Fleshpot On 42nd Street -

"Did you see it?" Vera asked, gesturing back toward the Fleshpot marquee.

They started walking toward 8th Avenue, navigating the sea of sailors on leave, three-card monte dealers, and the "fleshpots" the movie posters promised—the storefronts where intimacy was sold by the minute behind velvet curtains. To the tourists, it was a den of iniquity. To Jimmy and Vera, it was just the neighborhood. Fleshpot on 42nd Street

"The projector broke during the third reel," Vera sighed, lighting a cigarette with a flick of a tarnished Zippo. "Half the audience started throwing popcorn, the other half didn't even notice the screen went dark. They’re just looking for a place to be out of the rain." "Did you see it

They kept walking, two small shadows lost in the glowing, tawny heart of New York, where every street corner was a stage and every person was just waiting for their close-up in the wreckage of Times Square. To Jimmy and Vera, it was just the neighborhood

A police siren wailed in the distance, a lonely, high-pitched cry that cut through the noise of the midnight traffic. Jimmy looked at the flickering lights, the peeling paint of the grand old theaters, and the desperate, beautiful faces swirling around them.

He was waiting for Vera. She worked the concessions at the Rialto, but she spent her dreams in the flickering shadows of the pictures they screened.