Work in progress

Waking sometimes feels to me much like swimming up from some deep pool. I liken this feeling to being suspended in a place where the pressure surrounding me falls away ever so gradually as I gain some murky sense of reality. When I finally surface i see only glimpses of what is through the black waves of my lazily drifting lids. Then I compose myself treading the air and take in the deepest breaths. Today I inhale a thick smog stench of stale brews, piss, cancer. O' but this is a famaliar atmosphere indeed and it serves well to snap me to.
I'm in Quick Tommy's place, to be more specific in his bathtub and to be more specific still, it's cold as ice and my back feels like it's been wrenched in five different directions at once. Indeed. So I haul myself out pinching and pulling at clothes that feel as though they're fused to my body by all manner of unholy adhesives -God help me. Due to the lack of light that doth ever so faintly peeketh through the small bathroom window I manage to stumble over all manner of empty bottles as I stagger through the narrow doorway.
Tommy's pad is small, a one room apartment above Bortelli's market. He lives here with his girl Myra. A hot little brunette with a lot of... spunk. Myra's parents own Bortelli's so the two rent the place for next to nothing and they treat the place as such. Their behavior however goes unnoticed by Myra's parents as they are now too ancient to even climb the back stairs to see what's become of the little dwelling. Tommy runs the shop all day every day except Sundays, Mondays, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza. Today is Monday.He does this while Myra stuffs her nose with powder out on the town. I can't say that Tommy doesn't do his fair share of the old dust but he knows what's to be done and when, and reserves his antics till after closing. Every night Tommy visits Empire Liqours around the corner before heading in.The two swear they're meant to be, a match made in heaven, but there drunken, drug fueled fist fights by evening make me think otherwise. Who knows though as sometimes I wonder if this their own ritual is what makes the two a one in their own twisted way.
I presume now that one such episode must have been the reason I'd found myself crashing in the tub of last evening. The bath being the safest place to avoid incoming missiles or the displeasure of being unwillingly entangled in one of said bloody battles. Now as I enter the living area , if you could imagine actually living in such a disaster of an area, I spot Tommy sprawled out on the sofa. His arm hangs limp to the floor, fingertips at rest on an empty bottle of gin, beside an empty bottle of schnapps beside a ceramic plate with an intricate floral border. This pretty much confirms my presumption. I can hear Myra in the bedroom off to the side of this main room breathing in quiet sniffels in her heavy sleep.
With these two snoozing oh so peacefully I decide to make my leave, stepping as tenderly as any groggy and hungover scourge, over trash and bottles to the door. I can feel a cool breeze through a punched-hole in the door. I ease it open with a muffled groan from its stressed hinges and the cold dry air feels good. It is a fine, late Autumn morning.
Around trashbags piled high above the rail of the back porch, down the rotting steps, past Tommy's old Chevy with the word LOSER keyed into its side, out the back alley and onto Market street.
Foot traffic is light as the early birds strike out to work while Tommy sleeps it off.
I take a right from Bortelli's and another a few buildings down onto Chandler street. There's a steady flow of cars and a fair amount of people out on this main road. I can smell sausages and eggs cooking hot and steaming coffee brewing in the diners. The mailman, George I believe his name is but I cant quite remember, is out on his route whistling a tune not familiar to myself. I walk by a group of old men sitting on rickety stools outside the barbershop, wheezing and cackling through puffs of smoke with the talk of current events and politics and such. I have my own business. I light a cigarette, the last of my current pack.
About three more blocks, then I cross Chandler in front of the little butchers shop and head down Grammar street on the left. Steam almost billows from sewer grates in the street. I amble on down through groups of people chatting on the sidewalk or others now rushing off to work. About two blocks down I stop in front of a little auto garage called Jerry's Auto Shop, first stop o' the day. I flick my butt to the gutter, cross the front lot occupied only by junk cars and walk into the little office off the garage. This place smells of old grease and motor oil with just the faintest hint of cheap cologne. Jerry's not behind the counter so I fancy snatching a pen from the cup beside his computer before ringing the little hand dinger on the counter.
DING!DING!DING!DING!DING!DING! Real fast like.
" Owooo," comes a deep bellow through the door to the repair shop to the right. Followed by a metallic clanging of tools on concrete.
" 'Ey, that you you great brute?" I call into the garage, " Someone home?"
" Ah, thanks for that one brother," says jerry as he walks into the office, rubbing his forehead ever so tenderly.
Jerry is a very large man, a behemoth of sorts all burly and bearded and gruff and what not. He stands somewhere over six feet and is as wide as a Mack and has the strength of such a beast to boot. His head is shaved completely bald but he sports a beard like not too many others that reaches at least a foot off his round face. He smiles at me now, his great brown eyes disapearing into small small slits with deep sparrow tracks reaching out from the corners. I smile back, a big toothy grin for Jerry is one of my oldest friends. He crosses his huge arms and says to me:
" So I take it your here for my dear Betsy,"
" Right you are my friend. Now if you'd be ever so kind I'd like to get a move on of the old tasks of this day,"
" Well I believe you'll be needin' these then eh'?"
He tosses me a set of keys with a Miller bottle opener, a small Swiss Army Knife keychain as well as one of those rubbery bubble letter jobs that said 'BETSY'
" I trust you my boy to bring her back safely."
" As always my friend, to the docks it is this morning,"
" Well it's coming up on eight o' clock so you should be off,"
" Right."
'' But listen, do you have time to stop in for a minute later?"
" I'm sure I will, why?"
" I've just got something to show you's all. So just come in to the shop later instead of just dropping the keys,"
" Sure thing Jer. Thanks brother," I snap him a smart salute and head out of the office.
" Later."
I go around back down a tight alley way littered with trash and debris coming out behind Jerry's garage where there is a large box truck parked between two posts in front of a loading dock. I walk to the back to check that the lift door is shut properly. Good. I heave open the heavy front door, step up and plop down in the sunken pilot's seat of Betsy. I turn the key in the ignition and Betsy roars and sputters to life. This truck handles any moving of cargo that might find itself in need of moving and Jerry is kind enough to let me use her for my own business asking only the most meager of fees. Betsy is like his baby though so I know to treat her proper.
I wonder what Jerry's got cooking? I wonder as I steer Betsy down another, wider back alley and out onto Brook street that runs parallel with Grammar.