The Changeling

by Victor Lavalle

  Apollo and Emma reached the bottom of the staircase, then pushed through the turnstiles. They didn’t have long to wait. The A arrived in record time. They boarded at Chambers Street feeling downright blessed.

  EMMA AND APOLLO boarded the A train so flustered that they didn’t even notice the other passengers. Couldn’t have told you if there were other passengers. Emma wanted to stay standing. She held on to one of the poles in the train car, and Apollo stood behind her so she could lean her weight back into him. The train doors shut, the hiss of the car going into motion, then they heard a young man shout.

  “Showtime, ladies and gentlemen, showtime! What time is it?”

  Three more voices answered. “Showtime!”

  Emma groaned. Apollo couldn’t be sure if it was from the labor pains or because she’d seen the four boys who’d started dancing on the train. These crews—boys between fifteen and nineteen mostly—worked New York City subways like carnies in the Midwest. One manned the radio, blasting a beat loud enough that it drowned out the subway wheels grinding the rails, while the other three did breakdancing routines that had been modified to fit a subway car. These kids tended to do good business on the A train but never this far downtown. Usually they worked the express ride from 59th Street to 125th, a long enough trip for every member of the crew to do a routine and work up some tips from the passengers. But now they were down here at Chambers Street, in the middle of the night, right when Apollo and Emma most needed a little peace. The boys had their backs to Apollo and Emma, huddled together at the far end of the car. They didn’t even seem to be putting on an actual show, but practicing their routines.

  “I can’t stand here,” Emma said as the train rattled toward the next stop, Canal Street.

  “I’ll get them to stop the music,” Apollo said, but as soon as he took a step away from Emma, she reached out and pulled him back.

  “I’m going to throw up if I keep standing,” she said. The train left the tunnels and pulled into the Canal Street station. For the first time, Apollo actually looked around the car. Not more than ten people in here, including the four dancers.

  “If your man can’t do this…” one of the dancers called out coolly, like an actor going over his lines.

  “Leave him at home!” the other three replied.

  They’d never have time to get out of this car and back into the next before the doors closed again. He certainly wasn’t going to try and maneuver her between the cars while she was in labor. They would have to endure the routine until it ended.

  “Black guys stripping?” called the leader of the boys.

  “Just flipping!” the others answered back.

  Emma swayed where she stood, and her cheeks puffed out, and she brought one hand over her lips. He braced his body around hers trying to keep her as steady as possible. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if she vomited. Who would the remaining few passengers in the car hate more at that point—the dancers or the couple covered in puke? Ah, New York.

  At West 4th Street, Apollo set Emma down onto the gray plastic corner seat gently. But as soon as she sat—her full weight going down on her tailbone—she lurched forward again, her face tight with concentration. It hurt to sit, but if she stood she’d throw up, and they had ten more stops to go.

  Emma looked at him, her eyes slightly vacant. “Why did you eat nothing but bread?” she asked. “Do you know how good that food was?”

  Jokes were good. No one ever told a funny in true labor. Apollo took off his coat. He rolled it into a ball and set it under Emma. Across the platform the C train, a local, pulled in. The doors opened, and passengers scrambled over to the A. The car that had been so empty suddenly became half full.

  Just before the doors shut, three more passengers slipped on, a mother with two children. One was a young girl, maybe nine. The younger child lay asleep in a stroller. The mother saw Apollo and Emma—two sweaty, panting adults—and quickly scanned the rest of the car.

  “Showtime, ladies and gentlemen, showtime!” the boys called out.

  The mother buckled in defeat. The dancers had moved to the middle of the train car, and their radio had, somehow, become even louder. Most on the train acted as though nothing at all was happening in the middle of the car, as if the music weren’t playing, as if four young men weren’t pulling off incredible feats of acrobatic flair; a few filed audible complaints, and the train began to move.

  The mother pushed her stroller to the seats opposite Apollo and Emma. She called to the nine-year-old in Spanish, and the nine-year-old followed. The girl took a seat and pulled a book out of her bag. Apollo wondered, just for a moment, if this could’ve been the same mother and children who’d been at the Fort Washington library on the day he’d met Emma. Impossible, improbable, but he felt an urge to snatch the book out of the girl’s hand and see if it had the Fort Washington branch’s stamp somewhere inside.

  The kid didn’t pay attention to the dancers or to Apollo and Emma. She had that book and seemed satisfied. The toddler in the stroller stayed sleeping, but now, from this angle, the mother seemed to understand Apollo and Emma differently. Maybe, because of the sweating and huffing, she’d thought they were addicts tweaking out on the A train, but it was impossible to ignore Emma’s belly from here. Now the woman watched Emma quietly, and for a few moments the two locked eyes.

  Emma scooched up off her butt as the A train picked up speed, rattling like a roller coaster. As soon as the A train rocked, she was sent falling back into the seat, and that hurt Emma even more. She pressed her face to Apollo’s shoulder when he held her, and through his shirt, his skin felt wet. He looked down to see Emma wiping her chin across him, pinching her lips as tight as she could.

  They reached 14th Street, and the boys slapped their radio off when two NYPD officers got on the train. The cops knew what the boys had been doing, but deterrence seemed like enough right then. The ride from 14th all the way to 42nd Street, without the radio playing, seemed as quiet as a cave.

  Emma worked on her breathing, two little breaths in and one big breath out. She found her way to a meditative state.

  “We can’t wait to meet you,” Apollo whispered to her.

  She couldn’t acknowledge what he was saying because she was concentrating on her breathing. The pain she felt in her hips, in her lower back, it became a white light that drew her close one moment and pushed her further away the next.

  “We can’t wait to meet you,” Apollo whispered again.

  They’d come up with this mantra in the Bradley Method class. Their teacher Tonya suggested coming up with a saying the father could repeat to the mother when she began labor. A mantra of a kind. Apollo and Emma had decided they’d say something to the baby. A simple welcome that summarized their excitement, their anticipation. Focus on that rather than the pain.

  “We can’t wait to meet you.”

  Who’d said it that time, Apollo or Emma? She couldn’t be sure, and frankly, neither could he. They were on that A train, pulling into the 59th Street station, but they were not there. They were in their apartment, both of them in the tub, Kim by their side. They were already greeting their child. They only had to catch up to that moment in the future, and all would be fine.

  The train stopped, and the car cleared out. It became almost as empty as it had been down by Chambers Street. When the car doors closed again, there were only a few passengers left: Apollo and Emma, the mother with her children, and the dancers counting the little money they’d made before the cops got on. Nine souls. One more on the way.

  The A train left 59th Street. The next leg of the trip would be the toughest. From here the A train wouldn’t stop until 125th. The single longest uninterrupted ride in the entire New York City subway system. The A train would never go any faster than it did here. Apollo, anticipating the jerking and jumping to come, tried to wrap his arms around Emma like a living seatbelt, but as the train passed 79th Street, 81st, 86th, it didn’t seem to matter. The only solace was that Emma had gone
into a kind of trance. The breathing worked. She didn’t talk anymore. She approached true labor, but luckily they were nearly home.

  The A passed 103rd Street, the weak light in the station hardly seeming to reach their train car before they were back in the tunnel again.

  And then the wheels of the train creaked as the train suddenly slowed.

  No problem at all, a common occurrence. The motorman had been chugging at high speeds, and it was normal for the train to start coasting. This way they’d simply glide into the 125th Street station. Totally normal.

  Then the squeal of the train’s brakes as they came to a full stop.

  Apollo looked out the car’s windows but couldn’t see anything out there in the dark. A squawk played over the car’s speakers, just a stab of feedback. The speakers went silent again. And a moment after that, the lights in all the cars of the A train went out. Apollo and Emma and the mother and her kids and the four dancers sat in total darkness.

  IN THE BRADLEY method class their teacher taught them that the majority of women had been having babies without the aid of modern hospitals, obstetricians, crash teams, pediatric nurses, and—most of all, Pitocin—for, well, always. The female body knew exactly how to deliver a child, just as all living things do, and the job of the midwife was basically just to get the twenty-first-century out of the way. Apollo and Emma hadn’t been as adamant about home birth as others: if they truly needed to go to a hospital, they agreed they would. Emma had even packed a small suitcase for just such a contingency. They kept it under their bed. Nonetheless, Tonya explained, these Bradley Method classes were designed, in part, so that even the fathers could do the job of assisting with the delivery if needed. Apollo had believed this, had—with a degree of arrogance—repeated all this to Patrice when they were out on an estate sale together. But let’s be clear, Apollo Kagwa had been a staunch believer in the idea that he could deliver a baby because he was absolutely sure he would never, ever actually have to do that.

  But there they were, on the stalled A train, no midwives in sight.

  Maybe the nine-year-old girl, no longer able to read her book in the dark, might also be an accredited doula? Or could the four-man crew of dancers please also be a team of traveling obstetricians? At least the toddler in the stroller hadn’t woken up. How was this possible? Maybe the mom had dosed the kid with Night Time Triaminic.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh.” Emma made the sound, and Apollo, in his fear, almost clamped a hand over her mouth. He was worried not about decorum but about what that sound indicated. They’d practiced this moan in class. When the woman couldn’t simply breathe through the pain anymore, she was supposed to release exactly this moan.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh.” Emma did it again.

  In class one of the other expectant mothers had asked when she should make that call, when she should tell herself to begin. But Tonya—mother of two—had smiled kindly and said, When you’re in true labor, you can’t help but do it.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh.”

  When you’re in true labor.

  “Why you hurting your girl?”

  Apollo looked up to find the four dancers crowding close. One of them held his phone up, using it like a flashlight, which wasn’t really necessary—their eyes were already adjusting to the dim glow coming from the LED bulbs and signal lights in the tunnel. Being this near, he realized how young they were. Their leader, the oldest, couldn’t have been more than fifteen. He stood over Apollo, already making a fist.

  “Why you hurting your girl?” he said again.

  Apollo actually laughed at them. They thought they were coming to Emma’s aid, but once they looked at her instead of Apollo, all four boys lost their courage.

  “Yo! She’s pregnant!”

  Emma corrected them. “I’m starting labor.”

  He felt surprised by how calm she sounded, and these four boys seemed shocked as well. The kid in front, their leader—his closed fists loosened. When his mouth went slack, he looked as young as the toddler in the stroller.

  “We need some help,” Apollo said. “Could one of you run up and find the conductor?”

  None of them moved. The other three had actually stepped back, shrunk behind the oldest. Twelve or thirteen, the others couldn’t have been older than that. They peeked around the oldest one’s muscled arms. Emma had to make the same request.

  “One of you run and find the conductor,” she said, locking eyes with them.

  “I’ll go,” the youngest of them said. He pulled open the car door and sprinted.

  “Ohhhhhhhh.”

  Apollo stood up, and the other three boys moved away. The woman across from them watched only Emma. The girl leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder, her book now facedown on her knees. She watched Emma, too.

  “I need to get her on her feet,” Apollo said.

  “But she’s having a kid,” the oldest said quietly. “She’s supposed to lie down, right?”

  “What’s your name?” Apollo asked.

  “I’m Cowboy,” the boy said. “I used to live in Dallas, like ten years back, then we came up here with my parents so everybody calls me Cowboy, but my real name is—”

  “Cowboy,” Apollo said, and the kid looked up at him. “That’s a good name. Can we call you that?”

  Cowboy took a breath, spoke slower. “I want to help,” he said.

  “The best way to help my wife is to get her on her feet,” Apollo said. “Two of you hold her hands and pull while I lift her hips. Yeah?”

  Cowboy nodded and looked to the kid on his left. They positioned themselves in front of Emma and grabbed her fingers.

  “Wait,” Emma said. “Don’t hold my fingers. Hold my wrists.”

  The boys watched her quietly and didn’t move.

  Emma smiled softly at both of them. “You’re doing great,” she said. “You’re brave boys.”

  When they rose, as one mass, they nearly crashed into the stroller. The mother pulled it to the side just in time.

  “Now walk me to the closest pole,” Emma said.

  It was only three steps. It took four minutes. When Emma reached the pole, Apollo, who’d been behind her, his arms around her middle, reminded her of the next step.

  “Darlin’, you have to grab hold.”

  Emma held the pole.

  “Any of you have something to drink?”

  The boys looked through their book bags. “Red Bull?” one offered.

  “No,” Emma said firmly.

  Apollo turned to the mother. Between the nine-year-old and the toddler, this woman had to have a juice box or something.

  “Agua?” Emma said.

  The mother reached into the back of the stroller, found a pouch, and revealed a red and black sippy cup. Apollo didn’t have hands free, so he looked to the only boy who hadn’t been given a job yet. The kid almost looked grateful for the simple task. He brought it back and set it down on the floor.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh!”

  Emma’s hands slipped off the pole. They were already too sweaty to hold on.

  “Hands and knees,” Emma said to Apollo. “I have to be on my hands and knees. Get me down.”

  “Fellas,” Apollo said. “I’m going to need you to hold her up a little longer.”

  “Where you going?” Cowboy asked, panicked, stricken.

  “I’m going over there to get my coat.”

  “I don’t need the coat!” Emma shouted.

  But Apollo couldn’t stop himself. He got the coat. He laid it flat. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t much. He wished he’d kept the loaner jacket they’d given him at Bouley. He leaned in close to Emma again. “I’m going to have to take down your tights,” he said apologetically.

  “Well get on with it,” Emma growled.

  Then the rumbling roll of the car door opening. The fourth boy returned with the conductor, who looked almost as young as the dancers.

  “God damn,” the conductor said.

  “Any chance we’re going to move soon?” Apollo asked.
>
  “God damn,” the conductor repeated.

  The mother reached over her son’s stroller and pinched the conductor on the leg.

  “Lost power to the third rail,” the conductor explained, coming back to himself as he rubbed his thigh. “This train ain’t moving. I’ll go back and radio this in. They’ll send EMTs. But even that’s going to take awhile.”

  “Ohhhhhhhh.”

  Apollo told him to make the call, but knew no one could arrive in time. The only help Emma would get was already in this train car. The conductor left, and when the door of the next car rolled shut again, the glass filled with faces. Spectators. Folks who’d figured out something big was happening in this car. At the other end people in the next car were gathering, too. Now they had a viewing public. Even worse, Apollo could already see the light of cellphones held up to record the event.

  “Cowboy! Could you and your team keep all those people out of this car? Block the windows?”

  The kid looked to both ends. “We could do that easy.”

  There were a lot of folks at both doors, and many more behind them. “You sure?” Apollo asked.

  The one who’d run to the conductor laughed. “Most of these people shrink up as soon as we step on a train.” He clutched his hands to his chest and shivered. “Those black boys are so intimidating!” The others laughed.

  “We’ll keep them out,” Cowboy said, smiling.

  And with that they broke off, two boys to a side.