Gold Standard

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Los Angeles was, in many respects, was like Jo'burg. Sprawl, smog, and the weird burnt orange patina at night that was never-ending electric dusk. No Bantu or Afrikaans-speaking street food hawkers, here it was Spanish and a smattering of Asian languages, depending on which way you turned. Jan pulled to the side of Figueroa under the auspices of a churro, but he was really interested in the fence behind the street cart, which was shrouded with plywood. Beyond that, the skeletal frame of a building was going up.

Parallel parking his rental, the Boer stepped out & locked up.

"How much?"

His eyes hidden behind wrap-around Wiley-X frames continued to look past the churro hawker.

"Un dolar, por favor."

As an afterthought, Jan pushed a dollar into the man's waiting hand, and took a wax paper bag filled with the greasy cinnamon-scented dessert.

"Thanks."

The construction site's property line was cordoned off and marked with their logo, almost like a legitimate gang tag. Braselton Contractors. Jan took a stroll down the sidewalk away from the churro man, turning about 50 feet away and snapping a few pictures with a digital camera. He headed for the nearest intersection, which he knew would lead to a gravel-pit parking lot for the construction crews. He needed in.

[Tycho Auriville]

"Hey, Robo!"

Chuffing out a mildly irritated sigh, the lean man in ragged, holey jeans and a sweat-drenched madras button-down glanced up, flicking strands of hair that had escaped from his ponytail out of his eyes as he scanned the floor. Even up here on the forty-second, still in the beginning stages of framing, a thick layer of dirt and white dust had already settled over everything, scenting the zone with a thick promise of grandeur that was emphasized by the background whine of saws and the rhythmic pounding of hammers.

His expression softened when the grinning face of Rooster Hawkins fell into view. Rooster was the sort of guy that you couldn't help but like, friendly and always ready with an easy smile or a wild story that seemed incongruous with his mousy appearance. They'd gone out for drinks a few times and on one such occasion, after losing spectacularly at pool and easing his wounded pride with four-too-many shots, the man had dubbed Ty 'Robocop', pointing at his ever present motocross gloves as support for the ridiculous title. Ty was certain the nickname had arisen less out of manly camaraderie and more out of the fact that Rooster was so shitfaced that he couldn't remember his own name let alone that of his coworkers, but it didn't bother him much; Rooster was crazy but he was harmless, and he always bought the first round.

"You're late, Rooster," Tycho grunted, hoisting a bundle of rebar over his shoulder. "You and Rosalita get into another eight-rounder?"

Rooster's great love in life was Rosalita, a tiny Guatemalan spitfire who evicted him from their modest apartment in Highland Park two or three times a month. Their fights were the stuff of legend.

"Nah, man, had to be ten, at least," Rooster rolled his eyes and sighed, scraggly frame drooping. "She's really mad this time, bro."

"What'd you do?"

"Told her she was just like her mother."

Ty winced. The rebar was digging into the lee of his shoulder and he shifted it, bracing his free hand alongside it for extra support. True to character, Rooster remained oblivious to his obvious distraction.

"I think we're over. For good." He said morosely. He said it two or three times a month. Brightening somewhat, he glanced up at Ty. "Hey, you wanna go get a beer?"

"Kinda busy," Ty frowned. He shifted his cargo again. "You should be too. Boss wants the framing done today."

"I'm emotionally fragile right now, Robo," Rooster's lip curled in disgust. "The love of my life, my angel, my little guava, has forsaken me. How'm I supposed to concentrate on something as insignificant as work?"

Tycho's eyes shifted over Rooster's shoulder and he jerked his unloaded shoulder in an apologetic half shrug. "Dunno, but you better figure somethin' out. Boss man's comin'."

With a gloved clap to Rooster's shoulder, the man trudged across the floor, leaving his scrambling friend to come up with a distraction on his own. There were some things better left alone.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

The site foreman diverted on his beeline to Rooster, instead flagging Tycho down with a gesture. Beneath his hardhat, he adjusted his glasses.

"You order out or something, Auriville? There's a man at the gate asking to see you. Get down, take care of it, and get back. I need a full crew for this load bearing set and that includes you."

The foreman thought nothing further of it, and moved on down the line.

"Hector, cinch off those oxygen bottles that are still full, and tote the spent ones to the lift."

[Tycho Auriville]

That was weird. He'd been on the West Coast for a couple weeks now, long enough to get to know a few of the guys on the crew at an acquaintance level but certainly not long enough to make contacts and connections that would ask for him midshift. Tycho frowned as he lowered the rebar and took off his hardhat, scratching at the halo of dried sweat that marked where the inner bracing sat.

For a moment he entertained the notion that maybe it was Wes dropping by, but he quickly dispelled that theory. His half-brother had never found Ty's lackadaisical approach to travel appealing. He didn't leave Houston without a complete itinerary and a litany of phone calls made weeks in advance.

He paused long enough to sling his tool belt into one of the beat up storage containers outside that they used for personals and then loped across the dusty site to the gate. The man waiting there didn't look familiar in the slightest.

"You the one askin' for me?" Ty said, raising his voice a little to compensate for the distance as he approached.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

"Aweh bru."

Jan removed his Wiley's, revealing a slight tan line that betrayed a man who spent most of his existence outdoors. Tucking one of the earpieces of his shades into the crook of his button-front shirt, he stepped forward and extended a hand.

"Jan du Toit, Praetorian Consulting."

He cracked a wry smile past his thick beard, which was contrasted by a tightly cropped crew cut on top.

"Tough man to find, jou are."

[Tycho Auriville]

"Hello. You can call me Ty." Eyebrows quirking, Ty took the man's hand and gave it a quick, strong shake. His accent was distinct, yet distinctively hard to place - a roundness to his vowels and a peculiar clipped quality that wasn't refined enough to be European despite the similar cadence.

"Praetorian Consulting?" Tycho repeated carefully. The name didn't ring any bells. "S'that a contracting company?"

It was the only reason he could think of for this stranger to be looking for him.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Jan arched an eyebrow and gave a little laugh. Not exactly a fan of the nightly news, this one.

"Of some sort, ja. We give contracts to talented people. I hear that includes jou, Ty."

"There's a bar a block the other way. Come have a dop & talk, on me."

[Tycho Auriville]

"A what now?"

It was almost like the guy - Mr. du Toit - was speaking English. Talk, he got; but what the hell was a dop? Tycho smiled apologetically.

"Look, sir, I got nothing against you or beer but," he thumbed over his shoulder at the bustling, noisy building going up. "There's still nine hours on my shift. We gotta lotta deadlines and we're running on a half-crew right now. My boss won't just stop at canning my ass - he'll take his pound of flesh and then some."

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

"Bliksem baas!"

The crow's feet at Jan's eyes defined a bit as he realized he was letting a bit more fungalore out than this itinerant yankee cared to hear. In America, he knew the mother tongue, and it wasn't English.

He pulled out a substantial roll of US dollars from a pocket, and let the roll fall to the gravel below.

"No wonder jou go from job to job, jou can't see a good thing when it sits on your face."

His expression hardened a bit.

"Real. Money. Bru."

Backing away, he shrugged a little, turning around.

"Or push rivets all day and have a churro. Me, I'm thirsty."

[Tycho Auriville]

Jesus fucking Christ.

Stunned, Ty crouched and slowly picked up the wad of bills. It was more than he made in two months and it had fallen to the ground from the stranger's hand as a handful of pennies from his own. Who was this guy?

"Hey, hey. Hold up," trotting to catch up, the thick roll of greenbacks in his pocket a pressing reminder that this was all kinds of out of his league, Ty held up a dirt-stained hand. "I guess my mouth's a little dry, too."

He grinned. There was a worried tilt to his mouth. "Man, this isn't a joke, right? 'Cause this is like outta a Scorsese flick. Crazy, you know?"

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

"It's a crazy world, Ty."

Jan conceded, tilting his head a bit as he did.

"Jou've been in America too long to see it."

They approached the bar without incident, and pushed through the double doors, eschewing the bar itself and went for a two top in the corner.

They sat down, and Jan promptly pushed a business card across the table to Ty.

"First things. My number. Commit it to fucking memory. I, like you, don't stay one place too long."

[Tycho Auriville]

The tabletop was cool and slick. Ty fumbled for a moment, trying to gain purchase on the edge of the card that remained stubbornly pinioned until he finally gave way and just slid it to the edge.

"Forgive me for being an asshole," He hesitated. "But that sounds sort of ominously... unratified."

Images of James Bond cut across his thoughts. He flicked the edge of the card and glanced up, thick eyebrows raised.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

"It's a job with travel opportunity."

Jan tried a different tact as it seemed that Ty was becoming desensitized at present to Shock and Awe.

"Security, jou see. People who need protecting. Important ouens from bad guys."

The Boer waited patiently for Ty to catch up to the conversation, and looked down at the beer menu in front of him.

"Fuck, never Windhoek."

He snapped his fingers to a waitress and raised his voice.

"Sam Adams!"

He glanced sharply back to Ty.

"Eh?"

[Tycho Auriville]

"Sierra Nevada."

Ty waited until the waitress had bustled off before leaning forward, blunt fingertips tapping absently on the table.

"I guess I'm just a little confused here." Understatement of the century. "I mean, I don't need protecting and I don't work security so... what possible interest does your company have in me? You need something welded, I'm your man, but."

He shrugged, palm flipping up in an earnestly wordless gesture of question.

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Jan slowly shook his head.

"I think jou know. Jour ou ballie knows, and he's a proud man for a bergie. Proud of jou."

The waitress returned with two pint glasses, brimming with beer. Jan took his up immediately, tentatively sipping through the head while he waited for his words to percolate into Ty's brain.

[Tycho Auriville]

There was a bit of a process involved in deciphering the man and while he was sure that something was lost in translation, the context was telling enough to work out a meaning. Eventually.

When it hit him, Ty took an even swallow of beer. Goddamned, good-for-nothing sonuvabitch.

"You know Harry, huh?" He shook his head, chuffed a breath and grinned like they were discussing a mutual companion. He was nothing of the sort to either of them, clearly, but it wasn't polite to admit it straight-up. Diplomacy was, after all, the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you could find a rock. "Talks a lotta talk, that guy. How is he? I haven't seen him since I was pocket-sized."

Harry Auriville wasn't worth the leather he shod his feet in, though to hear him tell it he'd been around every block and earned a hero's tribute in more than one war. He considered himself a rare breed of English gentleman, plagued by an unfortunate luck that curtailed his finances (through no fault of his own, of course) and drove him to drink as a way of coping with this machination of the devil that had been bound to him like an anchor. Tillie, Ty's momma, had an unnatural sort of affection for him; Ty supposed it was the same compassion and sense of obligation most people felt towards stray, retarded animals.

"Just stories, mostly. Tells a good one. Maybe oughtta have been a writer, made somethin' of himself."

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

"I don't think he'd sell many stories like that. Everyone's writing one these days."

It was the first roundabout reference Jan had made to the elephant in the room - the mutant situation.

"I told jou, a crazy world. Don't believe me, watch the TV. There's a man out there who can make nuclear explosions with his bare hands. Nuclear. That's befok, it's mad! My generation, we worried about the SWAPO; the Commies. Jou, the 9/11 attacks. What we see now is something none of us have seen."

His jawline set.

"Cut the kak, bru."

Jan slowly drew a quarter from his pocket and slid it across the table, until it was squarely in front of Tycho.

"Jou know, and I know. Now what happens when that quarter becomes plutonium?"

[Tycho Auriville]

The coin marked the middle line of something that Tycho couldn't articulate, a heavy foreboding that sent a roil of apprehension and offense curling through his belly. He wasn't ashamed of who he was. He didn't hide it so much as he exercised discretion becausenot everyone, not even the West Coast feel-good hippies, were as accepting and unbiased as they liked to believe.

But he wasn't an idiot. He wasn't irresponsible. It was a gift, his mother said, while the majority of the country - the world - said it was a curse.
Ty didn't give a flying fuck about labels; it was what it was.

With pointed force, he placed a single finger on the quarter and pushed it over to Jan's side of the table.

"It won't." Tycho stared at him steadily. "Shit's crazy, sure, but not everyone's certifiable. Not everyone's taking a side in this mess."

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Jan took the quarter back, reluctantly.

"I respect jou, ja I do. That's a man's thing to say. You tell the world to fuck off and do jour thing. Jou trekked across America this long and jou can do it forever, ja?"

With the quarter between fingers and thumbs of both hands, Jan slowly bent the coin in half.

"If I know about this, who else does?"

[Tycho Auriville]

Ty swallowed despite the tightness in his throat, staring at the 'v' of copper-nickel blend in du Toit's hand. So that was how the land lay.

He shrugged and rubbed a hand under his nose, sniffing irritably. There wasn't anywhere the damn dirt didn't get on these jobs, it seemed. "You're the first one to come callin'. America's a big place, sir; easy to go to ground, if it comes to that."

"Mr. du Toit," Tycho leaned back and squared his shoulders, frayed flannel collar pulling where the material had grown tight as days on the site bore new muscle. A hand drifted down into his right hip pocket, fingers curling around the gold half-dollar that lived there. He stroked it's ribbed edge, drawing comfort from it's familiar presence. "You mentioned money. So why are you really here? What's this about?"

And here he paused to withdraw his hand, spinning his own piece on the tabletop. It turned quickly, a warm, luminous whirlwind edging it's way it tight circles toward the spiral-bound appetizers menu. "My little parlour trick is nifty, sure. You want somethin' with it?"