High Crime Area (10 page)

That Sunday night, not late—not yet 10
P
.
M
. And not so crowded as the previous nights, those wild weekend nights, but still plenty crowded at Times Square, you can be sure. And I was the desperate girl you saw hurrying to make the downtown train. Before the doors closed. Stumbling in my high-heeled shoes so you might have thought there was something wrong with me, the over-bright glisten in my black-mascara eyes and parted crimson lips, the look in my feverish face of anticipation and dread, you'd have felt a stab of pity, and maybe something else, something deeper than pity, and more cruel, and possibly you'd offered to help me, offered your seat to me at least. And possibly, I'd have accepted.

Always in the subway I think
On this train, this train is my destiny: who? Which one of you?
Tremulous with excitement. Anticipation. Pondering through my lowered eyelashes the possibilities. Mostly men of course but (sometimes) women also. Young men, middle-aged men, occasionally older men. Young women, with a certain sign. But never middle-aged, or older women. Never. I tried not even to look at them. Resented them, their raddled faces and tired eyes. And sometimes in those eyes a look of hope, which I particularly despised. For in the hopeless, hope is obscene! And when out of sheer loneliness one of these women smiles at me, moves over inviting me to sit beside her, like hell I will sit next to some old bag like she's my mother, or grandmother!

As if I would ever be one of
them
.

On the train that night a woman of about forty-five took shrewd note of me as soon as I entered the car, out of breath and laughing to myself, my hair just slightly disheveled, fallen into my face. The woman was wearing a green uniform, and ugly dirty-white nurse's shoes they looked like, and her dirt-colored hair flat against her head in a hairnet, staring at me not with sympathy or pity but with disapproval I thought, prissy fish-mouth I tried not to look at. Hate that type of person observing me, judging me coolly. Not to the hairnet woman was I pleading
Look at me, love me! Hey: here I am
.

In the subway the trains move so swiftly you can never catch your breath. Outside the grimy window that's a reflecting surface like a mirror mostly there are the rushing tunnel walls, that slow as the train slows for a station, and the doors open with a pneumatic hiss like the sigh of a great ugly beast, and passengers lurch off, and new passengers lurch on, and I lift my eyes hopeful and yearning
Who will be my destiny? Which one of you?
At Thirty-fourth Street one of you entered the car, sat near me, I could see that he'd chosen the seat beside me deliberately, for there were other, unoccupied seats. The way his eyes trailed over me like slow slugs, my crossed legs in the patterned black stockings, my mouth in a dreamy half-smile, as if I'm expecting to recognize a friend. A friendly face. Like a child hoping to be pleasantly surprised, for I am not a cynical person by nature. And he stared at me appraising. His mouth moved into a kind of smile. He was many years older than I was, one of the bad-Daddys of the subway. In the underground are the bad-Daddys, you know one another. Staring rudely, with that smile at the edge of a sneer, or a sneer at the edge of a smile. In his early forties, pale coarse pitted skin attractive in that battered way some men are, that would be hopeless laughable ugliness in a female. Sand-colored hair crimped and wavy like a wig, and in his right earlobe a silver ear cuff looking as if it might hurt, like something clamped into the flesh.
The sign
that took my eye immediately was that he was wearing suede, which matched my skirt: a black jacket with chrome studs. (The jacket was not “real” suede of course. My skirt, that strained at my thighs just inches below the fork in my legs, was not “real” suede of course.) He was wearing dark trousers and (fake) ostrich-skin boots. On his (hairy) left wrist, a heavy ID bracelet. When he opened his mouth to smile, there was the shock of a gleaming tongue-ring winking at me. As if he knew me he spoke a name, had to be a name he'd invented at that moment, or maybe it was a name known to him, of a girl he'd known and had not seen in years, and I smiled at him saying no that is not my name, I am not that girl, and he asked
Which girl are you, then?
And the tongue-ring winked at me in a nasty way, unmistakable. And I told him
Lorelei
—I am Lorelei
. And he cupped his hand to his ear as if hard-of-hearing in the noisy subway train and he repeated the name
Lorelei
and added
A beautiful name for a beautiful girl
. It was not clear to me if he spoke these words truly or in jest but I saw that he was excited by me. I saw the light come into his eyes, that were ordinary small mud-colored eyes. In a lowered voice he began speaking of himself, said he was a lonely pilgrim searching for something he could not name, been searching for all of his life, would I like to have a drink with him, please would I like to have a drink with him, we could get off at the next stop and have a drink together, he knew just the place, and all this time I was quietly observing him, through my mascara-lashes I was observing him, his eyes that were ordinary and mud-colored and hopeful and the truth came to me
No: he is not the one
. So politely I told him I could not get off the train with him, no thank you. Told him that I was meeting someone else. And he stared at me not-so-friendly now, and spoke to me in a low crude voice not-so-friendly now, exposing the spit-gleaming tongue-ring not-so-friendly now, called me
Lorelei
like it was
Loora-Lee
and some kind of stupid name, cow-name, he didn't think so much of. All this while other passengers in the train were trying not to observe us, trying not to hear the man speaking to me, the way you'd speak to (maybe) a retarded girl in the train, a girl her family ought not to have let ride the train alone, that kind of girl, but I am not that girl of course. One of those eavesdropping was the hairnet woman in the ugly green uniform, I saw now was food-stained, had to be a cafeteria worker probably, so I could pity
her
. The hairnet woman was frowning at both of us like we were the scum of the earth, so I could despise
her
.

Shutting my eyes then, and not opening them until later, several stops later, the hairnet woman was gone and the tongue-ring man in the seat beside me was gone and I checked my reflection in my little gold mirror compact seeing a shiny nose, anxious eyes for I had almost made a mistake.
That one was a test. In your ignorance you might have gone with him.

For my life at that time was a continual testing. That in ignorance or desperation I would make a terrible error, and would not realize my destiny.

Slamming into the car from the car ahead was a big girl of about thirty with no eyelashes like she'd plucked them all out or shaved them, and she'd shaved most of her head so just stiff platinum-blond quills remained, so striking!—everybody in the car stared at her even those who'd been nodding off woke to take in such a sight. The girl's face was glowing and shiny as if made of some synthetic material like flesh-plastic, with no pores, and her lips were swollen and pouty, and moved as if she was talking to herself. For in the subway, some of us sometimes talk to ourselves, and you are (maybe) meant to overhear. Seeing me, her eyes latching onto mine, she stopped in mid-stride and stood swaying above me holding the rail about two feet from me, observing me and a slow smile broke over the plastic-face like something melting. Big husky girl six feet tall in khakis and tight-fitting black T-shirt with DRAGO FREK in red letters.
The sign
was a bullet-shape silver ring on the middle finger of her left hand which was the bullet-shape of the silver buckle of my belt cinching in my waist tight. Her eyes on me restless as those minnow-sized fish that devour living things in seconds—piranha. Leaned down to ask did I know what the freak time it was and I laughed saying no I did not know what the “freak time” it was, I was sorry. After 10
P
.
M
. I said, this is what I thought the time was up on the ground where there were clocks. This made Plastic Girl laugh too, and a smell of spicy meat came from her opened mouth. She asked didn't I wear a wristwatch?—and I said no, and she laughed again saying Hey was I a girl who didn't give a shit about the time, and I frowned at this, I did not like to hear profanity or nasty words, not even from a girl who stared at me in a way that was flattering. All this while Plastic Girl leaning over me and breathing that meaty smell saying, I guess you're the kind of girl who knows her own mind. That is fucking cool.

Raising her voice to be heard over the racket of the train Plastic Girl started telling me about this place she was expected at, some kind of residence she wasn't going back to, halfway-house,
halfway-to-Hell house,
except somebody there owed her, had clothes of hers and personal documents so she'd have to return except not by any fucking front entrance where you had to sign in, she'd get back inside by a window and it wouldn't be broad fucking daylight, it would be night. I listened to Plastic Girl's voice like it was a radio voice. It was a voice beamed to me that had nothing to do with
me
. Distracted by Plastic Girl's heavy breasts swaying inside the T-shirt, and her belly above the zipper-crotch of the khakis pushing out round and hard like a drum. The bullet-shape silver ring that was
the sign
between us, that (maybe) Plastic Girl had seen also. And the thought came to me
Is this the one? A female?

But at the next station a swarm of people entered the car. A man pushed between us like Plastic Girl didn't exist. Rude behavior but he was taller and bigger than Plastic Girl and knew she would give him no trouble. Smiling sidelong at me like he knew me, or was pretending to know me, this was a game we'd played before, him and me. (Was it?) A woman seated close by decided to move to another seat, uncomfortable with Plastic Girl and now this new guy hanging above her, each of them drawn to me, as eyes were drawn to me generally, and right away the guy took her place before Plastic Girl could sit down. You could see that Plastic Girl was angry. Baring her teeth like she'd have liked to tear at someone with those teeth. I looked up at her appealing with my eyes, sorry! I was sorry!—but Plastic Girl shrugged and moved off, took a seat farther down the car that had just opened up. As the train lurched I could see her shaved head glowing like a bulb and the platinum-blond quills quivering like antennae. I knew: Plastic Girl would keep her eyes on me, she would not let me go so easily.

The man beside me nudged me—it was the first actual touch of this night, I reacted with a start—asking did I remember him? Huhhh?

Did I remember him? Dunk's the name.

Dunk! I did not remember any
Dunk
.

Laughed to hear such a silly name—
Dunk.

Sure you do, sweetheart. You remember Dunk.

Then realizing yes I'd met Dunk before. More than once before. Why I'd felt sort of strange seeing him, sort of protected-by-him, the way you do with some individuals, though not with most men, not ever. A few weeks ago we'd got to talking in the subway and he'd taken me for coffee (at Union Square). Possibly I'd been dressed then as I was dressed now. And Dunk in the fake-buckskin jacket he was wearing now, and his steel-gray hair pulled back in a little pigtail at the nape of his neck as it was now. (Had to smile at this little pigtail since Dunk was near-bald except for a band of hair around his bumpy-looking head he'd let grow to pull into a pigtail.) There was something old and comfortable about Dunk, pothead hippie from long ago. Dunk said he remembered me, yes he remembered Lorelei, hey did I know I'd broken his heart? Dunk made a weepy jocular sound like a wheezing heart might make but mostly he was needing to blow his nose which he did in a dirty tissue, making a honking noise so I laughed. That was Dunk's power: to make you laugh. The dirty wadded tissue in his hand was
the sign
for in my pocket was a dirty tissue stained with blood.

Dunk had been a psychiatric social worker for the city. Had to quit after twenty-three years and take disability pay to save his soul, he said. In the coffee shop at Penn Station he told me of his life lapsing into a singsong voice like a lullaby. You could see that Dunk had told his story many times before but Dunk had no other story to tell. He was very lonely, he would confide. His skin exuded heat like a radiator. Made me laugh—(almost)—how his right eye drifted out of focus while his left eye had me pinned. In the coffee shop Dunk paid for my coffee and for something to eat, Dunk believed that I was too skinny. He said that I would never mature if I was malnourished. He said that my organs would age prematurely and that I would die prematurely. He told me of his patient who'd threatened to kill him and he'd said what difference did it make, we're all going to die anyway aren't we. He'd been so depressed. And something terrible had happened to his patient, and Dunk was to blame though no one knew. Though Dunk would not confide in anyone except me.

Then, Dunk said, he got bored with being depressed. I was listening with just half my mind. The other half yearning for
you
. By this time I'd realized that Dunk was not my destiny.

This night, Dunk is asking would I come with him, we could have a meal together. Politely I said thank you, but I have an appointment with someone else.

Who is my destiny? You?

Whoever it was, I didn't see. Never saw his face. Never saw but a shadow in the corner of my eye. Great bird spreading its wings. (I believe it was a man. I am sure it was a man. But even that fact, I can't be one hundred percent certain of.) At the Fourteenth Street station. My plan was to take the uptown to Fifty-seventh Street. Past Times Square. I'd been disappointed in Times Square lately. The area around Carnegie Hall is very different. Lorelei would be more visible there. Now standing at the edge of the platform a little apart from a small crowd gathered for the next train. A few yards maybe. I didn't believe that I was standing dangerously close to the edge. Something on the sole of my high-heeled sandal, something sticky and disgusting like a large wad of gum. And this gum was like a tongue. Ugh! Trying to scrape it off my shoe when I saw, or half-saw, your shadow in the corner of my eye, advancing upon me from the left. The thought came to me swift and yearning
Please touch me
because it was such a familiar thought, I did not believe that I was in danger.
Touch me even if you hurt me. Oh please.