Something Came Up
by
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CHAPTER 1
1972 . . . I think
Her suntanned skin felt velvety warm. I wrapped my arms around her to gather her closer. She molded her body to mine like an erotic heating pad as I shifted in our beach chair. The weight of her against my skin spawned the dopey smile I always got when things were going so well even I couldn’t screw them up. When she raised her mouth to mine, I placed my hand on the curve of her neck. We kissed a long, sweet kiss that filled me with her and wiped out the night. We nestled together to escape the mist that the ocean breeze deposited on its way in from the sea.
CHAPTER 2
Only the pressure of the cement on my butt ruined my mood.
I peered out at the couples strolling along the sand.
As the strollers sped up, I squeezed my eyes closed to keep the beach in sight. But it receded more quickly as the traffic appeared. The strollers picked up their pace, splitting with every step like beach-bound amoebas. Bathing-suited men and bikini-clad women mutated into business-suited businessmen and women in sensible shoes. As they strode across the sand, the surface beneath their feet flattened and turned gray. The beach belched up buildings and curbs to control the crowd. My dream dissolved into my reality and I was alone again with myself.
The triangular traffic island divided Broadway at 72nd Street. It split the ten-lane street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side like an iceberg in a shipping lane. Its freestanding subway entrance looked like an Amsterdam canal house half buried in cement.
The intricately carved facades of the buildings that edged the avenue glowed with an aura of another time and another place. Storefronts crowded the feet of the Old World facades like seedy, colorful circus clowns. If you allowed your eye to wander above the commercial chaos, you’d see glaring gargoyles, cherubs peeking out from beneath ornately carved granite ropes and grape leaves wrapped with chiseled gray ribbons. The buildings’ domes, turrets, wrought iron railings and balconied French windows rivaled anything their European counterparts could don. They trumped their European high-rise cousins by rising in New York City.
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About the Book
Mitch Gaines tries to do the right thing, but the right things are wrong for him. He sees himself as others see him and is happy with his image in their eyes. But when Mitch’s wife looks around, his image fades. When she walks out, Mitch disappears.
He looses everything, including himself. When Mitch decides to change, his version of right goes even more wrong.
Until . . .
About the Author
In 1974, the author left New York City to sell his paintings on the West Coast of the United States. In 1976, with a Pong championship to his credit, he accepted a job in Iran where he met his wife.
After the Revolution, the author, his wife and the Shah all left Iran for Egypt. Two of them got jobs...the other one died.
The author has since lived in and written about Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Haiti and Shanghai. His novels are ‘The Missionary Position’, about Angela Benedetto’s adventures in Irian Jaya, ‘My Enemy, My Friend’, about a love affair during the Iranian Revolution ‘Shanghai’d’ about a Chinese/Israeli plot originating in 1930's Shanghai, ‘Maiden Shanghai’, about Shanghai’s Green Gang’s covert aid to China’s Xinjiang Seperatists and ‘Something Came Up’ about a young man's search for self. He has written published articles for Channel East Magazine, West-East Magazine, Media Magazine, Asian Hotel and Catering Magazine, www.zingasia.com, www.chinaOnline.com and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
He now writes while out-dodging drivers who don’t signal and waiting on telephone trees when he wants to communicate.