Chapter One - Part Four - Tango In the Dark

It was oddly quiet for a Friday night.

I know that I live in the slums I’m not delusional, I wasn’t one to try and make it sound hipper than what it was, there where no clubs in a four block radius and the closest thing to a supermarket that we had around here was the local jewelry hocker called Spencer, that sometimes wanted to sell you a ‘Folex’ watch, but most of the time just wanted to flash you.

We did however have a large prostitution ring that usually patrolled the sidewalks around here, like meter maids in New York. Which usually attracted a large crowd of addicts looking for a quick way to get their rocks off. They didn’t discriminate either; everyone was welcome to use their services, meth addicts, potheads, dealers, buyers, lesbians, threesomes and groups, all where welcome as long as you had cash.

I looked around and nothing, I couldn’t even see Spencer trying to creep around in the shadows, attempting to perform his famous flaccid cock and run act.

It was just simply the darkness and the odd summer night breeze.

Looks like I’m in for a real busy night tonight.

Rolling my eyes I headed in the direction of Black Cats, which was about five blocks away, which was just far enough from here to still be considered in the ‘good part’ of town.

No matter where you said you where in this city, it was still all the bad part of town, everyone knew it, but still they tried to disguise the odors of garbage and filth with the automatic deodorizers. They had them set to spray every five minutes, rather than every half an hour like people in other, non rat infested, non putrid cities did.  The only difference between us and them was that whiles those people used them to make their apartments and white picked fence houses smell pretty, we needed it to actually refrain ourselves from cutting off our noses.

It wasn’t always that bad, it wasn’t until the city had nowhere else to dump their garbage, so they started using the subway tunnels.

I can see where they thought that would be a good idea. The subways had been abandoned for over fifteen years, so why not stuff the cities crap back underneath it?

It was a good plan in the beginning, everyone was happy that they didn’t decide to create another dump just outside the city and it worked for a few months, until the smell started to come up from the manholes and drains in the streets.

At first people rioted outside the mayors office, screaming into megaphones with lame chants like ‘No more underground dumping’ some went even so far as to suggest the endangerment of the moles that lived in the underground tunnels.

Really? That’s what your worried about? The moles? Clearly you need to sort your priorities out dickhead. 

Eventually after about a month or so with no action from the mayor, they gave up and went on living their sad little lives.