“If it’s stuck I don’t see what I could do to close it.”
“Give it a try. It might be my strength.”
“A try then.” He goes over to the window, says “Excuse me” to the man, who’s moved back under the window and now moves again to the side, presses the two sets of levers in, window won’t budge. “Seems really stuck.”
“Now you see what you did?” she says to the man.
“What I do? Fifty years of this train going down the drain and you’re blaming me? And you got heat — feel it,” and he puts his hand on the seat. “Heat, so you won’t freeze.”
“I’m an older person. My bones are brittle. I get frozen faster than you.”
“Then move to another car. There’s actually too much heat coming up, making me want to take off my sweater, so it’s nice mixed with a little fresh air.”
“But I like this car. It’s cleaner than most and who knows what’s in the other cars. And this one was the perfect temperature for me without the window opened, which is why I walked through the whole train before I came back to sit here. I have a long way to go.”
“What else can I say? I pulled a window down, now it won’t go up. Point of issue has to be finished, for if he, a big strapping man, can’t close it, there’s nothing more anyone but a train mechanic can do.”
“Maybe you have a special way with those window clickers.”
“I don’t. I put my fingers on them like you did and him.”
“Ask him to try to use his special touch again,” she says to Dan.
“I’m sure there isn’t any.”
“There isn’t,” the man says. “But what’s the difference? This train’s never leaving here, so we should all stop crying. It’ll be another one they’ll tell us to get off of and then it’ll roll out to wherever they go, probably to the next uptown station to pick up passengers, who’ll think ‘Hmm, why’s the train so empty?’” He stands, yells out the window “Hey there, we’ve been here fifteen minutes if you want to know the exact figure — either tell us to get off and you get another train here to take us, or get this one moving. Conductor there — I talked to you before about it…oh go to hell with yourselves, you’re all a pack of meat and never gave two craps for the next guy,” and he leaves the train.
“Maybe you can give it a last good try,” she says to Dan. “Sometimes the first times unloosen it.”
Dan shrugs, tries the window again, strains and gets it up two inches.
“That’ll help but not by much. That all it’ll do?”
“That’s it.” His fingers are black and sticky from some crust on the levers and underneath the top window frame. “Maybe this is the problem,” showing her his fingers. “A grime, like glue. Probably down the sides of it — where the window slides up — too.”
“I’m going to another car. I know of one almost as warm if no one there opened the windows. Want his paper? It’s Saturday’s.”
“He might come back for it.”
“With all he did we don’t deserve his paper?” She crams it into one of the shopping bags, picks up two in each hand and a long umbrella and plastic raincoat that had been behind them and goes into the next car. Odor about her. Lots of junk in the bags. Small pots, rolled-up clothing, wooden hangers, loose toggles, stacks of letters, tied-up twine and string.
Conductor rushes through the car holding a flashlight. “Anything wrong, sir?” Dan says.
“We’ll be moving in a minute,” and goes into the next car. Dan sits, shivers, tries the window, rubs what grime he can off his hands under the knee-part of his pants.
“Hold the door,” a man shouts, running down the stairs. He runs into the car, “What luck it was still waiting,” pats his chest, “This isn’t good, I shouldn’t be losing my breath like this,” sits.
“Someone, will someone please help me?” Man in the middle of the platform, turning around in one spot, tapping a white cane on the ground.
Dan looks at the man in the car. “Not me,” his face says, takes his wallet out of his side pants pocket and puts it into the back, puts his athletic bag against the window and leans his head back on it, curls in his feet, pulls the ends of his coat down over his knees and shuts his eyes. Dan gets up and stands by the door nearest the man on the platform. “Sir, what is it?”
“Good — someone. Thank you. First I want to make sure of one thing. Are we at the Seventy-second Street station?”
“Ninety-sixth and Broadway — the uptown platform.”
“What I thought. Were you here five minutes ago when the uptown express left?”
“Five minutes ago? If it did, it went completely by me.”
Feels a watch on his wrist. “Five and a half minutes ago exactly. I was on it and meant to get off at Seventy-second but fell asleep. And a woman, when I woke up between stations, said the last stop was Thirty-fourth when it was Times Square, which is how it happens I’m here. Could you help me get to the downtown side?”
“Excuse me, but you are blind, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well you see, I’m standing inside the local, waiting for the doors to close. So I’d like to help, but I have to get to someplace which if I’m any more late for—”
“Thank you. Someone,” he shouts, turning around, “will someone please help me get to the other side of this mess?”
“Wait — listen. The stairs are over there — stop turning—now, you’re facing them. Maybe fifteen feet in front of you at the most. Walk straight — I’ll stay here and guide you, and if the doors close, guide you from the open window here long as I can — feel for the bottom step with your foot or cane, grab the railing on your right and go upstairs. The stairs to the downtown platform are to your right about thirty feet once you get up there.”
“I don’t know this station. I’m also very tired, so for that reason also I’m being extra cautious.”
“I can understand that. But much as I truly want to — and I truly do—”
“Hey,” the man from before, head sticking out the window of the next car, “get this thing going. You maybe already made me lose my job. My supervisor can’t believe when I say these trains are always breaking down — he uses a car. So move it — stop your stalling.”
“If the train doesn’t leave before I see a transit cop,” Dan says, “I’ll call one over for you or someone else who seems safe and is waiting here—”
“Help me out now?”
“Believe me, you can’t believe how late I am for where I’m going. And I’m freezing here. I lost my sweater and coat tonight. So I just don’t want to lose my train.”
A man approaches, heading for the stairs. “Sir,” Dan says, “could you take this gentleman here — he can’t see, as might be obvious — up the stairs and deposit him—”
Man’s past them, never made a sign he saw or heard, hurries upstairs.
“Thanks a lot. That’s where he was going — And when I mentioned your sight, sir, I only thought — Wait, I’ll do it. This train’s never going. Should’ve done it before and I would’ve been back by now.” Steps out of the car, grabs the man’s arm. Train motor starts up. “I have to get in. Ah, I don’t know what I’m doing.” Doors shut. “Oh well, macht nichts. If this one’s been here so long, another should be close behind it.”