Colson Whitehead - The Colossus of New York

A PERCENTAGE about to get off stands too soon. About to get off but jumped the gun and it’s all black out there. Vaguely embarrassed. Their seats are already filled. Should he switch here, he wonders, as the cars pull in to existential station. Run. They all dash out to the local, some come the other way to the express, in rare cases transfers end up taking each other’s seats on the other train. It happens less frequently with these modern cars, on these modern tracks, but sometimes the lights go out and what do you do then with all these monsters beside you. I remember when this used to cost a dime. If this car were suddenly transported to a desert island and they were like stuck there she could maybe make out with that guy. Why are you standing so close to me. Is he trying to read the map behind her or interviewing her scalp: you make the call. Here it is, the class trip in their identical day camp T-shirts. Peppy adults herd and hector. Everybody stick together. Pick a buddy. Have you once again picked the car with class trip. Stuck here with these midget mewling things. Too young for sex they punch each other in the arm.

WE ARE STUCK in the tunnel on account of a police action at the station ahead of us. We are stuck in the tunnel on account of a sick passenger on the train in front of us. Him again, that rheumy bitch. For someone so sick, he sure gets around a lot. Perhaps he is merely more evolved and now allergic to filth and speed. Take up a collection to subsidize a private limo for the sick passenger. The announcer tries to give information. Every mishap down here radiates outside this car, generating excuses arguments likely stories. What happens down here fertilizes that up-top world. There are slim walkways for mole employees to walk on without being crushed. They have day-glo vests and a deep longing for those who rush by. They get paid to be subterranean. To know what it is to work down there. She finds grit in her fingernails as she speeds past them.

STRAPHANGING actually an antiquated term. It’s all metal now, swiveling commas, poles in perpendicular arrangements. But they still hang, still droop, dangle on curled fingers. Feet next to feet. The pole is sickeningly warm God forbid moist from previous fingers. Microbes rejoice. His hand slides slowly down the pole, touching her fingers, so she bids her fingers retreat. He chases, they bump again, she retreats farther. Their hands slide down, all without eye contact. One of many daily contests here. Beware of frottage. Readjust your balance at every lurch. If you don’t know what time it is, wait for a peek when he changes his grip. Even if they pulled into his station right now it would be too late.

HIS HEART speeds up before his mind can process the fear: haven’t they been between stations for too long. Stationless for quite a while now and it is quite disconcerting. Suddenly realizing you’ve taken the express. Past familiar stations, farther than you have ever gone before. Neighborhoods you have heard of but never reckoned. Burrowing under a river, good God the horror of a whole different borough. It could be apocalypse above for all you know and who wouldn’t think disaster, stuck in the tunnel like that. Isn’t this slope just a little too deep. Going down. They have laid rail into the center of the earth and this is where we are going. There are tales of phantom lines, haunted stations. We’ve all sped past ghost stations where the exits have been bricked up and graffiti warns in looping letters. Abandon all hope. There is no escape if the train stops at ghost stations and we will mill in purgatory. That explains it: he died today without knowing and now this train is taking him to the underworld. Then you suddenly pull in and have to pay again to switch.

THEY ROCK in unison, at least they agree on that one small thing. Check their wallets — the denominations won’t jibe. Review their prayers — the names of their gods won’t match. What they cherish and hold dear, their ideals and shopping lists, are as different and numerous as their destinations. But all is not lost. Look around, they’re doing a little dance now in the subway car and without rehearsal they all rock together. Shudder and lurch together to the car’s orchestrations. Some of them even humming. Everybody’s in this together until the next stop, when some of them will get off and some others get on. This is your stop. Get off. Get off now and hurry, before you are trapped in the underworld.

OUT ON the street they hardly notice the clouds before it starts raining. The rain comes down in sheets. Drenched all at once, not drop by drop. The first drop is the pistol at the start of the race and at that crack people move for shelter, any ragtag thing, they huddle under ripped awnings, the doorway of the diner, suddenly an appetite for coffee. Pressed up against buildings as if on the lam. Little sprints and dashes between horizontal cover. Dry here. Surely it will stop soon, they think. They can wait it out. It cannot last forever.

SUSPECTING such an eventuality, the umbrella salesmen emerge to make deals. They wait all week for this and have ample supply of one-dollar bills. The virtues of their merchandise are self-evident. She carries an umbrella every day no matter what the news says because you can never tell and is vindicated by moisture. It pops open. The doused press down on reluctant buttons and the mechanisms pop open. Underneath their personal domes, they are separated from the peasants. To be this easily isolated from all worry. The silver tips dart and jab for eye sockets. Probability says many are blinded by pointy umbrella spokes and you are surely the next victim. At the corner he wrestles with a ghost for the soul of his umbrella. The gust gains the upper hand as he waits for the light to change and the umbrella is ripped inverse. Many are lost. The wounded, the fallen in this struggle, poke out of trash cans, abandoned, black fabric rippling against split chrome ribs. This is their lot. Either in the trash can or forgotten in the restaurant, the movie theater, the friend’s foyer, spreading their slow puddles across floors. Forming an attachment to an umbrella is the shortest route to heartbreak in this town. Any true accounting would reveal that there are only twenty umbrellas in this city, in constant movement from palm to palm. Bunch of Lotharios. So do we learn loss from umbrellas.

THE NEW RIVERS along curbs shove newspaper and grit to gutters. Too big to squeeze through grates the garbage bobs in place like the unstylish waiting for nightclub doors to open. The liquid sinks below. The alligators don’t mind. Eventually a clog sends a puddle advancing. A sliver of moon, the surface of the puddle is tormented by brief craters. Each drop explodes and extends the surface of the puddle. Doing their part for the water cycle, the bus wheels return the puddle to air again. Complacent beneath her umbrella she is thoroughly soaked when she stands too close to the curb. The enemy came from below. The metropolitan transit authority reinforces old lessons: every puddle wants to hug you. If not heavy motor vehicles then it is the children in their bright red boots detonating puddles on people. Knock it off.

IT FINDS the nape of your neck easily. It traces the length of your spine greedily. The long list of errands shrinks into what people can do in the least amount of water. So much for the dry cleaning. All over town the available number of cabs shrinks as thin fingers tilt and quiver at the edges of traffic. The bastard one block upriver gets it before you can stick a hand out, just as you are someone else’s bastard one block downriver. Epithets are tossed against the flow of traffic, upon the unbeknownst. Everybody just wants to get home, so they make calculations and jockey. What’s a better block for a cab. East or west, up a street or down. Schemes multiply and divide the longer you stand there. The supercomputer of cab-catching. Sixth Avenue is uptown and Seventh is down, important variables. The time of day, the direction and force of the wind, sun spots, that Pacific typhoon, all important considerations in the acquisition of a cab. She hailed it because she thought it was empty, but it speeds by with smug fares in the backseat who do not even notice her. Day like this all it takes is a little cab fare in your pocket to become royalty.