“And remember,” my mother said in the infamous lecturing tone I had grown up around, “I just want you to go straight there, okay? Your father and I worry about you. Make sure you give yourself enough time to get out there and stay for a visit this time. And be careful. Make sure you don’t poke around her place. Make sure you spend some time with her.”
My mother had always been borderline neurotic when it came to protecting me, but this seemed beyond and above the call. I said a quick goodbye before she could cycle conversationally back to my grades. Then I immediately set out north to the organic market at Union Square.
Half an hour later, as I stepped to the curb with four plastic bags full of Nana’s groceries, a Manhattan miracle happened-a cab pulled up before I had to figure out how the hell I was going to flag one down with my hands fully loaded. I threw my stuff in the back seat, slid in, and slammed the door.
The driver was coughing, and I waited for him to stop. He looked Eastern European, probably in his forties. He wore a short black goatee that on a younger man would have been trendy five years ago, but on him, it was befitting.
“Where to?” he said when he stopped coughing up his lungs long enough to speak.
“ Jackson Heights,” I said, then checked the exact address I had scrawled on the back of the shopping list. “ 3352 85th Street. Between Northern Boulevard and 34th Avenue.” I hadn’t been there in a while.
“You want me to take the Willamsburg or 59th Street bridge?” he asked, pulling away from the curb.
“Uh, 59th is fine,” I said. I sat back and closed my eyes. I relished the momentary silence of the cab ride, but sadly, it didn’t last long. The driver was chatty behind his goatee.
“You live out there?” he asked, through the halfway-drawn partition between us.
I wanted to enjoy a nice, quiet, uninterrupted ride to the outer boroughs, so I decided to ignore the question. My body, however, had different thoughts on the matter, and before I even realized what I was doing, I began speaking.
“No, it’s my grandmother’s place,” I blurted out. “She’s not feeling well and I’ve got a bunch of food and wine I’m bringing to cheer her up. I love her, but she’s a billion years old, and I honestly wish she’d hire someone to take care of her. It’s not like she doesn’t have the loot. Her place is huge.”
As soon as the words were out, I clamped my hand down over my mouth to stop myself from going further. What the hell was I doing? Being a young woman in the city-not to mention how tiny I was-I rarely ran at the mouth around strangers. Here I was divulging all kinds of personal-ad info and family dish. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that the driver was leering at me. His goatee looked devilish as I noticed a shift in his attitude.
“Its so sad when old people live alone, isn’t it?” I could hear the clumsy craftiness in his voice as he spoke. “She does live alone, doesn’t she?”
My hands were still over my mouth, but I still answered a muffled but discernible “yes” through them. I was confused and beginning to panic as we sped up Park Avenue toward Grand Central Station. I felt as though I had swallowed some truth serum with my morning Fruit Loops. We were just making every light as they turned green, and I began to wonder how the hell I might get out of the cab if it never slowed down. It felt as though I were being kidnapped. I looked at the license on display.
LUNA CANIDAE the name read. I committed it to memory. The driver began another coughing fit, this one longer than the first, and as I listened, the harsh staccato began to sound more and more like the bark of a dog. I pressed myself forward against the glass for a better look.
“Mister,” I started, “are you all right?”
The driver was hunched over from hacking, and his once well-groomed goatee had gone wild and had grown into a full beard that was rapidly taking over the rest of his face. He was changing before my eyes, and as incredible as it was, I think the hours of blowing off class to watch old movies somewhat prepared me for coping with this. Everything about the driver was becoming more and more wolf-like. His coughing had indeed become a bark, and his hands elongated into the shape of sharp-clawed paws, making it nearly impossible for him to grip the wheel.
The traffic lights were still turning green for us, but his inability to control the vehicle sent us careening off the road and head-on into a lamppost. I was lucky enough to slam into the cushiony back of the seat in front of me, but the man-wolf yelped as his head hit the steering wheel and he fell silent. I grabbed for my bags, threw open the door, and tumbled out of the cab onto the sidewalk. A small group of passersby gathered, asking if I was okay. But I ignored them and pushed through the crowd and ran the two blocks to Grand Central Station. As I neared one of the main entrances, I was blocked by a family apparently on an after-dinner stroll-a hulking papa, a medium sized mama, and a tiny toddler.
“… was too hot, dear,” I heard the father say as I bumped into him.
“Hey,” he growled, bearlike. “Watch it!”
“Sorry,” I said quickly, and dashed into Grand Central Station. As I rushed down to the main concourse, enormous trees the size of redwoods came shooting up through the station’s floor, bits of marble flying everywhere. All around me the room was transforming into a forest. People ran back and forth to avoid the debris and branches that shot past.
What the hell was going on?
Was I losing my mind?
Had living in New York City driven me insane?
I fervently wished I had listened to my friends back home. They were right. I was having a mental break from reality, and after only two months here. I snapped my eyes shut, counted to ten, and opened them again, hoping for some clarity.
Everything was still going crazy around me.
I made my peace with the fact that, crazy or not, I was going to have to deal with it. I ran for the bookstore along the west side of the main concourse. Things inside the store seemed normal compared to what was happening out on the concourse, but I didn’t know how long that might last. The smocked clerk only got out the “Can…” of “Can I help you?” before I interrupted.
“Children’s books,” I said, somewhat breathless from my run. “Fairy tales.”
“Third aisle, last bay on the left,” he said, pointing.
I hurried down the aisle and found the section. I dropped my grocery bags. An ugly little girl sitting a few feet away jumped at the sound, and her mother-far prettier than her-moved protectively close. I knew I must have looked crazy to them, but I turned away and began searching through the books until I found what I was looking for-a collection of Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.
I flipped open to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The tale itself wasn’t long, and by the time I was done, I more or less had confirmed my suspicions. I glanced over at the ugly little girl. She now was an anthropomorphic duck, and she quacked at me.
I didn’t much care for the way the story ended. Sure, the grandmother and Red ended up alive, but only after a huntsman had cut them free from the wolf’s belly. Of course, the tale didn’t discuss the years of therapy Nana and I would have had to endure after such a traumatic experience. My brain was slowly accepting the insanity, but my heart was panicked. I had to stop this.
I grabbed the zipper on the hoodie, but it was stuck. I frantically tried tugging the whole top up and over my head, but the cloth seemed fused to my body and it wouldn’t come free. I gave it a few more panicked yanks, feeling trapped, and broke several of my nails as I freaked out. The hood slipped onto my head as I tossed and turned, and the world slipped into cartoon colors.
My surroundings swirled, the trees outside the store looking more gnarled, the duck girl at my feet more threatening. I felt so tiny just then, so absolutely helpless, so afraid I was going mad.