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By Root 2372 0

the tracks, which was accessible via a raised walkway. I hadn’t a clue as to what lay either to the north or the south of me. Who knows what my story would have become had I boarded a northbound train, which would have whisked me upstate, to Albany or Buffalo, or even to the icy and moose-infested climes of Canada, or northeast to New Haven, or Providence, or Boston? I haven’t a clue what might have befallen me if I had chosen the northbound train, what I might have learned, who I might have become. All I know is that the fast-spinning wheels of the Fates had it otherwise, for when I saw the specks of headlights in the distance, and I heard the bellows of the whistle, two short and one long, and this enormous metal caterpillar came clattering to a stop, and the doors slid open, and I stepped onboard in my coat and low-pulled hat, expecting nothing more particular than to be taken someplace else, it so happened—it just so happened—that it was the southbound train I chose, and that, as the poet says, has made all the difference; for that rolling and bellowing metal caterpillar took me not to Albany, not to Canada, not to Connecticut or Boston, but to New York—to New York City, where I met a friend, and a little glory, and the beginning of my downfall.

I found an unoccupied booth upholstered with orange plastic pads, curled up against the wall beside the heating vents, and looked out the window west across the river at the granite cliffs. Thank God that money had been in the pocket of the coat I had liberated from the closet of little Emily’s parents’ house, or else I would have had nothing to buy my ticket with when the conductor clumped down the aisle between the seats. A voice came on a loudspeaker and chanted off a litany of destinations the train would reach: Greystone, Glenwood, Yonkers, Ludlow, Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Marble Hill, University Heights, Morris Heights, Harlem, Grand Central Station. I handed a crinkled twenty-dollar bill to the conductor, and he handed me a ticket and change, perforated a paper card with a hole puncher and stuck it in a slot above my seat.

We rolled beneath the blue metal bridge I’d seen in the distance, we bumped and shuddered past telephone poles and ragged brown brick buildings, until we were in a city, a huge and dense city of, I thought, potentially infinite complexity. The train filled up with more and more people after each stop, and with each stop the litany of destinations the voice on the loudspeaker chanted off shrank shorter by one place name. Three more passengers had to cram themselves in beside me in the orange booth. I kept my head down and pulled the brim of the hat lower, not wanting to expose my face to any undue scrutiny, but I felt their big bodies press warmly beside me. We were barreling headlong into New York City. After the penultimate stop—Harlem, 125th Street—we gathered speed, rolling high above the buildings and crowded streets alive with voices and honking cars, and soon after that we plunged into a profound and vacuous darkness, and in this darkness we remained until we slowly rolled to a stop—our final destination, apparently. The train’s electricity was cut, the long metal serpent sighed away to silence, and all the people crowded thickly around me—the train was crammed absolutely full by the time we descended into the darkness—erupted into sudden activity, everyone jostling each other, all knees and elbows, fists held to coughing mouths, rolled-up newspapers and magazines, coats buttoned, fat-stuffed luggage heaved from overhead racks, and they all lined up in the aisle to funnel out the doors. I joined the crush, and the flow of people pushed me through the door and onto another long concrete platform.

We were in a vast cavern, dimly lit by feebly buzzing lamps hanging high above us. In one direction the cavern stretched far away and out of sight into darkness, and in the other direction the concrete platform became a bright staircase. All the people who had just stepped off the train were swarming onto this staircase; I followed them. The weight