Mitheral
"Growf!"
....
-
This section is for roleplays only.
ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.
Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.
Realistic or Modern John Doe (Superhero RP)
- Thread starter Mitheral
- Start date
Cervance
Master of Fate
Benjamin Blake King left Gotham Memorial Hospital, still incredulous about the reality of his new situation. He wore a pair of old sneakers, tattered jeans and a gray hoodie a size too small. He replayed the conversation he had with his nurse back again in his head. "If you really are Blake King," she said, "You should check out the Gotham City Blues House. Your old band is playing a tribute and it'd be a hoot if you showed back up from beyond the grave."
She went on to to explain how he could get help from the hospital's psychiatric wing - for his 'delusions', Ben assumed. Regardless, he had gone to sleep last night in prison, serving for life, and now he was a free man - he had no intentions to waste his second chance, whether it was a fabrication of a deluded mind, or reality.
The long walk to Gotham City Blues House was refreshing. Ben enjoyed the cool night air, the freedom, and listened in on other's conversations. They were mostly innocent: sports, music, school, work - or lack of work - though he also heard one man selling dope on a street corner. He wondered why everyone - the drug dealer especially - was talking so loudly that he could hear them clearly across the street. In the end though, he was relieved. Gotham wasn't so different from New Orleans. That in itself wasn't exactly a good thing, but at least he was free in Gotham. He was free in the physical sense, but he still remembered the violence that he had been caught up in and locked away for. If the culture was the same here, then Ben resolved he would fight it - how, he didn't know - and do everything he could to keep young men out of gangs, out of jail.
Ben found the neon sign for the Gotham City Blues House, and below it the words "Blake King Memorial Concert." He heard the music being played inside. It was his, for sure, the same music he wrote back in New Orleans years ago. He wondered why he was supposedly famous here. Did it have something to do with his 'death'? He remembered one of his last songs prophesied his own death. He even joked about it with his bandmates. As it turns out, it was his drummer that was killed, not himself. He didn't know what happened to his old bassist. Certainly not fame and fortune. Eventually, a barkeep from inside saw him loitering around. "Are you coming in or what?" he asked.
"It's okay, I can hear fine," Ben replied.
The barkeep gave a funny look, and gestured for him to come inside. "Show's almost over anyway, go on and enjoy yourself. Come back with a date when you've got a buck though, yeah?"
Ben stepped inside, past a bar and into the crowded hall. He didn't recognize the band playing, but he knew the music. He smiled, and had an idea. He'd play the closing song for his own memorial concert. Ben pushed his way to the front, an easy task for a man of his stature - almost too easy - and climbed up on stage.
"Can I do the last one?" he asked, massive grin plastered across his face. At first, the band - guitar, drums and bass - were confused, then he saw the bassist's expression light up.
"Bee you sunnovabitch, is that you?" The bassist, a black man with a well groomed afro rushed up to get a closer look, nearly tripping over his own equipment in the process.
"Can I play?"
"Holy shit... hey, hey, Jericho, give him your guitar!" the bassist motioned vigorously, took the guitar from the hapless guitarist, and handed it over to Ben.
Ben, still with his smile on his face, stepped up to the mic and introduced himself. "Hey ya'll, I'd like to dedicate our last song to Blake King, may he rest in peace." Ben let himself get sucked into the performance. It'd been years since he played for a crowd, and never one as energetic as this one. He didn't notice that the drummer and guitarist had silently left the stage, he just sung out all his energy, all his frustration and anger, like he always did.
She went on to to explain how he could get help from the hospital's psychiatric wing - for his 'delusions', Ben assumed. Regardless, he had gone to sleep last night in prison, serving for life, and now he was a free man - he had no intentions to waste his second chance, whether it was a fabrication of a deluded mind, or reality.
The long walk to Gotham City Blues House was refreshing. Ben enjoyed the cool night air, the freedom, and listened in on other's conversations. They were mostly innocent: sports, music, school, work - or lack of work - though he also heard one man selling dope on a street corner. He wondered why everyone - the drug dealer especially - was talking so loudly that he could hear them clearly across the street. In the end though, he was relieved. Gotham wasn't so different from New Orleans. That in itself wasn't exactly a good thing, but at least he was free in Gotham. He was free in the physical sense, but he still remembered the violence that he had been caught up in and locked away for. If the culture was the same here, then Ben resolved he would fight it - how, he didn't know - and do everything he could to keep young men out of gangs, out of jail.
Ben found the neon sign for the Gotham City Blues House, and below it the words "Blake King Memorial Concert." He heard the music being played inside. It was his, for sure, the same music he wrote back in New Orleans years ago. He wondered why he was supposedly famous here. Did it have something to do with his 'death'? He remembered one of his last songs prophesied his own death. He even joked about it with his bandmates. As it turns out, it was his drummer that was killed, not himself. He didn't know what happened to his old bassist. Certainly not fame and fortune. Eventually, a barkeep from inside saw him loitering around. "Are you coming in or what?" he asked.
"It's okay, I can hear fine," Ben replied.
The barkeep gave a funny look, and gestured for him to come inside. "Show's almost over anyway, go on and enjoy yourself. Come back with a date when you've got a buck though, yeah?"
Ben stepped inside, past a bar and into the crowded hall. He didn't recognize the band playing, but he knew the music. He smiled, and had an idea. He'd play the closing song for his own memorial concert. Ben pushed his way to the front, an easy task for a man of his stature - almost too easy - and climbed up on stage.
"Can I do the last one?" he asked, massive grin plastered across his face. At first, the band - guitar, drums and bass - were confused, then he saw the bassist's expression light up.
"Bee you sunnovabitch, is that you?" The bassist, a black man with a well groomed afro rushed up to get a closer look, nearly tripping over his own equipment in the process.
"Can I play?"
"Holy shit... hey, hey, Jericho, give him your guitar!" the bassist motioned vigorously, took the guitar from the hapless guitarist, and handed it over to Ben.
Ben, still with his smile on his face, stepped up to the mic and introduced himself. "Hey ya'll, I'd like to dedicate our last song to Blake King, may he rest in peace." Ben let himself get sucked into the performance. It'd been years since he played for a crowd, and never one as energetic as this one. He didn't notice that the drummer and guitarist had silently left the stage, he just sung out all his energy, all his frustration and anger, like he always did.
Mitheral
"Growf!"
They had fingerprinted him as a John Doe. His prints came up with a match after 3 days. He didn’t have a rap sheet. There were no ACTIVE cases. Rather he came up as a cold case for a suspected homicide. Considering how healthy the man looked homicide seem patently unlikely. It wasn’t long before the prints made it to the desk of Detective Mitchell Cantrell of Internal Affairs. The case had been closed when there had been no body located. But Cantrell has always suspected foul play - on the part of GCPD. What he suspected had been a mob hit using police. Now it was pretty clear as to why no body had been found. But why was King showing up out of the blue - as a John Doe - but alive and well? That fact made no sense at all.
Who should he assign to tail the man? Cantrell recalled the facts of the case. The prime suspect had been the Drummer, who had made a small fortune by selling the music under a mob backed music label, generating sympathy earnings for a dead artist. Mitchell was no fan of blues, though he didn’t dislike it, but he had listened to some of the recordings and though King was a decent guitarist.
It wasn’t going to be too hard for King to get new ID, access to any old bank accounts if anything was left. getting access to the fortune made in his name was going to be a legal battle though.
Narrator
Benjamin Blake King - Unofficially BB King, though he can’t use the name professionally because it is trademarked.
Evening Friday Sept 18, 2015
Gotham City Blues House
Dumasai Zhakata eyes bulged out as he watched a man who was supposed to be a ghost enter the house and start playing the music of King, as if he had been playing it his whole life. The man was a dead ringer for the man on the poster. Only Ben Blake King was supposed to be dead. This man might be an impersonator, but if he was he was damned good - maybe better than the original. A living King meant financial troubles for the Crip Mob if Ben decided to make a legal play for the intellectual rights to his music. And it would be a whole lot worse if he decided to put the finger on whoever ...
Wait … King was supposed to be dead. Everyone said he was dead. The Crip mob thought he was dead. If they ordered a hit and someone lied about getting the job done, someone was in trouble. And whoever supposedly disposed of the body …
What a mess!
Dumasi didn’t consider the consequences of being the bearer of bad tidings. No, his only thoughts were of being the guy who told Mace about King. Mace rewarded his informants well, so Dumasi had heard. So the first thing he did was pull out his phone…
Starlyn Johnson
Starlyn had picked herself a corner booth, sitting in the shadows. She was a fan of several types of music, Blues being one of them. Her family came from southern Louisiana for nearly two centuries. She knew King’s music. And when she saw the look alike walk in she almost rolled her eyes as she half expected something akin to an Elvis impersonator. But when the man started to play the corners of her lips curled upwards just a little.
In recent times she had little to smile about. Her life had turned to shambles since the death of her little brother. Another drink came and she sipped at it. It wasn’t long before she was subconsciously singing the songs to King’s songs.
Her pleasure was short lived as one of the club security walked into the room and across to her booth and whispered. “They need you downstairs. Benny’s been hurt. It’s bad.”
Starlyn looked hard at the man, clearly unhappy. A look of something not unlike depression came across her face as she nodded and got up to follow the man out.
Cervance
Master of Fate
When Ben sung the closing song for the night, the prophetic song of a young man's - his own - early death, he heard the crowd sing along. He heard them in ways he'd never noticed before; each individual's separate voice - high or low, drunk or sober, hoarse or clear, voices of people who sang loudly, badly, and without shame, and the soft voices of people who were better than him - they all rang in his mind. Ben realized he had always heard them, but never listened, never understood.
He had no time to dwell on what he heard though, because with each finished verse followed a guitar line. He played old favorites, tried and true phrases he'd played ten thousand times before, fresh new lines, written in prison with a different sort of expression, and he improvised too, because today was a great day, and he was free to play whatever he damn well pleased!
As the song was ending, and the applause - the most enthusiastic he'd ever received - was finishing, Ben started hearing what people were saying about him, their questions. Was it really him? Was he back from the dead? Ben motioned to his bassist and realized he didn't remember the guy's name. He was a short black man with dreadlocks and a killer smile, and looked to be in his thirties.
"Hey," Ben said, "Let 'em know who we are."
The bassist shrugged, shook his head in the negative and gestured for Ben to do it himself. "They won't believe me if I say it," Ben pleaded. Plus, he didn't want to make a fool of himself. Amnesia was a tired excuse, and he didn't need other people's useless pity.
The bassist relented, and took the mic. "Everyone, everyone, settle down, settle down, that's right." The noisy crowd quieted down and gave their attention. "First of all I wanna thank everyone for bein' here tonight, You're all lovely people, every one of you, thanks for comin' out. Our drummer tonight is Dumasai Zhakata, the big 'D.Z,'...but he had to use the toilet, so give him a round of applause you can hear from the men's room." The crowd obliged. "Give the same to our guitarist Jerry Ramirez, who was up here first, he's gone now too." Again, the crowd obliged. "I'm the bassist Christian Cotton, and the brother at my side, the one who sung Dead and Gone for us tonight, is the one and only Blake King, back from the dead!"
The applause was deafening, and Ben couldn't help but smile. Christian handed over the mic back to Ben, who waited a full minute before the crowd had settled back in. "My parents named me Benjamin Blake, after their favorite bluesman, the legendary B.B. King. All their love of blues was passed on to me, and I've been singing and playing all my life, and I'll keep singing until I can't breathe no more. I'm thrilled to be back here in Gotham, and I hope I'll hear every last one of you again at one of my concerts, thank you very much." He and Christian took their bows, and left the stage, but the crowd still roared on, hoping for an encore.
Ben put his hand on Christian's shoulder and grinned, "We got a minute or two, let me show you what we're gonna play for the encore. It's a new one..."
He had no time to dwell on what he heard though, because with each finished verse followed a guitar line. He played old favorites, tried and true phrases he'd played ten thousand times before, fresh new lines, written in prison with a different sort of expression, and he improvised too, because today was a great day, and he was free to play whatever he damn well pleased!
As the song was ending, and the applause - the most enthusiastic he'd ever received - was finishing, Ben started hearing what people were saying about him, their questions. Was it really him? Was he back from the dead? Ben motioned to his bassist and realized he didn't remember the guy's name. He was a short black man with dreadlocks and a killer smile, and looked to be in his thirties.
"Hey," Ben said, "Let 'em know who we are."
The bassist shrugged, shook his head in the negative and gestured for Ben to do it himself. "They won't believe me if I say it," Ben pleaded. Plus, he didn't want to make a fool of himself. Amnesia was a tired excuse, and he didn't need other people's useless pity.
The bassist relented, and took the mic. "Everyone, everyone, settle down, settle down, that's right." The noisy crowd quieted down and gave their attention. "First of all I wanna thank everyone for bein' here tonight, You're all lovely people, every one of you, thanks for comin' out. Our drummer tonight is Dumasai Zhakata, the big 'D.Z,'...but he had to use the toilet, so give him a round of applause you can hear from the men's room." The crowd obliged. "Give the same to our guitarist Jerry Ramirez, who was up here first, he's gone now too." Again, the crowd obliged. "I'm the bassist Christian Cotton, and the brother at my side, the one who sung Dead and Gone for us tonight, is the one and only Blake King, back from the dead!"
The applause was deafening, and Ben couldn't help but smile. Christian handed over the mic back to Ben, who waited a full minute before the crowd had settled back in. "My parents named me Benjamin Blake, after their favorite bluesman, the legendary B.B. King. All their love of blues was passed on to me, and I've been singing and playing all my life, and I'll keep singing until I can't breathe no more. I'm thrilled to be back here in Gotham, and I hope I'll hear every last one of you again at one of my concerts, thank you very much." He and Christian took their bows, and left the stage, but the crowd still roared on, hoping for an encore.
Ben put his hand on Christian's shoulder and grinned, "We got a minute or two, let me show you what we're gonna play for the encore. It's a new one..."
Users who are viewing this thread
Similar threads
