Without looking
away from the creep, the old woman said, "I see him looking at your
picture. I don't like him."
"I don't like
him, either."
The air on the
platform changed. It was hard to explain to someone who had never
experienced it, but you could almost
feel
the subway train
approaching. Certainly there was sound, but even before that the
atmosphere got heavier, as though the train was pushing the air before it and
compressing the air on the platform, so you were bearing up under more than
usual. And yet at the same time you could feel oxygen sucking out of your
lungs. Pushing, pulling, pulling, pushing. It was an impossible set
of contradicting experiences, but they were real.
Then the sound
came, a rushing noise, the sound of electricity humming and crackling a
thousand times a second, the sound of metal wheels on metal tracks that had
borne such loads a million million times and would do so a million million
more.
Jim was traveling a
path he traveled every day. So he'd done his "pre-walking" – a
term that some New Yorkers used to describe getting to the part of the subway
train that would have them disembarking the subway at the point closest to the
gate they needed. Doing so saved precious moments in a place where every
second seemed to count far too much.
In Jim's case,
doing so meant he had taken a position at the end of the platform closest to
the place where the subway would emerge from the tunnel. That was why he
only got the quickest glimpse of the driver. If he'd been standing at the
other end of the platform – where Freddy was sulking, or even where the
gangbanger or the big man or the lawyer were standing – he would have been able
to see it longer.
But not here.
Not at the very spot where the train emerged. Here he just saw it for a
split-second.
Jim looked over at
his tiny savior, at the feisty Hispanic woman who had rescued him from the
unwelcome attentions of Freddy. He didn't know why he looked at her.
No, that's a
lie, Jim. Don't do that. Don't lie to yourself. You're
looking to see if she saw it, too.
There was no
way. No way she would have seen it. No way she
could
have
seen it. There was nothing
to
see.
But as Jim looked,
the woman crossed herself. She touched her fingers to her lips and kissed
them and whispered something under her breath. Then she turned her face
to him – a face grown noticeably paler in the last second – and said, "Did
you see it? Did you see the demon?"
================
================
Jim shook
his head.
"No. No, I didn't see a demon."
But then what
had
he seen?
He looked at the
woman again, the little woman who had seemed so imperturbable only a moment
before, who had faced down someone that Jim knew in his gut was undoubtedly a
child molester without so much as blinking an eye. Now she was sweating
visibly, even in the cold winter air.
Think,
Jim. Just be calm, just think
.
The train had come
out of the tunnel. It had come out like it always did, with that sound
like an ocean wave in need of oiling, with that rush of hot-cold air that
push-pulled the wind around it. Everything normal.
Except the skull.
The trains on this
line ran with a driver, who sat in a small compartment at the front of the lead
car. The compartment was sealed off from the rest of the train –
Thank you very
much, 9/11!
– but you could see
the driver's face and torso through the small window that was just to one side
of the subway car's center line. The drivers came in all shapes and
sizes: fat, thin, tall, short, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, and everything in
between.
But this
driver…. This one had been different. He'd been wearing the usual
outfit. The usual reflective vest. The usual MTA transit hat that
always looked to Jim like it was somehow stuck in a place halfway between
"quaint" and "obsolete."
But below the hat,
where Jim should have seen a face, should have seen a bored New York expression
readying itself for one more leg of an endless-seeming shift, he saw only pale
white bone, a fleshless skull. The skull swiveled toward him in the
instant the subway train emerged from the tunnel. The eyes were black,
and the train passed so fast that Jim shouldn't have been able to seen any
detail.
But he did.
Or at least, he saw an
impression
of detail.
Snakes.
Bodies writhing. Liquid pouring over mouths agape and drowning. A
fire that was hot but did not warm, flames that burnt but at the same time
snuffed out all light. All these Jim thought he glimpsed in the skull's
eye sockets, in those black pits above the widely grinning teeth and hollow
nasal cavity.
Then it was
past. Gone. A piece of memory. Imagination.
Impossibility.
"The
demon," repeated the old woman beside him. "Did you see
it?"
Jim forced a smile onto
his face. "No." And as he said it, it became real.
So many things can be forced away through the power of denial. Even
truth.
"He looked
like…." She crossed herself again. "He looked like a
skull."
"Probably just
a skinny guy and some bad morning lighting. Plus I haven't had my first
coffee of the day yet, so I just assume
anything
I see is bad
lighting."
The woman looked at
him with naked hope in her eyes. "You think?"
"I know,"
he said. And then, as much to take his mind and the conversation away
from what he had just seen, he offered his arm. "I'm Jim."
The woman almost
fell onto him. She wrapped both arms around his for a moment, then seemed
to remember her dignity. She straightened and let one of her hands fall
away from him, though she kept her closest arm twined through the crook of his
elbow. "Adolfa," she said. She said something else,
perhaps her last name, but the train shrieked to a halt and he didn't hear it.
"Charmed,"
he said, and tipped an imaginary hat to her before leading her toward the
train. "Back car all right?"
She nodded.
Jim looked over. Gorgeous lawyer, gangbanger, scary white dude, and
Freddy the Perv all looked like they were headed for different train cars.
Which was fine by Jim. None of them seemed like the kind of people he
wanted to sit down and share secrets or become Bestest Friends with at the
moment.
He led Adolfa to
the doors of the back car. Or better said, he
tried
to lead her:
about halfway there he realized that
she
was actually leading
him
.
Realizing this, and reflecting on how she had handled Freddy, he wondered if he
would be able to take her in a prize fight, best two out of three. He
decided an experienced Bronx bookie would give him the edge, but only barely.
The doors of the
back car slid open. He waited for the current passengers to disembark,
then saw that there was no one in the car.
"Never seen
that
before," he said.
"What?"
Jim almost leapt
out of his shoes. He hadn't been aware he had spoken aloud.
"The car. It's early, but usually there are at least a
few
people getting off."
Adolfa
smiled. She patted his arm with her free hand. "More privacy
for us,
mi hijo
."
He grinned at
her. "You flirting with me?"
She waved him away
with a gesture that managed to be both playful and prim. "
Ay
,
no. You're too old for me."
Jim laughed at
that, then stepped into the train car. He looked over. The next car
could be seen through the dividing doors. A few people in it, maybe ten
or twelve.
"This must be
the car for the lower class," he said.
"No,"
said Adolfa. Gesturing to the commuters in the other car, she added,
"This is far too
exclusivo
for them. None of them could
afford this place."
Jim laughed
again. He liked this old gal. He waved grandly, a sweeping bow
toward one of the plastic chairs that was held to the wall partly by bolts and
epoxy, partly by hardened gum. "Please do sit, milady."
He did his best to affect an upper-crust accent, but suspected it came out
sounding like Thurston Howell from
Gilligan's Island
, if good ol'
Thurston had just had a root canal.
Adolfa sat
down. She immediately leaned over to massage her calves. Grimacing,
she said, "Don't get old."
"I don't think
I'll be able to avoid it."
She looked like she
was going to respond, but there was a double tap of heels on metal as someone
came into the car. Jim and Adolfa both looked at the sound and saw the
gorgeous woman enter the car, the high heels of her expensive boots ringing
sharply on the subway flooring. She barely glanced at them before moving
halfway down the car. She leaned against a support pole and immediately
began texting on her cell phone.
Jim was struck
again by how beautiful the woman was. Not like his Carolyn – no one was
like her – but beautiful, nonetheless. She was dark, with olive skin and
eyebrows that were thick without being bushy. Her hair was lustrous and
hung in waves to a point just past her shoulders. She reeked of
class. Money. A girl on the move, on the make.
Jim looked back at
Adolfa. The old woman was also looking at the newcomer.
"Pretty," said Adolfa.
"Very."
"Why she not
get on the other car, I wonder?"
Jim shrugged.
He would have pointed out that asking a New Yorker about their choice of subway
car was definitely against the unspoken etiquette book that every person in the
city somehow had downloaded into their brains within their first month of
residency, but suspected that Adolfa already knew that.
Another set of
hollow thumps announced the entry of another passenger onto the train
car.
It was the
gangbanger. He entered the car with a grunt that spoke of his annoyance
and clearly communicated the fact that this wasn't his first choice of travel
accommodations. Like the lawyer, though, he moved past Jim and Adolfa
before either of them could have spoken even if they
were
so inclined.
And right behind
him was the huge white man. Up close he was even more formidable than he
had previously appeared. At first, Jim had taken him for a meatpacker who'd
made good. Now, he realized that the man looked more like a dock
worker. His face was tough and leathery, though not suntanned.
Indeed, he wasn't tanned at all. No, what gave his skin its leathery
impression was the fact that it was criss-crossed with dozens of thin scars, as
though someone had gone at him with an extremely fine razor blade long ago.
The huge man ducked
to get through the doors. His eyes flicked up and down the subway car,
took in its occupants in an instant, then he sat down across the aisle from
Adolfa and Jim. He closed his eyes. Jim had the impression, though,
that the man was about as asleep as a member of a bomb squad working on
defusing a tactical nuke with a hole-punch and a Swiss Army Knife.
Two softer thuds
pulled Jim's attention away from the big man. He looked over to the
still-open subway doors –
(
why are they
still open, they
never
stay open this long, how long are we going to
wait before we just get going?
)
– but even before
he shifted his gaze, he knew what he'd see. Freddy.
Adolfa started to
stand, and Jim could see from the murderous gleam in her eyes that another
round of shin-kicking was in the offing.
Freddy must have
seen it, too, because his hands went up. "Whoa, whoa," he
said. A disgusting whine had crept into his voice. "Do you
think I
want
to be here?" His voice cracked in the middle of
the question. Jim smelled the man's odor, that candy-infused scent, and
had to concentrate on quelling the nausea that accompanied it. He didn't
want to add the reek of vomit to the air.
Freddy took a
nervous chew of his lollipop, which by now was little more than a white paper
stick with a ragged purple ring on the top. He gestured with it to the
platform outside. "All the other cars are stuck," he said.
"What?"
said Jim.
"Stuck,"
repeated Freddy. "The doors won't open."
"Baloney,"
said Adolfa. The word sounded funny coming from her, but the look in her
eyes was anything but. She started to stand again.
Freddy's hands
started waving frantically. He could have taken first place in a
jazz-hands competition. "No, I swear, I swear," he said.
He took a half-step back, seemed to realize that would have him outside the
subway car, then moved back in. "None of the other doors
opened."
"Ba-lo-ney,"
repeated Adolfa. She pulled herself fully upright, using a pole for
support. Or maybe, Jim thought, she was just getting ready to use it as
extra leverage to kick Freddy the Perv off the train.
"Is
true," said a deep voice.
Jim looked at the
older man across the car. His eyes were still closed, his thick arms
crossed across a barrel chest. But it was definitely him who had
spoken. And he did so again. His voice was seeped in an accent that
Jim couldn't quite place. He thought it might be Russian, or perhaps
Armenian or Hungarian. Certainly something from that neck of the
woods. "Is why we get on this car. Other doors refused
open."
"How is that
possible?" Jim said. He looked down the car's length, through the
dividing doors; saw the dozen or so commuters in the other car. "How
did
they
get in the car?"
The huge man
cracked a single eye. It only opened about halfway, but that was more
than enough to show a dangerous glitter. "You call Olik a
liar?" said the man – Olik.
"No,"
said Jim. He felt suddenly like doing one of those cartoon gulps, maybe
even pulling at his collar with his forefinger. "No, not at
all." He looked at the people in the other car. Normal early
morning commuters. Coats, hats. Black, white, brown. Rich,
poor. New Yorkers. "Just… wondering what's going on."
Olik's eye slowly
closed. "Not important. Train goes to where we need. Is
all that matters."
"Yeah,
see?" Freddy stepped tentatively forward. "That's all
that matters, right?"
As though they had
been waiting for Freddy to do this, the doors slid shut. The train
lurched forward. Freddy was caught off guard by the sudden motion and had
to scramble to grab a support pole.
Adolfa, light and
steady on her feet as a cat, sank back to her seat with a grin, clearly amused
at Freddy's inability to stay upright. She winked at Jim.
Jim didn't feel
like smiling. The day wasn't a laughing one. Not after the fight
he'd had with Carolyn and Maddie.
Besides, the trains
on this line usually had a piped-in announcement system that said when the
train was going to leave, where it was headed, when it would probably get
there. None of that had happened.
And the doors to
the other cars
hadn't opened
? What was that about?
More than anything,
though, something about the way the doors had slid shut behind Freddy unnerved
Jim. The way they closed as soon as he was fully inside. Like they
had been waiting to snap shut behind him. Like the train was a beast waiting
to feed.