Okay Jonny, you're up.  This and Jessie's song were the hardest fit, but I think it worked out pretty well.  In my opinion, this is probably one of the greatest songs in American musical theater.  The folks at the Library of Congress will back me up-- they've got the original handwritten Bernstein/Sondheim version on display.

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Archiving permission granted.

THE REAL ADVENTURES OF JONNY QUEST

Synopsis: Jonny looks forward to his visit to the Big Apple.

"ON BROADWAY"

by Eric R. Umali

Part 3 - "Something's Coming"

High over the Mississippi, the Quest jet's engines thrummed with their deep basso voices.  Young Jonny Quest, however, couldn't hear them.  At the moment, his mind and senses were engulfed in the virtual reality of his father's devising, QuestWorld.  While in QuestWorld, Jonny, or anyone else, could experience with astonishing reality nearly any kind of environment conceivable.

Jonny was right then walking down a street in Brooklyn.  Brownstones surrounded him, and the bustling, noisy feeling that only a living city could produce surrounded him.  Shopkeepers sold their wares under worn, striped awnings while a newsboy stood on the corner, calling out the day's headlines.

Lifting his head to the sun, he looked at the famous skyline.  Near the center of Manhattan island stood the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, but he couldn't find the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  *Of course not,* he thought.  *They haven't been built yet!*

He'd chosen to walk the streets of New York back in the 1950's, a time of both unbridled idealism and very real tension.  Jonny stopped by a large shop window under a sign reading, "Doc's Drugstore."  He was surprised to see a long chrome-trimmed food counter instead of aisles of medicines.  Jonny shook his head.  "Drugstore" back then meant a combination of lunch counter and the kind of store he knew.

He looked around.  Jonny was happy to call both Rockport and Palm Key home, but there was just something about New York that sparked something in him.  He could feel a nervous apprehension course through him, but he wasn't scared.  Instead, he could feel that something special was going to happen on this trip.  He'd felt the same way the last time they'd been to the Big Apple and ended up tackling a white tiger loose in the subways.

He could feel it in his bones, and in his heart.  Jonny simply _knew_ that this trip was leading to something he'd remember for the rest of his life.

Would it be another adventure?  Would he and his family face yet another life-threatening situation, only to be saved by a combination of his father's brilliance, Race's courage and the almost uncanny luck he shared with Jessie and Hadji?  He looked back at Doc's and knew that one of those young men at the counter was just as apprehensive.  That was why Jonny had come, to experience this place and time, and share his feeling of expectation with him.

Inside that drugstore, Jonny knew, was a young man determined to make something out of his life-- to rise beyond the tough existence of the streets and chase a dream.  He just didn't know what that dream would be.  Jonny took a breath, not knowing what he'd find, either.  But it would be something.

The young man looked again to the sky as if to give voice to his hopes.

"Could be! Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannon-balling down thru the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!

Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree...
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming,
I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,
Open the latch!
Something's coming, don't know when--
but it's soon;
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!

Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me.

Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!

Come on something, come on in,
don't be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!

The air is humming,
And something great is coming!

Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe tonight..."

Tony found far more than he ever dreamed.  He fell in love in a glance, with a girl that he could never have.  That love brought him a day or two of untold joy.  Tony and Maria were ready to run away from it all, only to have it all reach back up and drag them back in.  Tony lost his life for his love, but Jonny understood-- it was worth it.  It was worth it because in those two days, Tony had lived more than most people do in decades.

Was that what was waiting for Jonny in New York?  The opportunity to experience something most people only dreamed about?  Probably.

And Jonny would be ready for it.

"Something's Coming" from the musical West Side Story
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, used without permission.

If you're going to get a recording, I have to push the Original Broadway Cast.  Yeah, I loved the movie, too, but the recorded performances aren't nearly as great as on the OBC.  Plus, things are in the right order.

I got to see the recent tour of the show this Spring.  They used the original Jerome Robbins choreography, and I was completely in _awe_ of the dancing, not to mention of their "Tony"-- he deserved a standing O just for the last note of this song.  Of course, the fact that I took my then-girlfriend to see it on her birthday was pretty cool, too.