Cricket Pate

CHARACTER NAME: Cricket Pate
CHARACTER SERIES: Lawless (2012)

THE BASICS: Assistant and mechanic to a family of moonshiners in Franklin County, VA, in the early 1930s. Cricket can work a still or repair an engine with skill beyond his years. He's quiet and a little timid, but he's got a backbone and a subtly smart mouth in moments of crisis.

[OOC]
This is the permissions list for OOC (out of character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired.

Backtagging: Always.
Threadhopping: Only in memes designed for it, or with prior discussion.
Fourthwalling: In casual memes (TFLN, etc.) yes. Otherwise, no.
Offensive subjects (elaborate): Internalized ableism is going to come up with Cricket. He had rickets as a child and uses leg braces to compensate for deformation in his leg bones. He will canonically refer to himself as a 'cripple' although he is clearly able to perform more or less the same physical tasks as the other men around him, just at a slower pace.

[IC]
This is the permissions list for IC (in-character), activity.
Answer the following questions with "yes" or "no", as well as additional information if desired. With IC permissions, it's a good idea to elaborate on what other players can expect from your character if they choose to do any of the following:

Hugging this character: Expect bewilderment, but sure!
Kissing this character: See above, only more so.
Flirting with this character: Doesn't particularly know how to flirt, but he'll do his best to respond. As a player, I ship both M/M and M/F. Cricket is more likely to default to M/F due to the era he comes from, but I'm really pretty game for whatever; just talk to me. Also, my headcanon is that he had a one-sided crush on Jack which he would rather have died than admitted to, but he may be drawn to men who remind him of Jack: a little reckless, a lot cocky--that type.
(As a note, the character is played between 19-25 years old. Player is 30+)
Fighting with this character: Yes, and he will participate in a fistfight, but he's not super great at it. He will threaten with, or even shoot a gun if one's handy, but that's a last resort.
Injuring this character (include limits and severity): He's a little delicate, but go for it. If it's anything more than a punch or two, better double check with me.
Killing this character: No, thank you.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Yes. He'll probably be highly creeped out.

Warnings: With Cricket, you're going to see period-typical ableism, including internalized ableism, as mentioned above. Possibly some period-typical homophobia, racism and/or sexism, as well, although due to awareness of his own low social status, he's going to default to soft-spoken and polite and won't be doing any name-calling.

Of note, Cricket does come from the Jim Crow era South, with all the separate-but-not-equal that implies. Again, his own social status is such that he's not going to verbally attack someone or complain about multiracial spaces, but long, puzzled stares could happen.

I do tend to write a lot of introspection in my tags, so while he's not likely to verbally freak out if confronted with things outside the social norms he knows, his reaction may come through in body language and narrative. For my own comfort level I tend to keep this reaction pretty soft, but if you want more gritty realism I can do that, just let me know. And if you want me to SKIP it entirely, I can also do that. Just PM me or add an ooc note.

Parthas-specific: Because of the above, I am adding a note here, if you want to opt out of interacting with Cricket because of the accompanying historical baggage, please let me know by PM, by commenting here, or by commenting on my HMD. No offense will be taken!

Additional: Cricket isn't much of a churchgoer, but he is sort of a Christian. In canon there's a prominent Brethren church in his area, of which he is not a member, but he's pretty familiar with the tenets. I think of him as more of an old-school Methodist, except for the anti-drinking part. Moonshine is a way of life in his community.


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OOC
Player Name: B
Age: 43
Timezone: EST
What Other Characters Do You Play In This Game? Loki

IC

Character Name: Cricket Pate

Apparent Age: late teens/early 20s--Dane was 25 when he played the role

Actual Age: 25

Canon: Lawless

Canon Point: Post his death, which is a major plot point in the 3rd act of the film. He is the rare male character to be fridged as a source of manpain for the protagonists.

Which Deity Brought Them Here? Cuiristeach. Cricket makes an ideal 'man Friday', hardworking and helpful.

History: Film synopsis

Personality: Cricket is the quintessential farm boy, except that he's even more humble than that because he's too poor to have owned a farm. He is highly observant, because he's so easy to overlook, himself, it gives him a vantage point to keep an eye on what other people are doing. His relationship with Jack Bondurant in the film makes it clear they're best friends, but Cricket is the tempering influence to Jack's fanciful, impulsive nature. They're both interested in the glamorous side of bootlegging, rebels and lawbreakers, but Cricket seems to have a more realistic picture of the inherent risks.
Despite that, Cricket has his own wacky ideas here and there. Some of the first scenes you see him in, he's setting up a still in the basement of his home, with pluming arranged such that you can turn on the tap to have the moonshine run through it. This is a bad idea in a time where lead was common in pipes, so it's probably just as well it got busted up.
His other finest moment as a mechanic in the movie is filling the gas tank of their car with moonshine when they run out of gasoline on the road. It works. (Mythbusters tested it! It's a bad idea long term, but it works.)
In the film, Cricket's home situation is pretty ambiguous. You see him with his Aunt Winnie, who appears to have severe dementia, and no other family. One has to assume she raised him, and he is now her sole caretaker, which is a rough situation for a youth in his twenties.

Cricket is:

+ Loyal, hardworking, observant, creative
= A follower rather than a leader
- Timid/shy, a little sheltered, suspicious of strangers

Warnings: With Cricket, you're going to see period-typical ableism, including internalized ableism. He does, in canon, refer to himself ironically as 'a cripple', echoing the words of some minor antagonists. He then threatens to shoot them, though, so this doesn't mean he has no self-esteem with respect to his health problems and abilities.

Of note, Cricket does come from the Jim Crow era South, with all the separate-but-not-equal that implies. Period-typical sexism and homophobia are also implied in his canon. His own social status is such that he's not going to verbally attack someone for any of the above reasons, but he's used to certain social norms, which would fly out the window pretty quickly in Parthas.

For my own comfort level I tend to keep his period-typical responses pretty subtle; I especially don't want to write realistic racism and will NEVER be using slurs in either his narrative or his dialogue. In the film, the Bondurants associate pretty freely with people of all races, though, so there's some canon foundation for him thinking segregation laws are dumb af to begin with. I can see 'they wouldn't let everyone drink at the same fountain back home' coming up in discussions, though, and I completely understand if anyone wants to opt out with him for that reasons. If accepted, I'll set up a perms post just in case.


Appearance: His hair is sandy blonde, eyes are very blue. He has an average build, lean from a rough early life, but with enough upper-body muscle to haul fairly heavy objects. There is a perpetually tired look to his face--Dane Dehaan and his eye baggage--but overall he has a sweet face. He is not that tall, around 5'8". By far the most defining body features are the braces on his lower legs. The bones are crooked thanks to rickets as a child, but the braces he wears are similar to those worn by people who suffered the aftereffects of polio in the early 20th century. His walking pace is slow, as well, and there's a slight limp, which is hard to place because he doesn't favor either leg. They're both a little weak.

How Do You Think They'll React to Being In Parthas? He's going to be depressed about not being able to get home, and deeply worried about the people he's left behind, but ultimately it will be a land of opportunity for him. Cricket is innately pretty self-sufficient and used to hard work and making do with very little. Having his own house and garden will feel like a huge upgrade from his last living situation, and he's likely to waste no time getting set up for making moonshine or running a small handyman shop. Once he finds out he can actually save up and own his own car, he'll be over the moon.
He's likely to be a little awkward where sex is concerned. I play him as a heavily hetero-leaning bisexual, and if someone shows interest in him he's unlikely to refuse, but he may not make the first move with any confidence, at least not until he gets fully acclimated to the place. When he does sleep with someone, though, he wants them to have a good time first and foremost, isn't wedded to the idea of penetrative sex as the only option, and would make a pretty good service top.

Sample(s)? In the TDM
Appearances Don't Matter meme
Prose piece: Influenza

Anything Else? Cricket is painfully mundane. He may be the most baseline human that's ever walked into a room--no special powers, no super strength. He is a bit of a mechanical prodigy, though, so if you have an engine that needs repair, he's your man. Given enough material and time, he might even be able to invent a few things.

He will arrive with a handful of small tools--wrenches, a hammer, etc.--and the shell casing that Jack Bondurant gave him, from Floyd Banner's shootout at the start of the film.

Ain't gonna let this lick me. Cricket came to this conclusion weeks ago, but he has to repeat it to himself at least a few times a day. Silently. He's honestly still adapting, and it's frustrating, but the longer it goes on, the better he gets. He always had pretty good upper-body strength, but it's increased even more after practice wheeling himself in a chair, or holding onto Willie's saddle. He's had to hire help making deliveries, but after a period of struggle and relearning, he's back to doing his own manufacturing. Even some canning, now, in preparation for fall and winter on the horizon.

There are ten cases of apple cider in the shed, ready to be shipped out in the morning.

Right now, he's on a layer of blankets on the porch, surrounded by half a dozen pumpkins. He started to carve the biggest and orange-est, but after the seeds had been removed and set in the kitchen to dry, another idea took hold of him, and now he's carefully twisting and weaving a grapevine wreath in the shape of a familiar two-horned circlet. He can probably find some gold spray paint for it in the Plaza. Loki can decide whether a spooky face is needed, from there...

Cricket has never gotten himself into serious trouble with spirits before. Generally, his soft-spoken, respectful approach has been enough to win at least neutrality from them, even the more dangerous types. That, and perhaps being favored by a god, though as far as he knows, Loki doesn't have any tangible mark on him.

(He wouldn't mind if Loki did, though. It might be a good idea to talk about that kind of thing eventually. Rings or something? But does a god really want to be tied to a mortal man like that? These are the things that make Cricket uncertain, despite how ridiculously in love he is.)

Today has not been his lucky day. He's not sure if he actually did something wrong that offended the coyote-man, or if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he was too snappish? Maybe he wasn't snappish enough.

After Josh has carried him home and dropped him off on the living room couch, Cricket sits for several minutes, removing his leg braces and tossing them aside, taking off socks and shoes and looking himself over from the knees down, rubbing and pinching at the skin to see if any feeling will come back. Nothing happens, and when he sees a sharp scratch from his own nails has drawn blood, he stops. Hurting himself isn't going to fix this.

And so, as little as he wants to bother Loki, he knows he has to. He needs help.

Pretty bird? The text reads. I need you soon as you can get here. I'm in trouble and I run out of ideas.

And then, an afterthought: If you see a man with a coyote's head in the Nexus, don't talk to him.

Up until Jack got ambitions, most of the Bondurant brothers' product was sold within the county, delivered direct to neighbors or driven as far as Rocky Mount to be sold to connections there. If someone wanted to take it as far as the big city, they were welcome to do it themselves, but they'd have to come to Franklin to get started. Not so, now. The real money has always been in the selling of the product up north, in New York, in Chicago, in Baltimore. Forrest would have rather kept close to home and earned his money without getting mixed up with the big-time distributors, the Floyd Banners and Al Capones of the world, but Jack...well, Jack's feelings on the matter are different.

There are limits to what his ambitions can accomplish for him, of course. He's not crossing state lines, but county borders are nothing. Not in a souped-up engine designed and kept in working order by Cricket (but they don't try to run it on moonshine, not when there are better options). And now, they'll go to Lynchburg as a matter of course to sell, or even further up, to Charlottesville, if the price is right.

It's Jack that fancies himself the glamorous bootlegger, and he likes to drive when the crates are full. Cricket doesn't begrudge him that, though he's perfectly happy to harass him about the airs he's putting on, in private. He's content to let Jack be the spokesman of the operation, and he stands back by the car while he haggles. Cricket's an easy figure to miss and an even easier one to underestimate, even with a rifle held loosely in his hands. It's not hard to see the braces on his legs, and there's something about his face and body language that speaks of a young man all too used to the thin end of the stick. He's always polite, though, soft-spoken and calm unless there are weapons drawn, and when an exchange of goods for cash seems to be safely underway without treachery on either side, he's willing to chat.

He'd be hard-pressed to call himself an expert on human nature or body language, but on this particular occasion, out of the folks they're meeting up with, Jasper strikes him as not very different from himself and Jack. Someone come from the working class, just trying to get by, like you do. And he seems friendly. So when there's a pause in loading and unloading, he gets a thermos out of the front seat of his car and tilts it toward the other man. "Fuckin' cold out tonight. You want coffee? Might still be warm."

Sex education in Franklin County in the 1920s was virtually nonexistent. Cricket is lucky he had a friend with an older brother who had been in the army and therefore had no filter, else he might not have known anything about it beyond the preacher's hellfire and brimstone proclamations and one or two of the more explicit bits in the Bible. He remembers a bit in the New Testament where a woman who'd had a "flow of blood" for years and years touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was made well. He pictured it as her bleeding out of her hands when he first read it, for whatever reason, like stigmata coming from beneath the fingernails, and he had to ask his Aunt Winnie a few awkward questions to clear up that misconception.

Now he has the basic idea, but when Loki decides to sit out a certain time of the month in female form for whatever reason, he realizes how little he understands about the female body and how to comfort her when she's in pain.

He has to fall back on his own ideas, what he does when his legs give him hell, and fortunately those are pretty good instincts. Lots of pillows and soft blankets, check. Sweet drinks, not liquor--he mixes up some chocolate milk, gets some coca-cola. Hot water bottles. And desserts, probably more than any one person needs. He makes some peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, and buys a dozen cupcakes from the store. It's almost fall and they have little sugar pumpkins on top.

He doesn't even question it when she asks him to bring a couple chickens inside for company and cuddles. Loki could ask him for just about anything and he'd do it.

Cricket is careful in the Wilds. He always has been, knowing he cannot run from anything that might hurt him, knowing the antiviolence field is weaker out here. More so now that the Fallen have claimed some territory, though he’s never seen them. He comes out armed with a shotgun--he’s never used it, not here--and carrying food and water in case he gets lost. But he still comes out, because of all the places he frequents in the Nexus, the cooler, more forested parts of the Wilds feel most like where he came from.
The topography always changes. Most days he prefers to walk on soft, flat ground, but today he feels stronger than he sometimes does, his legs back to their best for maybe the first time since Winter’s end. So when the path slopes upward, winding through massive boulders and vanishing into green leaves, brown humus, black crooked trunks, he follows it. He’s curious.

It feels like a hard climb, but the smell is fresh, clean, like after an early morning rain, and the air is just the right temperature, and the birds are singing all around. Off to his left, he looks down into a little hollow, and he can see sun slant through the canopy and into the shimmering leaf-litter below. And there’s a fox trotting across the ground, copper in the light, paying him no mind at all as it goes on its way.

He takes that as an auspicious sign.

Along the way he pauses to look at wildflowers, to collect ramps and fiddleheads for eating later. He takes a break to lie on one of the boulders and listens to the cicadas singing. But, though the progress is slow, he continues to ascend for another couple hours.

At length, he comes to what they would call a bald, back home. It’s not completely bare; there are small laurels clustering around the path, none more than a couple feet taller than him, heavy with bloom and bees. But he can see dead trunks extending skyward past them, grey and weathered and twisted in funny patterns against the limitless blue overhead.

That kind of thing happens close to a peak. The wind is uninterrupted by rock there, and the plant life is wracked by both summer and winter storms, higher trees stripped clean by powerful winds. The laurels are so dense, it’s honestly hard to tell what’s ahead of him, but he’s not uncomfortable in this territory. It’s familiar. It feels like home. And when he hears the sound of running water, he decides to make for it, and turn around and head back after filling his canteen. It might be a good fishing spot. Or a place to swim and play.

A few steps ahead, and the sound of the water seems to be much louder. More so than one would think from the short distance he’s traveled. Cricket pauses to listen again, and notices there is no more birdsong up here. The bees and bugs are undisturbed, though. Maybe it’s just the lack of trees.

But the water gets increasingly louder, no longer a ripple but a dull roar, blended with hissing and thin whistling notes, and he realizes it’s not water but wind. He looks up as soft grey wisps roll through the dead trunks, cranes his neck above the laurels. A storm?

No. His heart leaps into his throat as something large and grey and white comes into view, moving soft and smooth. The wisps of mist seem to come before and behind it, obscuring it a little, but he recognizes the way it moves. A deer or an elk. A deer? No deer has ever been thirty feet at the shoulder. No deer has ever had a rack of antlers that spanned so broad. But it moves like one, grazing at the dead trees, calm and careless as if it knows damn well it’s too big to have predators.

Something this massive should make the ground shake, but all Cricket hears is the whistling wind.
His heart pounds so hard it hurts.

The animal—if that’s what it is—has translucent eyes, and when it takes notice of the trembling human amidst the laurels, when it looks at him, ears flicking, he can see the blue, blue sky through them as if they were windows. He makes a small, helpless noise, struck by beauty and terror, and the Wind Elk puts out a pink tongue and licks over the dark patch of its nose and lip blandly.

Those antlers. It must be what’s decapitated the trees up here.

There is no fear in the windows that are its eyes, but after a long moment of chewing and thinking, it leaps suddenly, springing across the path in front of him and loping away, trailing tendrils of mist. Cricket cries out in shock at the motion, but the noise is lost in the sound of the other elk that follow their leader. Lesser antlers on these, some may be other, younger males, some may be does, and the smallest ones—still bigger than draft horses—must be fawns. They’re grey like fog, with paler stripes and spots on their sides.

One of the fawns stops in the path and leans toward Cricket as if to sniff at him, and he cannot move, rooted to the spot with awe. He could almost touch the face. The breath is sweet, floral, as if the creature has been eating the laurels. But before it can get too close, there’s a bellow, a roar of wind from one of the does as she calls her baby to follow. Its head goes up, it ducks, and then it turns and runs after the others and is gone.

He doesn’t move a muscle until the sound of rushing wind fades and all he can hear is the sound of cicadas, and crickets, and bees. Then he sits, collapsing into a heap in the center of the path. He gets out his canteen with a shaky hand, drinks the last of the water in it, and breaks into quiet, giddy little giggles.
That’s the Nexus for you. Sometimes you run into things you never would have expected. He can’t wait to tell people about this adventure.

Spring has just begun its work in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. The trees are dotted with bright little green leaves, paler and more golden than they will be in a few weeks, but unfurling bravely in still-chilly air to soak up the sun. The last real frost was only ten days ago, and the mornings are still so cold a person can easily see his breath. Honestly, this is Cricket's favorite time of year, even if his legs ache when he first gets up. It makes starting the fires under the stills a real pleasure, and tending them in the little hollow where the Bondurants have set up is warm and peaceful.

He's got his lunch in a tin bucket with him as he makes his way down the path into the hollow, leg braces clinking softly with every step. Here the forest is dense with brush, and the first wildflowers are starting to bloom; mostly wood sorrel, dandelions and violets. There's a natural rock cleft where the stills are placed, and the Bondurants have built a roof overtop of that, and covered it with moss and sod to create a little shack for their illicit activity. Vines hang down over the entrance to obscure that some, too. The chances of revenue agents finding it are pretty slim. They don't have the time to comb every square inch of mountain in search of these things.

But a person lost in these woods and looking for shelter overnight could certainly stumble across the shack, and it's a much better alternative to sleeping on the forest floor.

Cricket has spent the last half hour conversing with a serpent, in a quiet corner at the back of the Cafe. No one, so far as he can tell, noticed the tiny green thing twined around his wrist, although maybe someone wondered why he was talking to himself.

“I’m a’ight. Legs actin’ up a little. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I know he’s safe. I dreamed him.”

“Yeah. I prayed.”

“I reckon if it helps, then, I’ll keep it up.”

He’s up now that the little snake is gone, and he wanders slowly through the room, relying on his cane. The blisters on his legs are mostly healed up, but the ache isn’t going away. The braces feel heavy, but he needs them. So he goes slow as he walks to the door, steps through, and peers at the sky.

He never takes off the coat Loki gave him now, afraid it’ll get stolen, and it seems to get warmer when he’s outside. He’s not cold now, except for his hands and his nose, but he’s hungry, and part of him worries about the ache in his legs that won’t go away. He’s always been thin. His body’s starting to eat itself, maybe, from the inside out.

It seems like all he’s got to carry him through till spring now is love, and a strange gift from Winter. He smiles at the whirling snowflakes; the fall is light right now. A few steps out, he comes into the ruts where people have been walking to and from the Cafe to the Bunker, and he goes that way, slow and easy.

He’s been foraging before, back home. It’s almost useless to try in weather like this. Roots and plants are buried too deep. He’d never get through the snow to them. Ice fishing is probably too dangerous, at least alone. He could bring it up to one of the leaders, but they’d probably only tell him to stay inside and look after himself, and if the opportunity arises they’ll send a scout or a fighter to try for fish. That’s actually reasonable, though he hates to admit it. His legs are hinkier than usual. He could fall right in.

But there are evergreens around the Plaza. Not many, but some. And there are other trees, bare and near-frozen, but their bark can be taken.

“Aunt Winnie used to make pine needle tea,” he says aloud, and in his mind he’s talking to Loki, his Loki, even though he’s not physically present. “It’s got vitamins in it. Might keep some people going a little while.”

Granted, it has to be the right pine, one that’s edible, but he knows where there is one, not far off. It’s a white pine, he remembers. Five threads to a bundle of needles, and little white lines on the spines of ‘em. The trees closest to the buildings have fared better, so far, than the ones further away on paths. The wind freezes things, burns even evergreen leaves and cracks and fells branches. Turning, Cricket steps up onto the snow and chuckles to himself when he finds he still doesn’t sink. Good. He wouldn’t get far without this secret gift.

“I have to do something now, see,” he explains to the people who aren’t there, listening in his head. This time it might be Loki, or it might be the Old Man. “On account of I won’t be able to much longer. Dunno if rickets can come back, but if it can, it will any time now. Not much good to be able to walk on snow if I can’t walk at all.”

He goes softly, careful in spite of the gift he’s been given, tapping his cane to test the solidity of the snow in front of him. He might not sink in it at all, but he’s not sure what would happen if he stepped on a thin crust of ice over a deep pit or broken glass. He doesn’t want to find out. The topography of the plaza is very strange now.

He finds what he’s looking for in short order. It’s smallish, for a pine tree, heavy with snow and ice, branches stretched over an abandoned store. It’s still within the ring of torches, and Cricket doesn’t feel afraid as he approaches.

He’s a mountain boy, and he knows how snow does around trees, making a kind of well around the base of a trunk, one that’s often hidden to humans that approach it because of the low sweep of branches. They rarely got more than two or three feet of snow in Franklin, so stumbling into a tree well was more of an annoyance than a disaster, but here and now, it could be too deep to crawl out of, if he falls. So he’s not going to fall.

He taps against the lower branches with his cane, knocking snow free, and circles the whole tree before getting out his knife and cutting. Even being able to stand on the snow, it’s a laborious process. He reaches as high as he can, cuts branch after branch, and eventually whips off his belt to wrap them into a bundle. It’s going to be heavy. It’s probably also not going to last long back at the shelter.

He eyes the tree, realizing there’s more that could be gotten. Not by him, maybe, and taking all the branches might kill the tree, but if they have to, they have to.

One of the cut ends of the branches is leaking a little sluggish sap, and he catches it on his knife blade and puts it in his mouth, chewing it like gum. The inner bark of this tree is edible, too, but he can’t carry much more, and if he ventures any closer to the trunk, he’ll trip into the well around it. Instead, he picks up his bundle and heads back for the Cafe.

The trip back is painful, arduous. The bundle of branches is heavy. Once he gets back inside, he can cut the caps off the needles and trim the branches a little. It won’t be tasty, but people can chew on the inner bark of them as they thaw. Any waste can go into the fire and it’ll smell good.
“Ever read the Little Mermaid?” he asks the non-present Loki, stepping back into other peoples’ tracks neatly. “I think I’m dancin’ on knives, here.”

But some hot pine needle tea will taste good. For a given value of good. And the sap he’s chewing is a little bit sweet. He’ll drink and rest, and go out again like this as long as he’s got the strength.