Night Train (K. Howe)

It is late.

After dinner I bid farewell to my friend Molly and head toward the subway. Down Sixth Avenue to Spring Street, to the C stop. I dislike the C train. It comes infrequently and at this hour I could be waiting for it a good long while.

As I approach the station however, I hear a rumble underground. It seems to be coming from the right direction, and changing in pitch and rhythm, slowing - not an express train that would pass through the station. This could be my C. I start running, thinking, I'll never make it, shit shit shit, I'll be waiting there forever if I don't make that train.

Flap-flap-flap-flap! my flip flops slap the steps as I scramble down the stairs. I can see the open doors as I approach the gates, and think, "ok, goodbye, not gonna make this one."

Miraculously however, the doors linger open. As I scramble through my purse for my ticket, I hear, "Do you have it?" I look up, relieved to find the conductor's window right opposite me. He is looking at me, waiting for me, as paw through the contents of my bag. Where the is my ticket? It is always in a certain pocket, and it is not there. "Do you have it?" he says, encouragingly. Where the fuck is my ticket?? credit cards, business cards, keys, CVS drugstore card. Gum wrappers, lint, lipsticks, post-it notes with a long to-do list. The clean stainless bars stand between me and the open doors of the subway train, not more that six feet away. Still frantically pawing through, I look up at him and him and shake my head.

"Stand clear of the closing doors," he says through his mic to everybody on the train. "Do you have it?" he says through the window to me.

Where the fuck is my goddamn metro card??? Time feels stuck in an impossible way. The doors of a New York Subway train gape open, ghostly light and air-conditioning rolling out, tired people with blank expressions inside. For an unexplained frozen moment, the forward motion of the universe seems to have gotten caught, and everything just hangs like that. The doors don't close and my metro card is nowhere to be found. It feels like an obscene amount of time.

"I'm sorry I can't find it," I say to him, looking up and shaking my head. "Ok," he says. I continue to look, more systematic now, through all the pockets, leafing through notebooks and cards.

The train should have gone, by now, the doors have chimed and closed. But I hear again, "Do you have it?" - one last time he asks. I shake my head sadly, he shakes his head resigned, and out of my peripheral vision I see the train start to pull away.

In my purse, I finally see the magnetic strip of my metro card. In the wrong pocket. I snatch it out and hold it up. "I found it!" I yell. The train is pulling out slowly, and the conductor is still not more than 15 feet from me. He shakes his head. "Its too late," he says.

As I the clear the gates the last of the train pulls out of the station, leaving it empty and echoing. It will be a while before another one comes. I feel like that is the kindest thing anybody has ever done for me.