The Changeling. Victor LaValle
Usually they worked the express ride from 59th Street to 125th, a long enough trip for every member of the crew to do a routine and work up some tips from the passengers. But now they were down here at Chambers Street, in the middle of the night, right when Apollo and Emma most needed a little peace. The boys had their backs to Apollo and Emma, huddled together at the far end of the car. They didn’t even seem to be putting on an actual show, but practicing their routines.
“I can’t stand here,” Emma said as the train rattled toward the next stop, Canal Street.
“I’ll get them to stop the music,” Apollo said, but as soon as he took a step away from Emma, she reached out and pulled him back.
“I’m going to throw up if I keep standing,” she said. The train left the tunnels and pulled into the Canal Street station. For the first time, Apollo actually looked around the car. Not more than ten people in here, including the four dancers.
“If your man can’t do this . . .” one of the dancers called out coolly, like an actor going over his lines.
“Leave him at home!” the other three replied.
They’d never have time to get out of this car and back into the next before the doors closed again. He certainly wasn’t going to try and maneuver her between the cars while she was in labor. They would have to endure the routine until it ended.
“Black guys stripping?” called the leader of the boys.
“Just flipping!” the others answered back.
Emma swayed where she stood, and her cheeks puffed out, and she brought one hand over her lips. He braced his body around hers trying to keep her as steady as possible. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if she vomited. Who would the remaining few passengers in the car hate more at that point—the dancers or the couple covered in puke? Ah, New York.
At West 4th Street, Apollo set Emma down onto the gray plastic corner seat gently. But as soon as she sat—her full weight going down on her tailbone—she lurched forward again, her face tight with concentration. It hurt to sit, but if she stood she’d throw up, and they had ten more stops to go.
Emma looked at him, her eyes slightly vacant. “Why did you eat nothing but bread?” she asked. “Do you know how good that food was?”
Jokes were good. No one ever told a funny in true labor. Apollo took off his coat. He rolled it into a ball and set it under Emma. Across the platform the C train, a local, pulled in. The doors opened, and passengers scrambled over to the A. The car that had been so empty suddenly became half full.
Just before the doors shut, three more passengers slipped on, a mother with two children. One was a young girl, maybe nine. The younger child lay asleep in a stroller. The mother saw Apollo and Emma—two sweaty, panting adults—and quickly scanned the rest of the car.
“Showtime, ladies and gentlemen, showtime!” the boys called out.
The mother buckled in defeat. The dancers had moved to the middle of the train car, and their radio had, somehow, become even louder. Most on the train acted as though nothing at all was happening in the middle of the car, as if the music weren’t playing, as if four young men weren’t pulling off incredible feats of acrobatic flair; a few filed audible complaints, and the train began to move.
The mother pushed her stroller to the seats opposite Apollo and Emma. She called to the nine-year-old in Spanish, and the nine-year-old followed. The girl took a seat and pulled a book out of her bag. Apollo wondered, just for a moment, if this could’ve been the same mother and children who’d been at the Fort Washington library on the day he’d met Emma. Impossible, improbable, but he felt an urge to snatch the book out of the girl’s hand and see if it had the Fort Washington branch’s stamp somewhere inside.
The kid didn’t pay attention to the dancers or to Apollo and Emma. She had that book and seemed satisfied. The toddler in the stroller stayed sleeping, but now, from this angle, the mother seemed to understand Apollo and Emma differently. Maybe, because of the sweating and huffing, she’d thought they were addicts tweaking out on the A train, but it was impossible to ignore Emma’s belly from here. Now the woman watched Emma quietly, and for a few moments the two locked eyes.
Emma scooched up off her butt as the A train picked up speed, rattling like a roller coaster. As soon as the A train rocked, she was sent falling back into the seat, and that hurt Emma even more. She pressed her face to Apollo’s shoulder when he held her, and through his shirt, his skin felt wet. He looked down to see Emma wiping her chin across him, pinching her lips as tight as she could.
They reached 14th Street, and the boys slapped their radio off when two NYPD officers got on the train. The cops knew what the boys had been doing, but deterrence seemed like enough right then. The ride from 14th all the way to 42nd Street, without the radio playing, seemed as quiet as a cave.
Emma worked on her breathing, two little breaths in and one big breath out. She found her way to a meditative state.
“We can’t wait to meet you,” Apollo whispered to her.
She couldn’t acknowledge what he was saying because she was concentrating on her breathing. The pain she felt in her hips, in her lower back, it became a white light that drew her close one moment and pushed her further away the next.
“We can’t wait to meet you,” Apollo whispered again.
They’d come up with this mantra in the Bradley Method class. Their teacher Tonya suggested coming up with a saying the father could repeat to the mother when she began labor. A mantra of a kind. Apollo and Emma had decided they’d say something to the baby. A simple welcome that summarized their excitement, their anticipation. Focus on that rather than the pain.
“We can’t wait to meet you.”
Who’d said it that time, Apollo or Emma? She couldn’t be sure, and frankly, neither could he. They were on that A train, pulling into the 59th Street station, but they were not there. They were in their apartment, both of them in the tub, Kim by their side. They were already greeting their child. They only had to catch up to that moment in the future, and all would be fine.
The train stopped, and the car cleared out. It became almost as empty as it had been down by Chambers Street. When the car doors closed again, there were only a few passengers left: Apollo and Emma, the mother with her children, and the dancers counting the little money they’d made before the cops got on. Nine souls. One more on the way.
The A train left 59th Street. The next leg of the trip would be the toughest. From here the A train wouldn’t stop until 125th. The single longest uninterrupted ride in the entire New York City subway system. The A train would never go any faster than it did here. Apollo, anticipating the jerking and jumping to come, tried to wrap his arms around Emma like a living seatbelt, but as the train passed 79th Street, 81st, 86th, it didn’t seem to matter. The only solace was that Emma had gone into a kind of trance. The breathing worked. She didn’t talk anymore. She approached true labor, but luckily they were nearly home.
The A passed 103rd Street, the weak light in the station hardly seeming to reach their train car before they were back in the tunnel again.
And then the wheels of the train creaked as the train suddenly slowed.
No problem at all, a common occurrence. The motorman had been chugging at high speeds, and it was normal for the train to start coasting. This way they’d simply glide into the 125th Street station. Totally normal.
Then the squeal of the train’s brakes as they came to a full stop.
Apollo looked out the car’s windows but couldn’t see anything out there in the dark. A squawk played over the car’s speakers, just a stab of feedback. The speakers went silent again. And a moment after that, the lights in all the cars of the A train went out. Apollo and Emma and the mother and her kids and the four dancers sat in total darkness.
IN