How Long 'Til Black Future Month?

by N. K. Jemisin

  Okay, okay, I know, right, okay, I said you could slap me.

  Damnedest thing happened on the way home, though. Did you know there’s a P train? Yeah, I never heard of it either. I saw it blow through on the express track. I tried to see by the side signs where it was going, but it was too fast. I didn’t see anybody in it. Maybe it runs in some boondocky part of the city, like Queens.

  Shut up, I know you’re from there.

  I was feeling really bad today, girl.

  Gray days do a number on me. That’s when I wake up and really notice that empty spot in the bed beside me. Days like that are going-through-the-motions days. I get up and get ready for work and go off to a boring job with people I hate, and then in the evenings I come home. The trains are always crowded. A million people packed together like sardines, and no one talks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else.

  Gray days are days when I feel, more than any other, like I don’t belong here.

  There was a T train waiting at the platform this morning. Did you see it? No, I never heard of the T either. Maybe it’s new.

  The doors were open when I first stepped onto the platform, but when other people showed up, the doors closed and the train left. I wonder where it went?

  Sometimes I wonder if I’m strong enough for this city.

  Well, because I’m nice. I mean, too nice. Like, the other day, I took my clothes to this laundromat in my neighborhood for drop-off service. Damn, I miss having a washer and dryer in the house. I know! Next time I move. So this place, I dropped off my clothes, and when I went back, half my shit was stained red. The woman apologized but then tried to tell me it was my fault for giving her a red shirt that wasn’t colorfast. It was colorfast, at least when you wash it in cold with other dark-colored stuff, but all the stuff that had been messed up was light-colored—a beige sweater, a white T-shirt. So they must’ve put the shirt in with the whites. And that’s my fault?

  But I didn’t say anything. I just walked off and started looking for another laundromat.

  Would a real New Yorker have done that? I should’ve pitched a fit. I should’ve demanded my money back, at least, or compensation for the damaged stuff. I should’ve threatened to sue. But I didn’t say anything. I’ve been chewing on that for weeks, trying to figure out why I didn’t.

  But it’s not just that. My coworkers. My ex. My building super. I’ve been after him for six weeks to get that crack in my ceiling fixed. Maybe if I was more of a bitch, he’d come.

  Am I weak? Can people smell that? Maybe I’m not meant for big-city life. Maybe I should’ve stayed back in that dinky little town, instead of running up here after I broke up with Nick …

  Thanks, girl. You don’t know how it helps to hear that. I wish I could save up this stuff, and replay it in my head whenever I start to wonder. I wonder all the time these days.

  So it was the K today.

  It didn’t come out of the tunnel, actually. I was at Fifty-Seventh, on my way home from work. I looked down the N tunnel and there was a K there. Just sitting there, maybe fifty feet in. It must’ve been on a side track, because when the N came and went, the K was gone.

  I looked it up this time. The K stopped running in ’88. Not that it ever ran on this line at all.

  I think it was checking me out, y’know?

  Yeah. That’s what I think.

  In fact, I think they’re all checking me out. All the defunct lines, the dead lines. I think they never really go away. I mean, every day somewhere, somebody slips up and says, “Take the 1/9,” when they should just say the 1, or they say the T when they mean the V, or whatever. Too many people look into those empty tunnels and expect to see something where nothing is. And the trains, maybe they hear all that. Maybe they think they’re still needed. So maybe they stick around, waiting to be called.

  It probably doesn’t take much. Just one person, really, wanting badly enough to go … hell, wherever it is they go. I wonder if …

  Why shouldn’t I say things like that? I kind of want to know, you know? Where they go. Wouldn’t you?

  Okay, okay. I won’t say it anymore. I’m sorry.

  I’m probably hallucinating this shit anyway. Carbon monoxide or rat poison or something, all kinds of crap down there. Maybe I’m allergic and this is, I dunno, anaphylactic bullshit, as opposed to garden-variety bullshit, ha ha ha. You’re the only person I know who would take me seriously when I say things like this. That’s why I love you, girl.

  Thanks for listening, though. Really. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Would you ever tell me if I got on your nerves?

  It’s not crazy. You’re married, you’ve got a baby and another on the way. You’re always busy. You’ve got a life.

  I know. I know you’ll always be my friend. But … I can’t call you when I want to go somewhere on a Friday night. You’d have to find a sitter, call your husband, rearrange your whole life. You can’t come over when I’m bored and lonely and just want somebody to sit around and watch TV with. I mean, I can call you, I know, but I’m always worried the phone will wake up everybody in your house.

  Sometimes I need more from you than you can give, y’know? I know that. I try not to impose, even though … even though you’re all I’ve … I don’t mean to impose.

  So just tell me, okay? If I ever get on your nerves. Just say you’ll tell me if I do. It’s okay, really. I’ll understand.

  Hey, girl! Long time no speak. What’s up?

  I’m fine. No, really. I’m sorry I worried you. I know, I was kind of talking crazy. I kind of felt crazy. But I’m fine now.

  Oh, yeah, so I took the U after work one night.

  No, there was never a U. I mean, I saw it, a big black letter on a plain white circle, kind of like an eye, but it’s not a real line. It’s one of the spares, in case they need to create a new line sometime, like X and Y. It’s a line that never was. But I saw it that day, peeking out at me from the tunnel. Checking me out. I don’t know how it heard me, the subways are so loud, but I just whispered, “Well, come on, then.” And it rolled right in.

  There was no conductor. All the seats were wide open, shiny and clean. So I got on it. I rode all the way to the end of the line.

  Oh, girl, I’m sorry, my cell barely gets any signal out here. Can you hear me? If we get cut off, I’ll call you back later. I just wanted you to know I was all right. And, y’know, you can visit me anytime you want, okay?

  Because I know you hate it sometimes, the routine. Giving up your dreams, or at least postponing them, to have kids. It was so stupid of me to assume that just because you had a family, everything was perfect for you. I understand that now. I’m sorry for making you put up with all my shit. You’ve been such a good friend.

  So I want to return the favor. Sometimes all you need to do is take a chance, you know, try something new. Close your eyes and take a step forward, then look around to see where you are.

  If you take that step, you’ll find me. Doesn’t matter where, really. Even if you end up in a bad place, I’ll find you. I got your back. Didn’t you know that already? Ha ha ha.

  Catch me up about the new baby sometime. I’ve got so much to tell you, too.

  Gotta go, sorry. I’ll catch you later, okay?

  Train’s coming.

  Non-Zero Probabilities

  In the mornings, Adele girds herself for the trip to work as a warrior for battle. First she prays, both to the Christian god of her Irish ancestors and to the orishas of her African ancestors—the latter she is less familiar with, but getting to know. Then she takes a bath with herbs, including dried chickory and allspice, from a mixture given to her by the woman at the local botanica. (She doesn’t know Spanish well, but she’s getting to know that, too. Today’s word is suerte.) Then, smelling vaguely of coffee and pumpkin pie, she layers on armor: the Saint Christopher medal her mother sent her, for protection on journeys. The hair-clasp she was wearing when she broke up with Larry, which she regards as the best d
ecision of her life. On especially dangerous days, she wears the panties in which she experienced her first self-induced orgasm post-Larry. They’re a bit ragged after too many commercial laundromat washings, but still more or less sound. (She washes them by hand now, with Woolite, and lays them flat to dry.)

  Then she starts the trip to work. She doesn’t bike, though she owns one. A next-door neighbor broke an arm when her bike’s front wheel came off in mid-pedal. Could’ve been anything. Just an accident. But still.

  So Adele sets out, swinging her arms, enjoying the day if it’s sunny, wrestling with her shitty umbrella if it’s rainy. (She no longer opens the umbrella indoors.) Keeping a careful eye out for those who may not be as well protected. It takes two to tango, but only one to seriously fuck up some shit, as they say in her ’hood. And lo and behold, just three blocks into her trip there is a horrible crash and the ground shakes and car alarms go off and there are screams and people start running. Smoke billows, full of acrid ozone and a taste like dirty blood. When Adele reaches the corner, tensed and ready to flee, she beholds the Franklin Avenue shuttle train, a tiny thing that runs on an elevated track for some portions of its brief run, lying sprawled over Atlantic Avenue like a beached aluminum whale. It has jumped its track, fallen thirty feet to the ground below, and probably killed everyone inside or under or near it.

  Adele goes to help, of course, but even as she and other good Samaritans pull bodies and screaming wounded from the wreckage, she cannot help but feel a measure of contempt. It is a cover, her anger; easier to feel that than horror at the shattered limbs, the truncated lives. She feels a bit ashamed, too, but holds on to the anger because it makes a better shield.

  They should have known better. The probability of a train derailment was infinitesimal. That meant it was only a matter of time.

  Her neighbor—the other one, across the hall—helped her figure it out, long before the math geeks finished crunching their numbers.

  “Watch,” he’d said, and laid a deck of cards facedown on her coffee table. (There was coffee in the cups, with a generous dollop of Bailey’s. He was a nice-enough guy that Adele felt comfortable offering this.) He shuffled it with the blurring speed of an expert, cut the deck, shuffled again, then picked up the whole deck and spread it, still facedown. “Pick a card.”

  Adele picked. The Joker.

  “Only two of those in the deck,” he said, then shuffled and spread again. “Pick another.”

  She did, and got the other Joker.

  “Coincidence,” she said. (This had been months ago, when she was still skeptical.)

  He shook his head and set the deck of cards aside. From his pocket he took a pair of dice. (He was nice enough to invite inside, but he was still that kind of guy.) “Check it,” he said, and tossed them onto her table. Snake eyes. He scooped them up, shook them, tossed again. Two more ones. A third toss brought up double sixes; at this, Adele had pointed in triumph. But the fourth toss was snake eyes again.

  “These aren’t weighted, if you’re wondering,” he said. “Nobody filed the edges or anything. I got these from the bodega up the street, from a pile of shit the old man was tossing out to make more room for food shelves. Brand new, straight out of the package.”

  “Might be a bad set,” Adele said.

  “Might be. But the cards ain’t bad, nor your fingers.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent despite the pleasant haze that the Bailey’s had brought on. “Snake eyes three tosses out of four? And the fourth a double six. That ain’t supposed to happen even in a rigged game. Now check this out.”

  Carefully he crossed the fingers of his free hand. Then he tossed the dice again, six throws this time. The snakes still came up twice, but so did other numbers. Fours and threes and twos and fives. Only one double-six.

  “That’s batshit, man,” said Adele.

  “Yeah. But it works.”

  He was right. And so Adele had resolved to read up on gods of luck and to avoid breaking mirrors. And to see if she could find a four-leaf clover in the weed patch down the block. (They sell some in Chinatown, but she’s heard they’re knockoffs.) She’s hunted through the patch several times in the past few months, once for several hours. Nothing so far, but she remains optimistic.

  It’s only New York, that’s the really crazy thing. Yonkers? Fine. Jersey? Ditto. Long Island? Well, that’s still Long Island. But past East New York, everything is fine.

  The news channels had been the first to figure out that particular wrinkle, but the religions really went to town with it. Some of them have been waiting for the End Times for the last thousand years; Adele can’t really blame them for getting all excited. She does blame them for their spin on it, though. There have to be bigger “dens of iniquity” in the world. Delhi has poor people coming out of its ears, Moscow’s mobbed up, Bangkok is pedophile heaven. She’s heard there are still some sundown towns in the Pacific Northwest. Everybody hates on New York.

  And it’s not like the signs are all bad. The state had to suspend its lottery program; too many winners in one week bankrupted it. The Knicks made it to the Finals and the Mets won the Series. A lot of people with cancer went into spontaneous remission, and some folks with full-blown AIDS stopped showing any viral load at all. (There are new tours now. Double-decker buses full of the sick and disabled. Adele tries to tell herself they’re just more tourists.)

  The missionaries from out of town are the worst. On any given day they step in front of her, shoving tracts under her nose and wanting to know if she’s saved yet. She’s getting better at spotting them from a distance, yappy islands interrupting the sidewalk river’s flow, their faces alight with an inner glow that no self-respecting local would display without three beers and a fat payday check. There’s one now, standing practically underneath a scaffolding ladder. Idiot; two steps back and he’ll double his chances for getting hit by a bus. (And then the bus will catch fire.)

  In the same instant that she spots him, he spots her, and a grin stretches wide across his freckled face. She is reminded of blind newts that have light-sensitive spots on their skin. This one is unsaved-sensitive. She veers right, intending to go around the scaffold, and he takes a wide step into her path again. She veers left; he breaks that way.

  She stops, sighing. “What.”

  “Have you accepted—”

  “I’m Catholic. They do us at birth, remember?”

  His smile is forgiving. “That doesn’t mean we can’t talk, does it?”

  “I’m busy.” She attempts a feint, hoping to catch him off-guard. He moves with her, nimble as a linebacker.

  “Then I’ll just give you this,” he says, tucking something into her hand. Not a tract, bigger. A flyer. “The day to remember is August eighth.”

  This, finally, catches Adele’s attention. August eighth. 8/8—a lucky day according to the Chinese. She has it marked on her calendar as a good day to do things like rent a Zipcar and go to Ikea.

  “Yankee Stadium,” he says. “Come join us. We’re going to pray the city back into shape.”

  “Sure, whatever,” she says, and finally manages to slip around him. (He lets her go, really. He knows she’s hooked.)

  She waits until she’s out of downtown before she reads the flyer, because downtown streets are narrow and close and she has to keep an eye out. It’s a hot day; everybody’s using their air conditioners. Most people don’t bolt the things in the way they’re supposed to.

  “A PRAYER FOR THE SOUL OF THE CITY,” the flyer proclaims, and in spite of herself, Adele is intrigued. The flyer says that over 500,000 New Yorkers have committed to gathering on that day and concentrating their prayers. That kind of thing has power now, she thinks. There’s some lab at Princeton—dusted off and given new funding lately—that’s been able to prove it. Whether that means Someone’s listening or just that human thoughtwaves are affecting events as the scientists say, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.

  She thinks, I could ride the train again.

&n
bsp; She could laugh at the next Friday the thirteenth.

  She could—and here her thoughts pause, because there’s something she’s been trying not to think about, but it’s been a while and she’s never been a very good Catholic girl anyway. But she could, maybe, just maybe, try dating again.

  As she thinks this, she is walking through the park. She passes the vast lawn, which is covered in fast-darting black children and lazily sunning white adults and a few roving brown elders with Italian ice carts. Though she is usually on watch for things like this, the flyer has distracted her, so she does not notice the nearby cart man stopping, cursing in Spanish because one of his wheels has gotten mired in the soft turf.

  This puts him directly in the path of a child who is running, his eyes trained on a descending Frisbee; with the innate arrogance of a city child, he has assumed that the cart will have moved out of the way by the time he gets there. Instead the child hits the cart at full speed, which catches Adele’s attention at last, so that too late she realizes she is at the epicenter of one of those devastating chains of events that only ever happen in comedy films and the transformed city. In a Rube Goldberg string of utter improbabilities, the cart tips over, spilling tubs of brightly colored ices onto the grass. The boy flips over it with acrobatic precision, completely by accident, and lands with both feet on a tub of ices. The sheer force of this blow causes the tub to eject its contents with projectile force. A blast of blueberry-coconut-red hurtles toward Adele’s face, so fast that she has no time to scream. It will taste delicious. It will also likely knock her into oncoming bicycle traffic.

  At the last instant the Frisbee hits the flying mass, altering its trajectory. Freezing fruit flavors splatter the naked backs of a row of sunbathers nearby, much to their dismay.

  Adele’s knees buckle at the close call. She sits down hard on the grass, her heart pounding, while the sunbathers scream and the cart man checks to see if the boy is okay and the pigeons converge.