Walking Cross-Town. With Smoke.

Posted on by Live & Learn

red-walking-sven-pfrommer

The bi-fold doors open.

We spill out of the train into the underground tunnel at Grand Central. It’s Monday morning.

I’m walking briskly in a free lane. Not exactly free. Under foot is a yellow warning strip, with hundreds of half-moons of steel affixed to the two-foot corrugated shoulder on a highway warning of trouble. My eyes bob ahead and down, wary, looking to avoid toppling down eight feet onto the empty tracks. Livin‘ la Vida Loca.

I bear down on a commuter who is ambling along. Buddy, move left. I’m on his heals. Compressed air is released from the lungs, the Jake brake is pulled, the exhaust valves fly open, the big rig vibrates, rattles and slows.

He has thick soles, black lace-up orthopedic shoes. He is limping badly. Vet? Amputee? Back injury? I cannot pass him on my left, commuters are thick.

And then it comes. A memory, smoke grasped…

It was autumn, during undergraduate college. “Hey!”  He was pleased to see me.  We had both grown up in small towns and made a connection during class.  Rich was from a large farm in the midwest, and I was from a hobby farm in western Canada. He spoke fondly of the farm – I was sprinting away.  This was his third week in the hospital nursing debilitating lower back pain. His face was puffy, his lids were heavy and drooping – his eyes failing to hide the sadness.  I scanned the room. There were no Get Well cards or gifts or talk of family.  He was a alone. And I came empty handed.  The iodoform disinfectant mixed with hopelessness and filled the lungs. I need to get out of here.

I left. And never returned.  The lines went dead.

The memory replayed yet again this morning and mixed with Salter: “Why do you remember some things above all others?” and Tranströmer: I am an anchor that has dug itself down and holds steady the huge shadow floating up there.

Moments.  Knives that keep cutting.  That taste of blood, so familiar, so biting.

We enter the terminal and I pass him on the right.

I’m eager to get a look at him.

He does not look at me or avert his stare, which is locked on the path ahead.

A grimace with each step.

Notes:

21 thoughts on “Walking Cross-Town. With Smoke.”

  1. As someone who has had a total knee replacement, I know I aggravated a lot of people on the streets and on the subway system of the City. But, I stuck to the far right! I never miss your posts. Your imagery takes the ordinary and gives it life. Thank You.

      1. Thank you, David…you have been a wondrous connection for those of us lucky enough to find you. Seriously, I can totally see a book filled with a collection of your everyday happenings and thoughts, that touch the heart so strongly. I bet it would be a best seller! It’s what people need now with the world the way it is. Please don’t turn away completely from the thought of someday putting a book out there for others to gain as much from as we have.

  6. We don’t know what to DO with other people’s pain when we’re so young and haven’t experienced enough of our own yet. Oh, the things we’d do if we knew then what we know now.

    1. So true. How little we knew (and know). You comment reminds me of passage in James Salter’s Book “Burning the Days”:

      “you realize suddenly how small you are. To know nothing is to have done nothing. To remember only yourself is like worshiping a dust mote.”

  9. I believe we go back to those memories because there is still something for us to find there. To learn. Moving. Beautiful reflections.

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