Above is one of the many pictures taken by Bill Sullivan as a part of a project called “Bill Sullivan’s Turnstile Photography Project.” Sullivan took pictures of complete strangers passing through a New York City subway turnstile, and noticed how interesting the results were, noting the different facial expressions and objects that were carried by people. As a part of Elika Dadsetan’s Government class at High Tech High International, each student chose a stranger in one of Sullivan’s pictures and was asked to write a narrative fiction about their day.
Leo the Bookie
For the few who knew him well, he was “Lucky Leo”, or just “Lucky”. For the rest, he was Leo Colucci, the bookie. But no matter what anyone knew him by, he was the man.
Leo woke up this morning, as he does every morning, at 5:15 am. On this particular morning, his penthouse apartment was a brisk 55 degrees. He didn’t mind the cold. As always, the first thing Leo did this morning was get a copy of the New York Times Sports section – he was a bookie, after all. He left his building, walked four blocks south, and three blocks east.
“Morning Ray. What do we have today?” he asked a very short and plump man working the news stand.
“Lots of action in college ball, Pitt fell apart again. And I’m sure you know about the football games,” he responded. Ray never turned away from his work, because he knew Leo had arrived at the usual time.
“Actually I don’t,” Leo said. Leo didn’t watch sports on television much. He was always busy with his “second” job during the evenings.
“Well you’ll read about ‘em anyways,” said Ray.
Leo began walking back towards his building as he started skimming the scores from the day before. He whipped his notepad out to check the bets he had taken. He was surprised at well he did. He let out a grunt of approval.
Leo’s apartment was located directly above an Irish pub. He was very good friends with the owner, Mr. O’Malley. O’Malley had a back room where he let Leo do his business work for the day. Leo couldn’t be comfortable sitting in his apartment all day long.
Leo’s second job was working in the pub during the night, so it worked out well that his “office” was in the back room. Now, Leo wasn’t a bartender, but his role in the pub was nearly as important. He was a hustler. Most months, he made more money taking bets on sports than he did hustling. But every once in a while, a fool would walk into the pub with a swagger and a full head of steam that weren’t exactly adored by the regulars, and Leo would rack up his earnings. Leo knew pool and poker, of course. But where he really got his victims was in proposition bets, or “Prop Bets.”
Once the clock struck 8:00 pm, he left his office.
“Hey Leo!” everyone shouted, most of them with heavy Irish accents.
Leo nodded towards the crowd and walked straight out the door. Tonight, he couldn’t deal with the pinheads whose wallets would normally suffer from his evil tricks. He had other plans.
He was on his way to visit his mother. Normally, Leo would walk anywhere he needed to go, even if it was all the way across the Bronx, but Leo refused to be late. He took the subway.
