Distinguishing Features Part 2/8

             But how did the inimitable Julie Rose beckon such audience authority? So much that those less bitter than Bruce but bitter still (like the anarchist twins Jack and Austin, there in the corner) took their torches and made her shine until well post-curtsey? Other close-ups from that period important enough to survive show a sterile power-buffed sheen and Henderson expression. But they couldn’t be Henderson. Neither could Julie, but she seemed close. Sadly, no photographs of her survive. But, for example, one evening, her auroral hair (wavy, and a dark, challenging auburn) held a longish ten centimeter horn shooting perpendicular from her temple as she worked an entire shift, and if the Julie whirlwind paused long enough, still, no one could bring themselves to inform her. No one would mention it outright, like one disregards a short blast of spring rain. They would just grin and blink at her until she would ask- ‘What?’ Perhaps it was intentional on her part, and that is one physical measure of Julie. Newcomers to Notstalgia would feast with their eyes and cry. Tears of longing and whatelse. Gratitude. To who or what unknown. Julie Rose was pretty. To describe her further would hurt.

So let’s turn our gaze to the aforementioned Jack and Austin, on the downslope of the evening. Since the spotlight was no longer needed, Jack resumed his ‘granted, but that’s beside the point’ expression. That’s not surprising, since that was a phrase he often used. Jack dressed like a communication ring franchise branch manager on a weekday off. Austin was opposite, but the same. Peas in the pod may have slightly different features, but they still flock together. Austin was comfortable in his ‘I agree wholeheartedly, but when are we gonna take some extra-legal action on this shit’ role in the conversation. They were great friends, but Jack refused to show him houses he had listed, for example, even if it was just on a lark. Especially if it was just on a lark. Austin usually, as tonight, wore thick khaki shorts and a twill Boho Gringo shirt with embroidery on the collar and cuffs. Like a hippee gangster. He topped his curls with a jungle boonie hat which also had small pockets.

            Austin was at the take action stage at that point. He seemed to be taking positive action just sitting there, but Jack was only saying: “Granted. But what action?”

           You see, two days before, a man had been found alive but quite unresponsive in a very defunct retail block near the river, there in the weeds. It had not yet been determined how he fell into such a state, which means that They Didn’t Know. He had no wallet. The clothes he wore were generic, without any print design, of a type which may have been purchased even the day before in the discountiest of stores. He wore no watch or jewelry, and had no tattoos or scars of any note. He had no body modifications or implants, digital or otherwise. He may as well have been naked, and if he had been, that would have been more of a clue. The man had absolutely no distinguishing features. Jack referred to him as a brother.

            Which threw some off track, but not Austin. Austin knew that Jack’s brother was accounted for; he was an agronomist out west, helping them create county-sized feed grain deserts.

            Jack’s point that evening was that ‘They’ hadn’t delved far enough in trying to identify his ‘brother’ Doe. They hadn’t taken his musculature into account. Then he faltered as, while holding forth to Austin and visually checking up on Julie, he laid his eyes on newcomer Matt and his ‘Born To Serge’ t-shirt.

            Jack told him that wearing a shirt declaring support for a troop surge might be appropriate elsewhere, but not in Notstalgia. Then he began chanting the words to the song long since sung.

            He’d had a bit too much to drink.

            Matt shrugged and responded that it was ‘serge’, a sewing technique, and not anything surging. Stopped mid note, Jack raised a palm of conciliation and said:

            “Granted…”

            Even Bruce was waiting for the ‘but’ that was not to come. Then the impregnable Julie Rose had Matt’s back with raspberry sorbet ire.

            “With an ‘e’, not a ‘u’ Jacks.”

            She then engaged Matt in serging conversation. Jack was stumped, which he wasn’t often. Well, he was the type of person who acted like he wasn’t stumped often, and he protested. He couldn’t read the shirt from that far away, he said, and some such. Austin just wanted him to stop while he was behind.

            Matt knew nothing about serging, except that it had to be less than martial. Julie informed him that she was a neophyte but a fan. It was the finest occupation one could have. She continued to describe serging to Matt with dilettante devotion.

            Many on the floor mentally searched the boxes jammed in the far corners of their closets for shirts that might catch Julie’s attention. Teddy bear prints and lace appliqué might be a plus, but then they gasped as Matt demurred.

            Matt really didn’t know anything about it. The shirt was in with a lot of others that his uncle gave him. His uncle owned a packaging company, you see. You know, the type that received goods from the far corners of the Earth and put them in a bag that had PACKAGED LOCALLY in 36 point type against a picture of a fireworks display. So, his uncle gave him the shirts that wouldn’t sell despite the fact that they really looked like they were made locally.

            Onlookers groaned, some out loud, some internally. It’s true that Matt could have claimed to know everything about serging; that he was a twelfth degree serging black belt out of the Drunken Mongoose school, and that, in fact, he sold the machines, you know, to continue the conversation with Julie, but he didn’t.

            Nor did Julie care much about that, she thought that his uncle’s business was a ‘stitch’, and, concerning the market, thus to those who couldn’t read. She told him about everything serging, starting with its inception, and Matt was willing to listen. His uncle was well known in the area, as it turns out. He took all those packaging profits and went into politics, styling himself as an ultra-patriot.

            It dawned on the pretending-not-to-listen-much audience that this was an encounter between two quirkys and one nearby reached over with a microbud to record the conversation for posterity. Julie impatiently swatted at the hand and scolded its owner. Some conversations are best synopsized anyway.

            Jack and Austin observed this strange phenomenon awhile, and then Jack glanced at his com-ring and saw in the news that a tattoo had been found on Mr. Doe’s right leg, just above the knee, and thus he had to be a member of a particular gang. So he had to inhabit a particular criminal niche, wear a certain type of hat, gobble a particular type of pill and guzzle the gang-approved soft drink. This smashed Jack’s hypothesis into nano-pixels. But then he scrolled down to a more recent posting that said that the mark was just from a pen wound. Then it linked to a study that found that this type of tattoo is very common but didn’t refer to what would be the largest tatted organization in the world. There would be little intent behind the mark. That study found that this mark manifested itself most in the ‘self inflicted’ variety. (Anger or frustration during the act of writing, usually in the test environment.) The second and third reasons were ‘Accidental’ (bumping into a desk, or falling off a chair), and unreported biro assault. The link itself was popular as print outs in first year medical classes, and for rookie peace officers who really, really wanted to make detective. Jack found this particularly upsetting because he realized that he’d read the article before, back when he was in Police Scouts.

            Then Jack realized that Austin already knew all of this and snarled in his general direction. Austin got a kick out of that.

            No need to know exactly how Austin knew all that. Suffice to say that people in the 21^st century were wired to a high degree. Nowadays we understand the pain involved. Austin responded to Jack’s snarl on the same wavelength. That is, directly. In person.

            “I didn’t tell you because you’d wanna go out and do something crazy!”

            “I thought you like to do crazy things!”

            Austin reached up and adjusted the brim of his boonie hat (which throughout the wearing would change character like a wind disc) by pressing it snug against his right temple.

            “I like to do effective things in an unorthodox manner. Not necessarily crazy.”

            Since Julie was a floater, she and Matt were in the walk and talk mode, and they’d floated closer to Jack and Austin. That pair was what you’d call ‘high strung’, although Jack didn’t show it as much. So they were aficionados of the color blue and they gazed at Matt’s blank blue back sans reminder of the surge/serge debate; but neither young man harbored grudges over self-initiated embarrassment. Julie then excused herself from Matt. In that time, it could have been in a manner as casual or blunt as: ‘Listen. I gotta get these glasses back to the kitchen. We’ve had mold problems.’ and she was gone and Matt turned around and Jack gave him his ring and lightning struck.

            “Whadooyou think of that?”

            It took some trust on both sides with that sort of interaction, and can you believe that this was a time of increased trust. Several pages of text or pictures could be viewed through the ring at a glance. It had what was called visual immersion technology. So, one would have to trust that the person handing it to one wouldn’t be immersing one in something that they find distasteful. Now a days we have something like that. We call it a toy. And they found a way to flip it around and put it in people’s heads. That’s how rich people can see so well.

            Matt handed the ring back.

            “It’s a sad situation.”

            “That’s his brother,” Austin said. Matt was startled.

            “Spiritual brother,” Jack corrected. “Brother in spirit.”

            Matt knew where this was going, and inquired, “But what to do?”

            “I have no idea!” Jack answered. “It’s a challenge. But if we do something. Would you join us.”

            Austin was pleasantly surprised at Jack’s offer. He liked sky-blue. Plus: Matt obviously had the Julie seal of approval.

            “Sign me up,” Matt said.

            Jack put the ring back on. “This bit about the pen-wound, probably self-

inflicted…”

Matt nodded in sage agreement.

            “…when you lack distinguishing features, these things tend to happen,” Jack continued. “Don’t ask me how, but I know.”

            Matt pursed his lips and nodded.

            “I’m with you there.”