Four Weeks (Part Six)

September 12, 2008, 2:00 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Featured, Steve  | 1 Comment

Read the series in parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Josh delivered me to the Staten Island ferry terminal deep in the middle of the night. I walked up the stairs through a deserted station to the waiting area, where my two bags were reasonably sniff-searched by a friendly officer and his taciturn dog. The boat itself was near-empty, containing the usual suspects: sleeping homeless men bound down for the next in a series of 30-minute naps; a few Type A white collars, off to put an early chokehold on the workday; small groups of nocturnal young men in gold chains.

I remember the exceptions very well. A 40-something black woman comforting two young children. The occasional solitary young woman, with omnipresent iPod and steely, self-reliant New York eyes. The unkempt man who screamed nonsense at the top of his lungs: like many of us, very angry about something he couldn’t quite express.

On my quarter-mile walk to the subway station, I slung my carry-on around my neck and struggled to smoothly heft my suitcase. Rolling bags were not designed for those of two-meter height. Lumbering down the sidewalk, I was startled by a horn from the street. Ten feet away, a cab had stopped in the middle of the road. Its driver looked at me expectantly, eyes and mouth open wide, gesturing to the back seat like a taxicab Messiah. “Behold! Thy salvation cometh!”

I let him down as gently as I could and descended into the bowels of the city to catch the 4 train north. The crisp, cool harbor air quickly gave way to the humid, sinister dankness of the underground. I took out my voice recorder to both capture and fight off the eerie noir. I felt safe because the setting was so impossibly clichéd. True evil hides.

I switched to the JFK-bound A, boarding a car containing three other passengers, which seemed perfect. No large drunken groups, no danger from solitude. You may not always be able to count on help, but some chance beats none. If I’d been in the car with that hammerer, the story would have ended differently, one way or another. All it takes sometimes is one person who acts.

But if your troubles are more pedestrian, you may not want me in your car. We neared JFK and my closest neighbor was an elderly Chinese woman clutching a small suitcase. Both of us had been sleeping, but she had not awakened. I didn’t know if there was another JFK stop, or if she was headed elsewhere, or if she spoke English, or (God forbid) if she had died — so I took the cowardly middle ground, making as much noise as I possibly could without touching her. I slammed my bags, I cleared my throat, I even faked a sneeze. Nothing.

I got off alone. I watched the subway slide down the tracks; it still held the woman, who, still, held her suitcase. The sun was rising, and before the workday ended, I would be in California. I hope she got where she was meant to be.


Comments

1 Comment to “Four Weeks (Part Six)”

  1. David on September 12th, 2008 4:44 pm

    That was fantastic.

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