so how 'bout them Yankees?

[manwithaplan]

Who knew that basketball would become so popular? Steve wouldn't have called it, but as he waits eagerly for the start of baseball season, it seems that recent happenings in college basketball are all anyone can talk about. He could always watch the game in elsewhere, but he appreciates the environment of sports bars, even if he's not too keen on the bar fights that inevitably break out between fans of opposing teams.

It took four beers for Steve to start feeling what can best be described as tingly, and even then, he had no trouble getting to his feet and making his way to the men's room. There were but two urinals, so he had no choice but to stand closer than he'd like to the only other man in the room. There they stood in that special kind of heavy silence that manage to feel uncomfortable without even trying, punctuated by the rhythm of a soft stream and then the too-loud flushing sound. One thing Steve was grateful for: it's automatic now. As awe-inspiring and inventive as modern technology can be, for Steve it's always the little things that most impress.

Finally, when they were both hunched over open faucets, Steve decided break the awkward silence. He caught the other man's reflection in the mirror and asked a question that had been bothering him for a while now. "Hey, you have any idea when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles?"

Comments

[thelongdormantcop]

Though he's never been especially given to self-consciousness, not even Jerry can deny the awkwardness inherent in moments like these. He does his best to ignore that, carrying about his business as usual. It's not like either of them can help the fact that it's a small fucking restroom, or what they have to do there, after all. As such, when he's asked a question while leaning over a sink, it takes him by surprise, his head turning up in the other man's direction.

Almost as surprising, though, is the question itself, one he almost can't make sense of. While it's kind of nice, at least, to know that the speaker must be from the same place he is, not a native of Darrow or some other world like he's been told about, he hasn't heard anything of the sort, and only has one guess as to what he's getting at. "What, the Brooklyn Dodgers?" he asks, brow furrowing. "Sorry, pal, last I heard they were still very much in Brooklyn. And I think I'd know if L.A.'d gotten a baseball team."

[manwithaplan]

"I thought I'd know if Brooklyn lost one," shrugs Steve as he reaches for a paper towel. He's half-done drying his hands when he finds himself going over the fresh image of the man's attire in his mind's eye — crisp, clean, and classic, or what some might call old-fashioned. He stops abruptly and turns back to the man, making an effort not to look as hopeful as he is at the prospect of finally meeting someone else here from around his own time. There is Sybil, true, but while she may come from a similar time, she was born into a world vastly different from his own. Aristocratic Britain couldn't be more different from Great Depression Brooklyn. "Last you heard, you said?" His brow rose. "Mind if I ask when that was?"

[thelongdormantcop]

"Not at all," Jerry says, shoulders lifting in a shrug. It might be a strange conversation to be having with a stranger, but for all of his attempts to adjust to a place so far from his own time, he's never exactly tried to hide it. There wouldn't be any point to it, not when there's so much he still doesn't want to give up. Besides, there's something promising in the question. Apart from Grace, he's yet to meet anyone from even close to the same time he came from. If this man is asking about things that have yet to happen that either of them know of, though, then he thinks he may just have found another. "It was December '49 by my count when I showed up here."

[manwithaplan]

It takes all of one short glance to know with certainty that the man to his side has served. He appears to be in good health, is of the right age and build, and once he knows to look, he can all but read it in the other man's eyes. There are things in this life that cannot be survived without leaving their scars, and fewer still that leave scars deeper than war. Having finished toweling off his hands, he tosses the crumpled towel to the trash, then offers a handshake. "It's was '44 when I left my world," he says. It's more or less true; he doesn't consider the strange world that he was thrust into to be his own, even if he is slowly warming to it. That's a matter of necessity above all else. He adds, "Captain Steven Rogers. Call me Steve."

[thelongdormantcop]

Reaching out to shake the offered hand, Jerry nods once, in clear understanding of what's gone unspoken. He'd have expected as much given the closeness in the time they come from, anyway. Rarely though he talks about the time he spent overseas, there's something almost refreshingly familiar about it. Most of the people here can't really understand any of that. It's something a person would have to live through, he imagines. "Jerry Wooters," he replies, "Sergeant, now, since joining the P.D. It's a pleasure."

[manwithaplan]

"The honor is mine, officer," says Steve. He considered, very briefly, going into law enforcement, but realized almost instantly that just because he had the skills didn't mean that it was the right choice for him. Too many criminals are victims of circumstance, and if he's going to fight a war, he'll need a better reason than law. He doesn't always agree with those who set those laws, after all. There tends to be too much corruption, often at every turn, and though it may not seen so bad in Darrow, he knows better than to trust appearances around here.

Realizing they're still standing before the sinks in the men's room and there's a game about to start, Steve motions toward the door. "Shall we? I hear baseball season begins tonight. It's Rangers versus Houston."

[thelongdormantcop]

"Of all the things for people in a different world to care about," Jerry says with an exhale of a laugh and a crooked grin, nodding after a moment. Strange as it is, he isn't about to complain. If anything, it makes all of this feel a little more normal, as much as a television in a bar could really be considered normal. The way he's always lived, though, is with the knowledge that it's easier to pick his battles, and that's never been so true as here in Darrow. When it yields something that makes sense, he'll deal with what doesn't. Heading towards the door, he adds, "Yeah, sounds great."

[manwithaplan]

Steve isn't quite as surprised by it. A national obsession with sport is something that has stood the test of time, and though he'd obviously rather it be something else that got the honor, he appreciates the comfort of something constant. Besides, as well as he knows that sports are not all that important on a grander scale, he's always been a dedicated baseball fan. "Tell me about it," he says anyway, shrugging as he follows Jerry back out into the bar. "This place seems intent on pretending it's the new, New Jersey or something and I'm not buying it. I know I couldn't leave this city to catch the game live if I wanted to."

[thelongdormantcop]

"No, you'd just hit a wall," Jerry says with a shake of his head, glancing at Steve as he leads the way to the bar. "Or wind up back where you started. Always hard to tell." More so than the differences in times and customs to get used to has been the fact that most of the people here think of things like that as normal. Nearly the entire police department is unfazed by it, and he can't wrap his head around that. It shouldn't make sense. It doesn't, though when it comes down to it, he doesn't mind being stuck here as much as much as some other people he's met seem to. "I'm not even sure they'd be able to tell you where New Jersey is if you asked."

[manwithaplan]

"To look at a map, you'd think we were sitting right on top of it," Steve shakes his head. He had made a point of checking numerous sources, from maps printed in old books at the library to those that came up on a search engine on the computer that had come with his apartment. No matter where he looked, he wasn't able to make sense of what he found. "Of course, you ask some people, they'd say that's not such a terrible loss," he adds, chuckling to himself from the memory of Bucky's expression when his best pal tried to enlist as Steve from Paramus.

[thelongdormantcop]

"You know, I think I've heard that before," Jerry says wit a slight laugh and a crooked grin, shaking his head a little. "Not that we spend a lot of time talking about Jersey out west, but, you know." It's a place where everyone's got a story, nearly the entire goddamned city full of people who came from somewhere else, himself included. In that regard, it's the opposite of Darrow — here, it's more difficult to find someone else who's been transported in the sea of natives. Having done so now is somewhat refreshing, even more so for having come from close to the same time.

[manwithaplan]

Steve laughs. "It's the black sheep of the east coast, that much is true." It would take a hell of a sales pitch to get him to move out to Jersey, even if it did mean getting away from Darrow. Even so, Steve wasn't born with the same deep-seated aversion to the state that afflicted most native New Yorkers and made the lot of them downright hostile toward anyone born south of the Hudson. "Are you from Los Angeles originally?"

[thelongdormantcop]

"Philadelphia, actually," Jerry says, shaking his head. "But I was just a kid when we moved, I can't say I remember it all that well." He certainly doesn't feel the same attachment to it that he does to Los Angeles, inexplicable as that may be. A lot would have been easier if he hadn't cared so much about that whole lousy city. Now, it doesn't make much difference, except he knows Darrow will never serve as a substitute for it. Even that hardly matters, though, when it's got a lot to offer that never would have been possible back there.

[manwithaplan]

"Not a Phillies fan, then, I take it?" Behind the bartender hangs a paper-thin television screen which if compared to the screens of a cinema would only be a slight exaggeration. On it, a wiry older fellow with a surprising voice begins to sing the national anthem and it's all Steve can do not to roll his eyes. Even so, he's not entirely sure the effort is a success. He ought have expected it, he knows, but it still comes as something of a shock.

[thelongdormantcop]

"Nah." Jerry shakes his head, nose wrinkling as the man onscreen starts to sing. "Christ, hearing this here is weird." He honestly isn't sure if the people here mistakenly think this is their own national anthem or if they don't know the significance of it, and either way, it's not something he likes very much. For the most part, he doesn't dwell on it, how little sense so much of this makes, when he's gotten so much out of being here, but that makes him no less puzzled by shit like this. Here in front of them, it's impossible to ignore.

[manwithaplan]

"You don't have to tell me," says Steve, shaking his head. He's glad to hear it acknowledged nevertheless. Decades have come and gone since the song served as a call to arms for him, but hearing it still has as strong an effect on Steve as it ever did. To hear the anthem here feels strange and not the least bit disrespectful. He usually doesn't mind Darrow's mind games on a personal level, but this is different, reducing something of great importance to yet another parlor trick. "Doesn't sit quite right, does it?"

[thelongdormantcop]

"It really doesn't," Jerry says, exhaling slowly. Though he's heard that, for some, this place at least has many of the same characteristics of where they came from, for him, it feels like as different a world as it actually is. To have things so definitively a part of his country having carried over, it's disarming, it rings false. If he didn't know better, he'd think this all some elaborate ruse, except there's no way anyone could have gone quite this far. "More than a lot of the other things that happen here, even."

[manwithaplan]

"I know exactly what you mean." For the most part, Steve tries to take the many strange things that this city throws at him in stride. Until he learns more about what is happening here (and given how many skilled and talented people have come up short, he doubts that he will for some time yet), it seems neither healthy nor productive to approach it all with a bitter attitude. But while he hates to play the humorless grump, in this case, he can't make an exception.

Twisting in his seat, Steve looks around the bar and quickly confirms a troubling suspicion. "And to make matters worse, looks like we're the only two men in here who give a damn."

[thelongdormantcop]

"Of course," Jerry says dryly, scanning the room himself, though it isn't as if he expects to reach a different conclusion. Everyone else, as far as he can tell, seems completely unfazed, and while that isn't a surprise, it's far from a comfort. Just once, he'd like to have it the other way around. "I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand the people from the force who aren't Darrow natives. It never stops being bizarre."