After eating a nice steak and watching the ghosts of Yankees past, I made my way across the bridge again. All of this was a loop. I thought that by quitting my job I would give myself some time of pattern breaking skills - that I would find adventure in every turn in life, but that was not the case. What I found was that humans were adapt at giving themselves routine.


Now, instead of the routine of catching the same train so I could sit in the same chair in front of the computer and look at the same web sites while trying to look like I was working, here I was walking the same routes across bridges. A true adventurer indeed. Still, after taking a little time to notice my surroundings, I saw that most of the cars were those from the late 70s. They were long Lincoln's and Cadis with some Chevy's mixed in as well. No Japanese cars at at. The kids walking by me had huge afros and tight pants and it was nowhere near Halloween.


Time was moving again, though I couldn't figure out why I wasn't aging and how the people around me staying the same. Well that wasn't entirely true either. I mean, everyone else in the city was changing, getting younger or somehow having who they were and what they did move around. All except the people in my building. They all stayed the same. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the typewriter at all. Maybe it was the building that was trapped in time and the rest of the world around us was changing while we all stood still? What would be the reason for that? I don't believe much in that kind of activity and time travel is the stuff of late night movies and old TV shows. But this wasn't time travel at all. No, this was ..


Ghosts. I saw him on the corner of the bridge again. Man. I wasn't ready for that at all. I guess you are never ready to see ghosts. Most people when they get to my age stop believing in such things. In such events. For me I just started.


"Thanks for helping out my mom. She needed it. Don't think she would have lasted riding those trains much longer."
"She said you drowned."
"She said that?"
"Is it true?"
"I guess it is. I don't really think about what happened in the past."
"But that means you're dead. How can you be sitting here talking to me if your dead. That doesn't mean I'm dead too, does it?"
"No. It just means that when we die, we don't leave. We just remain, for the most part, unseen. Unseen until people need to see us. Then we're everywhere. For you, I guess you just passed by that graveyard too much and were ready to see all of us."
"All of you? There's more?"
"Who do you think you've been talking to on this block? What about the girl in the panties across the street from you? She's been in that apartment for years. That old man who used to live next to you used to watch her all the time. Damn, he died looking at her. Fool fell off the fire escape."
"I just saw him come back today. Guy was smoking a pipe."
"Guess that's the advantage of being a ghost. Still, it's not all that exciting to tell you the truth. I mean, you'd think that after giving up all your possessions and not having to go to work would make you happy, but it gets kind of old. That's why I like the missions you've been sending me on. Hell, you did good with my mom as well. You'll be just fine when you pass away."


I turned around and looked back at the Stadium and then at him, but he was no longer there. The cars were still old. I made my way back to the apartment building. Nobody on my block was thinking about - DAMN I THINK I'M LOST IN THE STORY.


So what do I do with this character now. He's working with ghosts who travel back in time and fix the lives of the people he meets? Does that work? Is it the story I want to tell. Something needs to happen to move things around a little bit.


I walked up Edgecomb to this little cafe that had just opened up the block. Not sure what it was before. Not even sure if I was in the before time. I think it was still the present because up until that point, I hadn't written anything about it. I sat down without anything to smoke and without anything to read and just sat there drinking a cup of coffee. To tell you the truth, coffee is drug enough for me. I have had my time with coke, herbs, speeds, X, Scripts and the rest. Enough of those already. there is no need. Stayed away from needles and I'm happy about that. At this point, the coffee is enough. I think that comes with age. Be sure you have good enough friends that don't let you get too deep. Might as well taste though - it is America after all. Most other countries make you pay for it. Here, you can turn it into experience.


So across from me was the Bronx and next to me was a suit woman talking into her balckberry and looking like she was talking to herself. She noticed me and didn't take the time to smile until she needed a light for her smoke, which I had quite as well. I had nothing.


"Perhaps it's a sign I should quit," she said.
"You have to take those when you can get them. They don't come around as quick as you think."
"That's a pretty forward comment to give to someone you just met."
"Never know how much time you have on this planet, right?"


I guess you could say that I hit it off with the woman who was to become my literary agent pretty well. We like each other right away, which is important for two people that needed to spend so much time together.We would be spending a great deal together over the next few years.


She showed me her card and I told her right there about the book I was writing, what I had done before and how I had ended up here. She listened as if she were documenting everything for a press release.

DAMN THAT SUN FOR COMING UP RIGHT WHEN I'M STARTING TO ROLL. A NEW CHARACTER HAS COME TO LIFE THOUGH. NICE.

OFF TO WORK.

To Be Continued . . .