mike

Mitch's nameless elderly friend says, "Whew, what isn't good. Esther's a mean cook, and she does your Southern soul food right ... from what I've been led to believe."

"Me, I've never been down South so what do I know," the old gentleman guitarist wheezes.

jeff

Sounds good, Oldtimer.

mike

Mitch and the Oldtimer, his beat-up guitar on his back, push open the door to Esther's Orbit Room. The bar is about a quarter-full at 11:30, a few neighborhood folks having their fill of an early lunch at Esther's renowned all-you-can-eat soul food cafeteria-style buffet, a couple of Postal Service employees on an early "coffee" break from the giant postal sorting center across the street (which forced Esther from her original location and turned the neighborhood, along with the freeway and the BART line, into a noisy, truck-filled industrial zone). The walls are studded with dozens of black and white signed photos of blues, jazz, and R&B stars who've played here at the tiny stage in back. A gorgeous '40s/'50s jukebox tinnily pumps out a series of mid-'60s Motown and '50s vocal group 45s.

A tall Black man is behind the bar, hands behind him on the countertop as he chats with a couple of the mailmen at the bar. Two Black women, one young, one middle-aged, bus trays and plates and serve drinks to the folks having a meal. The bartender waves to the Oldtimer, saying, "Morning, Zeb" while giving Mitch a curt nod. The bartender sort of vaguely gestures to the two bar seats at the bend of the bar, which seem to be the Oldtimer's regular spot.

The older Black lady comes over, all friendly-like, and greets the Oldtimer raspily, "Good mornin', darlin'," she says, putting her hands on the Oldtimer's frail arms, and Zeb, in a courtly fashion, takes her hand and kisses it. "A pleasure, my dear, as always. Perhaps we could get a couple of loaded plates for me and my old friend The Commissioner here." Esther (presumably) gives Mitch a once-over, saying, "Oh, of course! You want the buffet, honey, or something special off the menu?"

jeff

What time is it? What kind of food is on the buffet plates Mitch can see -- breakfast or lunch?

Are there grits?

There are absolutely grits at the buffet. Call it a lunch with some breakfast elements; for example, on the menu you can get chicken and waffles or steak and eggs.

mike

There are absolutely grits at the buffet. Call it a lunch with some breakfast elements; for example, on the menu you can get chicken and waffles or steak and eggs.

jeff

Hell yes, Mitch is salivating at the chance for a plate of grits, chicken and waffles, biscuits and gravy, a couple of pounds of the heavy stuff.

"Buffet looks a treat, ma'am. And some coffee, and ice water?"

mike

"You got it, sweetie," Esther says. "You gotta start bring more hungry strays like this here, Zeb! It does my heart good." Zeb smiles indulgently at Esther, and says, "Well, me and the Commissioner here got every reason to celebrate." Zeb signals to the bartender, who goes to the well and pours a very generous triple rye for Zeb.

Mitch and Zeb can load up their plates with the good stuff like the grits and the biscuits and gravy, the okra and collard greens, etc.; Mitch'll have to wait for the kitchen to make his chicken and waffles fresh. As Zeb and Mitch make their way back to the bar, Zeb says sotto voce to Mitch, "You know, It's been nigh-on fifty years here and I still can't believe they make you pay to eat. Although I must say, this food absolutely beats the hell out of gobbling pills three times a day."

jeff

"It's the little things. Music, food. Makes life bearable, y'know?"

mike

"That they do, that they do."

jeff

Mitch studies the Oldtimer's aura again, because now I feel like he has something to look for and think about: History-B taint versus annunaki/Red King taint. It's of a piece with his (still unvoiced and unshared) History-C speculation from Mount Shasta.

mike

Yeah, okay. So I think the other night I might have said that the Oldtimer was filthy with History B taint. As Mitch re-examines his aura more closely, and really zooms in on the uncharacteristic "brightness," he also gets the sense that Zeb himself (or his soul? spirit?) is ever-so-slightly out of phase with History A. Like, okay, imagine you're looking at some distant sight through a telescope or pair of binoculars or something and everything's just slightly blurry/doubled. That's what Zeb's aura looks like on second examination to Mitch right now. It's not an infinite corridor or set of mirrors heading off backwards into the fourth dimension like Charley (I think Mitch might now suddenly put together that Charley's unique aura reflects her past lives), it's more ... seen through a mirror darkly.

jeff

Like he's straight-up not from here? Like, this is what I would expect to see if he'd just stepped out of a Stargate?

mike

The theory that the Oldtimer is not originally from here is a reasonable enough one. I would give you a Hidden Lore (History B) roll if you so desired in order to puzzle out the likelihood of such a thing.

jeff

He's basically asserted as much, though I'm not sure how literally to take him.

mike

Your SANDMAN History B training has told you again and again "History B isn't a real place since the Ontoclysm, our history is well and truly the only one," and yet, retrocreations and subduction zones and reality quakes still happen. All that talk during the briefing this morning that Sophie and Jo engaged in, about the kusarikku being retrocreated and being already here, in an overlap with History B, yes, okay, Irruptors appear when belief in the cornerstones of History A starts to fall apart and tenuous elements of History B start to appear as "always having been" parts of our world. But what would it take for a human being, a fully-fledged human person with their own life story, having lived in an intact and continuous History B until, say, their mid-20s and then being sent here somehow? That you're not sure of, and more importantly, you're pretty sure SANDMAN clearly isn't sure of either. Probably time for a little Fright check over the biscuits and gravy, I'm afraid. No modifiers, just a straight up roll.

Mitch has internalized this ontological possibility thus avoiding a freak out. And yes, it doesn't get hot in the Orbit Room.

jeff

(If SANDMAN is wrong about this maybe they're wrong about History-C! It all fits together supporting my crackpot theory!!)

(Smash that like & subscribe!)

mike

(Oh man, an elderly Mitch becoming an Anunnaki theory YouTube sensation in the 2010s is my new headcanon.)

jeff

There is, it seems, a few moments of companionable silence. Mitch breaks it by asking the Oldtimer, "so what've you been up to, in the meantime? Just playing guitar in the park for, jeez, I don't know how many years?"

mike

"I have been waiting. And yes, preparing the way for Him."

He says that pretty quick.

jeff

Mitch is nonplussed, like, that's not an answer he was expecting and he doesn't try to hide that. "Really?"

mike

"Well, yes, all right, I've been enjoying myself, Commissioner, I won't lie to you about that." Zeb says, suddenly, nervously. "As you can probably tell." Zeb looks a little uncomfortable, like he's reporting to a boss and maybe being called out on the carpet for not having doing the job. The former conviviality is gone, and Zeb looks down at his half-finished rye whiskey with a sour, nauseated look on his face. "But yes, I've played the right songs at the right times to the right little children to prepare His way. I swear, all you need to do is walk around to know His coming is close!"

jeff

I shoulda found the points to get Mitch a level of Luck.

"Whoa, hey, jeez man," Mitch's first instinct is to try to reassure the Oldtimer. "I get that, I get that, I just meant, like, what else has been going on in your life, man? I wasn't trying to -- listen, nobody expects you to be on the clock twenty-four seven, man."

"There's a real final days, final phase kind of vibe, yeah, yeah. Yeah."

mike

As Mitch says that, Esther comes over, "Here you go, hon. Chicken and waffles." She lays down the plate in front of Mitch. Zeb says to Mitch and Esther with a sly smile on his face, "Excuse me, I gotta go shake hands with a friend over some fine porcelain." Zeb gets up and heads to the gents'.

jeff

"Esther, how long have you known Zeb, if you don't mind my asking?"

"We used to work together, crazy as that sounds," he adds.

mike

"Oh, he's been coming in here as long as we've been open, the last 10, 15 years or so? Every now and again we'll give him some money to play for the customers. He's harmless, really. You worked with him? For a minute there I thought you might have been with the social services. He's never been all there, of course. Poor old man."

jeff

Mitch nods. "Yeah, I remember. These grits are great, by the by, thank you so much."

mike

"Oh you come back anytime, child. We used to get all kinds of boys like you from down home in here, soldiers and sailors and airmen, before the freeway and the post office came in."

jeff

Mitch is weighing his options. He could try to extract Zeb, get him back to Livermore for interrogation. This option he rejects before he's even formed it. He could lay some money down and duck out before the oldtimer gets back to the bar. He could question the oldtimer more aggressively about Oakland and his activities and history. He could tell the oldtimer that he isn't quite who Zeb thinks he is, see what kind of reaction that gets. He could continue to play-act in the role of Zeb's handler and ask him some gentle questions about the neighborhood, trusting that there's nothing the oldtimer can do to threaten him when/if the truth comes out. Mitch barely has the skillset for the latter but it seems like his best bet, regardless.

mike

Yeah, Zeb's making his slow way back to the table, wiping his wet hands off on his old threadbare trousers.

"Hey, let's dig in!" Zeb's guilt after confessing having boozed and eaten his way across the past 50 years seems to have disappeared in the face of all this food.

jeff

Sounds good -- Mitch has already started in on the grits, they're best piping hot.

"So you haven't had any trouble fitting in, I guess?" Mitch asks by way of getting Zeb talking about his putative decades in Oakland inserting Red King iconography in the neighborhood's noosphere.

mike

"First couple of years were a little rough. Gotta pick up the language, the customs, the idioms," Zeb says, shoveling in the black eyed peas and fatback. "It's all easy, though, if you put your mind to it. People are the same everywhere, after all," he says, pointing his index finger at his temple a couple of times.

"And music, of course. Music speaks where words don't."

jeff

Mitch is like, "well, music may be music, but this music is not that music, am I right?"

mike

"Well, they say it's not the notes you play, it's the ones you don't. Every song has at least a couple of layers to it, even the ones from here. But the way music has changed since I've been here, the fact that now you can cut a record in Oakland and it will be all over the world on radio and television and in stores before you even know it... well, that's got to be considered progress for us, doesn't it?"

jeff

"The medium is the message , huh?"

mike

Zeb doesn't seem to recognize the aphorism but says, "Maybe, maybe. But forget about the rest of the world... my job has been here and now. This beautiful city."

jeff

"Beautiful?" If Mitch was gonna pick a city and call it beautiful he wouldn't select Oakland. "I guess."

mike

Zeb eyes Mitch curiously. "Have you really looked? Looked into the hearts of the people? After all, it's in their hearts and minds where the real city, the city to come, truly dwells."

jeff

"Well see you now you're saying it both ways -- it's the here and now but also it's what's to come? I mean, I get it, the food and the music and the people and all, it's, I dunno, seductive?"

mike

Zeb smiles. "Well sir, maybe I have gone a little bit native. But it was out of necessity. I think you need to be aware of something that might have slipped your grasp, given how you look to them. The people here in Oakland cling to each other desperately because of the shared color of their skin. They have to, it's a matter of pure survival in the face of the overwhelming belief systems their idiot rulers have put into place." He gestures outside to the freeway, the post office, maybe even to the Naval airbase in the distance, all the nexuses of outside power in the neighborhood. "Can you believe these... cattle somehow believe that the color of someone's skin makes a human being inferior or superior to another? As I said, there's no lack of idiotic things that humans will believe given the right stimulus. Hell, some of these folks even believe it deep down, poor things."

jeff

“Cattle, man?” Mitch looks pained. “You think you — we — man, people are people, you were just saying, and now you’re saying cattle?” He shifts in his seat. “Listen, what — if you want to — listen.” Mitch holds up his hands, lowers them again. And then he calms down a little, sets upon a teaching method, apparently. “How’d you get to where you are, huh? Like, walk me through it. Story of your life. You were born someplace, start there, finish with ‘and then i hung out in the park and eventually saw you,’ okay? Cattle. Jeez, man. Cattle.”

He gives Zeb a somber look than indicates his seriousness in this request.

[Zeb then proceeds to tell Mitch Zeb's Story.]

"I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, as he raised his right hand and his left toward heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time; and as soon as they finish shattering the power of the holy people, all these events will be completed."

mike

Zeb smiles. "Every now and then one of them gets a correct glimpse, their tainted history shows them the truth. Lucky devils."

"Can I get you gentlemen anything else?" Esther says, coming over with her pencil and guest check pad.

jeff

Mitch sighs. "I think that does it for us, thanks."

mike

Zeb says, "That's fine, Esther. We'll settle up our account."

jeff

As Mitch gets out his wallet to pay he has one more question for the Oldtimer. "Where you sleeping these days? You got someplace comfortable, secure?"

"You're not rough-bedding it in the park, are you?"

mike

Zeb says, "Oh, I always find somewhere with an eave or a roof. I'm lucky that way. I'm not one for a fixed abode, you understand. Four walls, they get me nervous."

"Especially when I'm sleeping."

jeff

Mitch isn't thrilled with that answer but accepts it. He tips generously.

mike

Esther says, "Now you two don't stay strangers! And Zeb, if you ever want to play here again..." Zeb says, "I get the feeling we're gonna have time to play and sing and dance anytime we want, very soon, Esther. Bless you. Bless you both." Esther's husband William, behind the bar, taciturn as ever, gives Mitch (and Zeb) a bit of a wary, suspicious final look; vibe here throughout the meal has been that he isn't as charitable and indulgent about Zeb's 'craziness' as Esther maybe is.

jeff

Yeah, Mitch's #1 priority (after shaking Zeb's hand and telling him to stay well) is to phone this one in to Livermore.