by Rob Hart
“I know why you need to do it, but I wish you weren’t going.”
“I love you too. You’ll still be here when I get back.”
“Technically. I’m moving to a place in Brooklyn. Lunette is thinking about it, too. A little cheaper there.”
“Well. The great migration begins, I guess.”
We lose track of the night, the two of us sitting there, trading stories about the city, about how things used to be and how they’re going to turn out. We talk about the first time we came into Esperanto, and Apocalypse, and all the places that belonged to us in fleeting moments. Outside the window the snow swirls in circles under the streetlights, accumulating on the sidewalk and store awnings and cars.
Before we leave I ask him, “Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Keep an eye on Margo. And Lunette and my mom.”
“I would have done that without you asking me.”
I push in my chair, pull out the envelope from Tibo, hand it to Bombay. “I’ll never be able to make amends for what happened to your apartment, but I hope this helps.”
Bombay flips through the money, raises an eyebrow. “I can’t take this.”
“You’re going to have to. Otherwise the waitress is getting a huge tip.”
“What’ll you do for money?”
“This place couldn’t break me. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
It’s past four, maybe not yet five. MacDougal is quiet and covered under a blanket of snow that glows amber in the streetlights.
There isn’t a soul in the street. The windows are dark and the wind whips around the buildings and over parked cars that are disappearing under piles of white. I walk to the middle of the street and the only sound is the crunch under my feet. I look for fresh footprints besides the one I leave behind me, but there aren’t any.
There have been nights when I’ve been on this street and there have been so many people spilling out of the bars that traffic stops. And now it’s deserted. Untouched by a city of more than eight million people. Everything is covered with a white blanket that’s been thrown over the grime and the dirt, the trash on the street.
The quiet saturates me, my clothes soaked from the snow that won’t stay snow on my body. It’s not cold, though. The way it doesn’t get cold sometimes when it’s snowing, like the flakes are sucking it up and you can stand outside in a t-shirt and feel okay about it.
I put my canvas bag down in the middle of the street and sit on top and watch. Pull my hat down closer to my eyes. Any second I expect a wave of people to come thundering around the corner, like everyone ran off to watch something real quick but they’ll be right back.
It’s like the whole city took a deep breath, exhaled, and finally agreed to a long-needed nap.
Pretty soon it’ll wake up. The snow will be crushed and trampled underfoot. It’ll turn black from discarded trash and car exhaust. It’ll melt into giant piles of slush that pool at the corners of the sidewalks and people will have to jump over for fear of drowning. The cabs will be back out and the revelers will be here again.
But right now it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in a city full of beautiful things.
Here’s the thing about living in New York City: There are people stretched around the block, ready to tell you what the thing is about living in New York City. But those people don’t live here. They live in an idea of what they want the city to be. It ends up defining them before they have the chance to define their own experience.
Instead of defining this moment, I let it happen. Watch the snow sparkle in the streetlights as it drifts to the ground. Listen to the wind breathing around the buildings like a lover on the next pillow.
I put in my earbuds for the walk to the subway, set my iPod to pick a random song. Iggy Pop comes on. The Passenger.
Ha.
That works.
I touch my hand to the snow and pull in the moment, one that will never exist again outside the glass bottle of my memory.
Then a cab comes rolling around from West 3rd Street.
Ash McKenna will return in
Coming Soon from
Rob Hart is the associate publisher at MysteriousPress.com and the class director at LitReactor. Previously, he has been a political reporter, the communications director for a politician, and a commissioner for the city of New York. Rob is the author of The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella, and his short stories have appeared in publications like Thuglit, NEEDLE, Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect, and Helix Literary Magazine. He lives in New York City.
Find more on the web at www.robwhart.com and on Twitter at @robwhart.
Cheers to Josh Bazell and Craig Clevenger, both of whom contributed blood and sweat to the DNA of this book.
Thanks to Tony Tallon, Todd Robinson, Matt McBride, Chuck Palahniuk, Steve Weddle, Joshua Mohr, Jenny Milchman, Suzy Vitello, Ed Kurtz, Nik Korpon, Jon Gingerich, David Corbett, Chris Holm, Patrick Wensink, Johnny Shaw, Bryon Quertermous, Tom Pitts, Joe Clifford, and Otto Penzler. Writers and editors who gave me a kind word or counsel (and in the case of Tom and Joe, a killer burrito) through the process of getting this thing live.
To the teams at Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect, Crime Factory, Thuglit, Needle, and Helix, thank you for publishing my stories so I’d have a shot in the arm when I needed it.
To all the people who are going to call me out on inconsistencies with locations and historical timelines: Thanks for reading so closely, but also, shut up. I took some liberties.
Thanks to Tom Spanbauer and Michael Sage Ricci and Kevin Meyer and everyone in my Dangerous Writing workshop. You all left a thumbprint on this, and on me.
Cheers to Renee Pickup and Jessica Leonard at Books & Booze, who hosted the first interview about this book.
Huge thanks to Dennis Widmyer, Kirk Clawes, Josh Chaplinsky, Cath Murphy, and everyone at The Cult and LitReactor. I would not be here without the support and sanctuary of those communities.
Bigger thanks to my parents, for doing right by me and understanding this is a work of fiction (please stop making plans for an intervention, Ma).
Humongous thanks to my agent, Bree Ogden, who is a rock star superhero. And to my editor and publisher, Jason Pinter, for his unwavering enthusiasm for this book.
To everyone I should have thanked who I forgot to include: Fuck. I am so sorry.
Finally, and mostly, thank you to my wife Amanda. For everything. I don’t even know where to start.
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Rob Hart
Cover and jacket design by 2Faced Design
Interior designed and formatted by:
www.emtippettsbookdesigns.com
ISBN 978-1-940610-43-6
First ebook edition June 2015 by Polis Books, LLC
1201 Hudson Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
Table of Contents
Praise for New Yorked
Title Page
Dedication
Quote
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
City of Rose
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright Notice