31 Hours Read online

  The train pulled in, and Sonny, the police officer, and the TSA employee all got on, each choosing a different car. Sonny’s car held only one other person: a black transvestite with a bouffant wig. As the train began to move, he—looking very much like a she—rose and sauntered past Sonny, hips swaying almost as if he were a model on a catwalk. He wore a long coat, which he kept open in the front to reveal a silky red dress that couldn’t be keeping him warm. He was well padded; his curves looked authentic. He had nice eyes, too, Sonny saw. Only the black high-laced tennis shoes seemed misplaced. He stopped about three feet away from Sonny, took hold of a high handrail, and flexed his shoulders. Two stops later, he turned around and headed Sonny’s way again, studying him carefully. A couple got on and moved to the far end of the car. The transvestite slid into a seat opposite Sonny, staring openly now. Sonny sat easy, a noncommittal expression on his face, knowing it was best to wait it out, let the fellow finish whatever strutting was needed. The transvestite leaned forward and said in the most feminine voice Sonny could imagine, “You de best thing I’ve seen in a while.”

  Sonny chuckled. “Then that ain’t no good for you.”

  “Name’s Murilee,” the man-woman said. “You looking for some warmth, some help passing this winter night?”

  “Don’t be thinking so,” Sonny said.

  “Won’t even charge you much for it. Maybe just a cuppa coffee afterward.”

  There was a time, Sonny thought. Time he might’a said yes to this self-created, self-named person who inclined hopefully toward him. Might’a said yes even though he knew that once they were alone together, a dingy padded bra would fall off to reveal a concave chest, and the legs, shaven but still a man’s, would take him back some, and as for the equipment itself, it would be a long way from his dreams. He’d’a said yes despite the shortcomings because people had those days when they felt pretty self-sufficient, and then they had those days when they were needy as a babe. Whether they slept on a bed or a bench, didn’t matter. Everybody had days like that. Loneliness pulled at every part of you, and sixty seconds of adoration, even paid for, seemed the only chance you had at keeping the pieces from flying off in all directions.

  “Not tonight,” he said to Murilee. “Thank ye, though.”

  “Oooh,” Murilee said. “A polite refusal. You’re making my blood run hot.”

  Sonny chuckled, and then, seeing the train pull into 4th Street, he rose. “Good-night, now,” he said. “Be safe.”

  “Rather be sexy than safe,” Murilee said, and laughed, low and husky, with cracks that allowed the masculine to peek through. That was the last sweet noise Sonny heard as the train doors closed and the subway sped away.

  Sonny passed another couple of cops talking together in low voices as he made his way up one set of stairs. Now he was one level beneath ground instead of two. The cleaners had already come blasting through, pointing their power spray, and the air smelled of trapped disinfectant, which suited Sonny just fine. Fresh as he was now, he sure didn’t want to lie down someplace that had seen toilet-use. He headed for the stretch he wanted, slightly beyond the edge of the platform. It was a slender ledge, narrow as a chastity bed, and in all the times he’d slept there, nobody’d ever tried to run his pockets, so he considered it safe enough.

  As he approached, though, he saw that somebody had taken over his spot. A huddled lump using a pile of newspapers as mattress and a flowered sheet as comforter. Sonny had never seen another person lying in his spot before. He hovered above the form. After a minute, it shifted slightly. Something poked out its head.

  “Benny,” Sonny said without a spitful of warmth.

  “Sonny.” Benny let his head drop back down to the cement. “Glad it’s you. Thought it was someone trying to split my wig, but I’m so weak, I’d just have to let ’em go at it.”

  “What’s wrong?” Sonny asked.

  Benny pulled the sheet under his chin. “Not feeling too good.”

  “You junk-sick?” Sonny knew he didn’t sound overly sympathetic.

  “No, man, no way. Got meself the flu, I think.”

  “Got to man up, Benny,” Sonny said dryly.

  “Can’t,” Benny said, and pulled the sheet over his face.

  Sonny grunted. He didn’t much like Benny. The Wheelchair Robber, he was nicknamed. Benny gave folks like Sonny a bad name. Benny had two props: a wheelchair and a pile of funny stories about the city. Come nightfall, he would park aboveground near the entrance to one subway or another, telling his stories, calling out until people gathered, and then passing the hat. The lame storyteller. That was fine by Sonny, but it wasn’t much of a living for Benny, so he’d developed a less savory habit. From time to time, often enough to get a reputation among his underground colleagues, Benny was approached by some tourist—he always targeted a woman—who was visiting from China or Connecticut and didn’t know exactly where she was, or didn’t pay attention when she leaned toward Benny, or stood too close when she turned her back to him. That was when he would reach into a purse, or sometimes a pocket, and lift the bread, or a cell phone, or whatever shit he could find. Benny had been doing it for years now, so his switch from beggar to thief back to beggar again was as rapid as an addict’s mood swings. His victim rarely noticed right away that she’d been robbed, but as a safety measure, Benny always shoved the stolen goods directly under his butt and wheeled away immediately so that if she turned around for one last look at the poor lame storyteller, he was gone. And on the rare occasion when someone caught him and yelled out, he sprang up and dashed off down the street, fast as a relay racer. Then the passersby could see he didn’t need that wheelchair after all, except to build his audience’s trust. All this took its toll on public opinion of men like Sonny and the younger ones who played drums or break-danced—all those trying to make an honest living in the subways. It was as if Benny robbed them, too.

  Now Benny shifted his body and groaned, then peeked out one red-rimmed eye. “Might be pneumonia.” He shivered as if to prove his point. “No health insurance, either, ha. You don’t have an extra blanket, do ya?”

  Sonny laughed. “Yeah. Right here in my dresser.”

  “What I need is Mrs. Wu,” Benny said. “If I weren’t so weak and frail, I’d go myself.” He lifted his head and shot Sonny a hopeful look.

  “Jesus, Benny.” Sonny shook his head and stared down onto the tracks, where a rat was trying to move what looked like a stale hunk of bread.

  “You do it for me, won’t you, Sonny? You aren’t like most of ’em.”

  Sonny shrugged off the attempt at flattery. “First you be in my place, and now you want to put me on an errand. You been drinking smiley juice, Benny?”

  “I’m sure she’s in Rockefeller Center right behind the tollbooth, just like always. It only take you twenty, twenty-five minutes round-trip.”

  “I don’t know what watch be telling you that.”

  “Besides, you’s her favorite.”

  Sonny shook his head again but started back to the platform. At least Benny wasn’t crazy or savage-like; Sonny had to appreciate that. Besides, he was family of sorts. “Damn good thing I’m subway-loyal, Benny. I only hope she’s there,” he said over his shoulder.

  The train came pretty quickly, and Rockefeller Center was only four stops away. It was one of the busier stations, always well lit, and that probably explained why Mrs. Wu made it her place. Mrs. Wu looked to be about forty-five, which probably meant she was thirty-four. Homeless life aged folks fast, especially the women. She carried four or five bags always, and whenever somebody in the underground community needed something home-like—needle and thread, hot-water bottle, loofah sponge—they went to find Mrs. Wu. Mrs. Wu wasn’t a bottle lover; far as Sonny knew, she was one of the street people who stayed straight, but she wasn’t always there, either. Sonny’d seen her eyes glaze and her mind get lost someplace else, so she couldn’t even hear him talking to her. Story Sonny heard was that she owned her own home once but lost it f
our or five years ago. He didn’t know if that was true. He didn’t know if she had children, or even if she really was a married woman, even though folks called her missus. It wasn’t polite to nosy into how things had gone wrong for a body.

  She was there behind the booth, asleep, lying on top of two bags of belongings, holding a third under her arm like some stuffed toy, and leaning against a fourth. Sonny gently shook her arm.

  “How you doin’, mama?” She was younger than Sonny by some twenty years, but that was what he always called her. Meant as a compliment.

  “Wha’? Wha’?” She rubbed her eyes and sat up stiffly. “Oh, Sonny. I thought you were cops again, trying to move Mrs. Wu.”

  “How you doin’?” Sonny asked again, hoping to judge her state of mind.

  “Mrs. Wu well enough,” she said.

  “Well, Benny’s sick,” Sonny said. “He sent me to ask if you had an extra blanket.”

  “For Benny, no.” She smoothed the hair off her forehead with one hand. “But for you . . .” She reached into the bag that had been under her feet and then stuck her whole head in and rummaged around. “Take two. That way you have one.” She handed him a blanket that was sky-blue and very thin, probably made of cotton, and another that was tan, thicker and wool, with three fist-sized holes in the middle.

  “Thank ye,” said Sonny.

  “Want coffee before you go?” Mrs. Wu asked, and Sonny knew this was her way of asking him to buy her a cup.

  “You stay here,” he said. “I be right back.” He walked around the corner and ordered two small cups with cream and sugar.

  She was leaning against the tollbooth when he returned. She didn’t meet his eyes but looked pleased to see the coffee, smiling in the direction of his feet. She took the cup and wrapped both hands around it like it was a precious jewel she was raising to the sky, and then she put it to her lips, her elbows splayed wide, and held the liquid in her mouth for a long time before swallowing. He sat down beside her.

  “You seen Ricky lately?” she asked, and he thought about how so many of them called each other by boyhood names, as if they were stuck in that time, which many of them were, and how Mrs. Wu’s role of mother figure had nothing to do with her age, either. They talked for a few minutes about mutual acquaintances who lived and worked underground before Sonny rose to go.

  “Wait, Sonny. Something worrying Mrs. Wu.” She motioned for him to lean closer and spoke in a quiet voice. “Lots of police around here lately. You notice this?”

  “Yes, mama, I have,”

  She grimaced. Mrs. Wu liked the police less than all the rest of them combined, though Sonny didn’t know the source of that aversion. “Everybody jumpy,” she said, her voice still hushed. “You know why, Sonny?”

  “Why you asking me?” he said.

  “Sometime you know things,” she said. “Mrs. Wu see this.”

  Maybe Mrs. Wu was just talking to him because she wanted company a little longer. But her words were a splash of cold water to his face; they made him remember how he’d felt Sunday morning, and now he felt it all again, the air vibrating with sharp but unnamed tension. He didn’t want to mention it, though, and wouldn’t know how to explain it, anyway.

  “You know what it be, mama,” he said, trying to sound comforting. “They show up some days, and they nowhere around others. They operate by some clock that only they looking at. It don’t mean much to us, after all.”

  “You think so?” she asked. “They won’t round us up?”

  The police carried out periodic roundups, dumping homeless folks at dirty and dangerous shelters as though it were a good deed, but it had been a while since that had happened. “Don’t think that’s it, mama,” he said, almost wishing that it were, almost thinking that might be better than whatever lay ahead.

  “Hope you right, Sonny. It too cold for Mrs. Wu, I dying outside in this weather. I look after a lot of people, but they don’t look after me. So you hear different, you come warn Mrs. Wu, okay?”

  “I promise, mama,” he said. “I hear anything, I come for you.”

  She pinched his cheek lightly. “Take care, now, Sonny.”

  He estimated it took him twenty-five minutes to get back. Benny was still there, half-asleep. Sonny threw the sky-blue blanket over him, and Benny looked up. “Thank ye, Sonny,” he said, polite-like, as if he were Sonny’s child.

  “Well,” Sonny said, “scoot back some. Make room. I need to catch some meself.”

  Benny, still prone, pushed himself back so that his head lay deeper into the tunnel, and Sonny wrapped himself up in the tan blanket and cozied up close the wall, his feet reaching toward Benny’s, Ruby’s blessed scarf draped over his eyes, warm enough, full enough, but with Mrs. Wu’s worries running laps in his head.

  NEW YORK: 4:36 A.M.

  MECCA: 12:36 P.M.

  Mara woke with a start and poked her head out from under the covers. She was relieved to find that the air felt calm, windless. The lamp above her desk cast a yellow light. Not the cheerful yellow of fresh lemons. Instead it was pale, nostalgic, the yellow of grainy faded photographs and rainy afternoons. She sat up in bed, reaching for her glasses and then the alarm clock. Though the clock verified her suspicion that the hour was too early, she got up anyway.

  Mara studied herself for a minute in a mirror that hung next to her door. She’d gotten in the habit lately of inspecting her image each morning, searching for change. She’d grown curious to know if her face was transforming in response to all the other outside changes. And this morning she wanted to know if the sense of responsibility that made her stomach clench had modified her physically somehow. Miraculously—it seemed to her to be a miracle—she still just looked like Mara.

  One very specific issue worried Mara this morning. Since Aaron had offered to help with the subway, she was not concerned about getting lost. She could count on him for that. And she knew her father would not be angry with her for coming and that he would hurry to the street and guide her to his apartment on St. Johns and Kingston. What bothered her was whether or not she could be persuasive enough. It had seemed so reasonable at lunch yesterday to imagine that a few rocks might make the difference, but since then, she’d recognized that a lot depended on what she said and how she said it. She realized she was going to have to have an adult conversation with her father, and she hoped that her words would be clear and strong enough that he would be able to make an adjustment in how he saw her, or at least in how he listened to her, so he didn’t dismiss her as his little angel and try to comfort her with a rocking hug or a soothing nonsense rhyme.

  It had been left to Mara to rescue her mother. No one else seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation. Mara was reminded of a movie she’d watched once with Aaron, one of the few movies they’d seen together that didn’t have anything to do with the New York subway system. The title had long since slipped from her memory, but what she did recall was that a ship went down and two women found themselves in a lifeboat with nothing to eat or drink. They floated alone at sea. At first there were jokes, or attempts at jokes, and then singing, and finally the sharing of secrets that altered the way the two women felt about each other and themselves. But as their situation became increasingly desperate, much of the talking ended. One woman finally succumbed to thirst and, though her companion begged her not to, began frantically gulping seawater cupped in her hands. And that drove her mad. It caused sodium toxicity—Mara looked it up afterward—which resulted in a shrinkage of brain cells, which in turn resulted in confusion. The woman, now crazed, jumped into the ocean thinking she was walking into the kitchen in her own home to get a snack. She drowned. The audience was meant to weep for her. But Mara cried for the woman left behind, sane still but alone, floating on the vast sea. Mara felt as if her mother had become the dehydrated woman guzzling saltwater, and Mara was in danger of being abandoned at sea.

  It occurred to her that she needed to pray. Yet she had no idea how to do it. No one in her family ever talke
d about prayer. It seemed an old-fashioned ritual, something vaguely embarrassing. An act favored by grandmothers who wore plain brown fringed shawls that they’d knitted themselves. If she wanted to pray, she realized, she would have to make it up.

  In the corner of one shelf above her desk, she kept a small collection of little objects she’d found or been given over the years. They were piled together and forgotten; she hadn’t looked at them for ages, yet they somehow still contained the aura of the sacred. Tiny talismans. She decided she would arrange them in a semicircle on the floor near her bed, and perhaps they would give her success when she spoke with her father. She wondered briefly if this were superstition instead of prayer. But she decided to recite a few words, and that, surely, would make it prayer.

  First she selected a feather she’d found when she’d been walking with her father in the park three or four years ago. It was remarkably colored, white with tinges of violet. She’d intended to research to find out what kind of bird shed such a feather, but she hadn’t done that yet. She put the feather on the floor not far from the head of her bed and squatted down. “Please, God,” she said, and then she didn’t know what to say next, so she rose and went back to her shelf. Next to the feather, she put a Chinese coin with a square cutout in the center that she’d bought in Chinatown. Then she added a brass bell Vic had given her. “Help me with my mother,” she said before the three objects. She wasn’t sure that was a prayer, but it was tangible. “And my father,” she added after a minute.

  She put two red candles in place next. Neither had been lit yet. She’d been saving them for a special occasion, and she realized this was that occasion, so she went out to the kitchen—past her mother’s closed door—to get matches, and then to the bathroom to pull off two little squares of toilet paper. She put the toilet paper under each candle so that if they dripped, wax wouldn’t get on the floor, and she thought it a good sign that she’d remembered that at all. Her mind was behaving, paying attention to details, and that would be important later when she spoke to her father.