She did once, but like going out onto the street and telling the young super to stop revving his engine at six A.M., she would never again ask a man on the subway to close his legs.
When the question escaped from her mouth, it popped, and sex sprayed out. Sex was lying there in the question like his enormous legs across two seats. She’d ejaculated and startled them both, startled the whole car. The big guy shut his legs fast. Then the two of them continued to sit next to each other, primly, as if they’d just had bad sex. Elizabeth suffered for the whole ride. It was a worthless victory.
She wouldn’t do that again. She didn’t enjoy the ride better anyway, crushed and infuriated. She stood. She would stand. She couldn’t read standing. She’d occasionally glare at the offenders. She didn’t try to sit down next to them. She hung on to a metal strap. The legspreaders put their newspapers up in front of their faces. They turned the volume up on their cassette players. They zoned her out. She didn’t exist to them.
Two bags of vomit are walking around the neighborhood. One bag of vomit starts to cry. The other bag of vomit asks, What’s the matter? The first bag of vomit says, I was brought up around here.
Elizabeth drifted in front of the newsstand. She had her hand out. It had a dollar in it. The beautiful Indian woman wasn’t there. There were only two Indian men. People were buying lottery tickets in back. One of the men took the dollar.
— Where’s the woman? Elizabeth asked.
— Ah, she’s away, one answered.
— Away?
— Yes, she’s home.
— Is she coming back?
— She will stay home.
— Tell her hello for me, please.
— I will tell her.
Elizabeth received fifty cents change for the New York Post; “O.J.’S TEARS: ANGUISHED STAR ATTENDS EX-WIFE’S FUNERAL AS COPS TIGHTEN THE NET.” The Indian woman had seemed content selling newspapers. When the man said good-bye to her, Elizabeth viewed him with suspicion. It was an unguarded moment. “KNICKS SET FOR CRUCIAL GAME 5 TONIGHT.”
Kenny was waving to her. Her former mail carrier was a short black man from the Bronx. The post office gave Kenny another route after he’d had her route for ten years. He was taken off it, just like that. Kenny had grown attached to the block, knew their names, their mail. He couldn’t sleep for a while, he was so distressed.
— No one thinks mail carriers have feelings about our routes. We do. Ten years. I know you ten years. Almost eleven.
His new route was still in the neighborhood.
— Hey, Kenny.
— How you keeping?
— So so. You?
— My mother’s ailing.
— Sorry.
— Praying she’ll be all right.
Kenny lifted a hefty pack of mail from his blue cart and unlocked the door to a five-story building. He disappeared. In his cart lay thousands of envelopes. Some would change the fortunes of their recipients. Mail carriers were important. They brought messages to the block.
Maybe the Indian woman had a fatal disease. The man wouldn’t tell Elizabeth.
The public telephones were being guarded by some of the goons. You couldn’t make a call. They’d say, We’re waiting and stand there impassively, aggressively. They didn’t have remotes. You were supposed to wait patiently until they received their call and their orders to move. There was nothing else to do. You didn’t want to get capped just because you wanted to use a pay phone.
How do you know when your dad is fucking your sister in the ass?
His dick tastes of shit.
Elizabeth almost fell on the music junkie. He had a fish-shaped guitar. He was hitting on two teenaged girls. One of the girls sneezed. They were trying to get away from him.
— You’re allergic to me, and I was just going to ask you to marry me, he said.
The girls giggled. A scab-faced junkie could mention marriage and raise giggles and blushes. Elizabeth didn’t give him money. Except the other day when she saw him, bloodied, forehead bandaged like the head of a revolutionary soldier, and his fish-shaped guitar wasn’t hanging down his skinny back, so then she gave him money. The cops had taken his guitar. He was dead to everything but dope and his tinny, fish guitar. He’d be dead soon enough, he wouldn’t bother anyone.
I wouldn’t want to talk to him for a minute, and I’m giving him money. He’d just whine, like the almost-dead woman who walks around here, scuffling, bent over, bent in half, begging in a subhuman voice, no one wants to give her anything, no one wants to listen, no one can stand her, no one wants to keep her alive, she’s like an infection. It’s a disease, narcissism of the afflicted. She’d talk your ear off if you let her.
The Mexican take-out and sit-down was a cold hole in the wall. Elizabeth ordered a cheese enchilada. She thought it’d go down. She sat down. A rookie cop walked in. He ordered too and sat down next to her. His gun stuck out from his waist. He was wearing his vest. He was corseted and rosy-cheeked. The vest was the new model. He was freshly shaved. He was overheating, stuffed and split like a boiled hot dog.
Elizabeth was ready to confess. She asked him if he’d seen any crossbows and arrows lately. The cop looked at her, the way cops do at civilians who aren’t perceived as immediate threats, the way experts look at amateurs, and the cop responded, not to her question, which was too silly for him even to consider. She saw his frustration. It colored his pink cheeks pinker.
— I’m useless, they can round up all the legal handguns, because most murders aren’t committed with legal firearms, the murderers don’t use legal guns.
He thought hard.
— And another thing, don’t get me started…
She didn’t say a word.
— The thieves are laughing at me. I try to arrest someone for breaking into a car, and they say, Why you picking on me? Go after the murderers. I’m not murdering anybody. There are bad guys out there. I’m not doing anything, I’m not hurting anyone. You know. No one’s got morals anymore.
The cop rested his elbows on the table. He opened his hands wide. She could see his palms. She looked for his fate line. It wasn’t there. He breathed hard. His vest didn’t move. His order — rice, beans, and a beef taco — was ready.
— Here’s a different case. What about that junkie with the fish-shaped guitar? The cops took his guitar from him.
— Don’t know about that, I didn’t hear about that, the cop said.
He was chewing.
— He begs. You guys took away his fish guitar.
— I didn’t.
— I’m not accusing you personally, but what’s the principle. You take away his livelihood…
— What’s a fisherman…
— He’s a junkie with a fish-shaped…
— You don’t know what the guy was doing. You think you see things. Civilians don’t. You don’t. Believe me. Us cops…I seen things that’d make your stomach turn. Believe me.
He looked down at his rice and beans. He stared at his plate listlessly.
— I believe you, Elizabeth said.
The deaf tenant, Herbert, walked in. Elizabeth wanted the cop to keep talking. She wanted to gain his trust, reach out to him, and have him unfold like a clean sheet, or a dirty one, and she’d see the marks, he’d reveal secrets he’d never told anyone. She lusted for his illicit cop secrets.
She didn’t know how far she could go with the cop, and now that Herbert from the twin building had arrived, though he was very deaf — they mouthed hello — Elizabeth felt uneasier talking to a cop. She was white, the cop was white, Herbert was black, and what would Herbert think, not that he’d hear, for all he knew she could be cursing the rookie, calling the pink-faced cop a pig. The cop was porky.