One Man Guy (8 page)

7

“
This is kidnapping
!
I can’t believe it
!”
Alek exclaimed.

“It’s for your own good.”

“But I don’t even have a ticket. And how’m I going to get back in time for school?”

“You really want to go back?” Ethan asked, leaning in, his eyes daring Alek.

“There’s no ‘want’ here, Ethan. I
have
to get back,” Alek insisted.

“Alek, my man, at a certain point in your life, you’re gonna learn there’s a difference between what you
have
to do and what you
want
to do. And the sooner you start choosing
want
over
have
, the happier you’ll be.” Ethan stretched, his arms unfolding above him like wings. “So if you really
want
, you can get off in five minutes at Princeton Junction, switch directions on the next outbound train, and be back at school five minutes late, max. But is that what you
want
?”

Alek gathered his thoughts as the train gained momentum, the landscape on either side accelerating to a blur. He took his Velcro wallet out of his pocket and displayed its inhabitants, a pair of wrinkled five-dollar bills. “You sure I can do this on ten dollars?”

His audacity earned him Ethan’s most winning smile. “You will find that I am a man of my word. Keep up.”

Wading through the commuters in their business casual attire, Alek followed Ethan to the bathroom on the other side of the car. Ethan leaned forward and whispered in Alek’s ear. “Go in there, close the door behind you, and lock it. When you hear me knock four times, unlock it quickly and step back.”

“What?”

“Don’t ask questions now, just do what I tell you.”

“But—”

“Shut up! Do you see him?” Ethan pointed to the train ticket collector, who was slowly making his way over to them, punching tickets as he went.

“Yeah.”

“Lesson the first: if you want to spend a whole day in New York City on ten dollars, you don’t pay for the train ticket.”

“But isn’t that stealing?”

“Lesson the second: if no one suffers, it’s not bad.”

Alek protested. “My parents are always saying there’s no such thing as a victimless crime.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “If you spend your only coin getting to the city, you won’t have any left to do anything fun once you actually get there. So just do what I tell you to, okay?”

Alek nodded his consent, and Ethan dropped down and took some Scotch tape, a thick black marker, and a piece of white construction paper out of his bag. With the marker, he quickly scrawled
OUT OF ORDER
on the paper.

“What are you waiting for? Go!” Ethan opened the bathroom door, shoved Alek in, and slammed it shut behind him.

Alek flicked the metal latch, locking himself into the bathroom. The compartment was small, but fortunately not dirty or smelly. He positioned himself awkwardly, crouching in the corner, the metal wall cold through his shirt. He waited, not knowing what to do.

A few moments stretched into an uncomfortable anxiety, and Alek started getting genuinely scared. What if Ethan was setting him up—pulling him on the train, then abandoning him in the bathroom? What if Ethan got off at the next stop, stranding Alek on the train by himself? Would Alek spend the rest of the trip locked in the bathroom? And how would he get back home after, let alone explain to his parents why he cut school and ended up on a train to New York?

Alek put his hand on the door and was about to let himself out when he heard the four distinct raps. He unlocked the door and stepped back quickly, barely avoiding the swinging door. Ethan snuck in and dropped the latch, locking the door behind him. He hopped on the little steel sink, letting his feet dangle.

“So what, we spend the entire ride in here?” Alek asked.

“You got it. That Out of Order sign means we won’t be bothered since nobody knows what the hell is going on in these trains. Consider this our private suite for the next forty-five minutes.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alek could’ve never conceived of a scheme like this, let alone have the audacity to execute it.

“You don’t have to sound so impressed—it’s not like I came up with it myself. But it works like a charm. You just have to make sure that no one sees you put the sign up. The rest is cake. Of course, sometimes this place smells like shit, literally, and then you’re in for one hell of a ride. But it’s still free.”

“Whoever showed you this must be a genius.”

“Yeah, he was.” Ethan’s mouth tightened. He sat quietly and looked straight ahead, away from Alek.

*   *   *

Forty-five minutes later, the train pulled into Penn Station, and Alek and Ethan ducked out of the bathroom, camouflaging themselves among the throngs of passengers making their way out of the train. A fluorescent glare greeted them when they emerged from the underground stairwell.

“Welcome to Pennsylvania Station,” Ethan said wryly. “Or, as I like to call it, Pee-Stain, because that’s what it looks and smells like.”

Alek laughed. It wasn’t an inaccurate description.

“You should check out some pictures of what this place was originally, before they ripped it down in the sixties and put up this nasty piece of concrete shit,” Ethan lamented. “I wish that instead of coming into Pee-Stain, NJ Trans went into G-C instead.”

“G-C?”

“Grand Central. It’s the train station on the east side of town. That’s how cool New York is—it gets
two
train stations. G-C is exactly what you expect a New York train station to look like—columns, gilding, the whole beautiful turn-of-the-century thing. And, on the ceiling, they’ve re-created the night sky, star for star, constellation for constellation. We can check it out the next time we come into the city.”

Let’s just survive this trip first,
Alek thought,
before we commit to another
. But he didn’t want Ethan to realize how scared he was, so instead he said, “You come into the city a lot?” He worked hard to pitch his voice to sound casual.

“Used to all the time.” Ethan increased the speed at which he was walking, weaving his way through the crowd like he was on his skateboard. Alek had to practically run to keep up. “I took a break for a while, but now I’m thinking of resuming the habit.”

A few minutes later, Alek followed Ethan down some stairs and ramps to the subway entrance. Ethan walked up to the MetroCard machine, which Alek thought was only a joystick away from looking exactly like an old-school arcade video game, its patches of primary colors accentuated by the sleek metal exterior.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just stand in line at the booth?” Alek asked.

“That’s
so
tourist,” Ethan responded. “Now give me one of your fivers.”

Alek slipped one of his two precious bills to Ethan, who matched it with a five-dollar bill of his own and fed both into the machine. Then he expertly navigated his way through the touch screen until a yellow card popped out.

“Don’t I get one?” Alek asked.

Ethan looked him up and down. “Where does all of your paranoia come from, man?”

Alek looked away, embarrassed. “I just thought—”

“Trust me, okay? I brought you in here, and I’m gonna take care of you.
Capisce?
”

“Capisce,”
Alek responded.

“Now I’m gonna swipe, and you walk through. Got it?” Alek nodded. “Wait for my go.”

When a crowd of commuters walked by, Ethan nodded to Alek, lining up at the turnstile. Alek waited for Ethan’s swipe, then began walking through the portal. Before the bar rotated forward, he felt Ethan sneak in behind, the front of his body pressing against the back of Alek’s.

“Don’t stop,” Ethan hissed, and the two of them emerged on the other side of the threshold, the bar rotating behind them. “That’s my two-for-one subway special. One of the many money-saving tips you’ll learn from me today, young grasshopper.”

Alek nodded appreciatively, still feeling the sensation of Ethan’s body against his.

“I’ve never taken the subway before,” Alek admitted while they were waiting on the platform. “My folks sometimes drive us in, but then we park in a lot, and if we need to get around we cab it.”

“Lesson the third: never take a cab.”

“Why not?”

“Hella pricey, first of all. But more importantly, real New Yorkers take the subway. Or Citibike. Look at the people standing here waiting with us.”

Alek looked up and down the waiting platform, absorbing the colorful scene. An old Chinese man was playing an instrument that looked like a cello’s skeleton with just one big string and sounded like a sad ghost trying to communicate with the living. Three African-American girls around Alek’s age were animatedly discussing the boys in their school.

“Girl, if you even think about touchin’ Ramen, I’m gonna yank that cheap weave out.”

“I know Ramen’s yours. And besides, I wouldn’t touch him with any of these fingers.” The second girl flashed her purple, manicured nails for emphasis. “He’s a dog.”

The first girl’s protests didn’t disturb a young Arab man sitting on a bench reading a textbook on the history of board games. Lots of men and women in clothes similar to what Alek’s mother wore to work, like the people on the train from South Windsor, were waiting in between old couples and young couples and middle-aged couples with babies. Alek felt the self-consciousness that always hung over him evaporate. Who would possibly pay attention to him when there was so much else to take in?

“You see shit here you’d never see anywhere else,” Ethan said proudly, as if he’d arranged for the display.

The sound of the approaching subway thundered throughout the station. Alek and Ethan boarded. The carriage was so crowded that they had to stand right next to each other. When the train stalled abruptly, Alek lost his balance and almost fell on top of Ethan.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Alek started blubbering.

“You don’t have to apologize. I don’t mind,” Ethan said. Alek felt his face go red and looked away immediately. He tried to find some space to maneuver into, but the subway car was packed full. Alek could feel Ethan’s clothes rub up against his body.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Alek asked nervously.

“Course I do.”

“Will you show me on your map?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Lesson the fourth: never look at a subway map in front of other people. It’s like getting up and screaming, ‘Take advantage of me! I don’t live in New York!’” Ethan whispered.

“But we
don’t
live in New York!” Alek whispered back.

“No one has to know that. You know what the biggest compliment in the world is? When someone asks you for directions. It means that you really look like you know where you’re going.” Ethan leaned in. “We stay on the C train for four stops, then we get off and we walk through Central Park to SummerStage. Until then, kick back, relax, and look cool.” Alek did his best to follow Ethan’s instructions.

When they climbed out of the subway stop a few minutes later, Alek found himself in front of the entrance to Central Park.

“You see that building?” Ethan asked, pointing to a palatial structure across the street. “That’s the Dakota. It’s, like, the fanciest building in New York.”

“Dakota like Dakota Fanning?”

“No, fool. Dakota like the states, because when it was built, like, a hundred years ago, going this far uptown was considered undiscovered country, like going to North Dakota,” Ethan said. “At least, that’s what people say.”

“How do you know so much about the city?”

“You hang out enough, you pick things up.” Ethan waited for a gap in traffic, and before the red Don’t Walk turned to the white Walk, he bounded across the avenue. Alek considered saying that his parents had always taught him to wait for the Walk, but decided against it and followed Ethan, close in tow, into the impossible forest universe that was Central Park.

“We’re a little early, so we’re gonna take the scenic route,” Ethan informed him.

Walking through the park, Alek and Ethan passed people feeding goats and sheep at a petting zoo, paddling little boats over the lakes, jogging along the park’s circumference, reading plaques under statues of literary figures, and picnicking on the grass.

“The park rocks because it’s the best of both worlds: city and country at the same time.”

Alek nodded his consent. He couldn’t believe that just a few minutes ago he’d been underground, wading through a sea of commuters on a subway. All he could make out of urban Manhattan now was the tops of skyscrapers peeking above the trees. In this section of the park, there weren’t even any roads for cars—just walkways for bikers and runners and skaters.

“I can’t wait to tell Becky about all the Rollerbladers in Central Park!” Alek said, adding a silent
if I ever speak to her again
.

“Becky who?”

“Becky Boyce—we always sit together at lunch.”

“No idea who you’re talking about, man,” Ethan said, admiring a large collection of boulders, each the size of a small house, that looked like they’d been there since the prehistoric age.

Alek stopped walking. “Ethan, when did you become aware I existed?”

“That day that Jack almost kicked your ass.”

“Never before then?”

“We go to school with twelve hundred other kids. It’s not like you know who everybody is either,” Ethan said. “How about you? What’s your first memory of me?”

Alek had known Ethan existed from his first days of school. It was hard to miss him, walking through the school like he owned it.

“Well, you know, you have a certain notoriety…”

“I do?” Ethan asked with the perfect balance of humility and pride.

“Well, you were responsible for the single most chaotic event in recent school history.”

Ethan laughed again. “One little food fight and suddenly that’s all people know.”

By the time they arrived at the outdoor stage, a large crowd had already gathered. Alek could feel the anticipation in the air before the first fork of lightning erupted from a storm cloud. He unsuccessfully tried to locate the ticket booth.