ONE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON IN JUNE

The Grey clouds floated low over the towering Manhattan buildings. A brief rain shower drizzled over the city as the humidity lowered leaving the city with a delicate, cold breeze. These were the things I always used to look forward to during Springtime. I can still recount the many summers I spent hovering over my father’s lawn watching the rain slowly drop from the gutters. Smelling the dew as dried from the sun slowly emerging from the storm clouds. I can’t recount how many cigarettes I had in the past hour, or the moments I checked to see if the bar had opened. Sitting at this desk, with this empty sheet, still in place on an untouched typewriter. How is it that we can easily create our own Hell.
I have been told that I am an eternal complainer, and my life would be a lot better if I settled for what I had in the present. I suppose nobody likes an adult dreamer. All of those years we spent thinking that nothing was impossible must go away with the attained convictions and knowledge of the civilized world. The clock says four fifteen. The bar doesn’t open until four fifty. I hate waiting in this office. I hate writing stories for people about real stuff. I hate the real world, I hate facts, I hate dates, I hate editors, columnists, reviewers, and publishers. When will John Stanton finally get to write about what he wants to write.
The smoke from the fifteenth cigarette dies out, like my own patience. I am asked on Monday to cover a story on the returning GI’s. I am told only to ask these silly concrete question like, “what did you think of Europe,” “were any of their gals better than ours,” or “is it great to be home!” These conditions are impossible to work under, the constant ringing of the telephone bells, the banter of household gossip among the operators, the chief bursting into the office asking if I finished the story yet. I’ll tell him the truth most of the time, “Didn’t you hear? The convoys have been delayed due to bad weather.”
I wish, sometimes, that I can take this paper and write about my world, the things that make John Stanton happy, the things that John loves, the things John is afraid of. With every inhalation of nicotine I slowly drift away to that world of possibility. A place where I am loved by all. Where my name graces the flashboards at the Roxy reading “Screenplay Written by John Stanton!” Then comes the moment when you slam back into reality, waking up to the real nightmare. Then you see the door is open with the editor in chief standing at the head of the door waiting for you to acknowledge his presence. He stands with his vest unbuttoned, playing with that cheap cigar clenched between his yellow teeth.
I find myself leaning up against my chair, feeling my brain numb, feeling as though I cannot take anymore of this. Knowing he will slowly make his way into the room as he prepares to fly into a clamorous rage, belittling my in every way imaginable, using every profanity created in the English language. I can begin to feel my own drowsiness, I often get restless when I am tired during work hours. It seemed like an instant before I looked up again to find both of his hands on my desk as he stared at me with his eyes burning with infuriation.
I just looked up at him, and lit a cigarette holding in my left hand, “Mr. Durbar, I really don’t want to write this story, as a matter of fact, I don’t want to be a journalist. A man gets tired of writing about these trashy stories about ordinary people, and their daily rabble. A man needs to do what makes him happy, and this profession…well, it really pisses me off. As a matter of fact, I am about this close to getting up and taking a shit on this article. I don’t care about the GI’s, as a matter of fact I didn’t really care about the war. Personally, I wish Japan and Germany took over American just so their secret police forces can lock up yellow journalist leaches like yourself. You never cared about the truth, if I went down to those docks today and asked the boys what they really saw, and what they really felt, you would have me fired in an instant. You would have me fired if I wrote about the Protestant New Rochelle man who murdered his wife with an axe as opposed to the disheveled Italian Catholic who robbed an old lady blind. You want Gotham to read this filthy trash, well I won’t be a cog in your machine of destruction. People like you, with the rest of the media moguls ought to be locked up in Death camps where you would all be incinerated alive! Yes, I know your Jewish, and I know the Nazis incinerated the Jews, but Jew or no Jew, all media outlets must be destroyed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will be excusing myself form this establishment. But hear me out on this, you continue this enterprise, without any remorse…all of the things you were afraid of as child, all of the fiends that walked in the dark, and hid outside your window. They will come and find you, and torture you. I have conversed with some GI’s. I don’t know where it was in Europe, but something monstrous dwells in the countryside. There are such things, and I am going out into the world to write about them!”
He didn’t move a muscle, nor did he turn around to watch me leave the room. I came back in ten minutes, and he was nowhere in sight. All I found was an open window. I looked outside and saw a dark figure scaling the façade of the forty-second floor. I thought it was Mr. Dunbar attempting suicide. Then, the figure lept from one of the sculptures flying towards the window.
I felt my had collapse, it was still four fifteen, the bar was still closed. I had only five cigarettes left, and I’m not going to smoke a single one. Smoking before a nap will lead to bad dreams.