Kate's eyes lit up a bit at the word "Oktoberfest" and she chuckled a little as Mike mentioned Annie Oakley.

"Yea. I'm... I guess I'm going to be out of style soon. Annie Oakley's generation? The Old West? That was my father's generation. And I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Texas. It's pretty much still the 1800s out there, I suppose. The closer you get to a city, it's like you're traveling through time. But my father raised me a certain way... and some habits are just hard to lose."

She grinned.

"I did lose my hat, though. That was a bit too much for these city folk to handle. Although I guess now I'm one of them. You said you're based out of Philly? Never been there, myself. Mostly know about it through books. American Revolution, that sort of thing. What's it like there?"

(He grinned back) "First, a toast to fathers. Good or not they helped us to be who we are now." (He takes a hit before going on.) Philly's pretty. More so than Hamburg for sure. There's a lot going on there. We got rail roads, the docks, battlefields from the revolutionary war and my favorite, Delaware Park. I bet you'd love that. You get to see those big horses flying by." (He grins rather embarrassed) "I'm there pretty often. The betting's great and all but really I just like to watch the horses. (He sobers some and says.) I haven't been by for a couple weeks though. The City of Brotherly Love's had some problems lately. I feel like it gets a bad rap from what I been hearing. All I'll say about that though is that, as long as I been there nobody's been anything but good to me."

Kate raised her glass and drank, thinking of her father. God, what a bastard. But Mike was right; he'd made her who she is. 

"Well, you can't trust everything you hear, you know. At the end of the day, I trust my own experience and senses more than rumors. And your description of the city sounds really nice. Maybe next drink we have, I'll have to meet you somewhere out there and she can show me around."

Kate poured a final drink for herself and raised a glass.

"Might be my last drink, so I'll make this one a toast to mothers. My father might've made me dangerous- but if I've got anything approximating a soul, it's because my mother got to me first."

Holding her glass aloft for a heartbeat, she then polishes off her drink.

(MiketheBear raised the parting glass) "I look forward to that day KateLogan. To mothers and to new friends." (He downed the last of his liquor and headed back into the chilly night, feeling a warmth that liquor could never bring.)

Waking up the next morning in the office chair of the back room of The Malcontent, Kate stood up an stretched before shuffling to the bathroom. It'd be a good talk with Mike. Maybe she'd have to hop on a train to Philly soon.

Wiping down the bar, she wondered if anyone else interesting would walk in.