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Post by sammie on Nov 19, 2008 22:13:40 GMT -5
Sammie walked briskly through the streets of Manhattan, holding a covered basket in one hand and holding her coat tight with the other. Stopping at the corner she looked up the at street signs, quickly sighing in frustration and continuing on her way. Unfortunately, Sammie had a habit of looking at the ground as she walked, and on this occasion it resulted in her bumping into someone.
"Oh! Excuse me, I'm so sorry," She looked up at the woman she had practically shoved and glanced over at a gentleman standing only a few feet away. Having gotten both of their attention with her clumsiness she took advantage of the brief spotlight. "Excuse me, I'm sorry to be a bother, but do either of you know where I can find 121 Church St.?" She shifted the basket to her left arm, its light weight becoming less obvious with each passing minute.
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Post by Avalanche on Nov 20, 2008 3:31:00 GMT -5
The first to catch his gaze, as she walked by was Tate, the bakery shop girl from the Bronx. Now what could she be doing all the way in Manhattan? His train of thought was brought to a screeching halt, as Tate was the same by running into Sammie, both by accident. He looked at the two women and listened to what Sammie had to say.
"Of course," he said as he stood up straight to his full height of just over six feet tall. "Go down to Hamelton, take a left... two streets down make a right, you'll see it down a couple of blocks," he said with a slight nod to her. He glanced at Tate and smiled a hello to her as well, before looking back to Sammie, to be sure she'd gotten the directions and could find her way alright.
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Post by manhattan on Dec 21, 2008 23:34:00 GMT -5
>>>New Day<<<
Manhattan stretched in the freezing morning air as she walked towards the distribution center. Looking up at the sign she saw the prices hadnt gone down over night. "So much for dreams coming true." she murmured and climbed up onto the statue. Surprisingly it was warmer up there with the statue blocking the wind and basically the statue wrapped around her. Tucking her scarf into her layers she burroughed deeper into her coat.
"Good ole Greeley ya always gots me back donna ya." taking out her notebook she began to write, wondering if she'd ever get a chance to see her name in print. doubtful Manhattan snorted at herself and looked out wondering if anyone was going to sell today.
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Post by Milo on Dec 26, 2008 13:51:50 GMT -5
Milo stood a few feet away watching as Manhattan, as he knew she was called from hearing others address her around the lodging house or at the distribution center, stood by the Statue of Mr. Greenly (Milo never felt quite right calling him by his first name when he had never even met the guy) and eventually began to make some quiet comments to herself and, quite strangely, to Mr. Greenly. He stared at her for a few minutes with a vaguely confused and pensive expression on his face as she pulled out a notebook and sat down to write in it. After awhile, his curiosity got the best of him and he slowly began to make his way over to where she sat, now seemingly engrossed in whatever she was writing, "is mistah Greenly helpin' ya write ya' story?" he asked quietly as he neared the spot where the older newsie was sitting " I saw ya talkin' ta 'im befoah. Is he a whole lotta help?" to be honest, he didn't think that a statue could make up a story at all, let alone critique someone else's but he didn't want to make her feel dumb by saying so. If she wanted a statue to help her, that was her business, not his.
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Post by manhattan on Jan 2, 2009 19:15:06 GMT -5
Manhattan squinted down from the statue and spotting the kid she smiled down. "He's da strong silent type." She winked down at him. "But he watches me back real good." she patted Horaces knee "Why dontcha come up and he'll watch yoahs too, and why he's doin dat you can tell me what ya think of dis heah snipit. He aint much help." she said sticking a thumb at the big guys chest. The kid looked cold to Manhattan and hell he looked like the cold wind would blow once and knock him over if not blow him away. The less he was outta the wind the better. Horace was good at that since the ugly guy wasnt good at anything else. She offered her hand down and smiled warmly at the kid to help him up. "Da names Manhattan."
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Post by pocket on Feb 3, 2009 21:55:47 GMT -5
>>>>New Day<<<<
Sitting at the base of the statue with a cigarette in her mouth and a look that probably told pages of prose to those who looked very close, Pocket decided that she deserved the odd looks from those well-to-doers that passed her by. Ladies sniffed in their air of cockiness, hoisting their pastel colored parasols higher into the air. God forbid any trace of sunlight hit their perfectly cream powdered faces, Pocket grumbled silently.
She wondered if she should go back to the Bronx, to check on those children she'd seen striking the factory they were working in. The poor kids had no shoes, since they'd been taken away when they started striking, and they couldn't have been older than seven. Pocket found that disgraceful. Childhood was a time of Coney Island, pink bubble gum and playing. Childhood was not a time of working and slaving over things that would be given to snotty rich people only to be left forgotten at the bottom of their closets.
Rolling her eyes in disgust, Pocket pushed herself up from the brick she was sitting on and inhaled her cigarette again, blowing out a thick stream of air. She wasn't sure why she smoked. It was merely a habit now, having found them in some of the purses that some women and men carried around with them. She'd just gotten used to having them around. Finding someone to light her cigarette was much harder. IN Manhattan, at least. In Brooklyn people walked up to you and asked if they could light your cigarette for you.
Making sure her long dark curls were tucked securely into her cap, Pocket scanned the mobs of people, looking for a potential victim to her thievery.
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Post by dutchy on Feb 12, 2009 14:22:04 GMT -5
Dutchy walked up to the statue, just near the girl, but didn't really notice her, too engrossed in counting the change in his hand. It was only a handful but for whatever reason he kept loosing count. He had several newspapers tucked under his arm and a dime novel jutting out of his back pocket, the corner sticking from a whole in the bottom of the pocket.
Frowning once more he dumped his handful of coins from one hand to the others and picked one very dirty coin. He glanced up, looking to the girl near him and held the coin on his palm open handed, "Does that look like a penny or a dime? It's so dirty, I can't even tell."
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Post by reeves on Mar 18, 2009 20:49:23 GMT -5
*NEW DAY*
Reeves let out a sigh as he pulled to a stop and dumped the neatly stacked hat boxes on the ground, letting a couple of them spill over, what did he care? He had been lugging them around all day, making deliveries all over town. He sighed, very tired, Alice had kept him up late. Alice was Reeves older sister, who was attending college, a miracle for the Reeves family. There were only two of them, Seth and Alice, but for a poor small family from Jersey save up enough to send Alice to college, that was a miracle. She got a small scholarship, but they still had to pay some. Reeve's job helped and they had money saved up. Alice wanted more than ever to become a teacher. She had an exam today so last night she was up half the night, requesting Reeve's help with her studying.
He sighed, it was awfully hot out. His jacket was slung over one of the boxes, his white sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his dark green vest hanging open, his gray cap tipped up on his forehead. He was taking a break, he didn't care what his boss would say, it was too hot. He sighed, looking around the pretty much empty little park where the quaint statue stood. He looked up at the statue's face, studying Horace Greeley's big rugged bearded face, his head tipped to the side a little.
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Post by Milo on Mar 18, 2009 21:12:31 GMT -5
It was hot. Though this was far from a rarity in New York, the sun just seemed extra- oppressive today and it was effecting almost everyone that Milo had seen. nobody, it seemed, could even rustle up the conviction to buy a paper. It was almost noon and he couldn't have sold more than ten papes all day. He'd pulled out all the stops and he'd still gotten no results. He tried his usual staring until people get so creeped out they'll buy at least one pape (usually more if he played his cards right) but hardly anybody even seemed to care. He'd given sob stories to at least ten gullible looking ladies with minimal results. He'd gone up to people and asked them to buy a pape. Heck, he's even stepped far enough out of his comfort zone to call out a headline for once. Nothing. It was downright depressing.
He climbed up onto the edge of the Horace Greenly statue and placed his papers on it before climbing further up onto the statue and, finally, plopping down into old Horace's lap with a disheartened sigh. "what am I s'posed ta do?" he asked, half expecting the long dead man to reply. "It's bad enough dat I'm prolly gonna burn ta death in this heat but do I really gotta starve at da same time?" He let out another sigh "I got half a mind ta go back ta pick pocketin' "
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Post by reeves on Mar 18, 2009 21:20:47 GMT -5
Reeve's broke out of his tired daze when he heard a small voice ask very feeble hearted questions, he heard the boy loud and clear asking the statue for advice. Reeves sighed, the city really was a depressing place. He knew it well. His job was to bring the purchases from the department store to the rich people's houses, just so they didn't have to come back to the store again.
He would knock on the door, and the rich would open it to see him, a street rat. His job was every bit made up of scorn. How could they have so much? and the kids who really needed it have so little.
He wasn't the most outgoing person, no, he usually kept to himself. But this little kid was having a bad day, and Reeves knew bad days. He remembered lonely bad days. Maybe he could help this kid have not such a lonely bad day.
He wasn't sure if the kid could see him down below, so he hoisted himself up, so he was sitting below Horace's lap, at the giant statue's feet. He curled up his legs against his chest, and slung his arms across them lazily resting them there. He looked up and put a small smile on his face, as much a smile as he could manage on this tired day.
"Bad day, kid?" He asked, pushing his hat up higher on his forehead.
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Post by Milo on Mar 18, 2009 21:40:26 GMT -5
Milo was vaguely surprised as an older boy who had been standing around the base of the statue made his way up onto the statue closer to where Milo was. It wasn't the fact that the boy had presumably heard him that surprised him but, rather, the fact that he had been paying attention at all. He wasn't used to people taking notice when he talked. When he creeped them out or annoyed them, sure, but when he just said something unsolicited, he was used to just being ignored. Not being one to speak before he was spoken to, Milo remained silent. He observed the boy wordlessly and expressionlessly as he situated himself on the edge of the statue's base and smiled up in a friendly manner.
Finally, the boy spoke up "Bad day, kid?" he asked understandingly and Milo nodded slightly, still trying to figure out what to make of the boy. It was one thing to spill his guts to a cold piece of metal (well, actually, it was pretty hot at the moment but, emotionally, mentally....pretty damn cold) but it was an entirely different thing with a person. "It's real hot." he muttered in a near whisper, shifting uncomfortably in Horace's lap.
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Post by reeves on Mar 18, 2009 21:50:58 GMT -5
"It's real hot."
Reeves nodded, agreeing completely with the kid. He sighed again and panted a little.
"I don't think I've ever seen as hot a day in my whole entire life. There don't seem to be hardly any shade either," Reeves said, wiping his forehead with his cap before replacing it on his head, tipped to the side slightly.
He guessed the kid was a newsie, most small kids were, but you could never tell whether a person had a family or not, so many kids were all alone. It made Reeves feel guilty sometimes that he had Alice, even if he didn't get along with her that much.
"So you got a name?" Reeves asked curiously, leaning to check on his hat boxes, though he didn't see anybody around that would steal them. They really were ugly things, feathers sticking out everywhere, sposed to be elegant, but to Reeves they looked like deformed birds...
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Post by Milo on Mar 18, 2009 22:11:53 GMT -5
Milo nodded disintrestedly "don't everybody?" he muttered, his chin on one of his hands. He knew that wasn't what the boy had meant at all but he couldn't stop himself from getting a bit lippy. He didn't have a problem with the boy in particular but, because of a combination of the heat, his youth, and the lousy day he'd been having so far, Milo didn't really feel like cooperating with anything or anyone at the moment. "Radek...but nobody calls me that" he answered in a pouty voice. He hadn't lied exactly. His name really was Radek. He hadn't said it or heard it in almost two years but it was still his name.
His parents had always called him Radek. He didn't have very many memories of them and the ones that he did have were all kind of fuzzy but he knew that they'd always called him Radek. It had been Heinrich, the one of middle sons of the very prolific Shultzes with whom he and his parents had shared a small, tenement apartment with when they were still alive, that had come up with the nickname of Milo. He thought Radek sounded too foreign (like he was one to talk) so came up with the nickname Milo from his young Radek's middle name, Miloslav. At first, Milo had hated it but he was in the minority and in no time that was all anyone called him.
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Post by reeves on Mar 19, 2009 16:46:47 GMT -5
"don't everybody?"
Reeves listened to the little smart alecy reply and his smile faded a little bit to a surprised scowl. Growing up in Jersey, he had been raised a cocky quick tempered Jersey lad through and through. He stopped himself with any retort and just shook his head and shrugged, knowing he wasn't going to get into an arguement with this little kid. He had a reason for being snippy, Reeves supposed.
"Radek...but nobody calls me that"
Reeves nodded, a little confused as to why the boy would introduce himself as a name that nobody called him. He just nodded.
"That's an interesting name, sounds real foreign, Russian?" He guessed, not sure what "Radek would say back since he was obviously in a bad mood.
Reeves sighed and leaned back, yawning slightly, before figuring he should introduce himself. "I'm Reeves, well Seth but nobody calls me that, they all call me by my last name, Reeves, well cept my sister. I guess you know how sister's are, being all proper and all, but that's just Alice," He realized he was rambling to an uninterested little kid and shut himself up, sighing and fiddling with a button on his vest.
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Post by Milo on Mar 19, 2009 21:50:10 GMT -5
Milo shook his head with disintrest. "Czech... Radek Miloslav Dvorak" he said slowly and heaved a deep sigh before continuing "but ev'ryone calls me Milo" he felt kind of bad for being so short with Reeves when he was obviously only trying to help. He felt like he should apologize but he still didn't quite feel like it so he didn't. "My folks came heah when I was a baby so's I could have a bettah life " he scoffed slightly and began to climb down from the statue's lap to sit next to Reeves. "All dey got foah any a' us was dat dey got demselves dead" he took off his hat and placed it on his lap "can't tell ya much 'bout sistahs. I nevah had one an' all a' da Shultz kids, da folks who me an' me folks roomed wit' was boys 'cept da little baby who I got kicked out foah aftah Mama died" he gave a small shrug "I guess dat's jus' da breaks though, huh?"
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Thanks Jim!