moodswing whiskey / aodhán & ignacio. * blitz

[sucy 🌷]

AODHÁN CASSIDY

As their meeting draws to a close, Aodhán looks out at all the attendees. Karl, bright and heating up the room by presence alone. Little Heidi Verbrecher, who worried him more every passing day. A handful of his coworkers from pediatrics. Familiar faces from across Six, ones he can't quite place. There's also ones that he can -- former patients, all grown up. He catches one of them in his gaze. Ignacio? Is that his name? Aodhán's only about halfway sure, which is better than most things these days. 

It hadn't been him on a stretcher that day. A sibling, Aodhán thought. It hadn't been an unusual case in itself, just a fracture. Fionn did something similar to each of his limbs in the next handful of years, and Aodhán had to set those too. What was unusual was the kid's method of payment: cigars that he left in his mailbox. His wife saw him drop them off from the kitchen window. She was still angry with him, because he kept taking on cases pro bono, sometimes paying out of his (their) own pocket. But she softened up after that. They didn't fight again for nearly three weeks. A new record.

How long has it been? Twelve years now? Maybe less, maybe more. He can't quite remember. Either way, Aodhán still has most of those cigars in his desk drawer. Fionn was only small back then, and all of those years had long since blended together. Not much in his life worthy of breaking out a cigar had happened. He usually only smoked cigarettes he rolled himself and kept tucked behind his ear when he was doing paperwork. He hadn't even looked in the box for years, but if memory served, there should only be one missing. He smoked one when his daughter was born. He'd gotten a verbal lashing for it too.

Aodhán sucks in a breath, watches the congregation filing out. He doesn't want to go back to his house yet. It's no home, not even a place he can relax at. It's a formality, an address. There's only one place for him now: the bottom of a glass, next door to a companion. Drinking alone is an even lonelier feeling than an empty bed.

"Ignacio?" Aodhán saunters up to him, hands in his big coat pockets. He slips one of them out, holds it out as if to be shaken, then changes his mind. He smacks Ignacio on the arm instead, a brotherly quarter hug. "I might sound crazy, but do you recognise me? There's some cigars in my office that I ought to thank you for."

ELEGANT

[Bella 🌻]

IGNACIO AGUILA-REYES

By the end of the meeting, we’ve established a plan for a protest at the mayor’s opening ceremony for the new wing. Sure, I’m including myself in “we” even though my most pressing concerns before today were our stagnant wages and the shortages of small parts at the ambulance garage. But while sitting here, hearing others complain, I realize that it’s all connected. It’s starting to feel like one of those scenes in detective movies with red strings connecting photos and notes on a bulletin board. The way Karl and the doctor talked, each and every one of us are pushpins in the cork.

There’s a spring in my step as I stand to leave. A hundred ideas have started cooking in my brain about what the future could be like if we actually do this. Or, more like, what the future will not be like if we do this. Underneath it all, there’s this queasy feeling about what might happen if I’m caught, but I choose to ignore it for now. It’s just one meeting.

I’m almost out the door when I hear my name being called, the long version. In this place, it almost startles me, but surely there’s only one person here who could know me. Swiveling on my heel, I see the doctor coming towards me with a handshake that morphs into a friendly slap on the bicep.

"I might sound crazy, but do you recognise me? There's some cigars in my office that I ought to thank you for."

I feel my face go blank for a minute or so before it occurs to me what he’s referring to, and when it does, a burst of laughter floats out.

”You can call me Nacho,” I offer him grinning, returning the smack just above his elbow.

The memory starts to play back to me, filling in piece by piece: Mati fracturing his shinbone in a football game, I had remembered, but I’d almost forgotten the way I’d “paid” the doctor back. I hadn’t known what set a good cigar apart from a bad one, only that they might as well have been made of gold the way my dad used to keep them locked up. Judging by that look of respect other people gave him when he sat there puffing his smoke rings, and since he only lit them on special occasions, I thought they had to be some kind of magic that only real men got to experience. All I knew was they were valuable. So I’d thought, maybe this could pay our debts. I smuggled them into the doctor’s mailbox, one by one every month that year, hoping my dad wouldn’t notice. And for a while kid-me had been wondering if he’d picked the wrong address.

”You know, I felt a lot more sneaky as a kid,” I confess with a laugh. ”I was worried if I left a note, you might return them and my dad would tan my hide. Guess I got found out anyway.”

There’s a goofy grin frozen on my face– my mood is still floating on the meeting’s big talk. I think I could bullshit for a few more hours; going back home now would only pull me down from this high-on-life feeling. I hate to waste a good mood. I glance sideways at the organizers, who are starting to put away the chairs. ”I think that means they’re kicking us out. Are you going anywhere? There’s a shady-looking dive bar around the corner and I’m sure I’d feel a lot more classy with you there.” I hold out a handshake, inviting him to seal the deal.

[sucy 🌷]

AODHÁN CASSIDY

"Nacho," Aodhán repeats. He claps Nacho on the arm for a second time. "I like it! Either way, let's leave. This library brings back too many memories of exams." And other things, like friends passed and dalliances between the shelves after dark, things just as painful and twice as useless to remember as nights spent cramming textbook information.

Nacho's side of the story brings a smile to Aodhán's face, a rare one, not like his usual regret soured smirks. 

"We saw you from the kitchen window," he clarifies, laughing. Good times are easy to remember, easier to share. "My wife," at the time, he leaves out, "and I were cleaning up after dinner. We debated what to do about them, but... I figured that was your way of paying me back. It was sweet. I had to keep them."

His wife hadn't been happy about it, since she hated him smoking already, but keeping them felt like the right thing to do. Down to the smallest thing, Aodhán had pig headedly followed his own intuition back then. Not that he didn't do the same now -- he just did it with the apprehension of age. Fionn was so small back then. Aodhán had let him hold one of the unlit cigars for as long as it took to take a photograph, and he'd held it in both of his tiny hands. He'd had to snatch it back just centimetres away from entering the baby's mouth. 

These days, that picture was evidence article A that it was because of Aodhán's bad influence that Fionn started smoking. He couldn't exactly disagree.

Nacho held out his hand, an invitation in his palm. Aodhán eagerly accepted, shaking his hand with one firm squeeze. 

"I know the spot."

Nobody needed to twist his arm. 

Aodhán smoked a cigarette on their way, offered one to Nacho. He felt old next to him, the same way he felt next to Fionn, except without all the guilt of that came with his abysmal parental record. Outside the bar, Aodhán stamped his cigarette out on the road. The night air was cool. Aodhán opened the doors to the bar and took a moment to appreciate its warmth hitting his face before he stepped in.

"After you," he said to Nacho. "I'm parched."


 

ELEGANT

[Bella 🌻]

IGNACIO AGUILA-REYES

It’s nighttime by the time we leave the library, the stars appearing one-by-one behind the fog of city lights. Aodhán’s lighter casts a brief orange glow across the fine lines of his face, which I imagine were etched out by many years of study followed by a few more of worry. I don’t pretend to know the secret lives of doctors, but that’s what I imagine. I don’t blame him; I wouldn’t be able to do all that without smoking, either. But when he offers me a smoke, I politely decline with a no-thanks and a wave of my hand. I chain smoked enough cigarettes in my peacekeeper days to last a lifetime.

”After you,” the doctor offers, opening the door to the bar. I step inside, feeling the ambiance of the bar, the gold and neon glow, soothing the tension I’ve pent up during the day. Claiming one of the empty barstools, I nod to a coworker seated on the other end, who smiles back knowingly–we’ve both wound up at the same place to drink our wages away.

”What are you having, handsome?” the bartender chirps amicably as she polishes a pint glass. I fool myself into thinking I’m reading the draft list on the wall behind her, but as usual, I choose the lager listed at the top. As she pulls the tap, I make a point to focus back on Aodhán, and not at the particular way she’s standing when her back is turned. ”Thank you,” I say when she places the beer in front of me.

”Cheers,” I say, raising my glass toward the doctor, holding his gaze as I take the first sip–they say it’s bad sex for seven years if you don’t, and I can't afford that lost time. The first sip of a cold pint is one of life’s best and cheapest pleasures. I close my eyes in a brief moment of silence for the long day’s work as the beer cools my throat, then look back to Aodhán settling in.

”So,” I begin, ”If you don’t mind me saying, you seem like someone who has your life together.” In contrast with my own, that is, scrambling about between work and money and family. I continue in a lowered voice, unsure of how much of our gathering was common knowledge. ”What convinced you to start organizing people? My guys and I are always fed up, shady business or no. Discontentment sorta just… comes with the territory. But I was surprised to see you up there.” I let out a half-embarrassed sort of laugh, worried I’ve just implied that he’s stuck-up or something. ”Working in the garage every day, you know, coming home grumpy and sore all over, you always think the people making more money than you are living the dream.” My eyebrows raise at the word dream while I take another sip of the beer. It’s very good. ”I’d like to know what makes a successful doctor like you want to go up against a place like that.”

[sucy 🌷]

AODHÁN CASSIDY

While Aodhán swivels onto his stool, Nacho wordlessly greets somebody he thinks is a porter at the hospital. He's not sure. He takes a look around the bar, endeavouring to find a familiar face, coming up near empty. He sees an acquaintance or two; people who may have been friends once and maybe could've been today, had they not deemed him dangerous. That's Six's problem, when all is said and done. There's only so much they can do when so much of the population invests in complacency. They don't think of the future. They can't. 

Aodhán's a spirits man, but tonight he decides to join Nacho and orders a pint for himself too. He has a drawer of all his favourites he can pick from later for a night cap, providing Fionn hasn't gotten his hands on too much of it. Things are very serious as they take their first sips, but he cracks a smile as soon as the taste hits his tongue. He likes to think that him and Fionn will be like this one day, will play out this exact scene for themselves.

Fat chance.

Aodhán puts his pint down on his coaster and laughs, settling down in his seat, as Nacho tells him just about the most off base assumption anyone has ever made about him. Successful doctor, sure. Money maker? Not quite. Life together? Definitely not.

"Is that what people think of me?" He asks, raising his brows above the rim of his glass as he tips more back his throat. "I'll take it as a compliment." 

Aodhán puts his glass back down, and leans against the bar, thinking about Nacho's question. Being a mechanic doesn't sound so bad if you ask him. He'd rather lose a car than a child. Taking a look at his own reflection, murky in the beer, he tries to imagine what the young man across from him sees. In that respect, his mind is blank, but he has other answers in droves. He tucks a stray lock of hair back behind his ear, takes a swig of his drink for luck and begins.

"My father was a union man, in spirit, anyways. He was an ambulance tech. He used to let me ride with him once I started studying." He remembers those days fondly, inaccurately, and lovingly. "He believed in the future," Aodhán's as well as everyone else's, "and so do I. But if there's going to be change, then we have to be the ones to make it."

That's the short version. 

"I organise for the same reason I went into pediatrics. I'm just doing what I can to give the kids a better shot." He drinks, long this time. "Being stubborn and being a doctor is about all I'm good at. I'm making the most of it."

ELEGANT