Jamie Graham

George scratched his moustache as he strolled from the office towards the subway station. He’d often thought about shaving it off for the summer months as it got incredibly itchy in the searing city heat. It rather suited him though, giving him a more distinguished look, maybe resembling a slightly overweight Morgan Freeman, or at least that’s what George liked to think.

He had taken the afternoon off, a payback for all the overtime he’d done on the Peeterman Project. George hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even his wife. This afternoon was George time, and he had it all planned out.

He was glad to leave the suffocating humidity and chaos of the street and escape to the relative calm and coolness underground. He stopped at the kiosk to buy some mints, it was important to him that he made a good impression after all this time. Stale coffee breath impressed nobody. He took his change, turned and bumped into a young woman who was too engrossed listening to her ipod to even care.

 

Scarlet was new to New York, she bought some gum from the kiosk then headed up into the world of endless possibilities. Nobody knew her, which was so exciting, the fact that she could start with a clean state meant everything. Her blue eye shadow and pink streak in her hair was evidence of this new lease of life.

Scarlet wasn’t even her real name, she was leaving Elizabethbehind, she was so totally lame. She was listening to The White Stripes, the beat put a skip in her step as she squinted into the blinding sunshine and bounced confidently up onto 5^th Avenue. She blew a huge bubble with her gum and popped it with her tongue, she didn’t care if any was left on her face, it was only gum.

She felt so lucky to be here, it was almost overwhelming after all the hassle back home. The only person who was willing to give her a second chance was Uncle Finn, the mad Irish one nobody in the family ever really mentioned much. He co-owned a bar in the Big Apple and was more than a little crazy but Scarlet had always liked him, even more so now that she was staying at his apartment uptown. He was happy to play along and call her by her assumed name. He could probably barely remember her real name anyway, the few times he’d actually seen her in the past seventeen years.

Finn had always been the black sheep of the family, and he could see a lot of himself in Scarlet. She was going to enrol on an art course, people understood culture here, not like back in small townArizona. The only art there was Art Mitchell who ran the local grocery store. As she jogged a little to get across the street while the little white man was still showing, unbeknown to her a quarter leapt up out of her pocket and onto the scorching tarmac below.

 

Walking the other way was Shinji, he was a bit of a geek, Asian American and a computer programmer. He noticed the quarter gleam in the afternoon glare and swooped down on it before it had even fully settled on the grimy road surface. Shinji seemed to attract money wherever he went but he couldn’t attract the one thing he really wanted in life, a nice girlfriend.

He had no problem communicating with machines, however, people and especially women were a completely different matter. He especially liked Mexican chicks but he wasn’t in a position to really be choosy. There was a girl at the company who was pretty cute but Shinji was at a loss over how to even approach her. It was difficult because she worked in Sales and wasn’t even in the office all that much. When she was though, it brightened up his whole day.

He was jolted from his daydream by two big fat guys arguing in the street outside the Deli where he usually bought lunch. Today he just kept on walking and decided to try somewhere new. He’d not had a chilli dog for a while, mainly because he’d been vegetarian for over a year now. As he got to the corner of the next block, the smell from the cart drew him in like a fly to crap. He quickly handed over a couple of bucks and the quarter he’d just found, then sunk his teeth into it with great relish, it was great mustard too. Shinji closed his eyes and savoured the moment.

 

Roman had always been a dreamer and as a kid nothing spoke to him more loudly than the American dream. Growing up in a high rise flat on the outskirts of Moscow had been tough, his Father was permanently depressed, a wheezing mass of bitterness and anger who was glued to the couch like he’d lost all hope when Communism fell. His Mother had been a stranger too, she had four cleaning jobs and would leave around4am, even on the most ridiculously cold winter mornings, and return late at night to feed the pack of hungry wolves, his Father, two brothers and him.

Now it was his turn to feed the wolves, selling hot dogs from a cart in NYC. He usually made enough to survive and send a little home to his parents. His brothers Ivan and Alexei had long flown from the nest and had gone to study inEngland. Roman had always been a good soccer player and believed it was only a matter of time until an MLS scout saw him play and offered him a mega bucks contract. He only had time to play once a week now though since he got this job. Deep down he knew time wasn’t on his side and the dream was beginning to slip away.

His next customer was a guy with bright orange hair and a long straggly beard. Roman couldn’t tell from his accent where he was from but it was clear he’d been in a bar somewhere. The acrid smell of his breath could curdle Ketchup.

 

John was starving after spending the morning in Kitty O’Shea’s filling up on lager. He was a bit pissed off that they never had any Tennent’s. It was all American stuff that tasted like piss as far as he was concerned. It didn’t stop him drinking six pints of it though. John and his long-suffering wife Mary had come toNew Yorkfor their Ruby Wedding Anniversary, the closest Mary had come to a ruby was a chicken korma from The Spice Cottage in Carluke, the night before they’d left.

After only one night they’d had a massive argument over how much to tip people. John didn’t believe in tips because “thatwistheir fuckin’ joab”. Mary had never been so embarrassed. John was stewing in the heat, like a smelly old prune. He sat on a bench and munched his way through a hot dog trying not to pass out in the stifling, clammy conditions. He didn’t trust the Americans, in fact he didn’t trust anyone who “didny like a good bevvy”.

Mary was probably still in the hotel room in the cream puff he thought, so with a mouthful of bread roll, he staggered back in its general direction. All the streets looked much the same to John though so who knows where he’d end up. Trying to jay walk across 5^th Avenue wasn’t one of his better ideas and a car screeched to a halt missing him by a matter of inches.

 

Graciela had panicked when she saw the guy stagger out in front of her and now her heart was racing as she waited for the drunken asshole to get out of her way. She didn’t need this today. She’d only had the car two days and already the A.C. was faulty. Graciela was boiling alive like a hot and bothered lobster, her sweat soaked blouse stuck to the plush leather interior of her new Chrysler.

She watched as the guy she’d almost ran over made it to the pavement on the other side and promptly sunk to his knees and vomited. It was totally gross. The traffic wasn’t moving, sometimes she wished she didn’t have so much equipment to carry around for her job, then she could walk or get the subway like everyone else who had any common sense at all. There was no doubt she was going to be late for her next appointment. She was pretty much never on time and it had cost her thousands of dollars in lost sales. Graciela spent most of the day either on the road or bull-shitting customers then most of the evening catching up with paperwork in the office.

She hadn’t had a date in three years, it made her despair. It was so damn hot she had to undo another button on her blouse and then another one until her brassiere was just out there, but even though the blacked out windows were rolled down, she just didn’t care anymore. Hey, maybe some passer by might take a quick peek and then ask her out. She doubted it though, shit like that only happened in the movies. She yearned to go to the movies with someone special, the Sunday matinee with her pregnant sister just wasn’t the same. When she finally moved forward a few hundred yards, she got stuck at the traffic lights. Her eyes were drawn to an incredibly large, red faced woman who looked like she was struggling to breathe as she crossed the road in front of her.

 

Mary had shouted on John from the corner of West 58^th Street and 5th but he was either ignoring her or didn’t hear her amongst the noise of a typical New York afternoon. As she tried to walk quicker, her asthma was getting worse. This wasn’t how it was meant to be, that bastard had promised her a good time and here she was sweating, wheezing, chasing him through the crowded city streets like a silly wee lassie.

She couldn’t believe he’d made such a scene at the Hotel yesterday, she’d tried to explain to him that he should tip the porter for bringing their bags up from the lobby but he was having none of it. For a brief moment, the sun hid behind a light fluffy cloud in the sky and it was a welcome reprieve for Mary who was overheating badly. She heard someone beside her say “no sweat” and wished it applied to her. Forty years married was a long time, too long she thought. By the time she’d made it across to East 58^th, John had disappeared from sight and Mary didn’t have the energy to carry on.

The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back staring up at the towering skyscrapers that were bearing down on her. A man with a moustache and minty-fresh breath was shouting “Maam, Maam, can you hear me Maam?” She could hear him but she was unable to answer. There was an overbearing tightness in her chest and her vision became blurred and hazy. She thought to herself “well at least you’re going out in style hen” then on her first visit toNew York City, Mary’s eyes closed for the very last time.

Image Credit: fono