Goodnight, Goodneighbor

Chaarlie…! Chaarlie…!”

There was, as always, no response yet.

“Chaarlie…!”

The sound of his nasally voice, scratching, dry like a burning cough, echoed out for a moment, before fading into the chorus of background voices, lost in the melody of the barroom floor.

“Goddammit, Charlie! Answer me, Christ!”

This time, there was a response. And said response, came in the form of a growling Cockney accent, and the sharp buzz of transistors, like a computer terminal humming to life.

“W’at?! W’at do ya want?”

For a very brief moment, Mister Lewis McLaughin’s mind was drawing a blank. This wasn’t very surprising, as Mr. McLaughlin’s head was usually kind of empty-or depending on who you usually asked, full of the ideas of cheap, dirty liquor, a couple loose women, and maybe even a good idea now and then that vanished beneath a sea of boorish words and just plain stupidity. Tapping his fingers on the side of his glass, back and forth in a rhythm he probably thought the next hit that Magnolia herself could sing to, Lewis finally released what he so desperately wanted.

“Uh, yeah…see, my glass, getting’ kinda empty here…mind doing ya’ job and fillin’ her up?”

He swayed the little shotglass, as clean as Whitechapel could make it, up to the machine’s ocular eye-stalks, letting the dark brown pool of razorgrain whiskey- or what at least passed for whiskey that wasn’t pre-war stuff- splash around at the bottom, like a little tide pool at the bottom of a spit-stained basin.

Now, in Charlie’s eyes, Lewis had enough to drink- and by the look of him sitting in the stool, barely clinging to the bar’s rail, desperately struggling to put words on his lips, his eyes looking around like he was a dog that just walked in from the rain, he had passed the bar on what was socially acceptable on how much cheap liquor a man could hold. But, Lewis always had a couple caps on him, some nights it was roughly 200 and a half one he found in the gutter, and on other nights he was putting on his show for the patrons of rustling through the garbage cans to find a few caps still stuck to the sticky underside of a Nuka-Cola bottle.

And tonight, tonight was the night Lewis had a small fortune made, and was so far ass deep in hour 5 of what could be described as one-man, one-place bar crawl.  And with caps, this made him a paying customer, and Charlie couldn’t refuse.

Still, manners needed a bit of work though.

“Here we go, Mister High-Rolla’…” Charlie’s Cockney accent was as sharp as the drinks, and always rang out above the seductive crooning of Magnolia on stage. It was almost one of those old pre-war comedy acts, the beautiful dame and her angry brother. Except it wasn’t funny now, as it was kind of sad, depending on the atmosphere of the place. Carefully pouring a stream of blue-whitish liquid from a clear bottle, with a label’s name ruined by the dampness of the tunnel, Charlie filled his customer’s glass, watching as Lewis’s shaking hands adoringly held the little glass like the body of Jesus himself.

“Drink up. This one’s called the Quantum Kickah…or, whatever ya like to call it. Just made it tonight”

“Quantum…Kicker..?” The words spilled from Lewis’s lips​, his eyes more focused on the little amount of liquor that swirled around in his glass, as if he really couldn't believe what he was given. With all the caution of a psycho addict poking a rabid mole rat with a stick, and yet with the surprisingly slow sip like he was one of those old wine connoisseurs, he took a small taste of the liquor, swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing hard.

Taste of Nuka-Cola Quantum, sugary sweet in a near-insulting way, the namesake. Crushed mutfruit for an extra tang. Bit of Bobrov's stuff for the kicker, always sort of bitter in the aftertaste. A hint of the syrup from a box of moisted Dandy Boy Apples for consistency. And, if he wasn't mistaken, a tad bit of what Charlie liked to call "the stuff from the back still", which always had that weird new, yet always recognizable flavor.

He'd rate it a 8 out of 10, a 9 if he was being lucky. But hell, a drink is a drink, just as a rose was a rose or something like that, With a goofy, clown-like grin, Lewis took another sip, raising his glass to the Mister Handy like a salute.

"Yeah...this is good stuff! Little too sweet, but...ya know...it's a drink!" He said again, ignoring the glare- or the closest thing the machine could give- that Charlie shot, only to be interrupted by the sound of the upstairs door flying open, the distant roar of rain, and soon the jolly melody of whistling.

And coming down the steps, dressed in an old post office uniform that by now was soaked so bad it was if it's wearer had just crawled out of the Charles, and with a big brown leather bag slung over his shoulder stuffed with half-soaked envelopes, the man happily strolled across the dusty tiled floor, whistling as if without a care.

"Ah. Mail's 'ere." Charlie looked out from cleaning a glass, only briefly acknowledging the man as he walked through the Third Rail. "Didn't think he'd show up tonigh' Wot, wit all the rain and all"
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Phillip loved the mail run to Goodneighbor. Sure, the folks back at Diamond City said it was dangerous, that it was a good way to get quote "rammed through the ass by a junkie named Long Rod Lenny" unquote, but what did they know? To Phil, every trip to Goodneighbor was a trip he enjoyed immensely. The smell of perfume mixed with the distant haze of brick dust and cigarette smoke. The old streets filled with the most colorful people. The friendly shopkeepers near the entrance- Daisy was always sweet to him, always saying how good he looked (despite his, well, appearance they both shared) and tipping him extra for every letter, and KLEO, well, KLEO was a dear old girl, er, robot, er Assaultron thing? She reminded him of an old guy he knew way back when he was younger- his uncle who was always talking about the military? Or, was it the guy he meet last month who bagged a Deathclaw with nothing but a rifle and a basket of hollow points? Either way, he digressed. To him, Goodneighbor was home, a place where the city meet under those starlight skies, and merged in every corner, from the rich guy in the suit with those big burly followers, to the guy in the old raggedy coat strumming on a one-string guitar for a cap or two. To Phillip Newman, the city was alive as ever.

(He always liked living near Scollay Square. The rent was a bit high, but that was no matter. He had a superb view of the theater across the street, and there was always that little corner bar he liked to go visit after his evening route. And sure, sometimes it got a little crowded with rush time traffic heading out to the Market, but that wasn't a bother. Phillip liked the noise, especially when he tried to sleep. Silence bothered him, you know? Too quiet, too peaceful. Being in a silent room was like being isolated to him. So, whenever he heard the screech of car tires on summer-soaked asphalt, or at night when he heard the band in the theater tune up for the night, he loved every minute. The world outside, alive, even with him not there, filled with all of sorts of wonderful people.

Maybe that's why he became a mailman. To meet people, to know them, even without meeting them. After all, delivering letters and packages was giving someone a piece of their lives, something personal, and to have someone bring that to you, was basically like giving a bit of themselves to take. Yesterday, he delivered a package of car parts to some restoration hobbyist out in Lexington. The other day, he brought a new easel to a cute little artist girl in a cabin nestled in Natick. And today, well, today was a pretty odd one- deliver something from the main offices up from East Boston to the post office- his department-in Charlestown. Didn't know what it was, just a sealed letter that he couldn't open- not that he would- but it was marked with just "For T. Edgar, Head of Boston Postal Service, Branch 5" so it had to be important.)