S1, E7 | A One Way Ticket to Being Ahead of the Curve

\ 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 ==