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This wasn’t the first time she had been in Manhattan since she uprooted her life in Southeast and came to live in the Empire State. It wasn’t a place that she avoided on purpose, even though it seemed to be the epicenter for rude and insensitive people (it was surprising that she didn’t like Manhattan, since she fit into those two categories way too well), but Sonoma hadn’t ever had a true reason to venture out of the confines of the Bronx. She had everything she needed there: a very small and blandly decorated apartment across the street from a divine Peruvian restaurant that sold the most excellent Caviche and Chicha, public transportation to her work since property tax was outrageous and owning a vehicle in the city was absolutely pointless, and bars – lots and lots of bars – around every corner. Venturing to the other boroughs was a waste of her time, Manhattan had too many stupid people running amuck and Queens was the New York equivalent of New Jersey in her opinion – Brooklyn was boring and Staten Island was too far for her tastes. Simply put, the Bronx reminded her of her home in the District of Columbia, and so Sonny preferred to stay there and attempted to remain under the radar.
However, her incentive for visiting Manhattan wasn’t for causing a scene or observing how people interacted – no, she didn’t have time for that crap – in fact, her reason for being there was quite simple and, if someone knew Sonny, totally appropriate: there was a club in town that had been highly recommended by this one taxi-cab driver that always picked her up for work, since his shift started an hour before she had to prepare corpses for wakes, and even though she didn’t know more about him than his name and the fact that he talked way too much, she had exhausted everything there was to see and do in the Bronx. Sonny had never been one to trust the acclaim of someone else, but she decided it would be worth a try. If she hated it, she could always leave – or get inebriated enough to convince herself that the place was decent – whichever option became available first would suit her fancy.
With her total lack of a vehicle and her refusal to obtain one because money had always been (and would remain) a prime factor in her life, getting to Manhattan at the current time had been difficult – traffic was surprisingly worse than usual and she had hopped on bus from bus and subway to subway, and by the time she arrived in the borough, she was ready to leave. She had a hard time believing that a place like this received so much hype for its incredible tourist attractions, phenomenal restaurants, luxurious shops, and whatever else those liars on online blogs and newspapers wrote about without anyone asking for their opinion. Sonny had, without any restraint, and like she usually did whenever she forced herself to go somewhere other than a place within walking distance of her apartment, rolled her eyes as she dragged her feet up the steps of the subway station and found herself in the so-called ‘heart’ of the large city.
Why she had listened to someone was beyond her – she hadn’t even been on the pavement for all of five minutes and she was already bored out of her mind. Places she wasn’t all too familiar with had never been her forte, no matter how good the food or the drinks were. She had been spoiled while growing up in Southeast – Maryland and Northern Virginia were only minutes away and, whenever an afternoon was going slow or her weekend was more bland than usual, a trip to Tyson’s Corner Mall was never more than just a bus ride away. It was the same with her current residency – the Bronx was practical and lively – she lived across from a Peruvian restaurant for Christ’s sake, and there was nothing better than showing up for happy hour and having a few rounds of Modelo and a large serving of Chupe de Camarones. Manhattan, in her opinion, seemed pompous and albeit filled with people, completely overrated, and it was safe to say that Sonoma felt very out of place, as she usually did when she – not very often - visited. She let out a puff of air and loudly set her jaw, a sign of disapproval and nervousness, and moved out of the way of the people exiting the underground subway station, her back pressed against a wall as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket to receive a Newport menthol and her lighter.
After taking a few seconds to inhale and place everything back in her jacket, she suddenly remembered what she came to Manhattan to do, and since she had already wasted more than enough time, she pushed herself off of the wall with her boot (which was the same color and material as her jacket – Sonny didn’t much like variety – and almost everything in her closet was some variation of black, white, or grey, but it seemed to suit her) and zipped up the front of her jacket to conceal the white, short-sleeved tee she had underneath. The air was cool and brisk, which she couldn’t complain about, Southeast had always been rather chilly (even in the summer) and she was half cold-weather native. She loathed summer and if there was one thing she loved about New York, it was that the season seemed to be nonexistent. The breeze, as nice as it was, was whipping against her face, causing the tip of her broad nose and her high, otherwise slightly tan, cheekbones to turn a light red – her hair was probably tangling in the process, too, but Sonny was nothing if she wasn’t prepared, and even though she hated trying to put her thick, somewhat curly hair up into a sloppy ponytail, she was lucky enough to have an arsenal of hair-elastics on her wrist whenever her long hair became too much of a pain and she had no other choice but to put it up because her fingers couldn’t comb through the knots.
She continued to make her way blindly down the sidewalk, she knew the name of the bar and where it was located, so Sonny assumed that sooner or later she would come across it – Manhattan was huge, yes, but she was more than accustomed to cluttered cities and didn’t mind asking a random stranger for directions in case she became totally lost, so long as the conversation stayed concise and ended with as much abruptness as it had began. Until that happened, she entered her own little world, accidentally brushing people’s shoulders whenever she – or they – got too close and chewing on the filter of her cigarette, ignoring the tendrils of white smoke that found their way into her eyes, causing the sclera to turn the same color as the flesh on her cheeks and nose and her pupils to retract, her irises barely visible as she squinted her lids and continued to take her sweet time, sauntering through the city with all of her aloofness disgustingly apparent with her gait and how she held her head and the way that her shoulders – unintentionally – squared.
This stance granted her leniency with people – like the one gem of Manhattan in a shaggy coat she had just passed who reeked of vodka and starvation – his pleas for money while others walked by had been answered or brushed off but, even if he had requested a cent (which he didn’t, because Sonny had a horrible habit of staring through people with a statue-esque expression), he wouldn’t have gotten it. Her money was hers, and, the club – or bar – or whatever the hell it was – finally became within observation range, which meant she had something to do, and couldn’t tend to the needs of a stranger that she, honestly, didn’t give a damn about.
As soon as she could reach out and wrap her hand around the bar that was positioned across the front door, Sonny passed under the threshold and was bombarded by the smell of lager, liquor, and a lot of colognes and perfumes that did not mesh well together. It was enough to make her eyes water, and the loud music that was a mix between Alternative Rock and Pop was abusing her eardrums and subconsciously forcing her to grind her teeth. Sonny’s preference for a certain genre was hard to pinpoint – the District of Columbia was the epicenter for Go-Go, but she was also a sucker for double-bass and heavy, loud guitars – but she certainly didn’t like the crap that was flowing out of the stereo system at this place. Regardless, she could brush it off like she did with everything else and, even though the place was ungodly crowded, she managed to make her way to the bar (she had to squeeze in between two people who were sitting on chrome stools – they had been in the middle of a drunken conversation – but she paid no mind) and demanded, rather than asked, for a Wild Turkey – straight up, warm temperature, do not even think about putting ice in my glass.
She would be lucky if the barkeep didn’t spit in her bourbon – but Sonny worked with people who couldn’t talk back, therefore her manners were far from polished, and, if they were, she would, most likely, act the same way. Still, she was giving this place and the people a chance – she would stay, scope, and sip – if her drinks were below par and if there was no one of interest mingling within the walls of the establishment; then it was on to the next one. After all, Sonny had never been one for ‘commitment’.
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