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Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way Here By Mary Phillips-Sandy The doors of the train slid open and Petunia crossed her fingers for an empty seat. Sure enough, there was one, but it was between a greasy man with large chunks of dandruff on his shoulders and a wild-eyed youth in a knit ski cap. She paused for a moment, but then the weight of her shopping bag and the throb of her left heel convinced her to sit despite the threat to her safety, not to mention to her olfactory passages. Grease-man wedged his bulk farther into the corner to make room for her as the train rattled and picked up speed. Petunia tried to perch on the edge of the bench in order to keep her hips clear of his leg, but her balance was bad and his leg was massive. She adjusted herself between the fleshy thigh on her right and the bony one on her left. Grease-man's eyes were closed, nearly hidden in his face, and his head lolled as if it were too heavy for his neck. Petunia tried to look straight ahead, avoiding eye contact. The boy next to her (he was hardly more than twenty, she guessed) pulled a paperback book from his camouflage knapsack and began to read. Petunia wrapped her arms around her shopping bag. "Have you ever read Marx?" The boy's voice was higher than she would have imagined. Squeaky, almost. She kept her eyes fixed on the opposite side of the train and pretended not to hear. "Karl Marx? Ever heard of him?" Petunia was engrossed in a poster hung by the transit authority exhorting passengers to keep the subway clean. She felt a sharp jab in her ribs. "I said, you ever heard of Karl Marx?" The boy was leaning into her face. She could smell his breath, which reeked of cigarettes. She recoiled as best she could, given the space she had. In the five years she had lived in New York City, she had found herself adapting to many things - waking up to the sound of traffic honking, for instance, and restaurants that were full of customers just starting supper at three in the morning. Despite all this, she had never fully overcome her disgust with people who so blatantly violated her personal space. In rural New Hampshire, in the small towns which had formed the backdrop of her youth and much of her adulthood, people addressed each other from a respectful distance. Contact, other than perfunctory handshakes, was made only when absolutely necessary. Petunia had always found this custom both sensible and comfortable. In New York, though, people bumped into one another as a matter of course. Usually they didn't even stop to apologize. Every afternoon at rush hour, they swarmed into Grand Central Station and found themselves packed together like so many sweating fish. "Karl Marx," the boy said, "I bet you don't even know who that is." "I know who Karl Marx is." Petunia hoped to end the conversation before it started. "No, I don't think you do know who Karl Marx is," he said. "Look at you. You have no idea. Look at yourself." Petunia looked in desperation for another seat. There was none. The aisle was crowded with people standing, clutching the railings overhead. No one seemed to notice her anxiety, or the disturbing way in which the boy was glowering at her. "You think I'm crazy?" he asked. "I'm not crazy. Look at yourself." |
