Bright Fires Burn Fastest

by Unknown

  Real pressure.

  A 100 million pound real estate deal with the Chinese that had taken two months to bring to the table. The building was 93E 12th and it was the first deal he would pull off solo. Due diligence had been done months before, as had the valuations, now it was just a case of getting the little fuckers to sign it.

  Today was the day. He pictured the conversation with his older, less in shape more malevolent colleagues.

  “So….ya done?” some brooding local New York broker would tease, not a sunshine coast boy, not by half.

  “Nah”, Tom would reply, as ice cold in manner as it was beyond the windows of their 42nd level office situated in the greatest ATM on Earth, Wall Street.

  “Need a hand?” Meck, the worst of all would ask. Colleagues, only ‘helpful’ when a flesh wound was exposed.

  Tom would want to reply ‘No fucker’, but a rye smile and a wink that appeared far more confident than he actually felt beneath his three piece suit would suffice to keep the dogs at bay for today.

  Tom, being from Los Angeles and not a New Yorker, and assumed as someone from a city ‘that made money for porn stars, fags and fuck ups’ was not welcomed easily into the doors of Centon Estates.

  For some time Centon had been the best real estate brokers in New York. When they meant the best, they meant the best in multi million pound schemes in billion dollar locations. In other terms, they were the peacocks in a city where everyone had a strut.

  Tom, 24 when he joined and now 27 just happened to be the best at what he did. Getting money out of people, and a lot of it. Whether it was just the fact he was 6”3 with blonde hair, a body like a surfer and an easy manner or he had the brain of a Harvard grad, Tom put it down to the combination. The locals though didn’t ‘take his vibe’ as they would a fellow man used to the freeze of Manhattan. They bragged about being born there even if they weren’t, this was the biggest members club in the world.

  Today was the biggest day of his career so far. He had earned this chance, and he had a good feeling. Needless to mention the self-reward he would have earned himself if he nailed it. Monumental.

  As the second white filter fell from his lips he looked up at the Centon Estates building and thought of the deal to come, the deal that was his to seal. He took one last breath of Hudson river salt and garbage fumes and opened the door to the warmth of a foyer bigger than most Long Islanders homes.

  “Tommy, can I…” the receptionist said alluringly.

  “No” was all he said.

  “Good luck” she said as he headed for the lift.

  The doors opened and all Tom thought was, fuck, the whole damn building knew, even the canary at the desk. Well that’s it then. He had to nail it, and nail it he would.

  Tom pressed 42. Time to make it. Time to show them all why he moved here.

  *

  Polly sat there in an uncomfortable chair. She was in her place, her place in the East Village.

  She had a routine, a good one, well the one that worked for her. Awake, jog, eat cereal, then off to work, in the gallery. One day it would be hers.

  Listening to The Black Angels she let the door to her apartment block close behind her, ensuring she gave it a tug as it never closed properly. 11th Street looked quiet this morning, unusually few people on the sidewalk for just before nine on a Tuesday. A vague kind of snow covered the place, white on the rooftops, brown on the wheels. The sound of the elementary school opposite greeted her with the usual wails and screams, the only thing to penetrate the thumping through her headphones.

  She walked like regality, queen of the East Village, queen of the city she called home. It had been her home since birth, whatever that meant. Identity and belonging was a funny thing in a place so unused to it. Total ambivalence was the practiced way, the simple ‘cha’s’ and ‘hey’s’ suiting just fine. I mean there was no need for exaggeration of the most base feelings or greetings in a place that moved this quick.

  Grabbing a coffee she took a direct on 2nd and carried over 3rd and found 4th. Found being the operative word she was so lost in her dreams about doing ‘more’. It was lucky that she was even alive with her salary. Well, maybe ‘being alive’ was too strong, she was certainly stoked for being here, on this earth, free to be herself, but why? She had a bigger idea, an ideal, though who would help her there? No one.

  She checked Facebook for some kind of vague connection to a world she felt increasingly more distant from. Hundreds of people checking themselves into social scenarios to make others jealous. In all truth she was just as lame, I mean, she was but an hour passed posting a picture of where she had been running. Really who gave a fuck where she had run, it’s more important where you walk, or the way you walk.

  That thought she bore in mind before walking into ‘work’, as much as a temp in an art gallery in the Meatpacking District could be considered as such.

  Snapping to life she remembered her promise to herself, the binding promise. She was doing this for herself. The loneliness would pay off, it was self-sacrifice. The jumped up jackass who ran the gallery wouldn’t run it like her, or so she utterly believed. She was learning the ropes, practising the game, doing it for the cream of the crop, the grand bazaar. Money.

  *

  Lucas touched down around five his time he guessed. The plane food, general stench and indecent proximity of other humans hadn’t helped his body clock. Typical, it was either an Asian insisting on talking to him about ‘Amewica’ or some fat bastard next to him. I mean, if you’re that fat take up alcohol, it doesn’t just thin the blood.

  The cab ride was kind of irrelevant, weirdly, it should have been be more significant. It should be the ‘game breaker’, first impressions count. It was, according to the cab driver, the greatest city on earth.

  Yep he was here, here ready to eat this world. Well ‘world’ maybe too big, it was all about the districts here or so he had heard. He was here to paint, to find inspiration. There was one vast issue as that Hollywood style skyline rocked up into view as he came up through it.

  Something was missing. April. She was coming in a month once her visa was cleared, how much damage could he do?

  A lot knowing him.

  *

  “Goodbye”.

  And the line went dead.

  He had done it, it was complete.

  The deal was done.

  Tom was the king, the king of the 42nd floor. It was a long walk home to Redondo Beach in California from here but he felt like he could run all the way there. The Chinese had signed.

  He had heard that some Americans, himself not included, burst into spontaneous applause for things like landing a plane, in the movies or when something truly awesome happened. They didn’t fail him, the whole floor stood and began to clap.

  “Whoop whoop”.

  “Rock on Tom”.

  From California he had come, intent to escape a city so far up itself. To New York he had arrived, endured the scorn, endured the loneliness of knowing each day he was in a place full of so many people as ambitious as him. Money had to be earned in a place like this, it was never just blind luck like it could be in LA.

  Giddy, ecstatic and delirious he felt right now. He walked past colleagues who now smiled and felt overcome. A year or two back they had laughed at him, laughed at his ‘west cost’ ways. Now they didn’t.

  Centon Estates had just, thanks to Tom, made one of their biggest real estate deals since they merged with Strotts more than a decade ago. And the best thing about it for Tom doing the deal alone? Yes, the pay check. Yes, the fucking khakis, but more so than that, he could get loaded. Locked and loaded. Tonight he would live without rules.

  *

  Polly was consumed by a Nirvana song and perhaps named because of one of them. The days blurred into one, they did now anyhow. Polly was fast arriving at a place where she wondered even if god would forgive her for what she was doing. Wasting time. There was no greater sin.

  The routine had died.


  It was day three of her week off from the gallery. So far she had not done much. Well, three bottles of Jameson, twelve aderols, two guys and a shit load of self-loathing. This was meant to be the week when she changed it all, for the better.

  Polly should be half way through a business plan to life. She had wanted her own gallery, to be a linchpin in the art world. A vague hope remained that she could turn around this week of planning. Her mother had even said as much.

  “Are you putting too much pressure on yourself?”

  Polly had considered her response, “No, not yet”.

  “You sound tired”.

  “I feel tired”.

  Polly’s mother, estranged to the point of absolution just sighed.

  A sigh was worse than a judgement.

  Thunder she was right now. No plans, no agenda and no clue where she was headed. All that waited for her right now was a city she knew but didn’t, it had changed more times than she cared to remember. She could go to any bar in any district and just ‘see what happened’.

  So she did. Finishing the warm whisky she headed out. She headed out to see what would happen if the chips were down.

  Chapter 2

  Tom checked his phone, it had been way too long. I mean when did drug dealing become so damn difficult? It was a business like any other, supply and demand, stand and deliver.

  Just as impatience threatened to spill into fury, the long awaited ‘bleep’ sounded.

  “S’up, there in five”.

  It was now midnight and he was feeling the chill ripping down 51st and Broadway. Every car he looked at might be ‘the one’. Not yet though, fuck he was celebrating, celebrating the biggest deal of his life, his defining moment.

  A generically seedy and overpriced strip club uptown seemed the right place to do such a thing. Drugs were by the by, part of the process.

  Eventually a Camero pulled up, how typical.

  That first hit, like the first night without the awkwardness. So in Tom went, down to Cindy, his chosen broad for the evening. She looked good; pink corset, suspenders, just the way he liked it. A girl untrusting and innocent enough to make him ‘make’ the effort.

  From New Jersey, I mean what stripper wasn’t? Manhattan was expensive. She had hopes, dreams and whatever the fuck baggage came with that shit. Tough life no doubt, good lay most likely. That’s what he liked though, she was a human and he needed company. Not of the fucking type, of the talking type, or maybe both. Was it the hit, was it the whisky? Fuck he didn’t know. All Tom knew was he needed to gabble some bullshit about how fucking great he was and with this mood only a paid girl would bother to listen.

  Hours flipped over when inside Flashdancers. Tom, being Tom, had chosen the champagne room where not one, or even two but three girls satiated his gargantuan appetite to be the centre of attention.

  “So you’re like a big deal?” Marcy, was it Marcy or Martha?

  Tom had undone his Hermes silk tie bought on 5th and 22nd West that week and let his eyes meet hers.

  “Kinda”, he had said.

  All three of the witches who instead of spells had dollar bills in their minds had tittered, he approved. Endless times they groped at him, well, his wallet, in exchange for Tom receiving a raging erection numerous times. They always smelt the same, strippers that was, nicely perfumed but a scent you damn well paid for.

  By 4.00am he was done. Well he had run out of coke, whisky tasted bitter and his tongue felt woolly. Excusing himself from the jackals he made his way up top.

  Jo the doorman greeted him like a brethren. A worrying sign of regularity but right now he needed to see a friendly face no matter how crookedly it looked at Tom behind the dark brown eyes and shining teeth.

  “Cab, Tom?”

  “Sure why not”.

  Within a second Jo had hailed a yellow and it skidded to a stop on the wet road in front of him.

  Tom opened the door and looked up at Times Square scratching the black skies above. No one else was in the Square but still the advertising hoardings flashed and screamed at all the human senses simultaneously, desperate for the craving individual to buy one of their products.

  “Where to?”

  Tom had a brief moment of forgetting, he was more loaded than he had thought, “Crosby and Spring”.

  Duly the cab sped off and down Broadway towards his home. Drunks, tramps and the umpteen New Yorkers on the wrong side of a tailored suit scrounged through bins. Fucking bums.

  Rain clipped the windscreen and for a few minutes all Tom listened to was the windscreen wipers and announcements from the small screen in front of him about new products, schemes and placements to make you ‘truly happy’

  Like he needed a valium to make it to the top. As if a flexi toner would bring him what he truly craved. He was already there, high up in the plethora of working, wining, dining and fucking whoever and however he chose.

  Twenty-seven years old and it seemed for Tom right then that the elevator would never stop, his rise would be higher than the Empire State. When he did finally reach the penthouse he would not only own the city but a wallet full of favours he could call on any time.

  Another deal by the end of the quarter and that would be it, promotion. For now he had some serious work to do to achieve that. But hell he had earned tonight, he felt safe in that.

  The cab pulled up and he waved a $20.

  Unlocking the main door off the deserted street he was hit with the usual smell of general New York grime and some kind of methane gas in the hallway.

  Unlocking his own front door having not been back since he did the deal, he looked at its relative size compared to what he ‘should’ be living in.

  A silent vow he made as he brushed his teeth and applied a Clarins moisturiser despite his intoxication. If he did another deal he would move to a bigger place, a cleaner place. That was now well within not only his station, but also his reach.

  *

  Lucas couldn’t sleep. He had been here three days now and jet lag, like a red wine hangover, was refusing to shake. When lying in bed prior to sleep he felt tired but his eyes refused to shut. He thought of April, he thought about what the fuck he was doing in a place so full of strangers. He was British, they craved their own ‘sort’ to understand them.

  Added to the Virgin Atlantic parting gift of jet lag there was also the equivalent of a spotlight from a prisoner of war camp shining directly in through his window.

  Two to three hours of jolted sleep and he would awake to either someone trotting home and practically slamming the door to their shitty apartment off its hinges, or the constant hissing of a radiator.

  Falling foul of sleep, for a time Lucas would hit play on his laptop. Turns out he had been wrong. Cities can be amazingly lonely if you’re the only pig you know in the pen.

  Lucas got up, went for a pee and sat down to draw. It didn’t work and it hadn’t since he had moved to New York. April and him had agreed he would follow his dream to be a painter. She just had to escape. April had been destroyed, beaten and broken. She wouldn’t press charges because of four reasons. One, she was too proud. Two, she had gone into the cubicle unforced. Three, she and neither Lucas could afford a lawyer. Fourth, and most importantly, somewhere deep inside her she wanted revenge and would get it. Not easy for someone with so much venom, her teeth blunted.

  His painting was back in London, despite even he agreeing it being somewhat of a ‘good piece of work’ had been begun, practiced and completed it in a state of utter duress. And just as conducive; alcohol and drugs. Much as he liked them both, surely there was a better way to practice?

  Did he need to be in crisis to compete with himself? Did he need to be blottoed to be creative? Perhaps, tonight he decided he would find out.

  Lying down he waited for sleep to come on him again but the excitement of getting shitfaced that evening seemed too much.

  That day he walked, gaining inspiration from a city he was a loner in to the core despite the apparent same
language.

  In a bagel shop by 12thE he waited patiently in line. In London, he didn’t wait for anyone. British he was though and as such, queuing was like porn. By the time the third, heavily brash American pushed past him he stepped up to the counter in front of others.

  “Give me a three”.

  The Italian American eyed him up, “Finally” he said in a drawl, “The British guy speaks”.

  Lucas just grinned like a twat, paid in monopoly money and vowed never to go there again.

  He walked the length of 5th, right up to The Plaza and then circled back round 6th all the way to Tribeca. The New Yorkers, proud to a fault were rebuilding the twin towers from 9/11 pretty much brick for brick, higher even. If he had been wearing a hat he would have doffed it, that he liked.

  Checking his watch it was nearing lunch, perhaps time to have his first drink in New York.

  Lucas was feeling a little on edge anyway, four days without being drunk and what better way to get to know a place.

  Whether it was because he was British or had that look which only he could pertain in his eye, anyone remotely threatening peddled off to go hustle someone else.

  Lucas laughed aloud looking up to see he was outside a liquor store.

  “Perfect”.

  Two hours and a bottle and a half of Bushmill Irish whisky down Lucas felt much better. He had his headphones jacked in with some of his all time favourites playing. Evocative music, the lonely mans sidekick.

  He hummed and half sung, blissfully unaware of how drunk he sounded to anyone walking past his place. All over the breakfast bar in front of him were sketches, some nearing completion, some just a few lines.

  “April….” Lucas drawled.

  The images were different, they had varying length of line and different blocks of colour shaded throughout. They were all of the same subject, the same muse.