In the Gutter, February '72

I don't know how I got home that night. As I recall, I hardly felt the cold at all. I was never dizzy, but my feet moved as if frozen blocks ... My head hurt when I awoke. It didn't hurt that night though ... No, not until they knocked me out. He did. And robbed me. She did. Two of them, maybe more. I wouldn't know. The woman came up to me all of a sudden. She was was just right there in my face with her tits, her story, her breath ... A favor her request; money his demand. Never saw the bloke, but he missed on his first swing. Not entirely: the blackjack caught the scruff of my neck, took me down a peg. More to his level, I reckon, 'cause his next blow was true.

A horse pissing a Hudson-like current by your head is a rude awakening, but no less than I deserved. I cried then. Not 'cause I lost all I earned, or from the pain, but because I'd come to a place I never thought I'd stray. In fact, I kept such a clear eye on it--stepping as far as I could manage from its slippery slope--that I thought I'd be well far from it for the rest of my days. But I guess I was short-sighted. All roads led there eventually. And the truth of that stung like the cold wind. And the tears came. I was my father's son: Aedan, son of Seamus--son of shame.

I vomited on the steps of the tenement. It burned my throat. The wages of an hour's labor spent and spewed just like that. The lump above my ear was tender and nearly throbbed. My jaw clicked and clacked. It hasn't closed right since.

The night was a dark cloak wrapped tight on the streets. In the building that darkness would be smothering: with windows few, and the walls coated in black grime inches thick--years of scum, the residue of lives spent in this inescapable squalor.

Make it more like a play, huh? Okay ...

“Aedan! Over here, my boy.”

            Aedan turned at the shrill cry of his name. Few men knew it, and one that did, Jim Daly, wouldn’t have used it. To him, a slap on the back, or a spit plug of tobacco, or a “Getovahereyoubasterd” was a standard greeting. So he was surprised to see Dr. Smith balancing on a plank, holding a wooden crate under his arm.

            Aedan excused himself, with no regret, from the sand pipe, and maneuvered between the planks and entry shafts, tools and mud to reach Dr. Smith near the foot of the air lock.

            “Dr. Smith?” What the hell is he doing here? And why does he have birds?

            “Let’s go to section four. There’s no work in there today, am I correct.”

            “Yes, sir. We’re working here in the middle today.”

            “Good. Take this and follow me.”

            Aedan had become accustomed to odd jobs in the caisson—a stranger worksite could not be found in New York—but he could not understand what a man of medicine could possible want down there. Patients came to him after all. But Aedan accepted the crate and followed the surgeon.

            They ducked through the doorway cut in the thick wooden supporting wall, bouncing along the planks spanning the muck. They crossed the chamber and into the next. It glowed with a peculiar white light. Seldom had Aedan seen an empty section with not a single laborer or engineer at work. There was almost a serenity to be found there, although it was a setting wholly unnatural--and one could hardly forget the immense weight bearing down. 

            Dr. Smith followed the wall and paused at one of the massive brackets angled between the wall and ceiling. “This will do.” Aedan wedged the crate between the bracket and the wall. Hanging his medicine bag from one of the tall hooks usually used for whale-oil lamps, Dr. Smith proceeded to pull out an instrument.

            “Alright, please open the cage and pull one of them out. Loosen the wire there and it should just … Mind the other doesn’t escape!”

            Aedan stretched his hand through the narrow opening, grasped a fluttering feathery thing, and pulled it out in a flash. Looking down he saw the beady eyes of a bewildered pigeon. It struggled against his fingers for only a second, but Aedan could feel its nervous heartbeat.

            “Attaboy—now just hold him still a moment …”

            Aedan watched as the doctor stretched out one of the bird’s wings.

            “Now, the pressure down here this week is about twenty-pounds per square inch. As this caisson descends, the river and river bed increase their weight on the frame. Consequently, the compressors must increase the pressure of air inside the frame to counter that weight. The current trend is about two pounds—that is, an additional two pounds of air pressing on each inch of surface in this chamber—for every foot the caisson descends. The compressors can handle it. And the Chief Engineer assures me the caisson can handle it. ‘Twice as strong as the Brooklyn caisson—four times stronger than it need be,’ he says like a proud father.”

            Aedan tried to comprehend this sudden rush of information hitting him like the pressure in the airlock just an hour before. How can someone know all that and talk so easily about it? Like it was just something he heard on the street.

            Dr. Smith noted Aedan’s look and its resemblance to the confused, slightly petrified, but otherwise content pigeon. He carried on.

            “But the pressure of this air can be difficult for you and the other men to handle. And if nothing else, you know exactly how that feels. And that’s why, with your experience, you’re qualified to assist today—and in the future if you like.”

            “I would, sir. If I can help someone else avoid that same kind of pain from working down here.”

            Dr. Smith smiled. “The conditions present are well known, but what occurs to the body in them—that is still a mystery. I want to see if the concentration of oxygen in this atmosphere …”

            How am I supposed to know what any of that means?

“Oxygen: the molecules of the air that you breathe to give life to your flesh.”

With a nod Aedan feigned understanding, and Dr. Smith continued.

“I want to know how the excess of oxygen affects the natural healing process of the flesh.”

With a movement swift and sure, the surgeon made an incision under the birds wing. Aedan saw a smear of blood on the scalpel edge.

“There. And the next, please?” Dr. Smith wiped his brow with a damp shirtsleeve. “Let’s hurry up, now. The idea wasn’t to experiment on myself.”

They repeated the procedure.

“How will you know what happens? Or what it means if something does?”

“There’s a pair of birds in the hospital. I've made similar incisions on them. At the end of the week, I will compare the wounds with these birds. If there’s any difference down here from the natural healing process at the surface that might help me understand what this air does to you.”

Aedan paused latching the crate door.

“To you workers,” Dr. Smith continued, his brow damper still.

“Aye. God knows we need someone looking out for us. Otherwise, we’re just … little bleeding birds stuck in a crate. Not knowing thing a damn thing outside of what we are, what we were born to be.”

Dr. Smith was silent. He reached for the crate, but Aedan, the taller of the two, grabbed it first.

“On the hook, right?”

Dr. Smith removed his bag, and Aedan looped one of the slats over the hook’s end until the crate was firmly affixed. Aedan peered into the crate, now at eyelevel. “What are you going to do with’em?”

“After I examine the wounds and take blood samples, they will be exterminated,” Dr.Smith said, regaining his professional detachment, as he made for the chamber exit.

“You reckon I could have’em then? All ov’em?”

Dr. Smith paused at the doorway.  

“Even after a week down here,” Aedan continued, “they’ll be good eating yet.” 

On Bridges and Forces in Harmony

Today’s Big Thought came inspired from—where else?—David McCullough’s The Great Bridge. In opening chapter he lays out the dimensions and functions of the completed bridge before going into the history of its making. Summing up John Roebling’s design, he concisely reaches the crux of the bridge: “The way he designed it, the enormous structure was to be a grand harmony of opposite forces—the steel of the cables in tension, the granite of the towers in compression.”

I had read this phrase a few times before in my (re)reading of the book, but today I was at a place in considering the development of my characters where it seemed particularly applicable. I knew this was potentially a fantastic metaphor. But even more so, it could structure the nature of the relationship between Aedan (the protagonist) and Charlotte (the love interest). Aedan’s life possesses the tension: being pulled between past and future, duties and desires, the comfortable and unfamiliar. Charlotte faces pressures and conditions that I would classify as compression. (This is still in early stages, and I’m just making things fit the scheme—it could all change.) So, I believe their relationship can be built around the “grand harmony” they achieve together—and only together. Despite their own issues, they discover a sense of balance together: they can escape from the pressures they face and enjoy a freedom to be themselves. Kinda sweet and touching, right? But, me being me, I can’t just sit down and execute this idea. Oh no, I have to think just a little more. 

Old solutions (and some new) to new (well, kinda old) problems

Thomas Pope's 1811 vision for a trans-Hudson bridge

New York may not be as synonymous with bridges as Amsterdam, Hamburg, Pittsburgh, or even San Francisco. But with almost three times as many people as those three cities combined--and 2,000 bridges in the five boroughs--New York probably should be the de facto "City of Bridges". Without an intense network of bridges, the city wouldn't function as a metropolis, regional hub (22 million people live in the tri-state area), or global nexus. These are historical roles for this city, and creating the best infrastructure to effectively function in them is not a new problem. The harbor was the entry point and chief advantage to New York at it's founding, and the port and defenses followed suit. A certain upstate canal intensified the transportation of commodities--imports and exports--and the demands on that port. The prospect of real estate development and a growing populations led to an organized system of streets and properties. Then rail lines and ferries and more growth, then Brooklyn Bridge, then other bridges, then airports and Robert Moses and ... Basically, the infrastructure of New York is essential to New York's existence, functionality, and identity. (There are other factors, of course, but since I'm writing about bridges, we'll ignore them.)

So then there's a recent article about what to do about making the recently (2004) public-ized Governor's Island more accessible. Currently a free ferry serve visitors from May through September. And new construction on the southern portion of the island will make their visits more enjoyable and more likely. But, as Mark Vanhoenacker opines, a pedestrian/bicycle bridge would make the island accessible year-long and for the majority of the day, just like any other city park. How this bridge would be designed and funded are the next important questions after the obvious, "do we really need one?" Even if you (or the majority of New Yorkers, or the next mayor) think we don't, this potential bridge is a great opportunity to reconsider the movement of people in cars and goods in trucks throughout this city. And this then entails the locations of tolls on bridges and tunnels and how that influences transportation in the city.

In 1867, the New York York Bridge Company faced similar. They sought to replace the system of ferries on the East River with a bridge that allowed for foot traffic, roadways, and a trolley system. And it was assumed the fares and tolls would pay for the construction of the bridge in three years (and continue to fatten the coffers of both cities). But the project ran seven years longer than assumed, and more expensively than imagined--not least because of certain "gentlemen" either extracting bribes for influence or gleaning exorbitant construction contracts. See, nothing's new. And with new New York bridges on the mind, it seems like there might just be an audience entertained by a story of the first one.

On Writing: recent Inspiration & Advice

Sometimes I find things, sometimes they are given to me. But over the years my collection of writing advice seems to outweigh my actual writing output. I'll share the latest, for your own benefit and to keep them at hand for my use ... to bludgeon me of the head each time I come to my on blog.

Witty, but useful rules from McSweeney's: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-better-than-you-normally-do


And some of my favorites from Chekhov:

"There's no need to chase after a crowd of characters.  Only two should be at the center of gravity: he and she."

"Best of all, avoid describing the emotional states of your protagonists;  one should try to make these apparent from their actions."

"The more emotionally charged a situation, the more emotional restraint one must use in writing, and then the result will be emotionally powerful.  There is no need for laying it on thick."

"My advice:  try to be original and as clever as possible in your play, but do not be afraid of appearing stupid.  Freethinking is essential, but to be a freethinker one must not be afraid to write nonsense."