Your support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)We will not name the city where our tale takes place. If you live there, you will recognize it. If you do not, you might think you know it anyway. For all towns have a place where the weak, the dispossessed, the poor, the disenfranchised end up. The American Dream is an arena, with its winners and losers, far more of the latter than the former. And those on the very lowest run of that ladder end up in places like The Sink.
It begins at the wire fence bordering the most eastern of the eight railroad tracks running almost north/south through the city, and is bordered on its north and north-west by the curve of the sluggish river, lined with its crack houses, disused warehouses, abandoned docks. The Sink then sprawls south and west, a mass of run down buildings and apartments, the brickwork cracked, the walls leaning at crazy angles, all owned by those who would not live in such a place if their immortal souls depended upon it. A hell-and-paradise-all-at-once of gambling houses, brothels, slums, gang headquarters, warring grounds and trysting places.
There was a time, three generations ago, when this was an area of gentility and class. Since then, it has come down in the world, fallen so far it knows it can ever rise. Now it is a seething maelstrom of fear. Secrets hum in the sagging wires that (at times, for service is irregular) take power to the dwellings and enterprises. The very bricks whisper of rumor and resentment. The streets brood, the river catcalls. even the fetid breezes sigh of defeat and betrayal. Mangy cats, spavined dogs, and worse hold counsel in the abandoned courtyards and deserted alleys and narrow streets. Wars are fought, blood spilled over a mere few feet of territory.
This is not a place fr the faint-hearted. Most definitely, a thousand times, not for a woman of refinement, and class, and breeding.
And yet...
***
'Keep well back,' says Geoffrey Williams III, Director of the DCT Network's Outsight, 'you know the terms of this report. She wants to maintain the illusion she's going in there alone.'
'It's makin things a wee bit hard,' says Iain MacDougall, the Camerman, who sits on the front passenger seat of the small SUV, 'mah cameras can nooo get a guid focus."
'Even harder for me, y'all,' adds Chase Tolivar, the Sound technician, in his deep Georgian drawl, 'just thaht bitch grandstandin again, ah reckon.'
"nonethess,' persists Williams, 'the terms of the assignment are clear. There is to be n contact between her and us. You've read the critics, right? Lots of sarcasm about people venturing into the wild, claiming to be alone, when everyone knows there's a whole back up crew following. This time, it's got to look like she's alone.'
'Silly wee bitch!" snaps MacDougall. 'She thinks she'd gonna get a wee Cronkite Prize out of this. Just her ego, as usual. And if she does get it, she'll be even more arrogant, and terat everyone else, even worse than she does now!'
'And if she doesn't,' adds Tolivar, 'she'll be even more bad tempered and smart-assed.'
'Hey, come on," says young Tom Harris, the driver, 'I think it's a good idea.'
'Yeah," laughs MacDougall, 'you would. WE all know you have a thing about the lassie, Tom.'
'I bloody well do not!' lies Tom, peering ahead, watching the black wool-clad ass of the reporter as she strode ahead, moving past the braziers that marked the borders of The Sink, ready to begin the expose that would surely break new grounds in televised documentaries.
It begins at the wire fence bordering the most eastern of the eight railroad tracks running almost north/south through the city, and is bordered on its north and north-west by the curve of the sluggish river, lined with its crack houses, disused warehouses, abandoned docks. The Sink then sprawls south and west, a mass of run down buildings and apartments, the brickwork cracked, the walls leaning at crazy angles, all owned by those who would not live in such a place if their immortal souls depended upon it. A hell-and-paradise-all-at-once of gambling houses, brothels, slums, gang headquarters, warring grounds and trysting places.
There was a time, three generations ago, when this was an area of gentility and class. Since then, it has come down in the world, fallen so far it knows it can ever rise. Now it is a seething maelstrom of fear. Secrets hum in the sagging wires that (at times, for service is irregular) take power to the dwellings and enterprises. The very bricks whisper of rumor and resentment. The streets brood, the river catcalls. even the fetid breezes sigh of defeat and betrayal. Mangy cats, spavined dogs, and worse hold counsel in the abandoned courtyards and deserted alleys and narrow streets. Wars are fought, blood spilled over a mere few feet of territory.
This is not a place fr the faint-hearted. Most definitely, a thousand times, not for a woman of refinement, and class, and breeding.
And yet...
***
'Keep well back,' says Geoffrey Williams III, Director of the DCT Network's Outsight, 'you know the terms of this report. She wants to maintain the illusion she's going in there alone.'
'It's makin things a wee bit hard,' says Iain MacDougall, the Camerman, who sits on the front passenger seat of the small SUV, 'mah cameras can nooo get a guid focus."
'Even harder for me, y'all,' adds Chase Tolivar, the Sound technician, in his deep Georgian drawl, 'just thaht bitch grandstandin again, ah reckon.'
"nonethess,' persists Williams, 'the terms of the assignment are clear. There is to be n contact between her and us. You've read the critics, right? Lots of sarcasm about people venturing into the wild, claiming to be alone, when everyone knows there's a whole back up crew following. This time, it's got to look like she's alone.'
'Silly wee bitch!" snaps MacDougall. 'She thinks she'd gonna get a wee Cronkite Prize out of this. Just her ego, as usual. And if she does get it, she'll be even more arrogant, and terat everyone else, even worse than she does now!'
'And if she doesn't,' adds Tolivar, 'she'll be even more bad tempered and smart-assed.'
'Hey, come on," says young Tom Harris, the driver, 'I think it's a good idea.'
'Yeah," laughs MacDougall, 'you would. WE all know you have a thing about the lassie, Tom.'
'I bloody well do not!' lies Tom, peering ahead, watching the black wool-clad ass of the reporter as she strode ahead, moving past the braziers that marked the borders of The Sink, ready to begin the expose that would surely break new grounds in televised documentaries.