Enter: Jessie Drake
Nov. 13th, 2023 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_chameleon posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsHurricane Jessie blows into the community center, ready and eager to help. Sooraya is very patient.
Jessie was bouncing her leg as she slipped through the front doors of the community center, looking around. There were people bustling around, heading places, talking, laughing. It didn't seem like there were any employees - or anyone in any kind of uniform that would identify them as A Person Who Works Here. She could just ask if someone could point her in the right direction...
Then she noticed someone posting something on the bulletin board a few feet away. Perfect! Employees put things on bulletin boards! So did people selling stuff, though. Or offering guitar lessons. One way to find out.
"Hello!" she said cheerfully as she walked up to the person. "Do you work here? Or are you offering guitar lessons? Because I've always wanted to learn how to play."
"No guitar lessons, I'm afraid. Though I know one or two people might be able to help if that's what you're looking for?" Sooraya quickly pushed the final tack on the announcement for the Baby Box information meeting before glancing over at the person standing next to her. "Were you looking for something? I don't officially work here, but I'm here often enough."
No guitar lessons. Maybe next time. "Yes! I was actually wondering if people could volunteer here. Well, if I could. If that's a thing. I'm sure they want to do background checks and stuff because I'm just a random person off the streets who could secretly be anti mutant and trying to infiltrate the place although I'm telling you that so it would be a terrible plan, honestly." Jessie stopped to take a breath. "But that's the gist of it. I'd like to volunteer here."
"Volunteers are always welcome, though yeah, we do check for a couple of things. I have just one more of these to put up.. " Sooraya held up her flyer. "... but then I can show you to the office and you can fill a thing or two. So what kind of volunteering are you interested in?"
"Oh, I don't know..." Jessie bounced on her heels, still smiling, but at least calming down a little. "I usually just offer to do anything. The library had me stocking books a lot. The food pantry sent me around to put up signs and collect donations from people who couldn't make it to the actual pantry. The Gay-Straight alliance had me putting up flyers too." She was starting to tick things off on fingers as she spoke. "So I guess I'm really good at putting things away, getting papers off printers, and walking around town to hang things on light poles. Oh! I can herd children like a boss, too. I used to help with toddler reading time."
"Those are some things we need regularly." Sooraya stopped at the final bulletin board across the main large space and quickly tacked her flyer into place. "Now that is done, let's get some stuff sorted out for you. I'm Sooraya, by the way. Sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier."
"Oh, right! I'm Jessie, it's nice to meet you. So you said you come here a lot?" she asked curiously as they started walking. "But you don't work here officially? Do you volunteer too?"
"Oh, I coordinate a couple of projects through the center and give a hand where needed with others, but I'm not officially on staff." Sooraya easily explained. "My most important ones are the Baby Boxes and the Back to School Backpacks. Though the last one is fairly quiet right now."
Jessie listened, wide-eyed. "That's so cool. How'd you get involved in all that? How long has the center been open? How long has a whole district for mutants even existed? I lived here until I was thirteen and I've never even heard of it!"
Sooraya burst out in laughter. "Whoa, take it easy. Each of those is a whole story of their own. But let's see... the center has been open since spring 2022, I think... about a year and a half. Whoa, that is far shorter than it feels." Shaking her head for a moment, Sooraya continued: "DX itself... it has been around in some form or another for about a decade. But it doesn't have the best reputation, so I'm not surprised it's not talked about a lot if there is no need for it."
"I get that," Jessie admitted. "But it's amazing. It's so cool how people just like... come together. You get a few, and then a few more, and suddenly you're a whole neighborhood with businesses and a community center. Do you live around here?"
"No, I live a little ways from here, sharing a house with several people. Several also volunteer here, actually." Sooraya pushed open a door, guiding them into a simply appointed office. "What about you, Jessie? You mentioned you're from not too far away?"
"Right now I live on campus at New York University. I lived in Massachusetts before that, but I was born in New York. But Mom wanted to be closer to her family, so we moved." Jessie's life wasn't nearly as interesting. "Are you a mutant? Is that rude to ask? I am. A mutant, I mean. Not rude. I hope I'm not rude anyway."
"Why don't you have a seat and I'll find the form we use for this... at least, there should be one." Sooraya eyed the filing cabinet with a small amount of suspicion before pulling open a drawer. "And I'm a mutant. I don't mind talking about it, but that differs a lot around here." She gently cautioned.
"Noted! I won't ask again." Jessie took the paper and a pen, and started writing - then immediately paused, showing some hesitation for the first time. "Um... do you need my legal name? Because it's different. I mean, I have a name I go by, and then I have a legal name that I'm trying to get changed, but I haven't yet. And some of the information on my driver's license is wrong."
Sooraya nodded thoughtfully: "It kinda depends a little. If you want to help out once in a while with hanging up posters, help sort some donations and things like that, we might not need it directly. But if you'd really like to volunteer with the kids or on a structural basis we do some form of background checks and for that we do need your legal name."
"Yeah, I figured." Jessie sighed, tapping the pen against the desk before writing the name she hated more than anything else in her life. "It's just, I'm trans, ya know? So all the legal stuff has my deadname on it. And I'm not hiding anything, I don't have a record. It's just one of those things that you don't want to share with people until you know how they're going to react. I mean, you know. Like being a mutant."
"You are not the first one who comes here with hesitations about sharing things about themselves... for all kinds of reasons." Sooraya replied gently after a moment of thought. "If you do want to get to know the center and the people a little better first by participating in some stuff or helping out with small things before you share more, that is no problem. You can use whatever name you want to go by."
Jessie looked at the paper again, sighed, and shrugged. "Yolo. If people are going to be assholes around here, I'd rather find out now than wait."
"If it helps anything at all..." Sooraya nodded at the form, just a little awkward. "... all information you fill in is subject to our privacy rules which we take very seriously."
"It does help," Jessie admitted, quickly filling out the rest of the form. There was even a section at the bottom for preferred names. She wrote CALL ME JESSIE in all capital letters and underlined it three times. "Do you know how long background checks take? When can I start? You were putting up flyers, weren't you? Do you need help?"
"I'm not sure." She admitted, accepting the form from Jessie, carefully tucking it in an envelope and storing it in the filing cabinet. "But I think we can find you a few smaller things to do before that or you can join in with a few things yourself to get to know people and the area..." Sooraya paused, tilted as an idea occurred to her. "I was going out later to put up some flyers for the Baby Box project, but why don't you come along and we'll do it now. I can show you around a little while we do so."
"Sounds great!" And she was right back to bouncing as she stood up, eager and ready to go. "Lead the way!"
Jessie was bouncing her leg as she slipped through the front doors of the community center, looking around. There were people bustling around, heading places, talking, laughing. It didn't seem like there were any employees - or anyone in any kind of uniform that would identify them as A Person Who Works Here. She could just ask if someone could point her in the right direction...
Then she noticed someone posting something on the bulletin board a few feet away. Perfect! Employees put things on bulletin boards! So did people selling stuff, though. Or offering guitar lessons. One way to find out.
"Hello!" she said cheerfully as she walked up to the person. "Do you work here? Or are you offering guitar lessons? Because I've always wanted to learn how to play."
"No guitar lessons, I'm afraid. Though I know one or two people might be able to help if that's what you're looking for?" Sooraya quickly pushed the final tack on the announcement for the Baby Box information meeting before glancing over at the person standing next to her. "Were you looking for something? I don't officially work here, but I'm here often enough."
No guitar lessons. Maybe next time. "Yes! I was actually wondering if people could volunteer here. Well, if I could. If that's a thing. I'm sure they want to do background checks and stuff because I'm just a random person off the streets who could secretly be anti mutant and trying to infiltrate the place although I'm telling you that so it would be a terrible plan, honestly." Jessie stopped to take a breath. "But that's the gist of it. I'd like to volunteer here."
"Volunteers are always welcome, though yeah, we do check for a couple of things. I have just one more of these to put up.. " Sooraya held up her flyer. "... but then I can show you to the office and you can fill a thing or two. So what kind of volunteering are you interested in?"
"Oh, I don't know..." Jessie bounced on her heels, still smiling, but at least calming down a little. "I usually just offer to do anything. The library had me stocking books a lot. The food pantry sent me around to put up signs and collect donations from people who couldn't make it to the actual pantry. The Gay-Straight alliance had me putting up flyers too." She was starting to tick things off on fingers as she spoke. "So I guess I'm really good at putting things away, getting papers off printers, and walking around town to hang things on light poles. Oh! I can herd children like a boss, too. I used to help with toddler reading time."
"Those are some things we need regularly." Sooraya stopped at the final bulletin board across the main large space and quickly tacked her flyer into place. "Now that is done, let's get some stuff sorted out for you. I'm Sooraya, by the way. Sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier."
"Oh, right! I'm Jessie, it's nice to meet you. So you said you come here a lot?" she asked curiously as they started walking. "But you don't work here officially? Do you volunteer too?"
"Oh, I coordinate a couple of projects through the center and give a hand where needed with others, but I'm not officially on staff." Sooraya easily explained. "My most important ones are the Baby Boxes and the Back to School Backpacks. Though the last one is fairly quiet right now."
Jessie listened, wide-eyed. "That's so cool. How'd you get involved in all that? How long has the center been open? How long has a whole district for mutants even existed? I lived here until I was thirteen and I've never even heard of it!"
Sooraya burst out in laughter. "Whoa, take it easy. Each of those is a whole story of their own. But let's see... the center has been open since spring 2022, I think... about a year and a half. Whoa, that is far shorter than it feels." Shaking her head for a moment, Sooraya continued: "DX itself... it has been around in some form or another for about a decade. But it doesn't have the best reputation, so I'm not surprised it's not talked about a lot if there is no need for it."
"I get that," Jessie admitted. "But it's amazing. It's so cool how people just like... come together. You get a few, and then a few more, and suddenly you're a whole neighborhood with businesses and a community center. Do you live around here?"
"No, I live a little ways from here, sharing a house with several people. Several also volunteer here, actually." Sooraya pushed open a door, guiding them into a simply appointed office. "What about you, Jessie? You mentioned you're from not too far away?"
"Right now I live on campus at New York University. I lived in Massachusetts before that, but I was born in New York. But Mom wanted to be closer to her family, so we moved." Jessie's life wasn't nearly as interesting. "Are you a mutant? Is that rude to ask? I am. A mutant, I mean. Not rude. I hope I'm not rude anyway."
"Why don't you have a seat and I'll find the form we use for this... at least, there should be one." Sooraya eyed the filing cabinet with a small amount of suspicion before pulling open a drawer. "And I'm a mutant. I don't mind talking about it, but that differs a lot around here." She gently cautioned.
"Noted! I won't ask again." Jessie took the paper and a pen, and started writing - then immediately paused, showing some hesitation for the first time. "Um... do you need my legal name? Because it's different. I mean, I have a name I go by, and then I have a legal name that I'm trying to get changed, but I haven't yet. And some of the information on my driver's license is wrong."
Sooraya nodded thoughtfully: "It kinda depends a little. If you want to help out once in a while with hanging up posters, help sort some donations and things like that, we might not need it directly. But if you'd really like to volunteer with the kids or on a structural basis we do some form of background checks and for that we do need your legal name."
"Yeah, I figured." Jessie sighed, tapping the pen against the desk before writing the name she hated more than anything else in her life. "It's just, I'm trans, ya know? So all the legal stuff has my deadname on it. And I'm not hiding anything, I don't have a record. It's just one of those things that you don't want to share with people until you know how they're going to react. I mean, you know. Like being a mutant."
"You are not the first one who comes here with hesitations about sharing things about themselves... for all kinds of reasons." Sooraya replied gently after a moment of thought. "If you do want to get to know the center and the people a little better first by participating in some stuff or helping out with small things before you share more, that is no problem. You can use whatever name you want to go by."
Jessie looked at the paper again, sighed, and shrugged. "Yolo. If people are going to be assholes around here, I'd rather find out now than wait."
"If it helps anything at all..." Sooraya nodded at the form, just a little awkward. "... all information you fill in is subject to our privacy rules which we take very seriously."
"It does help," Jessie admitted, quickly filling out the rest of the form. There was even a section at the bottom for preferred names. She wrote CALL ME JESSIE in all capital letters and underlined it three times. "Do you know how long background checks take? When can I start? You were putting up flyers, weren't you? Do you need help?"
"I'm not sure." She admitted, accepting the form from Jessie, carefully tucking it in an envelope and storing it in the filing cabinet. "But I think we can find you a few smaller things to do before that or you can join in with a few things yourself to get to know people and the area..." Sooraya paused, tilted as an idea occurred to her. "I was going out later to put up some flyers for the Baby Box project, but why don't you come along and we'll do it now. I can show you around a little while we do so."
"Sounds great!" And she was right back to bouncing as she stood up, eager and ready to go. "Lead the way!"
