37 Cents and a Song: a NYC love story

By: Ted Mieszczanski

A Matryoshka or Russian nesting doll is a doll that contains a secret. You open its halves and you find a new and different doll, and so on. This idea of one mystery leading into another, and another, is the essence of, 37 Cents and Song. A man wakes up in a famous Manhattan hospital handcuffed by his feet to a bed. Why? The day before, walking on the way from the Grand Concourse to the subway on 161st in the Bronx, this person had kindly given a panhandler on the street thirty-seven cents. The man then discovers that he has the ability to do it over and over again. Frightened, he races to the underground D train and makes some new discoveries. He doesn't know his own identity and has no wallet or any identification. Shaken to his very core he panics quickly losing consciousness while at the same time curiously wondering why he hears someone singing an operatic aria in a subway station alongside Yankee Stadium? Given the name, "Mr. Smith," or, "Smitty," by his FBI captors, who are committed to finding out the source of his abilities, he knows only two things. He must follow a mental compulsion to get, "Downtown," that he'd apparently been following. And, in order to achieve this desire, he must escape. Smitty's identity will slowly reveal itself over the course of a unique escape attempt that carries him down the very edge of the Westside of Manhattan, a place his hidden former self seems to be very familiar with. Are his friends his enemies or his enemies his friends? Who should he hold close? And so we have a complicated mystery that will test a man's love and devotion on several different levels. Does Smitty loves his home, NYC? Does he love his country? Those loves will no doubt be put to the test. And then there are others that he loves. Will they love him in return? To find out Smitty's truth and understand what is being asked of him, and perhaps, us, you must join Mr. Smith on his urban quest to reveal our own inner Matryoshkas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 198432022X
• ISBN13: 9781984320223
• Release Date: February 2018
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.7" x 5.5"