Thomas/Jack

[lieutenantsteward]

It’s fucking cold already. The summer days are warm, but the nights are chilly, and the heater in the truck hasn’t worked for weeks. He had been on the road since damn near two am, determined to make a good impression.. The trailer reminds him of his grandmother’s house from the outside. Weathered, torn - though it probably doesn’t smell like cats. Thomas takes a deep breath, takes off his jacket in the early sun, and throws it back in the truck.

He walks up to the trailer, his boots crunching on the gravel, but doesn’t even get to knock on the door before it swings open. "You must be Thomas," the foreman says, his voice gruff but not unfriendly. Thomas nods, extending his hand. "Yes, sir. Thomas Jopson," he replies, meeting the foreman’s gaze. The standard look of surprise crosses the grizzled man's face and Thomas prepares his answer.

“Mum was British, but lived with my grandmother out here for the last few years. I know my way around a horse and ran her ranch for her.”

That seems to be the right answer. The foreman gestures for Thomas to step inside. The trailer is sparsely furnished, but it doesn’t smell like cats, as Thomas predicted, but stale coffee.

He emerges a few minutes later, peering into the new dust cloud that rises up over the road.

Comments

[jack_f_twist]

This old Ford don't have much in the way left of mileage in her, but Jack coaxes her along, sweet-talking and cursing in equal measure whenever the engine coughs and the bald old tires scatter too much gravel without getting any kind of traction in return. It coasts along those last twenty feet on a breath of fumes and a tight-lipped prayer from the cowboy behind the wheel, then coughs and promptly falls silent.

The door creaks as Jack gets out, worn-down heels of his boots hitting the similarly worn-down dirt of the drive. He hooks his thumbs into the belt loops at his hips, tips his head back to look over the trailer, then turns his attention to the fella who's just come out.

Manners are manners. He thumbs the rim of his beat-up old black Resistol, gives the other guy — 'bout his age, 'bout his build, minus the bull-given bow to his legs — a nod. "Here for the job?"

Course he is. What the hell else would he be doing out here in the ass-end of nowhere?

[lieutenantsteward]

That damn thing's never going to start again, is the first thought Thomas has as he appraises the cowboy that walks out. It's a miracle it made it this far to this side of the damn county. The question gets a simple nod, nothing else is really needed. He's here for the job, he got the job. Someone else can get the other half of it.

And looking at the lack of applicants, it's probably the cowboy.

He leans into his truck, takes out a bottle of water, and waits.

That thing isn't going anywhere without getting jumped.

[jack_f_twist]

He palms his chin — freshly shaved this morning, and there are still a few stinging cuts there that complain at the pass of his rough-callused hand — and nods back before taking the stairs into the trailer two at a time and letting the door bang closed behind him.

The foreman's one he's worked with before; he had this same job last winter, scrabbling for whatever work he could find that would keep a shirt on his back and food in his belly. The man names a price, they haggle a bit, and shake. A few moments later, Jack steps back out of the trailer, fingers digging in the breast pocket of his shirt for the half-crumpled pack of smokes there. He taps one out for himself and sets it between his lips, then holds the pack out to the other fella, the one he supposes he'll be working with, in silent invitation.

[lieutenantsteward]

He reaches out and takes the cigarette with a nod of thanks, taking out a lighter from his own pocket. "You get it?" he mutters, his accent apparent from the first syllable. He doesn't try and hide it anymore, even around these parts when the closest thing they've seen to a European on the television or in movies.

He lights the cigarette and hands over the lighter to him, just in case. He does glance to the car again, more than a little concerned about it.