living” Wilbur continues, his smile incapable of being kept behind his lips, “tell me that’s not paradise.”

“No” Jimmy replies, only able to muster those words with intentions the wealthy figure across from him doesn’t pick up on at first. “Of course you won’t, because you’d be lying if you did!” Wilbur exclaims, impassioned with each word he speaks as the hand he holds his hat in now sways at his side, “everything else is all taken care of. You’re just-”

“No, I mean no” Jimmy reiterates, stopping the man responsible for approaching him in his tracks before continuing, “my answer’s no.” His face having frozen mid-speech, Wilbur’s eyebrows soon furrow slightly as his mouth remains agape, forming an ‘O’ before soon closing, his brain processing the reply he’s given before the rest of his body can react accordingly.

“What?” Wilbur replies, genuinely shocked to hear the answer that’s come from the lips of the shack-bound man with a wife he can’t provide for, “what do you mean no?” Shaking his head, “I’m done fighting” Jimmy retorts quickly, having broken from his awe of the proposition in order to present the confidence in his reply most-necessary to display, “my wife doesn’t like it, I don’t blame her, and I’m not gonna stand around here and keep throwing hands around like some dick.”

“You’re going out to the tavern and getting wasted, throwing punches around and getting sent into the mud for nothing” Wilbur replies, a slight forward lean in his posture as he speaks, “there’s a difference between that and fighting four times a month for more money than you’d ever seen.” Shaking his head, Jimmy makes his disagreement visible before putting such a thing into words, speaking whilst the figure coming from wealth takes a glance at Cathy.

“There’s not. It doesn’t matter if it’s for nothing or for everything. I’m done letting her down” the man doubles down, shaking his head as Wilbur looks on- unable to make much sense of the decision. “So what? You’re just gonna keep holding her down here? Forcing her to sit on top of a pile of filth for a home and sleep on the dirty floor?” the wealthy brawler questions aloud, “you can barely provide for yourself, and you expect me to believe you can provide for the both of you?”

“My answer is no” Jimmy repeats, watching the lost expression on the man’s face subdue itself into one of disapproving acceptance. His tongue pressing into the corner of his half-open mouth whilst his eyes dart toward one end of the filth-covered campground and the dirt-pampered inhabitants that call it home, Wilbur nods to himself, not offering anything more than a dismissive glance at the refusing labourer before turning away and leaving.

Remaining stood where the conversation had occurred, Jimmy watches the wealthy entrepreneur walk off for greener pastures with a well-subdued doubt looming over him, all the strength he contains having been used to swallow his pride and refuse the offer he’d secretly desired to accept- but was unable to bring himself to do. “What was that about?” Cathy wonders aloud as her husband turns back, stepping back into their shack home and walking right past her.

“Nothing worth talking about” Jimmy replies with a disgruntled tone, unable to muster anything of pleasantry as he ventures back into the semi-stable cabin, his wife watching on without much certainty to speak on behalf of.

= 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 =

“I’m sorry, Jim. You’re supposed to have your hours clocked before you leave each day, you know this!” a man in a dress shirt replies, watching his aggravated employee pace from one side of his office to the other. “Ask anyone. You’ve got fifty eight workers on this bridge, and every single one will tell you where I was, for how long, and when I left” Jimmy retorts, his voice clearly holding back the aggression he’d give anything in the moment to lash out with.

“We have supervisors for a reason. I understand that you’re upset, but you’ve got no one to blame for this but yourself” the man responds, watching his labourer swipe at the air from behind his mahogany desk. “I have ten minutes to make the train from the second my shift ends. I don’t have all day to wait around for the three supervisors to account for thirty workers every day, sir” Jimmy rebukes, unable to do much more than take further anger in his employer’s shrugged shoulders.

“The rules are what they are, Jimmy. I’m sorry if you can’t accept them or if they don’t work for you” the construction’s overseer responds, his facial expression presenting the obvious lack of trouble he takes from his employee’s strife. “Come in when you’re supposed to, leave when you’re supposed to and deliver your slip to the supervisors before you go” the unbothered employer remarks, again shrugging his shoulders in lieu of an alternative, “there’s nothing I’m gonna do about this payslip.”

Swallowing his frustration, Jimmy hangs his head as his hands tuck themselves atop his hips, his head hanging toward the ground as he tries to regain his composure. “Yes sir” the labourer sighs, giving into the position he’s been left within- powerless to change the outcome of the circumstances that befall him. Dismissed with nothing further to discuss, the worker steps out of his employer’s office and returns to work, the only choice he has at the moment being to carry on with his duties.

Putting in four hours of work to this point as the sun hits him with great force, Jimmy takes his hammer to a set of spikes repeatedly, swinging his arm down before readying his limb to repeat the process once more. “Even though it’d be a death sentence, that lake looks real tempting to just leap into on days like these” Kenny mutters aloud through a groan as his hands press against his thighs, knees laying upon the asphalt he and his younger colleague operate upon.

Swiping the line of sweat that slides into the divot of his eye socket, Jimmy passes a look toward the shining waters below, able to peer over the edge of the bridge still amidst its construction and see the details in each small ripple. “Yeah, I’d guess so” he murmurs back, taking in another deep breath before holding it down, mustering another few swings of the hammer before having to expend it from his chest.

“You think the fall is far enough to kill?” Kenny wonders aloud after another few seconds, turning onto his side to take a seat, his elbow pressing against the ground that will soon grant various cars the chance to pass over what had never been passed over before. “What?” Jimmy questions back whilst huffing and puffing, his eyes squinting as if unable to see why the query is important.

“If one of us fell into the thing, do you think we’d be buying the farm?” Kenny reiterates, prompting his younger co-worker to glance down at the water once more, pausing his work in order to do so. “I don’t know! Probably!” Jimmy soon replies, the tone of his voice presenting a clear disinterest in having the conversation at hand. Shaking his head with dissatisfaction, the labourer pulls in another deep breath before swinging down on the spike once more.

Confused at his colleague’s unpleasant attitude, Kenny takes a few moments to collect himself whilst listening to the resonant thud of metal colliding with more of the same. Staring into the man’s expression, the wiser labourer remains resting on the ground as his contemporary remains fixated on the work at hand, bludgeoning the head of the spike repeatedly without caring for the sweat that drips from his chin.

Working himself into exhaustion and pushing himself past even that point, Jimmy keeps himself motivated to finish only what lies in front of him. Refusing to care for anything other than the task at hand, the man fights through every cramp that befalls him and pulls in every breath he can muster through the small gap between his two foremost teeth. One strike after another presenting a resilience that soon prompts a vein in his forehead to grow defined, the labourer pushes himself relentlessly.

“Jim, take it easy there” Kenny mutters aloud, pushing himself back onto his knees with another spike in hand, speaking to the man that refuses to take his voice into consideration. “Jim?” the older worker inquires once more, speaking to the man that has drowned out everything other than the sound of clattering metal, his voice incapable of breaching the natural barrier erected between the labourer’s ears and the world that surrounds himself.

“Jim, give it a rest there” Kenny remarks again, finding himself unable to break through to the bruised, battered, and- for this week at least- underpaid worker. The repetitive process he presents only speeding up gradually over time, Jimmy continues to swing at the spike sitting before him without holding back even an ounce of effort, the beats almost forming a rhythm of sorts that only prompts more workers to turn their focus toward the spaced-out labourer.

“Jim” Kenny calls for a fourth time, leaning toward the worker slightly whilst maintaining a distance, not wanting to fall victim to the next swing the man takes. “Jim?” the older man calls for a fifth time to the same response he’d kept getting, only reassuring him that there’s no way to speak the young builder back into his senses.

Gathering a steady breath and holding it deep within his lungs, Kenny sets down his hammer and spike and stands from his place on the ground, stepping over to the quick-swinging worker whilst others follow suit, nearing closer with each step. “Jim, let up a litt-” the older labourer remarks, wrapping his arms around the man and lifting him up before being forced to throw himself back, colliding with the ground as Jimmy swings the hammer toward him on instinct.

“Hey! Whoa!” Kenny exclaims, falling back with his hands extended whilst the other workers rush the younger man, slowing down as they watch him regain his witts. “Wh-” Jimmy mutters in a daze, following through on the swipe of his hammer before quickly releasing it from his possession, letting it fall to the ground as he steps back, trying desperately to regain his composure quickly.

“I’m sorry! I’m so-!” Jimmy shouts, his own hand extended toward the man he’d forced to the ground out of fear, walking backward with an apologetic look in his eye, only to be stopped short by the weight of gravity. “Jimmy!” Stanley exclaims, darting toward his friend and grabbing the man’s still outward-held hand.

Having stepped too far back, the heel of Jimmy’s left foot feels the nothingness of the bridge’s edge grace him, balance taken from beneath the young man as he begins falling toward the steady waters below. In the nick of time, his friend’s hand grabs that of his own and pulls him back toward safety, both men tripping forward and colliding with the asphalt as Jesse hurries up, not having been close enough at the time to join Stanley in aiding their friend back to safety.

On one knee and elbow, Jimmy waves off any other potential help as he tries to collect his bearings, thrown for a loop as his fixation on work creates a rather messy complication. “I’m fine! I’m fine!” the man exclaims, all other workers aside from Jesse ceasing their hurry toward the scene of chaos at his behest. “Jim, what’s the matter with you!?” Kenny exclaims, pushing himself up into a seated position as the exhausted worker throws himself onto the ground, seated with his head hung.

“I’ll tell you what, if you were trying to kill him- you’ve gotta do better than that!” Jesse exclaims, gesturing his hand toward the also-seated Kenny, “that swing was so half-baked, you would’ve been sent flying!” Shaking his head as Stanley staggers to his feet, Jimmy presses his hands against each side of his head before letting it hang upward, face being held toward the deep blue sky and hot sun.

“I just got a bit carried away, that’s all” the young man replies, not wanting to burden the men with anything more than whatever will keep their suspicions to a minimum. Gathered near the same area, Kenny, Stanley, and Jesse all look on in silent wonder, questioning amongst themselves whether or not the reply they’re being fed is genuine. “I’m fine, all honesty” Jimmy reassures, looking in their direction as he gasps for breath, nodding toward their direction with down-set eyes.

As the day has come and gone, the exhausted labourer treks through the beaten, muddy path through the hooverville and toward home, the raggedy shack calling his name just as any true house would. With his suspenders already undone and swinging by his sides, Jimmy climbs the brief incline between the ground and his home’s level and opens the door, his mouth agape as he lets out a deep sigh before his eyes can even wander toward the shed’s interior.

Abruptly stopping in the now-open doorway, the shack’s builder wears widened eyes as he sees his wife cowering in a corner just beside her makeshift desk. “Honey, what-?” the man first begins to ask, taking one step into the home with sights on his wife before the concerned eyes he sports begin directing themselves toward the open hole in the centre of the room.

With more questions than answers, Jimmy defaults to acting on his instincts, bypassing the apparent theft as he hurries across the shed, dropping to his knees and taking his wife into his arms. “They took everything” Cathy murmurs, the look of horror worn across her visage as her head presses against her husband’s chest, his hands holding her close as he cradles her, eyes peering toward the gaping wound in his shack’s floor momentarily.

|

Visibly troubled and irritated, Jimmy presses his elbow against the nearest wall as his foot bounces against the floor, eyes steadily held upon the pair of gentlemen that speak only a few feet away. As seconds turn into minutes, the labourer’s patience begins to wane and his eyes begin to drift toward the nearest window, staring out at Lake Union as the sun begins to fade for the evening, momentarily peeling away to watch workers pass by every few moments.

“We’ll talk tomorrow, alright?” the subject of Jimmy’s patience remarks, pulling away from the worker he speaks to before immediately being met with a time card. “James Elliott, full shift in” the worker remarks, watching his supervisor mark up the time card he provides with the graphite of his pencil’s tip. “Thank you” the superior quips, appreciatively moving on with his day upon handing the employee his signed off sheet of paper back.

With a hurried pace, Jimmy storms toward the bus stop as rain begins to crash like hale against the ground. Halfway across the empty road by the time he looks toward the direction he intends to venture, the man’s eyes take hold upon the red tail lights that leave him behind, the bus they belong to being the final one to service the route for the evening.

Without a ride home and stranded in the torrential downpour, the conquered and down-trodden labourer comes to a complete stop halfway across the road, one foot on either side of the double yellow line at the street’s centre. With his hands hung by his sides, Jimmy stares off into the distance and watches the long vehicle until its red bulbs fade into the distance, joining the rest of the environment in being left beneath the darkness of a late-spring Seattle summer night.

Stretching his fingers out as he swipes at his wet strands of hair, Jimmy lowers himself to the ground and takes a seat directly upon the yellow line, not a travelling vehicle in sight to deter him. Lips pressed together as his head leans toward one shoulder, the man’s mind travels to different places at the road ahead remains untravelled, not an inch passed over in an effort of returning to the sanctuary of his shed-sized home.

Having decided to delay his journey back to the hooverville, Jimmy finds himself walking the same bridge he’d spent the last number of months taking a hand in putting together, aware of where it will lead to in spite of what lies at the end of it now. The unpainted centre of the roadway touched with footsteps as soaking wet as it is, only one destination can stop the distraught labourer’s venture at this point, the force of gravity the only thing keeping him from the water below.

Unaware of the presence following a few dozen yards behind him, the man proves to have been pushed closer to the point of no return than he’d ever been before, the end of his rope proving to be a metaphor that the end of the bridge serves as the literal illustration of. No specific intentions within his actions as of now, Jimmy’s journey simply takes him further out from solid ground with each inch forward, a simple travel beneath the unlit passageway keeping his time occupied.

Drawing closer to the point in which his travel can continue no further, Jimmy refuses to slow his progression onward, intending to carry himself to the very point in which he can no longer do so without consequence. Rubber boots squealing with each step he takes along the wet ground whilst the raindrops collide with the unfinished roadway to a sound similar to coins falling onto linoleum flooring, the man’s hands couple together to slide over his head as the path comes to an end.

The tips of his boots finally meeting the evened-out asphalt lip, Jimmy comes to a stop at the bridge’s end, able to see where the roadway is meant to finish on the day in which the project is completed. Closer than what it appears to be, the other side of Lake Union appears as if it were worlds away in spite of the rather minimal effort it would take to reach it- minimal in the sense of comparing it to what has already been constructed.

Though unable to see it very well, Jimmy can hear the crashing waters quite a long way below, their endless shifting impossible to quiet even as high in the air as he is in the moment. His fingers holding back less tension than they have for a number of days whilst his legs feel as if they’d been freed from an excess of thirty pounds, the strife-ridden worker lets the rain continue to fall upon him, surrounding him with noise that suddenly doesn’t feel as intrusive as it otherwise should be.

In brief gusts, flurries of wind whip through the air and crash into the man’s figure, his overalls and under shirt flapping with the same breeze that fails to keep the encroaching figure behind him from progressing onward. As his face sours, Jimmy’s eyes take themselves down to the depths below that his vision cannot catch, what lays just mere inches ahead being a drop into something interchangeable with nothingness- dark, uncertain and impossible to interact with from where he stands.

Letting time pass as the simple construct that it is, the man at the end of the line listens to a pair of boots join him a few feet to his left, yet to take his attention at the moment. Though unusual in nature, the second figure’s presence isn’t taken for the confusing existence that it is, allowed to be left unquestioned by the man brought to his work’s completion. “What are you doing here?” Jimmy wonders aloud, his sights turning toward his contemporary as if his presence were normal.

“That’s the first thing you ask me?” Wilbur wonders aloud, turning to look at the man he’d tried to court days prior, only for said gentleman’s eyes to take back toward the other end of his bridge. “What other question is there?” Jimmy replies, his voice holding the reflexion of a man completely unphased by the odd appearance of the same man he’d laid a pummelling into just days prior.

“How did I know you’d be here would be a mighty fine one” Wilbur retorts, joining the man in staring out at the still-unfinished road, hands tucking into the pockets of his increasingly-soaked trenchcoat. “I don’t see how that would matter” Jimmy replies, a rather defeated sigh held within the breaths that escape him in each uttered word, “I wouldn’t put it past you to have some hatchetmen following me or somethin’.”

“Hatchetmen? Who do you think I am?” Wilbur replies, an odd glance taken toward the man he stands just off to the side of as his head pulls back, “you carrying the big man’s secrets or something? What reason do I got to be worth having you whacked?” Shrugging his shoulders as he stares outward, Jimmy fails to come up with an answer worth being put into words, the change of the conversation an inevitability that simply waits for its moment to take shape.

Having left his car running at the head of the bridge, Wilbur stands to the right of the man he visits from afar, though he’s off to Jimmy’s left side. Made out before the headlights of the vehicle behind them, the two men appear simply as dark outlines of people from the other side of the bridge, the faintest light presenting them as souls in the view afar.

“If I just take one step forward, Cathy will never have to be stuck in that hell pit again” Jimmy voices aloud, simply magnifying the thoughts in his head from the man beside him to hear. Failing to see the flaw in the man’s logic, Wilbur nods to himself and presses his lips tight, “that’s true” he replies, shrugging his shoulders as a sigh leaves beneath his breath, head turning to look at the man a few feet off to his side, “but let’s not pretend that’s the only way to get her out of it.”


“It’s the only way to do it without having to let her down” Jimmy corrects, a response that his visitor doubts for a moment before making an effort to follow along with. “Do you think she’d be any less let down by hearing about people finding your body washed up on the rocks somewhere out here?” Wilbur wonders back, letting the thought drift over the mind of the same man that had proposed such a thing as a solution.

“It’d have been an accident” Jimmy corrects, eyebrows raised as he looks outward, hands soon tucking themselves into the pockets of his denim overalls, “I fell off whilst working on the trusses. It’s just the way life goes sometimes, accidents happen.” Holding back a grin, Wilbur takes his turn to look out at the other end of the unfinished bridge, a squint in his left eye as he turns to look back at the labourer, “what do you think she’d feel after I drop by to tell her what actually happened?”

His face souring slightly, Jimmy turns to look at the face of the man standing a short distance away from him, able to notice the grin the much wealthier man tries his best to hide. Confident enough that he’d already quashed the man’s plot, Wilbur turns his focus toward a more productive avenue of speech, eyes taking to the open space just ahead of him as the rain begins to lighten up.

“If she’s important enough for you to quit life over, she’s important enough to make other sacrifices for” Wilbur remarks, explaining aloud the conclusion his mind had come to, “I think she’d be less let down over you putting fists to a crumb for vast sums of wealth than she would be to find out you’d gone overboard in a literal sense. Don’t you?”

Again turning to look at the labourer, Wilbur watches the subject’s face follow through with turning away, incapable of keeping from the inevitability that lies ahead- pictured in the form of a road that one day will be, but is not as of yet. “What’s your name?” Jimmy wonders aloud, feeling the light rainfall collide with his skin whilst remaining standing near the road’s end, unable to bring himself back just yet.

“Wilbur Ritter” the wealthy man replies, adjusting the right-most flap of his trenchcoat as it momentarily flies outward, exposing his expensive suit jacket to the elements he attempts to conceal it from. “Where’d you come from?” Jimmy follows up, eyes kept on the unfinished road ahead, the question one that prompts the figure of opulent wealth to pause for a moment, lips folding together once more.

“California” the man responds with honesty once more, waiting for a few seconds for the next question he expects, though goes longer without receiving than he’d anticipated, “are there any more questions you have for me?” With a squint, Jimmy keeps his eyes ahead and nods, “just one more” he replies, taking a pause in between remarks to pull his eyes back toward the man that joins him, waiting for their eyes to meet before voicing his last inquiry, “what are you doing here?”

Making no effort to hide the smirk such a question prompts him to react with, Wilbur looks the man in the eyes with what can only be described as a nefarious visage. “In a word?” the man, having gone such a long time without being dressed in the most expensive of attires that he’d lost track of it long ago, replies with pleasure, tipping his cap toward the labourer that gradually becomes more infatuated with the promise of a better tomorrow he’d been offered, “infamy.”

Feeling that his job has been done, Wilbur turns back the way he’d come and makes for the car he’d left so properly parked, “come with me” he beckons to the man he leaves behind. Still draped in the bright bulbs of the distant headlights, Jimmy watches the man- whom he can’t make out as either the angel or the devil on his shoulder- walk off with full expectation that he’s sure to follow.

Drifting back to the spot in which his prosperous contemporary- or perhaps newly-minted friend- had occupied just seconds prior, Jimmy’s eyes inevitably take back to the cruel sea of darkness laying just beyond the tips of his work boots. Offered the choice to make for himself, the worker considers the choice that lays below him as well as the one that walks away, weighing the odds quietly amongst himself before making his decision.

From the other end of the bridge, the sight such bright headlights make out is one of fascination, the departing figure leaving behind a man torn between two fates. Allowed to spectate from afar, the other end of the bridge offers a view only able to be made out in the sight of figures. Turning to face his side, the man at the centre of the road turns to look at the figure that walks away from him, inevitably spinning around fully and freeing his hands from his pockets.

The call made, both figures now carry themselves back the way they’d come, making for the same car that they inevitably take up a seat in, joining together under one roof before turning back for the main road. Fading just as the vehicle turns around, all the other end of the bridge would soon be able to see are the red tail lights of the vehicle that now drives off, occupied by two souls from different sides of the track- one from wealth and the other from dirt- that now converge into one.

== Seattle Noir ==