The year 2013 is coming to an end. I’m twenty nine years old and I haven’t done anything substantial with my fucking life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that I work a fulltime job here in New York City which allows me to have a roof above my head, food on my table, and most importantly, affords me to get drunk and party my ass off during the weekends or whenever I’m not working on my office job. I work as an Office Manager for an advertising agency located in midtown, on 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue. Though the title of my job sounds like managing something or someone, the definition doesn’t fall into management at all. I’m pretty much like a wet nurse for corporate executives who aren’t capable of doing menial work in the office. Most of the people I work with are nice to me and I like spending eight hours a day with them, makes the office cubicle torture tolerable. The salary is decent, not middle class, I would categorize it as something like lower middle class. In a major American city, when you earn at least $40,000 a year, you’re considered middle class. I obviously earn less than that but I’m grateful anyhow. Like they said, count your blessings if you want to get more. But sometimes, I gotta be honest with myself, I’m not doing something that I want. I want to write for a living. I want to be able to support myself in writing alone. But I still need to face reality at the same time. An artist needs to survive, an artist needs a day job. So here I am, working on a day job for survival. I know for a fact that this is only temporary and I know that eventually, I will earn money by writing alone. It just hasn’t happened to me yet. It’s hard to avoid being impatient sometimes, I already finished my first novel, about a bipolar priest here in New York, who switches into a different personality at night, resorting to drugs and prostitutes. I’ve thought of turning this into a series novel, but I have to secure a readers arena for it first. And when possible, I hope that it would be the adult version of Harry Potter books. The only difference is, the priest isn’t dealing with magic, he’s dealing with realities of life. The titles of the novel is “Divine Illusions”. I sent the manuscript to almost every major publishing house here in the city, and I got nothing but rejection letters. When you’re a creative artist, it’s pretty damn hard not to take the rejection of your work personally. You gotta try pretty goddamn hard not to dwell on it. I know it’s easier to say this, and harder to apply upon one’s self. Saturday night arrived and I immediately gathered my friends to get hammered in Greenwich Village area. I found this bar on 14th Street and 8th Avenue – Wood & Ales. The bar itself is reminiscent of the midwest. The interior is mostly made of wood, the male and female bartenders are friendly as well as the crowd. I’m always the first one to arrive amongst my friends and I don’t really mind. I could always use some “me” time. So I ordered myself a bottle of Stella Artois and started drinking it. Five minutes later, I got a text message from both of my friends telling me that they can’t make it: Jacob and Marco. They’re both foreign exchange students from Germany. They’re getting their MBA’s at NYU – Stern School of Business. I met them at a loft party in Soho, they actually found me snorting on a line of cocaine and asked me if I have any roll paper because they’re trying to make a spliff. I told them I didn’t have any and offered the cocaine instead. Since then, we became immediate friends. So ordered myself more booze and the thought of my novel’s rejection kept playing inside my head like a fucked up melody. It’s 4 AM, and everyone already left the bar except me. Still sitting there like a fucking loser. For some reason during that Kodak moment, I cannot help thinking to myself that I’m twenty nine years old and it feels like life is passing me by. My writing ambition feels like it’s slipping away. Will I ever break free from a 9 to 5 job? Will my paycheck to paycheck way of life ever change? I started to feel like shit. I tried to order one last drink from the bartender named Paul.

“You had too many drinks, Lorenzo”

“Too many? How did you know my name?”

Paul laughed at me.

“You introduced yourself to me earlier when you ordered the glass of Maker’s Mark”.

He was looking and smiling at me at the same time with desire in his eyes. I knew he was gay. I’m also getting signals that he’s pretty horny for the after hours. He’s a good looking guy, grey blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. He reminded me a lot of James Dean. Me on the other hand, was not feeling anything. I guess I was too depressed.

“I’m sorry I did not remember that” I said.

“That’s okay, I just can’t serve you any more drinks here” Paul replied.

“That’s fine, I need to catch the subway to Harlem anyway”.

I stood up from my chair and barely managed to stand on my own.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go home alone in this condition”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“If you want, I can fix you a screw driver in my apartment. It’s just a couple of blocks from here”

I smiled at him and almost laughed actually.

“That’s very cool but I think I’m gonna go home”.

He looked very sad after I turned him down. I’m not the kind of guy who normally turns down an offer of alcohol and maybe a happy ending but at that time, I was just not in the mood. So I walked out of the bar and headed towards the subway station, on 14th Street. I walked down the stairs and saw that the station is pretty empty. There are two gentlemen on the left side of the platform, on the right side, there’s one guy standing staring down at the train tracks. I was walking towards the right side of the platform, the gentleman there, about six foot tall, stocky built, White, he’s around my age, was also walking towards me , I got the notion that he was about to ask me a question. I was already drunk as fuck but I was still aware of what was going in. All of a sudden, he walked vigorously towards me. I was looking down while walking.
“Hey Bro!” Was the two words that I heard from him and when I looked up, he pushed me really hard towards the tracks and I almost fell. I held on the post and that literally saved me from falling. I saw the #2 subway train coming and I pulled myself forward back on the platform until I balanced myself. The train missed me by about three inches. When the train stopped, something told me to stay. So the train closed its doors and left. I stayed, still in shock, feeling strange, I did not feel scared or nervous. Just one simple question inside my head: “Why?”. A couple of gentlemen came over and asked me if I was okay, they urged me to call the police. I looked at the corner and saw the “psycho subway pusher” was talking to himself. I realized that he has no fucking clue of what he just did. At first, I hesitated to call the police but then I thought to myself that If I let him walk away, he would do the same thing to other people. I called 911 and the NYPD responded after about 25 minutes. When the cops arrived, the “subway pusher” tried to run away but he was still caught. I decided not to take the subway after that. I walked upstairs the subway station and hailed myself a cab and took off. Then I started thinking about “What if I fell on the tracks and got hit by the train?” Would I have died happy? Certainly not because I was already feeling like shit. Still feeling strange and weird, I realize how lucky I was. The next day, I stayed in and did not go out at all. If that made me paranoid or a coward, fuck it! I just didn’t want to be around people. Although I’m still feeling strange from the “subway experience”. I watched Netflix all day from my laptop and then Monday came. Back to the 9 to 5 grind. I came to work with no smile on my face, tried to avoid any eye contact with anyone in the office. They all seemed to be concerned, and repeatedly asked me if I was OK and I said yes, because I’ve been quiet all morning. I didn’t tell anyone because I’m also feeling pissed. I wish I had a knife with me or something and defended myself. All of a sudden my cellphone started ringing, I didn’t recognize the number but I answered it anyhow.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Lorenzo Basque?” The female caller asked me.

“Yeah, who is this?” I replied.

“This is Julie Goldsmith from Harper Collins Publishing, we have received the copy of your manuscript, DIVINE ILLUSIONS.”

My mood started to change after I heard that she’s calling from a publishing house. I’m still in disbelief that I got a phone call from them. It didn’t feel real and I started to wonder if someone is playing a prank on me. I was silent for a minute.

“Lorenzo? Are you still there?”

“Listen, if this is some kind of fucking prank, I don’t find this funny!”

“This isn’t a prank, Lorenzo. We’re calling you because we would like to discuss the possibility of publishing your novel.”

“OK”

“Is your email on the manuscript still valid?”

“Yes, it is”

“I’ll be sending you our office address along with the time and date. Can you come in this Friday at 10:30 AM?”

“Yes”

“Perfect! I’ll need you to respond to the email that I’ll be sending you. Confirm the date and time of your appointment with us this Friday and then we’re all set.”

“OK, I’ll do that.”

“See you this Friday.”

“Yes, thank you. Bye”.

I walked straight to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Then I started to laugh and cry at the same time. Just like a deranged artist, I was trying to calm myself. Because what was happening was surreal. I found it very difficult to distinguish reality from fantasy. After I calmed down, I wiped the tears off my face with my palms and smiled at my own reflection.

TO BE CONTINUED….