Talk and Hopeful Blessing (Closed to Jesse)

[Simon Ward]

Simon was nervous. Right now he wanted to smoke a cigarette so bad, but the urge was ignored. As much as Simon wanted to dip a hand into a coat for smokes he knew it wasn’t possible. He tossed them into a nearby trash can before coming in. Honestly, he knew they weren’t needed. Their response was psychosomatic mainly. Yeah, they probably affected the blood, but he did wonder if cancer was still an issue. Besides, Renee probably liked to kiss him when he didn’t taste like an ashtray.

Sitting in the place Simone eyed the other patrons. Dressed in all black jeans, a black vest of leather and a red three-quarter length coat his eyes continued their assessments. Honestly, no one bugged him or put him more on edge than he was. Deep down Simon knew that was probably a bad assessment.

Right now he just had too much on his mind to care. Renee said this meeting with Jesse “has to happen!” She put such an emphasis on it that Simon believed it would have been far worse than being demoted to the couch. So, he had gone through the various channels to let Jesse know whenever they wanted to cross paths at the man’s bar.

Now, he was waiting for Jesse to show up. Maybe if this meeting was going to go well then they could have talked tattoos. Simon was overdue for some. Renee and him agreed on getting pseudo matching tattoos. Well, they didn’t match but they were dedications to one another without getting the dreaded name tattoo. The second to last thing Simon wanted was to get “Renee” tattooed on his neck then pay for surgery to get it and then get a bad cover up tattoo to make it go away. The last thing, for the record, was divorcing Renee. That was the last thing he wanted. So, if the first didn’t happen then the second was no worry. Ever. Even if she wanted to put her name on him someone. He wouldn’t have argued after a few years because to him it would have been like a more adult way of licking something to say it was yours. Renee was simply permanently licking him.

Standing up the man took off his coat. There was no shirt The man looked like he was doing his best Warriors impression, but went for bleak colors instead of their punk-cowboy or punk-indian feel while taking on the other boppers in the subways. Sitting back down he placed his feet up on his side of the table.

To counter the nervousness inside him the man sat like he owned the place. After a few moments he began to sing a song by Seventh Void,

“Heard you death - defy your eyes. Saw you crawl inside the blind. Know you left this world. To find your heaven is gone. Your heaveeeenn is gonnne. Yeah, Heavveeen is gonnne. Once you leave this world to find your heaven is goonnnneee.”

The man was singing words to darker or slower songs he avoided performing. That didn’t mean the guy wasn’t a fan. However, they had a niche crowd. An incredible and wonderful one, but regular folk on the street didn’t want to hear good depressing music. As a performer like this he had to think of what song lineups would have lined his pockets up and not personal preferences.

He continued to sing the song. His eyes went around. Honestly, Jesse was worried about this meeting. He didn’t do too well with Lisa’s husband. At the time there were feuds with his family and hers. Simon was a loud mouth. Everything imploded. Then there was Doc, a man that jumped to a lot of conclusions. So, there was a lot of apprehension from Simon.

Tonight, there wasn’t going to be a “No.” Simon could have been ejected from this place a thousand times, die ten times as much and he still would have marched to the door wanting to get Jesse’s blessing. He didn’t have to like Simon, though it would have been nice and something wanted, but there was a difference between need and want. His blessing was needed. Liking Simon would have been adding ice cream to his cake. The cake was still wonderful and wanted, desire, but the ice cream would have made it that much sweeter.

Hopefully things were going to go okay tonight.

[Jesse Fforde]

Gresse’s wasn’t as busy as Jesse would have liked; when he’d summoned the idea out of his brain he had had grand plans. The Handle Bar was just down the road; it was the place where his family liked to hang out. His, and Andras. But the Handle Bar was known as anti-Masquerade, and that was not something that Jesse was cool with. It rubbed him the wrong way, that so many of his kind liked to go there. It rubbed him the wrong way when Clover called the Handle Bar a kind of home. Gresse’s was created not just as a place where he and Grey could work side by side, but a place he hoped that the family would use as a watering hole. Somewhere to hang that wasn’t a house or an apartment; somewhere public to be social, and to meet people.

The plan had failed. Massively. Jesse hardly saw any family at Gresse’s at all. Ever. But, it was still a legitimate business and, despite it not growing into what he’d hoped it would be, it still had its customers. And it still required someone to run it.

The last couple of weeks had been mostly uneventful, since he and Grey had returned from Virginia. Aside from the random curses that Jesse received from some anonymous coward, there’d been no woes. No upsets. No arguments or insults. Unless one counted the argument with Kaelyn the night before, which had unsettled Jesse in more ways than one. But he would work to remedy the situation, and would hope that her words didn’t form a knife that would be used later, to stab himself over and over with.

That was one situation he kind of wanted to ignore, though he knew he couldn’t. Kaelyn couldn’t just find someone to make her happy. She had to find someone to make her happy who threw everything into chaos. Though, no chaos had erupted just yet. That would be up to Jesse.

The roar of the bike cut out as Jesse parked it against the curb in the reserved space out front of the establishment. He walked into the bar clutching the black helmet with its silver skull painted on the back; his boots thunked against the parquet floor, black leather jacket hugging his shoulders, his jeans a dark denim. He pushed the opposite hand through his hair, to free it from the helmet shape it had adopted.

He checked in with Nancy, who manned the bar for him. She handed him the mail, and told him about the day that had just passed. Caught up on the important details, Jesse nodded and turned, making his way toward the tattoo studio, where he spent the majority of his time when at Gresse’s. On his way, he passed by Simon, who’d made himself at home in one of the booths. Jesse glanced over his shoulder, wondering where Renee was, if she was around somewhere. He’d never seen Simon in here before. It was kind of strange. Maybe he was meeting someone.

Jesse nodded to the guy, before walking through the double glass doors that led to the parlour, where he put away his helmet, took off his jacket, and settled at his desk to peruse the appointments he might have for the night, if any.

[Simon Ward]

A nod was shot back to Jesse. Simon loved the roar of that bike. He wondered whether he should have gone with a motorcycle or a car. His eyes went to the man before rising from the booth. "I need to talk you about Renee," the words were firm as he approached.

Both eyes looked at the man who was a little intimidating, "Renee wants to be led down the isle by you. I want you to get to know me so you don't think I'm as big of an asshole as some people say. Maybe if you like me enough you can teach me how to ride a bike so I don't fly off it looking like a complete yutz," Simon just laid it all out for the man that was Renee's father. That was all he was here to do. Time was against him, but the man was going to try and sway Jesse.