19150214 08:26:47
CF-N-7600
William Humeski sat attentively in the church pew and listened to the reading of Isaiah, chapter 59. He was glad that he didn't have to attend the Ukranian language service and could actually comprehend the words being spoken. What resonated the strongest in him was the language used towards the end of the reading, where the Lord himself was depicted as becoming a figure of righteousness who would physically bear armor and claim justice. The imagery of the all mighty spirit becoming something of an ancient warrior ignited his imagination. Father Kalovsky then used this reading to tie into his homily, to address the new movie which had been released in the States - The Birth of a Nation.
"And so we see how an article of entertainment aims to surpass and surmount what power which we have just seen the almighty Father alone may claim and invoke. We in this city know the truth about what pains our brothers have endured and from what kind of bondage we have fled, but these blasphemous cowards will now resort to using the novel motion picture as a means to attempt to retroactively change the past as well as substantiate their basis for battles today and tomorrow. They will show these men who don white sheets and commit criminal acts of terror and assault and justify it in the name of righteousness - that it is their right to commit these heinous deeds and continue to subjugate what they deem to be an inferior race. We see the power of this speech reach the highest positions of their government now - we know that Wilson has received the picture. What does this tell you? If I may answer on your behalf, it should tell you that those people all still accept and yearn for an entire society where that history is accepted as the truth and that kind of action is justified. The battlefield may have been laid to rest fifty years ago, but with this kind of action, we see that the war still rages on. You all shall know that none but the Lord may wield power in the name of righteousness. The more this vile picture spreads across that nation and you see criminal acts occur in reaction to its reception, you will know those actions to be that of sinful cowardice."
The speech went on, but William retreated inside his own mind from this point. He contemplated what it truly meant to "wield power in the name of righteousness", and wondered how specific that definition became. From what the Father just read, the Lord made himself a soldier. What then of the actual soldiers who have found against each other in the present day? In thinking of the aforementioned battlefield, didn't both sides of the States' War invoke such power in the name of their cause? Or perhaps to consider something which he has seen and knows of first hand, isn't the duty of a police officer a similar kind of use of power? He felt his eyelids blink as his mind became blank in search of answers to these questions. Rather than come to a determination, he then asked himself - what would it take for him to wield power in the name of righteousness, as those men have done?
The service continued as normal throughout the rest of the hour, and William reflexively followed the customary responses and motions, but still kept that terminal question in his mind the entire time. He couldn't let it go.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
19320909 22:12:48
19320909 22:12:48
MT-N alleyway
Helen found it to be easier to slip out of her bedroom window and leave from the house this time. With tomorrow being Saturday, it would be easier for her to slip back inside in the morning before her parents were awake, or at least check in her room. A primary change in her mission was to find someplace which wasn't a home to sleep outside of for the night. In thinking of nearby businesses, she settled on going to Nooran's Grocery, down off of the corner of MP. As she walked there, she came across the stray black doberman dog which she had seen last time. The dog was laying on its legs but quickly stood up with its tail wagging as she approached. Helen smiled and scratched behind its ears, and the dog panted happily in response. As she walked away, the dog decided to follow.
Within minutes, she was near the rear of the grocery store, and she noticed that it seemed to have a flickering glow coming from there, as if the walls and nearby houses were illuminated by candle light. She soon found out why - once she turned the corner of the nearby building to look over to the loading area of the grocery store, she saw three persons huddled around a fire that was contained in a metal can. They were all standing between her and the fire and started at her intently as she came into view. She judged them to be young teenagers, no more than a few years older than her at most. They were all boys, and the one standing in the middle seemed to fidget with his pants pocket as she stood before them. She didn't notice that it was a switchblade that he was sliding back into his pants. The boy to his right spoke out first.
"Who the hell are you?"
"My name's Helen." She responded with a bit of hesitation about giving her real name, but didn't manage to think of a reason to use a fake one at the moment, nor had a fake name in mind.
"What're you doin here?" This was the boy furthest to the right from her view who spoke now. His body was taller and his voice was deeper than the other one on the left.
"I'm looking for a place to sleep. Somewhere like this. Is that what you're doing here?"
"Probly." The same boy who spoke before said this with a dismissive shrug of the shoulders, then added, "but we're eatin first, and we ain't sharin with you."
"That's fine. I'm uh... I'm not hungry."
"What about your dog?"
"Oh, he's not my dog, he's been following me. I don't know why."
"Awrite, fine." The boy standing in the middle responded after a few seconds of silence. He then pointed to the stairwell. "Lie over there or somethin, sis. And we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone. Got it?"
"Um, OK."
She walked over to the stairwell and sat down on one of the steps to lean her back against the wall. The dog remained seated where she was standing and looked over to her, then to the boys who resumed their positions around the fire in then can; he decided to walk over to Helen and lay near her on a step below. After sitting up for a few minutes and becoming comfortable in the surroundings, she placed her makeshift pillow on the stair and laid fully down. The conversation amongst the boys was a quiet mumble which didn't disturb her descent into sleep.
MT-N alleyway
Helen found it to be easier to slip out of her bedroom window and leave from the house this time. With tomorrow being Saturday, it would be easier for her to slip back inside in the morning before her parents were awake, or at least check in her room. A primary change in her mission was to find someplace which wasn't a home to sleep outside of for the night. In thinking of nearby businesses, she settled on going to Nooran's Grocery, down off of the corner of MP. As she walked there, she came across the stray black doberman dog which she had seen last time. The dog was laying on its legs but quickly stood up with its tail wagging as she approached. Helen smiled and scratched behind its ears, and the dog panted happily in response. As she walked away, the dog decided to follow.
Within minutes, she was near the rear of the grocery store, and she noticed that it seemed to have a flickering glow coming from there, as if the walls and nearby houses were illuminated by candle light. She soon found out why - once she turned the corner of the nearby building to look over to the loading area of the grocery store, she saw three persons huddled around a fire that was contained in a metal can. They were all standing between her and the fire and started at her intently as she came into view. She judged them to be young teenagers, no more than a few years older than her at most. They were all boys, and the one standing in the middle seemed to fidget with his pants pocket as she stood before them. She didn't notice that it was a switchblade that he was sliding back into his pants. The boy to his right spoke out first.
"Who the hell are you?"
"My name's Helen." She responded with a bit of hesitation about giving her real name, but didn't manage to think of a reason to use a fake one at the moment, nor had a fake name in mind.
"What're you doin here?" This was the boy furthest to the right from her view who spoke now. His body was taller and his voice was deeper than the other one on the left.
"I'm looking for a place to sleep. Somewhere like this. Is that what you're doing here?"
"Probly." The same boy who spoke before said this with a dismissive shrug of the shoulders, then added, "but we're eatin first, and we ain't sharin with you."
"That's fine. I'm uh... I'm not hungry."
"What about your dog?"
"Oh, he's not my dog, he's been following me. I don't know why."
"Awrite, fine." The boy standing in the middle responded after a few seconds of silence. He then pointed to the stairwell. "Lie over there or somethin, sis. And we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone. Got it?"
"Um, OK."
She walked over to the stairwell and sat down on one of the steps to lean her back against the wall. The dog remained seated where she was standing and looked over to her, then to the boys who resumed their positions around the fire in then can; he decided to walk over to Helen and lay near her on a step below. After sitting up for a few minutes and becoming comfortable in the surroundings, she placed her makeshift pillow on the stair and laid fully down. The conversation amongst the boys was a quiet mumble which didn't disturb her descent into sleep.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
19320825 21:44:36
MT-N-7316
19320825 21:44:36
Helen Allegra held her right eye fully open as she lay upon her side on the bed, with her brain still fully attentive and unable to be at rest. Tonight's performance from her parents was the standard routine once it began, and more than likely the dialogue (which she didn't bother to eavesdrop upon this time) was similar as well; her Mom would bring up something about money, like grocery money or the water bill or wanting to get new clothes, to which her Dad would respond that their budget is tight and there's not much money to spend. Then the allegations would come about where the money was being spent instead, with her Mom accusing her Dad of spending it on policy or cards (which he did), and him accusing her of hiding money away regardless (which she did). With the denials would come sporadic spikes of yelling, with its frequency and volume increasing through the night as he drank more. Helen never found an adequate remedy to make it go away. If she hid in the closet, sometimes she would end up sleeping in there, which would leave her body cramped up and feeling listless throughout the day. No kind of layering with pillows and blankets over her head could ever mute their arguments. Confronting her parents was out of the question - she tried it one time and that seemed to make the amount or arguing double for that night. She remembers clinging to a stuffed rabbit and crying while cowering under the sheets when she was younger, but it's been years since she became that emotional in response. Now, her senses became numbed and her body prone, and doing this made the sensation of restlessness more aggravated.
Once again, she was tired and unable to rest. Once again, she was trapped.
This night, she decided to change it.
She got up from the bed and carefully walked over to her dresser, deliberately folding the soles of her feet down with each tip toe step in order to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible. She stripped her nightgown off, then pulled a drawer out and grabbed a dress at random. While putting it on, she thought about shoes and remembered that she had at least one pair under her bed. She knelt by the side of the bed, reached underneath and waved her arms around until she brushed against the shoes. They were thrown out the window once she stood by it, then proceeded to hoist herself over the ledge. She carefully wiggled her feet into the shoes while she looked around the backyard. The garage was before her, and the light from the kitchen illuminated a patch of grass in the small yard that was otherwise dark blue. The yelling in the house continued behind her. Her heart raced with realization that she had broken out, but her apprehension remained. Helen kept her back to the house as she stepped to the side of the yard, then she turned to face the house as she walked backwards towards the garage. Nothing was noticed by her parents. Once she reached the garage, she had enough courage to walk to the fence gate and let her self out. The latch was opened and closed very deliberately, and made no sound as she proceeded to the alleyway.
She was free.
As she walked down the alley, she realized that she had no actual plan as far as where to go or what to do, but she wasn't troubled by this. She figured that no matter where she could find a place to nod off for a while, it couldn't be any worse than where she was.
19320825 21:44:36
Helen Allegra held her right eye fully open as she lay upon her side on the bed, with her brain still fully attentive and unable to be at rest. Tonight's performance from her parents was the standard routine once it began, and more than likely the dialogue (which she didn't bother to eavesdrop upon this time) was similar as well; her Mom would bring up something about money, like grocery money or the water bill or wanting to get new clothes, to which her Dad would respond that their budget is tight and there's not much money to spend. Then the allegations would come about where the money was being spent instead, with her Mom accusing her Dad of spending it on policy or cards (which he did), and him accusing her of hiding money away regardless (which she did). With the denials would come sporadic spikes of yelling, with its frequency and volume increasing through the night as he drank more. Helen never found an adequate remedy to make it go away. If she hid in the closet, sometimes she would end up sleeping in there, which would leave her body cramped up and feeling listless throughout the day. No kind of layering with pillows and blankets over her head could ever mute their arguments. Confronting her parents was out of the question - she tried it one time and that seemed to make the amount or arguing double for that night. She remembers clinging to a stuffed rabbit and crying while cowering under the sheets when she was younger, but it's been years since she became that emotional in response. Now, her senses became numbed and her body prone, and doing this made the sensation of restlessness more aggravated.
Once again, she was tired and unable to rest. Once again, she was trapped.
This night, she decided to change it.
She got up from the bed and carefully walked over to her dresser, deliberately folding the soles of her feet down with each tip toe step in order to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible. She stripped her nightgown off, then pulled a drawer out and grabbed a dress at random. While putting it on, she thought about shoes and remembered that she had at least one pair under her bed. She knelt by the side of the bed, reached underneath and waved her arms around until she brushed against the shoes. They were thrown out the window once she stood by it, then proceeded to hoist herself over the ledge. She carefully wiggled her feet into the shoes while she looked around the backyard. The garage was before her, and the light from the kitchen illuminated a patch of grass in the small yard that was otherwise dark blue. The yelling in the house continued behind her. Her heart raced with realization that she had broken out, but her apprehension remained. Helen kept her back to the house as she stepped to the side of the yard, then she turned to face the house as she walked backwards towards the garage. Nothing was noticed by her parents. Once she reached the garage, she had enough courage to walk to the fence gate and let her self out. The latch was opened and closed very deliberately, and made no sound as she proceeded to the alleyway.
She was free.
As she walked down the alley, she realized that she had no actual plan as far as where to go or what to do, but she wasn't troubled by this. She figured that no matter where she could find a place to nod off for a while, it couldn't be any worse than where she was.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
18810408 15:38:11
MK-S-4798
18810408 15:38:11
Richard's grin spread widely across his face as he watched his father wring the white powder over his dark hands. However, he didn't keep his gaze on the hands for long, and let his eyes dart around the room to drink the scenery into his body - the mere act of being in the room was excitement enough. As he looked across the room and saw pictures of people he didn't recognize, and books with no words on their spines filling the shelves in the cases, he gently rocked his body back and forth as both of his hands clung to the stick. Carbondale spoke up and quickly snapped him out of his state of entrancement.
"So's we gonna play pool, we need to set it up. First word we usin today is gentle. Gentle. Pool gets mean when you make it mean. Keep it gentle. Now, gently, lean that stick on the side there and set it up. That green table is like a baby's bottom. Treat it gently. Get the triangle up there and get the balls up there."
Richard dutifully followed the order and got the cedar triangle placed on the table's surface before making a lap around the rails to pull the balls from each pocket. He held his arm over the table to collect them all in one trip and brought them over to the side where the triangle rested.
"Awright. Now, you got two kinda balls there. Some's full color, some's got a stripe of color on there. That's solids and stripes. OK, now, put em all in there, any old way. We'll switch it up right after that." He watched Richard stack the balls into the frame and nodded as it slowly filled.
"Good. Now, find that yellow solid ball. It's the one ball. There in the back, you see it? Yep, now, change that with the very top, flip them around. Good. Now um, yeah, now you wanna find the eight ball. It's black. There on the side, yeah that. Put that right behind the one, in the next row. Flip it with that purple one. Yeah. Good. And... yep, that's how you want those corners, see it there? You got one solid and one stripe. Can't be the same on those corners. OK now push it all up really tight. Put your hands over it and push up with your thumbs. Oh yeah, yeah, and roll it so that the yellow ball is over that dot in the middle there. Yep. Yep. Push it again. Yep. Good. Now do it uh, um - what's the word we usin here?"
"Gentle?"
"Sright, gentle, cus this is a gentleman's game, right? Now, gently lift that triangle up and put it under the table."
Carbondale lined the cue up on the table and watched Richard lean down to put the triangle away and return upright.
"Now, before we get into the rules and start playin there's two basic things to know here. One, there's only a few times where you want to snap the shot really hard. This is one of them. This is the first shot - this is the break. Like this." Carbondale pulled the stick over his bridge and let the stick glide in two pumps before he pulled back, held the stick back for a brief moment, then snapped it forward. The break was pretty clean and shown the packing to have been pretty good. No balls sank from the strike.
"And number two. And this is most of the time with pool here. Most of the time, you don't want to shoot as hard as you can. Most of the time, you just want to shoot it just enough. Just enough. You want to use something the say is finesse with your shots. Like this."
He lined up a shot for the three ball which rested immediately next to the corner pocket. A soft tap sent the cue rolling over the click against the red ball and deflected it directly into the pocket.
"That's a key here. You just want to give it exactly enough. Not too much. Not too little. Enough."
18810408 15:38:11
Richard's grin spread widely across his face as he watched his father wring the white powder over his dark hands. However, he didn't keep his gaze on the hands for long, and let his eyes dart around the room to drink the scenery into his body - the mere act of being in the room was excitement enough. As he looked across the room and saw pictures of people he didn't recognize, and books with no words on their spines filling the shelves in the cases, he gently rocked his body back and forth as both of his hands clung to the stick. Carbondale spoke up and quickly snapped him out of his state of entrancement.
"So's we gonna play pool, we need to set it up. First word we usin today is gentle. Gentle. Pool gets mean when you make it mean. Keep it gentle. Now, gently, lean that stick on the side there and set it up. That green table is like a baby's bottom. Treat it gently. Get the triangle up there and get the balls up there."
Richard dutifully followed the order and got the cedar triangle placed on the table's surface before making a lap around the rails to pull the balls from each pocket. He held his arm over the table to collect them all in one trip and brought them over to the side where the triangle rested.
"Awright. Now, you got two kinda balls there. Some's full color, some's got a stripe of color on there. That's solids and stripes. OK, now, put em all in there, any old way. We'll switch it up right after that." He watched Richard stack the balls into the frame and nodded as it slowly filled.
"Good. Now, find that yellow solid ball. It's the one ball. There in the back, you see it? Yep, now, change that with the very top, flip them around. Good. Now um, yeah, now you wanna find the eight ball. It's black. There on the side, yeah that. Put that right behind the one, in the next row. Flip it with that purple one. Yeah. Good. And... yep, that's how you want those corners, see it there? You got one solid and one stripe. Can't be the same on those corners. OK now push it all up really tight. Put your hands over it and push up with your thumbs. Oh yeah, yeah, and roll it so that the yellow ball is over that dot in the middle there. Yep. Yep. Push it again. Yep. Good. Now do it uh, um - what's the word we usin here?"
"Gentle?"
"Sright, gentle, cus this is a gentleman's game, right? Now, gently lift that triangle up and put it under the table."
Carbondale lined the cue up on the table and watched Richard lean down to put the triangle away and return upright.
"Now, before we get into the rules and start playin there's two basic things to know here. One, there's only a few times where you want to snap the shot really hard. This is one of them. This is the first shot - this is the break. Like this." Carbondale pulled the stick over his bridge and let the stick glide in two pumps before he pulled back, held the stick back for a brief moment, then snapped it forward. The break was pretty clean and shown the packing to have been pretty good. No balls sank from the strike.
"And number two. And this is most of the time with pool here. Most of the time, you don't want to shoot as hard as you can. Most of the time, you just want to shoot it just enough. Just enough. You want to use something the say is finesse with your shots. Like this."
He lined up a shot for the three ball which rested immediately next to the corner pocket. A soft tap sent the cue rolling over the click against the red ball and deflected it directly into the pocket.
"That's a key here. You just want to give it exactly enough. Not too much. Not too little. Enough."
Friday, July 26, 2013
19111007 20:24:39
19111007 20:24:39
DK-N-0404X3200
The cue met the mark on the left side on the striped nine, but only with enough force to inch it towards the empty pocket in front of it before coming to a rest on the edge. The cue stopped in a direct line from the ten ball with ten inches between them and two inches to the pocket. David Rothchild grimaced and took a long drag on his cigar while stepping backwards, then holding the glowing tobacco high above the standing ashtray at his side; he snapped his hand down rather than tap it against the tray, which caused as much of the gray dust and some embers to fall to the red plush carpet below.
"Shit, maybe I should have waited to put five hundred down." David was always quick to bemoan his misfortune early on in games like this, which is a reason why Carbondale kept these kinds of interactions to a minimum.
"How many times do I gotta tell you to relax at pool, Roth. Two in the corner." Carbondale's admonishment was detached as he completed his walk around the foot rail and lined up to shoot for the blue two that rested near the same side in the kitchen. It wasn't a great shot, and he'd have to bank against the side to go around the eleven that was directly in the way, but he wanted to clean up as much as he could down there rather than work around more of the stripes that were closer to him. He set his cue over his left knuckles and pulled back in one stroke until the white tip rested upon the hand, then snapped the stick forward. The cue banked around the stripe and hit the targeted two, but with enough force to make it bounce around and back out of the pocket rather than sink.
"See, I'm not even on yet. Night's young."
"Yeah, yeah. So first, I gotta ask - did you get anywhere with Jesus Christ, the Savior?" David peered over the corner by the head string and bobbed his head up and down to see where he could strike next. He debated on going for the eleven again to keep his turn alive but was having difficulty to see where he could go from there. Maybe if it had enough recoil he could scrape on the side of the fourteen against the foot. He called for the corner nine and shot; it sank and the cue rolled further back towards him than it did laterally to the middle of the table, which would make getting the fourteen difficult.
"As it turns out, we did. Just last night in fact. He's taking it."
"Oh! Ha ha, really? Really? Just like that? Oh, that's something. That guy, ha ha. Fourteen, same corner."
"You really think so?" Carbondale smiled and shook his head at the shot. Rothchild's shot struck the fourteen which caused both to repel on a path towards the side rail and away from the pocket. Rothchild continued to laugh when he flipped his hand at the table. He wasn't concerned about the game's outcome as much now. Carbondale lined up at the foot corner and called for the five in the kitchen corner in front. The path was clean and the shot went gently across the table. The five sunk and he had a clear path for his two.
"Yeah, it pretty much went just like you said it would, from what I was told. Seems like all we had to do was make like you were gonna jump and that you'd say he'd stay. Seems he's really got something against you."
"He just doesn't want to compete. He can't help seeing all the money go in and out through his hands without wanting to grab it for himself. He'll figure it out someday. Maybe he will there. I, heh, I wish him the best. With all my heart." They both laughed as Carbondale pointed to the center pocket which lined with the cue and the six to call the shot. It sank.
DK-N-0404X3200
The cue met the mark on the left side on the striped nine, but only with enough force to inch it towards the empty pocket in front of it before coming to a rest on the edge. The cue stopped in a direct line from the ten ball with ten inches between them and two inches to the pocket. David Rothchild grimaced and took a long drag on his cigar while stepping backwards, then holding the glowing tobacco high above the standing ashtray at his side; he snapped his hand down rather than tap it against the tray, which caused as much of the gray dust and some embers to fall to the red plush carpet below.
"Shit, maybe I should have waited to put five hundred down." David was always quick to bemoan his misfortune early on in games like this, which is a reason why Carbondale kept these kinds of interactions to a minimum.
"How many times do I gotta tell you to relax at pool, Roth. Two in the corner." Carbondale's admonishment was detached as he completed his walk around the foot rail and lined up to shoot for the blue two that rested near the same side in the kitchen. It wasn't a great shot, and he'd have to bank against the side to go around the eleven that was directly in the way, but he wanted to clean up as much as he could down there rather than work around more of the stripes that were closer to him. He set his cue over his left knuckles and pulled back in one stroke until the white tip rested upon the hand, then snapped the stick forward. The cue banked around the stripe and hit the targeted two, but with enough force to make it bounce around and back out of the pocket rather than sink.
"See, I'm not even on yet. Night's young."
"Yeah, yeah. So first, I gotta ask - did you get anywhere with Jesus Christ, the Savior?" David peered over the corner by the head string and bobbed his head up and down to see where he could strike next. He debated on going for the eleven again to keep his turn alive but was having difficulty to see where he could go from there. Maybe if it had enough recoil he could scrape on the side of the fourteen against the foot. He called for the corner nine and shot; it sank and the cue rolled further back towards him than it did laterally to the middle of the table, which would make getting the fourteen difficult.
"As it turns out, we did. Just last night in fact. He's taking it."
"Oh! Ha ha, really? Really? Just like that? Oh, that's something. That guy, ha ha. Fourteen, same corner."
"You really think so?" Carbondale smiled and shook his head at the shot. Rothchild's shot struck the fourteen which caused both to repel on a path towards the side rail and away from the pocket. Rothchild continued to laugh when he flipped his hand at the table. He wasn't concerned about the game's outcome as much now. Carbondale lined up at the foot corner and called for the five in the kitchen corner in front. The path was clean and the shot went gently across the table. The five sunk and he had a clear path for his two.
"Yeah, it pretty much went just like you said it would, from what I was told. Seems like all we had to do was make like you were gonna jump and that you'd say he'd stay. Seems he's really got something against you."
"He just doesn't want to compete. He can't help seeing all the money go in and out through his hands without wanting to grab it for himself. He'll figure it out someday. Maybe he will there. I, heh, I wish him the best. With all my heart." They both laughed as Carbondale pointed to the center pocket which lined with the cue and the six to call the shot. It sank.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
19111006 22:17:02
19111006 22:17:02
EQ-S-1818
The ambient noise in the small bar was rapidly increasing, now that the workers of the second shift from the nearby factory were starting to file in. Speech in coarse Germanic and Slavic tongues filled the air. There was some discussion of the work conditions and the need for the Union to ask for a push to change things inside. Others exchanged the latest news about their wives and children. Maroa sat with Daniel Christenson at a table against the wall opposite of the bar, and lazily glanced from one corner of the room to the next to see that the quantity and volume of the other patrons were indeed increasing. It was at this point that he felt ready to get to the point of the meeting and discuss business.
"So, listen Danny, did you hear about the new building being raised over there on G? Pritte wants it to be a full tower for women's fashion. He thinks that getting them all under one roof would help each other out."
"Yeah, I have." Daniel took a long sip from his beer mug to give a moment to phrase his reaction to this news. "The risk that I see of it is that the business will be relying on customers from around here, and these are mostly people who won't have the kind of money to spend on high fashion."
"Oh, of course, of course it won't compete with the shops on C, no. That'd be foolish. But, I don't think that's the goal of this new place. No, I think that they want to get sellers and customers who want something just a bit nicer than the usual stuff that they usually buy, that's all."
"Right. So have you heard anyone that's signed on to the place?"
"Yeah, I've heard a few names, and well, I was wondering if you would want to be considered too."
Daniel's lips pursed tightly shut and his eyebrows pointed downwards in response before he spoke.
"Me? You - me? C'mon now, not me. We have a good deal now. Things are working well. I've put your stock out for years and sales have increased for just as long. You gotta be kiddin. You put me over there, I can't keep prices the same. No new customers will come for that, and the customers I got now will find someone else on C like that asshole Rothchild or whatever."
"Danny, listen, we know that." Maroa's tone and pacing was elongated now. He had to set the pitch. "We know you can't keep the price up, and we're ready to account for that. And you just said why we're asking you - you got the good customer prestige. You move over to this new place, people will see your name and think that there's someone of high class right near by. You'll be the anchor to help the other businesses in there."
Daniel still found himself resistant to the proposal. The prestige and clientele was among the reasons that he even tolerated running the business now. Moving his business to this neighborhood meant that he'd have to deal with more of the kind of people who he saw around him in this bar. Less refined. Poorer. Foreign. But he contemplated a bit more and realized that this was them reaching out to him - this wasn't his idea. If anything, he had a bit of leverage in the proposal. With this in mind, he began to test how much leverage he had.
"Well, look, you said we got to set new rules, so yeah let's say we do that then. Sure, sure." Daniel nodded his head with an air of control of the conversation. "Let's say we set the new share to ten percent."
"No. Ha ha, no. I won't do ten. You're asking from forty to ten. No." Maroa smiled while he shook his head.
"All right, fifteen then."
"Danny, Danny boy." Maroa laughed louder now. "What if I told you that... you said, 'that asshole Rothchild', yeah; what if I told you he'd be willing to move there for thirty."
"Let him. His funeral. Means more business for me too if he goes."
"Maybe that's true, yeah. Maybe that asshole gets more business movin than you get stayin too, though. That's what he thought. Heh, he said you'd dig your heels in. He was right. That asshole was right."
Daniel snorted through flared nostrils. Did Rothchild make him to be that predictable?
"Oh, and on your thought, Danny," Maroa added, "if you do stay, and your business does go up, and your customers do go up, we might need to set a new rate ourselves too. It would only make sense."
"How much would it go up?"
"I don't know. But it would go down if you moved."
Danny audibly grumbled. Maroa calmly took another drink from his beer mug.
"Twenty eight." The last T in the word eight snapped out of Daniel's tongue as he said it.
"Twenty eight? Yes... yes, I think we'd agree to twenty eight. I got you word on this? I'll pass this along?"
"Yeah, yeah, twenty eight. Damn it."
Maroa nodded with a smile. His limit of fifteen was far surpassed.
EQ-S-1818
The ambient noise in the small bar was rapidly increasing, now that the workers of the second shift from the nearby factory were starting to file in. Speech in coarse Germanic and Slavic tongues filled the air. There was some discussion of the work conditions and the need for the Union to ask for a push to change things inside. Others exchanged the latest news about their wives and children. Maroa sat with Daniel Christenson at a table against the wall opposite of the bar, and lazily glanced from one corner of the room to the next to see that the quantity and volume of the other patrons were indeed increasing. It was at this point that he felt ready to get to the point of the meeting and discuss business.
"So, listen Danny, did you hear about the new building being raised over there on G? Pritte wants it to be a full tower for women's fashion. He thinks that getting them all under one roof would help each other out."
"Yeah, I have." Daniel took a long sip from his beer mug to give a moment to phrase his reaction to this news. "The risk that I see of it is that the business will be relying on customers from around here, and these are mostly people who won't have the kind of money to spend on high fashion."
"Oh, of course, of course it won't compete with the shops on C, no. That'd be foolish. But, I don't think that's the goal of this new place. No, I think that they want to get sellers and customers who want something just a bit nicer than the usual stuff that they usually buy, that's all."
"Right. So have you heard anyone that's signed on to the place?"
"Yeah, I've heard a few names, and well, I was wondering if you would want to be considered too."
Daniel's lips pursed tightly shut and his eyebrows pointed downwards in response before he spoke.
"Me? You - me? C'mon now, not me. We have a good deal now. Things are working well. I've put your stock out for years and sales have increased for just as long. You gotta be kiddin. You put me over there, I can't keep prices the same. No new customers will come for that, and the customers I got now will find someone else on C like that asshole Rothchild or whatever."
"Danny, listen, we know that." Maroa's tone and pacing was elongated now. He had to set the pitch. "We know you can't keep the price up, and we're ready to account for that. And you just said why we're asking you - you got the good customer prestige. You move over to this new place, people will see your name and think that there's someone of high class right near by. You'll be the anchor to help the other businesses in there."
Daniel still found himself resistant to the proposal. The prestige and clientele was among the reasons that he even tolerated running the business now. Moving his business to this neighborhood meant that he'd have to deal with more of the kind of people who he saw around him in this bar. Less refined. Poorer. Foreign. But he contemplated a bit more and realized that this was them reaching out to him - this wasn't his idea. If anything, he had a bit of leverage in the proposal. With this in mind, he began to test how much leverage he had.
"Well, look, you said we got to set new rules, so yeah let's say we do that then. Sure, sure." Daniel nodded his head with an air of control of the conversation. "Let's say we set the new share to ten percent."
"No. Ha ha, no. I won't do ten. You're asking from forty to ten. No." Maroa smiled while he shook his head.
"All right, fifteen then."
"Danny, Danny boy." Maroa laughed louder now. "What if I told you that... you said, 'that asshole Rothchild', yeah; what if I told you he'd be willing to move there for thirty."
"Let him. His funeral. Means more business for me too if he goes."
"Maybe that's true, yeah. Maybe that asshole gets more business movin than you get stayin too, though. That's what he thought. Heh, he said you'd dig your heels in. He was right. That asshole was right."
Daniel snorted through flared nostrils. Did Rothchild make him to be that predictable?
"Oh, and on your thought, Danny," Maroa added, "if you do stay, and your business does go up, and your customers do go up, we might need to set a new rate ourselves too. It would only make sense."
"How much would it go up?"
"I don't know. But it would go down if you moved."
Danny audibly grumbled. Maroa calmly took another drink from his beer mug.
"Twenty eight." The last T in the word eight snapped out of Daniel's tongue as he said it.
"Twenty eight? Yes... yes, I think we'd agree to twenty eight. I got you word on this? I'll pass this along?"
"Yeah, yeah, twenty eight. Damn it."
Maroa nodded with a smile. His limit of fifteen was far surpassed.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
GG-S-2400
Hello, I'm sorry it's been so long.
I've had to do my tax work during the tax season as well as come to terms with how much I was willing to let things like games interfere with my life. I've gone through a considerable amount of stagnation in this interim as well as trying to refocus my efforts on finding more gainful employment. As before, I couldn't let something like this take a priority as long as it doesn't pay the bills, so it had to lay on the side.
I cannot make any promises as to how far and frequently in the short term future I can make new entries, but I'm now in the position to make them again. I'm happy to do so.
----------
GG-S-2400
This property was a portion of the farm held by Gerald Holsworth until 1866. At that time, the area which faced the street was requested by Mr. Holsworth to be zoned for residential use, which resulted in the construction of ten single story houses on the site in that year. Half of those houses, those closest to the intersection, were bought out in 1911 to make way for the construction of what is presently known as Warehouse G for the Hanley Company.
The building was originally called the Redcrest Building, with the name decided by Daron Realty magnate Marcel Pritte after he reviewed the proposed design blueprints and set a demand for the decorative shields found on the crown of the building to have its stripes colored red. With that decision in place, the designing team of Elwind and Weiz proposed and were approved by Mr. Pritte to have the trim color match the red color of the shields. The twin thin red lines which are found along the edge of entire front facing of the ten story building are made of brick, which strongly contrasts with the rest of the facing's white marble. These red stripes are also extended horizontally across the building in alternating floors, from the fourth to the tenth, and angle around the center of windows at square angles. The same proportion of stripe edging is held in the ornamental top of the structure, which uses stained glass for the inner coloring. In the Daron Beacon, a column which described the building for its June 12 grand opening stated that the color scheme "gives the otherwise inanimate structure an appearance of vitality, as if there are circulatory arteries which circulate sanguine waters throughout its body". Mr. Pritte wrote a harsh response to this statement, in fear that the imagery associated with that kind of description would deter the intended female customers from shopping at the building. The response was published in a lower corner of the inner pages of the June 14 Beacon.
Mr. Pritte's intended use for this building was a center for women's clothing and personal fashion, and the initial group of lessees reflected his desire. These leaseholders were as follows:
Floors 1 through 4: Mr. Daniel Christenson, jeweler.
Floors 5 and 6: Mr. William Spree, shoemaker.
Floors 7 through 9: Mr. and Mrs. Henry Reynolds, clothing and tailoring.
Floor 10: Mr. Albert Cooley, owner of "Springtime" restaurant.
The Reynolds family bore only one daughter in 1913, Frances, and were a willing party to being bought out by the Hanley Clothing Company in 1934. Mr. William Spree was able to hand his business down to his son-in-law, Michael Foster, who kept the business under the Spree name until he liquidated his business in 1948. The Christenson jewelry store was last held by Daniel's grandson, Paul, who abruptly closed the store in 1971. There are rumors that his withdrawal from the business is related to unpaid gambling debts. Hanley Corporation took the opportunity to obtain the property in its wake, and the restaurant was forced to close soon thereafter.
<!-- cf: met.johnr.313 -->
I've had to do my tax work during the tax season as well as come to terms with how much I was willing to let things like games interfere with my life. I've gone through a considerable amount of stagnation in this interim as well as trying to refocus my efforts on finding more gainful employment. As before, I couldn't let something like this take a priority as long as it doesn't pay the bills, so it had to lay on the side.
I cannot make any promises as to how far and frequently in the short term future I can make new entries, but I'm now in the position to make them again. I'm happy to do so.
----------
GG-S-2400
This property was a portion of the farm held by Gerald Holsworth until 1866. At that time, the area which faced the street was requested by Mr. Holsworth to be zoned for residential use, which resulted in the construction of ten single story houses on the site in that year. Half of those houses, those closest to the intersection, were bought out in 1911 to make way for the construction of what is presently known as Warehouse G for the Hanley Company.
The building was originally called the Redcrest Building, with the name decided by Daron Realty magnate Marcel Pritte after he reviewed the proposed design blueprints and set a demand for the decorative shields found on the crown of the building to have its stripes colored red. With that decision in place, the designing team of Elwind and Weiz proposed and were approved by Mr. Pritte to have the trim color match the red color of the shields. The twin thin red lines which are found along the edge of entire front facing of the ten story building are made of brick, which strongly contrasts with the rest of the facing's white marble. These red stripes are also extended horizontally across the building in alternating floors, from the fourth to the tenth, and angle around the center of windows at square angles. The same proportion of stripe edging is held in the ornamental top of the structure, which uses stained glass for the inner coloring. In the Daron Beacon, a column which described the building for its June 12 grand opening stated that the color scheme "gives the otherwise inanimate structure an appearance of vitality, as if there are circulatory arteries which circulate sanguine waters throughout its body". Mr. Pritte wrote a harsh response to this statement, in fear that the imagery associated with that kind of description would deter the intended female customers from shopping at the building. The response was published in a lower corner of the inner pages of the June 14 Beacon.
Mr. Pritte's intended use for this building was a center for women's clothing and personal fashion, and the initial group of lessees reflected his desire. These leaseholders were as follows:
Floors 1 through 4: Mr. Daniel Christenson, jeweler.
Floors 5 and 6: Mr. William Spree, shoemaker.
Floors 7 through 9: Mr. and Mrs. Henry Reynolds, clothing and tailoring.
Floor 10: Mr. Albert Cooley, owner of "Springtime" restaurant.
The Reynolds family bore only one daughter in 1913, Frances, and were a willing party to being bought out by the Hanley Clothing Company in 1934. Mr. William Spree was able to hand his business down to his son-in-law, Michael Foster, who kept the business under the Spree name until he liquidated his business in 1948. The Christenson jewelry store was last held by Daniel's grandson, Paul, who abruptly closed the store in 1971. There are rumors that his withdrawal from the business is related to unpaid gambling debts. Hanley Corporation took the opportunity to obtain the property in its wake, and the restaurant was forced to close soon thereafter.
<!-- cf: met.johnr.313 -->
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)