Featured Writer: Gary Beck

Faded Hopes

Jimmy and Stella Vann lived in a ratty old tenement building on Canal Street, serenaded by the clomp and shove of daily shoppers and the spastic traffic roar of Holland Tunnel nights. Their weekdays were divided with Jimmy pushing carts in the garment center, a diminishing industry that was dissolving as fast as the rest of American industry was evaporating. While Stella sewed sequined dresses for young Hispanic brides, in a sweatshop loft on West 27th Street that always smelled of dead rats.

But the weekends were their days of rest. On Friday, after work, Jimmy and Stella would go shopping in a Chinese grocery that was part of the expansion of Chinatown in every direction, spurred by a dynamic population explosion. It never occurred to Jimmy or Stella to speculate if Chinese reproduction could keep pace with the Mexican illegal immigration in the coming struggle for lebensraum in America. They would buy food and beverages for the week, then go home and Stella would cook dinner, while Jimmy watched TV. After they finished eating, Stella would wash the dishes and Jimmy would dry, a chore they enjoyed doing together.

Dinner was a nutritional task that came before indulging in the night's pleasure, drinking beer. They both had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol, so they quickly achieved a numbing high that allowed them to forget their slave-like labor of the week. Jimmy and Stella never had extensive dreams. They met at a party in a local bar and fell into sort of liking each other. They experienced neither burning passion, nor wild ecstasy, merely a tolerant accommodation that allowed them to avoid complete loneliness and dwell in an illusion of normal existence. They became habituated to each other and gradually lost touch with their few friends and family.

Jimmy's company abruptly off-shored its business to Vietnam. He discovered with a shock that the company hadn't paid its share of unemployment insurance, so he was ineligible for benefits. A week later Stella's sweatshop was raided by the police, who shut the place down for illegal working conditions. Suddenly they were without an income. They tried to cut back on expenses, but finally ran out of money and couldn't pay rent. In the tradition of unconcern by landlords for distressed tenants, they were promptly evicted.

Jimmy and Stella were faced with trying to live on the street, or going to a homeless shelter. They had seen enough of the streets and had heard terrible stories about the homeless system, so the prospects of either were horrifying. Stella, always the more practical of the two, spoke bluntly: "We got more than we expected outta this life. I don't want to live like a bum. Do you?" "No. What do you wanna do?" She looked at him more intently than ever before. "Let's go to the Brooklyn Bridge and end it all."

Jimmy stared at her in amazement. It took him a moment to digest what she said. "You mean jump?"

"Yeah." "That's crazy." "Is it?" "Yeah." "You got a better idea, Jimmy?"

"No…. But that's killin' ourselves. I don't know if I could do it…. I don't think we should do it. How about we just take a walk to the bridge? If you think of somethin' else we can do on the way, we'll try it. Okay?" "Yeah. That sounds good, Stel. At least it'll give us a choice."

"Yeah, Jimmy…. Let's hold hands the way we usta. That way we'll look like other people for a while."

"Sure, Stel.

That sounds nice…. Let's go."

Gary Beck's recent fiction has appeared in 3AM Magazine, EWG Presents, Nuvein Magazine, Babel, Vincent Brothers Review, L'Intrigue Magazine, The Journal, Short Stories Bimonthly and Bibliophilos. His poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced Off-Broadway. He is a writer/director of award-winning social issue video documentaries.

Email: Gary Beck

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