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Something to Keep Me from Freezing
By
Christian Rose, Jan 7, 2007
I’m sitting in a plastic seat on the
G Train as it rushes south beneath Brooklyn. It’s early in the morning.
It’s winter. I rub my hands together to try and get the feeling back.
When the train stops at Flushing there’s no one there. The doors open and
there’s a rat on the platform. He’s looking at me. There’s something wrong
with the rat. Its legs are broken, or frozen, or both. He’s trying to walk
toward me, but he can’t do it. A back leg is pointing the wrong direction.
If this were a person I’d look away, but I don’t. Neither does the rat.
What does he see as he looks at me? There’s an intelligence in his eyes, a
plea. Then the doors close. The train rumbles down the track.
There’s a guy a few seats down who’s rapping. He watches his reflection in
the window and acts oblivious to everyone else. I sense that if the train
were empty he wouldn’t be doing this. He’s loud. There was a time when
this man would have alarmed me. Not anymore.
At Myrtle-Willoughby a girl gets on. Other people get on too, but I only
notice her. She’s wearing a hooded parka, big hoop earrings, tight jeans,
high tops with a special lace pattern. The rapper notices her too. He gets
even louder, frantic.
I look at her broad face, her dark eyes. She looks Mayan. She knows to
keep her eyes down, that many men are hoping for an opening. What I’m
thinking about is how she’s from someplace warm, a place I’ll never know.
What I’m thinking about is how she’s different from me in every way, the
sight of her alone an antidote to everything I am, something to keep me
from freezing.
She looks 20. I remember being that age, I remember the girls I knew when
I was that age. So much has happened already.
She looks down at her high tops, then right at me. It burns.
At Bedford-Nostrand the train fills up. I can’t see her anymore.
At Classon I get up. People move to let me out. I turn and look as I step
out the door. I can’t see her. I’ll never see her again.
When I get up the stairs it’s windy. I pull my jacket collar tight around
my neck.
Christian Rose was
born in Binghamton, New York on Halloween in 1976. He now
lives in Brooklyn, where he teaches at a public school. His stories have
previously appeared in Modern Drunkard Magazine, Wordriot.com,
Sexmachineoftheyear.com and The Marquis.
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