The Sprout

New York: Chapter Two

Posted by Jackofalltrades from Cardiff - Published on 09/03/2011 at 11:17
2 comments » - Tagged as Creative Writing

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Here's the second instalment of the story I've been writing, not sure how far I'll get but if you like it please leave a comment and any suggestions below! Hope you enjoy!

New York: Chapter One - A City Of Blue And Grey

Chapter Two - The City That Wakes But Never Stops Dreaming

07:00 AM 17th November 1978

Shards of light lay glistening around the room as I picked up my head, squinting and rubbing my hair where it had been flattened against the bed throughout the night. Cracks in the blinds along the long window allowed beams of light to fall into the room and illuminate the amass of dust that built up in the air mere seconds after you cleaned the room, not that it saw cleaning much anyways.

I threw the sheets back and moved to the edge of the bed with little grace, wearing my vest and underwear I trudged over to the bathroom on the far side of the room, I was in no rush, I had around an hour before I had to be scrawling notes and yawning down at the casino.

The bathroom was dimly lit by the glow of the less than adequate bulb hanging above it; it had been this way for months, so I stepped to the shower and turned the handle slowly until it was hot enough to start billowing steam into the room. There was a bath underneath the shower, like in every one of these modern style apartments, pretty flimsy and I don’t have baths, but then I doubt I was the designer's target audience.

I stepped out of the bathroom and into the main room once more, this time moving over to the wardrobe where I withdrew a neatly folded suit in plastic cover, suit folded carefully over my arm I left again for the bathroom.

It was a little bit of a ritual of mine, hang the suit in the bathroom while having a shower and you end up with a readily warm suit that feels like heaven when you put it on, has to be in a bag of course of the steam will go right through it, a little fact I found out from trial and error.

Peeling off my undergarments I then stepped into the almost scolding shower, I loved just standing under it for as long as the water lasted and mulling things over to the sound of the water, letting the heat fill your body.

I could do this for hours, but not today, I had someplace to be.

Turning off the shower, drying off and slipping on the usual warm suit, I left a great deal more energetically than I had entered.

My shoes were at the end of my bed where I had clumsily thrown them off the night before, I tugged them on in an equally untidy manner, but that didn’t matter, I could smarten them up in the taxi.

I still had around forty minutes before I was due but there was never any pain in being at a press meet early, especially if you were hoping to get within half a mile of what was going, especially with something like this that’s been such big news in the tabloids yet with next to no details actually available for public consumption.

Maybe this could be the big feed for all those bloodsucking journalists I know only too well, seem to think they get paid more the more they try and disrupt everyone else’s writing, real jerks.

So I’d better go pick up a taxi before I end up getting left behind as some wise-ass commuter steals my cab as I hail it, it’s like slaughter out there at this time.

Just another day Bradley, better produce at least some half printable material for Benny today, he ain’t strict but he’s the one paying my bills and besides I like the guy and I appreciate his patience with me.

To the side of the door was my briefcase containing bits of paper, pens and whatever I couldn’t be bothered taking out of it, I was gonna need this I was gonna take any sort of notes while I was out so I picked it up in my right hand.

I opened the door out of my apartment and stepped into the open entrance lounge to the block, the only shared part of the building other than the hallways and the roof, there’s not much here other than an old yet comfortable couch and a few small tables at each end, one with an ashtray, the other with some fake flowers.

Above the couch was a painting of a skyline, New York at night. The artist had really captured the bluish/grey hue that fills the city at night time.

I’ve looked at this painting lots of times as I’ve passed through here, but I always find myself stopping for another glance.

Opposite my door to the far side of the room was the door leading out to the sidewalk, moving forward I glanced to my left towards the stairs going to the second and third floors, I could hear footsteps pattering down them.

I paused as I saw the figure come into view, a man stumbled into the room, a long coat whipped around him as he hurriedly knelt down, shoe in hand and struggled to pull his polished leather shoe over his one shoeless foot.

He carried a briefcase in his left hand and as he raised his head after the battle with the shoe, I could see he wore a pair of thin glasses under his greasy mid-length hair that obscured his face as he leaned forward. He stood and brushed his hair out of his eyes as he made his way to the door looking flustered and stressed and with every bit of haste as he had entered the room.

What’s with that guy? Looks like someone’s running late, he must be in a lot of trouble by the way he’s looking. My eyes followed him out of the door and with one final whip on his coat he was lost from view. Made me wonder if it was only me that didn’t feel such pressure from their employers, maybe I’d got lucky landing myself with Benny, or maybe it was just my mentality clouding the fact that he actually might care if I’m ten minutes late sometimes.

I took a few more steps towards the door, took a final glance back at the picture on the wall and then made for the exit. I grasped the handle tightly with my free hand and turned opening my way out onto the street, I descended the seven tall steps that took me down to normal street level and stopped at their base.

The sound of cars and horns blaring was not an unusual one on the streets in the day, it was the sound of thousands upon thousands of people trying to get where they wanna go, do what they wanna do and come away with a pocket full of money and smile on their face. Every single one of them with the American dream in mind, the only problem when everybody wants the same thing, is that even if there was enough money for everybody to make their equal share, it’s no longer a dream it’s a reality because everybody has it, and let’s face it, everybody’s ambition is to have more than what everybody else has.

Now I’m not great at maths but to me that doesn’t seem to work out.

My feet met the edge of the sidewalk and I raised my hand to hail a taxi which pulled over about a yard past me, I stepped along and opened the door, sliding in with my briefcase on the seat beside me.

“Nearest you can to the El Dorado Casino,” I said as I strapped myself in.

“Sure thing buddy but I might need to drop you at the end of the block, whole streets packed out” the cab driver replied not looking back.

“Oh yeah, why's that?” I answered quizzically.

“Seems to have sparked a lot of interest in the press, folks love it when something big like this opens up, gets them all riled up.”

I looked out of the window as we pulled away down the street, I knew there was interest in this story but I had no idea people cared so much about this kind of thing, anything for people to blow their money I guess.

But there was no point in me making stabs in the dark, I’ll be finding out for myself what’s so impressive about El Dorado and this miracle investor soon enough. My eyes moved over to the window once more and as the minutes ticked by I sat silently, absorbing the world rushing past.

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