7907/Not Another Walks Into A Bar Joke

Not Another Walks Into A Bar Joke
Date of Scene:	16 June 2019
Location:	Luke's Bar - Harlem
Synopsis:	Barbara's search for a villain lands her in Luke's Bar. Jokes about bars ensue.
Cast of Characters:	Luke Cage, Oracle

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Luke Cage has posed:
It's late in the evening on what has been a slow night. Sunday is not necessarily a slow bar night in Harlem, but there was some sort of ruckus in the streets nearby the day before which still has had a few people clear the area and not come back.

Behind the bar, Luke Cage is looking through the register at the scant receipts. He pulls out some money, counting it out and passing it over to Roy Healy, and older man who has joined him behind the bar. "That enough to get you by?" he asks. Roy tips his head to Luke as he hides the money away on his person. "Thanks Luke. Should be enough through the end of the month," he says.

Luke pats the greying man on the back. "Just be careful getting home," he says as Roy moves to head on out. Luke moves down to pour a drink for a customer at the far end of the bar. "So Luke," the guy says, words just a little slurred. "This Irish Priest walks into a bar..." he starts out. Luke stands listening to him, feigning a look of interest. While inside, he's just thinking, please, not another walks into a bar joke.

Oracle has posed:
Batgirl had been involved in that ruckus the night before. It'd been a fairly big deal, gang on gang violence, but one of the people involved in it was a resident from Gotham that Batgirl was after, because he was wanted for the murder of an entire family, a random act of horrendous violence to a family of which Barbara knew as she'd grown up with the mother as a close friend.

She didn't get the man last night either. So tonight? She's still here in Harlem, she'd rented a room not far from here and her gear was stowed there for now because tonight she's out and has been setting up surveillance drones to ping back to her phone any time the man's face is spotted by the high tech facial recognition of the drone cameras.

For the moment though, the work is done, everything is in place and on her way back to her rented hotel room, Barbara spots this bar and when Roy steps out, he opens the door for the redheaded Babs who offers him a smile and a thank you, then steps on insdie.

Dressed in a sleeveless top that clings to her upper body, black leather pants and heeled boots, Barbara is a sight here in Harlem, not often do women like her wander the streets. Firey red hair is tied into a tight braided ponytail that is draped over her left shoulder. She lets her eyes scan around the interior of the bar before she moves to take a seat at it while the joke is told. She looks very Irish, so she's interested...

Luke Cage has posed:
Roy glances back at the woman that he held the door for, until it swings shut. "Oh sure, NOW I had to choose to go home," he intones to himself miserably before wandering off down the streets.

Meanwhile, inside Luke glances up as he sees someone else come inside. Though he does get some racial variety in the place, Barbara certainly stands out. The tall black man gives her a nod to indicate that he saw her and will be right there, though he pauses to give the other customer a chance to finish his joke.

"... and so he goes over to the first man at the bar and says, 'Lad, would ye like to go to heaven?' And the man responded, 'Of course Father!'. And the priest told him to go stand over by the wall. And then he walked up to the second man at the bar and asked him, 'And you? Would you like to go to heaven?' And he replied that he would too, and the priest told him to go stand by the wall. And then he got to Mickey. And the priest asked him the same thing and Mickey shook his head and said, 'No thank you Father.' Well, the priest was surprised and asked, 'Seriously, you don't want to go to heaven when you die? You'd rather go to the other place, lad!?'"

The man telling the joke starts laughing at the punch line already before he's even delivered it, and finally says, "And Mickey replies, 'Oh, no! Of course I want to go to heaven eventually. I just thought you were putting together a trip there now!"

Luke nods his head to the man and says, "Great joke, Jimmy. That'll kill over on 14th," he says, indicating an Irish part of town. Luke walks away from Jimmy, who is still laughing at his own joke. Luke stops along the bar in front of Barbara, leaning his hands on it as he asks, "What can I get for you?"

Oracle has posed:
While the joke is unfolding, Barbara is sliding herself onto one of the barstools and taking her black messenger bag off from being strapped around her torso. She shows a small smile to Jimmy's joke as she sees how much its entertaining him at least and that is a little endearing, but her green eyes raise up to Luke as he approaches and looms on the other side of the bar.

"I'll have a vodka and cranberry?" She asks, sounding unsure if thats something even on the menu here. Truth be told, Barbara Gordon doesn't go into Bars very often and she's rarely ever ordered any alcohol, but one drink will suffice and her body will work it through her system within a small amount of time, or so she tells herself.

Luke will note that she gives him a once over too, as much as she's able to see from where he stands behind the bar, but he's also likely fairly used to that considering his size and fitness.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke gives the woman a pleasant enough smile. "One vodka and cranberry coming up," he replies to Barbara. He wipes across the bar with a towel though it was already clean and dry, setting it aside and focusing on preparing the drink for her. Luke is casually dressed, jeans and a knit shirt which has just enough small frayed marks to have some character and make it seem a favorite garment, but short of seeming worn out. It just hugs his form enough to give an impression of the man's size and build as he reaches for a glass, adding a little ice and then turning to the well-lit shelves behind him to select a bottle of vodka.

His head is clean shaven and his goatee is trimmed with a neatness that Tony Stark could learn from. He turns back with a bottle of Grey Goose and fills the glass, then adds cranberry juice. "I'm going out on a limb and saying it is your first time in here," he comments as he gets a lime garnish for the glass and presents it to Barbara. "Appreciate having you stop in. What has you out tonight?" he asks.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara's green gaze goes down to Jimmy again to see if he's recovered from his laughing fit, at least until Luke speaks up while making her drink and she watches him solely now whilst he approaches her with the glass.

A small smile is shown to the man when he delivers it to her with the lemon wedge which she tends to first by picking it up and squeezing it into the drink for a little extra zip to the flavor. "Work." She speaks, her voice tone is soft suggesting its possibly been a long day for the woman. "My company is installing security cameras near here, I came to make sure they were doing it properly." Which isn't entirely untrue.

Her drink is raised up then to her lips and she samples it with a sip, following that up with a larger drink then before she lowers the glass back down to the coaster atop the bar, it was cold, sweet and spirited just right to make it pleasing to ingest...

Babs scans around the bar with a quick look. "And no, I've never been here before. I'm from Gotham, in fact. I don't make it to Manhattan very often."

Luke Cage has posed:
After serving up the drink, Luke picks the rag back up and begins polishing some of the liquor bottles, going through one by one. He keeps the majority of his focus on Barbara's conversation while he works. The entire bar looks well-cared for, and that he's taking the time to wipe down fingerprints and the like from the bottles just seems one more aspect of that care.

"Gotham, that's a long way to have come on a Sunday and work this late," Luke tells Barbara. "I hope you're getting overtime for it?" he tells her. Meanwhile down at the other end of the bar, Jimmy notices he doesn't have an audience any more. He's in his late fifties, with a salt-and-pepper scraggly beard. "So Luke... a horse walks into a bar-" he starts up.

Luke gives a laugh and shakes his head as he cuts Jimmy off. "Why the long face," he finishes before Jimmy can get into the joke. Jimmy laughs and points down to Luke, seeming happy that Luke knows the joke as well.

The bartender looks back to Barbara to say, "So you'll have to give me your impressions. How does our fare city compare to Gotham, in your eyes?" he asks Barbara as he sets down the first bottle and picks up another one to polish.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara holds onto her drink with her left hand and the initial question about overtime makes her laugh softly and look down to the glass before she shakes her head and looks back up to him. "Its my company, so I don't think I get any overtime bonuses." Her other hand raises up then and she presses the back of her fingers beneath her chin to gently rest her chin upon them, elbow on the bar beside her glass.

Her green gaze darts down to Jimmy as he starts another joke, and Luke's quick answer to it makes her crack a little grin. "Thats a good one." Barbara says down to Jimmy as well. But when Luke asks her opinion of the city she gazes back to him and holds a faint smile. A light exhale escapes her lips and she looks to the shelves behind the bar. "Well..." She starts, loading the response to that question up.

"An almost equal amount of costumed super heroes traipsing about. But a seemingly disproportionate amount of costumed villains. Seems the villains in Manhattan know how to hide themselves better and are a bit less... bombastic with their presentation of their criminal actions. Maybe I just haven't seen the big shows though..."

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke leans on the bar as Barbara shares her comparison on the two cities. Cities which are close enough that even though they aren't exactly sister cities, are at least that kind of neighbor city that you share a wall with and you know what TV shows and movies they like because that wall is so thin. And that sometimes you just have to avoid meeting the other city's eyes the next morning in the hallway because you know just how many times they replayed that scene from Eyes Wide Shut.

"Private business owner. Now that explains the extra hours," he says, bald head swinging a knowing nod. The way he glances around the bar then, too, there's definitely a look in his eyes of pride when he takes in the place. "And, so you've run into some of that while you were here?" Luke says of the costumed heroes. "Sorry about that. I hope it didn't impact your business," he shares.

Jimmy rises to his feet, shoveling off a few bills as a tip, or to pay his tab. He wanders on down the bar, the older black man pausing as he draws nearer to Barbara. "Lovely lady like you shouldn't be out walking late. Luke, you make sure you get her a cab when she leaves," he says.

Luke nods his head. "You bet Jimmy. Why don't I do the same for you?" he offers. Jimmy waves it off and says, "The day I can't make it back after a night out is the day I need to stop going out." He looks over to Barbara. "My wife says that. Doesn't know what she's talking about if you ask me," he says, shaking his head and heading for the door.

Oracle has posed:
Another sip of her vodka and cranberry is had before she sets it down again and then lowers both of her hands to press on either sides of the coaster thumb and forefingers touching its corners lightly. "Well." Barbara starts again. "Being in the security business, specifically cameras in this game, I suppose one can say its fairly profitable when heroes and villains alike go around smashing them... because then we get called in to replace them, so... yay?" She doesn't seem entirely convinced of this, but then again she's just playing off a cover story, an alias that is attached to the Barbara Gordon name if anyone were to look her up, even though she hasn't said her name here yet.

When Jimmy gets up and moves to leave, Babs looks over to him and offers him a sweet smile. "The night you can't make it home, might not yield you a chance to prove her wrong." She quips back at the man, considering the connotations of what he said would suggest he never made it home again. "Thank you for the jokes." She adds to the kind old man though as he makes his way out of the bar and then she flicks her eyes back to Luke and smiles lightly again.

"This is a nice place, I assume its busier on Friday and and Saturdays?" She then asks.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke smiles as Jimmy heads out, walking over to the door to see him out. "You let her hear you saying that about her and you'll be having trouble making it anywhere," Luke tells him. Jimmy chuckles. "Word. G'night Luke. Ma'am, don't you worry about me. I'm quicker than all those young hoods out there. And prettier too," he says, giving Barbara the kind of wink that suggest if he was just about ten years younger. Well maybe fifteen, before heading off into the night.

Luke moves back behind the bar again, getting a glass. Ice cubes tinkle as they bounce about when added to the glass, before he fills it with soda for himself. "It is, this was a particularly slow night. Something happened on the block recently and I guess people decided to give it a night or two," he says. He gives a slight frown. He wasn't working that night, and by the time Roy had called him and he'd made it there, it was over.

"Thank you for the compliment," he tells her as he glances around the bar. "It has a friendly crowd most of the time. You picked a good spot to come into, Miss...?" he asks, giving Babs a spot she could introduce herself.

Oracle has posed:
"I'll have to come back by on a busier night, see how lively it gets here." Barbara comments to the first part, even if she knows thats an unlikely occurrence that she'll ever return again, knowing her life and all. She does lightly smile to that idea though and takes another sip of her drink.

Barbara's gaze goes to her right to watch Jimmy move on down the sidewalk outside the windows and then she looks back to Luke when he speaks of what happened. "Is crime pretty high around here? I got this job only because of a random meeting at an event in Gotham. This is far from my usual beat. Which is... why I'm here, to make sure its all done properly, so I don't get a bad reputation. Maybe expand my horizons a bit to Manhattan." She smiles faintly then.

Her eyes raise back up to Luke then and she smiles when he asks for her name. "Barbara." She says, pausing before adding. "Gordon." She's not too worried about anyone in Manhattan knowing who her father is. How many people know who the police commissioner of another city is, let alone their own city for that matter.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke gives a little motion of his head to suggest a return visit would be a good idea. "I bet you didn't know we have specials for owners of security firms," he tells her smoothly as he sets back to wiping down the bar with a clean bar rag. "Crime isn't as bad here, not compared to some places at least," he says. "It's normally pretty safe during the day, and if you use a city girl's smarts, at night too. I'm guessing if you do security installation, and you're from Gotham, you've probably picked up some of that?" Luke says, just using his eyes to glance over at her as if slyly confirming his suspicions.

"Some of the other areas in Harlem, it can get pretty bad there," he says, giving a little bit of a frown. "Things have changed since the old days there. A lot less respect than there used to be for people. Even the thugs running the streets had a bit more of a code back then. Things you just don't do, lines you won't cross," he says, shaking his head.

As the introduction is made, Luke smiles and says, "Nice to meet you, Barbara. I'm Luke Cage. Which is really fortune given the name of the place and all. If I'd been an Ernest? Whoo boy," he says, shaking his head and pondering the kind of crowds /that/ bar would get.

Oracle has posed:
The specials comment makes Barbara crack another smile and lightly laugh. "Why do you think I came in here?" She quips back to him. "I read about that online, of course." Her forearms are crossed together on the edge of the bar as she just leans there on it and smiles over at him. "And... well... I got pretty far in the Gotham PD training school before I decided the whole, atmosphere, wasn't for me. So I moved on, to this."

The rest of what he says is taken in and she nods her head lightly a single time to it. "Its nice to meet you too, Luke." She lets that sit for a second while she continues to eye him as they're the only two here now and there's not much else to look at. "The way you speak of the area, I can tell you're passionate about it. You got a... spark in your eyes too. I can see it. At first I was sure you were ex military, but now I'm not so sure. You carry yourself more smoothly than a military man does which makes me think your experience comes from elsewhere." She's already pegged him for an ex-con, but she's not going to bring that up and just throw it out there. He doesn't deserve that after all.

Barbara then just waits a moment before she grins softly. "Luke is a much better name than Ernest, in every way. Though, Hemingway served it well... then again he was notoriously unhinged, or so I hear." She flashes another soft grin then. "He loved cats though. So he's good in my book."

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke gives a little rolling nod of his head. "Good to hear the advertising was worth it then," he tells her in smooth bass. "Next week we're running the special for pawn shop operators," he confides. "But I'll be sure to keep the other special going too," Luke promises.

He glances out at the street. "No one even out tonight," he comments, shaking his head and then stuffs the bar rag into a back pocket as he moves over to lean lightly on the bar as he talks with Barbara. "Yes, some people just grow up a place. And others are part of it, aren't they?" he says when she speaks about his feelings for the area. He picks up his glass to take a sip of the soda before indicating towards Barbara with a finger as she hit the mark but then overshot it. "One of the few, and the proud," he says with a shrug of his shoulders as he gives that Marine advertising slogan.

Luke's lips purse to one side as if he's thinking. "So, police academy. Turned security company owner. And I'm guessing you didn't just spontaneously develop an urge to go blue. Grew up in a police family maybe? And well read. Which has no place in the police force. Plus you're a bit of a cat woman. There might be at least two other specials you'd qualify for if you hang around long enough," he suggests in a knowing way.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara has to lightly laugh again at the last of what he says. "I'll need a whole list of these specials to peruse, just to pick out which ones I do and don't qualify for." She says back with a soft smile for him before she nods her head at him another time, two quick and sharp nods this time. "My father is a police officer." She says then and there, but doesn't go much more into detail on that. "He was both for, and against, me joining the Academy. But ultimately he understood why it wasn't for me. I'm not sure he's happy with what I've chosen to do though, but... he's a rather protective type. So that comes with the territory."

She raises her right hand up and places her fingertips over the edges of the rim, then raises it up to let it twist down against her palm as she takes another sip from the glass that is half empty now. "I like cats." She says then. "But I don't own any. I chase them off of the properties I'm contracted to protect though." A little inside humor never hurts, right? Take that Selina.

"So, how safe is it for me to walk back to my hotel room?" She asks then. "Should I get my tazer ready?"

Luke Cage has posed:
The clean-shaven black man gives a soft, deep chuckle. "Most fathers are protective of their little girls," he agrees. "And their little girls never grow up in their eyes, right?" he asks her. Luke brings his soda to his lips to finish off the glass. He gets some of the ice in his mouth, just letting it melt rather than chewing it.

He looks over at, dark brown eyes focusing on the vivacious redhead as he says, "Mine too. Father that is. New York City detective, retired," Luke says, making a little click sound from the corner of his mouth. "And I'm pretty sure he's spent less time happy with my choices than the other way around," he adds with a rueful chuckle.

Luke's eyes go to the clock on the wall as Barbara asks about her safety. "It would be safer if I called you a ride," he says. "Or if you like, it doesn't look like staying open tonight is going to do more than run up my electricity bill. I could walk you back if you'd be comfortable with that," he offers.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara affords him a soft smile at his talk of fathers and daughters which just makes her lightly shake her head and glance down at her drink. "I think you're probably right, even if I choose to not think about that too much." She looks back up a moment later though.

"Oh really?" She then says when Luke talks of his father being a cop as well. "I guess that explains why you're so dashing and kind." She's certainly being nice, but then again she's been given no reason to be anything but that.

Another looks is given out to the windows to her right before she looks back at him and bites down on her bottom lip for a second of thought before it pops back out and she replies. "Whatever is easiest for you, Mister Cage." She says then, showing a light smile. "I didn't come all this way from Gotham just to be a bother to a nice, albeit potentially otherwise bored, bartender." She grins a little then at him.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke Cage pulls the bar rag from his back pocket, wiping his hands and tossing it down on the bar. "Whew. /So/ bored," he tells her, managing to make the words understated even as he's putting emphasis on them. A fine judge of character might sense Luke has a pretty even keel. But the smaller changes of his voice still manage to convey the emphasis that other people get from much louder words. I.e. most of New York.

"Give me five minutes to close the place up," he asks Babs, already moving around and starting to put up stools and chairs on the table so the place will be ready for having the floors cleaned in the morning. There's a short list of things to do to close up the bar, but he completes them with the efficiency of a well-known routine.

Luke will walk Barbara over to the door then if she's ready, turning out the lights and turning off the Open sign and the Luke's Bar neon. "You wouldn't believe what one of those costs," he says, shaking his head as the glances at the sign. Once they are outside Luke will lock up the place and offer his arm to Barbara, letting her set the direction since he doesn't know where she's staying.

Oracle has posed:
A little grin is shown at the bored rebuttal and then she raises her glass up to her lips again before nodding her head when he says he needs a few minutes. "Certainly so." she responds to him before she sets her hands back down onto the table. After a moment she remembers she needs to pay for her drink and moves to dig around inside of her messenger bag beside her. She'll hand him the money before he's fully closed-up of course as well.

On their way out, her eyes trace over to the neon sign when he indicates it and as it illuminates her face when she looks up at it, she adjusts her eyes to look over and up at him and she smiles at him. "I can't even imagine, to be quite honest. But now I'm curious..."

When they step outside, Barbara puts the messenger bag over her shoulders and wears it around her body, then looks over at him to take his offered arm with her left hand hooked around his elbow and she leads him northward. "So you're going to have to tell me how you ended up with a bar named after you. You seem more like someone who'd name the bar after... someone else, a hero of yours or some such."