Marty Langouste:

(Burton Tedesco)

Marty knows his home turf. He grew up in this wasted, industrialized town. And he never “forgot where he came from.” But he met a woman from the other side of the tracks who took his mind new places. He thought he could follow her to a different kind of life — less rough, less visceral, with less daily fighting for basic survival. It’s a pretty, little bauble of a lie, that we don’t have to keep fighting, and he bought it wholesale.

He took a job at a bank to try and fit a mold, a preconceived notion flitting through his mind, of how life is supposed to look, smell, feel. It didn’t work. Another roughneck from his side of the tracks found him, posing as a bank manager with a pretty, unattainable woman at home. This isn’t your scene, Marty. Your scene is taking out punks at the local bar and shaking them down for loose change before sending them home to mama. Then came the bank robbery idea that Marty had no interest in participating in.

Then came the bank robbery.

Mid-robbery, Marty was threatened with being framed as an accomplice if he didn’t join them. Naturally, this made Marty really angry. Instead of joining them or letting them get over on him, he beat the ringleader to near-death. Since his actions stopped the robbery, his sentence was reduced to attempted manslaughter. He made parole too.

But where he comes from, self-defense isn’t seen as a crime. Protecting your loved ones and yourself, through any means necessary, is respected — even expected. Not censured. He doesn’t mind losing the boring day job. But it’s time lost and life lost, and that doesn’t sit easy with him. To make matters worse, now his wife won’t speak to him. And he has to take these ridiculous anger management classes as part of his parole agreement. He really doesn’t see why. He has every right, in his eyes, to be angry.

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 Carolyn West:

(Carmen Torres)

Carolyn never fit anyone’s mold — not her parents’, the church’s, the school’s, or the neighbors’. She fooled around a lot with the neighborhood boys’ fathers. And possibly, a mother or two. (Really, it’s none of our business.) She’s an unrecognized pioneer.

Never satisfied with the privilege and power of the bourgeoisie she was born into, she seeks a less artificial, less materialistic life — something belonging to her alone.

Enter Marty: What he couldn’t come by honestly, he took by sheer force, with his fists. He really turned her on, right up to the day he chose a buttoned-down existence to prove that he deserved her. That, she couldn’t respect. Nor could she forgive him for getting mixed up so passively with the robbery and going to jail for it, too. He ceased to be the man who made his future through any means necessary and became a patsy.

Worst of all, she hates herself for not having told him sooner that he was losing her. She knows that he’s the person she was meant to be with and feels like she failed him. The implosion of their marriage is nothing next to the feeling that had she acted just a little differently, had she spoken up sooner, Marty wouldn’t have become such a loser.

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Frank Hooey:

(Dan Skelly)

Frank’s a player who plays to his strengths. He reads people’s desires well and has a peculiar knack for finding their Achilles heels and exploiting those weaknesses. A drifter pretty much his whole life, he’s gotten away with it, too. It’s just that, well, every now and then, someone plays him back. Them’s the breaks when you’re a self-made Renaissance man attracted to life’s darker corners.

Any day now, though, Frank expects his past to catch up with him. It’s not a fear; it’s an expectation, and one he’s anticipating with a secret, giddy delight. He’s been getting over on people too long. The game’s gotten too easy. He lives for the challenge of his chosen lifestyle, not its glory. The downtime between scams is too empty for him.

Basically, he’s looking for other ways to fill that time. He’s thinking about partnering up with a companion who would provide constant competition and mental stimulation, someone to keep him on his toes and keep him sharp. And if it didn’t work out? Frank knows how to be a loner. He doesn’t really need anyone else, per se; it’s just that he’s better off with someone by his side. Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself.

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Chico Vega:

(Jerry Lopez)

Chico’s not used to getting his own way. The runt of several children from a poor, Catholic home, his life has been one of hand-me-downs, put-offs, and excuses. When you’re not used to getting first, second, third, or even fourth-best, getting into trouble out of sheer, idle unrest can be so easy. Trouble just seems to find Chico the way gas can sometimes find a flame. He just tends to follow wherever the conflagration leads.

It’s kind of an addiction for him, to see how much trouble he can get into. He likes easy money and easy women and, having had to fight for food at the dinner table his whole life, easy food. You’ll never catch him taking a meal for granted — and hands off.

But he blinds himself too easily. Alternatives to a life of petty crime and on-again, off-again jail time don’t really occur to him. Since he’s looking for a good time, he’s willing to go along with the flow — until it becomes a hassle, that is.

He’s never taken a stand for or against anything — (not even his personal right to freedom!) — but a hassle will make him walk away. Confrontation’s only ever good to Chico when he can predict the outcome. Anything too complicated for him will make him switch sides or quietly leave town, with or without his reason for being there in the first place.

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DiDi:

(Katherine Loyacano)

DiDi’s been waiting tables at Jailbird’s for forever and a day. It started as a weekend job during high school. After school ended in a blaze of anti-climax, she stayed on as a weekday waitress. She’s been there so long, she pretty much runs the front of house by herself during the hours that she chooses. The other shifts have at least two or three waitresses, but she doesn’t care much for the younger girls getting in her way.

She keeps the floor and other horizontal surfaces (and the appliances) clean but doesn’t much concern herself beyond that. The place is growing old alongside herself, and she’s alright with that. As long as none of the riffraff who wander over from the jail get too lippy with her, she’s alright with almost anything after all the things she’s seen.

Jailbird’s has been robbed twice before, both times when she was still pretty young. Now she knows better. She keeps a rifle underneath the counter, behind the curtain, just in case anyone ever tries that again. And she likes to flirt with and occasionally date one or two of the guards who come and go down at the local jail. Partly to fill the time and partly just in case she needs them to come by quickly, in an emergency.

Once, she had a notion that she would make a really great interior decorator and make a living from it. Jailbird’s interior still retains the evidence of that delusion.

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Tony the Fortune Teller:

(Tony Fennelly)

Christine’s a new fixture at Jailbird’s. She started coming around recently, looking for a man with only half a heart. She doesn’t have the other half of his heart, but she knows where he can find it. She can’t really help the things she sees and knows, and she won’t be able to rest until she has at least passed along the message. It makes her feel weird, these urges to get involved with and rid herself of the secret knowledge she has of others’ lives. It makes her feel a little unclean, like she’s a voyeur or a gossip.

She’s not. All she ever really wanted to do was be an astronaut and witness first hand the Milky Way and all its delights. Astrologer and palm reader was as far as she got. And right about now, she’s wishing Carolyn West hadn’t asked her to read her palm.

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Jacques Imo:

(Michael Martin)

Jacques has been a fixture for a while at Jailbirds. It’s his on-again, off-again home. The problem is, he can’t remember where home is. Or how he got here. Wherever he goes, wherever he is, he’s befuddled. He’s lost some of his teeth — he doesn’t remember how — but he keeps forgetting they’re not there. Each time he looks in the mirror, it’s a surprise. He’s never sure when he’s arrived or how long he’s stayed.

All he really wants to do is go home. If only someone could remind him where that is.