Subway Chronicles

By Dakota Hunter

How many secrets could you keep? How long do you think you could keep them? Do you think you could carry the weight? These are the questions that are the heart of the provocative and thrilling book Subway Chronicles. This book consists of a collection of stories and accounts of a family's witness on the cusp of falling apart. This compilation is recalled by August Holiday, an unassuming bystander in the eye of the storm of her family's chaos. As events unfold, she finds herself as the unofficial confidant and witnesses the frequent disputes and conflicts between the family of haves that may soon have nothing. This book explores the events of the dark side of the wealthy and influential, the unassuming, the joyful, the loving the miserable, and the unfolding tales of an extended family in unfolding turmoil, fighting for privacy, love, wealth, and greed. In each visit to a humble train station, August reveals what happens behind the scenes of the lives of these reckless and desperate people.Through the twists and turns of these events, an ominous fact remains at the end of the day. All of this, everything in this book is only the beginning.....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dakota Hunter
• Release date: Sep 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798501747098

Book preview

Introduction

It is a mild autumn morning, on a mostly empty subway station, with each train making its stop being vacant except for the occasional few passengers on the way to work and daily appointments. Once filled with bustling activity, the station is now littered and poorly kept and maintained, holding an ominous silence. As you walk through the subway station, you spy a scenery of art along the subway's long walls and corridors. The walls are littered with elaborately painted imagery, depicting wealthy men, women, children next to beautiful homes, and mansions.  In contrast, the subway walls carry distorted graffiti, distorted words, and faded colors, with the subway tunnels ha of beautiful art and confusing imagery in a semi decrepitate subway station. As the train you were waiting for arrives, there is only one other passenger in the subway train car. You sit parallel to her as the train heads towards its next scheduled destination. Your destination is little ways off, and the depots are far and few between each other, making the wait seem even longer. On a whim, you ask the women in the seat in front of you, and she politely gives you the time. Eventually, time passes with the both of you talk to pass the time. At first, the conversations are average, but then it delves into discussions about the time, hobbies, and, eventually, the subject of family. As the conversation continues, the woman begins to talk more about her own family. 

Prologue

Every family has skeletons in their closet, whether it's the priest, the politician, the wealthy, the poor, the loud, the meek, and everyone in between. My family is no different there is a healthy amount of crazy in the mix.  l thought that it was unusual that some of my family members wanted to talk to me about what was going on in their lives like I am a therapist or their parents; maybe they just trust me at the very least that’s what they tell me. 

My name is August. This looks to be a long train ride. How’s life? Well for me it's pretty good. I bought a three-bedroom by three-bathroom condo. In northern New Jersey, and I'm damn proud of myself, I did it independently. I just had my 30th birthday and a new condo, and I wanted to share my happiness with my family. So, I decided to invite my cousins' aunts and uncles. My parents are not alive. I am close to the family that I have left. 

So, what did I do? I called my cousins, aunts and uncles and told them I just bought a new condo and I am having housewarming and they were invited. They all were delighted to attend; they were congratulating me all over the place. I emailed everyone the address was date.  We had a real good time. Everyone stayed overnight except my aunts and uncles they left around 1 am Saturday morning. Everyone left after we prepared lunch the next day; we all agreed they would return in a month with a dish so I wouldn't have the pressure to feed these moguls.  My family responded in a month just as they said they would, but this time with their sleeping bags so, they wouldn't have to make up any beds, lazy moguls; we had a ball again, so to speak. The next day it was so beautiful. We decided to go into the city, New York City, that is. Most of my cousins never been to New York. My Cousins are from different regions of the country. They heard all types of stories about New York, the World Trade Center, The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza, St. Patrick's Cathedral, etc.  What surprised me most of all, they were all amazingly curious by the MTA. My cousins wanted to ride the subway among the people; I told them each of you will definitely feel the city's pulse alright. I must tell you this gathering of family and friends was before the coronavirus, November 2019 after Thanksgiving; who knew what devastation that would lie ahead. During our get together, they told me all sorts of stories. I can tell you some to pass the time, if you're willing to listen. 

This is when my part of the story ends and where their part of the story begins. You better get comfortable, because I've got some stories to tell. 

Cameron 

Iknow a guy named Cameron. Cameron was considered well-nurtured by most people. He was a handsome, mild-mannered college graduate who was a dreamer like other people his age. He would always say how he wanted to leave the small town, in his words, a meaningful life. An only child of a liberal couple, his mother was a psychiatrist. At the same time, his father was the leader of an insurance company. The father, who had a board of directors for the company, was always frugal in managing money in nearly every possible way. A workaholic who would spend more time at his demanding job than his own family could become a human calculator when it came to financial decisions and could make the most lucrative deals with people. On the other hand, Cameron's mother had a love for jewelry and the finer things in life, sometimes spending over budget that her husband would set up for her on occasion. On the chance where I would see the two of them together, I would overhear her, saying that she would put in extra hours of work because she went overboard on her frequent shopping sprees. 

Cameron has a natural gift for selling things; he could sell people almost anything. He even graduated from college as a marketing major at the top of his class. I'd guess that he got his selling skills and getting into people's heads from his parents. 

He could always tell who was a liar and who wasn't, at least most of the time. 

This talent of his made him want to get into finances and advertising. He would often refer to it as the world's lifeline. After graduating, he had a two-way decision; to get into more debt for a master's degree or to enter the proverbial grind of the concrete jungle of New York by getting a job or work for his father. He heard many stories about New York, some with stories of grandeur and bright city lights and a lot of tragedy of