Part 14 (1/2)
They began as a rustling. They carried up from the floor, from behind the linoleum and woodgrain, bypa.s.sing the intercom and the doors. They made no announcements. Quiet as always at the beginning, a conversation overheard in a neighboring room, a meeting of the minds. They began as a rustling but soon he heard three of them clearly. The hum of the turbines was in them and the draw of his breathing and the clatter of the undulating train. His name was not spoken. Each time was different of course, like turning on a radio, but there was no trace of the old familiarity. Instead there was sadness and also a kind of impatience. The end of the world was not discussed, never once made mention of. And yet the voices had no other subject.
Now therefore was the time to make things happen. ”Get Up and Get Courtin'” by Jelly Roll Morton. He pulled open the door at the end of the car and stepped out into the hot rush of the tunnel. The shocked air beat against his face and ears. Not long now, Lowboy thought, and the thought helped to calm him. Not much longer now until it happens. Get on up. Get on up. Get on up and get courtin'. When he pulled the next door open he found Emily waiting there with the conductor.
”There you are,” said Emily. She looked happy to see him. ”I guess we're not supposed to be on this train.” you are,” said Emily. She looked happy to see him. ”I guess we're not supposed to be on this train.”
”I guess you're right,” said Lowboy.
The conductor was a mediumsized man with two tiny Band-Aids above his right eye. His skin was a deathly shade of grayish pink and the Band-Aids were the same color exactly. Did he do that on purpose, Lowboy wondered. Could he possibly have had them custom-made.
The voices expressed no opinion.
”Why are you on my train?” said the conductor. He was looking at Lowboy with his left eye only. His right eye was looking at Emily.
Lowboy shrugged and hummed the Oscar Mayer theme.
”What's that?”
”n.o.body told me that this was your train.”
The conductor grinned. ”You thought it was your own d.a.m.n train, I guess.”
Lowboy didn't answer.
”Sit down a minute, son. Not next to your girlfriend. Over here.” He patted the seat next to him the way the Sikh had done a hundred years before. He wasn't the police or a transit guard either but his uniform was a beautiful midnight blue. It had folds and creases like any other garment but none of its folds or creases cast a shadow. Why was that.
Lowboy nodded and sat down. Next to no time was left. The conductor was sitting spread out on the bench and their elbows and their knees were almost touching.
”You're not supposed to be on this train,” said the conductor. ”But you knew that already.”
Lowboy frowned and made himself as thin as possible.
”City Hall was the last stop,” said the conductor, breathing wetly through his open mouth. He blinked and wheezed and clicked his teeth together.
”Where are we going now?” said Emily.
”You're not going no place,” said the conductor.
”I mean, like, what's the next stop?”
”City Hall.”
”But you said City Hall was the last last stop. Didn't you?” stop. Didn't you?”
The conductor looked at her with both eyes now. ”That's what I said.”
Emily sat back and sighed. ”I guess we really aren't aren't going no place.” going no place.”
Lowboy laughed and the conductor let out a kind of groan and grabbed him by the collar of his s.h.i.+rt. There was a song by Bootsie White called ”Mashed Tapatoes” and for some reason it came into his mind.
”I'm going to hit you,” Lowboy shouted. ”I'm going to mash your face like a tapato.”
”Try it,” said the conductor. Emily had been laughing too but now she stopped and stared at both of them. Then she laughed again. The conductor let Lowboy loose and wiped his hands with great dignity on his midnight blue pants and sat looking straight ahead of him at nothing. The train bucked hard to the left and then righted itself and eased into the station with a sound like a dog going to sleep. The same station of course but in reverse. Emily winked at him behind the conductor's back. ”Through the looking gla.s.s,” she said under her breath.
The conductor got up and pressed his knees together. ”You kids get off of this d.a.m.n train,” he said. The doors s.h.i.+vered open and they got to their feet and stepped contritely out onto the platform. The conductor stayed where he was with the knuckles of his fist against his forehead. The doormusic sounded and the doors came together and still he made no movement whatsoever.
”I guess we hurt his feelings,” Emily said.
”He's a ghost,” Lowboy whispered. ”He's made out of fiberoptics. I reached into his mouth and shut him off.”
She took him by the shoulders then and spun him around to face her. She twirled him in her hands like a baton. ”Listen to me, h.e.l.ler. You're beautiful and you make me laugh and I want you to take me to that place that we just saw, but you need to stop saying things like that. They creep me out, okay? And you're not creepy.” She nodded at him until he nodded back. ”That's right,” she said. ”You're sweet. You're sweet and you're a genius and you look really good with no clothes on. So shut up about ghosts and fiberoptics.” She smiled at him. ”I mean it, h.e.l.ler. You should never be allowed to put on pants.”
”At school sometimes I wasn't,” he said. ”At school sometimes they put me in a smock.”
”A smock? What for?”
”I don't think you want to know that, Emily.”
He thought she'd laugh at that but she kept quiet. ”It might make you feel good to tell me,” she said. ”It might make a little room inside your head.”
He brought a hand up wonderingly to his skull.
”That's right, h.e.l.ler. You've got it. Right in there.”
”How do you know what I look like with no clothes on?”
”Come on, loony. Let's get going.” She took five quick steps and turned back like a duelist. ”Come on already! I thought you said we didn't have much time.”
I never said that, thought Lowboy. Not out loud. But he caught up with her and followed her to the end of the platform. A monitor hung there above an overflowing Dumpster and Emily looked up at it and waved her arms. Its screen was chipped and dust-covered and sheeplike figures moved across it dumbly.
”What are those things?” said Lowboy.
”People.” She waved her arms again but nothing happened. ”People behind us.”
They stood under the monitor and waited. Two of the sheeplike figures drifted closer.
”You're right,” said Emily. ”They really do.”
”Do what?”
”They look as though they're sharing the same face.”
Again he had no memory of having spoken. Between the tunnel and the platform was a waist-high aluminum gate, the kind that parents put at the tops of stairs for safety. The mouth of the tunnel smelled sweetly of p.i.s.s. Abandon All Hope Ye. He nodded to Emily and pulled the gate open. Ye Who Enter Here, he said to himself. The voices agreed. The hinges were black with grease and made no sound.
Once they'd pa.s.sed the gate the voices got ambitious. Still a room away but closer now, more plaintive, tapping on the brittle wall between. If he whistled or hummed they dimmed but only slightly. Talking was better. What is there to talk about, he asked himself. There's got to be something. Emily was barely moving now, both hands against the wall, cursing herself in steady mouselike hisses. What was there to say that wouldn't scare her. The seam was wide enough to walk along, not too rough or too slippery, with man-catches every six to seven steps. He couldn't help but think of the last time, of Heather Covington moving effortlessly through the dark, shuffling ahead of him in her Saranwrapped feet. Reaching back to pull him stumbling after. Little baby, she'd said to him. Little dollar bill. Emily had stopped moving altogether and the next 6 train was coming. He tried to step past her but she put out a hand and caught him by the s.h.i.+rt. f.u.c.king Jesus, h.e.l.ler, don't you rush me. Tell me something. Tell me a story. He looked at her and touched her face and wondered. All right, Emily, he said finally. Here it is. They went forward together, tottering like some half-a.s.sembled thing, and he told her what had happened at the school. He couldn't believe that he was telling her and neither could she. Even the voices held their breath and listened.
They put me in a kind of bedroom Emily. Someone else was in it. They took my clothes and my Benson & Hedges 100's and my box of colored pencils and my wallet with the picture of you inside it and they put me in a room with rubber beds. Somebody was wrapped up in a blanket. Who is that I said. They told me to shut up. Big beautiful brownskinned nurses who blew kisses at you while they kicked your a.s.s. What kind of school is this I said. What kind of study. It's summerschool William they said. Take a look outside! I went to the window and saw high cottony clouds and yellow leaves and my own face and sailboats on the river. I saw everything I was supposed to see. I see everything I said to them. That's right sweetheart they said. We can see for miles up here we way up high. The name of this establishment means Pretty View in Spanish. Lucky boy. They blew a kiss at me and shut the door. I don't want to be up high I whispered. I don't want to see everything. I can't. But they were already gone off down the hall.
The person in the blanket never saw me. He stayed wrapped up wheezing and chewing on his lips and shouting to the nurses to let him out of bed to eat their p.u.s.s.ies. Once a day they came into the room in twos and threes and rolled him into the next bed and wiped the rubber sheet down with a sponge. As soon as they touched him he went quiet and sat there showing off his dripping lips and sighing. He had a soft woman's body and he slept bare a.s.sed in his blanket and they dressed him in a smock and called him Baby. When they gave him a fresh blanket he'd smile and laugh at them and p.i.s.s himself. And they'd smile back and take off the smock and bunch it up and wipe his body with it and go outside and shut the door behind them. Someone told me he used to be a policeman.