Post by sparrow on Sept 5, 2019 1:53:19 GMT -5
-Lion’s Den NOLA-
-New Orleans, LA-
“So what if...?” Raphael began with a sheet of paper and a pencil down in front of him before he began to draw two stick figures very quickly. It just so happened that Raphael never went by that name if he could help it in this side of his lie.
He’d rather be called Sparrow anyway.
This though? This was private. Very private, hush-hush sort of conversation. At least it seemed so when he pulled out the sheet of paper from his gym bag and the pencil during a workout break. His fingers clenched the No. 2 and he quickly scribbled out a small stick figure with a backwards cap and then besides it, a small stick figure with a ponytail of dreads.
Not unlike the young man scribbling away.
Then came for reasons that were still being worked out, a hot air balloon. It was a very poorly drawn hot air balloon, with the actual carriage added in last minute as a very sad looking square.
“Aight aight, so what if I take she on a hot air balloon ride right? Or better yet, I come to greet her IN the hot air balloon y’see. ‘Cause I saw this thing on Groupon... Ya ever use Groupon? So many deals, yes. Never in my life have I seen so many deal on things that I never know I need until now.”
He then drew binoculars, but why the binoculars were a quarter the size of the hot air balloon in the first place was anyone’s guess.
“Then we could y’know, sightsee in the air or some kinda thing all the way to the place we was gonna meet up. That’s spontaneous right? People like spontaneous right? Or is that too spontaneous cuz I dunno ya know. Just tell me now if this ent the thing to start with. I got a lot of ideas here. There a thing with an aquarium...”
It took all Vivi Robichaud’s self-control to not laugh - she couldn’t break poor Sparrow like that, not when he was so eager to make this date happen. So she listened to him with a smile on her face, her eyes darting between her part time student and the drawing in front of him.
He was already halfway in between erasing the hot air balloon and scribbling a killer whale.
At least it looked like a killer whale. Either there was a spout coming out of its head or that was a pair of very active feet. Regardless he continued on like a kid trying to explain to a parent.
“Aight watch, watch. Instead of ballooning, I take she to the aquarium right? Now ya know people like marine life, ya know they like it. So I take she on the tour and then top it all off? Surprise swimmin in the tank. Wait... But if she cyah swim though I might make she feel embarrassed and that ent no good at all. Okay hol’ on.”
More erasing. The poor sheet of notebook paper might have called someone for assault if not for being an inanimate object. This time the two stick figures were now picnicking. Simple enough.
One would have hoped until he began drawing what was probably supposed to be a giant boat. Unfortunately, it looked more like a half moon with a broke fan attached.
“Weren’t you just concerned about her ability to swim? Perhaps taking her out on a boat isn’t the best idea. The picnic is cute, though.” As she studied the drawing further, she looked up at him with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Are these ideas for what you’re actually going to do on a date, or are these ideas for how you’re going to ask her on a date?”
Despite working in two companies with her, Vivi did not know the object of Sparrow’s affection very well. When not in the ring, she came off as a bit shy and awkward, and tended to keep to herself and her uncle. How Sparrow had managed to get past those defenses was anyone’s guess, though Vivi sensed it had something to do with the fact that it hadn’t been his original intention.
“In either case, though… simple is often best, especially for a first date. Have you considered just asking her?”
He looked back down at the crudely drawn pictures and his own bewilderment crept on his face, Sparrow now beginning to catch up once Vivi actually vocalized a lot of good questions. Why the boat again? He crossed out the boat rather than erasing it and continued to stare at the drawing before glancing back up.
“Both? One or the other? I dunno y’know. She’s really... Nice. I wan’ get to know her. So I dun wanna scare she off or any kinda thing like that.” He noted in an exasperated tone. Sparrow didn’t know much of the men who had come knocking on Gwen’s proverbial door before but he suspected that the less known of some, the better.
“Usually it should be rel easy right? Ya just come to someone and be straightforward. ‘Hey gyal, let we go and lime sometime jus’ me and you’. Let’s go to the beach, let we take a walk down by market, down by High Street. You like cinema? You want we go to the mall? Let we go to the mall quick, quick. Make a nice day of it. This usually ent that hard!”
Sparrow gave Vivi a nervous smile before his eyes sunk back down to the sheet of notebook paper.
“Is it really just fine askin’? When you see someone and think they're, uh, you know special. Unique?”
-————-
-Poor Estelle’s-
-Port Allen, LA-
It used to be called ‘Poor Stella’s Seafood And Cajun Restaurant’.
Somewhere between Raphael being hired on as a sous chef after the new head chef had taken over, it had gone through a rename. He preferred the former to be frank; long name or not. Still, it wasn’t up to Raphael to offer his suggestions on the matter. He was here to see everything that Louis did not. See to it that the assistant chefs did not misuse the mirepoix. Skimping on one ingredient or the next, overuse and underuse. Wasting the ingredients.
Louis hated that over everything else.
That and being argued with. Case in point...
“It’s barbecue shrimp,” Louis muttered with increasing impatience before he wiped his portly jowls with torn paper towel. He balled and tossed it in the trash before he returned to vastly melting butter, drowning tiger prawn shrimp. Alice however was far from convinced.
“That ain’t barbecued shrimp. Don’t look nothing like barbecued shrimp. That’s shrimp being murdered in butter. I’ve been said so.” She whipped her hairnetted blonde hair bun and focused on dicing bell peppers and celery. That was the real mirepoix, according to Louis. Raphael made the point to interject, and let Louis focus on the dish for table seven.
“Yeah gyal. That’s barbecue shrimp. It goes over white rice and people does eat it up all the same, jus’ watch.” Raphael’s gloved fingers reached into a bowl of cubed bread, milk, sugar, eggs, spices and currants soaked in dark rum. Three days minimum. This one was Raphael’s touch. An old trick he learned from his uncle in Couva.
Once more Alice needed to argue. Leave it to the chef from a town a few miles east of Memphis to make such a thing out of what and wasn’t barbecue.
“This ain’t barbecue shrimp, ya’ll. You know what barbecue shrimp is? Barbecue shrimp is done with a cedar plank and served with taters or grits or something. That’s some ol’ bullshit whatever passes for shrimp down here.”
Louis’s face turned red and his eyes flashed in Alice’s direction. She brandished her ladle and dolled out gumbo into a bowl before striding to the other side of the kitchen and smacking the bell. She trayed it quickly next to a similar bowl of white rice.
“Order up, table nine!”
“You’re fired,” Louis grunted. Alice, who heard that something of five times in a week went back to the next order down the list. Raphael, who often heard it around the same frequency piled his bread pudding into a greased tin. He couldn’t forget the sauce. That threat of being fired could easily become real.
“Bread pudding...That’s picnic date worthy right?” He asked as he checked the oven for the third time. Louis seemed thankful that the subject was changed. At least as far as Raphael could tell.
He couldn’t really tell what the difference between Louis looking happy or suffering indigestion looked like. Irregardless of that, Louis answered as he continued to care for his prawns bathing in countless seasoning, garlic and most generously the butter. “Bread pudding’s a date three kinda dish don’t you think, son?”
“Just take the bread pudding on the date,” Alice shrugged. “Don’t listen to Lou, he don’t get out enough to know what the hell he’s talking about.”
“I don’t get out enough? Me?!” Louis jabbed his spoon accusingly at Alice as Raphael rummaged for vanilla bean and the rum he had soaked currants in. “I am a man of the world, little lady. I’ve seen things before settling down, I ought to have you two know. Lots of things.”
“Watch who you call little lady,” Alice snapped back at him.
Back again they went. Raphael however took a minute to find a spare pencil about the kitchen and scribble onto a little piece of notebook paper. Bread pudding would be a welcome dessert. Chicken pelau. Pholourie. Something light? Maybe a slaw?
He turned to face them both.
“Hey wait, what ya think of--?”
He trailed off and watched husband and wife kissing aggressively. Raphael slowly turned back around to his little list.
Slaw would probably be fine.
-New Orleans, LA-
“So what if...?” Raphael began with a sheet of paper and a pencil down in front of him before he began to draw two stick figures very quickly. It just so happened that Raphael never went by that name if he could help it in this side of his lie.
He’d rather be called Sparrow anyway.
This though? This was private. Very private, hush-hush sort of conversation. At least it seemed so when he pulled out the sheet of paper from his gym bag and the pencil during a workout break. His fingers clenched the No. 2 and he quickly scribbled out a small stick figure with a backwards cap and then besides it, a small stick figure with a ponytail of dreads.
Not unlike the young man scribbling away.
Then came for reasons that were still being worked out, a hot air balloon. It was a very poorly drawn hot air balloon, with the actual carriage added in last minute as a very sad looking square.
“Aight aight, so what if I take she on a hot air balloon ride right? Or better yet, I come to greet her IN the hot air balloon y’see. ‘Cause I saw this thing on Groupon... Ya ever use Groupon? So many deals, yes. Never in my life have I seen so many deal on things that I never know I need until now.”
He then drew binoculars, but why the binoculars were a quarter the size of the hot air balloon in the first place was anyone’s guess.
“Then we could y’know, sightsee in the air or some kinda thing all the way to the place we was gonna meet up. That’s spontaneous right? People like spontaneous right? Or is that too spontaneous cuz I dunno ya know. Just tell me now if this ent the thing to start with. I got a lot of ideas here. There a thing with an aquarium...”
It took all Vivi Robichaud’s self-control to not laugh - she couldn’t break poor Sparrow like that, not when he was so eager to make this date happen. So she listened to him with a smile on her face, her eyes darting between her part time student and the drawing in front of him.
He was already halfway in between erasing the hot air balloon and scribbling a killer whale.
At least it looked like a killer whale. Either there was a spout coming out of its head or that was a pair of very active feet. Regardless he continued on like a kid trying to explain to a parent.
“Aight watch, watch. Instead of ballooning, I take she to the aquarium right? Now ya know people like marine life, ya know they like it. So I take she on the tour and then top it all off? Surprise swimmin in the tank. Wait... But if she cyah swim though I might make she feel embarrassed and that ent no good at all. Okay hol’ on.”
More erasing. The poor sheet of notebook paper might have called someone for assault if not for being an inanimate object. This time the two stick figures were now picnicking. Simple enough.
One would have hoped until he began drawing what was probably supposed to be a giant boat. Unfortunately, it looked more like a half moon with a broke fan attached.
“Weren’t you just concerned about her ability to swim? Perhaps taking her out on a boat isn’t the best idea. The picnic is cute, though.” As she studied the drawing further, she looked up at him with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Are these ideas for what you’re actually going to do on a date, or are these ideas for how you’re going to ask her on a date?”
Despite working in two companies with her, Vivi did not know the object of Sparrow’s affection very well. When not in the ring, she came off as a bit shy and awkward, and tended to keep to herself and her uncle. How Sparrow had managed to get past those defenses was anyone’s guess, though Vivi sensed it had something to do with the fact that it hadn’t been his original intention.
“In either case, though… simple is often best, especially for a first date. Have you considered just asking her?”
He looked back down at the crudely drawn pictures and his own bewilderment crept on his face, Sparrow now beginning to catch up once Vivi actually vocalized a lot of good questions. Why the boat again? He crossed out the boat rather than erasing it and continued to stare at the drawing before glancing back up.
“Both? One or the other? I dunno y’know. She’s really... Nice. I wan’ get to know her. So I dun wanna scare she off or any kinda thing like that.” He noted in an exasperated tone. Sparrow didn’t know much of the men who had come knocking on Gwen’s proverbial door before but he suspected that the less known of some, the better.
“Usually it should be rel easy right? Ya just come to someone and be straightforward. ‘Hey gyal, let we go and lime sometime jus’ me and you’. Let’s go to the beach, let we take a walk down by market, down by High Street. You like cinema? You want we go to the mall? Let we go to the mall quick, quick. Make a nice day of it. This usually ent that hard!”
Sparrow gave Vivi a nervous smile before his eyes sunk back down to the sheet of notebook paper.
“Is it really just fine askin’? When you see someone and think they're, uh, you know special. Unique?”
-————-
-Poor Estelle’s-
-Port Allen, LA-
It used to be called ‘Poor Stella’s Seafood And Cajun Restaurant’.
Somewhere between Raphael being hired on as a sous chef after the new head chef had taken over, it had gone through a rename. He preferred the former to be frank; long name or not. Still, it wasn’t up to Raphael to offer his suggestions on the matter. He was here to see everything that Louis did not. See to it that the assistant chefs did not misuse the mirepoix. Skimping on one ingredient or the next, overuse and underuse. Wasting the ingredients.
Louis hated that over everything else.
That and being argued with. Case in point...
“It’s barbecue shrimp,” Louis muttered with increasing impatience before he wiped his portly jowls with torn paper towel. He balled and tossed it in the trash before he returned to vastly melting butter, drowning tiger prawn shrimp. Alice however was far from convinced.
“That ain’t barbecued shrimp. Don’t look nothing like barbecued shrimp. That’s shrimp being murdered in butter. I’ve been said so.” She whipped her hairnetted blonde hair bun and focused on dicing bell peppers and celery. That was the real mirepoix, according to Louis. Raphael made the point to interject, and let Louis focus on the dish for table seven.
“Yeah gyal. That’s barbecue shrimp. It goes over white rice and people does eat it up all the same, jus’ watch.” Raphael’s gloved fingers reached into a bowl of cubed bread, milk, sugar, eggs, spices and currants soaked in dark rum. Three days minimum. This one was Raphael’s touch. An old trick he learned from his uncle in Couva.
Once more Alice needed to argue. Leave it to the chef from a town a few miles east of Memphis to make such a thing out of what and wasn’t barbecue.
“This ain’t barbecue shrimp, ya’ll. You know what barbecue shrimp is? Barbecue shrimp is done with a cedar plank and served with taters or grits or something. That’s some ol’ bullshit whatever passes for shrimp down here.”
Louis’s face turned red and his eyes flashed in Alice’s direction. She brandished her ladle and dolled out gumbo into a bowl before striding to the other side of the kitchen and smacking the bell. She trayed it quickly next to a similar bowl of white rice.
“Order up, table nine!”
“You’re fired,” Louis grunted. Alice, who heard that something of five times in a week went back to the next order down the list. Raphael, who often heard it around the same frequency piled his bread pudding into a greased tin. He couldn’t forget the sauce. That threat of being fired could easily become real.
“Bread pudding...That’s picnic date worthy right?” He asked as he checked the oven for the third time. Louis seemed thankful that the subject was changed. At least as far as Raphael could tell.
He couldn’t really tell what the difference between Louis looking happy or suffering indigestion looked like. Irregardless of that, Louis answered as he continued to care for his prawns bathing in countless seasoning, garlic and most generously the butter. “Bread pudding’s a date three kinda dish don’t you think, son?”
“Just take the bread pudding on the date,” Alice shrugged. “Don’t listen to Lou, he don’t get out enough to know what the hell he’s talking about.”
“I don’t get out enough? Me?!” Louis jabbed his spoon accusingly at Alice as Raphael rummaged for vanilla bean and the rum he had soaked currants in. “I am a man of the world, little lady. I’ve seen things before settling down, I ought to have you two know. Lots of things.”
“Watch who you call little lady,” Alice snapped back at him.
Back again they went. Raphael however took a minute to find a spare pencil about the kitchen and scribble onto a little piece of notebook paper. Bread pudding would be a welcome dessert. Chicken pelau. Pholourie. Something light? Maybe a slaw?
He turned to face them both.
“Hey wait, what ya think of--?”
He trailed off and watched husband and wife kissing aggressively. Raphael slowly turned back around to his little list.
Slaw would probably be fine.