The F Train

The conversation wandered aimlessly, like a litter of puppies on their first foray into the backyard.  Their talk drifted from the 1945 nuclear testing site at Alamogordo, NM, with its covert arrogance and disregard for the health of its residents, to last wills and testaments, wishes and future desires, if given the chance. The word cancer was not used. The word tumor was used carefully.

The dried yellow of runny poached eggs clung to the plate as the intent to travel was stated; a concept previously only allowed to others, like those with fatter wallets or self-indulgence. “Why go on a vacation? You just have to come home and work harder to catch up”, he liked to say. The Sunday morning’s breakfast table gleamed with the newly refinished top, and seemed to catch some water filled eyes, though tears did not fall.  There was finger tapping, and shifting in chairs, alternating with sitting so urgently still, that an ancestor’s whisper might well be able to intrude.

The wandering conversation drifted, curiously enough, to the world of Madison Avenue in the sixties, to the large, square, light filled office, veiled in the blue curling smoke of eight or more women.  Maybe the conversational sojourn was an engineering feat on his part, a nod to her to “take the floor”, amuse, reminisce, weave tales, and tell a story that could make them laugh.  They needed desperately to laugh.

In that large, square, light filled office, with windows looking down on the avenue, the nine-to-five women worked diligently at their desks, their ashtrays close at hand,  their manicured hands able to locate the pack of cigarettes and silver lighter without so much as a glance.  Most pored over large ledger books, adding up columns of figures, not looking at the keys of the bulky adding machine, their fingers flying over the keys, the paper tape rolling to the floor and beyond. Their dresses were crisp, stylish, their hair smooth and groomed.  

And then the conversation left the office, glided to the subway and the memorable ride of the battling sisters, that morning on the F train.  Of course, she’d told the story before, but he pretended he’d never heard it.  She suspected not so much diplomacy as the need for what he knew would be an increasingly animated story, and then the watering eyes could be blamed on the laughter.

So she told of that subway ride, the jam packed car, the man pressing up against her, and she, new to that experience staring pleadingly across several people to her older  sister who finally figured out was what was wrong and mouthed the words” we’re getting off at the next stop.”  They remained powerless, in their youth and manners and fear, to say anything, though their mother’s reminder about the well placed hat pain did cross both their minds.  They continued to hurtle through the tunnel, the speeding car and the darkness adding to the heightened sense of alarm, with people rocking to the rhythm, hanging onto the straps, their morning eyes glued to their Daily News Jumbles, or staring at the eye level posters of images of women with sparkling floors and men in tuxedos laughing and smoking slim cigarettes.  Finally the train came up from the underground, slowly sliding into the station, where a crowd of people waited on the platform to board.  As her sister pressed her way out the door, so did the man.  She stayed put, calling to her sister to get back on. “Never mind, its ok, he got off!”  Her sister’s face registered confusion, then panic.  She gave that furious clenched jaw look and made a dive for the door to get back on, but caught her shoe between the train and the platform.  With a final twist to free her shoe, she pressed into the car, but as she did, her one heel snapped off and fell down the space. 

The rest of the train ride was spent in silence, as they were still separated by layers of people, but when they got off at at Forty Second Street, her sister elevated furious to livid, and delivered a steady tirade of accusations as she step-hopped, up and down,  all the way along Fifth Avenue, on her way to get the shoe fixed. It was hard to keep a straight face, and to this day, the story cannot be told without a great deal of laughing, and tears running down cheeks.  Just like now, as they both have their first good laugh of the past few days.