gotham_knocking (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gotham_knocking) wrote2007-04-27 11:18 am
gotham_knocking) wrote2007-04-27 11:18 am
(no subject)
The last mover left Knox's old apartment at 11:38 am on July 1, 1990. They told him they would meet him in Bristol in about an hour (which was, given Gotham traffic, optimistic but not impossible). That left him a couple of minutes to look at the old place one last time.
It wasn't empty. Some furniture - including the old couch that he wanted to save but that Rapunzel declared beyond help and his rickety kitchenette table - took up space. But the one-bedroom was devoid of almost everything that defined it as Alexander Knox's home. The old posters of Tom Seaver and Joe Namath...the bookshelves filled with true crime and reference books...the mismatched sets of dishes he assembled over the years...record albums from the 70s, when he was heavily into rock for a while...even the suits he wore to weddings and funerals and boring award dinners. All gone.
And as he looked around, he realized that the place didn't hold many memories. Oh, there were the recent nights with Raps, and before that with Lynne Vega and Georgia Maxwell (lord, that was in 1978. What ever happened to Gorgeous Georgia, anyway?). And a few get-togethers with friends for poker and beer and sports. But the big moments were elsewhere. Holidays tended to be at Lynne's place, even now. He watched the Super Bowl and the World Series at friends, or at Murray's or the Deadline. He never wrote anything here till the past few months. There were even days he showered in the locker room in the sub-basement of the Globe.
He lived here. He had some good times. But it was never his place. It was just a rental. For fifteen years. Heck, he felt more attachment to his rooms at the Bar.
He walked around one last time, making sure he didn't miss anything. He even peeked in the fridge, and saw that even his last beer was gone as well. All the dirty clothes, all the dirty magazines, all the dirt on a city renowned for it, all packed up.
He left, locking the four locks one last time, and leaving the keys in the inbox of the superintendent's part-time assistant. He went to the filthy alley behind the building and got in his old car, glad that it had survived one final night in the car theft capital of America. (He wondered if anyone had tried to swipe the Batmobile yet.) He wasn't through with this city, of course. His new job would bring him to this area often, no doubt. But as the apartment building vanished in his rearview mirrors, he never looked back.
Instead, he drove towards Bristol.
It wasn't empty. Some furniture - including the old couch that he wanted to save but that Rapunzel declared beyond help and his rickety kitchenette table - took up space. But the one-bedroom was devoid of almost everything that defined it as Alexander Knox's home. The old posters of Tom Seaver and Joe Namath...the bookshelves filled with true crime and reference books...the mismatched sets of dishes he assembled over the years...record albums from the 70s, when he was heavily into rock for a while...even the suits he wore to weddings and funerals and boring award dinners. All gone.
And as he looked around, he realized that the place didn't hold many memories. Oh, there were the recent nights with Raps, and before that with Lynne Vega and Georgia Maxwell (lord, that was in 1978. What ever happened to Gorgeous Georgia, anyway?). And a few get-togethers with friends for poker and beer and sports. But the big moments were elsewhere. Holidays tended to be at Lynne's place, even now. He watched the Super Bowl and the World Series at friends, or at Murray's or the Deadline. He never wrote anything here till the past few months. There were even days he showered in the locker room in the sub-basement of the Globe.
He lived here. He had some good times. But it was never his place. It was just a rental. For fifteen years. Heck, he felt more attachment to his rooms at the Bar.
He walked around one last time, making sure he didn't miss anything. He even peeked in the fridge, and saw that even his last beer was gone as well. All the dirty clothes, all the dirty magazines, all the dirt on a city renowned for it, all packed up.
He left, locking the four locks one last time, and leaving the keys in the inbox of the superintendent's part-time assistant. He went to the filthy alley behind the building and got in his old car, glad that it had survived one final night in the car theft capital of America. (He wondered if anyone had tried to swipe the Batmobile yet.) He wasn't through with this city, of course. His new job would bring him to this area often, no doubt. But as the apartment building vanished in his rearview mirrors, he never looked back.
Instead, he drove towards Bristol.