F Train, Tuesday Morning
by Patricia Russo

Ten thirty or so on a Tuesday morning, swaying towards Queens on a hot, crowded E train come on people rush hour's over, why haven't you gotten where you're going yet in the company of too many women in suits and too many guys in short-shorts, the men all standing guard over huge-ass crates and boxes and suitcases on wheels. Let em off, let em off, the conductor PA's, but nobody exits; more people jam on. Watch the closing doors, only they don't. Conductor gets pissed: Stop holding the doors in the rear! Fury bright as steel in his voice, a maniacal, killing rage, and for a second the car goes quiet: the guy selling batteries cuts his spiel, the women in business drag stop chatting, a kid quits bugging his mom to take him to Burger King. In the rear, in the rear! Conductor sounds like he's going to jump out of his box and slice somebody a new airway. Finally the idiot in the back lets go, and the doors close. The whole car smells like breakfast burritos.

I've exuded a second, liquid skin; every speck of me is coated in sweat. Hot salty drips fall into my eyes, stinging. I hate my own sweat. Should've cut the damn bangs off. The train lurches, and I almost lose my grip on the pole. The metal is warm, blood-hot, and slick from eight, ten, sweating hands.

Something else is hot and slick. The son of a bitch with his groin jammed up against my ass.

Give him the benefit of the doubt - he might be trying to feel for a wallet. Subtly. With his dick. Well, if that's what he's after, he's SOL. No wallet. I've got my cash in my panties and my ID in my sock. He's even more shit out of luck if he doesn't quit it, because I've got a sweet, sharp little five inch silver folding knife in my left ass pocket.

Lord, lord, somebody moans, and I don't even have to look to know it's a church lady, in her sixties probably, permed hair and a flowered dress and a fan, which isn't doing her much good right here right now, but which she's wielding with a practiced wrist. Here we go, I think, two three seconds, the spirit gonna move her and she gonna testify.

I'm wrong. Two, three seconds and the train gives out a long drawn-out screech. Everybody understands the meaning of this instantly. No. Shit. Uh-oh. - dozens of assorted cries of dismay rise into the dead, hot air. The train comes to a grinding, shuddering halt. The lights go out, flicker, come back on, flicker.

Silence. Everybody panting, fuming, stewing. Sweating. Tinny music from three dozen sets of headphones clash in the stillness. A kid in a stroller starts to cry, the church lady moans, a murmur of swear words runs through the car. Other end, comes a thump, like somebody just punched a window. I suspect the battery guy.

Ladies and (crackle) men, we have a red light. Conductor sounds stressed. (Crackle-crackle) to be moving shortly.

Mr. Hot and Slick decides this is a good time for him to press his package against my crack again.

I can barely move my arms, barely breathe; my face is stuck up to the sweaty guy in front of me's sweaty t-shirt. To the left, a squid's worth of arms gripping the pole - everybody's still holding on even though the train is stalled -- to the right, backpacks and shopping bags, a lady with a baby strapped to her chest, a tall guy steadying himself with a hand on the ceiling. Excuse me, scuse me, I squeeze right, everybody cursing me, ah fuck, come on bitch. The church lady, who's got a damn seat, lets out with her lord, oh lord. I climb over a monstrous backpack on little wheelies, and the kid holding the handle looks like she's gonna hit me, but I push into a space, I push and make the space, reorder the universe of the subway car and plant my feet into a few free square inches. This is because I am mature and discretion is the better part of valor and all that happy-crappy. Get away if you can, fight if you have to.

Now I'm in front of the row of seats on the east side of the car, between the pole and the next set of doors. I'm clear of Mr. Hot and Slick, who's gonna need some balls to come after me, but just in case he does I slide my hand into my left hip pocket. Because if he does I'm gonna fucking remove them. Of course I don't know which one he is. There's more than one guy it could be. I never saw his face, can't even guess approximate color; the hands on the pole run the rainbow of people-tone. I set myself to turn, to stare hard at each of the suspects and see who squirms, when I process the two guys sitting together directly in front of me. And I stop dead.

They have to be brothers, they look so much alike. Not twins, they're not identical, but you just know these guys come from one of those families where all the offspring have more or less the same face. These two also have the same body, which is too bad for them. The faces are bad enough, fat and round and moonish, with wispy beards and invisible eyebrows and potato noses, but the bodies are seriously goddamn weird. They're both sitting with their hands folded over beachball bellies; their arms are sausage-shaped and their fingers fat and puffy, mottled red and white. Their arms, too, are as red and white as marbled beef. Screw their arms, though. Their arms are nothing. I can't take my eyes off their feet.

Both brothers have the smallest feet I have ever seen on any human being over the age of six. I can't imagine how these guys stand up on them, much less walk. All four feet are wearing very clean, very new, very neon-pink running shoes.

(crackle) (crackle) to be moving shortly. Conductor sounds like an old man in the deepest, blackest abyss of despair, sounds for all the world like he's unwrapped the razor blade and set it to his throat and all he's got left to do in this life is take a couple of deep breaths, because he's gonna hold that last breath, and then he's gonna cut.

It's a herd thing, a sheeple thing; when you hear a voice above you you look up, even if it's a P.A. system. Even if your head doesn't move, your eyes glance up. Automatic. So I looked up when the conductor pushed the toggle and shared his despair with the rest of us.

When I look down again, the two tiny-footed brothers are smiling at me with matching bright, clean, beatific smiles, and I almost jump right out of my shoes. What the fuck do you want? I jam my hand back in my pocket, get my fingers around the knife.

The brothers look at each other out of the corners of their eyes, and their smiles widen, brighten, sweeten. I'm going to be sick, I think. There's no air in here. Behind me a woman is saying fuck over and over again. Farther down the guy selling batteries is kicking a door monotonously, hopelessly; at the other end of the row of seats an old woman with hands like knotted sticks and the baleful expression of a pitbull with hemorrhoids is glaring at the ceiling. Too bad her laser-vision powers are only in her head, because there is seriously no goddamn air at all. I wish she could puncture the ceiling and let some in, even if it's dead, poisonous tunnel air. Has to be better than this.

We haven't moved for five minutes. At least.

The conductor is silent. Not even a crackle, not even a sigh. Maybe he has really offed himself in his little box.

Weird Brothers are still smiling like being stuck forever on a subway car just outside Queens is the most blissful thing they've ever experienced.

Oh, crap.

Something happens.

Weird Brother on the left starts dancing his feet.

First one tiny pink-shod appendage bobs, jigs, and bows to the other; the other bobs, jigs, and bows back. Weird Brother on the right's pink feet pick up the beat, and now there's four little neon dancers kicking and bouncing to a quasi-calypso rhythm. The brothers grin like chimpanzees on meth, and the sick feeling in my stomach intensifies.

They start to hum, one high, one low. Very softly at first, a bouncy, jiggy tune to back up their dancing feet. My guts do an inside-out lurch, but the worst thing isn't that I'm about to spew, puking sucks but it's a normal human thing, the worst thing is that a smile is starting to stretch across my face.

This is horrifying. I am horrified.

I twist my head around.

It's not just me. Everyone in the car is starting to smile. Some of them are none too happy about it, you can tell by their eyes, but they're smiling all the same. I'm none too happy about it, but I'm smiling all the same. Church lady is definitely happy about it. Thrilled. She begins humming along with Weird Brothers. Kid in the stroller claps his hands. Fuck almighty, the people in suits are beaming. The guys and gals in headphones bob their heads in synch with the dancing pink feet. The homeless guy hunched over a trash bag stuffed with cans has his eyes closed, but a big grin on his caved-in face. The guy selling batteries isn't kicking the door anymore, no, he's tapping the beat out on it with gentle fingers. Everybody's smiling, everybody's bobbing to the rhythm, more and more folks are picking up the tune and humming and la-la-la-ing happily. This is an infection, a fucking disease, and we're all contaminated, invaded by the Weird Brothers' gleeful germ, and they're loving it, the two of them. They look so pleased with themselves they could burst.

My hands are clapping, my feet are tapping, I'm grinning like a maniac.

P.A. comes on. We should be moving shortly, and even the conductor has a smile in his voice now. No more red haze for him, no more sharp-edged exit, the blade's been wrapped up and put away, forgotten like a two a.m. dream.

What a happy car we are, what a joyful crew of migrating strangers, singing out our glee, dancing out our delight. We are little bundles of sunshine, we are each of us a bright bouquet of infectious cheer.

Except for one.

The old woman with the knotted-stick hands and the laser glare is not smiling. Not humming. Not bobbing her head nor tapping her toes. On the contrary, the pitbull has developed an anal fistula and is clearly only seconds away from tearing bloody chunks out of everyone in sight.

We lock eyes. My smile is so wide my cheeks are going numb. She stares at me with an expression of utter bile.

I love her.

The train judders. It sighs, it rocks, it screeches like a rusty swing, it starts. People cheer, but they don't stop dancing, don't stop beaming, don't stop swaying to the rhythm of the petite dancing feet. We're still infected, still infectious, still happy happy happy.

One corner of the old woman's mouth begins to curve up. She closes her gnarled hands into tight fists. She forces her lips back into a straight, grim line. She glares her hatred at us, every single one of us, at the entire world. And can it be possible? Is the man sitting next to her beginning to lose his grin? I fervently hope so. My own grin is still plastered on my face; feel like rigor mortis. I can't get it off no matter how hard I try. As the train rocks into Queens, I keep my eyes on the old woman's irate, indomitable face and root for her with all my heart and all my soul, because the rest of us are still smiling and the Weird Brothers' feet are still dancing, and this one small old woman with her hard, strong will is our only hope.

The End

Story copyright Patricia Russo, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com