The mass of heat and humidity suddenly fell away in the first week of August like a large, invisible drape had lifted, letting in cooling Canadian winds. People were happy, but because of the weather and the date, two things every website or newspaper made well known, they also started to speak of summer’s end, though they hadn’t done much except stay locked in an air-conditioned office and make it to the beach only once or twice. Even the squirrels in many of the city’s parks raised their heads at the cool, morning breezes that reminded them of something they hadn’t done and something still deliberately buried that they may need. It was nice for two nights, then the heat returned.
At Broadway-Lafayette’s downtown B, D, F, and M tracks just after five on a Friday evening, people had streamed down the stairs only to find themselves immobile because of a signal malfunction at West Fourth Street. No local or express trains had come in over twenty minutes and more and more confounded people packed onto a platform that hadn’t been under eighty degrees in three weeks. People wedged on a twelve-foot wide, 678-foot long space between two tracks, each equipped with a sizzling third rail, while periodically uptown trains pushed a spate of lukewarm air into the phalanx of body heat containing 1,857 people and 33 languages. Many of the locals began to think they’d never experienced this inferno to such a degree because even in the winter a crowd would be welcomed for heat, but here people dripped so much suit jackets had to be removed and pants rolled up. Cold might have been a slow death, but heat made one crazy, fast. A DIY nest of humans burning through anger and impatience in any way they could, as twenty more bodies were added every minute. Someone thought, I used to like people who worked at bookstores, while another texted, I’ll c u in a fortnight, to someone he was a little mad at, though he wasn’t positive what a fortnight meant, but neither did the other guy and it would confuse him—the sole purpose of the text. A woman said to her coworker friend, Why is it that with couples their greatest tussle is over revealing something one did or said falsely. If I had a dime for every time one half said, I didn’t say that . . . I mean . . . holy shit, but the friend didn’t laugh, which is not what the woman wanted, she wanted a laugh, and the woman decided she wouldn’t so easily trust this friend. Someone played solitaire, another a game where vampires are coming after you, but you hold a vampire-repellant gun that gets activated when you drink a special juice made of pureed crucifixes. Near the south end of the platform a man looked at a tall woman a few persons away, thinking she might be his ex-girlfriend. Then he remembered all the good and bad of their time together. Then he looked back and thought it really was her, and she seemed even more beautiful apart from him. If you love someone, set them free and hopefully maybe you’ll not see how they’ll blossom and thrive, but what the hell, and yes, she’d made a good life for herself, nice brown bangles, papaya-colored camisole, she’d even gotten taller, though he couldn’t see if that was heels, though she never wore heels, she was one of those woman who didn’t like wearing heels yet still had a New York zip code, or she used to be. Good for her, he cheered, she just stands up straighter. Goddamn, what a woman. She looked up and caught his eyes, blankly and then fiercely. It wasn’t his ex, but the flicker of attraction made him happy, and he checked his Fuckface to see if the ex still had him unfucked. Someone decided to go gluten free. Someone thought they wouldn’t kill their boss, only poison him—something to damage important organs. Another woman played solitaire, and another read Prosser on Torts, Kindle edition. A guy from Russia wondered if people could tell he was Russian. A woman called her best friend while wiggling into her headset, but the call was lost. She texted, I didn’t listen to your voicemail yesterday. Is everything OK? Another woman had developed an itch in her armpit and another thought, This, too, will pass. Then she thought, The next train, too, will pass. Then she thought, I’m moving to Pittsburgh. Another woman composed a line in her head, When she fell in love it was . . . but she couldn’t finish it. Ten people from her a man composed, When I fall in love it will be pretty cool. A thin, bearded man said aloud, Does anyone care that the US is bombing twelve countries with impunity and when we wake up in the morning it will be thirteen? He waited. No, no one—that’s what I thought. Two women stood next to each other—they were nearly the same age, though each thought the other older, uglier, and wearing a fake wedding ring. A man texted his wife, Can we do Thai tonight? She replied, Whatever you want. He answered, Could you order the Thai now? Pad see ew-ha-ha. Whatever you want, she replied. He answered, I love you. She didn’t reply. Another man decided he would watch season three, all of it. All twenty-three hours in one weekend. On Monday he could talk again. Someone else wanted a puppy. Someone else got mad at the price of gold. One large man looked at a small Indian woman, pursed his lips, and shook his head. Can you believe this? he said to her. My son’s birthday. She peered at him. Yeah. My son just died. A transgender person texted their transgender friend: I’m so hot I had to loosen it. Now I have a hard on. The friend texted back: It looked so nice out this morning I left it out all day. A tourist from Rome told her boyfriend it might not be a good idea to ask someone to take their picture at this moment. Someone composed a text to someone they’d known for four days, I need you to understand who I am and what my personality is. Someone read the Times online, someone read the paper Times, and someone wrote an article for next Sunday’s Times. A man decided to change his password to mypassword, then he thought, hispassword was better, then he thought Hitlerspassword was the best. An older woman texted her son, Please buy ice cream, the kind that doesn’t make me fart. Someone thought about his father in Bejing. I don’t like that man, but the money . . . Another man thought, I’ve decided I’m not voting this year or next year, but maybe the year after that. A man looked at a young teenager with headphones blaring a song he thought didn’t deserve the designation song, and the teenager felt his look and happily turned it up. A man texted his girlfriend, I guess the universe doesn’t want us to get together, thinking that would be a good break-up text if he needed it, and he thought, with her he might need it, and she soon texted back, Fuck the universe, this is me talking. A woman said to her friend, Everyone keeps track of how they are treated, it says so in every manual on humans. The woman replied, And our pets must think, They are such a strange species. Someone read King Lear, someone else read a review of the King Lear production on Broadway, someone else read a review of King Lear, the movie, with the guy from the big, old gangster movie; someone else read King Lear, the new Marvel comic book hero, and someone was in a New Jersey production of King Lear as Burgundy, but he really wanted to be in a comedy, he was depressed. A man thought, if I was a racist salsa, I’d be a medium. A man texted his friend in San Francisco: I think someone is using my signature to sue me for a million dollars. Another man texted: I’m stuck at Broadlaff, it’s a sauna—I need pancakes and a Pilsner. Next to him a forty-one-year-old man thought, I can’t believe I once attended a compassionate backgammon group where the winner massages the loser. Ohhhh, Portland. Next to him a mother leaned down to her daughter: Do you want chocolate, vanilla, cherry, coffee, or rum-flavored ice cream. Rum. Rum? No, I meant none, or none—I’m drinking rum tonight. Do you want chocolate, vanilla, cherry, or coffee-flavored ice cream? Rum. Next to them a man looked at a selfie of his penis and sent it to the Wylie Agency. Next to him someone blamed Judas Iscariot for everything. The previous pancakes man received a text from his friend that he was also on the downtown platform, near the end, and that they should meet up. Where was he? What end? And the pancake man texted he was in the middle or kind of toward the west end. East I am, I think, the second man texted. East? OK, let’s meet at the wooden bench in the middle, but kind of toward the east end. The person who opted to go gluten free now decided to go dairy free. No comprende, someone thought. The writer for the Times wrote, The NFL was America. Fifty yards away, a writer for the US version of the Guardian also composed an op-ed, America is now run by the powerful crime family known as the NFL. A few feet away, a homeless man who wore a Swarthmore College fleece and had been sitting on one of the benches in the station for ninety-three minutes finally couldn’t take it and began to douse himself with two-liter bottle after two-liter bottle of the eight green ones at his feet that he’d planned to bathe with later before taking a D to Coney Island. Not in my house, he mumbled, as people began to yell and call him nuts, but he continued, opening up a berth of a few feet and laughing. Another man thought, What is the official Spanish language versus Delta Airlines lawsuit shit about? In a fearless female voice, the MTA speaker announced the time as 5:36 and thanked everyone for riding MTA. Fuck you, someone shouted, and a man some paces from him shouted, Fuck you, back at him, and then a woman born in Duluth explained that the first man said Fuck you to the MTA, so chill down, and a man muttered, don’t say chill, and the second man said, Yeah, fuck you, MTA. Another woman sighed, and then said to her friend, Well, he actually did tell me about that thing he wanted to tell me. And it is bad. She sighed again. Jesus, OK, so we’ve gone out three times and he said it’s probably time I tell you because I’m really liking you, OK? Yeah? the friend said. Yeah, so, all right, OK . . . he said, OK. I killed someone eight years ago, but it was self-defense. Yeah? Yeah, so, he was in jail for like six months. Jail? He said the judge was racist. But he’s white, right? Yeah. And the judge? The judge was white. Whoa, I don’t get it. The judge hates white people—it’s LA, OK? OK. OK, but why did someone try to kill him? Well, he says because he stole an idea that made a lot of money. What idea? The idea that there is no God. That’s not his idea. Neitz—How did he get involved with—Wait, wo-wo, are you saying he doesn’t deserve a second chance? The pancake man texted he was at the bench. Me too, texted the other. They looked around. I don’t see you, they each texted to each other, almost at the same instant. Do you see a man in a Yankee hat? the pancake man texted. No, came the reply, you know I don’t like the Yankees. Do you see a woman holding a dog or kid, he texted, adding, And all the water on the ground, as an aftertext. No, pancake texted, and then, I think we’re at the wrong bench. How can we help the homeless? one woman thought. How can we get rid of the homeless, another tried to figure. How can the homeless be convinced to go away, a man mused. Another woman wished she’d married Charles Bronson. A man in a T-shirt with a pickle on it didn’t have anyone to text, so he started mouthing, Help me, hoping and fearing someone would see him. A woman with a stroller couldn’t believe her baby could sleep in the heat, then she became envious of him, then she told herself how much she loved him. Where are you? the second man texted. I’m by the steps closest to the east side of the track. The second man didn’t reply for a while, then he texted, I think I thought east was west. My bad. I’m on my way. OK, bro. A man beat his high score on his favorite single-shooter game and raised his arm and like dominos, one by one, five hundred people looked down the south-bound local tunnel. Many didn’t see anything and continued to stew. But a few felt the cool wind.