BUMPS
A Novella
Jon Rutherford
Copyright 2012 Jon Rutherford
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This is a work of fiction.
BUMPS
A Novella
Part One: How It Began
“Did you have a nice Christmas?” he said.
The sandy-haired youth was holding onto the strap in front of mine. The route between the San Diego de Campostela Avenue and Remington-Staidly stations is notoriously bumpy and has been for years. I guess they can’t figure out how to fix the tracks. Experienced passengers know to brace themselves at the right moment, just before all the jostling begins, and then hang on for all they’re worth.
The young man must have been new to the subway, for the first jolt after Campostela slammed him forcefully against me. I got whiffs of his citrus-y aftershave and of the clean scent of his skin, along with a hint of stale, honest sweat, probably from working in some low-paying office job. Highly paid workers don’t have to sweat.
His body careened harmlessly off of mine, and I saw him firm up his grip on the overhead strap and shift one foot to get better purchase against the next jolt he instinctively knew was bound to occur, the only question being when.
“Sorry!” he said, partially turning to meet my eyes. “That was quite a bump.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Hang on.”
As an act of self-preservation, I’d committed to memory, over the course of three or four of my first trips, the pattern of events. Right after you dimly glimpse all those shattered tiles in the tunnel walls about two-thirds of the way between the rotting platforms of the long-abandoned Farley St. and Hildebrand Heights stations, comes a bump far rougher than the first one. It hadn’t gone away since my last trip, and it took place right on schedule.
The young man was propelled backwards as though by some invisible hand. This time he actually lost hold of his strap and started to tumble sideways. I’d foreseen this, and was ready. As soon as his body contacted mine and I felt its downward slide, I grasped hold of him, right hand under his right arm, left beneath the left, and in a jiffy had him righted again. I could feel his heart thumping away.
“Wow!” he exclaimed. “Is it like this all over town, or did I just pick the worst stretch?” He laughed nervously.
“Well,” I said, reluctantly letting go of him now that he was upright once more and gripping his strap with white knuckles, “this is probably the worst, but I haven’t explored every mile of the system, so don’t quote me.”
I knew there was a third, killer bump coming up in about forty-five seconds at the rate we were traveling today, but decided not to warn my fellow rider. To my shame or not, I’d relished that brief physical contact when I broke his fall, and was looking forward to doing it again.
“Man. Thanks for what you did back there.”
“Sure,” I said. “Oh, and, yeah, Christmas was okay, I guess. How about you?”
“Well...” he said. I hadn’t realized so much wistfulness could be packed into one syllable. “I don’t really know anybody here yet and I couldn’t afford to go back home, so...”
He trailed off, but there was no need for him to continue. I could tell he’d spent Christmas alone, and lonely. Those of us of a certain age eventually become inured to it, but I knew how tough it can be for a boy or girl just out of school, with little money, and only a mediocre or worse, often far worse, apartment or room to go back to every evening, and to be cooped up in all day on Christmas.
To the average middle-class child it seems Christmas Day will always be the most special of the year, with extended family milling about, aunts and uncles picking you up and giving you a hug, and the big twinkling funny-smelling tree with artificial snow underneath laden with heaps of exciting presents.
I had time in the twenty or so seconds still remaining before the Ferguson Bump to form a mental picture of my winsome young fellow rider sitting alone in a shabby furnished room, this first Christmas on his own, opening his last can of pork-and-beans for dinner, then crying himself to sleep.
I shifted out of daydream mode, knowing the big moment was at hand. Okay, here it comes: the infamous Ferguson Bump, terror or delight of us seasoned riders, depending on your perspective and, to a lesser degree, on whether you’re seated or standing.
Wham! A deafening cacophony as every last object not screwed, nailed, or glued down, from the undercarriage to the roof of the car, got momentarily dislodged, and with a stroboscopic dimming of the lights followed by total blackout, the car and everybody in it was tossed mercilessly into the air.
The lights flickered back on to reveal two passengers about fifteen feet forward actually thrown to the aisle floor, while seated riders the length of the car were making awkward attempts to retrieve possessions that had been wrenched from their grasp or sent flying off their laps.
But my young friend was still safely if shakily on his feet, thanks to my arms, wrapped firmly around his mid-section, and my left leg, laterally bracing his.
“Ohmigod,” he said, “what was that?” There was real fear in his voice. The smell of sweat now won out over after-shave. I could feel the boy trembling, apart from the rhythmic vibration induced in all of us by the routine motion of wheels passing over track joints. I loosed my hold on him and tactfully permitted him a few moments to try to compose himself.
“This is your first ride, isn’t it.”
“Yes, it is.” His voice was still quavery. “I moved here three months ago. I’ve been using my car for everything, but it quit on me just as I was getting to work this morning, so now I’m using the subway till I can get it fixed. But that will have to be after next payday.”
“Well, like I said, I can’t be sure, but I think this may be the worst stretch in the whole system. I’m sorry it happened also to be on the path you had to take.”
“That’s the way it goes,” he said. “Thanks for catching me again, uh...”
It’s funny how there’s a special little pause that only happens when you don’t know somebody’s name and want to learn it.
“Russell,” I said. “But just call me Russ.”
Without releasing the strap, and wise he was not to, he half-turned again and extended his other hand. I took it in my own and we exchanged an awkward, unconventional but warm left-handed shake. His skin was soft and pliant. An office worker, undoubtedly.
His eyes were cornflower blue with long lashes, his complexion faintly ruddy. A definite country-boy air, or at least small-town. He smiled as by unspoken accord we kept on shaking hands for a second or two longer than usual. I felt a surge of bittersweet yearning I seldom experienced anymore.
“Benjamin,” he said. “My friends call me Ben.”
“Ben, I hope your car won’t cost a lot to repair. I guess you had to have it towed.”
“Yeah, and I barely had enough left after that for the subway. Everything costs so much here.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Ben was not swimming in money. In fact I would have bet he kept at least one foot over the poverty line. His jacket was worn through at the collar and obviously not nearly warm enough for the season; there was a gap at the bottom where the zipper had just given up. His shoes were decent but outworn. His jeans were almost rubbed through at the knees and ragged at the cuffs. And an indoor, probably office, job you could go to in threadbare jeans didn’t suggest rising to boardroom status anytime soon.
“I hope not, too,” said Ben, still half-facing me and making good eye contact once in a while – he wasn’t shy, at least.
For a moment I wondered what he meant, then I remembered my remark about car repair. “I knew it’d be tougher living in the city but I found out it costs way more than I ever thought.”
There was a friendliness in his speech and manner as refreshing as spring water after eight hours or more of first dreading and then actually having to listen to my focus-group participants, most of whom had lived in this city all or the greater part of their lives, and long ago become cynical, or even bitter and paranoid, about everything from their serial divorces to perceived problems with city garbage pickup, illegal immigrants, and gay marriage.
“How far do you have to go, Ben?”
“Well, the map shows that if I get off at Covington Station I can walk the rest of the way home in fifteen or twenty minutes.” Covington Station is maybe one-quarter of the way between downtown and my own stop in Terrapin Hills, a fairly remote, affluent suburb.
Suddenly I decided to do something I did not approve of and had almost never done in my life. I would tell a lie.
“Really?” I said. “I’m getting off at Covington myself.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie, for both Ben and I did get off when our car shuddered to a halt at the Covington Station platform.
Five or six homeless people were sitting or lying against the grimy tile wall of the platform, with dirty blankets, bottles of vodka or gin in paper sacks, and cardboard boxes full of belongings. One, an old woman with terminally alcoholic features and a smile that her eyes didn’t participate in, wordlessly held out her hand just as we reached the exit portal.
Ben stopped, dug into his left jeans pocket, pulled out a dollar bill, and handed it to the woman, who muttered something I couldn’t make out.
In that moment, I saw nothing less than pure compassion written on Ben’s face. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything quite like it. It sent a shiver up my spine.
I almost didn’t say anything. But once we were out of earshot and, with the escalator roped off and marked “Out of Service,” climbing the three short flights of stairs to the street, I changed my mind. “That was nice of you, but can you afford to do things like that?” I guessed he had probably never seen a real live beggar before coming to the city.
“I just felt like I should,” he said. “I guess you’re right. It was kind of stupid.”
“No, Ben, I didn’t mean it that way.”
I thought of conventionally appropriate things to add, such as “But she’ll just spend it on more booze,” or “But for all you know she’s actually doing okay and is part of an organized racket,” and “But the police say you shouldn’t do it.” Yet what I felt like saying, but didn’t dare, was, “It was a lovely thing you did.”
I just kept quiet.
In the strictest interpretation, I’d failed to lie on board the train despite my intention. I had actually exited at Covington. I rationalized therefore that I still had a lie left to use as I pleased. At least one.
“Listen, Ben,” I said as we came out into the last minutes of faltering daylight at the top of the stairs. “I have an engagement near here but it’s not for another hour. I was going to get a bite to eat anyway, so maybe you’d like to come along? If you don’t have plans, that is.”
“No, I don’t have any plans. I was just gonna go home and crash, that’s all. Sure, I’d like to get something to eat. I didn’t get to have any lunch.” I saw his expression change. “But...well, I’m afraid that dollar was all I had left. Maybe some other time?”
I knew there was unlikely to be another time. I wouldn’t have let him pay for his dinner anyway. Besides, I didn’t want to leave him nearly yet. I hadn’t enjoyed anybody’s company so much in – well, longer than I could remember. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” I said. I clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s on me.”
I wasn’t familiar with the territory. Covington Avenue runs pretty much the length of the city, but it traverses a wealth of dissimilar districts. From what I could see around me, this was one neighborhood I’d just as soon negotiate only in daylight, preferably armed or with a couple of husky bodyguards.
By the time Ben and I had walked halfway to his place, it was dark and I was so scared I must have been shaking. It seemed as though every alley we passed was full of shadowy figures cursing or babbling incoherently, or else conversing in snarling, conspiratorial voices. I halfway expected to see eyes glowing out of the dark.
Many of the shopfronts were boarded up, the boards covered with ancient graffiti visible under what few streetlights were still working. Some of it I recognized as gang signs and slogans; some was tag art, much of it once beautiful, but now long faded.
The sidewalks were littered with paper, small objects, and unidentifiable filth. Along the curbs it was even worse. There was a faint but pervasive stench of urine. Obviously this was an area that the city didn’t even attempt to maintain anymore. The liability insurance alone probably made it impracticable.
Asking where Ben lived would, I felt, not be appropriate. He’d turned to the left, east on Winslow, at the mouth of the subway stairs, and I’d followed along close beside him, already thoroughly scared. I wondered if he thought it was odd that I had an engagement in this part of town, where what life existed did not appear to be of the kind that would make “engagements,” professional or otherwise, other than drug deals.
“Uh, Ben,” I said, “do you have any...favorite eating places around here?”
“There’s a kind of diner called Davey’s over on Masonic” (pointing to the south) “that I’ve been to a couple of times. It’s nothing fancy, of course.” He laughed. “But I don’t imagine you’d expect me to be eating in fancy places anyway, would you.”
“A diner sounds fine to me,” I said. “I don’t much go for fancy places myself.” This, at least, was not a lie. I could afford them, but their loud, vulgar, bourgeois clientele always spoiled the meal for me.
I made a mental note to keep count, as best I could, of how many outright lies I’d told by the end of day. So far, just one. Or was it two?
“Would you mind if we stopped by my place first?” said Ben. “I’d really like to shower and change clothes. I feel grubby.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
I hadn’t planned on going to Ben’s place – at least not first thing. In fact, I no longer had any plan at all. Oh, sure, for the first couple of minutes, during our little adventure on the bumpy tracks, I thought I’d have a go at picking him up. But then as we talked, my feelings rapidly changed. Finally, and to my own surprise, by the time I got off the train with him at Covington Station, it was for the sole reason that I was enjoying his company and didn’t want to leave him yet. He seemed to be that rarity, a genuinely through-and-through good person.
Ben lived four blocks farther up Winslow, in a building you wouldn’t guess offered housing of any kind. The bottom floor looked to be a used-book store.
His second-floor lodging consisted of a bed-sitting room with a tiny makeshift kitchen area and a bathroom. It was clean but almost entirely bare. A small bookcase stood under the single window, with ten or fifteen books on one shelf. Beside it was the one and only chair, an old straight-backed one. There was a double bed neatly made up with a chintz bedspread, and a little chest of drawers, as well as a kind of kitchen table that doubled as a desk.
The overhead light, a bare 60-watt bulb dangling over Ben’s table or desk from a twisted cord dating back to the forties or earlier, was harsh. Ben moved over to the chair beside the bookcase, and switched on an old floor lamp beside it, then he turned off the overhead bulb. It was instantly more cozy, though still undeniably bleak. The room possessed the cold, morbid smell of old semi-derelict buildings, but that would surely improve as Ben lived there longer – if he was so unlucky – and it got used to its tenant. Then it would start to smell more like a normal living space.
“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” he said with a pleased smile. He did not apologize for his room being plain or for its location, and that impressed me as more evidence of his simple, honest nature. By now I knew beyond any doubt that I liked him a lot.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a TV or even a radio to entertain you,” he said. “I’ll be getting something eventually, but right now things are pretty much touch-and-go. The rent comes first, then getting my car fixed, and of course gas and food, then everything else. Only by then there’s not much left.”
I was not at all used to such candor. Suddenly I found myself having to hold back tears. “Hey, Ben, it takes a while.” Damn it. Just as I’d feared, my voice broke. My focus-group training enabled me to get a grip on myself, though. “I know how it is when you’re just starting out.”
That was lie number two, maybe three.
For I had no idea of “how it was.” I’d been pampered as a child, fully supported as a teenager and then all the way through college and graduate school, and, on the sudden accidental death of my parents three years after I got my master’s in European history, I’d inherited enough to live on, if not in luxury, at least comfortably enough, probably for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t even need to bother holding down a job.
Yet I didn’t want to avoid working. I felt I’d probably go crazy without some kind of daily employment. Currently I conducted focus groups for Fassing-Kuyper, LLC, one of America’s largest and most heartless advertising agencies, which had a big regional office in our city. The job paid well. Maybe I’d best leave it at that. I often hated it, had never loved it, but it did pay well.
“You can look through my books while I get ready,” said Ben, sitting on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes and socks, “if you want to.”
I started to browse the one partially-filled shelf of books under the window. In my peripheral vision I could dimly see Ben shucking all his clothes except for a pair of baby-blue boxer shorts, and then taking fresh clothes out of the little chest of drawers, and from a closet built into the wall behind which was the bathroom. He laid a shirt, another pair of worn jeans, and socks neatly on the bed, gathered up the clothes he’d taken off, and put them into what I supposed was a laundry bag or hamper inside the closet.
I thought he looked skinnier than was good for him. He probably was.
He said, “I won’t be long. And thanks for the dinner offer, Russ. I really appreciate it.” He shut the bathroom door. Pretty soon I heard water running and bouncing off a plastic shower curtain.
The little book collection was eclectic. There was an anthology of English poetry, one I knew was often used in university English courses. There was a Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. There was a book on Zen Buddhism and A Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Roger Tory Peterson. And a paperback copy of Dickens’ David Copperfield.
There were also, to my surprise, several volumes in French: the complete plays of Racine; Henri Alain-Fournier’s single masterpiece Le Grand Meaulnes; La Peste of Camus; a standard French grammar; the ungainly and ironically named Petit Robert French dictionary; and a few others.
I hadn’t tried to read French in so long it would have been useless to look at any of those. My French had never amounted to much anyway. I’d only had the first two elementary courses, in my first year of college. So I pulled the English poetry anthology off the shelf and opened it at random.
By the time I’d read a couple of sonnets of Wordsworth and started in on his friend Coleridge’s opium-derived “The Pleasure Dome of Kublai Khan,” the noise of the shower had stopped. A couple of minutes later Ben stepped out of the now steamy bathroom in fresh maroon boxers. In a couple more he was dressed and we were ready to go find Davey’s Diner.
“So what kind of job have you got, Ben?” I asked as we made our way toward the diner along the unnervingly dark streets of the district. At least half the streetlights had burned out or been shot out and never replaced. I wished I were carrying a weapon of some kind.
“Right now, I’m working in the mail-room at Fassing-Kuyper,” he said. “Do you know that company?”
“Do I?” I said. “That’s where I work. I mean, not in the mail-room, but I work for Fassing-Kuyper.”
Ben’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe it! What do you do?”
“I run focus groups. You know, to get a feeling for what a tiny, atypical segment of the public wants in all kinds of products and services so that our ads can make everybody else in the country imagine they want them, too.”
“Wow. I bet it’s interesting work.”
“It varies,” I said. “It’s a living.”
I didn’t feel like elaborating. Lately, any thought of my job was apt to provoke a feeling of, maybe not despair, but at least marked melancholy. I was overdue for a change. Yet I was making good money. Really good. And I was more averse to change than to money.
There was only one bright light in all the street, and I saw with relief that it was Davey’s Diner that we were nearing. I was reminded of that famous painting of an all-night diner by Edward Hopper. Davey’s wasn’t as luminously beautiful as the diner in the painting, though.
Soon we were seated in a booth next to the big street window. There was nothing to see on the street, and not only because of the dark. There was nothing there to look at, period. The diner was comfortable, however, and the two or three other customers, all at the counter, quiet and well behaved. Somehow you sensed they were regulars.
For the most part, a ’50s look had been preserved – and it was the real thing, not some moronic attempt at imitation. I liked that. The seats in the booths were upholstered in that burgundy colored textured plastic you used to find in cheap-eats places all the time. I felt right at home.
We examined our big celluloid-covered menus. Typical no-nonsense diner fare, except for a couple of more exotic items, such as dirty rice and, “Wednesdays Only,” jambalaya. Perhaps these stemmed from Davey’s ethnic background. If Davey had ever even existed, that is.
“The cheeseburgers are really good,” said Ben, “and, this may sound weird, but I really like the liver and onions.”
“Not weird at all,” I said – truthfully. Liver and onions had been one of my favorites since college, when as part of my stereotypical adolescent rebellion I broke away from the monotony of home cooking and tried many, to me at least, novel dishes as well as smoking, drinking, weed, and boys. Liver and onions had been one of my first enthusiasms even though the Student Union cafeteria’s take on the dish was pedestrian at best.
“Order up, Ben, and get something to take back home while you’re at it. For breakfast.” I’d noticed he had a little refrigerator and even a small, probably furnished, microwave in the improvised kitchen area. At least the wiring in the old building might be good, I hoped. I’d reached the point already where I was beginning to fret about him, and I certainly didn’t want him burning up in an electrical fire.
Benjamin ordered a cheeseburger and fries and a strawberry shake. He didn’t take me up on the breakfast offer, which disappointed me as it meant I now had to worry about his having breakfast, since he was broke, as well as about his safety. But I didn’t say anything. Everybody deserves an allotment of self-respect, and that was probably part of his.
I ordered the liver and onions, green beans, cole slaw, and coffee. Parker House rolls were included in the price. The food was tasty, attractively served, not too greasy; the industrial off-white china plates sparkled, the silverware was acceptably clean. I was impressed with the place, and thought it curious that it had survived in the middle of such a seeming no-man’s-land.
I was glad Ben at least had this resource to fall back on when he had some money. But I didn’t like the idea of his having to walk over here, or even, when his car was working, drive, after dark. The daytime was probably scary enough. And I’d noticed, but chosen not to point out, a pair of bullet holes near the bottom edge of the plate glass we were seated next to. They’d been neatly sealed over with clear plastic tape.
“So, do you think you’ll be able to move to a...livelier neighborhood before too long?”
“You mean safer, don’t you,” he said. He looked across the table at me with smile of comradely complicity that I was happy to see because it meant we weren’t, in his mind, strangers anymore.
“I don’t know, Russ. It’ll probably take a while. The way things are going it’s hard for me to save up any money at all. And then I’d have to furnish references, probably, and all that.”
“Well, you can give me as a reference if you want to. And I can get somebody high up at the agency to vouch for you, too, if you want. A vice-president, even.” I handed him my card after scribbling on the back my home address and phone, and my cell-phone number, too. As an afterthought I added my private, unlisted number at Fassing-Kuyper.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll definitely keep it in mind.” He carefully slipped my card into one of the little pockets of his otherwise empty billfold. I had the feeling he meant it. Anyway, I knew by now it wouldn’t be his way just to be polite because of silly conventions.
I decided to say something a little risky. “You know, I’m going to feel uneasy about you living out here. It strikes me as, well, to be honest, dangerous territory. And I’d hate like anything to see you get hurt, amigo.”
To my surprise, looking me right in the eye, he grasped my hand across the table. He was clearly moved. “That’s really nice of you, Russ,” he said. “I appreciate it. But don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. If I don’t have to ride that bumpy part of the subway too many more times, that is.”
We both laughed. Anybody would be terrified by their first ride over that stretch of track. I remembered how the first time I experienced it – completely unprepared – I thought at first I’d wet my pants. I’d soon got used to it, though, and now enjoyed seeing the reactions of others, provided they didn’t actually get hurt, and thank goodness that almost never happened.
I knew Ben was young enough that even a burger and fries with a strawberry shake would not stave off the craving for dessert, so I suggested having one. Several kinds of pie and a couple of kinds of cake were on display in a glass showcase toward the front end of the counter, beside the old-fashioned cash register. We went over and inspected them.
Our waitress, “Betty,” (I learned this from her name tag), who looked as though she must have been serving there since at least World War II, took our order for two pieces of banana-cream pie. “That’s a swell choice,” she croaked with a wrinkly smile. Then she winked at me making sure Ben didn’t see. I could guess what she was thinking. Why, I thought, Betty, aren’t you the observant one. But no, dear, we’re not. Still, I don’t mind you thinking we’re the “really together” kind of together. Actually, I’m starting to wish we were.
She was right about the banana-cream pie. Ben said he’d never tried it before, and would be ordering it again. I liked it, too. It reminded me of my youth (sigh).
It was time to leave. I paid and left a hefty tip. From the back of the diner, Betty, rolling paper napkins around silverware and putting the little self-adhesive paper rings on to hold it all together, looked up through her bifocals and hollered, “You two have a great evening.” I liked Betty already. It would be fun to have her in a focus group.
I’d enjoyed dinner with Ben. He’d appeared to be relishing every bite of his cheeseburger and fries, and each slurp of his shake.
But as we walked out the door of the diner, I felt a sinking feeling, knowing I’d soon be leaving my goodhearted young companion and, despite working in the same building downtown, might well never see him again. I began to feel sick at my stomach, and not from the good food.
I didn’t know how to suggest further contact without looking as though I were coming on to him, and I didn’t want to do that. Frankly, with somebody who didn’t seem so sweet and open and vulnerable, I wouldn’t have hesitated to get obvious or even blatant – and if necessary, crude. But I couldn’t do that to Ben. Besides, I didn’t even want to. He was fast becoming special to me as a person. What I wanted was to be his friend. That prospect even felt exciting. But it also seemed so unlikely.
Then: “Hey, Russ, would you maybe like to come back and have tea or something?” he said.
My heart leapt with joy, to borrow a phrase I’d come across not an hour ago browsing in that poetry anthology of his.
“That sounds really nice,” I said. Then, after a carefully timed pause, “Oh, rats. You know what, I forgot and missed my engagement after all!”
“Oh, no!” said Ben. “Will it get you in trouble? Gosh, I’m sorry.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “I didn’t want to go in the first place, and it’s nothing that can’t be diplomatically smoothed over.” Since my appointment was imaginary anyway, I didn’t count that statement as a lie.
I called my own number on my cell phone as we walked, and pretended to be rescheduling “our appointment about those contracts with Fassing-Kuyper. Yes, I think we can swing the deal for a couple or three million. Why not.” I guess that was lie number three – or was it four? Or only two? I’d lost count, and what’s more I didn’t care.
Feeling unusually frisky after the hearty dinner and dessert, but especially because of the reprieve I’d just been offered, I found myself saying, “Ben, I really like you. I’m glad we bumped into each other.” After laughing at this pathetically corny double-entendre as though he’d found it genuinely funny, he said, “Me too, Russ. You’ve made my evening. Thanks. I don’t know many people at all here. It’s hard to get to know anybody in the city. That’s another thing I didn’t expect.”
Once again, my heart went out to the guy. I’d experienced the same thing when I first moved to our city, longer ago than he’d been alive, and I was still perturbed by the unfriendliness, or at least guardedness, that seemed endemic to it.
I’d lived for a few years before that in New York City and experienced just the opposite: There had been a strong sense of social cohesion, of neighborhood identity, and of just plain being ready to support and help one another. Here in the Midwest, though, it wasn’t like that at all. Maybe it was the wide-open spaces. Maybe it was something else. I could think of several possible causes.
But there is also the other extreme. I sensed that Ben, despite being apparently a college graduate and surely equipped with some knowledge of the ways of the world, was too naive for his own good, or at least too trusting. For example, he probably should not have consented to let me, still almost a stranger, go with him up to his room. He probably shouldn’t even have walked with me on those deserted streets between the subway and there. But he was at least 21 or 22, and I didn’t feel it was my place to lecture him. And assuredly not on such short acquaintance.
I saw an all-night bakery standing about half a block to the south of where we were now, near his lodging. Even with the flashing chaser light bulbs encircling the sign over its entrance, it had escaped my notice when we’d passed there on our way to the diner. I’d been too busy expecting us to be mugged or raped or murdered.
“Do you mind if we pop in there for a minute?” I said, pointing.
“Sure, that’d be great,” said Ben.
I bought several kinds of sweet rolls and some donuts, ostensibly for myself. I intended to offer at least three-quarters of them to Ben when I left after tea. Or if we talked long enough, we might even want some later in the night. It was only about seven, after all.
We walked the rest of the way to his building without incident, but I felt relieved when we finally stepped inside and the street door locked itself behind us.
Ben heated water in an aluminum kettle on the two-burner gas stove that came with the room. Soon we were holding steaming cups of really decent, fragrant Indian tea. Since there was almost no furniture, Ben half-reclined on the bed, while I had the honor of sitting on the straight-backed chair I’d used earlier to read Wordsworth while my new-found friend showered and dressed for our trip to the diner.
Ben didn’t have a phone yet, and saw little prospect of getting one. I suggested a prepaid cell phone, as it appalled me to imagine him navigating this territory, day or night, without some means of calling for help in an emergency. Besides, what if he had to phone in sick some day, or had some other important call to make? Or just wanted to call me. But I didn’t suggest that reason.
“I think that’s what I’ll do,” he said. “You’re right. It can get pretty scary around here. There are sirens all night long, and I’ve heard gunshots a few times, and lots of shouting down on the street. I think that’s mainly homeless people though. They seem to get into fights among themselves pretty easily.”
I’d visited a Benedictine monastery once, years earlier, and what Ben had just said triggered a memory.
“A friend of mine, a Benedictine monk, told me once – we were talking about monks giving up almost all personal property when they take their vows – he told me that when you’re down to possessing only, say, a pocketknife, suddenly that pocketknife becomes the most important thing in the world. You feel as though you could kill for it. I imagine it may be something like that with the homeless people you hear shouting and fighting. At least some of the time.”
Ben looked impressed. “Wow. What a great story, or parable, whichever the right name is. It’s like Buddhism, isn’t it? You know, clinging is the source of suffering.”
He poured some more tea. “It’s so great having you here to talk to, Russ. Man. Do you know you’re the first visitor I’ve had at my place? And I’ve lived here three whole months already.”
My conjecture about loneliness was proving correct, then. “Well, Ben, I’m honored to be your first guest. I hope we can get together again a lot. Say, do you like museums?”
“Sure. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t checked out the ones here yet. They’re probably all closed by the time I get off work, and I don’t have anybody to go with anyway. I know that’s no excuse – ”
“Well, if you want, you’ll have somebody now. I’d be happy to go with you to the art museum and the science museum both if you’re interested some weekend. Or anywhere else you’d like to go.”
“Definitely!” said Ben. “All you need to do is tell me when.”
“Maybe we can do some museum-hopping this coming weekend, if that suits your schedule.”
He laughed. “Anything suits my schedule, because I don’t have one. My calendar is a total blank. This weekend would be great.”
“What’s the extension in the mail-room that I can reach you at?”
“It’s 2692, only we’re not supposed to take or make personal calls.” He looked disappointed.
“Ha! Remember, I’m a Fassing-Kuyper bigshot, Ben.” Then, “Only kidding, but there won’t be any trouble if it’s me calling. I can guarantee that.” I made a note of his work extension in the little notebook I always carry.
But I had already thought of a better approach.
I knew the last subway departed Covington Station at five past midnight. It was after eleven by the time we’d discussed everything from our childhoods to our favorite music and what we’d like to do in the future, and of course, our jobs at Fassing-Kuyper, and still weren’t nearly finished talking.
I told Ben I’d better get going around 11:40 in order to be sure not to miss my train. I could easily afford a cab in that case, but didn’t fancy waiting near the station, or anywhere else in this part of town, especially at midnight, for a cab that might take an hour to arrive. Maybe cabs wouldn’t even come to a neighborhood like Ben’s. I didn’t voice this to Ben, of course. But he seemed to read my mind.
“What if you miss your train, though?” he said. I saw the concern in his face.
“Oh, there’s always cabs,” I said as nonchalantly as I could manage. “Don’t worry. I won’t have any trouble.”
“No, Russ, I would worry. I’m going to come along and make sure you get aboard the train, and that way if you do miss it, at least I’ll be there too and I’ll wait with you for your cab.”
“Don’t be silly, Ben,” I said. “Then I’d worry about you getting back here safely. So, you see, to ease your worry you’d be causing me one. Now, tell me, is that nice?” I said the last playfully in order not to seem too much of a scold.
But he wasn’t buying it. It was nearly eleven-forty now. Ben stood up and pulled on his old, drafty jacket again. “I’m not listening to you any more, Russ. I’m going with you, man. It would just be wrong not to.”
Just as it had been right to give his last dollar to the old woman on the platform. By now I understood that it was Ben’s nature. I felt inadequate in his presence.
I wondered why fate had, literally, thrown us together on the subway that evening. Whatever the reason, I was thankful it had happened. I’d met somebody extraordinary today, someone I could actually like and admire. He was bound to be a good influence on me.
However, while part of me was touched by Ben’s willingness to risk his life for a near stranger, another part was really, really pissed that he wouldn’t listen to my version of reason. What if the two of us were to be waylaid by some psychopath or even physically attacked out there? He knew about my cell phone, but it’s highly improbable any attacker would give him a chance to pull it out of my pocket and use it. In fact that scenario was so ludicrous it made me laugh.
Ben interpreted my laughter as a sign of submission. “That’s more like it,” he said, and gave my shoulder a quick sideways squeeze. I gave up. I hugged him back. I knew he would not take “no” for an answer. And in all honesty I didn’t want him to. It was his choice, and I would feel safer with him along. Best of all, I’d get to be with him a few minutes longer.
So we both set out for the subway station in the pitch black, bone-rattling cold. I remembered seeing in the paper that there was a new moon. Of all the luck. Barely any functional streetlights, and no moonlight, either. The sky was clear, though, and in the eerie darkness we could see dozens of times more stars than I had ever seen in the city. They were startlingly beautiful. We walked without speaking down Winslow and then finally onto Covington toward the subway. At one point I looked over at Ben, just to enjoy seeing him again, and he smiled and reached over and hugged me once more, and then kept his arm around me all the way to the subway entrance. Neither of us said a word. I think we both felt it was unnecessary.
I felt both joyous and totally at peace. It was a way I don’t think I’d ever felt, unless maybe as a very young child. It made me want to stay in his embrace forever.
We got to the subway stairs unharmed . I swiped my Transi-Pass card. Ben easily vaulted the turnstile. There was nobody watching. We descended to the platform level.
The homeless people had either been shooed away by subway police, or else they’d moved on for reasons of their own. If Ben had asked me to, I was prepared to give them all the money I had with me. I was relieved it wasn’t necessary. Then I wondered if I should feel ashamed of that.
The train arrived exactly on time and, engaged in talking animatedly about our upcoming weekend together, Ben and I didn’t get a chance to say good-night or good-bye. I boarded the car and remained pressed against the window of the sliding door for a moment, so I could wave at him. He waved back, his slim figure already fast receding into the dark as the train gained momentum.
I sat down in the empty car and the first thing that came to my mind was that I knew that, once home, I would have trouble getting to sleep for worrying about Benjamin. I had no way of knowing if he’d get back to his room safely. Sometimes I regretted that I didn’t believe in prayer. But I didn’t.
As the train rocked along toward Terrapin Heights, I thought over our conversations in his room and on the platform minutes earlier. The tracks the rest of the way to my station, I knew, lacked any of the roughness of those we’d ridden earlier, between downtown and Covington. There was no need to brace myself this trip.
Ben had graduated from a small but highly thought-of Midwestern college with a degree in French he immediately found utterly useless for getting a job. He might as well have had only his high-school diploma, or even a GED. He’d felt lucky to get the mail-room position at my company, for by then he was down to his last few dollars.
His parents, he knew, had scrimped uncomplainingly for years to be able to pay most of his way through college, and he was not about to ask them for any more help. He was determined to make it on his own, but living in the city posed far greater challenges than he’d been prepared for.
At twenty-two, though, we’re more supple and optimistic than even ten years later, or, in my case, twenty-five. So though times were hard for the young man, he took his hardship in stride and felt lucky, despite all, to be situated where he was.
I’d insisted on leaving him enough money for four or five days’ subway fare, should he have to ride that long, as well as for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, or, in fact, today, since it was now past midnight.
It was officially Friday now and we’d tentatively planned to go to the art museum in the morning or early afternoon on Saturday, and then just see what else we wanted to do for the rest of the day. I suggested that, if he was up for it, we could even hit the science museum on Sunday.
He was not only willing but eager to do both. I could tell the prospect excited him. It had become clear as we drank tea and talked in his room that he had next to no social life, maybe none at all.
But it only now occurred to me that, in our long conversation, he hadn’t said one word about dating in high school or college, or about any other socializing. I might as well have been chatting with a Carthusian monk. Even my Benedictine friends socialized now and then, though obviously they didn’t date.
I’d once read an interesting if depressing piece in a science magazine about asexual young people. They reported no interest at all in dating, marriage, or sex in any form. Maybe Ben was one of those. Not that it mattered. But it struck me as curious, nonetheless, and gave me yet another thing to wonder about.
Over his protest, I’d left all the bakery goods for him except for a couple of donuts that I stuffed into my coat pockets. I was now, in fact, munching on one in the subway car, despite posted rules against eating and drinking on board. I knew the subway police seldom patrolled this route around midnight, as there were almost no riders, and what few there were, they’d probably just as soon not tangle with. Besides, if a cop did start to lecture me, or write a ticket, I could always offer him or her the other donut.
It was a twenty-minute walk from the station to my apartment house. By the time I got home it was well past one a.m.
I worked no set hours at Fassing-Kuyper. I could formulate my own schedule contingent only on when my focus groups were taking place or when I was charged with training other facilitators or had boring middle-management meetings to attend. Lately, most of the focus sessions had been taking place on our own premises, though a few were still booked in hotel conference rooms, churches, and other off-site locations.
Today I didn’t have a group till one p.m., so I could sleep in if I wanted to. But I had other plans.
Once in bed, I alternated between reflecting on how pleased and fortunate I was to have made my unexpected new friend, and fretting about his well-being in that horrid environment, before finally falling asleep around 2:30. I rose at my usual 6:30 and ate the other donut with some yogurt (just as I’d expected, no cop had come down the aisle), and had a couple of cups of coffee. By eight I was on my way to the subway again, this time to head downtown.
As I walked to the station, I suddenly recalled a dream I seemed to have had just before waking.
In the dream, I was aboard the midnight train again, and Ben was there on the platform, and we were waving good-bye to each other as we had in real life a mere eight hours earlier. But this time, the train refused to start up. Yet the door was locked, so I couldn’t get out. We just kept waving, and waving, neither of us moving an inch. All the while, a monotone, echo-y voice from nowhere was saying over and over, like a stuck recording, “It’s too late. It’s too late.” Somehow I knew that only I, and not Ben, could hear it.
I know it all sounds silly, but remember, it was a dream. As I relived it walking to Terrapin Heights station, a shiver came over me that wasn’t from the cold December air.
I located a cell-phone kiosk in a shopping center not far from my office, and purchased a smart-phone that had got good reviews in Engadget and on ZDNet, along with a prepaid plan allotting 1200 anytime minutes per month with more or less unlimited data use and limitless texting. The affable and very cute and flirtatious clerk, a young Hispanic man of maybe twenty with bedroom eyes and sporting a tiny gold hoop in one earlobe, seemed knowledgeable and told me I’d chosen the phone he himself would go for. He was able to activate the phone then and there, and I asked about gift wrap. He pointed me to another kiosk down the way where they did that. I made sure to leave my card with him in case he got a hankering some day to make me a sales pitch. He patted my hand and I think he even winked, but I can’t be sure.
I’d found a rather sentimental but pretty little “friendship” card beforehand, and slipped it into the box with the phone before having it gift-wrapped. Inside the card I’d written, “Ben, use this in good health. And, yes, I did worry about you last night. Call my cell phone when you get this, okay? Your friend, Russ.” I was glad cell phones no longer required charging before first use, but came with their batteries already half-full.
I did some more shopping, since I had lots of time before I was due to conduct my group session, today focusing on the latest release by a truly atrocious popular music group, Unassisted Suicide. I would have to endure several tracks of their latest CD as part of the session, but that was what I got paid handsomely for, so I could hardly complain. All but a couple of the participants were college students, and I wondered how many classes were being cut in order for them to come submit their opinions on what I considered worthless quasi-musical ordure, in exchange for $50 apiece. Fassing-Kuyper could just as easily have scheduled the session for the weekend, but that would have meant paying me double, so naturally they chose to make the students miss class instead.
Still, they were all volunteers.
After a decent lunch of white pizza with anchovies and kalamata olives in the mall food court, I visited a men’s clothing store and purchased a taupe colored London Fog jacket with removable insulated liner. We had many weeks of bitterly cold weather still in store for us, and I was not willing to watch my friend shiver in that jacket of his that now deserved a decent burial after its years of service. What if he came down with pneumonia?
I suspected he’d object to such an expensive gift, but I was confident I could deal with that. I could always pretend to let him reimburse me, and then find a way of sneakily counter-reimbursing him.
I’d already arranged, with the scrumptious young Hispanic’s help, to pay the rather high monthly cell-phone charge myself. Benjamin would undoubtedly object to that, too, once he found out as he eventually must, waiting for the bill that would never come; but that’s how it was going to be, and it was settled. It would have been a burdensome amount for Ben, while I would never miss it.
Finally it was time to go to my office. On the way, I rode the freight elevator down to the basement mail room. I didn’t see Ben, but there were lots of nooks and crannies in the vast space outside my field of view. I left the package with our mail-room supervisor, Clayton Bosquith, whom I happened to be on friendly terms with. We’d even toured some of the gay bars together a few years ago, though we’d since more or less, and for no good reason, lost touch.
The package was inside a shopping bag, tied shut, so that the gift wrapping was not visible. Clayton said, “He’s around here someplace, Russ,” and promised he’d hand it to him as soon as Ben showed up again. “Good to see you again, bud,” he said, “give me a ring sometime and we’ll hop a few.” And I could tell he was not just saying it. At least I knew Ben had a fair and good-natured supervisor.
I went up to my 30th-floor office. I’d prepared my materials the day before, including a signed copy of the damned U. S. CD for each of the focus-group members, as well as one ordinary disc to, alas, play during the meeting. I wondered if Unassisted Suicide had actually autographed the discs themselves. I found it hard to believe they were capable of writing their names.
It was almost time to descend to the second floor, where the group was about to convene in one of three rooms the agency had equipped with large two-way mirrors so that F-K middle management and some PR and sales people from the record company could spy on us without being seen.
My cell phone warbled a few notes of synthetic Vivaldi. It was Ben, thrilled about his brand-new phone.
“Please try to remember always to carry it, Ben,” I said. “Can you give me a call at home tonight, so we can decide how to work things tomorrow?”
“You bet. I don’t know how to thank you for this, Russ. I know it’s something I should have got long ago, but there were always other things that had to come first. Wow, you’re so good to have thought of this. I won’t forget it, ever.”
“Hey, it’s my pleasure, believe me. Just take care of yourself, bud. That will be all the thanks I could ever want. Now I’ve got to run, we’re about to focus on ‘Don’t Fuckin’ Tell Me I’m in Love.’”
“Ohmigod. Will you actually have to listen to that?” said Ben. We both laughed.
“Afraid so. But that’s what pays the rent, among other things. I’ve got to go now. Take care, friend; I’ll talk to you tonight and we’ll soak us up some culture this weekend.”
The focus group was sheer hell, but that’s what I’d expected. When I had to endure four seemingly endless tracks from the CD, I gently focused my thought on Ben, and that made it almost tolerable. It also helped that I was able to stealthily insert ear plugs.
I’d decided to rent a car for our weekend. If Ben and I wanted to see or do something outside town the subway would be of no use. Besides, even getting around in town would be quicker and surely more fun in a car.
I hadn’t had an automobile of my own for many years, since before New York, and hadn’t wanted one. I was a coastal type – or even a European type – stranded for the time being in the Midwest where most people abhor public transit and feel the need to possess at least a couple of cars and an SUV and maybe also an ATV. It seemed to be part of the anti-social syndrome afflicting Midwesterners overall and the inhabitants of our city in particular.
The ridership on our subway and bus systems was by and large composed of the underprivileged, underpaid, and disenfranchised. On my daily commutes to and from Terrapin Heights I would seldom see more than a handful of identifiably executive types – the class to which I most likely belonged. I didn’t mind. I’d always felt more akin to real workers than to the overpaid, over-privileged, and over-enfranchised. I got to travel with real people, even if they were close-mouthed and stand-offish. Those characteristics seemed to ignore all class boundaries. At least my fellow riders, most of them, didn’t look like corporate zombies.
In mid-afternoon, Ben sent me a text message just to try out texting on his new phone:
Let me know if you get this!!! :-) was all it said. I noted with pleasure the lack of cute abbreviation: He might easily have said, lemme no f u get this!!! :)
For all I knew, there were also abbreviations for “get” and “this.”
I admit I sometimes do abbreviate in texts, but I always feel guilty afterward.
got it I texted back – and had Linda, my secretary, snap a phone-camera photo of me at my desk (where I spent as little time as possible) to attach to the message. I propped my feet up on the desk first, to emphasize how little actual work I was expected to do.
Wow!!! came the almost instant reply, I didn’t know you could do that with a phone!!! :-O
I marveled that he didn’t. I assumed all young people, but especially those in college, sent multimedia texts back and forth twenty-four hours a day. However had Benjamin survived at school without that capability? Had he actually studied? I’d have to ask. But for the moment I just texted back,
now u no talk 2 you 2nite kid
I immediately felt guilty.
To tell the truth, I’ve never liked texting.
Five o’clock came, and I took the subway to the station just beyond my usual stop.
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