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    Streets of Light: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story
    Streets of Light: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story
    Streets of Light: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Streets of Light: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story

    By Stephanie Writt

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    About this ebook

    Streets of Light (Short Story):  A self-titled Classy Bum and Executive Dumpster Diver, Chase Barlow spends his evenings performing on the New York City streets. His light-magic part of his act to woo the tourists. But on this night, this walk home, something stops him. One dark alleyway holds the key to unlock Chase’s past and unite him with his family.

    “Streets of Light” is part of the Geriatric Magic universe and can also be found in “The New York Collection: Five Stories of Magic & Life,” with foreword written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The New York Collection’s complete short story list is:

    • Geriatric Magic
    • A Touch of Jade
    • Subway Drummer
    • Streets of Light
    • A Little Park Wind

    The Geriatric Magic Short Story Series:  A hawk-face woman in a red dress walks city streets on a mission of magic. To find those with the indomitable spirit to live, though their bodies will shortly fail them. To each she finds she gives a gift. A gift of magic. And from the least expected of benefactors: Death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephanie Writt
    Release dateMar 27, 2017
    ISBN9781386328087
    Streets of Light: Geriatric Magic: A New York Collection Short Story

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      Book preview

      Streets of Light - Stephanie Writt

      Streets of Light

      Streets of Light

      A New York Collection Short Story

      Stephanie Writt

      Wayne Press

      Contents

      Streets of Light

      Read and be happy!

      Want to read more in this series?

      Free Story: 1st in Storyteller’s : Volume 1

      Rebellion of the Princess of Argon

      Want to read more in this collection?

      Free Story: 1st in Tony & Gage’s: The Junior Year Collection

      Free Story: The Day Tony Earned Detention

      Want to read more in this series?

      Preview: Love & Jinx

      Part One

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Love & Jinx: Want to finish reading?

      Also by Stephanie Writt

      About the Author

      Streets of Light

      Corner of 72nd and Central Park West

      New York City, NY

      Iam a classy bum . No cardboard box and rags for me. Nope. My dog Jerry and I stay in homeless luxury. We do. Basement to the rich and famous, we reside in the yellow firestar heart down in the cockles of The Dakota Hotel. We may be old, but we have style.

      A Central Park-facing castle, with green copper roofing and pointy spires to remind us all of better times, that they can be had again. Far below the lofty heights (dwarfed by the sky-licking giants around it) and two concrete-cracked steps down from street level, steam oozes between timeworn window seams. A chubby castle’s sigh. Or fart, depending on your mental bent.

      And if I bend a pushpin and a paperclip, or use a mousetrap hook (sans cheese) and dismantle a clothes pin, in a few seconds (after years of practice) I can convince that rust-pocked golden circle that has not seen a real key in decades to turn. Then up goes the framed wavy-glass pane, and a slide into a magical money-scented cloud. I hold the window for Jerry, of course. And then we are home.

      Do you know how lucrative garbage hopping can be?

      Not that I’d ever recommend hopping into a garbage can, or dumpster. Hidden dangers lurk beneath the innocent and unsuspecting hamburger wrapper, within a paper bag, between you and a new pair of Hugo Boss dress slacks.

      Dirty diaper bombs in summer. Explode in a hot spray with the least amount of pressure. Glass shards are nothing to their sticky metal brethren: the syringe. That’s a double whammy. Jagged glass and a needle with unknown death at its tip. One prick, and somewhere between a week and seven years you could die. Or worse, live in agony. So much agony. The physical kind. The mental kind takes other kinds of jagged glass and twisted metal…

      But the worst, on an immediate scale, is the meal-to-go. Meaning a beautiful array of perfectly intact and fresh-looking fruits and vegetables, fresh-cooked meats and baked breads (fresh equals less than two days old and the rats or the sun had yet to rip its edible essence asunder). But three bites in the food decides to go…right out of you. At high velocities out of whatever passage it can find. One ill-judged bonus of a meal scored can deplete a bum’s inner food stores for days. Depending on how long between meals and the season, a badly chosen meal has meant death. Classy bums like myself have luxurious heat all year long. My danger months are summer, when dehydration lurks just beyond the glowing maw of my dragon furnace. Thank god for plastic water bottles and public water fountains. Breakable jars of water in storage and in transit were cumbersome and exhausting in those early years. Plastic bottles saved many a bum’s life.

      But there are other dangers around the treasure chest gamble of a dumpster. Other looters insulted just by your presence near their property. Like a wicked jealous boyfriend, frothing at the jaw to lunge in anger and rip apart. Remove the threat, real or imagined.

      There is a lot of imagining by those on the streets.

      Fortunately I have Jerry at my side to protect and warn, and threaten with his own frothing jaw. More a lap dog than a killer, Jerry has proven to be the smartest creature I have ever known. Than many humans I’ve met as well. More of a best friend and companion than a lone man could ask for. He has been with me since the beginning.

      Yep, just Jerry and me.

      Just…

      And we don’t only dive for our living. Naw, we have a job. An act! We take on the road. Literally.

      No, my humor is much more spot-on during the show.

      A man and his dog, performing feats of amazing dare-doing, trust and play.

      Basically, Jerry and I confiscate a tourist-thriving city corner (Times Square – usually booked – , outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the occasional dog park as a special treat for the locals) and display our entertaining wares. Which include singing duets (me with my voice and Jerry with his melodious bark), tricks and flips with and without props, with a play of sometimes he listens and sometimes not. That begins an argument between the two of us in human and canine speech that ends with a tussle, a bit of acrobatics (significantly reduced in my old age), and a finale where I have a ball balanced on my nose and Jerry feeds me a treat (an oversized stuffed bone – a bonus find in a waterlogged-near-to-mulch box behind a pet store).

      We usually choose the nighttime because there’s more of an audience, and a lesser lit concrete and crookedly-old brick stage. In the darker dark, the light of my magic (a newer addition to the act) can be better appreciated. My light magic makes the arm-long glowing letters of Milkbone on the fuzzy beige toy in my mouth really pop.

      The tips, smiles, and sincere compliments feed us both

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