Andrew Vachss: Down in the Zero

I used to feel the electricity in me. Fear–jolts. Zip–zapping around inside me, jumping the synapses, making the connections.

Keeping me safe.

When I looked at that house of beasts in the Bronx, when I started my walk, the fear wasn't with me.

It hasn't been there since.

I just don't fucking care.

The betrayal business was booming. Michelle found me work all over town. I was always a patient man, but now I was a stone. It didn't matter how long anything took.

Peter was a hardworking guy, nervous and jumpy, always doing the same things. A rabbit of habit. Every morning, he caught the 5:05 from Bethpage, out on Long Island. I picked him up there a couple of times, eyed him over the rim of my newspaper, dressed in a commuter suit, invisible. He never talked to anyone. Always caught the E or the F train from Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, rolled it all the way into Fifty–third and Fifth, walked the rest of the way to his office. He worked for an insurance company, something with numbers.

His wife told her hairdresser that Peter had something on the side. She could tell, she said. The hairdresser told his friend, and his friend told Michelle. She made the arrangements.

He didn't do anything on the LIRR. Nothing. I started to wait for him on the subway, down the line a few stops at the Union Turnpike station.

The mornings had a held–over night chill to them, as refreshing as the air conditioning in a morgue. I'd wait on the platform, dressed like a city nomad, my nostrils stuffed with Vicks so I could handle the smell.

On the subways now, the scariest sound isn't a gun being cocked— it's that liquid–center TB cough.

Sometimes he was on the E, sometimes on the F. Always in the last car. The F isn't as good as the E for skells to sleep. Homeless riders hate the new R–46 cars— the seats are orange and yellow, hard plastic, with indentations for your butt, splayed all around the cars with no more than three seats in a row at any point. Most of the E trains have the old–style cars, with flat–bench seating for six in a row— much easier to stretch out and snooze.

I got to know the regulars. A pair of Latins with impressive mustaches— they always sat next to each other, never spoke, never read the paper. Central Americans, not Puerto Ricans, their posture was military. They just watched— one to the right, the other to the left. Maybe for the roving gangs of dead–inside kids who never go out without their squeeze bottles of gasoline to set fire to sleeping bums. A smooth–faced black woman with two little kids, dressed in a nurse's uniform— I guess she dropped them off at the babysitter's before she went to work herself. A young white man with a shaved head, always reading karate magazines. A Korean woman, only her sloe eyes visible above the surgical mask she wore…a fresh white one every day. A huge black man, palms on knees, knuckles so torn lighter skin showed beneath…as if he was wearing star sapphires on his hands.

Once you get a seat that early in the morning, you want to stay there— nomadic psychos use the space between the connecting doors at the end of each car as a urinal.

The homeless always ride to the end. Then they wait for the train to head back the way it came. They never get where they're going.

I always stayed on the train past Peter's station. The F makes its last useful Manhattan stop at West Fourth. I got off, switched to the A. Lots of people do that— the A stops at Chambers, same as the E, but the E goes much deeper into the station…all the way to the World Trade Center. You switch to the A, you save about a half–mile of walking if it's Chambers Street you really want.

I watched everything. On the platform, one of the steel girders has a metal flap covering a faucet. I watched a homeless man take a plastic bottle— the kind yuppies keep in their refrigerator to have pure spring water always available after their workouts— out of a tattered duffel. He carefully removed the spigot from the bottle, turned it face up, and filled it from the faucet. Finished, he replaced the spigot, picked up the bottle by its carrying handle and shuffled along. He saw me watching.

"At least I got fresh water, amigo," he cheerfully informed me.

On the white tiles surrounding the stairway leading up to the street, a proclamation in black Magic Marker:

I wondered if Angel was a man or a woman— they both pimp in the city now. Or maybe it was an S&M game.

I got on the A train. Sat right next to a white man who'd shaved only half his face that morning. His eyes were spinning in their sockets. One wrist was bandaged, the other had a watch tattooed on it, beautifully detailed. The maniac looked down at his wrist, saw it was 7:15. By the third stop, he'd checked it three more times, tapping his fingers impatiently.

I walked home from Canal, got some sleep. Around noon, I strolled over to the Brooklyn Bridge stop on the Lexington Avenue line. Took the local uptown so I could be ready for Peter's lunch hour.

A man with shoulder–length hair had the corner of the car to himself. He smelled like rot, dressed only in a baggy pair of blue jeans and a torn red T–shirt. Gym shoes, no socks. He was muttering, a vicious dialogue with an invisible enemy. Two black teenagers watched him, awestruck. I could see what they were wondering at— the man's upper body was bulging with sharply cut muscle mass— he looked like an ad for bodybuilding.

I could have solved the mystery for the kids: psycho–isometrics. The poor bastard had been raging against the chemical handcuffs for years before they "de–institutionalized" him.

It was hard to get a seat on that train— a pain for some, a chance to vogue for others. A pair of pretty–girl teenage twins got on, dressed in matching green sheaths so short you could see the heavy black bands around their thighs where their stockings stopped. One took an open seat, the other sat on her lap, kicking her legs, smiling, showing off. They chattered to each other like they were the only ones there, but they registered it all. At Fourteenth Street, they switched places…so they'd each have a turn on stage.

I got off at Fifty–first, took a short walk. Had a couple of cigarettes. Waiting for Peter.

A bubble–butted model pranced on the sidewalk, holding the pay phone at the end of the cord in one hand like a rock singer with a microphone. A trio of flash–dressed young execs watched her, dreaming of trophies you could buy with gold cards. A limo driver waited at the curb, bored. A bag lady shuffled past, pushing a baby carriage full of returnable plastic bottles.

Most days Peter just walked around. Sometimes he'd buy a hot dog from a street–corner vendor, sit on a bench, munch it slowly. Some

times he didn't eat at all. He made a decent salary— maybe he was just cheap.

A whole week went by, same routine. It was a Tuesday when Peter started walking. Up Fiftieth, against the traffic flow. By the time he crossed Sixth and turned left, I had it figured out.

The topless joint served overpriced meals, but nobody was there for the food. Peter ordered a drink and a sandwich. He spent the rest of the lunch money he'd been saving on a tall girl with long black hair who danced for him. Right on top of his little table. Her high breasts stayed unnaturally stiff no matter how much the rest of her bounced. He looked up at her, never moving his face. Tipped her good too, stuffing a few bills down the front of her G–string. She acted like she knew him, gave him a little kiss before she walked off, switching her marriage–wrecker hips.

The black–haired girl worked hard for her money. In those joints, management doesn't pay the talent— they're all independent contractors, renting space to do their work. They keep their tips, management gets the booze and meal money. It doesn't bother the yuppies— they can put the whole thing on their business account as long as they don't eat alone. It's easier for them to watch for–sale flesh in packs anyway.