Play@YSDC

It is coming up for eleven o’clock on Saturday night and Laurent Toussaint is sitting in the narrow light cast by his lantern as he works on a jammed outboard motor. The night sky is pitch black and while he can hear the soft swishing of the sea he can’t see more than a few feet away. Turning his head he can see the faint light of Old Man Samuel’s shop and hear snatches of music; fast, syncopated, dissonant, the unmistakable sound of bepop jazz.

Tearing his attention away from the hypnotic music he concentrates on the engine. Nearby his schoolfriend Pierre Lavigne and Pierre’s father Fabrice watch expectantly. First day of the school holidays and here he is, kneeling on the fishy wooden slats of the pier, trying to fix an unfamiliar motor for free, rather than hanging out at Old Man Samuel’s listening to the latest American and Cuban beats.

Usually Laurent would help his father scratching a living maintaining the small number of vehicles owned by the locals of Dame Marie and fixing the frequent breakdowns of the hulking St. Joseph camions, built like oversize roller-coaster cars, spewing diesel fumes, and wearing such glamorous names as Dieu Protege, Dieu Est Bon, Partout, and Bon Dieu Bon. Since the Azagon Hotel had been built things had become a little more comfortable with their fleet of station wagons and jeeps and now the American George Benson had introduced outboard motors to the fishermen.

But tonight Laurent was doing a favour for Pierre. Well, it wasn’t entirely unselfish, he was angling for an invitation to come back to their house for a drink, maybe to see Pierre’s sister, Marise. A few years older, she was the nicest most beautiful girl in school and Laurent was sweet on her. She used to come and enjoy the music at Pointe Pierre but Laurent hadn’t seen her for a while. Perhaps they would call in to the Sharktooth bar in Dame Marie where Pierre’s mother Florence worked, maybe Marise would be there too.

Laurent opens up the motor and looks inside, it’s clean, and new, precision engineering, nothing like the old engines he’s used to working on. ‘Bèl motè, m’sié’ he says to Mr Lavigne, ‘Let me take a look and see what’s wrong.’

OOC,If you want to have a go at fixing the motor I'd say that was a 2d6 roll for Laurent - human capabilities and his profession. I suspect he won't want to be risking his sanity with an insight roll at this stage!

Laurent fiddles with the motor, but he's more used to working on cars, so it's difficult to repair it.

OOC,Roll to repair the motor (regular and occupational dice): 0

It takes him a while but eventually Laurent gets the motor started. It coughs and splutters intermittently but it seems good enough for Pierre and his father. 'Bon bagay!' laughs Pierre and Fabrice Lavigne claps him on the shoulder, 'Mèsi compère, it's getting late, no point going back out fishing now, why don't we find a drink to celebrate getting that motor running again?'

"Oui, sounds good to me!" says Laurent enthusiastically. "It was thirsty work."

Laurent joins Pierre and his father walking up into town from the water front. They laugh and joke in the lantern light. Arriving at the Sharktooth bar it is dark and closed for the night. The lanterns and candles smoulder like they've been extinguished recently. 'We've been gone too long' says Fabrice, 'Come, we'll go back to ours, will you have a drink and a song before bed' he asks Laurent.

"Avec plaisir," says Laurent, going along with Fabrice and Pierre.

The three walk in the lantern light on the dark streets of Dame Marie. Away from the salty, fishy tang of the pier, the air is heavy with the usual smells of gutters, and garbage, and donkey shit.

They head up and away from the waterfront, past the shops of the main street, dark and shuttered for the night, some with wooden doors fastened shut, others with drop-down iron fronts that look like drawbridges from movies of old England. Here and there are houses with the lamps still burning, the occasional figures silhouetted in the yellow glow, the bigger homes with verandas overlooking the street. The atmosphere is warm and sticky, and they can hear the rats scurrying in the gutter.

The deserted open-air marketplace is dark and spooky under its banana thatch roof, but Fabrice turns away down a side-street before reaching the marketplace and the Hounfor district behind, the poorest part of town where the local Vodou people live. They walk down the narrow streets of a neighbourhood that is less well off but still respectable.

They arrive outside a narrow fronted wooden house, distinguishable from some of the neighbours mainly by weak light leaking around the doorframe and the shuttered windows. He raps gently on the door.

Laurent smooths out his hair, hoping to make a good impression on Marise if she is home.