Ch. 1
It was an abnormally hot summers day in Greenwich Village. 84 degrees fahrenheit with humidity and motionless air. Blaine had been stuck in his small apartment for three weeks looking around at his small neighborhood. It wasn't prosperous but it wasn't poor either. It is practical, conventional dwelling place for people living in marginal incomes, luck - or and carful planning.
Looking around the neighborhood again, he sees a tall man whose name he cannot remember at the moment with curly, copper colored hair standing near a small bowl of water and a portable mirror, shaving away his actual age to become youthful. Next to the man is a battered upright piano. On top of the piano is a radio playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. The song ends and the announcer comes on to say, "The time, 7:15 AM, New York. The temperature, outside, 84. Friends, is your life worth one dollar?"
The man, Shuester remembers Blaine, quickly puts down his razor, hurries to the radio, and changes the station. After moving past a number of commercial voices until he finds music again. Contented, he returns to his shaving.
Blaine turns his head to the sound of an alarm going off at the Chang's place. He sees a man, Mike, rises lazily to a sitting position. He gropes to switch the alarm off. In his sitting position, he leans forward to shake his wife Tina awake. They exchange bedraggled and weary looks to show how little of sleep they got in the heat of the night.
Bored of looking at couple, Blaine looks at the apartment just below of Brittany Pierce (or Ms. Torso to everyone in the neighborhood). He sees that she is only in her undergarments and making breakfast. While most men would enjoy the view, Blaine was not of the persuasion so he quickly looked to the ally that leads out to a busy street. He sees a few children playing behind a Sanitation Department truck that is spraying of the pavement to keep it cool.
The phone rings and Blaine grabs the phone next to him and answers with, "Anderson".
"Congrats, dear brother!" said a familiar voice.
"Congrats on what, Coop?" he responds.
"For getting rid of that cast."
"Who said I was getting rid of it?" asks Blaine with a chuckle.
He looks down at the cast on his leg and smiles at the perfect cursive writing that say here lie the broken bones of B. Anderson. You see, Blaine is a photographer for a magazine. On one of his journeys, he was chased by some unwelcoming natives in Africa when he broke his leg.
Breaking him from his revery, Cooper fired back with, "This is Wednesday."
Blaine chuckled again and said, "Cooper, how did you get to be such a big editor, with such a small memory?"
"Wrong day?"
"Wrong week. Next week I emerge from this plastered cocoon." responded Blaine.
"That's too bad, Blaine," says Cooper with all earnestness, "Well, I guess I can't be lucky every day. Forget I called."
"Damn Coop, you sound like a kicked puppy. I sure feel sorry for you," said Blaine with a hint of sarcasm, "Must be rough on you think of me wearing the cast another whole week."
"Yeah and that one week is going to cost me my best photographer and you a big assignment," says Cooper in a playful tone.
Blaine sits up in his chair and asks, "Where?"
Cooper takes a deep sigh and says, "There's no point in even talking about it."
Blaine hears Brittany playing some sort of music and momentarily turns his attention to her. She is now dressed in a leotard and ballet slippers and is dancing with only the grace of a dancer around her apartment. He sees that diagonally from her that a man in a wheelchair, Artie, looks up in her general direction, rolls his eyes and then wheeled away into the hallway.
"Where?" repeats Blaine.
With a deep sigh, Cooper responds, "Indo-China. Got a code tip from the bureau chief this morning. The place is about to go up in smoke."
Pleased and excited Blaine says, "Didn't I tell you! Didn't I tell you it was the next place to watch?"
"You did." said Cooper with a chuckle.
Blaine, forgetting for a moment that he was injured, says, "Okay. When do I leave? Half-hour? An hour?'
"With that cast on, you don't."
"Oh come on, Coop. Stop sounding like dad. I'll take pictures from a jeep. From a water buffalo if necessary!" said Blaine with slight annoyance.
"Blaine you are two things to me. One a great photographer and most importantly my brother. That makes you too valuable to play with. I'll send Fabray or Puckerman," reasons Cooper.
With frustration, Blaine response is, "Fantastic. I get myself half killed for you and my reward is my assignments being stolen by the couple that fails at hiding that they are actually a couple."
"I didn't ask you to infiltrate an African tribe!"
"Yes but you asked for something dramatically different, didn't you?"
"Why do you have to be right? Talk to you later Squirt," says Cooper.
"No! Please don't go! It's worse than Chinese water torture here," said Blaine.
At that moment, Cooper can here in the background two conflicting sounds. One sounded like it was coming from a record player and the other a simple, but broken, melody on a piano. As if the person was learning to play the piano for the first time or carefully composing a song. On Blaine's end, he can see Shuester playing a few notes, then transferring them by pencil to notepaper on the piano rack. He continues this process, fighting the interference of Brittany's ballet music. The opening bars of Shuester's melody are beautiful and ear-catching.
It is slow, hard work, and the ballet music finally becomes such an interference that he gives up and walks to the window to look down towards Brittany's apartment.
He stands by the table at the window which is littered with records, the morning coffee cup, unwashed, the remains of breakfast, old newspapers, song sheets, etc. He takes a cigarette out of his mouth, looks for an ash tray, and ends up putting it out in the coffee cup. He then returns to the piano and begins picking out the melody the dancer is playing on her record player.
Unable to stand the sounds anymore, Cooper speaks louder and says, "Read some good books. Like that Cather in the Rye book."
Jokingly, Blaine responds with, "I've been taking pictures for so long I don't know how to read anymore."
"I'll send you some comic books," fires back Cooper.
"If you not get me out of here, I'll do something drastic," threatens Blaine.
"Like what?"
"I'll... I'll get married!" says Blaine with pride, "Then I'll never be able to go anywhere."
"Well good. You should get married. You and that boy are perfect for each other before either of you turn in to lonesome, bitter men."
Blaine had been thinking about marrying his partner but he had been coming to the thought process that his partner was too perfect for him.
"Im getting tired. I'll talk to you later Coop," said Blaine after some time.
"Okay. Talk to you later Squirt," responds Cooper.
After Blaine had hung up with his brother, he looks at the second floor apartment across the way. He sees a man named Karofsky enter the living room from a hallway door. He carries a large aluminum sample case common to salesmen. He sets down the case heavily, removes his hat, and slowly wipes his brow with the back of his hand. He takes off his coat and tie. His shirt is stained with sweat underneath. He roll up his sleeves, and his well-muscled arms heavy with hair confirm his dark, husky build.
Karofsky looks toward the bedroom door, hesitates, then reluctantly walks toward it. For a moment he is hidden by the wall. Blaine shifts his look more to the right. Karofsky enters the bedroom. Blaine can see a woman lying on the far bed. Near her, a small table is covered with medicine bottles, spoons, boxes of pills, a water pitcher and the other impedimenta of the chronically ill. The woman sits up as Karofsky enters. She takes a wet cloth off her forehead. Before he even reaches her, she begins talking, somewhat vigorously. Pointing to a wristwatch, she seems to be saying something such as "You should have been home two hours ago! I could be lying here dying for all you'd know - or care!" Karofsky stops short of the bed, makes gestures of trying to placate her, but she goes on scolding. His attitude changes to weary patience, then irritation, then anger.
He shouts back at her, turns and goes out of the room.
Back in the living room, he picks up his hat, throws it against the wall in anger, and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
Just a normal day in the life of Blaine Anderson, were Blaine's final thoughts before he dozed off.