From Old to New

Chapter 2

    "Come on, Bucky," his friend pleaded with him on the other line. "Please don't leave me hanging this time. You need to get out of that apartment. I didn't just spend four hours on a train for nothing, Pal."

Bucky sighed and stared out the window of his bleak apartment, "Okay. See you soon, Steve."

Once he hung up, he paced about for a bit from his bed room-- which only contained a less than comfortable futon on the floor and is the focal point if an onlooker were to gaze from a section deemed the living room, draped with raggedy blankets and sheets as well as singular deflated pillow, but it wasn't like he was sleeping much anyway. To the left of his bed is a minuscule (and poor excuse) for a closet. Next to the closet was the cramped quarters for a bathroom-- to the kitchen which maintained the apartment's dismal and pathetic aura with only a tiny table and two chairs-- one was collecting dust --where he usually sits alone as he hardly entertains any visitors, a white old-fashioned refrigerator with a giant, brownish yellow spot from an incident while trying to cook dinner, on the front, a couple of counters and cabinets, and an ancient gas stove.

On a typically hot and humid day at the end of August, a rarity occurred. James "Bucky" Barnes emerged from his apartment in Brooklyn at the urging of his best friend, Steve Rogers, to hop on the connector train to Queens. Bucky had hardly touched his door knob to exit his home in months-- except when it came to keeping his fridge full or a level above bare and to socialize with Steve-- for two reasons.

One: He is still considered a fugitive and the fear of discovery plagued him.

Two: He didn't trust himself to be out in the world yet-- despite Shuri giving him piece of mind.

In uncertainty and a leather jacket, Bucky took the brisk stroll around the corner. His journey included a half an hour train ride and another ten minute walk for the prize of a cup of coffee. He passed by his neighbors: Susie Langham, a single mother of three who did not appear to be the young age of thirty due to having to work two minimum wage jobs, caring for her heathens (they were truly monsters and taunted Bucky for having a metal arm on a daily basis), and fighting an addiction to alcohol and other substances, who during the weekend with only an hour of a leisurely activity to spare was standing outside the complex, smoking a cigarette which added to the salt and pepper appearance of her hair as ash clung to it in a similar fashion as the pungent odor of smoke did , and Miriam Holler, Susie's best friend who would chain-smoke while speaking every foul word she could about each tenant in the building while fighting painful coughs that were signs that her favorite habit would one day kill her that she chose to ignore. They both acknowledged his presence with simple glances, but as he had managed to remain reclusive in his own apartment building they don't speak a word of greeting to him and continued along with their conversation, cigarette, and gossip.

He coughed from the inhalation of tar and nicotine until he reached the platform for the train where the air was much fresher compared to the oxygen Susie and Miriam were inhaling during their chat on the doorstep. Then there was a rumbling and dinging sound which signaled the approaching train. Despite having ridden the connecting train a few times previously, Bucky still couldn't wrap his head around how much it had changed since the forties. The train used to be a shade of green that reminded him of the walls of a dental examining room or now the toothpaste that came out of a plastic tube, with white roofs, cream colored bars to hold for safety or balance when no seat was available, and posters along the sides that popped and were full of color-- like a cartoon or the pages of a comic book. Now, they were simply colossal structures of metal which carried rancid odors, dingy places to sit, and the posters were replaced by less than appealing ads which either sold a product like a lotion that claimed to cure  psoriasis or a plea for the population to stop smoking with some horrifying statistic or image-- which apparently his neighbors hadn't received the memo about.