Manhattan Stories

Central Manhattan late afternoon, two weeks out from Christmas, was no place for a frail old lady, one whose entire possessions barely half-filled the rusted shopping trolley she trundled before her on the sidewalk. Not immediately obvious to the occasional on-looker, but her wheeled companion served its purpose as much for support these days, as for its meager storage capacity. Cataracts had eroded Lucy’s vision to the p...

Charlie Jones attended a party of friends and acquaintances in one of the trendy studio apartments near Washington Square on the lower east side of Manhattan. Charlie brought some beer, one of the girls brought wine. Someone brought some hash and someone else brought some acid to get high on the music. One of the guys rolled a mixture of Cherry Blend pipe tobacco and hashish into a clumsy fat cigarette held together by sp...

"What’s dat stuff on your face, mistuh? What is it?" Mark Cahill tried to pretend he was asleep. But the high-pitched young voice was penetrating, and persistent. His day had been filled with an early departure and a long, rough connecting flight that included two even rougher landings. Now this. And LaGuardia was over an hour away. Still, he could recognize defeat. With a sigh, Mark opened his eyes and looked towards the...