2014.01.02 - Identity Crisis, Volume 5

Old Gotham's got one- just one- thing going for it. The dive bars. The hipsters from Metropolis have been coming here in small packs to check out the bars, where they drink watered down Pabst and glorify the lax smoking laws.

Remy's staked out a table at one of the bars that's actually made an accommodation for the younger patrons. The surly old bar patrons are giving way, and one among then- Remy- is taking advantage of the college students, hustling Texas hold'em at a table in the back.

He must be a bit flush, because he's tilting back in an old wood chair, chewing on a burned-down cigar and arcing cards from one hand to another.

Jane had had a lucky day - an old ATM in an area close to old Gotham had been robbed some hours ago, just when Jane had been close. The thieves obviously overdid it with the explosives a bit, blasting a couple hundred bills through the area as well as themselves down and out for a short time. Jane didn't thought too much about tying up the guys up, but instead just picked up a handful of the money before giving one of the more closer guys a kick into the groin and the other one into the solarplexus to keep them occupied while the sirens pulled in on the scene. Without a look back she had left then, about half a thousand in small, wrinkled bills in her pocket.

About two hours later the woman pulled herself to the side to the same bar Remy le Beau had started his poker scheme in, opening the door to slip in almost quietly. With a short glance over the room she verified to herself, that it was not a cop bar or that the people here had skins and hatchets, then she walked over to the bar, ordering herself a cheap, watered down Chinese import beer called dibbels or dubels or such.

Remy glances minutely at the new arrival, his unearthly scarlet and sable eyes giving the woman a quick once over. He tilts his head to the side with an appraising look as he passes through her peripheral vision, then purses his lips and bobs his eyebrows approvingly as she puts her back to him at the bar.

He gathers his deck of cards up into a hand and makes them disappear up his sleeve, then gathers his scotch on the rocks and saunters to the bar, killing it with a swift gulp.

"Marteen," he says with that heavy Creole accent, stopping next to Jamie. "Refill?" he asks, rattling the ice cubes. He rests his elbows on the bar top, jutting a hip back for balance and watching the bartender pick up the glass to top it off.

Jane turns the head to the side a bit, just enough to give the man a better look out of the corner of her eye but not enough to show she would be interested. In the short glance she notices the odd eyes, turning back to her own glass of something which attempts to be beer but fails. Had the guy some odd eye illness or contacts? Either way he was a tad creepy in his armored clothes, as if to wait for the world to hit the fan. And all she had with herself to protect her own skin were the two tonfas in her messenger bag.

Remy glances at Jane just as her eyes shift away from him. Then back again a second later, and away. After a second of eye tag, Remy leans sideways, looking ahead at the bar. "Y'know, it's kinda creepy t' be starin' at folk in th' bar," he murmurs, his low voice carrying. His tone is light and clearly playful. He makes a dismissive gesture, leaning back an inch away from her. "Jes' an observation, mind," he adds, making a pacifying gesture with both hands, and resuming his nonchalant posture.

Jane glares at her glass for a few seconds as the guy speaks to her first, the fingers clenching on the material till they seem white. Not as planned, not as planned... As he speaks up again her head tilts just enough to allow both eyes to turn to him, keeping their distant look "What you mean, Sir?" she gave back, obviously uneasy about the situation. He got the one almost silent look... that guy must be overly observative.

"You keep lookin' at me," Remy says in an utterly insincere tone of protest. He grins at Jane- an expression that at a minimum puts most people at ease, and with most women, tends to start twitterpations. Despite his glaring scarlet eyes, it gives him an easy, laid-back charm that obviates the bad-boy look with a charmingly rougish expression. "I mean, don' git me wron', ah don' 'bject none. Jes' sayin', some guys'd take it de wrong way."

"I did not stare." Jane answers with a frown, turning back to her glass with the eyes. Did he tried just the bad boy charme trick? Even in Bad Boys that thing backfired to a degree, and Jane is not just not most women, she lacks memories on how to react in such situarions charmingly. The downside of relearning how the world ticks from cinema. What was a clever move? Turn the table. Turning back to him almost instantly she stares right into the odd eyes of Remy, his red reflecting in them, as if they were emty - or bruning inside. "And when you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Nietzsche spoke more true than he knew, because down Jane's mind was not only the barren land of forgotten missing memories, but it was like a deep abyss of them ripped out, full of floating islands that contained bits of movies, concepts and how to do something, all seemingly without connection.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146: He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

"Sure, ok," Remy replies with a tone of complete non-agreement, not backing down from Jane's stare. He grins lopsidedly and matches it inch for inch, perfectly confident in himself and his expression. "You studyin' at college? Don't meet a lotta good-lookin' gals at a dive bar who kin quote philosophy at me," he says in a cajoling tone.

The bartender arrives with a fresh drink and Remy takes a belt almost before it hits the bar top.

Jane does not back away, yet. College? She had no idea, but having read text documents in the Virtual Reality is fast, maybe a tad too fast to count as studying. In the darkness behind her eyes, the islands of what little she knew drifted along unknown paths, as her mind searched for something good to answer. Nietzsche? Goethe. Chanting in a low, almost creepy tune with her voice she gives her reply, the words coming slowly as she rips them out of the tome she found in her mind. "Now I’ve done Philosophy, / I’ve finished Law and Medicine, / sadly even Theology: / Taken fierce pains, from end to end. / Now here I am, a fool for sure! / No wiser than I was before:" Taking a breath, the eyes not braking away for a second she adds in a less dark, but equally dusky low voice "I say thee nay."

From: Goethe’s Faust, Monologue of Dr. Faust.

"Yep, too smart fer me," Remy concedes, letting the philosophy go right over his head. Given his demonic appearance, the irony is apparently lost on him. "s'all right, ah don' mind a bit of poetry. How's that one go?" He scrunches his nose up, considering. "'There once was a man from Nantucket," he begins, with that easy drawl. He frowns. "Don' 'member how de res' of it goes, but it sometin' y'all ain't supposed to repeat 'roun' pretty ladies. Fact," he amends thoughtfully, "ah don' think ah ever heah anyone say de whole lim'rick'. Jes' too dirty t' share."

Jane pulls her neck back to over her shoulders, almost exoecting a snapping sound as it resumed its position. "The point of poetry is failed to those who do not enjoy it, as is philosophy. But the point of a joke is wasted on someone like me who gets haunted by what is not there but sould." What sounds like a dull quote was actually her own work, even containing a hint on her situation.

"Man, woman, you is bringin' me down like a rabbit stuck in a tar pit," Remy mutters, taking another belt of his scotch. "Jes' tryin' t' make small talk, an' y'all quotin' poetry at me. Y'all must have a helluva memory," the Cajun says with a wry tone. He turns to look at the woman, resting his elbow on the bar, and turns that lady-killer grin on her. "But glad t' see my charms're workin'," he adds. "Most gals can' hold a decent conversation if ah start flirtin' with 'em, an' yer jes' quotin' poetry, so ah mus' be doin' sometin' right."

Jane turns her eyes a bit over, then takes a sip of the yellow piss that calls itself beer "Most 'gals' you meet seem to be hydrogen blonde bimbos who couldn't swim in the shit the real life is if their life would be dependent on it. I try my best and I don't see me drowning in the near future." she answers. "And as far the memory goes, it still feels rather empty." Quite empty even after trying to fill the blanks with literature and film and still having ages of artists creations left - there is only so much you can do to replace memories, and even building islands from scratch collected from those can only do so much...

"...Wow." Remy nods once. "Well, reckon ah ain't got much t' say wit' dat," the Cajun states. He eyes his whiskey glass, then shakes his head and takes a deep belt again. "Guess ah'll leave y'all t' yer... uh... 'miseratin'," he says, gesturing vaguely at the woman's posture and drinking. "So have fun, all right? Don't drink too much. ...or, y'know, drink more, ah guess. Whatever," he says, shaking his head. "See ya round." He smiles and offers her a little toast, then heads back to his mock poker table.

With a snort Jane lifts her glass again, emptying it and placing it on the bar. Pulling out a wrinkled ten-dollar bill she eyes over to the poker man again, tucking it under the bar "mine and his." is all she sais as she turns, tucking up her hands in the jacket.