The City - chapter sixteen
In Brooklyn, Jacob excused himself and put on a bathrobe while a blushing Tyler set the banana bread down on the stove. If Tyler’s apartment needed new windows and a paint job, Jacob’s needed to be gutted and rebuilt. Which it became apparent in conversation was exactly what Jacob planned to do. Over the course of the next few weeks, Jacob would be knocking down walls and rebuilding the bathroom, laying new flooring, and installing new doors and windows. Tyler had flashbacks to the bathroom work the guys in Jersey had done while he was staying with them.
Letting Jacob get back to his unpacking, Tyler popped out in the hallway and ran into Ivan coming down the stairs. The two greeted each other with dropped jaws. Ivan giggled in explanation that he was coming from “Marvin’s” place and continued out the door. Feeling more and more like a prude, Tyler hopped upstairs to check in with Martin.
“I don’t even want to discuss it,” Martin said as he answered the door. “Do you want a cookie?” he passed a box of Oreos. The two discussed the events - Bad News Tommy, Frederico, Todd, and Frita - that led up to Ivan’s visit. “You’ve had a busy year so far,” was all that Tyler said. Martin responded with “When are you gonna get busy?”
Later that week, at a meeting at the UN, Frederico bumped into Leon. Leon was working with the event company in charge of the unveiling of Frederico’s mural. The two smiled and endured the gray haired and stodgy committee members who were bank rolling the project. “I think we’ll be OK,” Leon said when it was over. “Whatever you paint they’ll love it; today was all posturing. The back patting will come soon enough.” “I hope so,” was all Frederico said. His impression of the meeting was that he’d have a mountain of critics at every step.
Back in New Jersey, Franz ate dinner alone in front of the television before taking Nairobi for a long walk. He was proud of Leon for taking the new position and enjoyed having home to himself for the first time in a long time. He grabbed a beer and watched a baseball game from the West Coast.
That same night, Greg popped into his favorite bar looking for his favorite bartender. At the end of the night he assumed they were heading home together as they’d done so many times before. But instead his bartender insisted that he wasn’t in the mood. Instead he suggested that they catch a movie later in the week. A stunned Greg agreed, and took the train home. Alone.
At the end of the week, Helmut visited Frederico with a bottle of champagne to celebrate a job offer. He’ll need to return to Germany to work out the visa details, but he’ll be staying in New York. They popped the cork as Jacob began knocking down his bathroom walls with a sledgehammer one floor below.
What does the City have in store next for our heroes? Stay tuned.
Based on actual situations, names and associations may have been altered to protect the guilty or to make things seem more interesting.
