text | un: vaquero

[quinientos]

how do you switch this thing to spanish?

[Nothing should be said about the embarrassing amount of time it's taken him to type up that message, but suffice to say, meals could be had (with dessert), flowers might wilt, and mayflys inched stoically to death. Maybe it's an exaggeration, but it doesn't really feel that much of one to him]

Comments

[quinientos]

[He doesn't have any uncles left, but the ones he did have showed him how to lasso the cows, make it so that he could make a living. His mother showed him cooking, his father taught him to shoot and to smoke. His sisters taught him how annoying they could be, but they're all a distant, faded memory now.]

Hundred, though? Where I come from, you can get a horse for twenty dollars.

[And his head for five hundred.]

Jail is still around in the future? What's it like, then?

[acuerdo]

I think everything's gotten a whole lot more expensive since your day and age.

Take this beer for example. [he mentions, casually holding his glass up before taking a drink.] On the cheap end a beer will run you maybe 2 dollars at the bar.

But for one of the fancy ones [and robbie wrinkles his nose at the thought] They're easily half the price of one of your horses.

[damn. with inflation that's gotta be enough to net him a house and then some. good thing that robbie's not a bounty hunter.]

Jail's still around. From what I hear? Crap food. Orange jumpsuits.

[quinientos]

You're kidding. That's loco.

[It's said bluntly because as far as Vasquez is concerned, he wouldn't pay that much money for anything in his time, not unless it was practically made of gold. He snorts and shakes his head, thinking that it's wild to think of how much it's come to be.]

Orange jumpsuits? Why orange?

[acuerdo]

No kidding. Rich keep getting richer and so on too. [as he realizes that he's getting a little soapbox-y with things, he pipes down, clearing his throat after a minute or two of silence and continuing.]

So you can't hide, I guess. Kind of hard to miss orange when buildings are grey and brown with glass windows that are taller than a person.

[quinientos]

[Vasquez is scowling as they talk about rich people, because that's always going to be a reaction when he hears about rich people, getting richer, but he schools the sneer on his face because it's not time for him to complain about his poor circumstances.]

Really? Most people, where I come from, they don't bother with the prisons. Turn to the 'dead' part of 'dead or alive' pretty fast.

[acuerdo]

[they're not too unalike in that circumstance. robbie's not exactly rolling in the dough as the phrase goes. but he does what he can to survive, keep a roof over his and his brother's head. he'd like for gabe to head off to college already but money's tighter than he cares to admit. conversations for another time.]

Yeah. Modern criminal justice. They don't kill you unless you're sentenced to death and some places don't permit that. So, there's prisons filled with people who're just there to die a lot slower.

[quinientos]

[Prison would've meant that Vasquez had a chance to escape and get out. He would have, eventually, too. Now he can understand why it is that he wouldn't have been given the option of being locked up, at least, not for the bounty on his head.]

But it's not here, right? Whatever you did before, no one is going to try and put you in the orange suits here because of it?

[acuerdo]

[there's nothing about this place that leads robbie to believe that vasquez or anyone else for that matter might be in danger of being jailed. no, if anything, he figures if the city didn't want them here, they'd just send them packing. return to sender as it were.]

I don't think they would. I'm not a saint, but they didn't put me in a cell. Besides, I don't know that they would've let us in if we were really just meant for a jail cell. Why bother at that point?

[quinientos]

Entertainment, maybe, for someone very sick.

[ Snorting, he shakes his head, half wishing that he were given the choice of a jail cell over a hanging (or a shooting), because then he could pick that and he could escape. He'd be very good at escaping, he thinks. ]

[acuerdo]

That's messed up and sounds like the kind of thing they'd do on a reality tv show.

[he shakes his head trying to clear the thought of being on some kind of show where they put strangers in a house and force them to manipulate one another. this definitely doesn't feel like that.

does vasquez know anything about reality tv yet? if not, then he's in for a serious education.]

[quinientos]

On a what now?

[Isn't everything reality? How would it be a show, then? This is just more painful looks into what passes for the future and he's really not sure how much he likes it.]

[acuerdo]

Reality tv. Uh. Moving pictures? They record people's lives.

[this is really going to be a thing that's easier to explain by showing.]

Remind me the next time we grab a drink. I'll just show you.

[quinientos]

I feel like I'm going to need a drink. I feel like I'm going to need all the drinks to understand this place. How does everyone do it?

[acuerdo]

Maybe I'll just make it a bottle. I'm guessing it's easier if you've already been around some modern technology.

I imagine I'd be pretty lost where you're from. I don't even know how to ride a horse.

[quinientos]

Trust me, there's nothing like it. Maybe one day, I can show you, in exchange for you showing me your car.