MONDAY NIGHT VIOLENCE - THE LAST DAYS OF MAY
They say the west is nice this time of year…
Players:
- Rob Hawking: Jkl
- Bridget Archway: Stomper
May 23, 1972. 14:29.
30 minutes outside of Tucson there’s a white Ford F-100 stopped at gas station. Its driver is a young man named TJ. To his shaky hands, a briefcase is cuffed.
While TJ fills up the gas, the two other passengers make small talk. Rob, a veteran of 2 tours in ‘nam and plumber, and Bridget, a flower-child and TJ’s main proxy to “Mister Blue”, both realize 2 things. 1: TJ has not told either what he has asked of them to do beside a favor, and 2: neither particularly enjoys the presence of the other.
Hopping back in the car, TJ explains the plan: they arrive in Tucson at ~3PM. They have 3 hours to muck about the city until another hour-long drive, this time to the desert for a “deal”.
May 23, 1972. 15:00
Arriving in Tucson, the two mosey onto a nearbye convenience store. Rob buys a pack of lucky strikes and Bridget buys a pack of Marlboro silvers.
Returning to where TJ parked the F-100, they see him in a Diner, conversing with a man in a black suit and hair combed into a pompadour. Bridget eavesdrops in, hearing TJ mention something about “840,000”. She is however noticed by TJ, who ushers her inside to meet their “correspondent”.
The man calls himself PJ1. Shaking his hand wearily, Bridget and Rob take a seat at the lunch counter. At that point, Bridget notices 3 bald men in black suits; the only other patrons of the diner. After a while she attempts to pocket a knife off the table before being caught by the cook. She puts it back and Rob passes her 10 bucks. They decide to go shopping.
May 23, 1972. 16:00
The two enter a sportsman’s club, which congenitally has a hunting supply store connected to it. They enter behind a burly man, who is let past a backdoor by its squirrelly owner. Shutting the door, he stares daggers at Bridget and Rob. The two end up purchasing an antique of an M1911 for around $20.97, some additional magazines and ammunition for about $30 and a hunting knife for $4.97.
Inquiring about anything cheaper causes the owner to spiral into frenzy, before he is calmed by the large man in the backroom. The large man introduces himself as Daniel and the store owner as Carl. Some pleasantries are exchanged, with Daniel offering up a spot in a poker table in a backroom. Rob accepts and then, just as quickly, looses his remaining $5.
After this exchange, Rob decides to exchange contact information with Daniel, liking the cut of his jib. He hands him a napkin with his address, to which he receives an off-white business card with gold lettering: “PAUL McDONALD, Sr.” Just as Rob leaves, he catches the group crumpling up the napkin with his address and tossing it in a garbage can. Confronting them on this, the hunters pretended Rob isn’t there. They smoke stogies, refusing to give up perceived social dominance.
May 23, 1972. 18:00
The two return to TJ, finding him groaning and slamming his face into the steering wheel of the F-100. Catching up, the group drives off into the Sonoran Desert.
Mag 23, 1972. 19:00
The time of the deal. The group arrives to find a black Ferrari GT parked out in the sticks, its occupants being the 3 bald men and PJ.
The two men leasing the exchange saddle up to eachother, swapping briefcases at last. Checking the goods, Bridget realizes what had been bought for $840,000: About 12 kilograms of cocaine. Living better through chemistry herself, she realizes that TJ was being ripped off.
As both parties plan to leave however, PJ takes a pocket knife to the dollars and ends up ripping a hole when he tries to check their validity. Emptying the briefcase, it’s revealed that TJ had printed the appearance of dollar bills onto a t-shirt.
Bullets break out. TJ is shot in the shoulder before blowing a hole into one of the bald men’s neck with a pump gun, only to immediately then have an extra eye opened in his forehead courtesy of PJ’s imported kolashnikov. Bridget tries to strangle one of the bald men with a fanny pack after missing her knife-throw. When she gets in close combat, however, she’s knocked out cold by the bodyguard with a punch to her chest, breaking 11 of her ribs.
From behind the bullet-riddled F-100, Rob pulls out a Detective special. Through shaky hands he lands an impeccable shot on PJ, not yet killing him but rather knocking him off his feet and onto the hood of the Ferrari. After both “leaders” are shot down, Rob calls for a ceasefire. The bald men, after a brief conversation in some Slavic language, agree and drive off to save their boss’s son.
Looting TJ’s carcass, Rob kicks the dead man in the side several times, cursing him out the whole time. He attempts to patch Bridget’s wounds with her own bandana, before putting her in the back of the truck. The last words exchanged between the two is Rob telling her not to die, as they drive off into the Arizona sunset.
This was a semi-impromptu game of Luke Gearing’s Violence on the Purp server. I’d played it a couple times and quite enjoyed it, so I ran game with some minimal notes.
The week before I tried running the scenario, writing my notes an hour before game time. Being joined only by stomper at that time, I decided to run it a week later as I am not familiar with duets.
A dick move on my part.
With a group of 2 I found some success. It was overall a good experience, despite stuttering quite a lot, as I tend to do when running games. I need to get that sorted out.
I might run some more violence next Monday.
this irony only came to me after I had written the notes for the session down.↩