The streets of the Quarter had assorted trash against the corners of the buildings, like they were outlines of rubbish. Empty crisp packets, cigarette butts, discarded papers of the book, magazine and news varieties, fruit skin waste from oranges, bananas and watermelons, and so much more. He wondered why they were in a line like that, didn't the street sweepers pick them up? The streets here were pretty narrow, so maybe the large trucks couldn't get down here. When he'd turned down the first street, he'd seen a couple of small trucks exiting the Quarter with a skip each on the back - the slightly parted lids revealing they were over-full of rubbish. Guess the city's huge trash trucks with their tipping mechanism couldn't pick up the skips either.
The difference between walking down the outside of the Quarter and then turning down an alley to walk the inside of it was stark. It was like being back in his residential area of New York - tiny apartments with fire-hazard barred windows, buildings that looked like they needed new maintenance, people loitering on the streets because they had nothing else to do. There was a stale smell that came with the area that likely prevented most people from entering the Quarter... and the fact that he was propositioned for sex three times in his short walk down the alley and into another street. He turned the first two down firmly but politely but the third got a snappy 'I'm not a rentboy, fuck off,' because he'd been so vulgar with his suggestion. It was weird how that worked - usually the customers weren't the ones standing there, but walking through. Guess they did it back to front in the Quarter... oh, unless they were there to scare off people who didn't belong? He hadn't been game to scan their minds.
The streets were a little better than the alleys - the people were just people, living their lives. A lot of them had that dead-eyed look that came with the territory for some, while others looked determined. He recognised the look. It was the same look he'd had when he'd lived north of the city in a rundown house with two other renters. Determination to get out and be something better. Well, he'd got out and become a vampire, but it wasn't like he'd earnt a living for himself, he'd just managed to be sired by someone rich. It wasn't exactly TED talk material.
When he was close to the end of the first street, he spied another alley that would take him into the next part of the Quarter. There were no people hanging around this one. When he went down it, a piece of graffiti caught his eye. It was hot pink and looked fresh, standing out from all the other tags. A wolf head, a stick figure of a person where the brain should be, and a circle around the whole picture. He would've thought it was a shifter tag if not for the circle. He interpreted it as the moon. Werewolf, then. Some of the pink circle was covering what looked like an old plaque. It was a big one - big enough for Ben to wonder what it was, but it was so grimy. He looked around and spied half a shirt on the ground. It was dirty as well, but not terrible. He used it to wipe the plaque and clean it as best he could. It was still dirty and hard to read because it was rusty, but his vision picked it up.
'THE BRASS QUARTER' written in large capital letters along the top, with two paragraphs of information in sentence case beneath. He read enough of it to realise that this area of the city - at one point - was supposed to provide housing for the homeless. A project from one 'Peter A. Brass' who'd had a scheme for ten blocks but had only raised enough money for four. It was something that had happened in the 1920s. All of the residential buildings had been rent-free for five years and were then designated to be cheap rent for the rest of their lifetime. The charity organisation keeping them maintained was 'Helpful Housing' and there was a logo of it in one corner and Peter A. Brass' signature in the other. Ben remembered that particular charity. It had become defunct in the sixties. Not enough people had supported it so they'd sold building after building until the money ran out. They'd limped along with two buildings until the early eighties and then they'd folded. He knew about it because his mother had told him she lived in the city as a little kid, in one of those last two buildings, and then they'd had to move because after it was sold the rent went up.
Sighing, Ben moved down the alley and spied a bright glow in the next street. It advertised itself as a free clinic. Huh. He hadn't realised that they were still around. A thought occurred to him that maybe they knew about supernaturals and helped them too? He loitered around the front, looking in. None of the people in the waiting area looked supernatural but the triage nurse behind the counter was extremely pale. With her glossy black hair she could be a goth, not a vampire though. He would only know if he got closer. Intrigued, he opened the door and entered.
He kept his gaze averted from everybody else in the waiting room, not wanting to advertise his shiny blue eyes more than the usual. There was a pamphlet display near the reception desk where the triage nurse sat. Ben turned to those and focussed on the nurse. Ah, a heartbeat. So, a goth nurse, not a vampire. He was looking at a pamphlet, a cheap one advertising a soup-kitchen in the Quarter, when someone walked into the waiting room from the back. A nurse or doctor judging by the clothing.
When the nurse/doctor came straight up to him, Ben looked his way. The expression on his face was hard to place. Shock, maybe? Ben thought maybe he'd made a mistake; perhaps the guy thought he was anaemic. Ben could just pass himself off as a goth. A blond goth. Eh. But then the guy said his name and Ben did a micro double-take. He'd been recognised? It had happened enough times recently that he knew it was from the campaign posters around the supe areas and the ads in the papers. It had been different when he'd been a model - they hadn't known his name.
"Ah, yeah. Can we talk in the back or are you too busy?" he asked, wanting to get away from all the staring people. If the nurse/doctor was too busy, then he would come back later.
