Take the A Train

Rachelle Annechino 

"Attention passengers, we are being held here momentarily due to a possible injured passenger. We should be moving forward as soon as this situation is cleared up. Thank you for your patience."

"Fuck you." Young man, wire-rimmed glasses, thoughtful murmur.

"Who’s being patient?" Rose-colored dress, pink fingernails tapping on the window.

A girl in the disabled seats at the end of the car pulls her knees up to her chin and settles into her book. One of those Star Trek paperbacks.

No sound but the turning of her pages and the scratching pen of a teenage boy two seats away from her. Glancing over his shoulder, she can make out the words "help me" and then, "bionic."

"Attention passengers, we are experiencing delays due to a situation ahead of us. We should be moving shortly."

The rose silk woman crosses and uncrosses her silk-draped legs.

"Fuck. You." Thoughtful Man whispers again.

Maybe this is what being dead is like—announcements from a loudspeaker, the rustle of silk, quiet cursing. The bionic boy who needs help, or whatever, moves closer to the Trekkie girl, who edges away without looking up from her book.

"Your attention please, due to a possible injured passenger, this train is being taken out of service. I repeat, this train is being taken out of service."

Sighing. Rosewoman’s pink silk breast bells out in front of her like a bloom.

"What’re we, supposed to sit in the tunnel all day long?" Trekkie says, finally looking up from her book.

"Due to a possible injured passenger, this train is out of service. We will not be pulling all the way into the station. Please exit the train from the first two cars and wait for the ‘A’ on the upstairs platform. Once again, please move to the first two cars, get off the train, and wait for the ‘A’ on the upstairs platform."

"Well at least we’re finally getting out of here," says Rosewoman.

The bionic boy drags his finger along the inside of his cheek then flicks it sharply out, producing the sound of a lid popping off a plastic bowl, or a cartoon fish exhaling water.

"I can’t take the ‘A’ to Lexington Avenue," Trekkie mourns, following the others to the door. The Bionic Boy, meanwhile, tries out various riffs on his new sound. "Injured passenger! It’s like, hmm, somebody’s sick or injured every morning during rush hour right after you hit the Manhattan Bridge. What a coincidence."

"Fucking T.A." He’s not whispering anymore.

"Don’t slip, honey," Rosewoman steps over a wad of hawked-up phlegm, waving her pink Tefloned nails at Trekkie behind her. "They never clean these things, I swear."

"Someone could get killed," Trekkie agrees.

"Well if it’s not one thing it’s another," Rosewoman says.

"Mm," Trekkie pulls a pack of mints from her backpack and offers it to the Bionic Boy.

"Oh." He takes one, holds it up to his eye and peers at her through the hole, then puts it in his mouth. The cheek-popping thing finally stops. "Thank you," he says, returning the pack.

"Would you like one?" she asks Rosewoman.

"Thank you honey, I could use a little something."

Trekkie unwraps one for herself too, then extends the pack silently to Thoughtful Man, but he is too submerged in thought to notice.

Quiet. They make their way quietly through the tunnel, until they see the station platform outside.

"Lord. Oh Lord."

"Oh my God, what’s going on?"

"Fuck." Thoughtful Man at the head of the line stops dead in his tracks.

"There must be 15 cops out there," Trekkie says.

A transit cop in the first car gestures them forward. "Come on, everything’s fine. We just need you to get off."

At the link between the first two cars a woman in a T.A. uniform stands bent over with a flashlight. "Did you see anything?" she asks, straightening, her light still shining on the tracks between the cars.

"Oh my God." They shake their heads, no.

On the platform people are talking quietly—he jumped, someone pushed him—standing just close enough to the train to not miss anything, just far enough away to not have to do anything about it.

Nothing they can do anyway.

"Yup," the woman with the flashlight crooks her pinkie in the air like she’s about to drink from a long-stemmed glass. "Intestines, I think."

"Holy shit," says the manager type standing next to her. People push forward trying to get a look, but the cops hold them back and start taping off the area.

"Did anybody see anything? Hear anything?" Two officers mill through the crowd with notepads. Everybody wants to have some important piece of information to offer, but they don’t, since the whole thing was relatively quiet and unremarkable, so they make things up.

"I heard a thump."

"I think somebody yelled. Maybe he was fighting with somebody."

"I was asleep, but I had a feeling something bad was about to happen."

"It’s terrible, really terrible. I have to say, though, if I were going to do a thing like that—which I never would, God willing—but let’s just say, if I were, I think I would try to pick a quieter stop, like maybe Coney Island in the middle of the day, you know? So that way, I’m not messing with other people’s schedules, you know what I’m saying? Not that I ever would."

Some firemen come down the stairs bearing a stretcher, though there doesn’t seem to be much use for it.

"Oh my God," Trekkie says for maybe the fifth time to Rosewoman, with whom she has established a temporary friendship. "I wonder if this guy’s spirit is like, wandering around the station now, just listening to every word we’re saying, just taking it all in."

"I doubt it," she replies, "but I guess you never know."