ArchivedLogs:Is This Your Card?

Is This Your Card?
Dramatis Personae Joe, Micah, Hanna	27 October 2013 Tompkins Square Park is magic!
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It's cold out, just after sundown in the East Village, but Joe is out here hustling all the same. He's in jeans, a ratty looking black pea coat, and his greasy hair is held down under a black knit cap. His voice carries fairly well across the park as he makes his patter, calling out about his little magic show. A small black case, maybe big enough to hold a ukelele, sits open in front of his little table, with just a few lonely dollar bills tumbling around inside. The one thing Joe seems to be missing is a pair of gloves, and he flexes his hands in the cold, looking like he needs some. Nonetheless, he smiles a yellowed smile at the handful of people gathered around to see his next trick. It looks like he's working on a set of card tricks at the moment. "Step right up, step right up! See the mind-bending feats of the Stupendous Zerah, up close and personal! Beat the trick: win twenty bucks!" It may be cold, but it is about time for getting poor Obie out of his overcrowded house to stretch his little beagle legs. Micah has come armed with cold-weather gear in the form of an olive green canvas jacket, green-grey-black striped fingerless gloves, and a green-brown newsboy cap covering his head. His auburn hair peeks out from under the cap at mussed angles. Obie's leash is in one hand as he leads the pup across the street and into the park, the dog dancing an excited 'Oh boy, outside!' dance at his side. He strolls casually around the park proper before the planned trip over to the fenced-in dog park for a game of fetch. Though not looking to beat any trick, his attention is drawn by the magician's voice to direct his wandering closer to the table. Hanna and Jayna make their way back from the bakery in the growing darkness, the two women linked arm in arm as they stroll through the pathways of the park towards home. Heads bent together in conversation, they seem to make an odd pair, though light laughter and chatter can be heard at their approach. Hanna is dressed in a vintage wool peacoat in a brilliant peacock blue, the ruffled green crinoline of her dress peaking out from beneath the hem of the coat, paired with a brilliant yellow felt hat with coordinating gloves, tiny flowers with button centers appliqued into the material. Jayna, on the other hand, is wearing just a light denim coat over a dark brown sundress that compliments her earthy skin-tone and brilliant green eyes, a floppy knit hat in a fluffy pink yarn covering her head. Both women carry reusable shopping bags over their unoccupied arms - Jayna's with greenery and a baguette peeking from the top, while Hanna's is weighed down with the standard pastry box she seems to bring home each night. Hanna perks up at the sight of the crowd, coffee-brown eyes looking around for trouble before directing their path towards the gathered crowd and the 'magician' at the center of it all. A skeptical look crosses Hanna's face as she watches from a safe distance, her arm still safely linked through Jayna's. "Don't believe in magic? /I/ can change your mind," Joe says. His 'crowd' is just a half-dozen people or so, plus Micah and Hanna and Jayna, so it isn't too difficult to make brief eye contact with the newcomers as they draw closer. His question even seems to be directed right at Hanna and her dubious expression, before his eyes dart back to the kids in front of him. "Come on, kids," his voice is ratty too, and a little worn out, but with the energy of the truly desperate, singing for his supper. "Kids play free. Can you find the bleeder?" In a flourish of shuffled cards, faster than the average eye would be able to see, three aces land face up on the table, the heart, flanked by the spade and club. Joe taps the Ace of Hearts when he mentions 'the bleeder'. He sets the deck down on the table, and flips the three aces over before sliding them around on the table. His movements are fluid, and graceful, but his voice and manner make it pretty clear why he'd never make it professionally. Who'd want Smeagol reading their fortunes for them? After a moment of sliding cards around, the average observer may very well have lost track of the Ace of Hearts. However, when Joe gestures for the neighborhood tween at the table to pick one, the kid turns over the right card, and Joe's face cracks into an ugly smile. It's not sinister or anything, but this guy has all the curb appeal of a toad. "Hey, nice job kid! Now, who's next, huh? Five bucks, folks, and if you get it right, you get twenty. Who's in, now, hey? Who's in?" Obie notices Hanna and Jayna before Micah does, tugging a little at his leash in their direction and whining to be allowed closer. Attending to the dog's behaviour, Micah looks the women's way and breaks into a broad smile as he leads Obie over to them. “Hanna, Jayna! Good t'see you! How've y'been?” he greets brightly. Obie's greeting has more to do with supersonic-speed tail wagging and curious sniffing in the direction of shopping bags that smell like /food/. Micah looks up when the boy selects his card and finds the correct one, giving the appropriate light smattering of applause at the kid's success. Hanna looks around at the sound of the whining puppy, smiling brightly as Obie and the attached Micah head towards them, chuckling lightly. "Doing about as well as can be expected, I suppose," Hanna answers with a shrug, smiling easily, "How've you been? Roof seems 'ta be a busy place now-a-days. Wasn't expecting this many parties given the blasted cold weather." She shivers demonstratively at that, her eyes twinkling faintly in the dying light. Glancing towards the magician when her belief is questioned, her lips tighten into a slim, somewhat disapproving line, and she sighs faintly, a puff of vapor billowing into the chill air. "Lucky guess," she mutters under her breath with a raised eyebrow. Jayna offers a nod of greeting to Micah, before crouching down to rumple Obie's ears with a light laugh, setting her bag of groceries safely behind her and out of his reach. She seems to be mostly ignoring the busker, attention held by the excited puppy. She raises one brow - entirely bald of hair or foliage - at the kid's success and Hanna's disapproval, glancing toward Micah and shrugging, before standing and turning her attention back to the card tricks with a bemused, but guarded, expression. "Tough crowd, ok. Five for twenty is too juicy, that's ok folks! How about one's and fives, instead?" Joe claps his hands together and rubs them vigorously to warm up. He glances around the little crowd, raises his eyes for a brief moment to the perimeter of the park - checking for cops, perhaps? "That's /five/ times the investment, that's right, and even easier to get in." He shakes a head and waves his hand dismissively as the first kid fishes a dollar bill out of his pocket, starting to hand it to Joe. "Nah, but thanks. I said kids don't pay." He winks a yellowy eye at the boy. "How about /you/ miss? How about I guess your job? If I'm right, you're in for a buck. And if you pick the right card, you /still/ get the fiver. Whaddya say?" The boy and his friend turn and look at Jayna hopefully, since the other adults don't seem to be interested. Micah smiles sheepishly at Hanna's mention of the roof. His reply is quiet. “Oh, yeah, sorry. It's not so much parties as havin' a lot of folks around. Jax'n the others've been helpin' out people of...special abilities,” he says this last with a hint of air-quotes in his tone, “as don't have homes. S'a thing they do from time to time. Should be the extra people'll trickle out t'find their own things once they've had a chance to get their paperwork in order an' talk t'social workers or whatever. They just don't have no other places t'go that'll help 'em, usually.” Obie has decided that Jayna is the Best. Person. Ever. He puts on the happiest of dog-faces, nuzzling into her ear-pettings. Micah's attention turns back to Jayna as Joe speaks to her, interested to see her response. Hanna looks mildly surprised at the apology, but smiles, "No worries, dear. No worries at all. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Just was a bit confused, is all." Her easy smile and relaxed posture tense when Joe addresses Jayna, and the baker's eyes slide slowly over the small group to rest on the busker with barely masked disapproval on her features. Arms crossed over her ample chest, she looks to Jayna with concern, before regarding Joe with distrust. Jayna snorts and shakes her head, taking a half-step closer to Hanna when she is addressed, "Sir, I do not gamble. My apologies, but even if you guess correctly, I won't indulge." She links arms with Hanna again, shivering faintly as she does, her leaf green eyes looking over the cards and not willing to meet the eyes of the likely disappointed group of onlookers. Joe picks up his deck of cards and fans the cards in an arc through the air over his head to land in his other hand. He goes through the motions of rolling his neck and shoulders theatrically, and then /actually/ rolls up the sleeves of his pea coat. "It's just for fun, folks. Just for fun. Who'd like to pick a card? It's a regular old deck. Here's the wrapper, and the receipt from 7-11 across the street there. Young guy right here watched me open it, not /fifteen/ minutes ago, didn't you?" Joe prattles on, letting various people inspect the cards, and each time he gets them back, he does a different showy shuffle. He finally comes back around to his 'pick a card' bit again, giving Jayna a wink, but if she's still not interested, he'll offer the deck to someone else. Micah shrugs and grins a lopsided grin at Hanna's reply. “Oh, I know. I just feel bad for the other folks in the buildin', gettin' this sudden influx of temporary new neighbours without warnin'. S'gotta be a little bothersome sometimes.” Since the crowd is small enough for Obie not to be overwhelmed around it and the magician has moved on from the game-of-chance portion of his act, Micah steps forward to offer his services as a person with fingers for card-pulling. If the deck is fanned out for him, he grabs a card from somewhere around the middle of the spread. "Only reason I noticed was because the roof door is so close to ours. Hard ta miss that," Hanna says with a light chuckle and a shrug. Hanna still seems intent on keeping her distance from the busker, barely nodding in response to the flourishy bow. The typically exuberant young woman is tight lipped and quiet at this point, merely observing the next card trick with a discerning eye. She squeezes Jayna's arm briefly when the other woman links arms again, offering her companion an apologetic glance, muttering softly under her breath, "Sorry, love. Had enough of cons when I was all the way back home. Preyed on the tourists in the area. Old prejudices dye hard." She shakes her head with a sigh, watching Micah curiously when he steps forward. Jayna offers a small squeeze in return, resting her head briefly against Hanna's shoulder while watching the card trick in progress. The dryad, however, does return Joe's bow with a flourished curtsey, a polite smile on his lips. "It's alright, Hanna. Been there, done that," she whispers in response, applauding politely at the impressive shuffling moves. Joe does indeed fan the cards for Micah, giving him a genuinely grateful smile, so frank as to almost break the magician's 'character'. The show gains some momentum! Joe sets the deck down on the table and turns his back to Micah and the crowd. "Thanks buddy, now if you would, just slip that back in the deck wherever you like, give it a shuffle, and let me know when I can turn around." When he's given the 'ok', Joe turns back and smiles for the crowd. He certainly couldn't have /heard/ what Hanna and Jayna were talking about, but his expression flashes apologetic when he catches Hanna's expression. It's only a moment though. Then he's back to the show. Looking down at the cards, he squints and frowns in mock-puzzlement. He gives Micah a look of faux distrust. "Good sir, to my expert eye, that looks like fifty-/one/ cards..." Joe picks up the deck and pretends to weigh it in his hand. "Oh yeah, definitely light by one." His act is obvious to the adults of course, though some of the younger ones seem taken in by the act. "My friend, maybe you hung on to the card? For some fun, right?" Joe squints one eye in a comical image of scrutiny, and nods, holding a hand up in front of Micah, passing it from top to bottom until it comes to a rest in front of Micah's pocket. "Ah, popped it into the wallet, huh? Could you take a look for me, please? Just in case it went astray?" The magician's smile earns one in kind from Micah, warm and quick to come to his lips. He withdraws a ten of hearts, glances at it to ascertain the suit and number, then slides it back into the deck right of centre. He nods when told to shuffle, scooping the cards up and giving them three quick riffle shuffles before setting the neatly-squared deck back on the table. He plays along with the act, eyebrows raising at the claim of a missing card and actually looking around the ground at his feet, under the table, at /Obie/ as if he plans to locate it there. “If that's where it found itself, s'gonna be a lonely card,” he jokes, reaching into his pocket to pull out a wallet that has been crafted entirely of shiny silver duct tape. It does look to be on the light side. Obligingly, Micah opens the wallet to search for any stray tens of hearts that might be there. Hanna and Jayna watch from a safe distance, arms still linked. There's a little bit of a skeptical eyebrow raise from Hanna at the apparently absent card, glancing between Micah and the cards. The look on her face is one of fairly ingenuine surprise as Micah's wallet is indicated. There might even be a slight roll of her dark brown eyes. Jayna responds with a gasp of shock, looking around the ground to see if she can spot the missing card with a cheery grin. Joe grins and clucks when he spies the rounded white corner of the card in question. He points, well away from actually touching Micah's wallet himself. "Ah, there we go, yes? Is that your card?" He grins, waiting for Micah to show the card, and takes a deep bow once he does. Micah plucks the indicated card from his wallet with a soft “Hm,” holding it up for Joe to see. “Actually, I think it's prob'ly /your/ card,” he corrects with a chuckle, passing the ten of hearts back over to the magician. He tucks the wallet back away, fishing around in another pocket for a few coins that he can add to the case on the table. Micah applauds lightly as Joe bows, then delivers the coins with a clatter amongst the few stray bills in the case before taking a few steps back. Hanna's skeptical expression is traded for one of genuine surprise when Micah produces the card from his wallet. Reluctantly, she applauds, arm still linked through Jayna's. "Huh," she says quietly, still watching the interactions. Jayna is a bit more active in her clapping, a broad smile on her face as she almost bounces in place beside the older woman, "That was rather impressive. Wonder how he does it." She muses quietly, looking over to Micah when he steps back, a curious look directed towards him, as if he'd know better. A familiar, high-toned 'bwoop-WOOP' noise signals a police cruiser coming around the far side of the park. He doesn't seem to be in a /huge/ hurry, but the siren definitely gets Joe's attention. He covers quickly with a broad smile, and gracious bow to Micah's coins. "Thank you kindly, sir! But it's probably time for me to make it home. The independent businessman is not /always/ appreciated, from time to time." In another practiced flourish, Joe has everything packed up in seconds, and his little case tucked under one arm, because the handle is broken off of it. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Thank you very much!" And Joe makes his way toward a cab parked on the corner with no one in it. He tosses his case into the passenger seat, and hops into the driver seat before pulling away smoothly. The whole exit taking less than a minute.