8534/Digging Ditches: Finding a Rose in a Trench

Digging Ditches: Finding a Rose in a Trench
Date of Scene:	27 July 2019
Location:	Central Park
Synopsis:	Film Freak tracks down Mercy Thompson in Central Park, to inquire after her incident with the gangs at her garage. After offering his services to repay a debt, he's kindly rebuffed, and leaves town to perform Lex Luthor's mission to track down the Peacekeeper scientists that have betrayed the Man of Tomorrow.
Cast of Characters:	Film Freak, Mercy Thompson

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Film Freak has posed:
Mercy had completed her contract to Burt Weston, the modifications to his motorcycle enabling him to carry extra protection when on a hit, or meeting a questionable contact, although he had noticed that she did not quite understand 'blocking', as he had picked up in film class.

It might explain how she had got caught in this gang war, with this new street drug 'Hook'. If you don't know where your dress is around your feet, why would you wear such classy heels, dame?

In the guise of Film Freak, his head shaved and covered in black stubble because of his recent contract with Lex Luthor he's been tailing, he strolls down the street in the early morning rain, his shoulders hunched beneath the crinkled surface of his square-shouldered leather jacket, chin huddled down into his v-shaped collar. He's wearing a pair of sunglasses, the cheap kind you get from a mall, as he scours New York City for Mercy Thompson.

He still owes her a favor, and it's bad practice among Mafia players to renege on one, without a check in the hand or a knife in the back.

Particularly given the lady's present situation with the rival New York families.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy's jogging in Central Park, but she's keeping her wits about her. If anything she's keeping her head down, jogging, focusing on staying out of trouble. One gang war is enough, one dead client is mostly bad for business, really. Shaking her head Mercy's got on a rain coat, jogging clothes and sneakers, and she's jogged her way to a bench

Glancing over, she shakes her head and sighs, gritting her teeth against the rain that's going down the back of her neck. Shaking her head, Mercy groans and looks unhappy about the weather, though the Hook has her on edge, too.

Film Freak has posed:
Deep inside the mental space of Al Pacino as portrayed in Dog Day Afternoon, Film Freak moves towards Mercy with a quiet walk and a furtive glance upwards above the tightly closed collar of his leather jacket, having spotted her across the pond and made his way along to meet her at the bench.

"Mercy," comes Film Freak's low murmur, a slide of his breath beneath the roof of his mouth and through his nose.

"It's Film Freak," he continues, coming to a halt before her, and swinging his head across the pond to look at the place he originated from, to spot a tail.

Having displayed the left side of his face in a rude but reflexive move, to display the fact that he's acting, he returns his gaze to her.

"I hear you're in trouble. I'm here to pay my debt."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy looks impressed at Film Freak then n nods. "Somebody reads the news" she says with a wry smile. She's looking a little rattled.

Glancing around then back to Film Freak, Mercy smiles a little. "You're here to pay your debt? How'd it go with your bike?" she asks sounding relieved. Shaking her head again, Mercy looks serious. "So what've you been up to, hopefully nothing as exciting as me" she says, still looking serious with a quiet sigh again. Looking unhappy, Mercy grits her teeth a little. "Okay, you're here to help me. So what've you got in mind?" she asks quietly.

Film Freak has posed:
"Bike's just fine, Mercy," comes the low exhale, Film Freak ducking his head as he feels the morning shower dripping down his bare neck, unhidden because of his bare scalp.

"I thought you could use some help with this situation you're in. A hired gun. I do more than just put on a show."

Film Freak moves to sit on the bench, his hands sliding out of his pockets as his fingers move up onto his designer jeans, wet with damp condensation, the summer's embrace and the warm sun overhead, clouds parting to show the benevolence of the New York skyline and Manhattan bay.

"I deal in secrets, but not captured, nor told, but kept, with a lie provided. I'm not just an actor, you know. I'm a director at heart. One large lie, a hoax, over a subtle truth, to make everyone think they're mad for seeing a familiar story from a shaman, such as you and I, to ignore that little bit of work I've done, as my task."

"I noticed you were Native. I'm one myself. I perform ghost dances."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"You're native?" Mercy asks, canting her head with a look to him with a nod. "There's no difference between a white man telling a story, or a shaman telling a story around the fire" Mercy says gently.

Looking up to the skyline again Mercy smiles. "My father was a Blackfoot bull rider. My mother was...is an Anglo woman. Put it this way, I studied history for my degree. I studied everything from the Ottoman Empire, to the Jacobite Rebellion, to Franklin's attempt to find the Northwest Passage and everything in between" Mercy says, "I can sit here and tell you a story, a truth from what the facts say. Or dress it to be more legendary and more fantastical butt with a grain of truth" Mercy says. History degrees are useful things. Her whole spiel is a way of skirting around the blunt question of 'which tribe are you?'

Mercy nods. "For example. I had read about the Europeans coming here in the 1780s and trading with the native tribes. They were wary of what is modern day America" Mercy says. "The Hudsons Bay Company were run from aar yet expected to give everything to their owners. The stories they told? Became legends. Somebody like, say.....David Thompson or any of his contempararies that took the duty and job seriously? They kept detailed notes and journals. Did you know Lewis and Clark used a Northwest Company map for going west?" Mercy asks, dancing from tangent to tangent. "Ot that back East, back over the mountains, it's a different culture?" she adds and falls quiet.

Film Freak has posed:
"I'm a Crow, barely," Film Freak shares, remembering the iconic sequences of the Brandon Lee movie he watched in childhood with his fatherhood, in lieu of any actual Native tradition or history, still unaware, to this day, that someone told him to be an actor instead of a lawyer because of the reference to his tribe.

"The difference between the white man, and the shaman, is the direct nature of the white man. A story, is just a story, to a white man, unless you take the legend, in which case the white man finds you wanting. For Beowulf to wield the enemy's own weapon in his home, is facing the enemy on their strongest wisdom. For King Arthur to consort with a heretic, is to see his kingdom thrown to the winds by the wizard's eccentric, unreachable heights that none can reach. To leave Roland to guard the pass, is to encourage a traitor. These are legends for play about the white man, that mark them incompetent to face the world as leadership."

Film Freak lowers his eyes. "But what if one created a legend, called a ghost dancer, to tell the white man that you were invoking the legend as a fighting rally, knowing that the white man does something illegal in Native culture - trophy taking. To take a trophy, is to invite disease of the dead, or marker for revenge, or perhaps even a poison waterskin. So what if the large game is a dying charge, but the truth, is that you've infested yourself with fleas?"

He chuckles. "Sleeping with a dog gets you fleas, my mother used to say. Always a truth, from a woman, so bluntly, that is hardly constructive."

He looks sidelong at Mercy. "Let me tell you an interesting bit of history, I know myself. Who wins a war, the person who the referee blows the whistle on and the judge tallies the score, that followed the rules, or the team that completed their objectives, outside the common hearts of the people, the sporting event or the martial arts competition or the trial by combat?"

"There are no referees in the human tongue, dear Mercy, just people that watch sports, and people that watch people. I'm an actor, I've never much cared for sports, although I study people that watch them."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"No there's no referees. When the explorers went down the Columbia River, the tribes were harrassing the Kootenai and Salish that wanted to trade directly with the explorers" Mercy says. "Note the same east of the Rockies. From here" she says gesturing around. "All the way up to Nova Scotia, all the way across to the Rockies, down to the Gulf of Mexico, no referees in plains tribal disputes, or closer to here, no referees when manifest destiny and missionaries landed on these shores" Mercy says with a nod. "Who blew the whistle when the tribes were given Bibles and guns? When smallpox ravaged through the continent because the white men had to clear out the land and destroy what was here?" she adds.

Mercy takes a breath with a smile. "Trophy taking is inciting trouble. But who decides what is fact or fiction? If you were an explorer just landing on these shores, you landed in a strange, alien, hostile world. If you were a member of the tribes, you could say whatever you wanted and claim the spirits told you it was truth. I don't doubt that happened" Mercy shrugs with asmile. "So a crow. Barely?" Mercy asks. ". Mercy may not have a gift for stories, but she's a gift for history. Which is just as good. History, to her, is both academic history, and....what she's been told growing up. If anything, she's blending book history with practical, actual history.

Mercy shakes her head. "Legends are stories, just given more weight however. Did a legend ever really happen? People believe it did. So" she says softly. "If I were t osit here and tell you of the greatest Blackfoot chief who ever lived, or the kindest Salish, would you just believe me? What if I told you of their legends. Would that change your mind?" Mercy asks, genuinely curous as her mind returns to her shop and the violence. "So...you're paying your debt. As you heard on the news, I got paid a visit by people moving that new Hook drug around. I hid and called the cops. I could have taken them on, but no desire to go to jail for life for shooting somebody thank you" she says. Honestly, she'd rather try to figure out some other creative way of sorting this situation out.

Film Freak has posed:
Film Freak sits there, with a long, onorous pause.

Then, he speaks up.

"Is it killing someone that disturbs you, or is it going to prison?"

He binds his hands together, right hand inside his left, fingers clenched together firmly, as if they've never interlaced.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy considers her response. "Both" she says, "Both of those worry me. I'm hesitant to kill. I'm more hesitant to go to prison" she admits with a sigh, a weary look. Looking around again, then she looks back to Film Freak.

""I wouldn't last five minutes in prison though. And killing is abhorrent to me" Mercy says with a quiet look at him again.

Film Freak has posed:
"Kill is a term you can take many ways, in many different cultures."

"The word kill, in statutory manners, refers to any act of ending another human's life, as a lower reference to various classifications under the law. Homicide, the willful and deliberate end of a human's life. Manslaughter, willful negligence or irresponsibility, however perhaps unfair in the case of impairment, to ending another human being's life. Gross bodily harm, the permanent incapacitation of functions necessary to live a full and humane existence."

"In the Rabbinical sense, the root of the three monotheistic faith's traditions regarding religious law, the matters of the healthy soul, the term is 'murder', unlawful killing. One can interpret this as to their own choosing. You can kill if empowered as a soldier, by the state, but the other states may not respect you, even as a prisoner or after hostilities have ceased."

"In the sense of universal law, the backbone of the European system, all human beliefs are taken into account on a root, genetic sense, although some of us are impaired, hence injunctions, and there are advances beyond genes due to other cultures, technology, and obscure systems of childrearing." Like Film Freak's peculier childhood. "This is where the psychiatric system, court precedent, and more nefarious measures come into play."

Film Freak looks away, the rains long having since ended, at a child playing with a dog, in the distance.

"Merely ask the question, and I will be your dancing dagger. I will walk away from this, without any orders, and I will do my best to eliminate your problem."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy listens, he's got a good point though she's not arguing points. She's a history degree holder. Not law. Though admittedly she'd pay good money for Mr Murdoch or Foggy Nelson or Saul Goodman to argue point by point. She'd be front row cheering them on. Mercy though nods and figures there's no harm telling somebody what happened. It's already out there in the news after al.

Taking a breath Mercy speaks. "I was working on a car for a customer, h was nervous and twitchy. I found drugs in the car, and a SUV pulled up. Don't remember the color but I ran to hide. I felt like trouble was going to happen. So they come in, start shooting, kill the customer. My assistant takes offense to this, and throws them out. Lierally. NYPD show up and bust them. It was an eventful time, but I'm now worried. What do you think I ought to do?" she asks.

Film Freak has posed:
"Just lay low for a while. I still owe you that favor."

Film Freak stands up, and his neck slips to the side with a swift snap, and his external focus in the fuzzy world of summer morning in Manhattan slips back into his head, the images of racing lights and sunshine returning to his mind, before shifting into movie clips of Dog Day Afternoon, the movie he was just in character for. Burt is racing around in a black Honda, the car he has parked nearby, down the road back to Gotham City, to get to his safehouse, his business in New York City complete for a while.

"Thanks for the help, Mercy. Our ledger is still unbalanced. Call that number I gave you when you want to cash in."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"I'm laying low, but have to work" Mercy says with a nod to him. Looking over, Mercy smiles. "Oh I'll call you if anythng comes up. And yes. Our ledger isn't balanced, which needs sorting out doesn't it?" she asks. Getting to her feet Mercy resumes her jogging again with a smile.

Film Freak has posed:
Burt Weston tips his chin up, and then zips his jacket down, breathing in a strong wind as he stretches out with his arms.

With a loose shift to his walk, he sidles along the path towards the street, where he's got his Honda Civic on metered parking, his hands out as he walks away, instead of the tight clench with pocketed fingers and curled neck from before.

Next thing is Burt handling the mission for Lex Luthor, with his modified Indian. That is going to be a trickier assignment than anything involving a drug epidemic, but he thinks his motorcycle will be the key to the job. The best way to get the drop on the taller man, is to get him to look down his nose too far.