Tip Your Bartender
Bill
Roger shows up late, maybe 30 minutes into the party — he lives close, so he would have been earlier, but he ran into a suspicious cop as he was parking, and took some time convincing the officers of his legitimacy. He comes in holding a box (recently examined by the police) with a big tin of Dole pineapple juice, a smaller one of coconut juice, bottles of lime juice, curacao, and assorted other mixers, and three large bottles incased in paper: a bottle of Bacardi, coconut rum, and a bottle of Gosling's. And, in a small little bag with a Chinese stamp on it, mint leaves and little cocktail umbrellas. If he can borrow a bit of sugar, glasses, and some ice from the hostess, he'll mix up Mai Tais, Piña Coladas, and the occasional straight shot of dark rum. He'll be noted as something sloppy of a bartender; he keeps spilling rum right out of the bottle onto the ground...
Roger is dressed in white pants with a huge black belt, black boots, and a goldenrod yellow short sleeved long-collared shirt, open down to just about his navel. He would have worn a T-shirt underneath, but it was too damn hot for propriety.
He may not have Fashion Sense, but his sunglasses would say he does.
Until the cake happens, he's probably mistaken as an actual bartender, but since that's what he eventually used as a cover for the police, he shrugs it off. Once the cake and singing to the bartender happens, anyone who doesn't put two and two together still gets their drink with a smile: Roger just uses the Bacardi for them. I don't care how high alcohol tolerances are in the high-brow set: Bacardi 151 (still legal) will do a number on you. At some point, Roger also uses the 151 for a flaming draught/drogue to Ogun.
Michael
Sophie arrives around an hour after the official start time. After checking in with the hosts, she makes her way to the bar where Roger is holding court. Sophie is wearing a grey cashmere cardigan, a wide-lapeled pearl white blouse, her typical chunky necklace (today they're plastic spheres in a burnt orange, with matching lacquer orange disk-shaped earrings), her usual thick-framed glasses, and light grey trousers with a chunky thick-heeled sandal—far more casual than her usual Livermore apparel. Oh, and her hair is piled up behind a white tennis visor she's wearing so her nose and cheeks don't burn.
"Good afternoon," Sophie says using Roger's cover name, aware that there are civilians hanging around. "I wouldn't mind a piña colada. Easy on the rum, lots of ice?" She summons up a smile but Roger can tell pretty easily she's off her game, even more awkward than she is at the office a lot of the time.
Bill
“Sure!” Roger mixes a bit of condensed milk in with the coconut juice to replace some of the rum. “Finally decided to get a little sun? “
Michael
That comment actually gets an authentic chuckle from Sophie. "It's good for you, I hear. But yes. The boss-man's barbecues are legendary, as you well know." Sophie's eyes go wide at the piña colada, "That is a bit of gorgeousness, Roger," she says, playing with the paper umbrella and pointing it in the right direction and toasting the man behind the bar before taking a big gulp. "Chin chin."
"Do you know I haven't had a proper holiday in... just about two years? I feel like that is one of the very worst parts of our work, Roger. The hours. Long uninterrupted periods of absolute boredom and tedium and then suddenly 48 hours of frightful urgency. It's very different from my life in the field before coming here. Then I was on tenterhooks all the time. At the very least, you know what to expect in the field when you're undercover—the worst outcome, at literally any moment. But the past few years have been like a dream, for me. One where I didn't have to live like that anymore. And then, back in February, after Jo got here, everything changed."
Brant
Marshall and Dave emerge in the back yard. They walk in the direction of Roger when suddenly, Dave gently underhand tosses the bottle of Don Perignon to Roger, who — we can safely assume, I think — deftly catches it. Marshall coolly snaps a hand-finger gun at Roger and says semi-loudly, “You know what to do, soldier.” Then he wanders off to talk to a nearby group of Pacific Heights house wives.
Bill
Roger catches the bottle and rolls an eye that they just shook up the bottle. He grabs a towel and a scrounges to find some kind of bucket. He has to put the bottle in a bright blue kid’s bucket from the sandbox, but it’s on ice and getting a chance to settle for later.
Michael
Sophie watches Marshall schmooze with the Ladies Who Lunch of Pacific Heights; a complicated combination of bemusement and disbelief crosses her face, her expressive brows giving silent voice to conflicted emotions. "Roger, I may have done myself a terrible disservice this past week. Mouthing off to Dr. Redgrave. Betraying my emotional 'hang-ups' in front of the team psychologist, as it were." Sophie takes another sizable sip. "What do you do with your stress, with your anxiety?"
Bill
“Well, a good beer and some good music is a start. Look, what you just said, weeks of boredom followed by days of terror: that’s life in the Army. Maybe life outside it, too, but what do I know? The brass, your sergeant, they all try the same trick to keep up morale: give the grunts busywork, something that preps for the next battle, and yeah rotating you out for R&R. You’re long overdue, lady. Go ask, and go be bored somewhere strange to you for two weeks.”
“As for me: I got other lives. When you’ve got another life, with different boredom and different terror, then you can get real distance from The Life, you know? That’s racing, for me.”
“Oh, and a different community, too. You got anyone else you talk to about different shit? Ladies’ Auxiliary Historical something or other?”
Michael
Sophie inhales sharply, and then tries to approximate a pleasant smile. "That's ... honestly not a bad idea, Roger. Cheers."
"I'm very pleased that you're getting something personal out of the ongoing Altamont operation. I was relieved to hear that we'd have more constant eyes on the place ... talk about bad vibes. I would definitely like to come to one of these races soon."
Regarding her hobbies, Sophie finishes her dilute piña colada. "Also a very good idea. It's ... honestly been a bit of a lonely life since I moved to America, and I should try to fix that."
"What do you reckon about Abeille?" Sophie says looking over to Viv (perhaps speaking with Jo?). "Does she have the mettle? You were in the hotel with her, you saw her operate both under the cover of the game and not. All the AARs say that she had ... well, an amazing ability to connect to mass numbers of people through narrative and storytelling and psychodrama. Is she, er, Livermore material?" Sophie's trying to keep her language relatively neutral in case of any party-goer overhearing.
Bill
"Well, Sophie, nice of you to ask. I don’t pretend to know half of what Ms. Abeille is saying most of the time. But in my book, she’s good. She answered the call, stood up under the pressure, and she does her very best to save people. So yeah, we should keep her with us if we can.”
“I mean, couldn’t you see the Peak trying to put her into their ‘child-care’ business, so to speak?” He looks over at Charley. “She might find that very attractive, at least at first.”
Michael
"Child 'care' as opposed to the child abuse still going on at GP — even as we sit here on this beautiful summer day with our lovely cocktails?" Sophie fairly hisses, a coldness and venom slipping into her voice. "Yes, Roger. Yes I do think Abeille might find an arrangement like that amenable. More importantly, I think it would be very good for Charley. I don't worry about her as much as I used to... but she deserves more and better." Sophie gulps, realizing she's said far too much about her afternoon with Charley at Berkeley last Friday and the things the two of them discussed (much as Marshall said to Archie last night, "you can't say stuff like that").
Bill
"Hey, Charley's got a lot of people to look out for her now. If worrying about Charley is keeping you from taking that break, it's cool, we got this. You gotta trust your team can cover for you." Roger pauses, lets a little sigh out. "Well, we can cover each other for a while. I sure was glad to see Archie, whatever flack he's taking now. But that just underscores the point about Abeille -- we're too thin, and she's already helped us cover that."
Michael
"Yes. We are too thin. Seven agents expected to cover all of Northern California, all of its cults and charlatans and ... scifi fans and funk groups, Christ." Sophie very gently pushes her cup back towards Roger for another. "Genevieve's skills are formidable, and she knows this world. The dreamers, the seekers, the psychological and parapsychological. Honestly we couldn't have asked for a better new recruit."
"It's good to hear that about Charley as well, Roger. You have no idea how much that puts my mind at ease. I do think we're in good hands, that our 'unit cohesion' as Marshall might call it is solid and our morale is high. A lot of times saving the world ends up being a lot more costly than what we managed to accomplish at the St. Francis."
She looks off at this—to the rest of the attendees at the party, to Archie's family — openly wistfully. It seems pretty clear to Roger that she is talking about her own experiences in the field, both before she came to URIEL, and most likely what happened in England back in May.
Bill
"Hey, Sophie. You gotta take a break, and you gotta find someone to talk with, and not about this stuff. Take it from a vet, man, you need a group you trust to hang out with, who get you, to talk about nothing with, or even not to talk at all. Don't let the security shit stop you; you're smart, you can talk around it. Don't let the headshrinkers and the paranoid types scare you from going out and connecting with people, just in an ordinary way. Because for all the headshrinkers say they want to make you healthy, only those connections will.
"If you really need to talk about the shit, well, I'm around. This bartending gig is temporary, you dig: last call's in two hours." He smiles to show that was just a light joke. "But we can have a rap session 'round the complex anytime."
Michael
"Roger, this conversation has made me simultaneously so pleased we've finally had an opportunity to chat and so regretful we didn't do it sooner. That I didn't do it sooner."
"I'm going to go mingle now," she says, taking her second drink with her, "but thank you for that offer and thank you today, for everything." She smiles, dabbing at her eyes once more.
Bill
“Go get your groove on, sistah!” Roger suddenly catches himself. “Oh, and Sophie: I might need your help with something. A kinda odd request? I could use some help understanding how generally Mormons think of the Devil. But go mingle: we can catch that one tomorrow.”
Michael
A combination of looks on Sophie's face that lead from slight shock to knowing, smiling recognition. "Oh. Oh yes! I could probably help you with that."
Jeff
"Hey, is it too late to get a ... I dunno, something with the rum and stuff? Also, man, I been meaning to ask. Do you think human nature bends intrinsically towards fascism?"
Bill
"Oh, man, have I got a drink for you! Uh, wait, how many beers you had? 'Beer before liquor, never sicker ...' Don't want to upchuck at the boss's house, right?"
Jeff
Mitch waves away the concern. "I'm fine. I've had three beers over the last, uh, three hours? I got here early."
Bill
"OK, well, this one is supposed to be a healing drink anyway. I don't think the lady of the house has the traditional clay pots, but a highball will do." Roger grabs some honey, and starts mixing it with cold water. "Hey, I didn't have the syrup made up before, so this may take a bit. Whatta ya want to talk about, man?"
When Mitch just keeps looking expectantly at Roger, he responds, "Fascism? For real? Well, I guess it is the 4th of July."
Jeff
"Sure. Fascism, human nature. The bad guys claim they get to pop into existence like they do because we all deep-down want to be ruled over."
Bill
"Well, not much to say there. It's a no, brother. I don't think you can say human nature bends towards anything one thing at all, really. OK, right, everybody at some point want shit to be simple, and fascism, sure, that promises to make it simple. But it can't be nothing but a lie, always. Nothing's simple with people, not unless you put some serious blinders on." Roger tips his sunglasses down and looks over the top rim of his sunglasses to make his point.
"Here's the thing with making things simple: the complex people stuff, it doesn't go away. You can't make a perfect law everybody will obey, because there's always somebody different. You go trying to bend them to fit, or pretend they don't exist, or hell just go killing them off, and resistance will arise. Hell, even if you had all the magic in the world to kill them off, wipe their brains, change their bodies ... you just gonna find some other intolerable difference in those left, and it starts all over again. Say there's only black and white, and kill all the black, and you'll start seeing black in the white that remains ... "
Roger finishes whipping the honey syrup up. He starts squeezing lime juice. "That's not to say folks looking for simple and hating the different ain't gonna keep trying fascism. Or that it can't last a long, terrible time. I can prophesy about it being doomed to fail-- don't mean shit to the people living generations under it. No, we gotta resist it. All the fucking time, somebody gotta resist it. Human nature gonna go in all directions, great-- but somebody gotta push back against the bad ones."
"You know, you scared me for a second there on that roof. Well, to be fair, what everybody else was saying about what you might do, that scared me." Roger pours in some 151 to the shaker, with the honey and lime. "This is a canchánchara: very old medicina. Burns out what ails you."
He starts shaking.
Jeff
"Didn't seem like much of a thing, at the time. Just sticking a thumb in their eye. Looking back, who knows? Hindsight."
Bill
"Yeah, that was part of my problem: who knew? Big stuff. Too big." Roger finishes shaking. He decides to skip the highball, and split pours the concoction into two juice glasses (for lack of whiskey tumblers in this house). He starts wiping a lime wedge around the rim of each. "But, right now, on this backyard-BBQ scale? Down among the peons, out of the clouds? I know I'm sorry I doubted you for a half a second." He picks up the juice glasses, hands one to Mitch. "I won't lie: this is gonna sting a little. All the good medicines do. Viva la revolución!"
Jeff
"Viva la revolución!" Mitch echoes, glass raised. "I'm not taking it personal. It was a whole scene. Long day."
Bill
Roger will clink and take a considerable sip, not toss it back. The sweet juice can cover up a lot, but 151 is still a burn. He lets out a slow "haaaa" and smiles.
Jeff
Mitch's eyes widen partway through his sip. "Damn," he says after a moment. "Damn. You weren't kidding."
Bill
"Yeah, imagine your grandma giving you that when you had a cold. I have no childhood memories of colds — at least not after the cure was administered. Ha! Happy Independence Day, Mitch."