A Subway Story
A Subway Story
Every day as usual Marion got off the F train at 42nd Street at 12:38 in the afternoon. Then she walked through the tunnel to pick up the 7 to Grand Central. “I could do this in my sleep,” she said to herself.
The long hall was all white tiles, except for the arty part that made Marion feel she was dead and underground. There were muted shades of brown tiles arranged like mounds of dirt that rolled along the lower half of the tunnel. Shimmering gold tile tree roots wriggled down from above set into smoother pale blue and pearly tiles. “You could be dead down here,” Marion thought, “and not be frightened.” A quote ran along the wall from Ovid: Dropping water hollows out a stone. “I love this quote,” Marion thought for no reason at all. She dodged the oncoming commuters, all rushing and pushing around her like mad.
The passage was a great place for musicians, too, because the acoustics were phenomenal. Last week Marion listened for awhile to an African drummer who beat a djembe clutched between his knees and the sound roared along the walls and ceiling. He was so loud, he didn’t make much money. The week before that was the cute classical violinist. Marion figured she had a schoolgirl crush on the violinist because she actually spoke to her and always gave a dollar. The familiar Bach could squeeze Marion’s heart and bring tears to her eyes as it tailed her down the hall.
This time, as Marion continued on her way through the gleaming tiles, she was shocked to see a naked torso where an artist was supposed to be. It was a young man with greasy hair that hung down all wet and limp. His rows of ribs were exposed, he had a pale caved in stomach and belly button. “Like Jesus on the cross,” Marion thought, only this fellow wore baggy black pants held up tight by a belt. The thing about him, Marion saw, was he didn’t have arms. He had two stumps, cut off just above the elbow. He waved those stumps in front of his chest. If he had arms, they would have crossed and uncrossed, like a boxer in the ring, warming up before the fight.
At his feet a neat line of dollar bills had been placed, end on end across the floor, so the commuters had to step over them, like a line in the sand. He was hollering as everyone passed, but Marion could not understand what he was saying. Along with everyone else, she stepped over the line of dollar bills.
“How did he get the dollars all in a straight line with no arms?” Marion wondered. “Maybe he clutched them between his stumps, knelt down and pushed them into a row. But no, surely he used his feet, like those people who use their feet like hands.”
She looked around at the people walking the tunnel with her, alongside, ahead and just behind, hoping to catch an eye. A couple chattered obliviously away beside her, a man with a briefcase pushed in front, some tourists shared a map, a Chinese woman with a bandanna around her neck adjusted her plastic bags of vegetables.
Once outside on the street, in front of the glass office building where she worked second shift, Marion hesitated. She looked at her reflection, at her thin pointed face. She thought about that man with his carnival dollar bill sideshow. “I’ve heard stories,” she reminded herself, “stories about cripples in India who pound nails into their heads and beg for money.”
Marion had regret for not having stopped to talk to the young man. “What could I have done or said? Well, I could have collected all those dollars off the floor, and I could have said to him, I don’t need this. I go to work, I look good, I have arms. But I have my own misery, so take your money and run.”
Marion turned around with sudden purpose and a tone of slight anger in her footsteps. She decided to get a blueberry smoothie before going into the office.