Always Vulgar and Often Convincing (Josh)

Josh had spent the last several days avoiding everyone; his friends had both embarrassed and upset him with their attempts to fix his life and he hadn't wanted to face them afterward because there was the distinct possibility they would force him to acknowledge that Sunday had happened. He was, however, utterly incapable of staying angry at anyone for long (with the exception of opponents and even then only in the abstract) and so it hadn't been too long before he had called Cobalt up and asked if the younger man wished to resume their lunch meetings. Fortunately, Cobalt had agreed and so here he was, once again lounging in the foyer of Blue and Gold Law Firm.

"Hello to you, too." He greeted his friend amiably, "I can't stay upset forever, that's far too much work."

He wasn't going to reference the incident directly, because then he might have to talk about it. That wasn't happening. "Riley stopped by on Tuesday. He brought pie. That's his solution to everything, I think. Someone is sick, bring them pie. Having a birthday, pie. Apologizing for being nosy, pie should fix things." He laughed, tugging at his tie as they made their way out of the building and into the parking lot. "Not that I'm complaining, mind. I do like pie and he's an excellent baker."

The parking lot was iced over, and he tread deliberately in footprints that had already been made, careful not to slip, "I don't know how he ended up in landscaping, he has the talent to do more." The fact that Riley owned his own company still hadn't quite filtered. "Just look at Janice, she's so bright. They could be practicing law together."

Josh didn't quite understand how anyone could like a job like landscaping. Landscaping (along with retail and restaurant work and salon workers and any number of other lower income or lower skill jobs) was supposed to be the sort of soul-crushingly depressing people who had no other skills did. That meant people who hadn't graduated -- or hadn't graduated yet, as the case may be. The only exception was in areas where the recession had hit exceptionally hard and all the people with degrees were working horrible jobs while the college and high school drop outs had nothing.

"I suppose he wouldn't have to specifically have gone into law. But!" He objected, missing the look Cobalt was giving him. "He isn't living up to his full potential! I suppose it's good that he's able to tolerate his job, but it must be depressing to be stuck doing that when his little sister graduated from law school."

If his baby sister had managed to get a better degree and career than he had his mother would have been so disappointed. And if any of them had wound up digging around in the dirt for their career she would have had a conniption fit. She liked Riley well enough, but he also wasn't her son; he was the hired help. Or he had been, up until his project had finished. Now he was someone else's hired help.

"It's just too bad, is all. He's so nice and everything."

Unlike Cobalt, Josh's family had money. He'd never known what it was to want and the concept of working a low income job because he had to support himself through college was entirely foreign. As a young man the only 'poor' people he'd mingled with were bohemian college students who thought that slumming it made them cool.

Less respectable. That was the perfect phrase to convey his feelings about certain jobs, and he had just begun to agree with that assessment when Cobalt rather unexpectedly called him a douche. "Pardon? That is the foundation upon which higher education stands: educate citizens so they are equipped to do the most respectable job they are qualified for. There are grants and scholarships to help the poor overcome their plight and obtain an education they couldn't otherwise afford so that they can get better jobs and move out of the slums."

If he'd had to be completely honest he would have said that if Cobalt had been waiting tables he wouldn't have bothered holding a conversation with him beyond ordering his food. He wasn't, in general, a demanding customer; he simply didn't notice waitstaff except for when he needed them. But he couldn't be completely honest, because this wasn't a fact he realized about himself. So instead he settled on, "What do you mean would I treat you different? I merely stated that it is too bad that Riley doesn't have a better job and that education is supposed to help you acquire skills to obtain one. How does that make me a douche or have anything at all to do with how I treat people?"

He was confused by his friend's comments; he didn't treat people badly! He tried to be a nice person to everyone, even people who weren't very bright or hadn't been able to survive the intellectual rigors of college or didn't have the ambition to land what Cobalt had aptly named respectable careers.

Josh was taken aback by Cobalt's disagreement in general and the word entitled in particular. "You're acting like I said I don't like Riley." He protested, feeling rather defensive; he hadn't expected an argument over what he considered a perfectly innocuous throwaway comment. He liked Riley; he didn't understand why he was working a job reserved largely for immigrants whose job options were limited by their inability to speak English. "I never said he wasn't my friend. He's nice, and I talk to him more than Janice and she works with me." He didn't appreciate the implication that he was somehow being unfair to his friend just because he had a lousy job.

"What does my job history have to do with anything?" He demanded as they crunched to a halt at the corner of a curb, waiting for the signal allowing pedestrians to cross. "No, I haven't had to work a low income job. I went to college to avoid such a thing."

The barb about his privileges stung; entitled was an insult that was quite effective against Josh because it was on prominent display in his own arsenal. That was one of the traits he railed about on a regular basis and he wasn't used to having it flung back at him. Even worse, in spite of his insistence that his family background had no place in this debate he had a niggling feeling that Cobalt was right; he couldn't deny the fact that his family had been upper class. Not the filthy rich like Rockefeller or even Bill Gates, but still wealthier than your average U.S. citizen. He didn't like being wrong, particularly if his wrongness was because of something horrifying like entitlement. He certainly didn't want to admit that such a thing might be true, and the mixture of guilt and annoyance only caused him to scowl.

"I concede that I have never been poor. But I have worked soup kitchens, Cobalt, I have seen what happens to the college dropouts among us. A lack of higher education isn't good. I want better than that for my friends."

The light changed, but neither men noticed. Josh simply stared at Cobalt in disbelief. The younger lawyer was taking this awfully personally. True, he had grown up an orphan, but he'd overcome his circumstances and had opened his own law firm.

He'd never been on the receiving end of Cobalt's sarcasm before and he didn't like it. If the smaller man's intentions were to make him feel like a terrible human being he had succeeded. Discrimination and privilege was the language he spoke, and once put in that light he began to see the other's point. That did not make him any happier; instead it made him feel worse; he was supposed to be above petty biases.

"...I never said he was stupid." But he felt guilt creeping into his mind, because he really did think less of Riley's intelligence, and not just because of his job but also because his demeanor was so shy and retiring and he just didn't make much of an impression beyond well, he's really nice.

The reminder that Riley ran his business caused him to flinch. Oh. Yeah. Well, no, he'd never even considered opening his own business. Raising capital would have been easy enough, but all the bookkeeping involved? No, thanks, that was what he had a paralegal for. "I know he isn't going to a soup kitchen. I never said that...." He muttered sullenly, folding his arms across his chest.

"Ummm." He responded with great eloquence to all the accusations. He didn't want to have an argument with Cobalt; the shorter man had easily become his closest friend (after Sean) and he didn't like not getting along. He also didn't like being thought of as not nice which was essentially what he was being called out on, and he didn't like feeling guilty (because it meant he hadn' t been nice, which was why he'd so long resisted having any sort of discussion with Sean.

The light changed once again, trapping them on the wrong side of the street with their argument. "I'm sorry I don't have the right experiences so I can have an opinion." He retorted grumpily. "There isn't anything wrong with Riley, that's not what I meant. I just...he's just....." He flailed, trying to find some justification, something that wouldn't make him look like the ass Cobalt was painting him. "I mean, I don't think you should discriminate based on careers, but people should try for the best one possible and....I haven't run a business. I keep forgetting he runs it." He added in a smaller voice, deciding to look at the icicles forming on the eaves of the buildings across the street instead of at the other lawyer.

"I wasn' t trying to insult anyone. I just..." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, maybe we should just...forget about lunch today."

Maybe he wasn't being entirely fair to Riley; their conversations had never been about any deep topics, perhaps if he attempted to engage the other man on something besides food and work he would discover that he shared his more outgoing sister's brilliant mind; Cobalt was correct, after all, that he owned a business so maybe Cobalt was also right on another subject, and he just enjoyed landscaping, as difficult as that was to believe.

"Sorry? No, I....I didn't...I just don't think we should spend our lunch break arguing." He clarified, flushing in embarrassment. Great, now Cobalt thought he would rather flee than face this uncomfortable situation. Granted, that was a perfectly fair assessment but he wanted the younger man to think well of him, and he had managed to ruin that twice in one conversation. Would Cobalt even want to remain friends after this disaster?

"...oh."

Josh wasn't sure how to respond to this revelation. He'd known that Cobalt had worked hard to get where he was, but he had always assumed the hard work in question had been limited to school work. He tried to picture Cobalt working behind a Deli counter or waiting tables and failed; he was meant to be an attorney, not slaving away at some service job.

The light once more changed, allowing pedestrians to cross, and this time Josh noticed and trudged across the slush melted by a steady train of cars.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize." He said after a moment as contritely as he could manage. "I suppose...I suppose you're right."

He wasn't sure how he managed to choke that out; he hated apologizing.