NEXT
They speak about me.
“Leg’s a mess,” crouched one says.
“You see his other shoe?” standing one says.
Or the same one says. No, they’re speaking about me. Looking at me. Two figures. Two people. Men, I assume. Not two ladies yet. Ladies don’t work so much in the subway system yet. As cashiers perhaps. Coin tellers? Not cashiers. Not coin tellers. What are they called, those ladies and gentlemen who take my money and give tokens and change in exchange? Or just give tokens or a token if I’ve given them the exact change?
But I’m not there. Getting tokens, giving change. Saying Good morning or Have a nice day, which used to puzzle or please them most times. Ten-dollar bill’s the limit, their sign said. Mostly transistor radio music or news from inside their booth or cage. In the summer, baseball. Fall weekends, football. Nights, I don’t know. And once one with a beard with classical music tuned in. But I’m not there again.
I’m between the tracks. Being picked up. On something.
“Jumped.”
“Pushed,” the other carrier says. “I’m not accusing anybody. Just that people do get pushed.”
“Accidentally also.”
“It isn’t a rush hour.”
“Doesn’t have to be a rush hour for someone to get pushed on the tracks. People down here are always running.”
“Oh, all people?”
“Some. Half. A few then. Running to catch a train that hasn’t come yet. That’s maybe three stations away and for all they know broken down. And this passenger probably near the platform edge like they’re all warned not to and got bumped off by mistake.”
“Will you two move him along?” a third voice says. “We got to get this line operating again.”
I’m being carried. Lifted to the platform on that something I’m on. A litter. Two men lifting me to two men. I can see them now. Policemen are here. A woman in white. Probably a hospital doctor. Emergency. The young ones. Not practicing in a private office yet. What are they called? Coin tellers? Cashiers? Was my mind run over?
“Leg looks very bad,” she says. The intern. That’s it.
“We couldn’t find his other shoe.”
“Forget the other shoe. Gently. Easier. His internals. He hasn’t been thoroughly examined yet.”
“But the way he’s dressed, those could be his only pair,” the policeman says. No, one of the men who carried me from the tracks. Where a train hit me. I was hit. Pushed. Bumped? Did I jump? I forget. I was standing on the platform. Reading a newspaper. Heard the train’s whistle. Looked. No, extended my head. Leaned it forward. My head. And looked in the tunnel at the train coming to the station I was at. It wasn’t three stations away, broken down. And it wasn’t the tunnel coming to the station I was at. I was looking, extending, leaning forward. My head. My whole body. Half. Waist upward. Sideward. Trackward. Newspaper in hand. Folded. To what story? Crisis declared? President said this, did that. The train. Train story. Two headlights like headlights from a car. Automobile car. Whistling. Unlike a car. Coming. I even saw two children in the front window of that first car looking at the station the train they were on was approaching. But where was I? Still on the platform. Head and half a whole body extended trackward. Seeing the train approaching the platform of the station I was at. When what? Something happened.
“Here we go, mister. You’ll be in emergency in a jiff.”
I’m being carried upstairs to the upper platform. Upper platform’s for uptown locals. Lower’s for locals going downtown. So I was going downtown or on the downtown platform for what? Extending my head to the left. Downtown trains come from uptown to the left. Though it hadn’t reached the platform yet. Still in the tunnel. Headlights. Long whistle. So I was there at the edge of the extreme left of the station where the platform and tunnel meet. Two boys’ faces. Children. Could have been girls. Pointing. A girl and a boy. Dark hair, light faces. Suddenly the conductor in his front-car compartment looking alarmed and shouting Stop.