In the Moments Before the M Train Arrives

I look up from my phone and instantly regret it, because there he is—reeling and staggering and teetering at the edge of the platform, about 90 seconds before the M train is due. A moment ago, I was just a guy going home, tired, looking forward to some down time after a long day, and he didn’t exist. But he’s here now, and he’s not going away. If only I had kept my eyes down. I can even imagine the stories I would tell—I didn’t even notice. You know how I get. Yeah. Right onto the track, and then splat. We are at that great new tapas place, and my friends are concerned for me. They can see how deeply affected I am, but I make a brave show of it. A shrug, a trembling smile. A burden I have to bear alone.

But it’s too late for all of that now. What’s that weaselly political phrase? Plausible deniability. I’ve lost it. I’m part of the drama now.

I start to notice things about him. His clothes are clean. He is wearing some kind of old varsity sweater and a university baseball cap. I find myself wishing that he was a bum. No. Not a bum. Homeless. Disadvantaged. That would make the story even better. The pathos of it. A history of untreated mental illness, we can assume. My friends shake their heads in sad outrage. What sort of society do we live in, that we allow these things to happen and look away?

Because that is the kind of person I am. The kind of people I surround myself with. We are caring. We are kind. We are compassionate.

Varsity sweater. University cap. But not the local college. The rival college. He is in town for some athletic event. A booster. A fan. Fan is short for fanatic. He is a loudmouth. I can see him in a sports bar somewhere, shooting his fucking mouth off. He is an asshole.

But of course he doesn’t deserve to die. He sways at the very edge. My God, he is so drunk. I notice that he is carrying a plastic bag. Why didn’t I see that before? It says “Patient Personal Effects.” So he just got out of a hospital? Is he sick? What kind of person leaves a hospital and gets stinkingly, suicidally drunk? Jesus.

Or maybe they aren’t his. Maybe they belong to a loved one. Somebody he met at a college football game, the love of his life. He held her frail hand as she said goodbye, weeping bitterly with the knowledge that he would never take her to Paris, as he had promised he would do on that first date. God, the poor bastard. That is so sad.

I imagine stepping over to him, taking his arm, guiding him back from the brink. But he is so fucking drunk. He might throw up at any moment. He might throw up on me. It’s a vivid image: he looks uncomprehendingly down at my helping hand, then up at my face. He clutches me in a spasmodic embrace, and I feel the hot, sour river of vomit running down my neck and back.

And even without the vomit, just touching him feels . . . I don’t know. Dangerous. He looks clean, but you can never tell, especially these days. Coming from his wife’s deathbed the way he is. Hospitals—they’re petri dishes. The places bacteria go to gain their superpowers. Antibiotic resistance. It’s not a joke. It’s really not. Scabies. That’s a thing, right? Or lice. My niece had lice. It took Jennifer nine months to get rid of the motherfuckers.

Plausible deniability. I still have it, I realize. Nobody can prove that I saw him. I can just look back down at my phone—there really is some shit blowing up at the office that somebody has to get on top of, and as usual, that someone is me. But I couldn’t live with myself if, you know. I’m not that kind of person.

That acrid subway breeze starts to blow, the one that signals a train approaching through the tunnel. The man staggers, oblivious. His toes are right at the edge. I look up and down the platform. A lot of people are closer to him than I am. Come on. Just reach out and pull him back.

And then I see her. The only other person who isn’t distracted in some way. I realize that she’s been watching him, too. She is pretty, well put together in the way of ambitious city girls. A tan cashmere sweater. Black skirt. Pumps that hit just the right note, halfway between sensible and sexy. The clothes, they don’t stand out. They’re bland, even. But I can tell they were expensive, maybe Donna Karan or even Chanel, and I instantly like that about her. She’s going places but isn’t desperate for people to know.

Our eyes meet. We are in the moment together. I see the two of us later, in a coffee shop. “God,” she says, “I was so scared.” I cup her hands in mine to stop them from shaking. Our friends view us with that mixture of envy and contempt that is reserved for the truly in love. We stay in the city, because we are not sellouts. We find a neighborhood that hasn’t been gentrified, but still has enough old-world values not to be a complete shithole. Our children have a multicolored array of friends like a tiny little United Nations, and they grow up to be kind and wise beyond their years. Everybody who knows us remarks at our closeness, the strange and beautiful bond that we share. They ask us how we met, and we just laugh, and share a glance, and try not to think about that day, the platform, the roar of the train, everything coming at us so fast.