 |
 |
| Log Title | |
|---|---|
| Participants | Ellen, Penny |
| Synopsis | Cop, meet FoHer. When a fanatic tries to hand out pro-mutant propaganda, Penny decides to head over and set him to rights. Ellen finds a sympathetic ear. |
| Location | Midtown Manhattan |
| Time | January 13, 2016 |
| Posted By | Ellen |
"9:10" displays the large red digits of one of the few remaining electric clocks in Midtown Manhattan. Elsewhere in the city people are clamouring into bars and clubs. Others are safe at home. Still others are begging for attention, such as the dishevelled man who stands determinedly on the sidewalk beneath the harsh glare of a half-shattered neon light, his body partially basked in the eerie red glow. In his hand are several leaflets, and he is desperate to hand them all out. Many strangers ignore him. Some pause and eye what he is attempting to give them before disappearing up the street. But as a patrol car pulls up to the sidewalk and a set of police officers exit the vehicle, he brightens. One more opportunity to Be Heard.
"Mutants! Misunderstood beings! A gift from the Heavens! Your savior and mine!" he calls hoarsely. "Read here all about it, why don'tcha!" The pamphlet is flapped in the air as he ambles over to the side of the car, hopping down off the curb.
Amongst the crowds going from A to B is a petite blonde making her way south through Midtown. Penny spares a glance up at one of the clocks, frowning a bit to herself at the late hour. Her phone comes out of her pocket, and she begins to text and speed walk, the last great skill of the truly overworked and anal. She'd probably power right on by if it weren't for those magic words reaching her ears in the middle of her texting. She sends off a message half-finished before lifting her gaze, grey eyes flickering over the crowd as she tries to pick out the source, her pace slowing. Spotting the fanatic, she rolls her eyes at his preaching, but watches his movement, letting her slowing steps lead her over to that side of the walkway, partly for a better view, and partly to avoid being a pedestrian traffic hazard. "Oh my God," she mutters dryly, oblivious to any irony in that choice of blasphemy.
One of the cops is a dark haired female. She turns toward him, angling her 8-point hat to better make out the face of the individual hounding her for her attention, and is almost immediately sorry that she does. "Ah hell," Ellen Giordano groans. His breath. If skunks could crawl down a person's throat.. "You been hitting the sauce, hey?" she asks in her thick New York accent. "Little heavily maybe? I.. look, I'm not interested, but is there someplace we can give you a drive to? Sir?"
"Just read it! It's a good read!" he insists, pushing the pamphlet towards her. She warily accepts, and watches as he returns himself to his 'perch' underneath the bright overhead light. On the way, though, he notices the blonde standing on the sidewalk, and he hopefully outstretches another pamphlet to her.
It's handmade. A street publication. Black ink proclaims in bold font 'MUTANTS ARE THE ILLUSTRIOUS FUTURE'.
Penny watches the whole thing go down with an obvious interest. Somehow, this ends up getting her in trouble when she finds herself now the subject of the madman's proselytizing. "Yeah, I don't think so," she replies with a shake of her head, crossing her arms over her chest as though he might rush at her and jam the damn thing into her hand. "Illustrious because they're radioactive and glow in the dark?" She can't not comment on the production quality of that pamphlet - or the really bad slogan. Her gaze flickers over to the cop, giving her a quick glance to see if she is planning on doing anything about this crazy person accosting innocent people here.
The gaze is noted after the cop sees him attempting to hand out another leaflet. A hand rubs across her forehead; Ellen really doesn't want to be dealing with this stuff. Pushing her copy of the 'publication' toward her partner, she steps up onto the curb. "Okay, Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to move along," she says, and starts to place herself in between the two.
He stares, of course, because that's the natural response when someone is critiquing your hard work, but.. the fact that he has two cops in the vicinity and an order to shut up helps to move him along; he's not been hitting the bottle hard enough that he can fail to realize when something just isn't worth his trouble. He does, however, glare rather pointedly before shuffling up the street, perhaps going to find himself somewhere else to solicit people with his flyers. And if he does.. well, let's hope it's not in the same neighborhood, because they'll be patrolling up that way later on.
"Jesus.." the cop breathes.
Penny just gives the man a placid smile as he stares at her, utterly unrepentant in her critique. If he wants to protest, he has to put in the work, just like everybody. Handmade fliers are just sloppy. When he finally shuffles off, she unfolds her arms, brushing down the sleeves of her coat as if merely being close to him has somehow sullied her. "… was not a mutant, no matter how illustrious they are," she finishes the cop's sentence with a wry roll of her eyes. And then, a little more sincerely, "Thanks."
The brunette keeps an eye on the swaggering fanatic as he disappears beneath completely broken signage. Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, she nods. "Yeah, well, can't have that sort of thing 'round. And.." A second nod; vaguely surprised. "Exactly," she adds. "He wasn't. Where you get off comparing a bunch of.. well, mutants to an actual religious figurehead, I don't even wanna know." Then there is a quiet clearing of her throat. "'Scuse me. Hey!" she calls to her partner. "Lemme see that thing. You go grab us the coffee we were getting." They were stopping for it just a few minutes ago. "Up the street. Not that cheap-ass broth you usually buy, okay?" The paper exchanges hands. The partner heads up the street.
"If there were any real justice in the universe, there would be some real smiting going on right about now," Penny agrees with a nod, her gaze flickering towards the heavens hopefully. But alas, no bolt of lightning to come crashing down and fry the blasphemer. "I guess it helps if you're six sheets to the wind, coming up with that stuff." She lapses into silence for a moment as Ellen dispatches with her partner. Now that it's less of a sign of weakness to even acknowledge the flier exists, she finds herself studying it from a distance. Such shoddy work. And she knows from pamphleteering, thanks to her days with that anti-mutant student group.
Brown eyes follow the other uniformed cop as he carefully makes his way up the block. He'll bring back the "cheap-ass broth" because that's all the 're-fueling' stations in these parts really offer. Midtown is far from the Upper East Side. But.. he's gone shortly after. Ellen, after watching a moment longer, chuckles. "You're tellin' me," she starts to say, though she eyes Penny carefully. "This.. geeze, I can't believe he even bothered to write this stuff." The rest conveys the same tone as the header: 'TRUST IN MUTANTS,' declares one article, 'BECAUSE THEY CONTROL THE WEATHER!'
There is a faint snort as she reads; she can't help it. Then the cop gently clears her throat again, and begins to discard the paper in the nearby trash (after righting it; someone, at some point, tipped it over). "Fly, maybe, but I ain't never seen one make lightning."
Penny looks between the female cop and her partner, watching the interplay there without comment. As Ellen's attention comes back to her, she nods several times in agreement. "And why would I trust someone because they control the weather? That's scary if you ask me, and all the more reason something needs to be done to keep things in check. Talk about your specious reasoning. Honestly, I don't know how so many people end up getting fooled. All that bleeding-heart stuff, I guess." She shrugs her shoulders, before pausing and trying to reel it in a bit. "I mean, it's just unnatural."
Ellen nods more slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. Or at least.. goddamn worrisome. I.." She pauses, flicking a glance over her shoulder as though perhaps seeing if there is anyone else within an earshot, and then leaning on the side of her car. "We got things happening day in, day out with mutants. I've seen them firsthand. Even felt what they can do firsthand. Had my ears shrieked out just the other day. No word of a lie. And.. well, how in the blue blazes are you supposed t'compete against things like that? Gets me a little bothered when all is said and done, let me tell you." However, she pauses. "But.. well, anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish, that… thing." She points at the trash can. "We got bigger things to worry about besides 'saviors.' You take care, hunh?"
"Yeah? Man, I bet you've got some really messed up stories," Penny agrees with a sympathetic nod. "I don't know how you do it. And of course, the laws are all about ten years behind, still fighting a battle that's already lost. Maybe if they gave you guys some actual tools to use…" She trails off with a helpless shrug. After all, what can one tiny blonde do about these things? "And it's hard sometimes, knowing who you can talk to about this sort of thing without ending up a martyr." There's a rue smile with that. "Anyway, yeah, you take care too. I'll see you around, maybe."
"Lost? Wait, hey," says the cop, hailing her with a hand. "Nobody said the battle's lost." She acknowledges that there is one, and that Penny has practically hit the nail on the head, but there is argument here, though in a tone that is slightly uncertain; wanting to hear what the other party has to say. "We still got men and women walking the streets. Eventually, you know, we might get the upper hand. I didn't mean that we.." She pauses again; her brow furrows. She reconsiders her words. "I just said it's a tough fight. That's all." The conviction is there, only.. bleary.
Penny remains in place as she's bidden to wait. There's nothing confrontational about her approach to this, and she hears Ellen out, even if her eyebrows are raised with just the smallest amount of skepticism. "Hey, I'm not meaning to diminish what you do. Of course it's a tough fight. You're fighting a nuclear war with sticks and stones, and then you have to worry about hurting their feelings because that would be bad for PR. Am I right? But until people wake up and really see what's happening, this is just going to get worse, if you ask me." She gives her shoulders a little shrug, but is definitely watching Ellen more keenly now.
Ellen's weight shifts from one leg to the other, having pushed herself off the car. The fact that she's said her piece, well, that eases the look of thought right off her forehead, but she still listens very carefully. Her chin begins to slowly nod again, and after listening a few seconds, is agreeing. "Yeah," she says. "Well.. let me just say I've seen more than a few good cops ending up losing their life on account of politics. PR as you call it." The lips turn downwards with a frown, and she adjusts the hat atop her head once more. There's another pause and discreet look. "I know a couple of the guys and me, we've had that feeling for a while. That things are.. off, the way things are going, and sure, it's upsetting," she says, and then adds, "but.. we're getting there, as I said."
"I don't doubt it. We're all just potential collateral damage as far as the left is concerned," Penny shrugs, glancing along the length of street. "But you're right. Things still have the potential to change. I'm just of a mind that the people out there on the front lines should have the tools they need, and then the courts need to be able to back that up with actual convictions." Her gaze comes back to Ellen. "Things are off. But they don't have to be that way forever. It's just not going to be so easy as ignoring it until it goes away, or hoping people come around eventually. But I'm sure you know that. Good to know not everyone is just sticking their heads in the sand."
Cop Number 2 appears up the block just as Ellen starts to answer, but she nods a final time, and skimming the area laden with the remains of past 'diplomatic moves,' states, "No. And.. good to meet at least one other person who isn't thinkin' all the stuff is good as opposed to screwin' over the ones who really count." This, she offers genuinely, and with none of her earlier tentativeness: rather, it's said with the full confidence that she is, in fact, speaking to someone who actually gets it.
Footfalls near. Ellen moves back towards the hybrid parked on the street. "Good, uh, talkin' to you." Speaking of, it's time to go back to the grind.
"Yeah, nice to meet you," Penny agrees, as Ellen begins moving away. "Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." In fact, she might just have to try and contrive such a contact. The cop gets a friendly smile, and her partner gets a nod of greeting, before the blonde is heading back along the sidewalk again.
