Chronicles of New York

Left front pants pocket. Stephanie pulls out a crinkled wad of cash on the L train traveling from Union Square to Williamsburg about a 6-minute ride. It’s rush hour.  She had gotten a seat. Her mutt, a grimy, punk rock version of a Labrador retriever named No, circles struggling to keep his balance. Squeezed in next to her are an army surplus backpack and a folded cardboard sign that reads “Stuck in New York. Hungry. Need Money for Train Ticket Home.” This is her window to sort and straighten. No one would rob you in packed train car. There would be too many witnesses. Too obvious. So it’s safe to sort and straighten. To count.
Two twenties.
One ten.
Two fives.
Seven ones.
Total: sixty-seven dollars.
Stephanie’s grayed and filthy fingers move fast and precise like little machines, the kind you might imagine make circuit boards or little car parts. She turns the bills face up. Stacks them lowest to highest. Ones to the bottom. Ones should end up on the outside of the roll. She is conspicuous. But she never looks up to see which, if any, bored passengers are counting with her.

An older Polish woman sits across from her. There are people standing in between them. As the bodies between them jiggle and shift with the thrusts of the train, she gets glimpses of Stephanie counting her cash. She leans to the side to try to see more of her. Grazyna is a grandmother at the top of a heap of women. She has three daughters, two had graduated from college, and all three had given birth to at least one girl. She knows women. She makes women. This had been her self-appointed strength in life. And she thinks Stephanie is one in desperate need. “Who else begs for attention like that? Bringing a filthy monster dog on the subway and counting wads of cash? It’s a cry for help,” she thinks.

The only clean spot on Stephanie’s soot-covered face is her chin. That’s where No likes to lick her. His name was chosen out of perceived necessity. The plan: if she ever had to scream no, he would come running. Her protector on the streets. Her man. But the name really wasn’t working out that well. First, Stephanie always kept him on a short leash (fuck if she was going to lose him to traffic, she worried). So he was never in a position to run to her. He was always there already. Then it was hard not to give him a complex. No ended up being a really hard word to say without a negative tone in her voice. And it wasn’t fair for him to think she was always unhappy with him. So she trained herself away from throwing no’s around in conversations, in bodega delis when they asked if she wanted milk in her coffee, at the payphone when her quarter’s worth of money ran out. She now relied on not’s, don’ts, won’ts, couldn’ts, shouldn’ts instead of the default, natural no. He was worth it. They were best friends.

Right pants pocket.
One twenty.  She stacks it on top next to other two twenties.
Sixteen ones. Straighten. Face it up. Put it on the bottom.
She keeps No still. “Sit boy,” she says. “Sit.” It’s ok. Keep on counting.
Total: thirty-six dollars.
So many ones. One was a popular number in panhandling. It wasn’t enough to make someone feel responsible for how she spent their money and dictate how it could be used. Train ticket, really? What about drugs? Dog food? Breakfast? Coffee? But for one dollar, no one ever asked. One was enough to help, but not enough to change a life. Not enough to take responsibility for. Not enough to miss.

A Flash programmer and graphic designer on her way to her over-priced and under-maintained Williamsburg loft watches Stephanie while listening to The Kinks on her iPhone. Gutter punks usually have dogs like that, she thinks. They take care of their dogs better than themselves. Feed them before they feed themselves. Get them medical help when they wouldn’t get their own. That panhandled wad is probably going to organic, special-diet dog food. But this girl doesn’t look like a punk, she observes. She sort of looks like little orphan Annie. Tight curly hair (brown though not red). Freckles. No visible tattoos. Thin, petite frame. Blue eyes. Dog. What if it’s named Sandy? Black jeans, black converse, formerly-white collared shirt now brownish gray and a black hoody. No red and white dress here. The sun will come out tomorrow. I can make sun tea tomorrow on my windowsill, she thinks. That would be good.

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This entry was posted by Willow on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 7:47 pm. It is filed under On The Subway and has these tags: brooklyn, daily life, dogs, fiction, life, manhattan, new york city, poverty, subway, transportation, victim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.