He sat in his tiny, dusty room, no heating, a worn-out FC Napoli scarf wrapped around his neck, a pair of worn-out gloves without fingers, and only a Jurassic Apple to keep the disturbed brain of this 'flop author' from going insane!
His name, Jo Giuseppe-Jaggonie, of Italian descent, moved to New York many years ago to pursue his career as a 'best-seller-author' and flopped desperately! Jo believed scrounging among the 'muy pobres' and homeless New Yorkers would provide him with enough material to write a global 'cracker' that would make readers cry, burn holes in their cold hearts, and be turned into a 'Hollywood Bombshell!' Sadly, US, UK, German, Italian, literary agents, publishers, and even a Polynesian publisher, rejected his mammoth attempt to conquer the world; not like Hemingway did under a dark cloud of naughty women, booze, drugs, and a fishing rod!
Jo, spent 75% of his miserable life sat on a back-breaking-broken chair in his tiny room in The Bronx with bailiffs knocking on his door month after month, a skinny cat demanding food, food, and even more food, a yellow-stained-striped mattress, moth-eaten blankets nicked from those much better off living in tents, and not having to pay soaring rents in Tent Cities all over the metropole, living a true author's existence.
Luckily, Jo's Italian Mama sent him a monthly cheque, and without that he would have smooched the backstreets of NY begging for a morsel to eat for his cat, and himself, and sleeping rough under a yesterday's copy of the NY Times, or in a stinking, dilapidated home for the homeless snoring in solidarity with fifty other dreamers living a NY nightmare!
"Mama Mia, Ti voglio bene, grazie mille" he would yell whilst strolling alone through Central Park before dark thanking 'Dio' for his generous Mama who still believed his son was a genius just like Da Vinci without dosh!
His manuscript called, 'Giovanni, The Man Who Saved The World' was rejected a thousand times, and after the 1001st time, he told his skinny cat to 'fuck off and find someone else to feed him' and jumped out of the window of his tenth-floor box in the Bronx!
No Midnight Cowboy, Christmas Fairy Tale in New York, no Confessions of a NY Taxi Driver, and certainly no Sex in the City, just a non-published manuscript saved on his decrepit, but colourful Apple, built in 1998. Jo left the world with fuck all, just a dream, however, a bailiff, after scavenging his room, discovered his 'rotting apple' and nicked it! After cracking Jo's password, he discovered his manuscript, it was fucking fantastic! In fact, the cold-hearted bailiff broke down in tears! He rushed off to a dear friend who just happened to be a NY literary agent, she also broke down in tears!
"Did you write this fucking masterpiece?" She asked.
"No, I nicked it from this Italian nobody who jumped out of his flat window!"
"Fuck me, we have a mega-global-bestseller here, but don't tell anybody who wrote the fucking thing, but tell the world you wrote it!"
Five years later the book was translated in fifty languages, including Polynesian, a film was made starring Brad Pitt and Leonardo De Caprio, produced by Tarantino. Nobody could prove who the real author was, but NY bailiff, Francesco De Imaginero, also of Italian descent, cashed the dosh, after his literary agent whopped 30% for the pleasure!
Jo Giuseppe-Jaggione's mama still makes pasta in a god-forsaken alley somewhere in Naples, dressed in black. She prays for Jo's soul every day in front of a woodworm eaten crucifix at the bottom of the alley. 'Dio' told her Jo was one of the greatest authors to bless the planet. However, that remains a hidden secret between Jo's Mama and her own private 'Dio!'
Even before Apples fell off Cyber-Trees, and the Internet crashed into our lives, an author's existence was mostly a 'van Gogh' replica worth fuck all!
Now, that's a story, with a moral. But, I can't figure out what that could be; Stay away from NY?