Wild Fires • •

[krystian marek niemczyk]

The thing Krystian loved most about being multilingual was that he could casually listen into conversations without anyone even realising. He was so ordinary. He blended in, and yet his ears were tuned into so many languages that he knew when a pair of women were griping about their husbands, or talking in great detail about the sex one of them had the night before. He knew when someone was being cursed out in a different tongue, having generations of their family insulted while they just sat their smiling and doing their best to be polite to someone they just assumed didn’t speak English. Krystian, at times, like to think of it as his personal superpower. He had been something of an outcast when he was just a little boy, and languages had been his comfort. In many a way it now opened so many doors to him that he couldn’t help but to embrace them, and take advantage of them. He knew better than to eavesdrop, but he didn’t see the harm in it. To him, his mind processed it just like it would his own native tongue, and these people were talking in public, so they were doing it with an element of risk anyway. They could never be sure they weren’t sat around someone who didn’t know their language. Krystian himself blended in well with New York City, but he was Polish born and bred. English was, officially, his second language. All the rest came with practice over the years.

A helpful, but slightly darker skill of knowing so many languages was his job. As a translator for the NYPD, Krystian saw his world become enveloped in shadows when he never expected it to. Often he was there to help the victims, to ask the questions in a way they could understand and pass their answers onto the police who were then supposed to go and lock away the bad guys. He still had to hear about the brutality though. He had enough memories of dark times, and they were his own personal experiences of being shunned; not at all were they like the horrors that went down on the streets of New York. For that, he was thankful, but at the same time Krystian often wished he could do more than just play parrot. That was all he was hired for though, and Krystian was too quiet to do much else by himself. His life had taught him that people were inherently mean more than they were nice.

Tonight he had been called out to a domestic disturbance. It would seem no one in the apartment spoke a lick of English. They were all Romanian, and screaming still when Krystian arrived. The NYPD officers separated the family members, and Krystian had to spend his evening speaking with each of them in turn. There were neighbours hovering in the hallways of the building, trying to get a peek at what was going on. There were a lot of officers at the scene, but Krystian knew it was to keep everyone involved calm and separated. He was the only translator available, so it was a long, slow process. When the last person had finally said all that they wanted, Krystian was desperate for some water. Thankfully, an officer handed him a bottle when he stepped outside, and he was quick to gulp back a few mouthfuls.

• • •

TAGGED! Novalee Henley Marie Townsend
WORDS! 568!
OUTFIT! TO COME!
LYRICS! Night Owls Early Birds - - - Foxes
NOTES!

[Novalee Henley Marie Townsend]

Henley truly loved her job. It was dull and boring a lot of the time but there were a few jobs that were exciting and a little dangerous and the thrill she got from those jobs kept her believing she'd chosen the right path. She was only supposed to be the receptionist of the PI firm but her boss habitually sent her out on the jobs that were, in his words, bland and that a monkey could do. It meant that she was in her car, snapping pictures of unfaithful husbands quite a bit. While she wished her job was a little more exciting, it did beat sitting at her desk, answering phones and waiting for people to just show up at the door. She wasn't all that fussed on the paperwork and so far hadn't looked at the books, which she knew had mistakes because the accountant was a drunk and kept a bottle in the top drawer of his centre filing cabinet; and knowing that proved she was perfect for the job she wanted. She kept her mouth shut about the mistakes because they weren't significant and even she knew the government would read it as a miscalculation and adjust it accordingly. It didn't change the amount of the return or anything like it. And she did not want her boss to know she could do the books and do them better than the man paid to take care of them.

It wasn't any of her concern as long as she was paid for her time. She had two dogs to keep in treats because despite them being hers, her aunt put their favourite food on her regular grocery delivery so they never ran out. This job she was on tonight was another dull one with a minor twist. This time, it wasn't the husband who was cheating; it was the wife. A well-off man with his eyes on the senate believed his wife was slipping out a couple of times a week to spend her time on her back with another man. He needed to know about it before he really started his race to the finish line. If she was going to chance his political career like that, he needed to confront her and figure out what to do. Henley would have offered up the obvious answer, divorce, but she understood that sort of thing was frowned upon in American politics. Personally, she'd rather see the honesty about that in the sea of lies the people in charge spouted at every chance. Of course, that would never happen. He would get his answers and confront her, give her an ultimatum or just tell her to be more discreet the next time she's going to step out on him with the tennis coach or whoever she was sleeping with.

Henley was careful, she knew how to tail someone and kept her distance when she needed to actually follow them. In this case, it helped that she knew the area she was going to already thanks to the husband using his wife's cellphone to keep track of her. Honestly, Henley hoped this whole thing was something different than what it looked like. She wanted it to be a book club or a dance class she was embarrassed to tell her husband about. She knew of the couple from the news and had actually liked them, despite half of what was written no doubt being total lies. She had been parked outside the right building, playing a game on her phone when the sirens constantly in the background got closer and closer. She assumed, like always, that they would just pass her by but they stopped right next to her, blocking her in. With a sigh, Henley paid more attention than ever before to what they were doing, where they were going. If it happened to be the same building, she needed to call her boss and tell him the wife was compromised, no matter if her activities were innocent. After twenty minutes of just watching them secure the scene and doing what the police did best, Henley got out of her car and called her boss. He needed to know that while she wasn't in the building crawling with cops, she wasn't able to do her job either. She'd seen her in a window but the curtains had been drawn almost immediately. Casually, she moved to where a guy had stepped away and was offered a bottle of water. "Never a dull moment in this city, is there?" She asked, shoving her hands into the pockets of her denim jacket.

♦ ♦ ♦

 
TAG; krystian marek niemczyk
WORDS; 772
LYRICS; I'll Be There For You --The Rembrandts
NOTES; <3

[krystian marek niemczyk]

His job was interesting, to say the least. People didn’t always want to trust him at first, and Krystian didn’t blame them. As someone who had been an outcast most of his life he understood that hesitation. When someone approached you there was always that pause, that moment of wonder where you didn’t know if they were genuine or just waiting to screw you over like the last person. Krystian knew it well, and he didn’t blame them one bit for doubting him sometimes. Thankfully, most of the time, he was able to get them on side, to help them open up and help the NYPD to their job. It wasn’t always easy, and sometimes the interviews went on for hours and officers and captains grew impatient, but they needed him and he needed a rapport with the witness or the victim or whoever the hell it was they had brought him in to talk to.

Gulping back the water, he kept his laminated credentials hanging about his neck, just in case he needed to go back inside. Krystian didn’t get a fancy, shiny badge, but rather an ID card that was likely run off in an office downtown. It did the job, shoved into a thin leather wallet to stop it from getting crumpled too much when it wasn’t hanging about his neck in a precinct or at a scene. At least the night was cool. The air had been cranked all the way up inside, and Krystian hadn’t found it in him to ask any of the household members if one of them might be able to turn it down. He was just grateful he didn’t have to sweat it out through layers of body armour. He just got to show up in whatever he was wearing when the call came through, which was a button up over a t-shirt and jeans.

Glancing around at the voice, Krystian wiped his lips with the back of his hand, gently clearing his throat. “Well, they do call it the city that never sleeps for a reason.” He was always cautious around those who lurked at the edges of the scenes. He saw a lot of them when he was finishing up. Most of the time they were tourists who were unused to the big city cops, trying to get a look at the drama unfolding. Too many thought it was like TV, that they would see a body carted away or a killer in handcuffs being pulled from an apartment building. Most of the time it was much more mundane with literally nothing of note happening. The city dwellers were usually the ones acting like there wasn’t a roadblock or a cop car parked up, simply walking on by like it was just another grand old day in the concrete jungle. “You’re not a cop.” Krystian said matter-of-factly. He knew the look well, mostly because he carried himself in the same way. A great many people worked for the NYPD without being a cop, and they stood out from those in the uniform, even if they – like him – had their coveted laminated ID card.

• • •

TAGGED! Novalee Henley Marie Townsend
WORDS! 528!
LYRICS! Night Owls Early Birds - - - Foxes
NOTES!