I know, I know, you're all probably too excited about the Apple iHype to even concentrate on today's story. But, rest assured, you will have time to read the below piece AND witness the long-awaited (possible) revelation of the Chinese Democracy of publishing (maybe).
Today's story is from Patrick Trotti, a creative writing student who recently finished his first novel. The below piece is one of his short stories, A Part of Him. Try to see what you can make of Pritchard. I felt there was definitely more under the surface of his character. Let me know what you think!
A Part of Him
By Patrick Trotti
Pritchard stumbled into Grand Central Station at one thirty in the morning. After a long night out he was drunk and wanted nothing more than to lay in the comfort of his own bed. But before he began imagining his upcoming slumber, he had gotten in the habit recently where he only slept through the night with the help of alcohol; he had to worry about catching his train. The final outbound train left at one fifty giving him just enough time to go to the bathroom. He hated having to use the toilet on the train because the constant motion always threw his aim off.
The line, as usual, was long and the wait soon grew tedious for the now swaying young man. At this stage of the night he usually became bored quite easily and had a difficult time standing still. Taking the next available stall, Pritchard unzipped his jeans when all of a sudden his phone went off. The vibrations sent shockwaves up and down his already tingling leg. Fearful that it was his father calling him he rushed to pick it up before it went to voicemail. More than anything else his father could not, and made it abundantly clear that he would not; stand for his son not answering his phone calls. He always said that if he wanted play phone tag than he could do so without getting Pritchard a three hundred dollar phone.
His hands were unsure of his minds commands due to the frigid December air outside along with a special for two dollar beers back at the bar. He could barely register the name pops flashing across the screen before it slipped from his hands and into the bowl below. After looking around, almost instinctively so, to make sure that no one had witnessed his blunder, he wrapped his hand in toilet paper and stuck his hand into the neon green liquid. The screen, dark and wet, was blank and Pritchard immediately knew that it was broken. He took a seat and began to weep. Looking down at the broken Blackberry, seeing all of the pertinent data from his seemingly perfect little life washed away shattered his already fragile psyche. He took out the sim card and tried to dry it as well as he could but it was soaked.
In the distance he could hear the faint sounds coming from the intercom announcing track changes and upcoming schedules. His watch read one forty five. He finished going to the bathroom and quickly stuffed the phone into his coat pocket and ran out of the bathroom. Weaving his way through the crowd, Pritchard even knocked down a few unsuspecting tourists who were absentmindedly standing in the middle of the main concourse snapping postcard like photos, he ran like one of those baby cheetahs, in a hurry but weak and wobbly in the knees, that he’d seen when his father took him on an African safari tour last summer.
“Hey does this train stop at Scarsdale?”
The conductor, a big barrel bellied wild haired man in his fifties, squinted as if he couldn’t understand what he had just been asked. Pritchard stood on the platform waiting for the man to respond. The guy just stood there looking him up and down wondering how he came to look so disheveled. His forehead was glistening with a thin layer of sweat and his cheeks were a bright, rosy red.
“Yeah.” That was all the man said to the anxious looking, bloodshot eyed kid who was still trying to catch his breath.
“Hey kid, you dropped something.”
Pritchard looked down and picked up his phone. Not sure if he still had the sim card, he searched his pockets. Nothing but a rolled up piece of napkin with the waitress’ number, the only one not in his broken phone, scrawled across it lined his jacket pocket.
“Come on man, you getting on or ain’t you? I gotta get this thing moving.”
“What? Look, I need to find that chip man! Can you just give me a few minutes?”
He nodded his head no without even making eye contact with Pritchard. It was as if this guy somehow thought he was better than him just because he had authority of some kind; the thought would’ve normally been laughable to Pritchard but he was actually counting on this guy for a favor so he let it go. His father always warned him not to ask of anything from a middle class person because it gave them the fictitious idea that they held some fraction of power over you. He could sense that pleading like this was going to get him nowhere so he turned to what always got him what he wanted: money.
“What would it take for you to let me run back and get part of my phone? It’s only a few minutes time, it’s in the bathroom.”
“You got some balls kid.” He responded with a slight chuckle.
“How much do you want? Just name a price. Please, this is important.”
By this time passengers had begun to leave their seats and were watching the conversation from the aisles.
“No, I got a train full of people who can’t wait. You’re just gonna have to catch the next one.”
“Why do you have to be such a prick? You know damn well that this is the last train for hours.”
Before the conductor could respond, Pritchard hunched over and let out an animal like growl followed by a stream of warm beer and half digested food. It splashed against the conductor’s shoes and pants.
“That’s it you little shit head! You want me to call the cops? You’re not getting on my train tonight, so why don’t you get lost.”
“Go fuck yourself!” Pritchard yelped, wiping the corner of his mouth.
“Have a lovely evening.” The man said this with a sarcastic grin and tip of his hat.
The doors closed and a moment later all Pritchard could make out were the back lights of the train quickly fading into the tunnel ahead.
“I’ve probably spent more going out on weekends and partying this year than that slob has made!” He thought to himself as he got to his feet and dusted off his pants.
It was now almost two; if he could sit on a barstool for six hours than surely he could wait a few more hours.
With only fifty dollars on him, his father had recently revoked all of his credit cards for totaling his Lexus, he had no other choice but to just sit tight and wait for morning to come. The lower concourse was beginning to thin out and within thirty minutes only a handful of hobos and the occasional cop were lurking throughout the vast halls.
He hurried back to the bathroom and, to his amazement, found his sim card on the ground right in front of a row of sinks. A toilet flushed in the far corner of the empty room and a large man dressed in mismatched, tattered clothing appeared. As he stopped to wash his hands he almost stepped on it leading Pritchard to yell out. The man, shocked that he wasn’t alone, whipped his head in the direction of the sound, took a good look at Pritchard and then looked down. In one fowl swoop he scooped up the card and held it up towards the ceiling lights. It was as if he had never seen anything like it before.
“Excuse me, sir. I believe that’s mine.”
The man, still examining the mysterious object, turned his attention towards Pritchard. He remained silent.
“What are you fucking deaf?” He paused a moment and a loud hiccup echoed throughout the room; a close call, he thought to himself, at least he didn’t throw up again. He continued, “I said that’s mine!”
“No.” The man’s voice was just above a whisper.
“What did you say?” Pritchard took a step closer to the man.
“Finders, keepers.” He replied, this time a bit louder.
Pritchard took another step forward, this time resulting in the homeless man retreating towards the back wall. Even though the man was much bigger than Pritchard the look in his eye gave Pritchard the indication that he didn’t want a physical confrontation. His movements were timid while Pritchard’s hand clenched into a tight fist. “No matter what, I’m leaving this room with that sim card,” he said to himself before lunging towards the man.
Filled with unresolved anger from missing his train and breaking the phone, Pritchard unleashed his rage in the form of a flurry of wild right hooks and quick but powerful left jabs. He connected on many of these punches despite being drunk. The hobo was simply no match for the younger Pritchard and within a few minutes he had the bum on the ground grabbing at his ribs and nose. Pritchard couldn’t tell the exact damage but he saw blood. The dark red pool began spreading across the tiled floor.
Pritchard picked up his sim card from the ground; the man had dropped it after taking a potent punch to his stomach. He looked down at the moaning pile of bones and simply smiled, regaling in the work he had done. Stepping over the lifeless body Pritchard pulled his jacket collar up so as to cover his face; he didn’t want anyone to be able to identify him. The clock in the middle of the concourse struck three. He knew that he couldn’t just wait inside; with the recent stabbings the mayor had thrown down the gauntlet and made it impossible to sleep through the night in the station without being harassed by a cop. He walked briskly towards one of the side exits and figured that he could just take a walk in order to kill some time.
He let out a deep exhale and then took in a lungful of the city air before he decided which way to continue. It quickly became too cold for him to handle and the thought of a few hours overwhelmed him. He ducked into the nearest bar and took a booth by the jukebox. Everyone was drinking in pairs and it seemed as though the bar didn’t receive a usual crowd, rather they just housed whoever had time to kill before their next engagement. Slipping in largely unnoticed, Pritchard ordered a pitcher of beer.
As he drank the imported lager he couldn’t help but think about the homeless guy in the bathroom. Was it possible that he killed him? Certainly not, he tried to assure himself. After all, he could hear the man moaning as he left. He did know, however, that he had barely injured him and as good as he felt about getting his card back he couldn’t help but feel an overpowering sense of guilt over what had happened. “What’s done is done”, he said to himself as he drained the remainder of the pitcher. His train would be arriving within an hour.
He took his time walking back to the station and when he entered he noticed people beginning to move about. Signs of life were all around him and lucky for him there was no sign of the bum. Workers were cleaning out garbage bins and cops were making their daily rounds as he went to the little deli and ordered a coffee and a bagel. The man behind the register gave him a look of pity as if he knew, somehow by just looking at him, that he was miserable and his life was one that would constantly be empty of anything substantive. Pritchard tried to shake the look off but as the early morning sun came through the giant windows he felt as though God above was shinning a light on him and exposing him for the despondent young man he was.
He was the first man on the train, practically stepping onto the train as the doors opened. Thankfully he didn’t have the same conductor as the night before and after giving the guy his ticket he laid back and tried to get some rest. The train car quickly filled up and Pritchard found sleep hard to come by. His phone had been turned off for several hours now; he had gone most of the morning without being linked in, as he liked to call it, to the outside world. He wondered just how many emails and missed calls he had received and began to worry about what his father was thinking.
As the train pulled out of the station he reached into his pocket and took out his phone and sim card. He inserted it and tried turning it on one final time but to no avail. The sun shone through the car and quickly engulfed everything inside as the train exited the tunnel and soared through Harlem. Holding the sim card in the palm of his hand he still couldn’t believe all the horrific things that he’d done in the name of it. Had he really become so dependent on it? He knew that something had to change but he didn’t want to let it go, let that part of his life just slip away.
The train pulled into the 125th Street station. Pritchard took a deep breath and swallowed the sim card, taking a gulp of coffee to help it go down. If he was going to part ways with it than he was at least going to have it with him, inside of him for the time being.
The line, as usual, was long and the wait soon grew tedious for the now swaying young man. At this stage of the night he usually became bored quite easily and had a difficult time standing still. Taking the next available stall, Pritchard unzipped his jeans when all of a sudden his phone went off. The vibrations sent shockwaves up and down his already tingling leg. Fearful that it was his father calling him he rushed to pick it up before it went to voicemail. More than anything else his father could not, and made it abundantly clear that he would not; stand for his son not answering his phone calls. He always said that if he wanted play phone tag than he could do so without getting Pritchard a three hundred dollar phone.
His hands were unsure of his minds commands due to the frigid December air outside along with a special for two dollar beers back at the bar. He could barely register the name pops flashing across the screen before it slipped from his hands and into the bowl below. After looking around, almost instinctively so, to make sure that no one had witnessed his blunder, he wrapped his hand in toilet paper and stuck his hand into the neon green liquid. The screen, dark and wet, was blank and Pritchard immediately knew that it was broken. He took a seat and began to weep. Looking down at the broken Blackberry, seeing all of the pertinent data from his seemingly perfect little life washed away shattered his already fragile psyche. He took out the sim card and tried to dry it as well as he could but it was soaked.
In the distance he could hear the faint sounds coming from the intercom announcing track changes and upcoming schedules. His watch read one forty five. He finished going to the bathroom and quickly stuffed the phone into his coat pocket and ran out of the bathroom. Weaving his way through the crowd, Pritchard even knocked down a few unsuspecting tourists who were absentmindedly standing in the middle of the main concourse snapping postcard like photos, he ran like one of those baby cheetahs, in a hurry but weak and wobbly in the knees, that he’d seen when his father took him on an African safari tour last summer.
“Hey does this train stop at Scarsdale?”
The conductor, a big barrel bellied wild haired man in his fifties, squinted as if he couldn’t understand what he had just been asked. Pritchard stood on the platform waiting for the man to respond. The guy just stood there looking him up and down wondering how he came to look so disheveled. His forehead was glistening with a thin layer of sweat and his cheeks were a bright, rosy red.
“Yeah.” That was all the man said to the anxious looking, bloodshot eyed kid who was still trying to catch his breath.
“Hey kid, you dropped something.”
Pritchard looked down and picked up his phone. Not sure if he still had the sim card, he searched his pockets. Nothing but a rolled up piece of napkin with the waitress’ number, the only one not in his broken phone, scrawled across it lined his jacket pocket.
“Come on man, you getting on or ain’t you? I gotta get this thing moving.”
“What? Look, I need to find that chip man! Can you just give me a few minutes?”
He nodded his head no without even making eye contact with Pritchard. It was as if this guy somehow thought he was better than him just because he had authority of some kind; the thought would’ve normally been laughable to Pritchard but he was actually counting on this guy for a favor so he let it go. His father always warned him not to ask of anything from a middle class person because it gave them the fictitious idea that they held some fraction of power over you. He could sense that pleading like this was going to get him nowhere so he turned to what always got him what he wanted: money.
“What would it take for you to let me run back and get part of my phone? It’s only a few minutes time, it’s in the bathroom.”
“You got some balls kid.” He responded with a slight chuckle.
“How much do you want? Just name a price. Please, this is important.”
By this time passengers had begun to leave their seats and were watching the conversation from the aisles.
“No, I got a train full of people who can’t wait. You’re just gonna have to catch the next one.”
“Why do you have to be such a prick? You know damn well that this is the last train for hours.”
Before the conductor could respond, Pritchard hunched over and let out an animal like growl followed by a stream of warm beer and half digested food. It splashed against the conductor’s shoes and pants.
“That’s it you little shit head! You want me to call the cops? You’re not getting on my train tonight, so why don’t you get lost.”
“Go fuck yourself!” Pritchard yelped, wiping the corner of his mouth.
“Have a lovely evening.” The man said this with a sarcastic grin and tip of his hat.
The doors closed and a moment later all Pritchard could make out were the back lights of the train quickly fading into the tunnel ahead.
“I’ve probably spent more going out on weekends and partying this year than that slob has made!” He thought to himself as he got to his feet and dusted off his pants.
It was now almost two; if he could sit on a barstool for six hours than surely he could wait a few more hours.
With only fifty dollars on him, his father had recently revoked all of his credit cards for totaling his Lexus, he had no other choice but to just sit tight and wait for morning to come. The lower concourse was beginning to thin out and within thirty minutes only a handful of hobos and the occasional cop were lurking throughout the vast halls.
He hurried back to the bathroom and, to his amazement, found his sim card on the ground right in front of a row of sinks. A toilet flushed in the far corner of the empty room and a large man dressed in mismatched, tattered clothing appeared. As he stopped to wash his hands he almost stepped on it leading Pritchard to yell out. The man, shocked that he wasn’t alone, whipped his head in the direction of the sound, took a good look at Pritchard and then looked down. In one fowl swoop he scooped up the card and held it up towards the ceiling lights. It was as if he had never seen anything like it before.
“Excuse me, sir. I believe that’s mine.”
The man, still examining the mysterious object, turned his attention towards Pritchard. He remained silent.
“What are you fucking deaf?” He paused a moment and a loud hiccup echoed throughout the room; a close call, he thought to himself, at least he didn’t throw up again. He continued, “I said that’s mine!”
“No.” The man’s voice was just above a whisper.
“What did you say?” Pritchard took a step closer to the man.
“Finders, keepers.” He replied, this time a bit louder.
Pritchard took another step forward, this time resulting in the homeless man retreating towards the back wall. Even though the man was much bigger than Pritchard the look in his eye gave Pritchard the indication that he didn’t want a physical confrontation. His movements were timid while Pritchard’s hand clenched into a tight fist. “No matter what, I’m leaving this room with that sim card,” he said to himself before lunging towards the man.
Filled with unresolved anger from missing his train and breaking the phone, Pritchard unleashed his rage in the form of a flurry of wild right hooks and quick but powerful left jabs. He connected on many of these punches despite being drunk. The hobo was simply no match for the younger Pritchard and within a few minutes he had the bum on the ground grabbing at his ribs and nose. Pritchard couldn’t tell the exact damage but he saw blood. The dark red pool began spreading across the tiled floor.
Pritchard picked up his sim card from the ground; the man had dropped it after taking a potent punch to his stomach. He looked down at the moaning pile of bones and simply smiled, regaling in the work he had done. Stepping over the lifeless body Pritchard pulled his jacket collar up so as to cover his face; he didn’t want anyone to be able to identify him. The clock in the middle of the concourse struck three. He knew that he couldn’t just wait inside; with the recent stabbings the mayor had thrown down the gauntlet and made it impossible to sleep through the night in the station without being harassed by a cop. He walked briskly towards one of the side exits and figured that he could just take a walk in order to kill some time.
He let out a deep exhale and then took in a lungful of the city air before he decided which way to continue. It quickly became too cold for him to handle and the thought of a few hours overwhelmed him. He ducked into the nearest bar and took a booth by the jukebox. Everyone was drinking in pairs and it seemed as though the bar didn’t receive a usual crowd, rather they just housed whoever had time to kill before their next engagement. Slipping in largely unnoticed, Pritchard ordered a pitcher of beer.
As he drank the imported lager he couldn’t help but think about the homeless guy in the bathroom. Was it possible that he killed him? Certainly not, he tried to assure himself. After all, he could hear the man moaning as he left. He did know, however, that he had barely injured him and as good as he felt about getting his card back he couldn’t help but feel an overpowering sense of guilt over what had happened. “What’s done is done”, he said to himself as he drained the remainder of the pitcher. His train would be arriving within an hour.
He took his time walking back to the station and when he entered he noticed people beginning to move about. Signs of life were all around him and lucky for him there was no sign of the bum. Workers were cleaning out garbage bins and cops were making their daily rounds as he went to the little deli and ordered a coffee and a bagel. The man behind the register gave him a look of pity as if he knew, somehow by just looking at him, that he was miserable and his life was one that would constantly be empty of anything substantive. Pritchard tried to shake the look off but as the early morning sun came through the giant windows he felt as though God above was shinning a light on him and exposing him for the despondent young man he was.
He was the first man on the train, practically stepping onto the train as the doors opened. Thankfully he didn’t have the same conductor as the night before and after giving the guy his ticket he laid back and tried to get some rest. The train car quickly filled up and Pritchard found sleep hard to come by. His phone had been turned off for several hours now; he had gone most of the morning without being linked in, as he liked to call it, to the outside world. He wondered just how many emails and missed calls he had received and began to worry about what his father was thinking.
As the train pulled out of the station he reached into his pocket and took out his phone and sim card. He inserted it and tried turning it on one final time but to no avail. The sun shone through the car and quickly engulfed everything inside as the train exited the tunnel and soared through Harlem. Holding the sim card in the palm of his hand he still couldn’t believe all the horrific things that he’d done in the name of it. Had he really become so dependent on it? He knew that something had to change but he didn’t want to let it go, let that part of his life just slip away.
The train pulled into the 125th Street station. Pritchard took a deep breath and swallowed the sim card, taking a gulp of coffee to help it go down. If he was going to part ways with it than he was at least going to have it with him, inside of him for the time being.
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