Jack Snyder
Creative Writing
Period 1
10/1/14
Short Story First Draft
Johnny Derello is a friendly guy by nature, constantly initiating friendly conversations
with people on the subway. Remaining silent is harder for Johnny than talking to people; it flows
naturally to him and it’s a talent he’s always had. Johnny is a sophomore at Hunter College in
New York City with an undecided major. He was raised in a small house in Long Island, so even
though going to school in the city is a vastly different experience than he is used to, Johnny
welcomed the experience and adapted quickly to the bustling concrete streets of the city.
Waiting for the F-train at Lexington Ave. 42nd Street to get home from Hunter. The
subway station is under construction, making the walkway thin between the blue artificial wall
and the platform edge. The lights in the station are put out due to the construction, so the only
light source in the underground station is from lanterns that the constructions workers put there,
suspended precariously around the station. Other inhabitants of the subway station might have
found this scene eerie, but Johnny finds comfort in the dark crevices of the station where rats
roam, as well as the bright areas where most people laze around, pretending to be ignorant of
each others’ existence.
As the train pulls into the station, the platform dwellers abandon their reclined position
against the artificial wall, and line up in preparation for getting onto the subway. Johnny smiles
at the other people on the platform as they gather closer towards him, and his smiles are returned
mostly by awkward glances away or half smiles from unprepared soon to be passengers.
Most people on the platform stood impatiently next to the subway’s opened doors,
waiting for the outward flow of ex-passengers to thin so that they can get onto the train and
secure a comfortable spot against the crowded handrails, or even, god willing, get a seat. Johnny
stood well clear of the subway’s sliding doors, and waited for every last person to get out of and
then into the subway car before getting on himself, effectively securing him his preferred
position in the train, immediately juxtaposed to the subway doors, surrounded tightly by people
on all sides. The train doors closed, and the subway began chugging on its way to its next
Brooklyn bound stop.
One man began watching Johnny as he occasionally attempted to make eye contact with
the other compacted subway riders and make friendly banter and whatever gestures he could
muster. Johnny noticed this man eyeing him, and decided to start to work his way over to the
man and see where that took him. Permeating his way through the crowded subway, Johnny
worked his way closer to the man who was eyeing him, so that he could get a better look at the
man. The man was an average height and slightly larger than average, but his weight made him
look good in his suit, which fit him well and made him look sophisticated and strong in
comparison to the other subway commuters.
The train had just left the station and gone into a tunnel, and Johnny was
beginning to near this enigma of a man when suddenly the lights on the train went out, and the
train shrieked to a halt. Nearly everyone on the train fell discombobulated onto one another from
the initial jolt of the train’s sudden stop, although the train was too crowded for everyone to fall
onto the floor, so the train car turned into a living domino effect. On one end of the train that was
densely populated with musical deviants, headphone cables, still connected to their relative
media players, tangled into one other, making the music listeners collapse into an awkwardly
close and compact conglomerate of flesh and electronics.
The man in the suit was less affected by the jolt than the rest of the passengers, he was
already standing and holding onto one of the poles when the train initially jolted, and with what
must have been massive strength he managed to remain upright with just one hand attached to a
pole, and even withstood the pressure from the people surrounding him, and kept the passengers
who were leaning against him upright as well. In the train’s decent into madness, Johnny fell the
rest of his short way towards the man in the suit, and happened to be one of the lucky patrons
who got propped up by him.
Johnny’s first reaction was to see if the people in his immediate vicinity were alright, and
then survey what had happened. Although Johnny is known for being a calm and friendly guy,
when his adrenaline kicks in he can be anything he needs to be, and that includes reacting well in
times of disaster and dire need. Johnny saw that everyone seemed to be alright, no serious
injuries that he could see on anyone around him. Because the train was so tightly packed, no one
could fall or hit themselves against something without the people surrounding them absorbing
some of the force from the blow, so all serious injuries were avoided. Johnny realized this, and
then shifted his attention to the conductor’s room. The tainted glass on the door revealed nothing
about what may have lied behind it. Johnny was already close to the door, so he pushed his way
through the rest of the panicky and still shaken crowd, reassuring everyone on his path that all
would be fine, and banged on the tainted glass, yelling to see if anyone was there.
The train car suddenly turned silent, save Johnny’s pounding and yelling, and the music
from the headphones that were still plugged in and intact from the one side of the train car where
everyone was interlaced in a minefield of headphones. Johnny noticed that he was the only one
making noise anymore, and he turned around quickly, heart still beating crazily from the
adrenaline, to see the man in the suit holding a handgun sideways in his direction.
The people on the train car were petrified in fear and confusion, the adrenaline didn’t
work as well on them as it did on Johnny. Johnny stared at the man in the suit, and suddenly he
recognized him. The man in the suit was a hit-man for the mafia who he’d backstabbed before
going into the CIA’s witness protection program.
“Well shit” Johnny muttered to himself.
“Put down the bag” said the hit-man, not daring to break eye contact with the dangerous
man he faced.
Johnny slowly took off his backpack as the man ordered him to do, his mind racing to
find an escape to his death sentence.
“Open the bag slowly and toss it over here” commanded the man, now wearing
sunglasses.
“Alright, just a second” Johnny responded hesitantly.
Johnny slowly unzipped his bag, and as he did so a plan formulated in his mind.
As this scene unfolded, the other passengers on the train car scrambled to get away from
the hit-man, and out of the line of fire between the hit-man’s gun and Johnny.
“What are you waiting for ‘Johnny Derello,’ or should I say, ‘Rocky Balboa,’!?!?”
demanded the hit-man.
“It’s been years since anyones called me by my real name” replied Rocky Balboa.
Faster than anyone could see, Rocky Balboa threw the backpack at the hit-man’s face,
pulled out the boxing gloves that were inside, and quickly donned them while simultaneously
grabbing a nearby man and using him as a bullet sponge to save Rocky Balboa’s own life as the
hit-man sprayed bullets blindly in Rocky Balboa’s direction.
The train now erupted into chaos, the rest of the people on the train crammed together
against the other side of the train, no longer caring for comfort but for survival. They banged on
the doors and tried to break the windows to escape, but it was to no avail.
Rocky Balboa expertly dropped the dead man’s body and dashed forward towards the hitman in one fluid motion, and with a quick jab followed up by a left hook into an uppercut, the
hit-man was knocked out unconscious and sprawled on the floor.
The people saw that the gunman was knocked unconscious, and began cheering for
Rocky Balboa, ignoring the fact that he had just used a man as human meat shield and brutally
murdered a man with his own two fists and boxing gloves. Rocky Balboa glowed visibly from
the crowds praise; his mood was lightened, and in addition to his adrenaline rush Rocky Balboa
got an extremely euphoric feeling, probably from all the drugs that he took before getting on the
train.
The train conductor came out because of all the applause, and announced that the train
would be moving shortly. The train conductor was Eddie Murphy. When the train pulled up at
the next stop, Rocky Balboa and Eddie Murphy got off of the train together, and walked away
into the sunset.
Note: Obviously not the final plot, having Eddie Murphy appear at the end is too unrealistic.