THE RICHEST VEIN

By Steven McCann

‘The Richest Vein’ is a novel about romance, the romance of a young writer named Ben Tomison and his beautiful young girlfriend Eleanor, the fashion model. In a larger sense, it is a romance between Ben and New York City where the story takes place in the early 1970’s. But in the truest, deepest sense it is a romance of a young writer and his art, a romance that fills the life of any artist and the art form they love, struggle with, and remain loyal to throughout their lives, whether the world around them rewards their efforts or not. My novel attempts to capture the atmosphere of our great city at the beginning of that decade and the places the author loves; Central Park, the Met Museum where Ben works, the Shakespeare Festival and Upper Manhattan. Hopefully, it captures the warmth of our city, sometimes stifling and hazy, at other times infectiously fresh and breezy. My hero is twenty-three years old when the story takes place, but like all artists, his spirit lives throughout time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669855477

Steven McCann

Steven McCann is the author of novels, novellas, stories, plays and poems, and a 2021 recipient of a City Artist Corps Grant. He was born in 1948, graduated from Spring Valley High School in New York where he excelled in three sports. He enrolled at the University of Kansas, and later at NYU, majored in English and received a BA. His work experience is varied; nightwatchman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hotel detective at the Plaza, home renovator and shipping manager. In 2005 he was stricken with paraplegia and has been wheelchair bound since. He lives in New York City and remains passionate about Central Park, the Shakespeare festival, the Met Museum, Lincoln Center, the opera, and the people of New York.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Summer in the year 1971 had just begun. The soft glow of dawn rising from the east spread over the tall buildings bordering the park as a stir of morning mingled with the cool air. A chorus of sparrows singing in a nearby tree drifted through a wrought iron fence down into a watchman’s booth where a tall young man had dosed off in a chair with his head on a desk. Above him a single lightbulb still glared, and on the desk lay an opened, face down paperback of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Next to the book stood a walkie-talkie with night-watchman’s keys hooked onto its antennae. Into this peaceful scene a voice blurted out from the walkie-talkie:

Dispatch to route five. Dispatch to route five, the voice repeated several times.

The young man started to life, looked around, and grabbed the walkie-talkie.

Route five, he said into the receiver.

It’s six-twenty, Ben. Do your final trip and come inside.

Okay, Zach.

The young man pulled a chord turning off the light bulb, then rose, slipped on the uniform jacket that had been draped over the chair, put the paperback into his rear pocket, and took the walkie-talkie and the watchman’s keys from the desk. He opened the door of the watchman’s booth and turned onto the sidewalk behind the museum. On his right, up an embankment only a few feet away, rose a spiked, wrought iron fence surrounded by bushes and trees. Beyond it stretched Central Park in the middle of New York City.

As he walked along the sidewalk, he checked the windows and doors by giving each of them a small tug. After several minutes, he came to a gate which he opened, then closed behind himself, leaving him at the back of a large public parking lot. Walking across this empty lot, he could see the southward view of the tops of the buildings along Fifth Avenue as they caught the early rays of sunshine, their narrow, century old cornices and slate gables forming a proud aristocratic community above the highest treetops. A faint breeze smelling of grass and flowers mingled with the drier odor of granite and a hint of macadam. There had been a change of air currents overnight, promising a beautiful day ahead. Ben continued walking at a steady pace, until he reached a farther gate which he opened and locked behind himself. This left him at the south end of the building where he turned to his left and walked through wet grass around the side, then onto the wide sidewalk along Fifth Avenue.

Looking up the street now, he saw the facade of the Metropolitan with its high columned entrance and pyramid of steps facing down to Fifth Avenue. The fountains in front of the museum were turned off and the glassy pools of water, like everything else on the street, stood in perfect silence. Across Fifth Avenue in front of the Stanhope Hotel, an outdoor cafe remained empty with clusters of white chairs upturned on tables arranged on a bright green carpet. From the distance came a lone automobile, making a clanking echo on a manhole cover, whooshing past Ben, and disappearing down the avenue.

Ben proceeded steadily along the facade of the Metropolitan, checking the doors at the south end. Then he climbed the pyramid of steps, checked the front entrance doors, and skipped down the other side. There was nothing amiss with the austere stone facade and not a soul to be met with along the way. Under the gathering of small trees at the north end, he found a few overturned benches and set them aright. He saw occasional litter, but knew the day crew would soon be there to sweep up the front of the building.

At Eighty-Fifth Street a middle-aged woman walking her dog entered the park. Passing Ben on the sidewalk and following the woman came two joggers having a conversation as they ran past. The city began waking up. Distant traffic noises became faintly audible and somewhere over on Madison Avenue a bus droned past. Ben walked around the northern end of the building and entered the employees’ parking lot through a tall iron gate.

Entering north gate on route five, he said into the walkie-talkie.

When he had walked halfway across the lot, a set of red painted metal doors on the north wall of the building swung automatically open, disclosing another watchman on the threshold, a slender, middle-aged man with a shock of white gray hair and wearing a guard uniform without a tie.

Morning, Zach, Ben greeted the man in a cheerful baritone.

Morning, Ben. You must be tired.

I got a few winks in the chair. I need the overtime, though, Zach.

That makes three OT’s in the last week, doesn’t it?

It does. But I have the weekend to recuperate.

Don’t spend it all before Monday.

Ben passed through the doors and they closed behind him, leaving the two men at the end of a long high corridor with crates of boxes at the sides. Ben followed his companion through a nearby doorway into a large dispatch room with an alarm console against the far wall. Several desks and chairs filled the room and another watchman sat at the console, busily turning off alarms on a switchboard and talking into a microphone. Ben and Zach each sat down at one of the desks.

Once you get some savings behind you, you’ll be okay. Everyone needs a little savings, resumed Zach.

My girlfriend likes to go out a lot. She comes from a wealthy family.

Don’t spend it all on your girlfriend, not if you’re doing three double shifts a week.

I used to do overtime, once upon a time, announced Irving, the man behind the console. He turned and faced them, smiling pleasantly from a small round forty-year-old face with a full head of curly brown hair, strands of which fell down onto his forehead.

Four years ago, I opened my own photography business and did overtime constantly to make ends meet.

What happened to your business? Ben asked.

I did it for about a year. Kept my job here and did both things. I didn’t really sleep for a year and a half. Finally, I had to make a choice and decided on this.

Why?

I didn’t like all the running around. The photography jobs were okay once you got them. It was the process of getting jobs that did it. I still do some photography, though, now and then.

I’d like to get my own apartment soon, Ben mused openly.

Get a place in Queens. Apartments are cheap and the commute isn’t bad.

I can’t. I have to stay close to my girlfriend. She’s on the upper East Side.

You’re doing exactly what I did when I first met my wife, said Irving. I lived in two places for months. Finally, I got tired of it, married her, and moved into her place.

Ben doesn’t want to get married, do you Ben? Zach asked.

Not now. Sometime, maybe. My girlfriend is terrific, It’s not that. I just don’t want to get married, until I’m ready. I’m a long way off.

They spoke for several minutes about marriage and all its ramifications. Then Zach decided he had some duties to attend to in the basement of the building and left the room. Irving resumed his work at the console and Ben sat at the desk thumbing through an old magazine. As he did so, he wondered about Irving’s photography business and why he chose instead to spend his life as a nightwatchman. Ben was constantly learning new things about the lives of his fellow workers, many of whom were multi-talented men, artists of one kind or another, who’d eventually settled into the sedate life of the nightshift. He knew that his own experience would be different, that life would somehow propel him onwards to more active circumstances. His two years at the Metropolitan would be a foundation, a time to read and get some writing done.

At about seven thirty, men from the day shift entered the dispatch room and two other men took over Irving’s job. Irving and Ben walked into the hallway and stepped onto a small elevator that took them up a flight to the men’s locker room. There they went to their lockers and changed, got back on the elevator, took it down to the basement level again, and walked the short distance up the hallway to the time clock where they lifted their cards from the rack. A small crowd of watchmen gathered at the clock and waited there until eight, when they punched their cards and left by the north gate.

When he had said goodbye to the other watchmen and reached Eighty-Fifth Street outside the museum, Ben noticed a sudden change in the atmosphere. The street noises had grown into a full chorus since his last tour and there were people and traffic everywhere. A dog being led into the park barked at another dog and a large group of joggers went bobbing past, calling eagerly to one another. A Fifth Avenue bus, working its way around busy traffic, pulled over to the curb where a small queue of travelers stepped onto it, dressed in summer outfits and sportswear and headed for a weekend journey. New Yorkers of all ages and descriptions entered the park from different directions and small crowds traversed the sidewalks on both sides of Fifth Avenue.

Ben crossed Fifth and walked eastward along Eighty-Fifth Street carrying his satchel bag filled with a change of clothes, a travel kit, a dictionary, and his paperback copy of The Sound and the Fury. He swung it loosely at his side, letting it hit lightly against his leg. He felt tired, but satisfied and happy. A wonderful Saturday lay ahead of him. He planned to take Eleanor to see Shakespeare in the park that evening, their first Shakespeare play together. As he got closer to his destination, he took longer strides and merrily sang a tune from The Man of La Mancha:

Hail Knight! Of the Noble Countenance!

Knight of the Noble Countenance!

Wherever you go,

People will know,

Of the glorious deeds

Of the knight of the Noble countenance!

Neighborhood pedestrians wandered over the sidewalks with a casual air, appearing different from the weekdays when everyone had a place to go and a purpose for going there. The upper section of Madison Avenue awakened like a small village as shoppers entered the boutiques and Cristedes supermarket that gave off pungent smells of produce and ground coffee. A cab veered to the curb for a young woman who leaned out with one hand raised and the other holding a suitcase. Across the street, a teenage boy pedaled a grocery cart up to a high-rise entrance and spoke to the doorman about the delivery.

At Park Avenue the noise of traffic increased as fleets of cabs vied with each other for customers. Brilliant tulips lined the divider of that wide avenue stretching southward for many blocks and forming bright bands of yellow, red, and green. While crossing Park Avenue, Ben felt a flutter in his stomach, and breathing deeply, he looked up between the buildings at the soft azure cloudless sky. His step began to bounce and his heart beat wildly in happy anticipation. A block further on, he crossed Lexington Avenue and walked eastward to the end of that block. There he entered the glass doors of a new high rise building and greeted a middle-aged doorman standing in the lobby.

Good morning, Lenny.

Good morning, Ben. Shall I ring?

Yes, please.

Lenny turned to an intercom board, pushed one of its many buttons and picked up the speaker. A woman’s voice came over the intercom.

Who is it?

You have a caller, Madame.

Tell him to come up.

Lenny turned to Ben.

Go right on up, Ben.

Thank you, Lenny.

Lenny held open another glass door and Ben walked inside a poshly carpeted hallway, moved to a set of elevator doors and waited. Next to the doors he saw his reflection in a mirror, a tall, athletic blond young man wearing jeans and a cotton sport shirt and holding a satchel. The elevator doors opened, and he stood aside, letting an elderly couple pass. Then he stepped on, pressed floor three, and waited. His heart fluttered wildly again and he felt happy and excited. The seconds passed slowly and it seemed a very long time for the doors to open. When they did, he walked down the narrow hallway of the new building, around a corner and onward, stopping at a door almost at the end. He raised his hand to knock, but saw that it was opened slightly. He pushed open the door and called out into a semi-dark room.

Eleanor?

Ben? came a delicately feminine voice in return. Out of a side kitchen, a young woman appeared in a long sleeveless nightgown. I was just getting some tea. Would you like some?

Ben closed the door behind himself, making the room even darker. He leaned forward and kissed the woman on the lips.

I don’t think I want tea," he said.

Sleepy? She asked, putting her arms around his neck.

Yes, he answered.

Chapter 2

At one o’clock in the afternoon Ben awoke, and lay in bed in the soft gray light. The alcove bedroom was connected to a long living-dining room at the end of which a large picture window looked out onto Third Avenue. A closed venetian blind admitted slivers of the brilliant day outside. From where he lay, he heard muted sounds from the traffic down below. On the dining room table sat a typewriter with a sheet of paper extending out of it. A sofa, coffee table, and lounge chair in the living room, and out of view, around the corner, a small kitchen formed the basis of an attractive city apartment. A large Persian carpet covered the parquet floor.

Ben rose slowly from the bed, went to the picture window blinds and opened them, flooding the table and two-thirds of the apartment with natural light. At the typewriter he read a poem in progress:

Listen

You never listen to me

You’re as headstrong

As an avalanche

It’s not what I like about you

I like your strength

Your thighs and calves,

Your beautiful legs

Beautiful pile drivers.

You’re not listening

Listen to me

Next to the typewriter on the old mahogany table sat a book of poems by A R Ammons. Ben frowned at the book, then looked through the blinds at the traffic down below. Rooftops of cars and vans streamed past, reflecting the sunlight in flickering combinations of sounds and colors, like a vibrant abstract painting in progress. Ben stood lost in thought, when suddenly the front door of the apartment opened and Eleanor entered, carrying a grocery bag.

Good afternoon, Rip Van Winkle. Did you have a good rest?

Her youthful beauty and strikingly well-proportioned figure, attesting to years of tennis and swimming, always startled him at first glance. She had soft, wavy brown hair, shoulder length, large green eyes that wore a quizzical, laughing expression, beautiful teeth, and a pretty, turned-up nose. Jeans and sprigged cotton blouse added to her allure, without compromising her freshness.

I slept like a log in a dark forest

Are you hungry? I have fresh bakery rolls, and can make us omelets.

Sounds wonderful. I’ll take a shower.

Eleanor hit the light switch in the kitchen and began to prepare a meal. Ben went to the shower, coming out of it several minutes later with his hair sleeked back and his face a rosy red. The table had been set in the dining room with the typewriter moved down to one end. Eleanor had bought the New York Times and Ben sat reading it while the omelets still cooked. When everything was ready, they sat down side by side facing the picture window.

It’s a gorgeous day. We’ll have to get over to the Delacorte soon. There’s bound to be a long line, Eleanor said.

"I’m looking forward to it, our first Shakespeare in