What Is It About New York?

I don’t have a good explanation. My sister lived there. My mother moved there for a few years while I attempted to go insane at a New England prep school. Everything associated with New York is about art and music and theater and television and the big pond, the biggest pond. “If I could make it there, I’d make it anywhere.” Yeah, but…

I’m a country boy from Texas. Now, I lucked out, being in Austin and all, with the tech and the government and the cool places to swim and do drugs if you have the money or the time. Mostly, I’m busy working. Day job is in tech. I put down words to convince large tech customers to put their cloud in our building. We’re not the cloud we’re where the cloud lives. Hmm. I’d rather be high listening to Pink Floyd and doodling with metallic Sharpies.

On the weekends I try to catch up with my ambition to be a famous writer. Or musician. Or poet. Or playwright. And in my dream it’s always NYC where I’m crack-a-lackin famous. David Byrne knows who I am. We collaborated on a song, it’s not out yet. It’s my town. It’s full of energy and amphetamines. It’s full of heroes and hookers. Massage parlors where you can get a hand job or more if you’ve got the cash. And the cash. And the people. And the fifty or sixty stories of women. Everywhere, women who went to Ivy League schools and studied anthropology and history. Not because they wanted to become teachers, but because they liked to read.

Zip zap zipping around New York, waking everywhere, trying not to look like a tourist by looking up at the amazing fucking buildings, but I am still a tourist. At this point. I’m a tourist in New York City. But I’ve got plans to take this place by storm, lightning, rain, thunder, and hopefully not depression or mania. See, the city really doesn’t ever sleep. When the Sunday Times get’s tossed out on the sidewalks at 1:37 am, it’s technically Sunday, but damn near eight hours before most folks are even starting to think about waking up.

I’m up. I’m always up. In New York, I’m up a little bit too much. Like the city and all the creative people, the smashing women, and the artists, the B-52s are from here, the Ramones… It’s like everyone is competing for oxygen. The oxygen of fame and fortune. So far, I’m good on neither of those, but at least I’m trying.

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.