It's probably for the best that it was too damned loud for Jimmy to overhear what that guy had just said. If he was sensitive to comments about himself, he was even more sensitive to comments about the few people he considered friends, and he would have smashed that guy's face into the bar hard enough to break his teeth if he'd properly witnessed the exchange.
Once outside, he seems a little steadier on his feet. "So. Where're we goin'?"
The boardwalk's hardly quiet, but compared to the claustrophobic din of the place they'd just exited, it feels like stepping out into something very serene, and Richard feels himself relax a little, even if he doesn't seem any different looking at him.
"Anywhere," he replies. Just as long as it was some place a little quieter, where they were less likely to cause trouble, he had no opinion on the matter.
Getting Jimmy away from anywhere he's likely to cause trouble is probably a wise idea. Richard is about the one person he's not likely to pick a fight with right now -- or ever -- and he should probably stick close to him until he sobers up.
He seems to be wandering towards the beach, away from the crowds on the boardwalk, and as he does so, he pulls out his cigarettes. His intention had simply been to light one, maybe to offer one to Richard, but his reflexes are slowed by what he's had to drink, and he drops the entire cigarette case to the ground, then stares at it like he doesn't know what to do about it.
A few seconds later, almost as though his reaction was delayed, he mutters, "Fuck."
Richard stops a pace or two behind him, observing Jimmy's reaction, and when he notices that he still hasn't bent to pick up the cigarette case, he does so himself, brushing a little sand off before silently holding it out to him.
He's not completely devoid of the ability to be polite, and even though the simple act of bending down and picking up the cigarette case had evaded him, he has to appreciate Richard for doing what he should have done. Perhaps that has something to do with why he appreciates Richard in general.
He keeps moving towards the beach; sand irritates him on the best of days, but the beach is quieter, and he needs quiet. This time, he successfully lights a cigarette and then holds one out to Richard in offering.
Richard follows him out onto the sand, enjoying the feel of it underfoot. He'd always been fond of natural places like this - beaches and forests and rivers and mountains and things. Even before the war, growing up in rural Wisconsin impressed all of that upon him, and it hadn't gone away like so much of what he'd held important back then had. It had only amplified, really; when you lay in one position for three days waiting to be able to take a shot, you noticed all the tiny details the world had to offer, whether it was the way that the grass moved in the wind, or studying every single little detail about the insect that landed on the barrel of his M1917 Enfield, as moving even so much as to brush it off would have given away his position. The beach was about the only natural place in Atlantic City, and it was far easier to find a quiet spot here, away from the masses, with the reassuring, regular sound of the waves crashing on the shore like the beat of a drum.
He accepts a cigarette from Jimmy, nodding in thanks. This, at least, was one pleasure he could partake in without feeling self-conscious.
Jimmy doesn't notice tiny details in the same way Richard does, and maybe if he'd been forced to come up with a reason why, he'd have tied it back to their military experiences. A sniper saw the world in a way that a machine gunner didn't. To Jimmy, everything was a moving target, and it didn't matter how the sand felt, or how the waves looked, or what the fucking seagulls sounded like. It was all background noise -- who cared if it was natural?
"You think Doyle really couldn't make it? What d'you think he's up to?"
He's not letting that go, even as he plops down into the sand inelegantly, already getting irritated at the way it seems to creep into the creases in his clothes after only touching it for a second.
Richard smooths out an area of sand next to Jimmy into a neat, flat circle before sitting next to him, knees hunched up into his chest, the position looking a little inelegant because of his height. He takes a long drag on his cigarette, looking out to the sea, the horizon drawing ever closer as the sun set behind them.
"Could be anything. ... Don't trust him."
Meaning that he didn't trust him, not trying warning Jimmy not to, although the double meaning worked just as well. It pained Richard to speak for long periods at a time, so short clipped sentences suited his purposes most of the time. When he did speak at length, he tried to make every word count.
"Yeah, well, nobody fuckin' trusts him. He doesn't even use his real goddamned name."
There are a million other, better reasons for Jimmy not to trust him -- not to trust most people, in fact -- but he's not sober enough to formulate them right now. Besides, he's inclined to think Richard is probably a pretty good judge of character, although he's not sure why he thinks that. If Richard didn't trust the guy, chances were good nobody should.
"Fuckin' sand..." He brushes some off of his sleeve and sprawls out even more, his position a stark contrast to Richard's hunched up one. "Why do we gotta live somewhere with so much fuckin' sand?"
He just always seemed very glib to Richard, a quality that he really didn't admire in people at all. That and he didn't really trust easily at all. Jimmy and Angela were probably the only people he did trust completely.
He glances over at Jimmy thoughtfully at his question. "We don't have to."
He said it like it was a ridiculous concept, but he'd thought about it before. Hell, he'd been halfway to doing it before, had gotten out of Atlantic City, but that had been an attempt at escaping, more than anything, and of course he'd come back. Maybe he'd been stupid to.
Privately, he thought that a new town could help with Jimmy's family situation, too. He'd never thought highly of either of his parents, and their influence over Jimmy seemed to be growing by the day. And he thought that Angela could do with the change, as well. As for Richard himself, he wasn't attached to Atlantic City or any other place. He saw it very much in the same terms that he viewed people: nothing had a connection with anything else. Even if Jimmy was proving him wrong there, but even so, those connections were ones that people had to forge themselves, they weren't something inherent in the world.
It's not an out and out protest. The idea appeals to him. He wonders what Angela would think. Shaking his head again, he sprawls out even more, sighing. "I don't think it's that easy to start over. I think shit would just follow me around, y'know?"
He knows deep down that Jimmy isn't going to seriously consider moving away. He'll finish what he's started, and Richard respects that. It's what he'd do himself in that position, finish the battle that they'd marched into. But the offer is genuine, and will remain open.
"I know you could, but I ain't just gonna walk away from my problems."
Leaving Richard to deal with the messes Jimmy had made himself would be cowardly and wrong. He may not have been thinking very clearly lately, but he was clear enough to know that much.
He's not even sure what he means by that. It's a big statement. Maybe he's just referencing their problems at the moment, maybe he means life in general. He doesn't seem inclined to elaborate.
It was a pretty bleak picture as far as Richard was concerned. If he thought about it too much, it made him tempted to take his shotgun back out to those woods.
"Yeah. I know." He means it to be reassuring, but it doesn't end up sounding that way. He gets the feeling that Jimmy feels the same as he does sometimes: that neither of them were really supposed to be there. He returns his gaze to the waves breaking on the shore, trying to think of something that might help, but nothing comes to mind. Any reassurance he tried to give Jimmy now would be a lie, and he felt he'd probably be lying to himself, too.
Jimmy embarrasses himself sometimes with just how much he wishes he'd never come home from the war. At least if he'd've died over there, people would've remembered him for that. Now, he was just the wounded war veteran, and a whole hell of a lot of good that did anybody -- he was pretty sure Richard knew exactly how he felt on that level, at the very least.
"Maybe I'll just sit right here forever. Tell all those other guys to go fuck themselves, 'n just sit on the beach. Sounds pretty good to me right now."
It did sound pretty good, at least in theory. He doesn't say anything for a moment, just considering how far it was actually possible to run away from their problems, and whether it was really wise to, if that was how they wanted to be remembered. Eventually he smiles sadly. "Sounds nice. Until it starts raining."
A little bit, maybe. But sitting on the beach in a torrential downpour didn't sound ideal, either, and he sighed with frustration. "Nothin's ever just easy, is it?"
Richard shakes his head a little. That was the understatement of the year, really. Nothing would ever be easy, especially not for him. Privately, he did think that if Jimmy wanted an easier life, it was right there for him to reach out and take. His family were right there in front of him, unlike the images from magazines that Richard savoured so. But maybe, after everything they'd been through in the war, that simpler life was really lost to both of them forever.
"I dunno about that. Life like this, kinda makes it seem luckier if you end up dead before you can fuck everythin' up worse."
It's not that he wants to be dead. Sometimes he just thinks it should have worked out that way. It would have simplified a lot of things, that was for sure.
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Once outside, he seems a little steadier on his feet. "So. Where're we goin'?"
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"Anywhere," he replies. Just as long as it was some place a little quieter, where they were less likely to cause trouble, he had no opinion on the matter.
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He seems to be wandering towards the beach, away from the crowds on the boardwalk, and as he does so, he pulls out his cigarettes. His intention had simply been to light one, maybe to offer one to Richard, but his reflexes are slowed by what he's had to drink, and he drops the entire cigarette case to the ground, then stares at it like he doesn't know what to do about it.
A few seconds later, almost as though his reaction was delayed, he mutters, "Fuck."
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He's not completely devoid of the ability to be polite, and even though the simple act of bending down and picking up the cigarette case had evaded him, he has to appreciate Richard for doing what he should have done. Perhaps that has something to do with why he appreciates Richard in general.
He keeps moving towards the beach; sand irritates him on the best of days, but the beach is quieter, and he needs quiet. This time, he successfully lights a cigarette and then holds one out to Richard in offering.
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He accepts a cigarette from Jimmy, nodding in thanks. This, at least, was one pleasure he could partake in without feeling self-conscious.
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"You think Doyle really couldn't make it? What d'you think he's up to?"
He's not letting that go, even as he plops down into the sand inelegantly, already getting irritated at the way it seems to creep into the creases in his clothes after only touching it for a second.
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"Could be anything. ... Don't trust him."
Meaning that he didn't trust him, not trying warning Jimmy not to, although the double meaning worked just as well. It pained Richard to speak for long periods at a time, so short clipped sentences suited his purposes most of the time. When he did speak at length, he tried to make every word count.
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There are a million other, better reasons for Jimmy not to trust him -- not to trust most people, in fact -- but he's not sober enough to formulate them right now. Besides, he's inclined to think Richard is probably a pretty good judge of character, although he's not sure why he thinks that. If Richard didn't trust the guy, chances were good nobody should.
"Fuckin' sand..." He brushes some off of his sleeve and sprawls out even more, his position a stark contrast to Richard's hunched up one. "Why do we gotta live somewhere with so much fuckin' sand?"
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He glances over at Jimmy thoughtfully at his question. "We don't have to."
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He said it like it was a ridiculous concept, but he'd thought about it before. Hell, he'd been halfway to doing it before, had gotten out of Atlantic City, but that had been an attempt at escaping, more than anything, and of course he'd come back. Maybe he'd been stupid to.
"Where the fuck would we go?"
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Privately, he thought that a new town could help with Jimmy's family situation, too. He'd never thought highly of either of his parents, and their influence over Jimmy seemed to be growing by the day. And he thought that Angela could do with the change, as well. As for Richard himself, he wasn't attached to Atlantic City or any other place. He saw it very much in the same terms that he viewed people: nothing had a connection with anything else. Even if Jimmy was proving him wrong there, but even so, those connections were ones that people had to forge themselves, they weren't something inherent in the world.
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It's not an out and out protest. The idea appeals to him. He wonders what Angela would think. Shaking his head again, he sprawls out even more, sighing. "I don't think it's that easy to start over. I think shit would just follow me around, y'know?"
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He knows deep down that Jimmy isn't going to seriously consider moving away. He'll finish what he's started, and Richard respects that. It's what he'd do himself in that position, finish the battle that they'd marched into. But the offer is genuine, and will remain open.
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Leaving Richard to deal with the messes Jimmy had made himself would be cowardly and wrong. He may not have been thinking very clearly lately, but he was clear enough to know that much.
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He's not even sure what he means by that. It's a big statement. Maybe he's just referencing their problems at the moment, maybe he means life in general. He doesn't seem inclined to elaborate.
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It was a pretty bleak picture as far as Richard was concerned. If he thought about it too much, it made him tempted to take his shotgun back out to those woods.
"I take things one day at a time."
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Speaking of bleak pictures, Jimmy certainly appeared to be viewing things negatively now.
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"Maybe I'll just sit right here forever. Tell all those other guys to go fuck themselves, 'n just sit on the beach. Sounds pretty good to me right now."
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A little bit, maybe. But sitting on the beach in a torrential downpour didn't sound ideal, either, and he sighed with frustration. "Nothin's ever just easy, is it?"
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"Maybe one day things will be easier."
He doesn't sound too convinced of that, though.
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It's not that he wants to be dead. Sometimes he just thinks it should have worked out that way. It would have simplified a lot of things, that was for sure.