Name: Maybaleen “Cherry” Windsom
Sex: Female
Age: 23
Birth date: 07/23
Occupation: high-school-drop-out-waitress (to be fair, she’s been working at the same place since she’s been 16, so it’s pretty much a profession for her) and a exotic dancer in a few joints scattered around (sometimes a prostitute when the cash is low).
Appearance:
- Height = 5’ 8”
- Weight = 135 lbs
- Body Decorations = Two piercing in each ear and unless she’s at the club, it’s the same studs day in and day out. She has one tattoo right under her left breast. It says “Never Again” in plain times-new-roman lettering and is about three inches long and in something like size 18 font if you need a visual. Her other tattoos are small, freckle like dots in the creases between her fingers.
Personality: Flighty—Independent—Flirty—Suspicious—Aggressive
Thoughts on:
- Religion: She goes to Church with her Daddy on Sundays, a proper and pretty in a dress with Harrison at Bible school during services.
- Sports: Just as religiously as she goes to Church, she attends all of her local high school’s football games, watches UARK whoop some ass on the T.V Saturdays, and goes to as many minor league baseball games she can.
- Arts: Like painting. She guesses that it’s cool, but she doesn’t wanna go to a museum or any shit like that.
- Law: She likes cops, not lawyers. The law she obeys, but mostly because she’s not about to go break it.
- Sex: Not shy about it. She likes a good hook up.
- Science: Chem and Bio? Forget it. She’s good working on engines, but it helps having a father who runs the local repair shop in town. But she doesn’t often consider that to be a science. More like plugging things where they should go.
- Government: Straight ticket Republican voter, if she remembers to vote. She doesn’t care much about paying taxes because most of her pay is cash and tips can be taxed anyways.
- America: She’s the “support our troops” type of gal.
- Apocalypse: The Preacher’s been talking about it a lot lately in during services, but aside from that, Maybaleen doesn’t give it much thought.
- Humans: Some are better than others. Some are trash that are a waste of space. And some are like her.
- Death: The idea seems nice, sometimes.
- Life: Sometimes it fuckin’ sucks (like when she gets home at 3 am to find Harrison sick and her Dad passed out on the couch).
Background:
- Born and Raised in Formosa, Arkansas
- It’s been Daddy and her since she’s been four. There’s no pictures of her mom and she doesn’t care that much about the lady who died from cancer. It seems as if her mother and Daddy got hitched because that’s what a man and woman do when they have a kid together. And despite her father’s lows when he’ll go on quiet drinking binges, they’ve had good, functional lives. She doesn’t have any extended family even though Daddy’s family has been in Arkansas before it was even a state.
-Harrison came along in Maybaleen’s life when she was 17. His daddy was some educated University boy who she enjoyed for a night and then thought nothing about until her breasts started growing and the morning sickness interrupted her classes. She quit school, starting working full time at the Hill Diner, and didn’t look back. She’s not about to tell that it was all worth it, that Harrison’s the joy of her life, and that she loves her life. Those are all lies. But sometimes, they are the truth.
- She started going to clubs when she over heard one of the girls talking about it at the Diner. She works part time at four different places, all at least an hour drive from Formosa. She’s young, but she’s got the body of a woman because of Harrison. Her stretch marks are covered up with nettings or feather or whatever the costume that night has going on. It was Kim, the owner of
Tiny Dancer, who talked to her about prostitution when she was 20. All cash. Off the books. All the customers have to wear condoms and are checked out for certain HIVs before being allowed to buy one of the girls. Work is done in private backrooms and a girl can only be bought once a night. (If Maybaleen’s being honest, she likes the power she has over these men more than the money she gets out of it.)
- She’s made some fucked up decisions before. She’s not the most responsible mom ever. Her friends complain about how flighty she can be. Having sex—making love—with Kim was worse that the first weeks after Harrison’s birth. Worse than when Daddy found out she worked as an exotic dancer. Worse than when customers got too rough with her. Worse in the type of way that it was so fucking great she didn’t know what to do with herself.
- Years of laughing and talking and love and then some old army buddy of Kim’s shows up, a little too high and rough for Maybaleen’s taste. So she keeps away for a bit until she gets a call at the Diner. It’s so loud in there and she almost hangs up because she can’t hear much until she hears someone mention a name: “Richard.” That was Kim’s army buddy. Then someone in the diner turns up the news and she gets ready to shout at them to turn that shit down. But her eye catches on the purple sign of the building on the T.V. The red headline blurs and all she can see is the
Tiny Dancer charred black in one too many places. “Two U.S. Soldiers Dead,” the T.V. said. Her apron’s on and she realizes she still has a customer’s check in her hand when she’s in her trunk, trying to start it.
- After Kim's murder (the corner says it might have been a suicide, but she doesn't believe that shit), she started going a little harder in the clubs and sometimes taking a few more customers after hours. Two weeks later her Daddy sits her down and tries to talk to her about the program that she's been enrolled in and that "It's for the best." Daddy was too drunk to really explain to her what the program was and Maybaleen was too drunk to understand that night anyways. When the government men came for her, they didn't even need to drug her to keep her asleep because she was so far gone.
Skills:
- Daddy would let Maybaleen tinker in the shop growing up. She knew how to change her oil and tires before she even got her license. She straddled the world of women and men by wearing make-up and short-shorts when she has grease on her arms and her hair shoved into a baseball cap as she works on brakes or under a customers car.
- She knows when it’s time to rush to the hospital or when it’s okay to wait something out. She’s a good judge of knowing when a customer is just a little handsy versus needs-to-get-the-fuck-out.
Miscellaneous:
- Alcohol: Whiskey and beer when she can afford it or when someone else is buying.
- Smokes one cigarette a day. Half in the morning, half right before her shifts at the clubs.
- She doesn’t do drugs. At all. She’ll lose her jobs at the clubs if she does. Besides, that shit is too expensive.
Equipment:
- Standard issue equipment is included.
- Personal items include Arkansas Naturals’ baseball cap and elastic hair ties.
- A basic tool kit has been added to her pack (multi-tool pliers, adjustable & assorted wrenches, electrical tape, screwdriver handle and several bit types, assorted hex keys, torx wrench, and zip ties). Adds an additional ten pounds of weight, thus paracord will not be included.
Questions:
1. “You washed up on a deserted tropical island, alone. Right beside you is a box, what’s inside?”
- “Why’s there a box? That’s so weird. Okay, whatever. Um, I guess a cell phone. Not my piece of shit cell phone, but the type that uses satellites,” she says.
2. “The government has shut down and you are all on your own, what is your immediate objective?”
- “Like end of the world kinda shut down? Well, shit, I’d get as much gas as I can. That is what’ll be worth the big bucks. I’d hole myself up in Daddy’s garage, too. Because all those tools are easy weapons. Plus, that’s where he keeps all his ammo.”
3. “You have been tasked to do something very important by someone important at the cost of your own safety, would you do it?”
- “Like what? Save a person’s life? I’m not a doctor. I don’t do good with whiners and I hate blood and stuff. So, probably not. I don’t give a shit how important this dick is.”
4. “A nuclear bomb has just gone off and you are now hiding in your shelter, would you allow strangers to come in to your bunker?”
- “Do they have food? If it’s a kid or a pregnant woman…Aw, hell, I couldn’t leave all of Formosa out there. I’d probably let them all in. Except the worst of the meth-heads and those who ain’t
really Formosas.”
5. “Someone you love dearly is dying, and the only cure is at the hands of someone who will never give it to you freely. What do you do?”
- “Anything,” she says. “I’d do anything.”
6. “If you were left alone to do something freely, what is your first action?”
- “Gosh, I’d take a nap. Hands down, a good, solid nap like Harrison does after lunch.”
7. “Would you ever give up?”
- “Give up? Sure, why not? Somethings just ain’t worth it, ya know? But when you’ve got someone to take care of—sometimes that’s not even an option for yourself.”
