The Subway

A solitary set of footsteps echoed loudly throughout a lifeless subway terminal in Brooklyn. The echoes abruptly halted, and the soft beep of the Metro Card reader informed the crusty white walls of the otherwise-empty station that another passenger was in their midst. If the dirty walls had eyes, they would see that this red-eyed passenger, clothed in all black and shoes that produced unusually loud thuds as they struck the concrete floor, possessed nothing spectacular save an entire lifetime of sixteen years traversing the New York City subway system and a sense of despair and hopelessness.

The loud thunder of an approaching train drowned out the echoing footsteps; with a rush of wind, the roaring vehicle slowed and halted at the station. Its doors opened abruptly, like mouths of a hungry Venus flytrap, allowing the one passenger to step aboard the dusty, yellowing subway car. In a second’s time, the doors again slid shut and the train began moving, quickly gaining speed on the old tracks. The passenger sat down on the hard orange seat nearest the door and stared aimlessly at the advertisements decorating the walls of the car.

Rarely did the arrival at a station disturb the lone passenger’s reverie, but at one such stop, a large number of people boarded the train at once, completely breaking the passenger’s concentration on nothing. As the vehicle started to move, the new arrivals, about two-thirds of which were teenagers, began to make such a clamor that the first passenger determined they were tourists. They crowded the car nearly to capacity, blocking all the posters from the passenger’s view save the one he wanted to see the least – a mirror.

Sighing, he reluctantly stared into the mirror and into his artificially red eyes. The effect of the contacts was startling, perhaps too much so, but the teenager decided he preferred the contacts over his original bright green eyes, eyes everyone said were just like his mother’s. Everyone was right, of course, but the passenger could not bear the inevitable sorrow and invisible tear that came with every such comment. Saddened, he averted his gaze, instead staring down at his ensemble of black clothing. For the first time, it struck him that he had not worn a shred of color since his mother’s untimely death.

One of the forty or so passengers that had crowded the train at the previous stop sat down next to the original teenager. "Hello," the man said quietly. "Are you from around here?"

The teenager nodded, unnerved by the bright green eyes through which the stranger smiled. He turned away, not wanting to converse with the stranger and thus be forced to maintain contact with eyes so reminiscent of his mother’s.

"We just ate at Little Italy. Do you like Italian food?"

Out of respect for his mother, the teenager remained polite and simply nodded, hoping the man would understand that he wished to be left alone, but he had no such luck.

"What’s your name?" the man persisted.

"Why do you care?" the teenager asked rudely, losing every shred of politeness and standing, grasping a grimy metal support pole as the train abruptly stopped. Unfortunately, the stranger and the other forty people stood as well and pushed their way off the train, shoving the teenager off in the process. The doors closed and the train sped away before he could re-board the vehicle. After the train raced by, the teenager caught sight of the words decorating the opposite wall and cursed. "Of all the places to be pushed off the subway," he muttered angrily, staring at the street name on the wall as the last of the strangers thundered up the stairs behind him. The ten months he spent successfully avoiding this station were wasted in a New York minute. As he contemplated what to do, he hoped beyond hope that the contacts that hid the color of his irises so well could also mask the feeling of dread and fear evident in his eyes.

He stomped angrily up the stairs, his footsteps echoing louder than before as he marched out of the stuffy station and into the clear summer evening. Aimlessly wandering the streets, he attempted to remember which subway would take him to his ultimate destination in midtown Manhattan in the shortest amount of time. Coming up with a solution, he turned a corner and a tall, solid fence, adorned with warning and regulation signs, appeared in view.

Suddenly nauseated, the teenager stared down the relatively deserted street at the fence, not wanting to go any farther but unable to turn back. Slapping himself for not remembering the changes in the subway system, he slowly approached the barrier. He slipped in the gate just before a police officer closed it, and shuffled to the second fence. Gripping it with both hands, he gazed through the openings for several minutes, tears filling his eyes. The teenager didn’t bother to brush the tears away as he walked around the perimeter of the gate, coming to rest near the large cross that stood guard over the site like a loving father protecting his injured child from further harm.

A question disrupted the teenager’s thoughts, and he turned to see who posed it. The man looked around, and his bright green eyes made contact with the teenager’s red ones. He abruptly turned away, but the stranger appeared beside him. "My cousin was a firefighter," the stranger said quietly, gazing at the destruction just beyond the flimsy fence. "He volunteered to help."

"Why?" the teenager questioned bitterly.

The man remained silent and pointed to the tall metal cross illuminated by one of the many lights surrounding the site. As he told the story of the cross, the teenager recognized it as the faith his mother found soon before she died. The stranger’s voice morphed into his mother’s in the teenager’s mind, and his tears started to flow freely from his disguised green eyes. Trying to escape, the teenager slid away, but the man stopped him.

"What’s your name? I’d like to pray for you."

The teenager hesitated, but the genuine compassion in the stranger’s voice convinced him that, for whatever reason, perhaps the man cared about him. "Jack," he responded, disappearing into the safety of darkness.

A solitary set of footsteps echoed loudly throughout a lifeless subway terminal in Brooklyn. The echoes abruptly halted, and the soft beep of the Metro Card reader informed the crusty walls of the otherwise-empty station that another passenger was in their midst. If the dirty walls had eyes, they would see that this red-eyed passenger, clothed in all black and shoes that produced unusually loud thuds as they struck the concrete floor, possessed nothing spectacular save a deep green umbrella dusted lightly with water drops.

The passenger shook the umbrella out, cold water droplets spraying everywhere and dampening the dirty concrete floor. A loud roar announced the arrival of a train, and within seconds the car appeared by the platform and spread open its doors. The passenger stepped aboard and collapsed onto one of the many hard orange seats, grateful for shelter from the rain and for the fortunate timing of the train. Subway stations were unbearable enough in the dry heat of summer, but the damp heat of a summer thunderstorm made them far worse; luckily, this particular train was air-conditioned.

The passenger glanced in a mirror situated across the aisle and to his right, his bold red eyes disgusting him. He felt that disguising his bright green eyes -- his mother’s eyes -- did her memory a horrible injustice. Reaching up to take the contacts out, he realized the absurdity of the idea. That memory brought him too much pain, pain his mother would not want him to endure. Shaking his head, he attempted to shake the thought out of his mind just as he had shaken water out of the umbrella a few seconds earlier.

He glanced down at the umbrella and gasped, his shock echoing in the otherwise empty subway car. In his haste to get out of the apartment, he had snatched his mother’s favorite umbrella. His momentary lapse of judgement infuriated him, but such lapses were becoming more frequent with each passing day. Like last night . . ..

Shoving the memory out of his mind, the teenager concentrated on the poster directly across the aisle, an advertisement for a peanut butter restaurant somewhere in Manhattan.

"Only in New York," he muttered, a smile playing on the edge of his lips. He quickly forced that renegade smile into hiding; it, just like his eyes, reminded the world of his mother, and therefore must be hidden to save himself pain.

The subway jerked to a stop, and the passenger stood cautiously, relying on a slippery metal pole for support. He stepped lightly off the train and turned to watch it disappear into the blackness of the tunnel. His loud footsteps resonated through the station as he made his way up the stairs to street level and struggled to open the umbrella. The umbrella popped open just in time to shield the teenager from a sudden downpour. Unfazed by the temperamental storm, he strolled across the street to a small city park located near a large cathedral. Scanning the grounds, he could not locate his appointment, and as he was already late, he started to leave. Looking over his shoulder, he realized the park was full of teenagers and adults huddled in ponchos and chatting with the few raincoat-clad people scattered throughout the courtyard.

One person turned, and the teenager was unable to hide his surprise as a pair of bright green eyes looked intensely into his own. He promptly headed towards the park, inexplicably unable to travel any other way. The green-eyed man greeted him amicably as he walked into the park and pretended to have business there as he wondered what these people were doing outside in the rain.

The teenager’s curiosity finally overwhelmed him. He timidly approached the man, who sat waiting patiently near the center of the park. He was shielded from the rain by an outrageous bright yellow poncho, further confirming the teenager’s earlier suspicion that this man and his people were from out of town.

"Sir, may I ask why you’re out here in the rain?" the red-eyed teenager inquired.

The man smiled, his green eyes twinkling with hope and a twinge of amusement as he began to explain. He talked quietly but confidently, eventually working his way to the story of the cross the teenager had heard too many times. This time, however, the teenager listened with great interest; the man’s story must be spectacular if he was willing to sit for hours in the rain to share it with him. And as one hour turned into two, the teenager began to understand what his mother had believed. With that comprehension, a small smile spread across the boy’s face.

A solitary set of footsteps resonated loudly throughout the lifeless subway station in Brooklyn. The footsteps abruptly halted, and the soft beep of the Metro Card reader informed the crusty white walls of the otherwise-empty station that another passenger was in their midst. If the dirty walls had eyes, they would see that this green-eyed passenger, clothed in blue jeans and a cotton T-shirt that displayed his high school’s name on the front and bore the name "Jack" on the back, possessed something spectacular: hope.