Jed Calvert - "Jed"

Who: Captain Jed Calvert
Where: Walking to the Promenade
When: When the crew has the day off
Jed walked with his usual self-confident swagger down some dirty metal
steps that smelled like wee. It was not the usual way to the
Promenade, the usual way would have been to take the Express-Lift
Elevator that opened directly onto the Promenade, but Jed didn't like
doing anything the conventional way. In fact he mostly rebelled
against it. Plus, the elevator would have been crammed full of people
he would rather avoid.
Since becoming Captain of the Blue Dwarf he had realised most people
had tried to avoid him. This didn't bother him so much, in fact he
quite liked it when people left him alone. He hated bumping into
people and felling as though he had to make random small talk, he just
preferred to give them a death-stare until they went away. If they
bothered him so much then he would find their payroll documentation
and reduce their pay.
He took a deep breath and got a good lungful of stale air, fragranced
by stale vomit and piss. Jed didn't mind, he liked it when things were
a little bit dirty. He hated things that were fresh and sterile and
clean. Like a brand new starship that's all shiny and clean, he much
preferred it when it had a few miles on the clock, and was covered by
dust and rusting on the inside. He rubbed his hand along the
bannister. Paint peeled off in his hands and rust stained his
fingertips. He grinned and wiped his hands on his already filthy trousers.
The good thing about being the Captain is that nobody told him what to
do. Jed liked this. At the start of his career he had been constantly
told what to do by superior officers who complained he wasn't doing
things right, or not dressing properly. Nobody told him how to dress
now, and he revelled in the fact he could wear whatever he wanted, and
wash it as little as he wanted. Which turned out the be never.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed a thick metal door
open. The dank smell of piss was quickly converted to a smell of
perfume and coffee. He actually hated the Promenade because of all
it's little shops and boutiques. They were incredibly twee and
superfluous. Jed Calvert was a man who had spent a good deal of his
life gallivanting around the universe, hitch-hiking on dirty transport
ships, fighting smugglers and pirates, and living on what meagre
scraps of food he could find, or afford when he'd completed a trade.
These people in their safe little shops couldn't understand that life.
Most of them don't even know what nefarious deals had gone on to get
their precious goods all this way out into space.
He walked past a perfume shop and an effeminate man tried to spray
some kind of cologne onto him, but Jed's fist in his left eye-socket
soon stopped him. Jed walked on.
Jed did hate these shops but they served their purpose. A quarter of
their profits were taxed and went to the upkeep of the Blue Dwarf.
Money that Jed could spend. So he let them sell their strange wares,
happily knowing that it was money that eventually would line his pockets.
He pushed a glass door open and saw a sharply dressed businessman
coming up behind him. It was someone who obviously owned a shop on the
Promenade, or at least pretended he did. He had an imaculately clean
jacket, perfect skin, and hair that looked like hours had been spend
getting it to stick up in the right places and stay down in others. He
was talking on a mobile phone extremely loudly, bragging about some
new contract. Jed could have easily held the door open for the man,
but slammed it shut at the last second, letting it slam in the man's face.
Jed chuckled to himself, he hated people who thought they were better
than everyone else, just because they were wearing a suit. Jed hated
suits. The man shouted a complaint to him. But as soon as Jed turned
around, the man realised that the tramp with cowboy boots was his
Captain, and remained quiet.
Jed mentally kicked himself for not finding out the man's name and
making sure he gets paid less. He absent mindedly threw some spare
change to a tramp on the floor. Not one part of Jed questioned the
symbolism of what he had just done, openlu punished a successful
crewmember but rewarding a tramp on the floor. But Jed never
questioned any of his motives, not any of his own command decisions.
Some Captains were analytical, they put lots of thought into the best
decisions, and followed them by the letter, or at least learned
through experience. Jed just took things as they came.
The tramp thanked him for being so generous and Jed moved on. He knew
tramps were useless, they were a dead weight for the ship. They were
people who had come aboard the Blue Dwarf on transport ships, or
whilst docked at stations – some even smuggled themselves aboard
illegally. They had all been looking for jobs, but had obviously
failed. Now they lived in the lower cargo decks, maybe earning a
living by begging on the Promenade at busy times, or some by gambling
at the Promenade's sleazy end. Jed knew they were useless and the best
thing he could possibly do with them is either throw them out of the
airlock, or use them as human shields when the next alien race tried
to invade. But he felt something for them, it wan't sorrow or pity,
but it was a sense that they were simple, uncomplicated people he
could relate to. He liked underdogs, and that's what these people were.
They reminded him of his early days of space exploration. He felt that
Space Corps was too structured for him, full of uptight officers who
arse-licked their way to command positions. So he quit and became a
trader, buying and selling to numerous contacts, some nefarious, some
decent. All his profit from one job was tied up in merchandise he had
to sell to someone else. But often a deal would go wrong, and he would
be left with something he couldn't sell. It was a risky business, Jed
could easily have been that tramp on the street, wondering where it
all went wrong.
Then the smell hit him. He didn't notice it before, maybe because of
the other concoctions of smells on the promenade, or maybe because of
his own stinking clothes. It was strong, the smell of a hundred
smashed bottles of alcohol – all various types. It smelled disgusting,
and made him woozy. Jed's stubbled face cracked into a smile and he
walked over to Parrotts bar.
<tag - is anyone in parrotts?>