God, his arm.

His world boils down the flesh against his shoulder, slow ache of pooling blood, internal. He quotes Ginsberg in his head but he doesn't know any Ginsberg and just repeats, repeats, best minds of my generation, repeats.

I have a dream, Ginsberg says, even if Ginsberg didn't say it because that's the voice in his head that keeps repeating it. I have a dream, the best minds of my generation, merrily merrily merrily.

God, his arm.

Doesn't know what he did to it. Guy was strong. (Gods are stronger.) He's only so bright and when he runs he runs, and he ran.

So now he's here.

God, his arm.

Loves this place, loves this slum shit cheap food (can't afford it, now, but coffee), cheap diner sears. The polyester-packing-grey-beige foam poking him through rips in the vinyl and it pricks his legs. The door chimes when he lets himself in.

God, it's loud.

It's bright in here, and that's good, and he can't help but feel stupid holding his arm and quoting beat poetry in his head, quoting it badly, awful mess of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Alice in Wonderland. He tries to think about what they said about diners but doesn't remember.

The counter is bright and reflects and, yes, he's tired and mostly feeling foolish because he was strong. He tore his arm and he ran, and now he doesn't have anywhere to run to or especially in here because the floor is Slippery When Wet.

God, his arm.

He prays heathen prayers, quick-fast slow haiku and he's wired, and exhausted, and mostly he's foolish. Hurting and waiting and the sign says Please Seat Yourself, so he does.

A cheerful waitress walked up to the table. She was well rounded and dark of skin. She flashed him a well practiced smile. Her name tag read 'Candice'. She placed a menu in front of him.

"Why hello there hon... Can I getcha something. Coffee, tea?" She held a notepad in front of her.

He should know it, really he should and he thinks he does, somewhere in the way-back of his mind that isn't paying attention to him. Scrounges in his pockets. Clubbing clothes. Hurts his arm and he pulls it back, pulls himself back, pressed flat against the booth and staring at a spot on the table.

"How much for coffee, again?"

Asshole question, and he knows this, and god, his arm, and he's just staring at the wall now. Wondering how long he can sit here without buying anything.

Candice smiled. The boy looked messed up, he needed a little cheer. "Coffee is $1.25 hon, free refills if you order a plate of something." She pointed to the menu. "Try the soup, it's always hot and doesn't cost you an arm or a leg hon." She figured that if the boy asked for the price of coffee he probably didn't have very much in the way of money.

((Note - phig has a standing invitation to the board. For the record.))

"Nnngh."

The seat is soft but he wants softer, or harder, and feels like Goldilocks and he's sure Ginsberg said something about that, too, maybe. Somewhere. And he digs through his clothing again, self-weapons check, money check, mourning the quarter. As if a quarter would help.

And he lifts his leg, tight pants shifting, hand digging into his shoe (god, not that hand, no, no) and finds the paper. One dollar. And Cy frowns, and holds it up - bounty of the day, good cheer for all - and meets her eyes, quick-fast, fingering the napkin holder against the side.

"Anything I can get for a dollar?"

Doesn't bother with shame or humility, is just broke and tired and hungry. Hell, he'd be fine with a piece of cheese, now, the smallprint that always says adding cheese to your burger is 48 cents more. Could probably try to find a burger joint, if he really tried, or attempt to go home but really? Really he would pay the $1.00 just to sit here and stare at the ceiling for a while.

Candice had a feeling that this boy didn't have very much money. Luckily there was something that was under a dollar. She really felt sorry for the kid. "I can fetch you a pop? Will that do, hon?" She sighed... She wouldn't get a tip tonight...

Elch. Fructose.

"That'd be great. Thank you."

Smile fades now that it isn't needed and he goes back to toying with the napkin-holder one-handedly. Merrily merrily merrily. His head aches, he realizes. Leans to get the complementary icewater, too cold to drink but nice enough to rest against his skull.

The ache numbs and the rest of him goes back to complaining.

Candice walked away before realizing something, the boy didn't tell her what kind of soda he wanted. She didn't go back to the table though. In her mind when someone doesn't ask for a specific kind any default will do. In this case Coke, she went over to get that.

The door chimed open. Paul pushed his way through with a hard leather briefcase, worn around the edges not with age but overuse. He clutched papers in his other hand, scribbled front and back with data and statistical calculation. God, how he hated the stats...

Only one open booth. The bar was mostly clear, but if those papers were any indication of what he needed to do (they were), he would need a lot more space than that.

He slammed his briefcase into the side of the wall formed by the booths between tables, and the locks gave effortlessly. Pens, folders, a calculator, a few paperbacks, mostly just a hell of a lot of paper, fell to the cheap linoleum floor with a mocking thud and the embarrassing crumple of paper. Paul stares down at the puddle of junk for a few seconds before letting his head roll back, a silent curse hurled upward at whatever God there may be.

With more force than strictly necessary, he threw his briefcase onto the table he wouldn't sit at for another minute and dropped to one knee. He had a headache brewing, and for some reason his arm began to murmur of a bruise. He laughed bitterly; not much else to do.

The occupant of the seat he’d popped his locks against was a teenage boy with a hangover painted on his face. Paul didn’t give him more than a glance or two.

Quick yelp, instinct-reaction and his hand goes to his side like he expects a weapon to be there. The motion hurts, ache-pull, and there's a noise in the back of his throat like a wounded animal.

He doesn't drop the water, just by barely, and edges closer to the corner. He's tired. Cy's tired, exhausted, and jumpy and he's going out of his way not to look at the guy, or Candice, and just stares at the napkin holder like it'll save him any second.

Candice came back with the coke and placed it in front of Cy. "Here you go hon." She smiled as she took the menu from in front of the boy and placed it in front of Paul. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?"

Nonchalant as hell, taking his order like nothing had happened. Deep down, some amusement pulsed, but she had too kind a soul to let it show (not to mention too desparate a need for a paycheck at the end of the week, most likely). Paul scooped another handful of paper, getting a few pens this time, and dumped it on top of the menu resting on his table. He didn't look up at her. "Coffee's fine. Just bring out a pot, if you could."

Candice offered Paul a strange look. "Alright hon but leave me a space to put it or I might mess up your papers."

She went off to fetch the coffee.

Shoulders hunch forward, bone-blades lifting off his spine to become protrusions, clipped wings. Flight or fight, and there's a basket of jams behind the napkin holder. Peach, and blackberry. Little plastic tubs. He knows there's a metaphor in there somewhere, some spiritual deep-right meaning that goes beyond what he knows. But mostly it's just packaged preserves.

He toys with one, with the soda, with the water. With the napkins. Gaining an arsenal of avoidance tools, each less useful than the next. And it's bright, and the carbonation stings his tongue, and he wants to be asleep. But really he wants to know what the guy's writing, doing. Papers. Natural curiosity, and he can see the writing but not the words. Forest for the trees, he thinks, or maybe it's the other way around.

He tucks his arm against his side, pins it there with muscle memory and weighted against the table. Little noises, him or the arm, burnt offerings to the gods doing that last, final plea. Burial dance. He takes another swallow of the soda and it tastes like acid down his throat.

Everything was finally stacked on the table, though any sense of order the briefcase had suggested was totally gone. Nothing seemed to be where it should have been, and Paul was all the more agitated for it. He dug through the papers, muttering to himself, throwing them into vague piles, reorganizing the piles every few seconds after realizing that something had gone horribly wrong.

A lone sheet of paper, brimming with scribbles, had fallen apart from the others, and had evaded Paul's clean-up job. It lied near the hangover kid's feet. Paul, for the moment, didn't notice it was gone.