{"id":118,"date":"2007-07-08T22:40:23","date_gmt":"2007-07-09T02:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=118"},"modified":"2007-07-23T13:01:27","modified_gmt":"2007-07-23T17:01:27","slug":"a-visit-to-the-city-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"a visit to the city (2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another deleted scene, the second one about a trip Pete made to the city.<\/I><\/p>\n

I awoke to bright sunlight, a cold apartment and a blurry starling poking me in the shoulder.<\/p>\n

\"Huh?\" I said.<\/p>\n

\"Where are we going to look today?\" she asked. She was squatting beside my bed.<\/p>\n

I started feeling around the floor before I noticed that she was holding out my glasses. I put them on, glad for the moment to try to gather my thoughts.<\/p>\n

\"Where are we going to look today?\" she asked again.<\/p>\n

I blinked a couple of times. \"Aren't you cold?\" I asked.<\/p>\n

She looked thoughtful, then rubbed her upper arms where I could see the goose bumps.<\/p>\n

\"Yes, I am,\" she said, sounding somewhat surprised.<\/p>\n

I patted her bare foot, which was icy cold. \"Put on some clothes, and let me start some coffee, then we can make our plans.\"<\/p>\n

She nodded and she got up. \"Okay.\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few minutes later we were seated at the kitchen table, coffee was dripping and my brain was starting to function. starling had rolled up the scrap of fabric she slept on and put it in the corner where she'd put her bag. The spilled papers and notebooks from the night before were still scattered around the floor.<\/p>\n

\"Well,\" I said, \"the three people who know the most about what and who in these parts are probably Frances, George and Dr. Lee.\" I wrote their names on a pad. \"We've talked to each of them, and either they don't know anything or they aren't talking. My only other idea is that I'll take the day and go to the library, see if I can learn anything there.\"<\/p>\n

She frowned. \"I'm not going?\"<\/p>\n

I sighed. I had not been looking forward to explaining this. \"To get to the library, I've got to go to the other side of the river, out of u-town. That means cops and traffic and a lot of people who are going to freak out if they see you. It's going to be very hard for me to get any research done under those conditions. I think it would be better if you waited here.\"<\/p>\n

She waited, still frowning, as I went to the stove and poured coffee for both of us. I put her mug in front of her and sat down again. \"I don't think I understand,\" she said.<\/p>\n

I had suspected this was coming. \"Don't you know where you are?\" I asked. She looked around the room. \"I mean what area of the city, of the country?\"<\/p>\n

\"What do you mean?\" she asked.<\/p>\n

I glanced at my watch. \"Look, if I'm going to catch the last subway I've got to hurry. I'll be back by five-thirty and we can go to Duffy's again. I'll explain everything else tonight. Okay?\" I stood up, closing my notebook and reaching for my coat.<\/p>\n

\"Okay,\" she said. \"Remind me tonight if I forget.\"<\/p>\n

\"Deal.\" I pulled on my coat. \"If you go out, could you put all the papers away? And be sure to be back by five-thirty. Oh, and I guess you should try not to shoot anybody.\"<\/p>\n

\"Okay.\"<\/p>\n

It was quite an enjoyable day. I found out a lot at the library, though none of it was about the mystery woman starling was searching for. If there had ever been a Deirdre Hammersmith in this part of the country, she had kept quiet about it.<\/p>\n

As usual, though, leaving u-town was a chore. It was always a shock to cross the river, and it never did it unless I had to. There were so many cars, for one thing, and it was difficult to remember that I couldn't just cross the street when and where I wanted to. Everything's always so noisy, too. I wonder how people manage to think. Of course, your chances of getting shot while you're walking along the sidewalk are somewhat less, and that's something.<\/p>\n

I brought a handful of change with me and tried to call a few old friends, but all I got was answering machines . I left the same \"Hi, I'm alive, the phones mostly don't work where I'm living, but please come and visit\" message for all of them, but I didn't expect anything to come of it. Those who were willing to visit had done it already.<\/p>\n

In the late afternoon I stuck my notebook in my pocket and left the library. I wanted to catch the first train so we'd have a chance of trying Duffy's again. I quickly walked the couple of blocks to the subway (remembering about the street lights). The entrance was like the rest, a gloomy, narrow, unmarked stairway between two buildings. I made my way down the dusty stairs and along a corridor lit by a single bare light bulb. At the end I went down another flight of stairs and went through the broken turnstiles to the platform.<\/p>\n

The dim light made the graffiti all over the walls particularly hard to decipher. I thought I had once decorated this particular stop myself, but it was long covered up by more recent efforts. All the signs in the station were long gone, but that didn't matter. If you wanted this particular subway, you already knew where it went. There was nobody else on the platform, though it would be full in an hour when the factories let out.<\/p>\n

There was an awful grinding noise from down in the tunnel, and then a train crept into the station. It was three cars long, so old it looked like it was made from cast iron. A couple of doors opened and I stepped in. It was sort of like stepping into somebody's living room. There were strange multicolored wall hangings and various people asleep in sleeping bags, and a cloud of pot smoke strong enough to stun a rhino. I quickly ran out to the platform and down to the next car. I got in just as the doors closed and the train lurched into motion.<\/p>\n

This car at least looked like a subway. Most of the rattan seat covers were ripped or missing, and the ceiling fans were minus some blades, but what really caught my attention was the four guys sitting around the small folding table at the far end of the car. They were all dressed in well-tailored suits, and the table held some piles of dollar bills, some other piles of paper, several full ashtrays and at least two guns. They looked at me, and started to reach for their guns, the way you reach for the swatter when a fly comes into the room.<\/p>\n

I was making a mental note never to leave my apartment without starling again when one of them looked at me more closely and laughed. \"Hey,\" he said to the others, \"it's cool. I know this guy.\" He waved me over. \"Come on, Pete. Come meet the boys.\" I went over, nearly losing my balance as the train went around a sharp corner and came out into the sunlight.<\/p>\n

\"This is the Pete-nik,\" the man announced, slapping me on the back so hard I could still feel it the next day. \"He's one of those wild kids, but he's okay. He helped me out once.\" He introduced me around to his associates (I won't mention their names here, if you don't mind) and motioned me to a seat as the train started the climb up the bridge.<\/p>\n

I was glad when I got home. I found starling sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. All of my hiding places were still open, and my papers and notebooks were scattered around where she sat. She was wearing a small pair of gold-rimmed glasses.<\/p>\n

She looked up. \"I'm reading everything!\" she announced happily.<\/p>\n

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Another deleted scene, the second one about a trip Pete made to the city. I awoke to bright sunlight, a cold apartment and a blurry starling poking me in the shoulder. “Huh?” I said. “Where are we going to look today?” she asked. She was squatting beside my bed. I started feeling around the floor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-deleted-scenes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}