On the L
The Chicago L train was supposed to be empty at 1 a.m.
but it wasn't. Instead, Matt finds himself surrounded by those that usually
ride with him during his day trips to the city. Some know him, some don't care,
some have motives he can't understand, especially the 12 year old boy who
continually bounces a blue rubber ball in the back.
They know he had an abusive father, they know he was shunned after the
divorce, but worst of all, they know the hurt that came when his eldest
daughter left. They were there when he turned to writing because the feelings
would not be contained, and each is aware of the growing stack of rejection
letters on his desk. They know almost everything about him.
But what they don't know is, he's brought a gun onto the L.
Michelle just wants to be left alone and can't understand why it's she who
gets the late night call informing her that her father lies in a coma in the ICU,
a Chicago L train crash victim.
At the hospital, when she sees her name in a story her father is writing on his
laptop, she can't help but wonder if within his words is the key to why the L train
crashed. The more she reads, the more real the characters become until finally,
she can reach out and touch those that were there, including her father!
Michelle reads and is forced to face feelings she's buried deep while Matt must
confront his own demons before he can carry out his plan. Will she be able to
overcome the past and change the future? Does she even want to?
Will the story of the L be Matt's final words in his attempt to stop the pain?
Will the story of the L find Michelle’s heart and allow her to stop the tragedy?
What Matt imagines is only the worst…what Michelle imagines, can only
happen On the L.
excerpt
Prolog
Angie
There’s a peculiar sense of unease whenever the L enters a tunnel now. I can’t say why I never noticed it before, but ever since that day, the Blue line has never seemed the same. Oh, I still ride it, at least until recently when my doctor suggested I let Michelle or the grandkids drive me to my appointments, but there’s no denying the ride is different. Maybe it’s the sudden cold of the chrome armrests, or the way the lights flicker and dim at night. Or possibly it’s in the eyes of those others who ride with me, holding onto rails or sitting squeezed tight as matches in a box, as the train scatters the noise of steel wheels on hundred year old iron tracks.
I look around at the neutral tiled walls thinking not much has changed; Mercy hospital remains in an era of soft pastels. Even my view through the window reminds me of that day.
That day; I suppose that’s why I’m writing this now, to tell what happened. Hard to say why I didn’t do this before. Maybe Matt rubbed off on me and I never noticed until now. But now is a time when much that was important seems so incredibly not anymore. My thoughts are mostly on whether the grandkids will visit again today.
Matt used to tell me this is how it was, that when you wanted to say something, that unless the ones you wanted to say something to were making direct eye contact, that most of whatever you said would be lost, forgotten, and worse, probably misheard.
That’s why I’m trying to do this slowly, trying to make certain that you’re not looking away, like out the window as I keep doing, where I can see the pigeons flutter past and the courtyard is buried in white. He was right, and truth be told, I always knew it but well, it’s taken much of my life to realize that sometimes words roll in and if you turn your head, they roll right back out. And I should know—I don’t hear too well anymore. The kids sure know that and smile, some even kindly repeating what I didn’t hear. The grandkids bubble on though, as if I didn’t need to know what they’d said. Or maybe it’s because I’m not their own age. Matt once said something like that too, and I probably shook my head and turned too quick back then.
But before the nurses come to take me down to radiation, I thought I’d at least start. It’s been on my mind a long time actually, though the details have never been far away. That day changed a lot; it changed lives and even through the tears, there came the tiniest wisp of a breath.
Yeah, that’s something Matt once wrote. He was the real writer in the family. I didn’t always pay attention then and I’ll admit, his writing tended to go over my head. I think it was the poet in him that agonized the words he wrote for others. Oh, he was perfectly suited to understanding such weird sayings like ‘living in the folds of Night while bound by its creases’. Stuff like that, which hardly anyone understood.
Once, we used to belong to an internet site, but as he and his words grew, I found that when he left, he took me with him and though I understood the allure of words, I never found the passion the way he did. Not that I didn’t want to, but Matt always told me he wasn’t like others, that whereas most were on one side of the fence or the other, he seemed to exist in the space between slats. Odd sort of picture those words create, but that was Matt. He always did see things I know others didn’t, not even me, though he often would stop in mid-walk and point out mysteries he says God graces us with.
I should be typing this out on Matt’s old laptop but seems my hands can’t bend like they used to. Matt had arthritis in his hands, too. I guess writers have more than psychological demons. I see similarities in Michelle, too, but that was later, after her writing changed. I always envied that Matt had a kid whose passions he could understand. But it wasn’t always like that and even now, I wonder at how long Matt suffered. Though he wrote what he felt and what he experienced, too many times I had to read between the lines to truly understand him. Oh my, but isn’t that why I’ve decided to do this?
I’m not sure I can concentrate well enough but I’m going to try. The damnable beeping and pinging of too many machines behind me will either drive me to insanity or send me to the places both Matt and Michelle went. I wrote poetry once too, so I know where the door is, but God—it’s been so long! And it was different then; after I met Matt, everything changed. He’s the one that showed me the difference between journal entries and words that can change a life.
I thought about asking Michelle to do this but somehow, I know that like her father, she’d hide enough details that no one else would understand. And if nothing else, I’ll accomplish this—having their words understood, that is. Matt’s words are here, put down as he always did, less journal-like than poetic, which was always his curse. But I can read them and so can Michelle—though not at first, and not as she would later. Her words, on the other hand, she keeps guarded, even more when it comes to that day. My hair has been white for a long time but only recently has my age caught up, and yet I still remember that day when the snow came down and threatened to close the Loop, the day the L crashed.
And speaking of snow, my feet are cold, but I don’t have the strength anymore to reach the extra blanket the nurse brought earlier. I hate that I’m always so cold.
It was cold too, the day I got the call. And early, very early. It was February. Now that was a winter! Overcast and endless that year. It was a sudden storm, as I remember, and it caught all of us by surprise. I hate it when things don’t go as you expect...
Chapter 1
Michelle
I mean seriously, calling in the middle of the night? I should have and did let it ring, should have and did dismiss the sound as just another part of the night, an annoyance like the whirl of an ambulance skirting traffic on the street below, or the intermittent roar of the L passing by. But it was the strangeness of the sound which ultimately shook me from sleep. I’d programmed different tones for different callers and the one playing at five a.m. on the 7th of February wasn’t one I didn’t recognize, far from it. Rather, it was one I hadn’t heard in more than two years. Not once since moving into the 6th floor condo on South Racine, hardly a good stone’s throw from one of the L’s stations. In the distance, the University of Illinois at Chicago was still glowing, probably from all the dorm parties. It was a long time since that scene was home. It would be Saturday by now and if I could trust my clock, it was barely three hours since tumbling into bed. If it weren’t for the song playing, I’d have assumed it was work calling me on my off weekend—again. But no, there was a reason I’d assigned Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Little Lies’ to this particular number; it was my father.
Not ‘Dad’ as he’d wanted me to call him since I was little, no, I’d carefully pressed insanely small buttons to spell the more formal label. And that’s all he was to me; a label. I wasn’t even sure why I hadn’t blocked his number in the first place. I mean, it must be thirteen years since the divorce...then again, could it be Angie, my stepmother? That was rich—I never even thought of the woman that way. Angie didn’t really exist, was in the same place Father resided. What the hell did they want? But the early hour pinched much of my venom even as I procrastinated over whether to answer or let the call go to voicemail. I’d been doing this for years and usually, it took another few calls from Father to guilt me into answering at all. Then I let practice take over.
It was hard to qualify why I didn’t like my father but hardly any doubt when it came to quantification. The past reared up and that familiar hard knot formed in my throat, again. No, better let it go to voicemail; what good would come from such an early morning call? None. But the dread of the creeping darkness stealing in through my bedroom window wouldn’t subside. Even as I heard the little jangle snippet of tune that announced I had a voicemail, I knew I’d have to at least listen.
And with a sudden grip on my heart, the thought rushed at me that maybe something had happened to Brandon! Unconsciously, I glanced quickly to a framed five by seven of my younger brother. Even with the dark glare of the chrome frame to distract me, I still saw his resemblance to Father. Unfortunately, I had a lot of his features, too. Oh, there’s some of Mom in both of us, but not as much as I see of Father looking back. Which only made me scowl and question my fear that much more. This wasn’t about Jessie, was it?
I looked to the second frame on my dresser; Jessie, four years younger and just in her first year of college, smiled back at me and I fought feelings of dread. Why would Father be calling me about either of them? Surely I’d been blunt enough by ignoring his calls and waiting to return any voicemail. And email? Forget that—just too damn busy to be socially entangled by the computer. Why didn’t he get the hint? He was just like Mom said; a lousy father and an even worse husband. And it’s not like I didn’t have enough memories of his yelling at me as a reminder.
Damn! Why did I always have to revert to a time of my life that I wished to forget? But, that’s just what seeing Father’s phone number show up on the LCD screen could produce; loathing and hate. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
Glancing at the number again, I felt the knot form in my stomach just thinking of what he might want. Oh, this was not going to be good, I just knew it.
Turning on a lamp shed shadows and forced the early morning to relinquish space, allowing me to find my fuzzy slippers. Mom had given them to me just this past Christmas. Wow; had it been that long already since I’d last seen her, Brandon, and Jess?
A smile crossed my lips even as I sifted coffee into its maker. Soon, and yet not too soon; I had to wait for the water to boil first. But unfortunately, this gave me more time to think about what message might be on the machine. I really did worry that maybe something had happened to Brandon. He was the only one of us still close to Father—it would make sense that maybe, just maybe, something had happened while Brandon was visiting. It couldn’t be Jess because she’d finally seen Father for what he was and moved in with Mom.
I let the phone hang from my ear, not really wanting to get that close to the voice I dreaded might be on the other end. As I heard Angie’s higher falsetto though, I relaxed into slack attention, something akin to barely caring. At least she didn’t make any bones about us not liking each other. I didn’t need more than one mom and anyway, there was no chance Angie would ever fill that spot in my life, not even temporarily—I’d made sure of that.
I think it was her tone which distracted my attention from the steady drip of black, liquid happiness falling into my cup. I focused intently on the message, barely holding my breath as I waited to hear either of my siblings’ names but neither came. And it was well into Angie’s message before I realized that I didn’t know what was wrong, only that something terrible had happened. Anyone could figure that out just by her anguish.
Shit! There HAD been an accident. Angie’s voice droned on and I had to replay the message again before I understood the situation. Father was in the ICU, the victim of some accident so horrific I couldn’t decipher it from Angie’s panic. Something about the L train and an explosion. Shit! Hadn’t there been something on the radio about that? What had he gotten himself into? I had to admit, it wasn’t like Father to be accidental; all his sins were self-invested. Immolation was his forte and I’d been on the receiving end all too often in the past. He was in the explosion?
As the voicemail trailed off, I brought the coffee to my lips and though it was hot, I assure you it didn’t come close to the temperature rising inside me. The long beep of the machine blared and then faded, the thought that this could wait until later dulling the bitterness of the black coffee; I was out of sugar.
***
I suppose I could have claimed I never got the call, but the next day wore to the point of fraying nerves. It was hard to enjoy time off when last night’s message wouldn’t stay in its bottle, wouldn’t lie quiet on the shelf on which I’d placed it. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt anxiety infiltrate, its familiar touch something which I tried to avoid. Why was it always this way with him?
I let the message play on by itself. In a hurry, I swept back into the bedroom, eschewing a shower and started to scrounge for clothes. Sweats and a hoodie would have to do. The UIC red and blue flames that is my alma mater, looked singed in the deepening dusk. Night was about to pour in off the streets and I was loathe to leave just yet. Couldn’t be helped; the sooner I did this, the sooner it would be over, though I’d have to be careful catching the L. Angie’s message hadn’t specifically said, but the only hospital my father is even aware of is Mercy. Had to be the right one.
I grabbed my cell and locking the door, slowly made my way toward the stairs, wondering what the hell I was doing.
***
This was why I never visited my grandmother before she died; the chemical smell of hospital halls always seems to cling to my nose and lungs. The way patients look back at you, or those that don’t and make you look closer—just two more reasons I hate hospitals. I was torn before ever taking a deep breath and plunging into the revolving door. Honestly, I almost kept walking right back out again. But I didn’t; something inside me wouldn’t let me go back home. And I wanted to, badly. Was it guilt drawing me here or something less conspicuous? Maybe it was just pure curiosity because I needed to know why Angie had called me. Surely someone else could have been pressed into this, couldn’t they? Kicking myself for ever listening to the answering machine at all, I checked in with the reception desk, my face one of the least concerned that the girl manning the phones would see this night.
“Can you tell me where to find Matt Owens?”
There was a slight pause and then full attention given as she put the phone back in its cradle.
“Are you family?”
What was I supposed to say? Yeah, sure, I’m the daughter he hasn’t loved since the divorce; does that still make me family?
I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t have to say anything at all.
The young receptionist scanned her computer screen and clucking her tongue, furrowed one eyebrow. I decided to help her.
“Paramedics brought him in from the train incident.”
She turned to give my words some credence and then her hand went to her mouth as if surprised, yet trying to cover up. Why?
“Oh, yes; wait, I think the police were directed to the emergency room. Yes, Matt Owens—but he’s now in the ICU. Here, let me write the room number down for you. The ICU is on the north side, straight down the hall and then left to the elevators. Room 325. The police will have to clear you, first.”
Police? Angie hadn’t mentioned that.
Nodding my thanks, I was glad I didn’t have to speak any more. Curiosity definitely had me now. Surprised, I felt a coolness claim my skin, worming its way toward my chest.
The doors to the elevators seemed to take forever to close and I watched the doctors and nurses passing by, their faces devoid of any emotion. I’d have been constantly anguished for my patients, were I them. But that’s why I’d become an editor; though books and authors could bleed, most of the time, the wounds were self inflicted.
As the halls channeled me closer to the ICU, I found my steps slowing with a reticence that I knew only too well. It was always a chore putting on the loving-daughter facade. Of course, both he and Angie probably weren’t fooled, but well, addressing the real problems always brought more trauma and drama than I could handle. That’s if I acknowledge it at all. Brandon once mentioned this fact about me but of course I dismissed him as both immature and inexperienced about the world. Still, the boy was growing up; now in his senior year at Northwestern, he’d make some woman a good husband some day—at least if he kept listening to me and Mom. And yet, he could be so annoying sometimes—no doubt because Father kept saying things he shouldn’t. Father...someone I wish would just leave me and my life alone and yet, for some reason, he was still trying. He knows so little about me that I can’t see why he bothers.
I pressed the large black button on the wall to alert the nursing station that I was waiting for admittance. The doors swung open all too swiftly for me and far too slowly for the two doctors passing through from the other side. I registered their young faces, almost pubescent and certainly lacking sleep as they grimly completed another thirty-six hour round. I felt sorry for a moment until I remembered that they had to be here whereas I didn’t. I’m the one someone should be sorry for.
The smells were worse as I neared the ICU and as I peered slyly inside each room while scanning for number 325, the myriad tubes and blinking lights from all the life-saving machines became threatening. There was an arrogance pressing in on me from every dull pastel tile, from every pallid face lying on a gurney. They stared back from behind reflective glass that showed my face growing more and more set. I had to brace, I needed to—the idea there were sick and dying people all around me was galling. And though I could empathize with the few visitors keeping silent vigils in the ICU rooms, reading their desperate faces and stolid resolve only shamed me. I found I was recoiling from their gaze and forcefully reset my eyes on room numbers.
With my eyes fixed, I finally turned down the hall that contained the room that housed Father.
325 blazed on a Lucite marker about head high. Surprised to see visitors waiting on either side of the hall, I felt their eyes turn as one, each pair taking in my face as if my reason for coming was under scrutiny. The other halls held patients beneath light blue covers complete with heavy plastic bags drip, drip, dripping through a plethora of tubes. Some tubes had colored finger valves and others disappeared beneath hospital gowns to who knew where. There’d been precious few family or friends either outside or inside the other rooms. But this hall held a scatter of bodies, some lying prone on benches, some sitting upright or slouching into one another, and still more leaning on one leg to stave off anxious worry from setting in. Each though, turned their head and opened their eyes to note my presence as I advanced down the hall whose tiles laid out my path as if it were a yellow brick road.
A wiry, unkempt boy of about seventeen pierced me with his hard agate eyes, black and cutting. I nearly stopped, and felt the breath in my lungs crystallize. There was a suspicion about me reflected in his eyes, something I’d seen once before but had forgotten where. He was a skinny rat of a boy, someone on the edge of Chicago night as it set on the alleyways and empty train rails; he was a drug addict if I’d ever seen one. He was dressed in clothes so soiled that I wondered how the hospital had even allowed him in.
The woman next to him let shoulder-length blond hair slip from beneath a red hood, her eyes catching mine and turning away even as I escaped from the pathetic boy’s opening stare. A man next to her gave up his shoulder, hiding a golden gleam in his ear. The tattoo radiating from beneath his leather jacket twisted and spiraled until I lost it beneath his wrist. I never did see his eyes, though I knew he was looking at me from behind smoke-mirrored glasses just the same.
I know there were others but I’d finally pinpointed room 325 and the presence of others faded like so many memories with Father. I’d arrived.
The door was open, flung back actually, and pinned by an enormous vinyl chair, held like a rock holds open an ogre’s cave. I could feel the stale air, its fetid gloom permeating even as far as where I stood on the brink of entering. I needed to force myself, I needed to hold my breath and do this. Why had I been called?
As if sound had been sequestered beneath the smells of the hospital, the oddness of one single, solitary inclusion slowed me just as I was about to go in. I held the doorway as if wondering why Fate was being so uncompromising. The sound though, was a pattern; soft thump, soft thump, soft thump then nothing. Only to be repeated. I turned my head slowly, as if unable to locate exactly where it was coming from. There, near the end of the hall and beyond a tall, graying man sitting propped up against a wall, a young boy was bouncing a ball. I idly wondered who he was here for, and why the nurses were letting him bounce his ball while there were so many sick people lying all about. I know I sought his face but I don’t remember what he looked like, as if he were the only one whose eyes were not looking at me as I entered. Like trying to touch fog, my mind slipped past him and I turned my attention to the back of the room, to the form lying on the hospital bed near the window. There was the dim glow of a light, but it was coming from a corner of the room hidden from my sight, its shadows casting sprawling luminescence. Nevertheless, it was a warming glow and I felt its welcome. Strange.
The sounds from the life-support system broke the light’s spell. A quiet, gentle hiss and purge became a texture I could taste, something which wanted to resonate inside me but something which I jealously doubled my guard against. I listened and heard the mechanical heartbeat, the electronic beep that signaled its progress, its purpose. And in listening to that pattern, I came to hear my father’s heart, understanding he was still alive.
The light resolved into a soft, warm glow that lit up one corner of the room, illuminating the awkwardly sleeping form of Angie. I saw her nearly all-white hair, cut just below her ear and yet, still touching her shoulders. The lines about her eyes and mouth were something I’d not noticed before. Though she was almost ten years Father’s junior, the early onset of gray, and now white, had whittled that distance down to almost nothing. I watched as she slumped in a chair, watched her slow, steady breathing, the cable-knit sweater a rising mound of woven red. Her mouth was open and she snored, albeit quietly.
From where Angie dozed, my eyes flitted down trails of tubes and wires and unerringly found the hospital blue swaddled form lying at tubes’ and wires’ end. A long, slow sigh escaped and I hurried to hush it into silence. This wasn’t what I wanted to feel.
I lingered on the balding plane of skin from which Father’s short, gray hair receded. His eyebrows, however, were still fairly dark and with the hollows surrounding his eyes, gave him a rather ominous look. He too had his mouth open, but mainly because of the tube which disappeared inside. Father was sporting a goatee now, I saw. I’d never seen him without some form of facial hair and had grown up seeing a rather lumpish mustache most of my life. The color of his face was blotchy, unsure if it wanted to be pasty white or mottled, glowing pink. Something had happened to him, for sure.
I watched his chest rise, realizing that the tube was from a ventilator and that Father wasn’t breathing on his own. For the first time in a very long time, I almost opened the gate of my emotions but caught myself in time. He was just a man...he was not really my father...certainly not in any way I understood or wanted.
His eyelids fluttered and I watched fascinated, thinking the old man was caught in some epic battle and not in obvious unconsciousness. Did he fight? And if so, what? Or rather, what for? All he had left was Angie and as I turned to look at her again, I wondered for the hundredth time what she saw in him. Was it his words? Was it the voice which could choose to make me so upset and full of pain? It was a mystery that I didn’t want to entertain though, and so I dropped it, letting the ventilator suck it up with its own sinuous sound. I didn’t need this.
Noting that the room was lit with more light than any one lamp could possibly give, the other source at last revealed itself, thrusting it’s own fluorescence into my sight. I approached Angie and noticed she held a laptop at a precarious angle. Its light shone awkwardly upward, spilling over the sleeping woman’s face and flowing into the ICU’s shadows.
I reached down and took the computer from her grasp without waking her. Wouldn’t do to have it crash to the floor and wake her. How long Angie had been sleeping I couldn’t tell, but she looked worn and held by deeper dreams. Angie’s face was haggard, almost as worn as Father’s. I let her sleep because it was better that way.
About to close the laptop, my finger hit a key and the screen blazed fully back into life. The sudden flush of new light dazzled me and for a moment, I was blinded. Hell, didn’t she know about reducing the brightness? No one used a computer this brightly.
As I was reaching for the dimmer button, my eyes drifted across the screen and I stopped my hand. Words were moving, as if water in a stream, as if stars shooting across a night sky. They were rearranging themselves into well-knit structures with a fluid grace only an editor could appreciate. The kind of editor I’d become. Without consciously realizing it, my eyes were drawn to the words on the screen, had seen the glare of my own name...right there, in too many pixels to count!
I glanced quickly again at Angie, relaxing my breath as I saw she hadn’t moved. The soft snore reassured and I made my way to the other sofa chair. Mercy Hospital did things right when it came to accommodating its visitors and as I settled back into encompassing arms of vinyl-covered foam, I was suddenly struck with fatigue. But then, I’d only had about three hours sleep the night before. I began to feel the crush of weariness leach out of the chair’s comfort and fought its grip. My curiosity was piquing and in front of such a formidable force, even tiredness quails.
As the regularity of the ventilator synched with the rising of my father’s chest, I scanned the page once again for my name, wondering why the hell it was even there. But it seems I had come in the middle, or possibly near the beginning, so I had to scroll back until I could understand why my father felt inclined to talk about me.
That it was my father’s computer was too evident. He had such weird habits from his childhood. Naming his hard drive in an adolescent way, ‘MiddleEarth’ formed an icon on the right side of the desktop. MiddleEarth; something found in Tolkien’s trilogy ‘The Lord of The Rings’, a large tome which I dimly remember him reading to us as kids. Of course, that was before the divorce, before I’d left to live with Mom.
Oh, it was Father’s laptop alright—it even had the voice of Jess as an email alert, the voice a recording of when she was probably only six. All this time...and he was still using that? I silently shook my head, seeing the ridiculousness of his mind. Jessie didn’t live with him anymore—couldn’t he just accept that? And just because it was a Mac, that alone would have tipped me off that it was Father’s. He never did understand why anyone would ever use a PC. Just another thing he liked to rant about. Then again, I’d not had to endure much of his Mac-PC bias. But Brandon had, because Brandon had stayed. I blame you, Father, for steering him wrong in that area, another in which you always had to be right.
As I thought about him, as memories shook off cobwebs and rose on inky wings toward cave’s egress, I felt my cheeks beginning to flush with anger and hurt. No, I wouldn’t do this, couldn’t do this, not now...
And as I scrolled toward the beginning, I realized that the words were moving because the computer was in the middle of decryption. Now, what was so important that Father had to hide it in the first place? And why was my name coming up?
Though I could feel the tongue of guilt lick my lips, another glance showed Angie still fast asleep and Father’s chest rising in syncopation with the ventilator; there was no danger of being found out. I just had to know what the old man was writing about, and why I was mentioned.
The text appeared to be a story and yet, where it began did not give me any solace. As I read the words though, I began to change my mind. I began to wonder if these were not words which described what my father had seen but rather, the rush of blood and the release of breath...
Chapter 2
Matt
There was a snap at my back, teeth closing only on air but tightly nonetheless. The coolness of the night uttered a faint cry as its needle-like claws of frost were abruptly severed, the faintly acidic air of the car scarring its latent intent. I leaned against the closed doors, feeling the smooth metal beseeching the night as if a wounded lover. The moment should have hung in a deliverance I so desperately desired, but it proved callow and false. And when I heard Ellie’s voice announce the door status, I could almost swear her voice had changed.
Ellie was the mechanical imprint of a mischievous software engineer and with almost everything she said, it was plainly evident. Most of Chicago’s elevated train lines came equipped with male service voices, eunuchs whose dispassion any rider of the L soon learned to ignore, until it was their stop. And while it was true that in the past Ellie had seemed to call to me, like no other night, this time I thought I could actually hear her humanity. Or perhaps inhumanity is closer to the truth. She could sound so utterly innocent and then when you least expected, her voice would go cold and mocking, especially if the gurgling heat made you drowsy as your stop came and went, all the while your mind mesmerized by that damned, haunting voice!
Ellie was being nice now though, and I heard her welcome me aboard even if no one else heard my name spoken.
Hi, Ellie; I’m back. One more time.
I leaned heavily on the doors as the train lurched from the station’s grip, the iron clasp of rail reluctantly releasing its prey. Or was it like two lovers needing respite? Ellie didn’t intrude on my thoughts and I was left to speculate.
I leaned because of surprise. And wariness. And annoyance. It was one in the morning, for Chrissakes! What were all these people doing on my car?
The collar of my overcoat slipped to my shoulder, exposing my neck to the thin stream of air that wormed its way between the crack of the doors. I felt it and I didn’t, as my attention was being fully demanded. Who were these people and why were they here? At this time of night on a weekday, the car should have been empty but it wasn’t. Dammit! It should have been empty...
My eyes flashed to the slow passing of signage plastering the inside of the station even as we pulled away. ‘Have it your way’. Burger King. I let the slogan drip like ice in spring, before the season really arrives. Have it my way...it had an ominous feel to it, that’s for sure.
The sudden snap of paper being folded interrupted my anxiety enough to pinch at my eyes. What? Wallstreet? No...it couldn’t be...his time was earlier; the late, after dinner crowd on its way home to the burbs. What was he still doing here?
Wallstreet was a regular, someone I’d never spoken to directly but had seen often enough to know his proclivities. He was one of those, the type who felt the market belonged to them alone. He was a stockbroker, I smiled slyly; I didn’t want him to see anyone was paying him any attention—he’d no doubt like that too much. But though I furtively watched him crease his paper with a perfectly manicured hand, I knew his eyes would be imprisoned by the flood of text, and especially numbers, that filled up the context of his life. Wallstreet was like a caricature of every movie character named Gordon Gecko. He was the market’s idiot savant, or at least, he thought so. A man who loved control, which meant everything had to be on time, as if his life was somehow scheduled. How many hours had I watched him pouring over a newspaper that had no right even being in Chicago? Why he hadn’t already relocated his kingdom to the Big Apple was beyond me.
With a curious feeling of mirth, I saw he wasn’t his normally clean-shaven self tonight, or rather, this morning. The web of shadow announcing a five-o’clock rendezvous gave him a tired look, though his eyes still paced religiously and frenetically. As my eyes meshed with the unusual creases I found in his five hundred dollar Ralph Lauren and its accompanying red silk tie, another sound ripped at my gaze, demanding I acknowledge it. It was a chuckle.
Not like most chuckles, this one was raspy and deep-throated, its intimacy daring me to go further. The sound was to my left, about halfway to the car’s other end, and as I picked out the last station light beyond the Plexiglas window, its owner resolved from blur and into trembling solidity. It was Ernie. Ernie; one half of a duo I’d nicknamed Bert and Ernie—two older Chicagoans who routinely took the L. They were usually on their way to either Wrigley field or to the bar across the street; Murphy’s Bleachers.
Ernie’s receding white hair glimmered garishly each time the fluorescents overhead flickered, synced with the rails beneath the car. Even from inside the L, one can always hear the protest of wheels on iron track; there were always too many memories for the metal to contain for long. As a heartbeat though, the rhythm of the rails approximated the beat in my chest on any good day. But this wasn’t going to be a good day and I knew it. My car was supposed to be empty.
At sixty-nine, Ernie was a fifth generation British ghost, thin and gaunt, his voice exaggerating the thin film of an accent he refused to lose. As a matter of fact, I think that in the years since I’d ridden the L with him, it had only strengthened. But I knew his body had not, and even as I leaned against the doors wondering why both he and Bert were abroad so late, I could hear the rasp of cancer eating his lungs away. I remember the first time he stumbled last summer as he and Bert unloaded to catch another Cubs game. I remember how quickly Bert caught the frail man. Uncanny how quick he’d been...
Bert’s voice rose above the bubble of noise from the car and I distinctly heard the name ‘Maddux’ between ‘best Cubs’ pitcher’ and Ernie’s garbled protestation of ‘Sutcliffe’ interjected. I couldn’t help but smile because I’d been privy to this seemingly ageless debate between them. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I knew if given enough time, I’d hear Ryne’s name mentioned too; how you could compare the same second baseman from two different playoff teams separated by five long years, was beyond me. But the old pals did and would and always seemed to. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that nothing was more important to either of them than to finally decide which Cubs team was better.
Bert soft voice untangled itself from Ernie’s and my eyes found the dark-haired Pollack; as over-weight as Ernie was thin, his jowly face looked especially pinked beneath the Blue Line’s night strobes. I nodded slightly as his gaze caught mine, his smile of conspiracy punctuated by a gap where his favorite tooth was missing. At least, he claimed it was his favorite, though I could never understand since it was missing. He had on his reading glasses which told me he must have the ’89 Cubs media guide on his lap. I wondered if Ernie had the ’84 version on his...
The soft murmur was broken by a strident voice from my right. Turning my head, I distinctly felt the stream of air shift, its sinuous grasp deflected upward toward my ear, almost as if there were words the night scene wanted to be known. But why they thought I would ever put such lies down on paper or in pixels, was beyond me. Intimate, we each knew the other’s limitations. I wasn’t listening anyway because Siren had begun again.
Siren; that’s not her real name. Both Wallstreet and Plato like to call her Cate, but I’m almost sure it’s a deceit because that’s what Siren does...what she is. To those about her, to those within her voice’s reach though, she is truly like her moniker. She is the siren, the one whose call cannot be denied. In the many times she’s been on the L with me, I’ve never heard her call my name, though.
But Jax has heard his often. Heard and ignored, which makes the tattooed Harley biker somewhat of a notoriety. But he’s familiar with her tactic—I’m familiar with her tactic; it’s one I’ve seen her use too often, though as I said, it never seems to work on Jax, and she never grasps this. How a man can refuse the invitation of such a fantasy was often subject of discussion. But never when either is still aboard, oh no, we dared not do that. You didn’t talk about Siren like that to her face; she’d have none of that.
Siren sat cross-legged, her skirt stopping at mid-calf and exposing the dagger-like spike of her open-toed heels. In the winter? My mind boggled as I considered this. I mean, the CTS didn’t take care of its stations that well, the snow could pile past her ankles. From within a flowing red hood, golden braids of promise swirled about her shoulders and threatened the arch of her cheeks. With eyes a fluid premise of Francis Bacon’s brush, Siren was a lurid painting which belied nothing. Where her lips left off, her heavily lined lids picked up, until the blue wells of her irises swallowed you more fully than any presidential fallacy. She often wore black nail polish and chewed gum, blowing bubbles with those fabulous lips and inciting the men. When she can be distracted from her iPod, that is.
She chose to banter with the intimidating good looking biker boy Jax caging her, the surprising part always that Jax bantered back. To any except Siren, it was obvious that his soul couldn’t be bought by the press of her flesh in his hand. Even as I tried to catch their voices, I won’t deny that something inside me is envious...jealous even. It’s been a long time since such a time was mine, but though I’m deprived knowing the man I’ve become, it hasn’t stopped me from dreaming. Within these words which try to reclaim me, I struggle to keep my head above water. The voices of Siren and Jax in coy seduction always make me a little bitter...I wonder if they know how old I’ve become...
And yet, I like Jax—Bryan Jackson, actually, but no one ever calls him that and it’s been a long time since I even thought of tagging him ‘biker-boy’. That was then and I’ve learned a lot about him since. Don’t let his tattoos and leather framed muscles fool you—Jax is alive behind his smoke and mirror shades, believe me. Of all those that ride everyday on the L, Jax has never been a threat to me, and that’s worth noting.
As I let his form blur into a smudge of black and silver chain, I caught his wink and tight grin. But I wasn’t in the mood to return such charity. Another couple had moved. And in their stirring, the riddle of their being assaulted my senses, clutching at my psyche even as the train swung through the vastness of a long, slow turn. Our speed hadn’t even peaked yet and I already felt the pull of the tracks on the car. The stir again made me wonder why I wasn’t alone.
Jack and Jill. That’s what I’d been forced to name them. No one knew their real names but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them as anything but the fairy tale. They’re the lovers, and once, I could relate to their innocence and youth, two characteristics not always found together. I sometimes find my gaze settling on the pair, envy and disdain polarized within me. I find he’s too clingy and she not nearly enough.
Jack stirred in his sleep, causing Jill to move as if invisible strings attached made them into marionettes. Jack and Jill were new to the L, a couple of kids that wantonly lashed out at any sense of propriety. Looking at them made me wonder if they weren’t kissing even now, behind nictitating eyelids timed with the rush of moonlight traipsing through the car’s windows. The way the shadows imprisoned their forms couldn’t approximate the way they held each other. For the past few months, I’d watched them ogle each other, furtive looks that passed between, spying nonchalant touches that stole beneath public perception and clothing. But their tangle of young love only nonplussed my pen. I couldn’t find the words and struggle even now to put what I see into some framework for my mind to recall later. To categorize and prioritize, mind you; not for any spurious declaration later.
She is not as young as he and this truth isn’t as easy for me to understand because her maturity seemed to demand its equal. Watching her watch him had finally confirmed this guess and with diligence, I made the appropriate notes. Her blonde hair is flat bleached, plastered with the color of corn silk, as if she belongs in the fields. I still don’t know. No more than I know where he comes from either. But I can at least relate to Jack...well, barely. The look he gave Jill was one that niggled at my memory, wanting to be a wave whose wash ashore I should never forget simply because of how high it had ridden. But the grains of sand a cresting wave took with it, were taken from me without my permission and so I cloaked the memory in veils of doubt. I always have doubt...even Plato thinks so.
Plato—he of the jutting jaw and cheekbones, of the London gray eyes and drowning in a very British accent. Plato, who sits far to my right on the other side of the car, whose eyes have already caught mine as the doors of the car closed. An eye that understood from my posture that I wasn’t going to be a very good debate partner, not tonight. Again the thought of ‘why are you here, now?’ bristled beneath my demeanor as I regained my balance by pulling up on the fluid chrome of the rail over my head. But being unsure, that feeling devolved into a deeper sadness. Gravity rectified as the curve of track was finally traversed.
Professor Powell had become Plato to me, and is a straight laced man who never goes anywhere without a tie. Didn’t always need the suit jacket, but the tie was a given. Looking like Lyle Lovett, I didn’t imagine he had much chance with Siren, but I’ve been surprised by women before, as if looks were number ten on their list. Maybe he had a chance after all. Making matters worse for him though, is that his smile is crooked with two front teeth overlapping. If he didn’t speak so well, I know he could fall into a comics page and be right at home.
The man liked to talk, liked to express all the science he’d sucked up during four long years of doctoral school. He brought his briefcase wherever he went but never opened it, as if its mere presence was enough to validate everything he says. Maybe it is. I wondered if he didn’t have tenure though, would he be as confident?
Plato’s philosophic sword typically skewered the ideals of the man across from him. Odd, I’d never noticed before that they never seemed to sit on the same side of the car. I can’t say why this revelation bothered me, but it did. Why couldn’t they come together? And was it Plato or the Jesus Freak who determined which side of the car to initially take?
While Plato looked like every college professor I’d ever had, the Jesus Freak was straight out of the movies—he had long hair that was seldom combed, a matching beard flowing from an equally dark mustache, and brows which served as a forest for his deep brown eyes. JF was like all the actors who’d ever portrayed Jesus in the movies. I once asked Plato who or what he saw whenever he posed his arguments to JF and his answer was vague, almost frightening; he said that often the man looked faceless, like an everyman. I thought it an odd expression and I began then to question the prof’s credibility. I liked Plato but why was he on the L at this time of night? Hadn’t he a class in the morning or something?
Where the professor’s presence seemed strange to me, JF’s did not. I never did pin his schedule down and no matter what time I’m on the L, JF is there too, if I want him to be. That was the problem; sometimes I didn’t and if I questioned myself as to why, I had no answer; just another blur of doubt that disguised itself as reason. In all the stale air and rank suggestion of late night bums and urine, JF surely belonged. Just him and no one else. I once surmised that maybe he liked it this way, though I didn’t know why. And he would only wink at me if I asked. I guess some secrets take a lot longer to fathom, perhaps more time than such a person as myself is given. He had this annoying habit of always wanting to help, even if the person didn’t want help. He just winked when I asked him about that, too. It was a comical scene though, when he’d ask and the other would refuse; JF’s face would fall and he reminded me then of the puppy that couldn’t fetch his master’s paper.
At the moment, his unkempt form was slouched against the window, hair half covering his face, drowning in subtle snoring. The fog forming on the window pane confirmed this. Plato must have gotten all big-bang-centric again, I surmised. I hoped JF got a good nap just the same. His worn plaid shirt of blue and black winked back at me, the fluorescents making his form shimmer even more than usual. I noticed that the holes in his jeans were wider than last time, exposing more of his knees. I worried about the winter getting to the man, wanting to take my overcoat and drape it about his sleeping form. But no, not tonight; my hand in my pocket was a grim reminder of why not. All in all, JF was an idealist lost inside the soul of the world, trying to get out.
Tap, tap, tap. The new sound actually had been ongoing but in my annoyance, I’d dismissed it. It was a sound I was familiar with, was comfortable being around; it was like a song whose refrain I’d practiced for a long time. Twisting my head to the left, I knew I had to look down; not because Manny was short, but rather, because he didn’t know how to sit upright. Manny took slouching to a new high, perfecting the art form. In fact, Manny was most at home in any position except standing straight. Even when departing the train at University station, his slump seems premeditated to ward him from visibility. But how could you miss his almost perfect ascetic features? Just the jet blackness of his hair, which hung always in front of his eyes, was enough to separate him from most passengers. As students of UIC go, he prided himself on anonymity, but he couldn’t fool me—Qi, or Manny as he wished to be called, held a perfect 4.0 and was deep into the machinations of theoretical quantum physics. Then there were the rumors, mainly gleaned from Wallstreet’s obsessive behavior toward the boy, that Manny was a wickedly brilliant math major, too.
Manny was always on his laptop and I likened his fingers to webs, his eyes and body infallibly connected by strings of electrons and neutrons which only he could see. He tried to smile, understanding I was complimenting him, but since he was no English major, conveniently let my words gloss over him and past. From the moment he’d turned toward learning, I knew and liked him. Or maybe it was because of Wallstreet’s continual chastising that opened doors of understanding between us. Manny would never tell me though, which it was or if I was even close.
He caught my smile as though it was a moth in his hand, and though he didn’t say a word, I felt him fold it inside his heart. He knew just like I did. The fact he tap, tap, tapped on a Mac was just too delicious a coincidence for me to ever ignore!
As if a ballet, it was Jill’s turn to move within their lover’s grasp and I shifted my gaze to watch; the scene reminded me of the tumble of water over river bottom stones. First it was a movement of hips, then a fluid slinking connection to blue-jeaned legs before bottoms on hard plastic L seats curled in the opposite direction, as if repenting. I saw Jack’s head slough forward and wrap itself next to Jill’s flaxen hair, each invisible string stretched but far from taut. As Jill settled against the mirror of the chrome rail’s curvature, attaching herself to the car’s wall, Jack’s other arm was drawn not against its will but elastically enthralled to the girl’s waist, home being a house with familiar rooms. The smile on the boy’s face never changed and though the flicker of light streaked his spiked hair bizarrely, the rose in his youthful cheeks contained innocence enough for the both of them. With his lips a breath away from her ear, I thought I saw a wisp of virtuosity daring me to understand. Well, I didn’t, and so I turned my gaze to the pretty girl of thirty years who like me, sat in the same seat each time she boarded, and always opposite mine.
There’s too many lost moments when I watch Prudy, though there’s absolutely nothing between us. She’s almost young enough to be my daughter and that’s how I think of her. Not to say I can’t see her ‘girl-next-door-ness’, because I’m not blind, but the way she hangs onto the past is nothing I ever fully understood. She dresses too conservatively, the bind of her brown, shoulder-length hair beneath a little girl’s restraining band always makes me pause; what age is she pretending to be? Prudy is always properly prim and Puritan in body and mind, quick to show you her perfect teeth. For precisely these reasons though, we could converse well enough, despite I’ve left the roads she’s chosen. But I like her small smile, and she always has a kind word to say when our paths cross on the L.
It was her soft hello that finally convinced me that I should probably sit down, despite my initial surprise and consternation. The ride into the city would take time, and without knowing if I’d encounter any slow zones or delays, I really had no idea how long. The CTA isn’t exactly known for it’s efficiency.
Prudy’s holding a book in one hand and noting the lateness (or earliness, I asserted) of the hour even as I shuffled to take my seat. We both sit near the doors, always by the doors and never in the corners, never on the edge. Once though, I thought I might take a chance but when I did, the claustrophobia sent me back screaming. No, I chose the empty seat near the doors where the chrome rail is smeared with the fingerprints of millions of riders who’d made the L their home—for a little while at least.
Prudy’s voice deteriorated into a jumble I didn’t want to untangle, though I tried to pretend I was listening. As she curled a lock of hair about a perfect finger, I caught the pursing of her lips. Wasn’t she always this way, though? Wearing very little makeup, the roundness and depth of her brown eyes guided those that looked upon her plain but quaint face. Prudy wasn’t beautiful—not as I might write in a flood of lustful words about Siren—but there was no denying she has the simplicity of buttercups in summer and is twice as sweet. Too bad she distrusts any man who thinks of getting close. Friendship is the fence line she runs alongside and dares not cross.
The car lurched but it wasn’t from the train itself but rather, from a burst of static as the L’s version of Muzak. The music, which was crowding shadows beneath the seats, fluctuated. I watched Prudy’s eyes as she filtered out the sound, as she sifted through the change. And I knew. I knew because inherent to the L in both attitude and animosity, wasted excuse lived to forage among the dreck and jetsam of Chicago’s Blue Line.
As though the tracks down his arm were surgically attached to the boom box, the addict inhabiting the boy everyone called Spyder, opened one of Night’s windows and wafted inside. I can’t remember when he first showed up on the L and began to infiltrate the words of my journal, but he’d ensconced himself into the fabric of the passengers familiar with the sixth car of the Blue Line. I can’t remember but it seems like forever. At first, his very nature was an affront to what I call righteous. And it wasn’t until I’d been wound up in one of Plato’s and JF’s dilemmas that Spyder fully materialized. Over a very short time, the aura surrounding the boy’s deep-set eyes demanded stature.
Or maybe it’s because he has this knack for finding just the right song on the boom box. He has such a repertoire of music that I no longer can deny he must have power over the radio waves. As long as he didn’t try to deal his waste on me, I could be content to ride with him, but it’s fair to say I still don’t trust him. No one does, not even Wallstreet, for whom ethics never seem a bother. Not even him.
Spyder is the boy of shadows and light, and he’s been hooked ever since I’ve known him. It’s in his eyes, which will startle you if you’re not ready for his gaze. He’s skinny and mangy, wears clothes you’d swear are either stolen or from the Salvation Army. He’s young on the surface but his persona reeks of being ages older. I’m always watching him, knowing him for the thief he is. But he’s crafty, just like the devil. He looks hard like train track iron, but if you watch him long enough, you’ll see he wipes his nose with the most feminine handkerchief I’ve ever seen. Jax says it belonged to his mother, but I’m not sure about that. He also says she was addicted too, but he won’t say to what.
The music flipped, a stitch time dropped and suddenly the cadence changed. We all heard it but other than Jax and I, there was little in the way of speculation. Music changed all the time, didn’t it? Plato had the solidity of his science to explain it away but I knew there was more to it than that. It was in Spyder’s eyes; eyes so jet that I felt the bottomless-ness of such a gaze, felt the inherent danger associated with even trying to find out where the boy lived, metaphorically.
And as the song changed, I wasn’t as surprised as some of the others. Certainly, I was more surprised than Norman and Ethel though. Once again, as if on cue—and I shot Spyder a hard, penetrating stare—the resident old couple of the L suddenly got to their feet and began dancing. It looked like a two step and if I ask, I’m sure they’ll tell me. With a small smile on my face, I’m watching two old people ‘dance the light fantastic’ beneath the flickering disco ball I like to call CTA lighting.
Norman has to be almost ninety now—I’ve been riding the L for years and he was old even then. Round, thin silver framed glasses cling to his nose and the gray hair in his ears contrasts with sunken cheeks. And yet, Norman is a character that only time and experience can provide. Whenever I look into his eyes directly, and not casually as most are wont to do with old folks, the depth of breaking seas is suddenly a pull on my heart that I cannot explain. And I know better than to ask, too. It’s enough that Ethel knows.
Ethel still has the sparkle of youth in her eyes, though the color of her hair beneath a green scarf is a pretense only she still believes. The lines about the corners of her mouth and eyes betray how long time has had to endure her. But I see secrets inside, mysteries that are now calling to me because age is a slide I’ve acknowledged. When Ethel speaks or laughs, her voice cracks and wavers, yet you can still hear her love for Norman. Years and years have passed since they chose each other and they’ll tell you the tale ad nauseum, should you make the mistake of asking. I did, but only once. Still, I’ve never been sorry I did.
As I lift the top half of my laptop to begin writing, Ethel quickly and fluidly apologizes for dancing too close, even though I know she isn’t. She’s like that, always thinking she’s a burden to someone, though Norman doesn’t do anything to dissuade her in this. The rest of us assure her she’s not. Sometimes, I don’t understand what she sees in the man, and other times, it’s only too obvious.
I’m surprised. And perplexed. But mostly, I’m annoyed. The car was supposed to be empty at this time of night. As the familiar tone of the startup sound placates the anxiety building in my soul, I turn and see those whom I’ve known for a while now, some even longer, and a couple not very long at all. But each has their reason for being on my car, on this night, as if my mission has become theirs. But no, they can’t know that—I haven’t told anyone. Some things a man has to do himself, and this is one of them.
I was about to move the cursor on the screen when the hardness along my thigh distracted me. But it was only for a moment and then, it passed. The night has only just begun and already, I can feel that words need to be let loose. I flexed my fingers, the sound merging with the roar of the L. No one hears my fingers crack, no one hears them creak, and certainly, no one hears them conform once again.
And that’s when a new sound perforates my now not-so-perfect plans. The sound comes from the far end of the car, it comes as a thrum beneath the flickering fluorescents. It comes and alters the crescendo of the car on its track. But despite this alteration, it comes with a pattern of its own. A pattern I recognize and that’s what scares me most.
I lift my eyes from the keyboard, past the waiting, blinking cursor, beyond the stretch of humanity clinging to the L’s chrome handles and worn, blue plastic seats. There, as though I should have seen him the moment I felt the doors close behind me, another passenger flames surprise, my confusion and ultimately, my annoyance. The moment is fleeting, and I record faithfully as I always have. And yet, what I see is hard to describe. I can only say there’s a boy. He looks about twelve and he’s said nothing to anyone. But nothing is not always a quiet sound. In this case, he’s bouncing a ball, a blue, rubber ball. The sound is a thump, a soft thump, thump, thump and then there’s silence. Then the pattern is repeated. Each time the ball hits the floor of the L, the sound reverberates and I begin to link it’s rhythm to my breathing. Soft thump, thump, thump and then, silence.
Uncanny.
