30 Pieces of a Novel

by Stephen Dixon

  The Subway Ride

  TRAIN’S CROWDED WHEN he gets on, he says, “Excuse me, excuse me, just want to get to the aisle, please,” bumps into someone from behind, a woman, who turns to him and says, “What the hell you think you’re doing?” and he says, “Excuse me, I was just going to say excuse me,” and the train starts and she says, “But you intentionally shoved your cock against my behind, you bastard,” and he says, “Did not, I swear, the train’s crowded; I was just moving to the aisle where there’s more room,” and she says, “You did too, you stuck your fucking dick up against my behind; who the fuck you think you are?” and he loses his balance a little because of the ride, doesn’t want to bump into her again, that’s all he needs; she’s holding onto the pole by the door, other people are looking at him, some men and a woman smirking, sort of, and he says to the woman, “Honestly,” and the train lurches and he grabs the pole she’s holding, his hand touches hers, and he pulls it away and says, “Excuse me, and honestly, I didn’t push you intentionally. I was moving to the aisle, past you, and someone must have pushed me from behind or just jostled me—I forget—or the car’s so crowded that I got closer to you than I wanted, believe me, and, well—” and she says, “Don’t tell me. This isn’t the first time it’s happened with one of you guys. You think you can get your kicks shoving your fucking dicks around where women are going to think it’s a mistake or be too scared to say anything, because who knows what kind of nut this creep can be, and so on. But I’m not one of them. My mouth is big. I don’t take shit from a man. Is there a cop in this car?” she yells; “because some goddamn guy tried sticking his pelvic region into me and I want a cop to grab him,” and someone from a few people away says, “Who did what?” and someone else yells, “I saw a policeman in the next car—the one further up—when I was getting into this one, but how you are going to get him, lady, is a problem.” A woman says to her, “Good, you’re doing it, that’s what every woman should do,” and a man says, “Maybe he didn’t mean it, accidents can happen, the train can push you,” and Gould says, “That’s what happened, I swear, an accident—I was moving into the aisle where there’s more room to stand, and someone from behind me must have pushed me into her and I tried pulling back, but when you start falling …” and the train slows down for the next stop and she says to him, “If you think you’re getting off”—for he made a move to the door—“I’m getting off with you, because I’m not letting you get away with this crap, thinking you can shove up against whoever you please,” and he says, “I wasn’t getting off, this isn’t my stop; I just got on. I was only trying to move a step to grab the bar above my head instead of the pole. I feel I’ll be able to hold on to it better and I also didn’t want to be too near you to accidentally bump against you again when the train pulls in and maybe lurches,” and she says, “Some accident, you bullshitter, you lying worm,” and everyone around them is now looking at them, and the train stops, people get off, on—no cops, she’s looking—and he says, “Honestly, miss—or missus—I didn’t mean it; why would I? I’m married. I’ve kids. I’d never do anything like that to a woman. That’s not how I get my kicks, and I’m sorry for bumping into you and I wish we could just forget it. I mean, who in this city hasn’t by accident bumped into the back and front and every part of some person’s body on one of these trains?” and she says, “You specifically did it. I felt your tube and you aimed straight for between the buttocks and you’re a slob for having tried it. If a cop was in the car now I’d have you arrested and prosecuted and accused and everything; you’re just lucky one isn’t.” He shuts his eyes. It’s going away. She’s becoming less threatening. The words, how she says them, not as much cursing and stridence; she’s backing off. She got out what she felt she had to and now she’s had her fill of it and it’ll soon be over with. If he got off at the next stop he doesn’t think she’d pursue him, though she might yell something at him as he left the car. She for sure would yell something. So what? He’d be gone. Some eyes might be on him on the platform and then fewer eyes as he went up the stairs, and once on the street that’d just about be the end of it. Maybe one person who had come upstairs with him from the platform might still be looking at him on the street and thinking of him in relation to what the woman had said, maybe two, and maybe both from the car he was in, but then that’d be the end of it, or it absolutely would once he was a block away from the station, walking in whatever opposite direction it was from the person who came up the stairs with him. If it had been more than one who’d come up with him from the same platform or car and maybe even out of the same door of that car—well, then he doesn’t know what he’d do: probably just stay by the station entrance till they were gone and then go down it to take the train. Or else—and this is what he’d do no matter what, since the woman might actually get off the train and then give up on following him and be standing on the platform—he’d take his time walking south to the next station on this line and get the train there. But the thing is, she might not have imagined what she said he did to her. He thinks he might have lost control for a few seconds and intentionally moved into her, something he never did to anyone in this kind of situation before. He was up close to her and was aware how close and also that if he didn’t want to cause a commotion by touching her he should stand still and not move past her, but he continued to move toward her and thinks when he got very close he suddenly thought of his wife, or was thinking of his wife all the time he was moving toward the woman or even when he first saw her, of the times when he wanted sex and to give her some indication he did he’d jam his penis into her backside in bed or bend it back a little and spring it against one of her buttocks or legs or, if they were standing someplace, then put his arms around her from behind and press his penis against her, and around that moment jabbed his front into the woman’s rear end. He was semierect or even erect when he did it—he forgets, but one of them, most likely from having just thought of his wife in one of the ways he mentioned—which the woman didn’t bring up, thank God. Maybe she didn’t feel his penis particularly but just his pelvic area moving into her backside, since it doesn’t seem like something she’d hold back in her accusations against him. Though it could be that’s where she draws the line in describing what happened in something like that and also feels that anyone listening to her could figure out or imagine for themselves what state his penis was in. Train doors open, people get off, others are waiting to get on; one man slips around some people getting off and grabs the one free seat near Gould. He thinks, while gripping the overhead bar so nobody getting off or on shoves him into her: Make a dash for it now; so many people left the train to go upstairs that he’ll quickly get lost in the crowd, when a man in the car shouts “Officer … say, Officer there … over here, you’re wanted, something important,” and the woman says to Gould, “Finally, now you’re in for it,” and he says, “For what? You still onto that? I did nothing,” and sees a tall policeman making his way through the car from the direction the man before said he saw one. “Step aside,” the policeman’s saying, “please, folks, move, move, I gotta get through.” He could still make a dash for it, policeman might not be able to get to the door in time to stop him, and if he was caught on the platform or stairs or even on the street by this policeman or another one—for this one could radio to another transit cop or even to a regular city one about a bald white guy in green corduroy jacket and chinos and button-down blue shirt getting away—he’d stop and say … he certainly wouldn’t put up any resistance if one of them approached or ran after him or ordered him to stop, but he’d say … well, he could give several excuses why he was trying to get away: the woman was bothering him, cursing at him, harassing him, even—the train would have left by then, he thinks, so there’d be little chance, if she got off it with the policeman, that she’d have any witnesses—“I just wanted to be rid of her. Believe me, I wasn’t six inches from her”—not six inches—“I wasn’t anywhere as near to her as she says, but she jumped on me like I was
the worst masher there was; something must be wrong with her and what I think it is I won’t go into, but I swear to you, Officer, I swear…. “Train goes, he’s still clutching the overhead bar with one hand, book’s tucked under his other arm, woman’s telling the policeman what happened, policeman interrupts her and says, “Too bad I didn’t know beforehand what it was, I would’ve asked you both to leave the train and all the witnesses to the issue, pro or con, to join us. But this is not something to discuss in a crowded car while we’re still going,” and Gould says, “I agree. Besides that, what she told you is absolutely the biggest crock of—” and the policeman holds up his hand for him to stop and says, “Save it; don’t make things worse for yourself, that’s my advice. You’ve something to say? Later. Now, you and the lady and me will get off at the next station with any witnesses to the incident, if one occurred,” and looks around and nobody volunteers, and he says to the people standing and sitting near them, “Excuse me, folks, I don’t want to take you out of your way. But are there any witnesses to what this woman’s claiming? You heard what the charges are if you were around then, and it’s not within my jurisdiction to repeat them. So did anyone, I’ll only say, see anything for or against what she claims about this man?” and some people shake their heads or quietly say no, others just stare back blankly or turn away or look at their newspapers, and the woman says to a woman standing beside her, “You were here when it happened; you had to see him do with his front what I said he did,” and the other woman says, “I was here, all right, but I didn’t see anything. I only heard you saying it. I’m sorry, I wish I could help,” and the policeman says, “So just the three of us will get off and we’ll settle it there, or if there’s any rough talk, then in the transit police station on Thirty-fourth,” and Gould says, “No rough talk from me. My argument is simply that I didn’t do it. I was moving to the aisle for more room and to read when I accidentally must have brushed up against her when either someone pushed me from behind or the train suddenly shifted or did something, but where I lost my balance, causing me—” and the woman says, “You bullshitter,” and the policeman says, “Please, the two of you, we’ll talk off the train. And you”—to Gould—“I thought I told you to save it for later.”

  They get off at the next stop; the policeman says, “Let’s go where we can hear better,” and leads them upstairs to the area near the turnstiles, and he has the woman go through it again and then says to Gould, “Now’s your time, sir, how do you answer her charges?” and Gould says, “What I started telling you before but said completely to her on the train before: it’s ridiculous, I’d never do it. I didn’t, period. I can appreciate why she’d protest, though, if she thought something like that happened, for it’s awful when men do that to women on trains—anyplace. I can also understand, if it’s happened to her before or even if it hasn’t, why she might think I did it on purpose—that it just felt to her as if I did. But I swear, if my body did touch hers, and I’m not even sure it did, it was purely by accident and nothing else. As I told her, it’s just not what I do. I’m married, with young children and a good job—I know those aren’t valid excuses; the most deeply married man and best father and worker and religious person and everything could be a psycho on the side—but I’m not, and more than that I can’t say,” and the policeman says to her, “Ma’am, I don’t take sides. You say this, he says that, and it’s up to me to listen. Now I heard you both and I’m going to say what I’m going to say. You really don’t have any witnesses to it, so it ends up being your word against his, and I don’t think you’ll get anywhere with it,” and she says, “I know he put his body intentionally to mine and so does he. He’s a good liar. He had plenty of space to go around me, but no, he turned to me, not with his back but his front, something I caught out of the corner of my eye but didn’t have the time to stop it. And next he squeezed into me as if I was his little doll or something—his girlfriend or wife that he says he has—and I’d like it. Well, I didn’t like it and I want to make charges against him, big charges. I want to stop all these creepy bastards like him from riding back and forth on the subways and trying to stick themselves against women and smaller girls and every kind of female and the rest of it.” She’s almost screaming now, and the policeman says, “Lady, calm down please. Okay, you want to make charges, we can do that, but you’ll have to come to court once his case comes up, you know. You don’t, for no good reason, then the charges are dropped and can’t be renewed. Even if you don’t come to court for a good reason—sickness, or your kid’s sick—” and she says, “I have no kid, and I’m not married; I’m on my own, which is another—” and he says, “I was giving examples. Then the case is postponed for two months or so, even more if there’s a big court overload,” and she says, “Don’t you worry, I’ll be there the first time,” and the policeman says, “Okay, so I guess we got to go to step two, and I want everybody to remain peaceful, calm and nice,” and starts to fill out a report, asks Gould for identification, says he’ll get a court notice in the mail when to appear. “Same with you, miss, and I’ll see you both there. Okay, now we’re all free to go,” and Gould says, “I’m going downstairs to continue my ride, I hope that’s all right,” and the policeman says, “Sure, it’s what I said,” and the woman says, “So am I. I’m not staying here waiting for him to get the next train first and my missing even more of my time,” and the policeman says, “So how about us all going downstairs together, since that’s my direction too,” and they walk downstairs and stand on the platform waiting for the train. Gould says to the policeman, “I’m not trying to show anything by this, but if you don’t mind I’d like to move a ways down the platform so I can save the embarrassment for this woman and me, or just uneasiness, of being in the same car,” and the woman says, “It makes no difference to me if we’re in the same car so long as this officer’s there with us,” and the policeman says, “I’ll get in the same car with you two—I did plan that—but I’ll have to start circulating my presence throughout the train and, after a stop or two, the train system in general, if you know what I mean. So why don’t you,” he says to Gould, “just to make life easier for us, get in with me, and if Miss Pizeman wants, she can get into another car. I think that’s the best solution,” and she says, “Why?” and he says, “Because I think so. Because I know what I’m doing. Because if I’m with him you know nothing can go wrong between you, from whichever end it comes,” and Gould says, “Nothing could go wrong again from my end. I didn’t do anything before and I wouldn’t do anything now,” and she says, “That’s what you say, but you lie on one and we’re supposed to believe the other?” and the policeman says, “I already assumed nothing would go wrong now. I was only trying to come up with a compromise that’d make this woman feel a bit easier. But if you think”—to her—“you want me in your car and him to be in another car and he agrees to it, though he’s not by law obligated to and I can’t insist he do it since he’s not acting in any way as if he’s about to get out of hand—” and she says, “One or the other, I guess; I don’t care. Just so long as you’re with one of us. But what happens if when you start circulating he comes to the car I’m in, after you’re out of mine or when you’re off the train entirely?” and Gould says, “I won’t go into your car. You don’t seem to understand that you’re the last person I ever want to be in the same car with. So whatever car I get into, I’ll stay there, but we have to make sure from the start we’re in different ones.” Platform’s crowding up, some people have moved closer to listen to them, and the policeman says, “Please, folks, what you see’s not anybody else’s business, so move it,” and Gould thinks, This is awful; besides that, it’s embarrassing. You got to get yourself away from here before she says something that makes you say something and then she’s sure to come back harder and you’ll give even more in return, to where you’re in big trouble again and with everyone watching, and looks at the wall with the station’s name on it and says, “Jesus, I can’t believe it, but I don’t even ha
ve to get on the train. This is my stop, and in all the confusion before I didn’t know it,” and the woman says, “Sure it is,” and the policeman says, “So why don’t you leave then, sir,” and she says, “You just want to separate us, don’t tell me; well, good,” and Gould says to them, “But it’s the truth; I don’t know how I can prove it, but it is,” and the policeman says, “Don’t prove, just go where you have to and if I’m not on some other thing that day and the woman here doesn’t drop the charges before then, I’ll see you,” and Gould says, “Thank you,” and, to the woman, “Believe me, miss, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding between us, for that’s what it was. And I hope, in the next few weeks, you can see to dropping the charges, because they’re—” and she says “Bullshit,” and he says, “No, really, I was going to say—” and she says, “And I said bullshit, bullshit, do you hear? Bullshit!” and the policeman says, “Please, lady, don’t make it more,” and Gould says, “Thanks again,” and touches him on the arm and goes upstairs, thinking, I’ve never touched a cop before.