ArchivedLogs:Donations and Advice

Donations and Advice
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Melinda	2013-02-19 '
Location <NYC> 303 {Holland} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late bright coloured sealife has made its way into being painted on the wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Jackson's apartment is bright. Very bright! Sunlight streams in through the windows, but despite this he has a pair of sun/lamps/ also on in a wanton excess of electricity. Currently, his living room is kind of overflowing with food. Lots of bakery goods -- breads and bagels and cookies and pastries. A number of fresh vegetables, only slightly wilted. A lot of packaged food, all fine though most of their packaging has been dinged and dented. It's kind of a feast of supermarket refuse, and is taking up the majority of space on floor and table and even the couch. Somewhere in the center of all this, Jackson is sitting, squinting at the expiration date on a half-gallon of orange juice. His skirt, long and flowy in maroon and yellow, pools on the floor around him; it has a few packages of cookies sitting on it, too. The rest of his attire is bland, plain black tank top that leaves his tattoos mostly bared. Obie is nearby, poking his nose at the piles of food and occasionally getting shoo'd away by Jackson, though it is never long before he returns to investigate further. Melinda appears downstairs at the appointed time, dressed for work and winter, her red peacoat covering her top, but well used jeans girding her legs and bunching up over the top of her boots. Her nose is perhaps a little more red than normal and she sniffles as she reaches out and pokes the buzzer to Jackson's apartment. Standing dislodges cookies to topple to the ground. Jackson moves over to hit the intercom, his querying, "Mel?" followed soon by the buzzer clicking open when he receives confirmation. He unlocks the front door afterwards. Obie frisks around at his ankles, trailing him back when he goes to the kitchen to put a kettle of water on the stove. "Yep!" Melinda responds cheerfully and lets herself in when the buzzer does its work. She makes her way upstairs quietly, taking the stairs two at a time at first, but slowing down to a slog by the second floor. She's out of breath by the time she reaches the third floor and takes a moment to try and regain it before trying the door handle and letting herself in again. "Hey, Jax," she greets him loudly enough to be heard as she slips out of her winter gear, leaving boots and coat in their proper place. She rubs her hands together to put a little more warmth into them as she rounds the corner of the hallway and looks for the younger man in the kitchen. "Mmmm. Tea." She's wearing a faux baseball shirt, the sleeves are long and light blue while the torso is white. "Looks like a decent haul." "Y'mind lockin' the door up behind you?" Jax calls, as Melinda enters. "And yeah, it was big today. M'neighbor helped drive it all back. I hate cars but man are they sometimes useful. How d'you feel about sencha? Strawberry?" He's peeking in his small tea cabinet thoughtfully. "Oh! Right." Melinda heads back to the entry way and throws the locks, padding back to the kitchen and leaning against the counter top. "Strawberry sounds good." She considers the food for a moment as she slumps her shoulders and closes her eyes. "Cars have their uses. There's just too many of them and too many people driving just themselves around." She rubs at her temples and sniffles. "I hate to ask, but do you have any juice? I'm trying to kill this cold in its infancy with tasty vitamins." "Oh -- oh. Cold. Ugh, that sucks. Yeah, I can -- it's orange-carrot is that okay?" Jackson sets a mug down on the counter, filling it up with hot water, but then goes to peer into the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of juice, waggling it questioningly. "If you're feelin' under the weather, you could just sit and relax yourself a spell. I could package up the extras we ain't gonna cook this week for Helping Hands." "I can work," Melinda replies stubbornly, but with very little in her posture to back that up. She eyes the carton of juice and nods. "Yeah, that's full of the orange vitamins I like so much." She gets up and gets out of her seat and wanders into the living room to look over the food. "So what am I sorting and how? Do we need to get some of this in to the cold again soon?" She gnaws on her lip as she sniffles again and squats down near the mess. "And thanks. Helping Hands can always use the donations." "Yeah, um, fridge things need fridging, I was just checking over everything for expiration dates, they're usually fine but sometimes something slips in that's really too, uh, expired." Jackson pours a glass of juice but then forgets it on the counter as the tea kettle starts whistling. He tends to that, instead, turning the fire off and letting the kettle sit for a moment before pouring it over the tea. Only then does he bring the juice out to Melinda. "We can keep bread and pastries but we can't possibly use /all/ this in a week so the bulk of it we can give away. Maybe just keep the sliced stuff that's easy to give out with soup. Fresh veggies we'll cook. Canned beans we'll use. Moooost of the rest of things is, uh." He eyes the piles of groceries and shrugs. Absently toes at a bottle of capers with a dented cap. "Like. I don't know what we're possibly gonna do with this, you know?" Melinda eyes the capers for a moment and considers, taking the cups from Jackson and setting the tea down for a moment. "Oh, I don't know. I can figure out what to do with capers. Yeah, it might not be a sanctioned use, but damn are they tasty." She gnaws on her lip for a moment, considering. "You sure we can't talk anyone into a fundraiser dinner or something? Ohh. Oh. Maybe I'll throw an impromptu cooking class at the shelter and use capers there! What other super crazy stuff do we have?" "I don't know, there was some, like, beef jerky that was also an /energy/ -- I guess I can't say energy drink. Cuz it's beef jerky. Uh. A bunch of wrappers for sushi? There's just some stuff that doesn't really lend itself to bulk cooking." Jackson goes to plop himself back in the midst of the groceries, starting in on the bread to separate it. Bread, desserts. Usable, not usable. "A cooking class would be kinda awesome. Cooking on a budget. Cooking," Jackson says, picking up a jar of sauerkraut to squint at it, grin, and put it aside, "on leftovers the grocery store didn't want. /I'd/ take that class." "Well, the shelter isn't just about taking people in, but also about trying to help people gain workable skills. Having a few cooking classes under their belts might help them land a food service job better or at least help them take more than just junk food when they do get free groceries." She sighs and kneels down as well, starting to put the oddball stuff into its own pile. "Maybe a pasta puttanesca with the capers, maybe if there's some olives too. Pasta is easy enough to get and really stinking cheap." She considers. "It's just getting people to teach the classes - well, you're welcome to come to one when I get a chance to hold one. Though, with some of these things, I'd have to do it before Friday." "Pasta's cheap and easy to make good," Jackson agrees. He leans over to shove his small pile of bread to one side, and then stands to start gathering the fresh produce, too. "Don't know if we had any olives. Got a whole /case/ of tomato sauce, though. Oh, gosh, your tea." Looking a little alarmed, he finally takes the tea ball out of the mug, letting it drip down into the cup for a moment. "I'm sorry, I probably oversteeped it. Ngh." His hand presses to his eyes, and he hurries back to the kitchen to clean the tea ball out. Knocking over a small pile of bags of pastries and bagels on the way. "Just been one'a those weeks," he is mumbling to himself from the kitchen. "One of those weeks?" Melinda perks up a little, in a very concerned fashion. "What's up, Jax? Need a sounding board for something? I'm a listener." Melinda finishes off her juice and gets to her feet, carrying her empty glass to the kitchen. She watches him, head tilting to the side, sniffle performed quietly. "I don't know," Jackson admits, wryly, scrubbing his fingers against his eye and setting the tea ball in the drying rack. He leans back against the counter, drawing in a deep breath, and then reaches for Melinda's empty glass. "Y'want more?" he is offering, and on the heels of this, "The weekend just started out bad and got worse. I don't think I'm really cut out for --" He bites down on his lip, flushing slightly. "I don't know," he says again, with a quick laugh. "Um, life?" "Well, that's kind of why none of us really do it alone," Melinda offers quietly, moving to lean against the counter next to Jackson, bumping shoulders with him a little. "You should know that I'm here for you, if you need something, okay?" She eyes the glass and shrugs. "Maybe it's you who should sit a spell and relax today." "I don't know what I need." Jackson's nose wrinkles, and for a moment he leans into the touch, shoulder resting up against hers. "It's just -- the kids, you know, I -- don't think I'm cut out for --" He bites down on his lip, looking down towards his socked feet. "Oh, I think I forgot how to relax the day they come into my life." Melinda inhales deeply and lets it out slowly, leaning her head gently against Jackson's. "Yeah, kids are like that. Or so I hear," speaketh the woman who has no children. "They're at school now, right? Don't you get any hours to pause when they aren't home?" She glances at him sideways, studying his posture. "Well, 'tween school and two jobs trying to keep 'em fed --" Jackson starts, but then grins, a little wry and thin. "I mean, it ain't even the money. It's the worry. That don't let up ever. This weekend --" He hesitates, leaning up more against Melinda, his posture kind of slumping. "I mean, it was like every other weekend. Shane went out with Shelby and got high and brought this guy home and I -- just -- I can't -- how am I supposed to protect them from all the /terrible/ out there if I can't even -- they need an /actual/ parent. I'm just fooling myself." "Wait, what's the difference between you and an /actual/ parent, Jax?" Melinda frowns and wraps an arm around his shoulders, giving him a squeeze. Good thing she's so tall. "You love your kids. You provide them with a safe environment to grow and mature. That seems like exactly what a parent is to me." "But I don't," Jackson says, with a slight shake of his head. "I don't know what I provide, but it's not -- anything safe. A parent would probably -- I don't know, ground him or something for going out high and bringing --" He shudders, slightly, and, quieter, "But I'm not. Their parent. And most of the time I'm just scared if I'm too harsh they'll take /off/ because I'm /not their parent/. I'm just some kid who tried," his mouth twists up here, wry, "being a superhero. But that's not what they need." "I'm not a parent," Melinda begins, rubbing Jackson's shoulder a little, "but you have to have rules and you have to stick to them, especially when it comes to illegal things. I keep coming back to the shelter's rules when I think about your situation. You have teenagers. They are practically adults. Homeless adults. They are going to push every rule you have to figure out what those mean, but if they and respect you, they will accept your guidance." "S'a big if," Jackson says, quiet, his eye squeezing shut. There's a moment longer when he leans into Melinda, starting to ease, just slightly, at the rubbing, but then abruptly he straightens, with a quick smile. "Aright. We got like seven hundred tons of groceries to get to. We should --" His hand spreads out, indicating the living room and its bounty. "Yes. Let's get back to work before we relax, eh? but we have to relax some today, okay?" Mel gives Jax a look. "I've got work after this," Jackson says, sheepishly. "But I'll think real hard about relaxing, 'kay?" He's refilling the juice to pass it back to Melinda before he drifts back out to the living room. Work calls.