Short Fiction #3
“Ambien. It’s good enough for the State Department. It’s good enough for you!” It’s a good thing we were in New York and staying near Wall St. We had our first marketing slogan. We needed a trademark lawyer and we needed one fast. The New York City black market legal trade is almost as legendary as their rat population. Some say it’s hard to tell them apart. Of course, we weren’t using Ambien much after the knife incident. But then, who could blame us? But screw it, how often do people actually use the product they endorse? We were at Yankee Stadium and I didn’t see one stick of Right Guard in Giambi’s locker. Sure, we saw lots of other stuff…but no Right Guard. Like Mr. Giambi, we were only interested in the money.
Jay and I still had our kidneys and Ryan was none the wiser. Outwit. Outlast. Outplay? No problem. Ryan was so busy walking around Manhattan at Mach 5, with that evil grin on his face, he would be easy to beat. Or at least we could avoid his blade. He was in heaven. He was so in love with that city he would have married it on the spot if he could have come up with the cash for a ring. He knew I wasn’t packing much cash. I only came with beads and trinkets to trade with the locals. Hell, it worked out pretty well for the Dutch. They ended up owning Manhattan after all.
The vision of Ryan walking around was starting to bother Jay and I though. We couldn’t put our finger on exactly what the problem was though. Every subway stop, Ryan was at the door ready to burst through the poor slobs trying to get on the train. At every station, he was at the train door before it even came to a stop, ready to rush through the walking-dead Manhattanites that were waiting at the door, staring off into space as if they all had frontal lobotomies. Hell, for all Jay and I knew we were next on the operating table. It could be a two for one deal, first the lobotomy and then they could grab the kidneys.
The more we thought about it, the more we were glad we stopped the Ambien. Still, we were no match for Ryan and his Starbuck’s fueled walks. Half the time he didn’t even know where he was going, but he was getting there fast. That’s all that mattered to him. Making the next subway train. There was no sense in taking the subway if you couldn’t catch an express train! There was no worse feeling than running down the stairs only to be staring at the ass-end of a subway car as it sped away into the tunnel. At that point, it’s just you and the rest of the rats, and they look hungry. Ah, but we had business to attend to.
