Looking For Peter Mehlman, serialized, Pt. 3

11:17am:
I rise to the disappointed shaking of heads and the sense that I've let the team down. Sullenly, we file onto the platform, into the sad silence of a platform without a train. It doesn't matter that in three minutes there'll be another one: the train you miss is always the "best" one. I avoid the eyes of my fellows and keep myself busy thinking about the treasure at the end of this tunnel, metaphorically speaking: the Mehlman article and the secrets it will reveal about the what makes the written word grab someone's, besides one's own mother's, attention.

11:20am:
A local pulls in and I step inside. Oddly, even though it's 11:20am on a Wednesday, there is not a single vacant seat. I realize at that moment that I've never actually seen "a seat" on the Number One line. True, I've seen hints: a 5 inch strip of orange between two sets of American thighs, but that 5 inch beam of color is quickly blotted out by the not-to-be-trifled-with hips of a middle-aged woman who would certainly complain if her seat on an airplane was only 5 inches wide but here on the subway, seems overjoyed.

The resulting effect is a sort of checker-boarding of passengers all the way down the row, knees protruding in and out as people try to retain a portion of the bench; the pattern shifting as one passenger stands and another slides back. It’s kind of like the Wave, only performed horizontally instead of vertically. I stand, because I'm only passing through, just until I can catch the express.

11:23am:
We pull into the platform just as the express does. Perfect timing. Only our doors aren't opening. "How ironic!" we all exclaim in our different ways, some grinding their teeth into nubs. Some travelers lean on our doors, watching like children with noses pressed against a candy store window as the express opens, and then closes its doors.

"I can wait," I think, "Let someone else fight this battle," and I sit.

Suddenly, our doors explode open. I look up with only the slightest curiosity -- this is typically a tease. But suddenly the express across the platform re-opens its doors. In spite of my naturally low blood pressure, my subconscious throws out the challenge: "You can make it!"

As one, the entire human contents of the local scrambles for the openings -- The Great Subway Escape -- just as our doors begin to slide shut. It's right out of "Raiders of the Lost Ark": the squeezing doors, the second set closing just beyond; the ever-narrowing passage to freedom! All that's missing is rolling boulders. Are we quick and agile enough to get out before the poisoned spears appear?

Twang! Evidently not. My body's out, but I'm not moving. The doors have closed on my backpack. My fellow commuters, always eager for a free show, surround me, some trying to yank me out, some shoving me from behind and, as always (this being an entertainment capital), a few watching, Snickers bars in hand. Helpless, I watch as the doors on the express, barely 10 feet away, slowly hiss closed. It sits there briefly, taunting me.

Suddenly, the local opens its doors and spits me out onto the platform. I'm free! From my knees I look up, just as the express shudders to life and begins to chug away. Quickly, I spin back around just as the local, insulted no doubt by my abandonment, slams its doors shut and departs.

Back on the island of "Missed Trains", I wait.