intense. Rats scurry back and forth across the track bed between garbage and pools of black water. From somewhere comes a slow dripping sound. I feel like an extra in a Sergio Leone western, caught in one of those huge CinemaScope close-ups of desperadoes waiting for someone to kill on the Santa Fe express.
Rust scuffs along the platform edge. Then he spins on the heels of his boots to face me. We are discussing my dilemma.
âLet me tell you a story,â he says.
I roll my eyes.
âBack about twenty-odd years I worked as a ranch hand at a hacienda in Mexico, Chiapas State. The owners were very rich. Old-time landowners. The deed signed by King Carlos of Spain hung in a big frame in the hall of the hacienda. Consuela, the daughter, had a spirit attached to her, a poltergeist, like you. When she was around, the thing would dump bowls of chili on peopleâs heads, knock paintings off the walls, slam doors. Once tossed the cat into a tub of tequila punch at a dance they held in the ballroom. Would have been kind of funny except how the whole thing ended. One night, the girl vanished. She just wasnât in her room in the morning. A week we looked for her. They had us ranch hands combing the whole countryside. When it got dark, we took torches up into the hills. But that wasnât how we found her. We found her because of the birds.â
âBirdsâ I say, a lump in the pit of my stomach. âWhat birds?â
âAll of a sudden, there were vultures congregating on the roof of the hacienda. No one noticed till there were a half dozen up there, big, evil black birds staring down at us. Finally, Luis put a ladder to the eaves and climbed up and there she was, poor kid, what was left of her. Eyes and allthe soft parts eaten out by the vultures. Clenched in her left hand was a bottle of rat poison from the kitchen. At the inquest they said that was how she died, her tongue was black with the stuff. They called it a suicide. But how she got onto the roof no one can say. There was no way up from the inside of the house. Not for a girl of thirteen. Some people say it was the ghost, the poltergeist, that took her up there somehow, that put the poison in her hand. I donât know. I do know that itâs not healthy living with the damn things. Like living with a gas leak. Sooner or later thereâs going to be an explosion.â
I open my mouth to speak but am overcome with exhaustion. I donât want to think about it anymore.
Now a few more passengers wait along the platform. An impeccably dressed old man talks to himself a mile a minute; two black teenagers wrapped in leather parkas despite the heat slouch over a boom box blaring rap; a thin, sad-looking woman stares with intensity at the third rail. Rust looks up suddenly, and in that instant there is a hot wind from the tunnel followed by a great roar. At this sound about twenty Puerto Rican youths pound down from the local track above, and the platform is full. But the train pulls into the station to groans and swearing from the crowd. It is a work train, its flat sides painted in yellow and black stripes like a plague ship, its windows barred.
The work train idles in the station inexplicably for the next fifteen minutes. Men in light blue transit uniforms mill about inside the single car. The caboose is a flatbed full of junk, mangled turnstiles, scrap iron. Finally another train pulls in on the upstairs track, and there is the tread of heavy boots on the stairs. Five transit workers, wearing sidearms and showing the brassy glint of extra cartridges from bandoliers, march quickly down onto the platform. They are escorting two nervous men in suits who carry small black suitcases. The doors open, the guards and men step into the yellow light, and in a moment the work train is gone, lurching off into the darkness of the tunnel.
I look over at Rust. He shrugs.
âNew York,â he says. âYou never know whatâs going on. Not
Rust scuffs along the platform edge. Then he spins on the heels of his boots to face me. We are discussing my dilemma.
âLet me tell you a story,â he says.
I roll my eyes.
âBack about twenty-odd years I worked as a ranch hand at a hacienda in Mexico, Chiapas State. The owners were very rich. Old-time landowners. The deed signed by King Carlos of Spain hung in a big frame in the hall of the hacienda. Consuela, the daughter, had a spirit attached to her, a poltergeist, like you. When she was around, the thing would dump bowls of chili on peopleâs heads, knock paintings off the walls, slam doors. Once tossed the cat into a tub of tequila punch at a dance they held in the ballroom. Would have been kind of funny except how the whole thing ended. One night, the girl vanished. She just wasnât in her room in the morning. A week we looked for her. They had us ranch hands combing the whole countryside. When it got dark, we took torches up into the hills. But that wasnât how we found her. We found her because of the birds.â
âBirdsâ I say, a lump in the pit of my stomach. âWhat birds?â
âAll of a sudden, there were vultures congregating on the roof of the hacienda. No one noticed till there were a half dozen up there, big, evil black birds staring down at us. Finally, Luis put a ladder to the eaves and climbed up and there she was, poor kid, what was left of her. Eyes and allthe soft parts eaten out by the vultures. Clenched in her left hand was a bottle of rat poison from the kitchen. At the inquest they said that was how she died, her tongue was black with the stuff. They called it a suicide. But how she got onto the roof no one can say. There was no way up from the inside of the house. Not for a girl of thirteen. Some people say it was the ghost, the poltergeist, that took her up there somehow, that put the poison in her hand. I donât know. I do know that itâs not healthy living with the damn things. Like living with a gas leak. Sooner or later thereâs going to be an explosion.â
I open my mouth to speak but am overcome with exhaustion. I donât want to think about it anymore.
Now a few more passengers wait along the platform. An impeccably dressed old man talks to himself a mile a minute; two black teenagers wrapped in leather parkas despite the heat slouch over a boom box blaring rap; a thin, sad-looking woman stares with intensity at the third rail. Rust looks up suddenly, and in that instant there is a hot wind from the tunnel followed by a great roar. At this sound about twenty Puerto Rican youths pound down from the local track above, and the platform is full. But the train pulls into the station to groans and swearing from the crowd. It is a work train, its flat sides painted in yellow and black stripes like a plague ship, its windows barred.
The work train idles in the station inexplicably for the next fifteen minutes. Men in light blue transit uniforms mill about inside the single car. The caboose is a flatbed full of junk, mangled turnstiles, scrap iron. Finally another train pulls in on the upstairs track, and there is the tread of heavy boots on the stairs. Five transit workers, wearing sidearms and showing the brassy glint of extra cartridges from bandoliers, march quickly down onto the platform. They are escorting two nervous men in suits who carry small black suitcases. The doors open, the guards and men step into the yellow light, and in a moment the work train is gone, lurching off into the darkness of the tunnel.
I look over at Rust. He shrugs.
âNew York,â he says. âYou never know whatâs going on. Not
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