milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Charlie is in the bar today and he has zero intentions of leaving any time soon. In fact his aim is to stay here and drown himself and his sorrows.

When drinking yourself under the table (or to death, whichever comes first, he doesn't really care) the best way to go about it is to get an early start, and so it's a Bud for breakfast. Several, actually, and since the boozing is a continuation from last night outside the door he's got a pretty good head start on the day.

In addition to the litter of empties at his table he also has a newspaper. The headline is something or other about the Big Game and in between swigs from his beer Charlie is using a Sharpie to redecorate the guy's face who's hefting the very large trophy on the front page.

He'd like to bust the guy's teeth out, but in lieu of that blacking them out with a marker will have to do.

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"Is there a reason your liver has to be destroyed?" Jay asks, half joking.

Charlie glances up then shrugs into another drink from his bottle.

"Seemed the thing to do today."

"Can't argue with that." Jay shrugs, ordering bowl of chilli fries and beer himself, offering to share the fries. "I take it there's someone's ass you'd rather be kicking?"

"Yeah, but I can't decide if it needs to be this tool bag or the whole fricken team that blew a 25 point lead," he says, gesturing at the paper and the man hefting the large trophy on the front page.

"What happened?" Jay asks, pushing the fries towards Charlie.

Charlie glances at the fries then finally picks up a few, shoving them into his mouth before retaking up his beer.

"I put twenty grand on the wrong team. Most of which, I don't even have." Which is a huge, Huge problem for Charlie when he goes back through the door.

"Ah. So a sure thing went sideways and now you're in debt?" That sucks, man."

"Yeah, yeah I'm in debt," he says with a humorless laugh. "I was busted broke before this, that game was supposed to get me clear."

Running a hand through his hair he then brings it down hard to bang on the table top.

"How do you do that? How do you blow a lead like that?! They were killin' 'em the whole first half and I doubled down on the thing and it's just-- " With a miserable sight Charlie thunks his head down on the table. "How?"

"You think they threw the match?" Jay asks, cocking his head. If he knew Charlie better, he might offer to help him out. But he doesn't.

Charlie lifts his head and reaches for more fries.

"No, they fell asleep is what they did." If Charlie knew Jay better he'd probably be asking to borrow the cash.

"So anyways, I figure I got a tab here, I might as well use it to booze it up. If I do it right maybe I won't feel it when one of the guys out there breaks my neck."

He gestures towards the front door with his bottle then tries to take a drink only to find it's empty. Grumbling, he gives a loud whistle to try and call over a rat.

"Well, getting roaring drunk is as good a plan as any." Jay shrugs.

"Glad you approve. Care to join me?" he offers, gesturing at the empty bottles on the table. "You know what they say, only alcoholics and winos drink alone."

"Won't say no." Jay flags down a rat and orders another round of beers. "I'm Jay, by the way. Not sure how long it's been for you but I don't think I've seen you here for a few years."

"Charlie," he replies. "Been a few months for me, but I remember you. You're the mechanic."

Charlie makes a habit of remembering people with skills that could maybe help him out at some point.

"Among other things. Here at least I'm a mechanic. Remind me what you do?" Other than gamble.

"Robot boxing. I'm a trainer, slash manager, slash guy who gets his ass handed to him ringside."

"That's right. I'd love to see one of your robots some time."

"The bot I got now is junked. It's another thing I gotta figure out how to pay for," he sighs.

"You know you can bring it here and work on it for free, right? The garage is open to everyone and there's more than enough parts laying around to fix most anything."

Charlie stares at him with bleary incomprehension.

"What? Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I'm serious. And you can put parts you can't find on your tab. Why do you think I work on my bikes here? And the drones have the six major scrap piles within a day of the workshop mapped."

"Well shit, let's do it now then," he replies, sweeping his arm towards the door and toppling a few of the empty bottles with the gesture.

"Outta be able to get him in here before the first bookie shows up to collect my ass."

Jay puts a hand out to steady him. "Later. When you're sober. No working machinery till then."

Charlie waves him off even as he flops back into his seat.

"There's nothing I can't do drunk that I do sober."

Jay huffs a laugh and orders another round of beers. As long as Charlie doesn't plan to go down to the workshop before morning, he won't bother to argue with him on that.

"The advantage of this place is the time. You can enjoy tonight's beers and work on your bot tomorrow and still not lose any time."

And as long as Jay keeps ordering the beers Charlie will be content to stay put.

"And the tab. Only place I still have credit," he laughs, holding up his beer to salute Jay with.

"She'll make you pull beers or mix cocktails for it at some point but she's generally pretty generous."

"Yeah, she had me bartend once. I didn't mind." He shrugs.

"So how 'bout you? What's been goin'?" he asks, since they've been talking all about Charlie.

"Fixing up vintage bikes mostly. Found a source of solid bikes in beat up condition going for a song so I've been buying those, cleaning them up and selling them on."

"Really? Huh." Charlie takes a drink and shakes his head. "Must be nice to be able to do shit like that."

"It has been. And having all the time in the world here, I can do it right without rushing. Got a mechanic friend from the late 1950s. She's working on a few too."

Edited 2017-02-21 23:47 (UTC)

Charlie nods, and he can't figure an angle to get himself into the picture yet, but give him awhile and maybe he'll come up with something.

If money's being made it could be worth it.

"Who's your friend?" he asks, curious.

"Bonnie Murdock. Do you know her?" Jay asks, sipping his beer.

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