Chapter 31
I stumble down the stairs and into the tunnel that leads deep inside the station, looking over my shoulder now and then, but Paul hasn’t followed me. He can’t, of course; he can’t leave the others behind. And why would he bother following a fucking waste? I think bitterly.
Standing on the platform, a sudden wind blows back my hair.
The uptown train is coming. Here I am, Paul, being free, I think, stepping into the car.
It’s overheated and half-full, but I easily find a seat.
I sink down onto the hard plastic, feeling as though I’ve escaped danger, but I’ve only escaped a humiliating public episode.
I try to let it go as the train plows forward, but I can’t help reliving the moment—my anger, Paul’s fervid energy, the terrible embarrassment of those words.
The muggy heat and the swaying of the car through the dark make me drowsy, but even as my head nods, I stare around at my neighbors.
I’m too tired and defeated to lift my camera from my purse, so I just take in their faces, knees, chests, hands, shoes, and eyes with faint hunger.
My eyes flutter closed, then open. Closed, then open. Closed…
When I open my eyes again, I panic. I can tell time has passed; the subway car has emptied but for the man sitting next to me.
Right next to me. I lean away from him a little and watch the stations blur by.
I can’t read the signs to get my bearings; the train speeds past every stop.
The only person to ask for advice is the tall, slim man beside me, but he seems to be dozing.
I consider him carefully from the corner of my eye.
He looks like a well-off businessman in his navy-blue suit and shining, tasseled brown loafers.
I’m relieved to see that his hands, long and folded in his lap, are nothing like the Buick driver’s hands.
They’re pale and almost feminine. His face, tipped forward and hidden under his wide hat brim, only reveals a somewhat pointy chin.
As I look, I become more aware of the side of his body touching mine.
I could get up and move, but if he woke, I’d be embarrassed.
Embarrassed to have overreacted, embarrassed to be alone with him in an empty car.
When I shift, the man stays still; he’s asleep, as I suspected.
A harmless rider, asleep on the train—nothing more.
Still, I think of the knife nestled deep in my purse. There if I need it.
I only have to make it to the next stop—if the train ever stops.
I’ll get out then and head downtown to Penn Station.
A simple fix. For now, I watch the two of us reflected in the darkened train window: the top of his hat; his neatly folded hands; my pale, pinched face.
My fingers itch to take a picture; I’m not too tired anymore.
Mentally preparing the shot gives me energy.
I reach into my purse and close my hand around the camera, preparing to lift it out.
His hand is instantly on my wrist. His cold fingers wrapping it, pressing it down. I try to wrench free and stand, but the pressure of his hand keeps me pinned in place, and then the old pain sears through me. I sink back against the seat and whisper, “Let go.”
He tightens his grip until my wrist bones grind together.
“You’re hurting me,” I manage through the sharp pain of my wrist and the deep burning in my middle.
As the train slows, finally nearing a stop, the man releases my wrist but quickly brings his arm up to circle and clinch my neck, pinning me to his chest, his head over mine, his hot breath in my hair like a lover’s.
The way the first man’s breath was in my hair, slow at first, then quickening, quickening, then slowing at last while I turned my head and retched.
When the train begins screeching to a stop, I reach up and back to scratch at his face; I think of what it looks like, my red nail marks along the skin of his face.
I wait for his cries, but there’s nothing—yet suddenly I’m free.
His arms release me. The doors open. I throw myself onto the platform, stumbling to the ground, staring wildly at the doors as they close, expecting to see him come through behind me.
He doesn’t. He’s let me go easily—so easily that it puzzles me.
Wasn’t he pinning me against his chest a moment ago?
So desperate to have me that he nearly choked me?
When the car passes by, I see nothing but strangers in the windows.
No tall, pale, hatted man, but many more people than I remember.
This must be a different car; I must have missed mine passing.
Somewhere in the dark of the tunnel that man sits alone, flexing his hands and gently prodding the cuts to his face.
Feeling bested and furious, vengeful. Next time, he thinks, next time I’ll put an end to this.
I feel heavy, so heavy, as I start the long walk downtown, the camera like a small anvil around my neck.
I’ve lost my quick, light city stride and stop to check behind me frequently.
I don’t see him; he hasn’t found me yet.
But he will, I think. He will. It isn’t until I pass a butcher shop window and glimpse myself, caught between bloody sides of beef and dangling sausage links, that I’m moved to use my camera.
There I am—wide-eyed, disheveled, and forlorn. But slightly defiant, too.
I raise the camera and shoot, knowing he’ll be there, behind me somewhere.
I look around fearfully, trying to spot him.
When I shift my eyes back to the window, I’m startled to see: the woman split in two.
The photographer thrilling to her hurt subject’s face, and the hurt subject resentful of the woman with the camera.