by Nicola Yoon
Resigned Local Takes Westbound 7 Train to Childhood’s End
Sure, I can be a little dramatic, but that’s what it feels like. This train is a Magic Fucking Train speeding me from childhood (joy, spontaneity, fun) to adulthood (misery, predictability, absolutely no fun will be had by anyone). When I get off I will have a plan and tastefully groomed (meaning short) hair. I’ll no longer read (or write) poetry—only biographies of Very Important People. I’ll have a Point of View on serious subjects such as Immigration, the role of the Catholic Church in an increasingly secular society, the relative suckage of professional football teams.
The train stops, and half the people clear out. I head to my favorite spot—the two-seater in the corner next to the conductor’s box. I spread myself out and take up both seats.
Yes, it’s obnoxious. But I have a good reason for this behavior that involves a completely empty train one night at two a.m. (way post-curfew) and a man with a big-ass snake wrapped around his neck who chose to sit next to me despite there being one thousand (give or take) empty seats.
I take my notebook out of the inner pocket of my suit jacket. It’s about an hour to Thirty-Fourth Street in Manhattan, where my favorite barber is, and this poem won’t write itself. Fifty minutes (and three very poorly written lines) later, we’re only a couple of stops away from mine. Magic Fucking Train’s doors close. We make it about twenty feet into the tunnel and grind to a halt. The lights flicker off, because of course they do. We sit for five minutes before the conductor decides communication would be good. I expect to hear him say that the train will be moving shortly, etc., but what he says is this:
“LAdies and GENtlemen. Up until yesterday I was just like you. I was on a train going NOwhere, just like you.”
Holy shit. Usually the freaky people are on the train, not driving the train. My fellow passengers sit up straighter. What the hell? thought balloons float over all our heads.
“But something HAPpened to me. I had a religious EXperience.”
I’m not sure where he’s from (Crazytown, population 1). He overpronounces the beginnings of words and sounds like he’s smiling the whole time he’s evangelizing.
“God HIMself came down from HEAven and he saved me.”
Foreheads are smacked and eyes are rolled in complete disbelief.
“HE will save you too, but you have to ACcept him into your hearts. ACcept him now before you reach your final DEStination.”
Now I’m groaning too, because puns are the absolute worst. A guy in a suit yells out that the conductor should just shut the fuck up and drive the train. A mother covers her little girl’s ears and tells the guy that there’s no need for that kind of language. We might get all Lord of the Flies on the number 7 train.
Our conductor/evangelist goes quiet, and it’s another minute of sitting in the dark before we move again. We pull into the Times Square station, but the doors don’t open right away. The speakers crackle on.
“LAdies and GENtlemen. This train is now out of SERvice. Do yourself a FAvor. Get out of here. You will find God if you look for him.”
We all get out of the train, somewhere between relieved and angry.
Everyone’s got someplace to be. Finding God is not on the schedule.
HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT REASONABLE creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true. For example, based on a single phone call, I have begun to hope for a miracle.
I don’t even believe in God.
THE CONDUCTOR’S DIVORCE had not been easy on him. One day his wife announced that she’d simply stopped loving him. She could not explain it. She wasn’t having an affair. There was no one else she wanted to be with. But the love she once felt had vanished.
In the four years since his divorce became final, it’s fair to say that the conductor has become something of an unbeliever. He remembers their vows spoken in front of God and everyone. If the person who’s meant to love you forever can suddenly stop, then what is there to believe in?
Unmoored and uncertain, he’s drifted from city to city, apartment to apartment, job to job, anchored to the world by almost nothing. He has trouble falling asleep. The only thing that helps is watching late-night TV with the sound muted. The endless cascade of images stills his mind and sends him off to sleep.
One night, as he’s performing this same ritual, a show he’s never seen catches his eye. A man is standing at a lectern in front of a huge audience. Behind him is an enormous screen with the same man’s face projected on it. He is weeping. The camera pans to show a rapt audience. Some of them are crying, but the conductor can tell it’s not from sadness.
That night he does not sleep. He unmutes the sound and stays up all night watching the show.
The next day, he does some research and finds Evangelical Christianity, and it takes him on a journey he did not know he needed. He finds that there are four main parts to becoming an Evangelical Christian. First, you must be born again. The conductor loves the notion that you can be made anew, free of sin and therefore worthy of love and salvation. Second and third, you must believe wholly in the Bible and that Christ died so we may all be forgiven of our sins. Finally you must become a kind of activist, sharing and spreading the gospel.
Which is why the conductor makes his announcement over the loudspeakers. How can he not share his newfound joy with his fellow man? And it is joy. There’s a pure kind of joy in the certainty of belief. The certainty that your life has purpose and meaning. That, though your earthly life may be hard, there’s a better place in your future, and God has a plan to get you there.
That all the things that have happened to him, even the bad, have happened for a reason.
SINCE I’M LETTING THE UNIVERSE dictate my life on this Final Day of Childhood, I don’t bother waiting for another train to take me to Thirty-Fourth Street. The conductor said to go find God. Maybe he (or she—but who are we kidding? God’s definitely a guy. How else to explain war, pestilence, and morning wood?) is right here in Times Square just waiting to be found. As soon as I’m on the street, though, I remember that Times Square is a kind of hell (a fiery pit of flickering neon signs advertising all seven deadly sins). God would never hang out here.
I walk down Seventh Avenue toward my barber, keeping my eye out for some kind of Sign. On Thirty-Seventh I spot a church. I climb the stairs and try the door, but it’s locked. God must be sleeping in. I look left and right. Still no Sign. I’m looking for something subtle, along the lines of a long-haired man turning water into wine and holding a placard proclaiming himself to be Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.
Suit be damned, I sit down on the steps. Back across the street, people are making their way around a girl who is swaying slightly. She’s black with an enormous, curly Afro and almost-as-enormous pink headphones. The headphones are the kind that have giant ear pads for blocking out sound (also, the rest of the world). Her eyes are closed and she has one hand over her heart. She’s completely blissed out.
The whole thing lasts about five seconds before she opens her eyes. She looks around, hunches her shoulders like she’s embarrassed, and hurries away. Whatever she’s listening to must be amazing to cause her to lose herself right there in the middle of the sidewalk in New York City. The only thing I’ve ever felt that way about is writing poetry, and that can never go anywhere.
I’d give anything to really want the life my parents want for me. Life would be easier if I were passionate about wanting to be a doctor. Being a doctor seems like one of those things you’re supposed to be passionate about. Saving lives and all that. But all I feel is meh.
I watch as she walks away. She moves her backpack to one shoulder, and I see it: DEUS EX MACHINA is printed in big white letters on the back of her leather jacket. God from the machine. I hear the conductor’s voice in my head and wonder if it’s a Sign.
I’m not usually a stalker, and I’m not following her, exactly. I’m maintaining a noncreepy
, half-block distance between us.
She goes into a store called Second Coming Records. I shit you not. I know now: it’s definitely a Sign, and I’m serious about blowing with the wind today. I want to know where it leads.
I DUCK INTO THE RECORD store, hoping to avoid the stares of anyone who saw me acting unbalanced on the sidewalk. I was having a moment with my music. Chris Cornell singing “Hunger Strike” gets me every time. He sings the chorus like he’s always been hungry.
Inside Second Coming, the lights are dim and the air smells like dust and lemon-scented air freshener, like it always does. They’ve changed the layout a little since the last time I was here. The records used to be arranged by decade, but now it’s by musical genre. Each section has its own era-defining poster: Nevermind by Nirvana for grunge. Blue Lines by Massive Attack for trip-hop. Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A. for rap.
I could spend all day here. If today were not Today, I would spend all day here. But I don’t have the time or the money.
I’m headed to trip-hop when I notice a couple making out in the pop diva section in the far back corner. They’re lip-locked next to a poster of Like a Virgin by Madonna, so I can’t make out the faces exactly, but I know the boy’s profile intimately. It’s my ex-boyfriend Rob. His make-out partner is Kelly, the girl he cheated on me with.
Of all the people to run into, today of all days. Why isn’t he in school? He knows this is my place. He doesn’t even like music. My mom’s voice rings in my head. Things happen for a reason, Tasha. I don’t believe that sentiment, but still, there has to be a logical explanation for the horribleness of this day. I wish Bev were with me. If she were, I wouldn’t have even come into the record store. Too old and boring, she’d say. Instead, we’d probably be in Times Square watching tourists and trying to guess where they were from based on their clothes. Germans tend to wear shorts no matter the weather.
As if watching Rob and Kelly try to eat each other’s faces weren’t gross enough, I see her hand snake out, snatch a record, and then slip it between their bodies and into her very bulky, perfect-for-stealing jacket.
No. Way.
I’d rather burn my eyes out than keep watching, but I do. I can’t actually believe what I’m seeing. They devour each other for another few seconds, and then her hand sneaks out again.
“Oh my God, they’re gross. Why are they so gross?” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them. Like my mom, I have a tendency to say my thoughts out loud.
“She’s just gonna steal that?” asks an equally incredulous voice beside me. I quickly glance over to see who I’m talking to. It’s an Asian boy wearing a gray suit and a ridiculously bright red tie.
I turn back to watch some more. “Doesn’t anybody work here? Can’t they see what’s happening?” I ask, more to myself than to him.
“Shouldn’t we say something?”
“To them?” I ask, gesturing at the little thieves.
“The staff, maybe?”
I shake my head without looking at him. “I know them,” I say.
“Sticky Fingers is your friend?” His voice is slightly accusatory.
“She’s my boyfriend’s girlfriend.”
Red Tie turns his attention away from the crime in progress and onto me. “How does that work, exactly?” he asks.
“I mean ex-boyfriend,” I say. “He cheated on me with her, actually.” I’m more flustered about seeing Rob than I realize. It’s the only explanation for me volunteering that piece of information to a stranger.
Red Tie shifts his attention back to the petty larceny. “Great pair, a cheater and a thief.”
I half laugh.
“We should tell someone,” he says.
I shake my head. “No way. You do it.”
“Strength in numbers,” he says back.
“If I say something, it’s going to look like I’m jealous and messing with them.”
“Are you?”
I look at him again. His face is sympathetic.
“That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it, Red Tie?” I ask.
He shrugs. “We were having a moment,” he says.
“Nope,” I say, and turn away again to watch them. Rob feels me watching and catches my eye before I can look away.
“Jesus Christ bleeding on a Popsicle stick,” I whisper under my breath.
Rob gives me his patented stupid half smile and a wave. I almost give him the finger. How did I date him for eight months and four days? How did I let this accomplice hold my hands and kiss me?
I face Red Tie. “Is he coming over here?”
“Yup.”
“Maybe we should make out or something, like spies do in the movies,” I suggest.
Red Tie blushes hard.
“I’m not serious,” I say, smiling.
He doesn’t say anything, just blushes some more. I watch the color warm his face.
Rob’s there before Red Tie can pull himself together to respond.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is a deep, reassuring baritone. It’s one of the things I liked about him. Also, he looks like a young Bob Marley, only white and without the dreadlocks.
“Why are you and your girlfriend stealing things?” Red Tie cuts in before I can say anything to Rob.
Rob holds his hands up and takes a step back. “Whoa, dude,” he says. “Keep your voice down.” He pastes the stupid half smile back on his stupid face.
Red Tie gets even louder. “This is an independent record store. That means it’s family-owned. You’re stealing from real people. Do you know how hard it is for small businesses to survive when people like you just take stuff?”
Red Tie is righteous, and Rob even manages to look a little chastened.
“Don’t look now, but I think your girlfriend just got busted,” I say. Two store employees are whispering furiously at Kelly and tapping the front of her jacket.
Rob’s stupid face finally loses its stupid smile. Instead of going over to rescue Kelly, he shoves his hands into his pockets and walk-runs out the front door. Kelly calls out to him as he bolts, but he doesn’t stop. One of the employees threatens to call the cops. She begs him not to, and pulls two records from her jacket. She has good taste. I spot Massive Attack and Portishead.
The employee snatches them from her hand. “Come back in here again and I will call the cops.”
She bolts from the store, calling after Rob.
“Well, that was fun,” Red Tie says after she’s gone. He’s smiling a big wide smile and looking at me with happy eyes. I get a sudden sense of déjà vu. I’ve been here before. I’ve noticed those bright eyes and that smile. I’ve even had this conversation.
But then the moment passes.
He sticks out his hand for a shake. “Daniel,” he says.
His hand is big and warm and soft and holds on to mine for a little too long.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, and take my hand back. His smile is nice, really nice, but I don’t have time for boys in suits with nice smiles. I put my headphones back on. He’s still waiting for me to tell him my name.
“Have a nice life, Daniel,” I say, and walk out the door.
Would-Be Casanova Shakes Cute Girl’s Hand, Offers Her Home Loan with Reasonable Interest Rate
I shook her hand. I’m wearing a suit and a tie and I shook her hand.
What am I? A banker?
Who meets a cute girl and shakes her hand?
Charlie would’ve said something charming to her. They’d be having a cozy coffee someplace dark and romantic. She’d already be dreaming of little half-Korean, half–African American babies.
OUTSIDE, THE STREETS ARE MORE crowded than before. The crowd is a mix of tourists who’ve wandered too far from Times Square and actual working New Yorkers wishing the tourists would just go back to Times Square. A little ways down the street, I spy Rob and Kelly. I stand there staring at them for a little while. She’s crying, and no doubt he’s trying to explain that he is not an unfaithful, disloya
l jerk. I have a feeling he will be successful. He’s very persuasive, and she wants to be persuaded.
He and I sat next to each other in AP Physics last year. The only reason I noticed him at all was because he asked for help on the isotopes and half-lives unit. I’m something of an overachiever in that class. He asked me out to the movies after he passed the following week’s quiz.
Coupledom was new to me, but I liked it. I liked meeting at his locker between classes and always having plans for the weekend. I liked being thought of as a couple, and double-dating with Bev and Derrick. As much as I hate to admit it now, I liked him. And then he cheated. I can still remember feeling hurt and betrayed and, weirdly, ashamed. Like it was my fault he cheated. The thing I could never figure out, though, was why he pretended. Why not just break up with me and go out with Kelly instead?
Still, getting over him didn’t take that long at all. And that’s the thing that makes me wary. Where did all those feelings go? People spend their whole lives looking for love. Poems and songs and entire novels are written about it. But how can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?
THE HALF-LIFE OF A SUBSTANCE is the time it takes for it to lose one half of its initial value.
In nuclear physics, it’s the time it takes for unstable atoms to lose energy by emitting radiation. In biology, it usually refers to the time it takes to eliminate half of a substance (water, alcohol, pharmaceuticals) from the body. In chemistry, it is the time required to convert one half of a reactant (hydrogen or oxygen, for example) to product (water).
In love, it’s the amount of time it takes for lovers to feel half of what they once did.
When Natasha thinks about love, this is what she thinks: nothing lasts forever. Like hydrogen-7 or lithium-5 or boron-7, love has an infinitesimally small half-life that decays to nothing. And when it’s gone, it’s like it was never there at all.