Big City, Dark Dreams

Jamie worked in the editor's office in Manhattan for three years after graduating somehow from Dartmouth College. He was a terrific writer but the divorce from his gorgeous wife Amanda left him emotionally tattered. Now, Jamie wandered around the city at night in clubs and bars looking for easy comforts and pure euphoria, aided by his wayward friend Tad. This was a typical city life and it comprises our story about unexpected journey and confusing grace and frustrating complexity. Jamie wasn't a psychopath; he was merely a pensive man trying to organize his mind so he could actually get his book ideas together and make one great American novel about life in the modern world. He was haunted by the memory of his sick mother who died, leaving him with his younger brother Michael who was still in college. Jamie rarely called Michael to just avoid talking about their mother who was very close to Jamie.

Jamie hoped his book would add serious meaning to his New York life. He struggled personally sometimes just to get out of bed and make it to the editing company office where he worked, or at least was expected to work, everyday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jamie would usually make it to the office but make it there late, by 9 a.m. and then make smart excuses to his stern bosses Clara and Mr. Vogel. They'd allow Jamie to work late, so he'd stay at the office until about 7 p.m. to fulfill his daily duties, making appropriate corrections and looking up the right information to make the best editorial suggestions for new drafts and works submitted by highly-touted or at least touted rookie writers on the East Coast. Jamie didn't mind editing the work of others while working on his own book, since it reinforced in him a guilty pleasure of surveying the intellectual labors of others while justifying his own depression induced denial and tardiness and delays. This was Jamie.

Usually, Tad would call Jamie while the young man tried to complete his daily duties while working late in his office almost every night of the week and around 6:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before Jamie was to finally leave his work-desk for the day. Tad wanted to pull Jamie away everyday so he could draw him into the daily grind of Manhattan and New York club and bar life, meeting strange and attractive women, doing cocaine, having liberal casual sex, dancing until dawn, and then finding incredible American energy to repeat the normalized ritualized process of assumed vitality the next day. This sort of ritual of course kicked up a few notches during the weekends, and on two Saturdays, Jamie found himself in a three-way love circus at the apartment of a strange yuppie who was obviously some kind of major drug dealer assisting the habits of well-to-do figures and even a few politicians. Tad added to Jamie's resume of delinquency and emotional stagnation.

However, Jamie respected Tad and never suspected he'd do anything like betray him or his sensibilities, which is they they remained best friends. He wondered, however, if Tad's own cocaine habit would fuel enough proverbial gumption to make him a substantial suspect in some grander conspiracy involving his divorced wife Amanda, whom Jamie was still convinced left him to pursue a glamorous modeling career somewhere in Europe. Maybe Tad kept in touch with Amanda and allowed her to be a ghost if ever she visited New York so Jamie wouldn't cross paths with her. Therefore, Jamie considered Tad his right-hand-man, a good-enough musketeer who helped Jamie feel like there was something to do in the city if not something spiritual or holy. This also enabled Jamie to sometimes just sit and drink and brood about his dead mother while thinking about why his wife left him. Jamie had all the resources in New York to delay the writing of his book about modern American life.

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CHAPTER 2: The Prostitute

Finally, one Saturday, our young New York protagonist Jamie decides to call a prostitute after feeling too lonely or immersed in city nightlife to call upon some cool chick or interesting young American woman. Jamie calls a rather professional high-end escort-service to find just the right girl, and he's surprised when they offer him a fresh young face, 25 years-old, an intelligent brunette named Pamela. Jamie likes Pamela's voice on the phone and decides she's the right girl for him that Saturday night. He rents a nice Volvo and picks her up in front of an apartment complex, though he never asks her if that was where she actually lived. Pamela is clean and very beautiful and confesses to Jamie she's just started out in the prostitution market. Jamie laughs and tells her he's not really critical of how she ended up where she is right now and is just lonely and wants someone to talk to until dawn if nothing further develops between them. Pamela smiles and then leans over towards him while he's driving his Volvo and kisses him on the cheek.

Jamie and Pamela get to Jamie's apartment and drink wine and vodka until about 1 a.m., after which Jamie pays her about $1000 for some surprisingly very satisfying intimate intercourse. Afterwards, Jamie allows Pamela to take a hot bath in his recently cleaned rather comfy apartment bathroom. Jamie starts working on his book again about modern American life while Pamela is bathing in his apartment and singing rather pleasantly. Jamie wonders if he should throw a monkey-wrench into the entire equation of his New York life and ask Pamela to just leave her pimp and marry him and become his New York trophy wife. Maybe that will offer Jamie the necessary spiritual maturity and responsibility consciousness to compel him to finally get through writing his book about modern American life, a novel which Jamie's convinced he's talented enough to earn him some kind of prestige or award. It will also help him forget about his ex-wife Amanda. Jamie decides to ask Pamela, and she starts crying.

JAMIE: Why the hell are you crying?
PAMELA: Jamie, sweetheart, you don't understand!
JAMIE: What the hell don't I understand?
PAMELA: I'm currently embroiled in a serious lawsuit!
JAMIE: What?
PAMELA: Yeah; one of my clients died during sex; heart-attack!
JAMIE: Hah; that's so cliched; you must be oddly honored.
PAMELA: Don't be sarcastic, Jamie; the man ended up being a big-time politician.
JAMIE: So what happened next?
PAMELA: His lawyer wants to sue my pimp so I keep everything a secret.
JAMIE: Did you intend to expose this awful incident to the press?
PAMELA: I think my pimp wanted to do just that, to make some money!
JAMIE: Smart.
PAMELA: Stupid; anyways, I'm not sure what will happen next.
JAMIE: What if I stand by you during this legal mess and afterwards, you marry me?
PAMELA: What?
JAMIE: We'll get through this legal nonsense, your pimp will be home-free, and you can leave him.
PAMELA: How?
JAMIE: We'll make sure the legal securities remain secure and then no one will think you care to disclose anything!
PAMELA: Sounds kind of simple and honest, eh?
JAMIE: In New York, simplicity and honesty are surprisingly abundant, Pamela!
PAMELA: I want to marry you...
JAMIE: Of course you do, darling.
PAMELA: I can be the muse for your great American novel.
JAMIE: Better you than my nasty ex-wife Amanda, dear.
PAMELA: I agree; let's do it.
JAMIE: Pam, I think this is the start of something beautiful.
PAMELA: You better not turn out to be some kind of sociopath.
JAMIE: I'm not a psycho; I'm just an American.
PAMELA: Well, at least they'll say, "Jamie Conway found a street-girl and finally finished his acclaimed American novel."
JAMIE: Pygmalion meets Platoon.
PAMELA: Cool, Jamie; very cool.