ever since new york || h.s.

one

During those days, the New York Times was just not the place for a female journalist, the wave of new age anti-sexism not yet hitting us. I'm still astounded that I ever managed to land myself a job there, even if it was just to be shoved into a dusty corner with a portable typewriter, covering bland stories that the men refused to entertain like those about gardening tips or public school calendars. I was looked down upon, never treated as an equal, and earning far less than the other journos who would blow smoke in my face as if they had some work under their belt that made them superior to me.

They weren't superior to me, not even in the slightest. I could write a better story than most of them could with my hands tied behind my back. Their stuffy rich boy schools taught them to treat writing as something professional and formal, something that provided them with a paycheck and a good name, but that's never how I liked to approach things. I treated each story that landed on my desk with a certain care and personalism that they just could never capture, even if that wasn't even necessary for the types of subject matter I covered. I thought that one day someone would notice my name beneath a heading, in the small almost grey lettering that was the least noticeable out of all the other writers, and remember how good and insightful the column I wrote was, the recognition being enough to move me from out beneath my little wooden desk into one of the big, metal ones that the men had. The longer I sat there, the more my hopes for that started to die out.

We were in sort of a topical drought. With the war being over and the nation trying to remember what it was like to feel peace again, we didn't have as many eye-catching headlines as we used to have rolling out with every single new paper. The men were growing a bit restless with lack of material, but still weren't willing to go out and chase a story, expecting someone else to do it for them and I would've but I knew that as soon as I found a promising lead it would go straight back to one of them. I didn't think I would be able to sleep knowing that all of my hard work had gone to someone so ungrateful and lazy that easily.

I was sitting at my desk, one of the last few to leave since I had to pack up my work materials at the end of the day unlike everyone else. I used to envy them for being able to just up and leave while I had to lug my typewriter the whole five blocks back to my apartment, but the longer I did it the more I realized that the later you stayed in the office the more gossip you got to collect and the more stories you got to hear before they ever hit paper.

That night, the man who sat in front of me, Zachary Pollock, who wasn't that bad of a guy once you got past his objectionable cockiness and handlebar mustache, was on the phone with what had appeared to be a really good interview subject for next week's paper. The boss had given him the name and number of a writer upstate who had been publishing anti-government essays that were getting quite a rise out of the city. No one had been able to get a press release out of him. Apparently, he was known for his almost hermit-like introversion and his distrust of the news media, so it was almost impossible for anyone to weasel their way in.

From what I was hearing, not even the Times, the biggest and most credible newspaper around, was going to be able to break through his very tall and impenetrable anti-journalist wall.

"Mr. Styles, I understand that you don't want people nosing about, but we're not gonna pry. We just want to get your side of the story...well, the story you haven't already told," Pollock pleaded, his big shot attitude practically washed away as his voice started hitting whiny begging octaves. I wanted to laugh at how pathetic he seemed, like if this would've been happening face to face instead of through telephone receivers, he would have been on his knees, kissing this Mr. Styles's feet.

He ended up hanging the mouthpiece back onto the phone with a loud crashing of metal before shoving his rolling chair beneath his desk and storming out without another word. He was one of our most popular and well-praised writers so if he wasn't getting this scoop, no one was, which was obviously going to earn him an ass-chewing from our superiors.

Once he was gone and I had given him enough time to get a ways down the street, I decided to go to his desk and snoop through the information he had on this author. His lack of willingness and ability to make Pollock lose his pride was intriguing to me, especially since it seemed like everyone wanted to be in the paper back then. I wanted to, at the very least, read what the writings were about and understand how he had everyone so worked up and dying to talk to him. I figured it had to have been either something really good, really controversial, or a really good mixture of both.

My eyes found the slip of paper with Styles's information easily, the red ink standing out amongst the white and manila shades of paper scattered everywhere. The only name on it was Styles, which was probably his last name, along with his phone number and a few different print stands that sold his collection that was being considered a manifesto by most of the general public.

I stopped by the print stand near my apartment, one that had also been included on the slip that had once been given to Pollock but now rested in my briefcase. I was able to buy the last copy of the book, paying a quarter higher than asking price since it was so in demand, that had no title other than what our paper had dubbed it, The Styles Perspective. I thought the name was lousy, but the boss had suggested it so his guinea pigs wrote it, probably Pollock himself if I had to have bet on it.

When I got home, I slid my clunky Remington onto my makeshift desk that was really just a coffee table, before kicking off my patent leather shoes and shaking off my blazer so I could sink into the couch with as much comfort as I could manage. I pulled Styles's book out of the paper bag the street salesman gave me and started up on the first page, eager to understand the hysteria that it had created.

"I don't want my opinions to become your opinions because I'm just a stranger that's throwing some words together that sound good enough. I want what I write to inspire you to think outside the box that has been built for you. I want you to look within yourself and answer your own questions, honestly and morally. I don't want you to think like me anymore than I want you to think like the twisted heads of our government. I want you to think like you." -Styles, 1959

{intro chapters are so hard, but i hope you guys like it. thanks for sticking with me and reading what i write. y'all really know how to make a girl feel special.

side note: the italicized quotes at the end of every chapter are going to be excerpts from styles's book. hope that doesn't get too confusing.
dedicated to @harrysfamilyshows because she really is a talent and someone who i appreciate so dearly.

all my love.}