All the Lines Function With Normality (Part One)

Preface: I have posted this entire story before, but I recently undertook the effort of editing it, and it's now becoming a very different story, at least in terms of its presentation and the sentences themselves. I haven't posted any of my writing in a long time (mostly because I haven't been writing), but I figured I would share with you my new version of this story. Thus far, I have only changed the first section of the story, but posting it here will hopefully give me the motivation to finish the rest in the next few days, so that I can share with you the whole thing over the course of the week.

Image Source

ALL THE LINES FUNCTION WITH NORMALITY

The lonely screech of a train, either leaving or arriving, fills the space between the people, two rivers running through each other, a braided current eddied only by the hurried father with the boy on his shoulder pushing “Permiso! Permiso!” through the crowd and the purple lump on the floor— a blanket draped over a man—breaking the current as impassive as a stone, with only the clasped hands and the mound of a head to suggest the body underneath. The father moves around the pile on the ground and keeps as far away from it as he can. The fingers on the hands are interwoven into a basket but also, seemingly, an eye, returning every glance like a mirror, missing nothing, casting judgement back on those who would judge a man by his hands, as if the crusted fingernails with their fungal yellowing might say all there is to say about the owner of those fingers, or even just his deservingness of handouts of marked paper, his capacity for appreciation. Some job he has, taking other people’s hard earned money. Who knows what he’ll do with it anyway. Probably just score his next hit! But he looks like he’s been here a long time, and who knows how much longer he’ll stay, the human rivers passing over, smoothing his edges, reducing him from a fully formed man to a purple lump, a stone, a pebble.

“Shit,” the boy’s father says, “train’s here,” and he quickens his pace to a run, snapping “Permiso! Permiso!” louder now with every person he shoulders past, the boy’s head bobbing up and down, side to side, shaking with every step and turn, the strangers’ faces all staring at him and oscillating. The train clatters and snarls like a beast in the next room, stretching about and exploring the space, then gathering together again as the boy’s father pushes his way out of the end of the hallway. It whines its off-pitch whine that the doors are about to close. Permiso, permiso, the boy’s father budging past the ugly woman guiding the stroller and past an irritated couple holding hands, then half skipping half leaping toward the opening with one hand cradling the boy and the other over his own head like Maradona with the hand of God, getting the arm and the left leg through as the doors close on them and leave half the father and all the boy on the outside of the car. The boy’s dangling there watching his father’s face as it clenches and grunts and tries to will the body inside, the flesh moving around like Play-Doh, nothing solid in it. Some men of the train see him struggling and hurry over and put their hands on the doors and their faces become like the father’s, all straining and willing the doors apart until the doors finally give in and let themselves separate enough that the man can stumble through.

Panting, red-faced, grimacing around at the concerned faces, he waves a thanks to those who helped then he sets the boy down, bare feet on the dusty floor, and tells him to grab the pole. He turns to the men again and thanks them with a mock bow. He coughs, coughs again, louder than necessary and louder than any social conventions would permit, then he falls dramatically into the end chair, the one reserved for pregnant women and the physically handicapped with the sign behind it that says CEDAMOS SIEMPRE EL ASIENTO A EMBARAZADAS, MAYORES, Y PERSONAS CON MOVILIDAD REDUCIDAS. He catches his breath for a few seconds, staring up at the yellow-orange light on the ceiling and the ragged advertisements, then he beckons the boy over with his hand. The boy lets go of the pole and starts to totter over to him, but the train begins to move at the same time and he loses his balance, stumbling toward a woman in a chair until the father sits up and snatches him and pulls him back over by his jacket hood leash.

“Careful, boy,” he says and he looks at him. “You know what to do?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Take this.”

He worms his hand into his pocket and takes out a stack of sticker books he stole from a libreria on Calle San Juan. Sticker books are useless and nobody wants them-- even the store owner watching the theft couldn’t be bothered to say more than “Ay, cabron!” and shake a fist-- but the father says its not about selling the people something they want, it’s about making them want to help you, and that’s why you have to give out the stickers, because they will want to help you, boy, more than they would want to help me. The boy takes the stickers from him. The boy’s father pats him on the head and says, “Remember the face.” He means remember the face where they smile at people but make the eyes look sad. The boy nods, receives a pat on the back then a gentle push toward the center of the car. He ambles down the length of the car, staggering like a drunkard or a foal, approaching every person to hand them a sticker book with cartoon characters that resemble actual television cartoon characters but not so much so as to violate any trademarks. He makes eye contact with all of them—the people not the cartoon characters but some of them also-- smiling with everything but his eyes. The people shake their heads or wave their hands to say, “Don’t give me a sticker book.” They’ve seen this method before, but he gives them a sticker book anyway. He needs to be finished before the next station, so he moves quickly.

When he’s finished forcing a sticker book on everyone but the other children he returns to the first lady he gave one to and holds out his hand. He looks her in the eyes again. She’ll give it back to him along with some money, or she’ll give it back to him with nothing else. She gives it back to him with nothing else. The next five people do the same. He reaches a gringa woman in a dress and she says nothing but gives him the sticker book and a 50 peso note she took from her purse. The boy can’t look too excited or thankful because his father says that no one will want to give you anything if you look too happy or if they know you already have good money. So he says thank you quietly to the gringa and moves to the next person.. When the train reaches the next station he has the 50, several 10’s, and a 100. He goes back to his father to give him the money.

“Well done, boy,” the boy’s father says and he puts the money in his pocket. He looks around at the people on the train and says, “we need to move to another car.” He picks the boy up and shoulders him as a soldier might a rifle, preparing to march. He will march them to the next car, then another, then another. Weeks will pass this way, the paths repeating and doubling back on themselves, the same faces appearing in the cars, the father tiring, panting, breaking step. His coughs will become bloody and frequent but quieter, and the permisos, too, just whispers, pleas not commands, and he won’t push through the crowds anymore. He won’t disrupt the currents at all because they pass right through him, and the boy is older now, taller and heavier, too big for the shoulders of this ghost wearing away like that purple lump in the tunnel, not even a pebble now, the rivers of people running through each other unimpeded, a perfect series, like an endless thread of termites carving a corridor through time.

TO BE CONTINUED