Tim Loperfido
NORTHBOUND TRAIN TO PENN STATION, 2001
New Jersey transit into the city is always busy on Christmas, but just enough seats remain empty on the train so that no one has to stand. Kristin and Wes take a two-seater.
The next station is South Amboy. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
Kristin sits in the window with the 2 lb. can of ShopRite yams on her lap. Wes clinks it twice with his wedding band and says, “I still don’t think we’re bringing enough.”
Across the aisle, a woman dressed for church snaps her head toward the metallic sound, places her hand on the boy’s leg beside her, then resumes peering peacefully through the window at skeletal trees and spots of week-old snow.
Kristin says, “You really shouldn’t play with your ring like that.”
“Oh, come on.”
“See how nice and clean mine is? Yours looks like you dropped it down a garbage disposal.”
“You know that happened once.”
The sound of train over tracks is like a boxer working a speed bag. Kristin and Wes listen to the beating.
This station stop is South Amboy. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
Wes asks, “You really don’t think Becca has marshmallows up there?”
“I doubt it.”
“I can’t believe we’re going to have Christmas yams without marshmallows.”
Kristin lowers her voice. “Are you going to talk the whole ride up? Everyone can hear.”
“No one’s listening.” Wes points to the woman and boy across the aisle. “See? Besides, it’s not like we’re saying anything bad.”
“Keep your voice down. And don’t point.”
Wes leans near Kristin’s ear and walls his hand in front of his mouth. “Maybe when we get off the train,” he whispers, “we can sneak into the drugstore for some jet-puffed—”
Kristin pokes Wes in the gut.
“I’m only saying,” Wes continues, “that I like marshmallows with yams. It’s not some absurd combination or request.”
“Do you require marshmallows?”
“No, dear. I require nothing.”
“Good, because nothing is going to salvage this Charlie Brown Christmas. My sister pours cereal on top of milk. I don’t know where she got the idea she can host a full holiday dinner.”
“That’s why I’m trying to help. I doubt we’re the only ones who’d like some marshmallows.”
“What do you mean we? I don’t give a shit one way or the other.”
A conductor comes down the aisle looking for tickets.
“You know,” Kristin continues, handing the man two tickets and waiting for him to punch and pass, “I asked her like fifty times if she wanted us to bring anything else, and this was it.” She knocks the can with her middle knuckle. “The ShopRite kind.”
“But did she actually say not to bring anything else?”
“I’m doing what she asked. I’m doing exactly what she’s asked me to do. And that’s all I can do. That’s all I’ve ever done. Now isn’t the time to do things differently.”
“I’m only wondering if she explicitly told you not to bring anything else and if she actually said those words. It’s an innocent curiosity.”
“But if she asked us to bring yams, and we are bringing yams, then why does anything else matter?”
“It’s really an innocent curiosity. I know why she wants the yams, and I want them too, especially on account of the whole family blowing off Thanksgiving this year, but it’d be weird if she had said, Bring the yams and the yams only.”
“Lower your voice,” Kristin says.
“I’m just saying.”
“And you really need to let the whole Thanksgiving thing go.”
“There was never a better time for the family to get together.”
“Maybe.”
“The one time your parents agreed to leave Florida. Good luck convincing them to come up here ever again.”
Kristin and Wes hear a faint voice rapping song lyrics, but they can’t make out the words.
Kristin says, “I would’ve brought the fudge from The Caramel Shop on 35, the stuff Dad used to get us sometimes. Becca loved it when we were kids, but God forbid I try to make her happy now. You know how she can be.”
“I know.”
“Everything has to be exactly how she likes it.”
“I know,” Wes says. “I really do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know what you’re talking about. Like that time we went over for dinner and Albert put ice cream in his dirty salad bowl with bits of lettuce and dressing—”
“Sometimes I wonder how they were ever married to begin with.”
“She had a fit.”
“You know, maybe she just wanted her husband to enjoy his ice cream out of a clean bowl. Maybe she just cared.”
Wes looks away for a moment, up the aisle, then says, “What did you think I meant when I said ‘I know’?”
“I thought you were going to say something like it runs in the family.”
“You always assume that I’m thinking something bad,” Wes crosses his legs and wiggles his foot, “but I’m really not.”
The next station is Perth Amboy. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“To answer your original question,” Kristin says, “the last time I went up there she gave me very strict orders about what to bring and how everyone like Uncle Frank and Aunt Stella and the cousins all had their own little set of instructions. So, in a way, she did tell me not to bring anything else. And it was all in that tone. That Rebecc-uh tone.”
“J-uhst the yams. Like that?”
“Sort of. Like, Uh, will you puh-leaze stop stretching out my clothes?
Smocks aren’t exactly in right now.”
“J-uhst the yams.”
“Yea-uh.”
“I suppose it’s a good sign that she’s sounding like her old self again,” Wes says.
“That lilt in her voice used to make me cringe.”
“But isn’t it kind of off that she does sound like her old self?” Kristin adds. “Imagine becoming a widow and single mother on the same day, then three months later you’re baking cookies in the shape of snowmen and Christmas trees.”
“It’s her way of grieving. You said she’s been wearing Albert’s clothes, too. It’s all part of the process.”
“And she still had their game of backgammon on the kitchen table.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“You don’t tell me as much as you used to.”
Kristin looks out the window at above-ground swimming pools, one after the other, covered and snowcapped.
Wes says, “You only told me that the last few times you went up to see her, she was wearing Albert’s flannels and underwear, and the one time you asked her about it, she told you to make her some coffee.”
“There could have been a gun sitting on the kitchen table and I would’ve been less surprised. I remember thinking it was so strange seeing that backgammon game. I never even knew she liked to play games.”
“Who doesn’t like games?”
Kristin stares hard at Wes. He sheepishly looks down.
“It was an unfinished game left out on the kitchen table,” Kristin says. “I shook the dice in one of the little cups and she freaked out.”
“What did she say?”
“She yelled. It wasn’t much different from other times when I used to touch her things, but there was panic in her voice. You know, I always thought that if I’d had a little sister, I would have let her play with all my things and use all my clothes. It would’ve been fun.”
“Your sister is nuts about you.”
“She eventually told me they had started the game the night before. Albert promised they’d finish it the next day after work. Apparently, it was their routine for years. She says he was a very good player, but she had him on a two-game winning streak for the first time.”
“So she was going for a hat trick,” Wes says. “I wonder if it’s still sitting at the table.”
“I wonder if something’s wrong with me for thinking it’s weird that she’s kept it out.”
Wes puts his hand on the can of yams, palm up. Kristin takes it and they interlock fingers. Palm to palm, aluminum.
This station stop is Perth Amboy. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“To me,” Wes says, “it’s a bit weirder that she insists on hosting Christmas.”
The train lightens. Seats open. Across the aisle, the woman dressed for church grabs her boy by the hand to lead him off the train. His Gameboy drops like a loose brick.
“You made me die!”
A young man takes their place. He wears headphones and quietly mouths lyrics to himself.
“Has she mentioned yet when she’s planning to have the funeral?” Wes asks. “I wish she would’ve let me join you to visit these past few months.”
“She hasn’t said. I feel like she needs tangible proof that it’s true. Like maybe they’ll find something of his in all the rubble. I don’t know. Seems impossible, I guess. Anyway, I think you remind her too much of Albert, but she’s looking forward to seeing you now.”
“I look nothing like Albert.”
“It’s not that,” Kristin says. “It’s how you guys always laughed at the same things when no one else did. Becca and I would always look at each other when you guys started cracking up about something. Maybe she doesn’t want to be reminded of his sense of humor or that my husband is still alive and hers isn’t.”
“What’s it like up there anyway? In the city.”
“Let’s not talk about it here.”
“Why not?”
“Too many people. Let’s just sit awhile.”
“OK.”
They release each other’s hands, yet both feel like the timing is merely coincidental.
The next station is Woodbridge. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
Kristin turns her chin toward Wes’s shoulder. “It sounds different.”
“What does?”
“The city. It seems louder, but it might not actually be louder.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you just listen, you’ll find out.”
“The question means that I care about what you have to say.”
“Of course you do. Why else would we be together?”
Wes waits.
“When you walk onto the city street,” Kristin says, “it’s hard to tell if things have gotten louder or if you’ve just become more sensitive to the things going on around you. It’s like the sounds have hands. They shake you, and it’s hard to place where they’re all coming from. And the weather feels different. I know what forty degrees feels like, but it doesn’t feel like forty degrees anymore. It feels colder for some reason. And it smells.”
Wes opens his mouth to ask a question, but Kristin pinches him.
“You’ll be walking along fine then suddenly a gust will hit you in the face and sting. It smells like burning,” she says. “Like . . . like . . .”
“A burning frying pan,” the young man across the aisle says. The headphones are wrapped around his neck. “Smells like an empty pan that’s been left on the stove for a real long time. A cheap-ass pan. Like from one of those stores where you go through the wrong door and end up under a pile of clothes, and you can’t tell what’s dirty and what’s clean, and they try and tell you that the stuff used to go for ten times as much, but everyone knows that shit falls apart after you throw it in the wash one time. Don’t go buying food stuff at a clothing store, and don’t go buying clothes at a place that sells food stuff. That’s a mistake right there. But you put one of those cheap-ass skillets on the stovetop, you set that flame to high and let it sit awhile. Half hour, at least. And that’s it right there. That’s what all that mess smells like to me.”
“I’m not sure I know that smell,” Wes says.
“Well, if you get off in the city, you bet your ass you’ll taste it.” He puts his headphones back on and resumes mouthing lyrics to himself.
Kristin says, “I told you people can hear us talking.”
Wes looks up and down the aisle. “I guess you’re right. But we can hear them too, so what difference does it make?”
For a moment, they say nothing.
Then Wes says, “You think Albert’s flannel still smells like him?”
“I told Becca that the smell will go away faster if she keeps wearing it.”
“Would you wear my gray robe if—you know.”
Kristin’s eyes widen in consideration. “You’re wondering if you were dead whether I’d wear your clothes?”
“Exactly.”
“Would you wear mine?”
“Absolutely.”
Kristin looks out the window again.
“I don’t know,” she says. “You don’t really have an aroma like Albert did. He always smelled like flowers, but not soapy, somehow natural.”
Kristin smells Wes, and when their eyes meet, he asks, “What do I smell like?”
“Bread.”
This station stop is Woodbridge. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“Can I tell you something?” Kristin asks. “It’s dumb, but it’s been on my mind. I just don’t want it to turn into a thing.”
Wes stiffens. “I don’t want to argue.”
“No, no. I think I know why I never ended up telling you about the backgammon thing.”
Wes relaxes his shoulders.
“When I saw the backgammon set out on her table,” Kristin says, “I wondered again why you and I don’t play games with each other, why we don’t do activities together.”
“That’s not true,” Wes says. “We watch TV together. We go for walks.”
“When’s the last time we went for a walk?”
“It’s been a while, but we used to go for a walk every weekend. Nice, long walks.”
“We’ve maybe gone on five or six walks ever.”
“You’re revising again, like you do,” Wes says. “That’s not the truth. We went on at least three long walks this past summer. I can count: the park, the lake, the Belmar boardwalk—”
“OK, maybe two.”
“Two?”
“Lower your voice,” Kristin says.
“Do you intentionally forget these things?”
“Well, we never play any games, and that’s what I was getting at.”
“You know I don’t like games.”
“I know,” Kristin says, “but I’m not your dad, and just because it wasn’t fun with him, doesn’t mean it won’t be fun for us. I think it’d be fun to play rummy or chess together.”
“I suck at chess.”
“I could teach you.”
“I didn’t say that I don’t know how to play. I said I’m not any good.”
“Neither am I. Maybe we could get good together.”
“Why can’t you accept this about me? I feel like this has come up every six months for the past five years. I hate games. When I was a kid—”
“I know—”
“Maybe you don’t,” Wes says. “My dad would teach me a new game and crush me at it for weeks and weeks. He demoralized me. I didn’t want to keep playing, and he’d make me sit at the dining room table every night after dinner to play chess or checkers or backgammon or bridge or whatever. He taught me them all, and I never beat him once. Not once. Do you know what that sort of training does to someone? Games are supposed to be fun. He turned a thing designed for pleasure into a painful chore. I shiver at the sight of dice.”
“You shouldn’t let that man dictate what you enjoy now.”
“There might not be an easier thing one could say.”
Kristin slumps into the seat and turns the 2 lb. can of ShopRite yams on its side. “You like sports, though.”
“I like watching sports. Don’t ask me to start playing tennis.”
“I guess I just think about Becca and Albert sitting at their little kitchen table, drinking coffee and tea, maybe smoking a cigarette—”
“Neither of them smoke. Smoked.”
“But I do. It’d be something pleasant for us to do. Maybe we could give it a try.”
“Now you want me to take up smoking.”
“Maybe Becca will let us play.”
“I’m not touching that board. It’s not our game to play.”
“But the game needs to end.”
“Sure, but we aren’t the players.”
The next station is Avenel. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
An elderly pair of matching reindeer sweaters appears where the young man with headphones sat.
“Was he right?” Wes asks. “About the frying pan.”
Kristin nods.
This station stop is Avenel. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
The next station is Rahway. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“I hope you have some marshmallows,” the sweatered old man says.
Kristin and Wes glance across the aisle. The man points to the 2 lb. can of ShopRite yams sitting on Kristin’s lap. Wes’s face wins a prize. Kristin looks out her window.
“Excuse my husband,” the sweatered old woman says. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Why are you saying that?” the old man says.
“Sorry,” Wes says. “We had a long talk about the marshmallows earlier. We’re going to my sister-in-law’s, and she gave us very strict orders about what not to bring.”
“Sounds like a chef with a vision,” the woman says.
“That’s one way to look at it,” Kristin says.
“Why did you say that to them? ‘Excuse me,’” the man says to his wife. “Why did you say that?”
“Oh, quit your bellyaching,” she says.
A loud thud from the back of the train causes everyone to contort in their seats. A piece of luggage fell from the overhead.
This station stop is Rahway. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
Wes voices the start of a word but swallows it. He and Kristin ignore his aborted speech.
“You know, you’ve always done that,” Wes says. “You get these ideas in your head that we’re missing something in our relationship, like we don’t get along or something. Like a dumb board game is going to change anything. It kind of makes me sad. I mean, how often did you hear Becca and Albert ever talk to each other? Like really talk to each other. I want you to think about it for a minute before you tell me I’ve got it all wrong, because I can see it on your face. I can see that you’ve already got what you want to say all figured out, but just think about it. All the times we had dinners with them and when we went skiing at Big Bear that one time. I don’t think I ever heard them say more than a dozen words to each other. Think about that night after we all saw that ridiculous play about the barber’s magic comb. You and I couldn’t stop laughing, and they didn’t share a single word about it. You and I talked about that play for weeks. You forget. For weeks we mimicked the barber’s dumb accent. The one who sounded like an even more dimwitted Rocky Balboa. Why don’t yous get ’em all cut? Maybe they played games because they didn’t know any other way to communicate. It was always about who could one-up the other, who could win. What do you think about that?”
Kristin’s eyes liquefy. They shake like pools during an earthquake.
“No,” Wes says. “I’m sorry.”
“We forgot the gifts.”
Wes puts his hand on Kristin’s thigh and her head falls tiredly into his neck. “I don’t think Becca will care,” he says. “She’ll be happy we have the yams.”
“Not Becca. I forgot Kelly’s gift. What kind of aunt doesn’t bring her only niece a gift on Christmas? And on the first Christmas after Albert.”
“I think she’ll understand. Kelly’s a very mature girl.”
Kristin slams her wedding ring into the can. “I was so worried about bringing these motherfuhcking yams that I forgot it all.”
The next station is Linden. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
The sweaters leave their seats. Kristin and Wes hear new sounds approaching—heavy footsteps and two men arguing. They take the empty seats across the aisle.
They look like brothers, and the older one, with gray hair above his temples, says, “Have a fucking seat. Cool off.”
“I’m cool,” the young one says, sitting down in the window. He has a baby face, big round cheeks, and a thin line of hair over his lip. His brother takes the aisle, leaving the seat between them empty.
“You’ve got some balls to storm off like that, T. You’re more like the old man every day, I swear. Cause a big fucking mess and slip out the back door while everyone’s turned upside down trying to figure out how the whole thing started to begin with. It’s every damn time with you. Always something. And I’m sick of it. Like sick-sick. We used to get along, and now all you do is cause me grief. Consider my position for once. You think I like being the one who has to drag your ass back there every time?”
“I’m not going back this time” T says.
“Please, T. Stop doing this to me. I know who our father was. You know who he was. What else do you want? It’s changed for everyone. Not just you.”
“None of it, Vin,” T punches the seat between them, “is the truth!”
“The truth? I swear, sometimes I think about how I could murder you and get away with it. I’d like to squeeze that fat neck of yours and watch those big bologna-skin cheeks explode. We’re getting off at the next stop and going back.”
“I’m not saying sorry to any of them. I don’t owe anything to those people back there. They want to keep calling him a hero. That’s what makes me sick. They can’t admit who he really was because then they’ll have to take some responsibility for doing nothing about it all those years. Leaving us in that house. How could they? And now our father’s some sort of hero to the world, an angel. Do the angels have bones in their closets? The man never even put out a fire, and they’re going to etch his name into stone! It’s not right, Vin. It’s just not right. What he did in that house for all those years can’t be taken back. That shit’s written. Like the bible says so.”
“Skeletons.”
“What?”
“Skeletons, not bones!”
“Whatever, man.”
Vin moves to the empty seat next to T. He puts his arm over his brother’s shoulder. “Listen, I hear you. I really do. And you aren’t too far off, but that doesn’t mean I won’t wring your neck till your head’s straightened out. You made Mom cry over her Christmas ham. She’s the one person on this planet who did right by us, you chipmunk fuck. I saw her tears fall on the pineapples thanks to you. She’s our mother, T. Haven’t you come to realize what that means yet? You’re twenty-four years old and still sleep in the same bedroom where she used to stick a thermometer up your ass to check your temperature. If she wants to pretend the scumbag she was married to was a saint all along, who the fuck are you to say otherwise?”
“She’s lying.”
“So let her!” Vin returns to his seat near the aisle. “What did I tell you already? You can’t win with her. Why would you even want to? Hasn’t she been through enough in this life? Jesus Christ and on Christmas. I swear, if you ever—”
“I was just telling the truth, Vin.”
“Yeah, and no one wants to hear it.”
This station stop is Linden. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
The next station is Elizabeth. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“Listen, you’re going to do this for me,” Vin says. “OK? You owe me anyway.”
“Owe you for what?”
“For not pushing you in front of this train when you were running down the platform.”
“You wouldn’t’ve.”
“I really wish the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. You know, because what does that say about me? You think I’m happy about it? We’re going to head back to the house, and you’re going to make up something real good for why you stormed off. Matter of fact, hey, lady.”
“I think he’s talking to us,” Wes says. Kristin whispers, “Shut up.”
“Yeah, you. How much you want for that can of yams?”
Wes says, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s your price?”
“I don’t think it’s for sale,” Wes says.
“I’ll give you twenty bucks.” He takes out a wad of twenties.
“Where’d you get all that cash?” T says.
“This was part of your Christmas gift till you screwed it all up. Twenty bucks, what do you say, folks?”
“I’m sorry,” Kristin says. “We really can’t. My sister is waiting for us.”
“You’re kidding me. I’m saying twenty bucks. That’s USD, lady.”
“We can’t,” Wes says. “She’s got this recipe or something that calls for the ShopRite kind. I personally think it’s some sort of nostalgia thing from when she was a kid, between you and me, but if we don’t show up with these—”
“Forty bucks.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you really going to turn down sixty bucks? I’m offering you sixty dollars here.”
The train begins to slow.
This station stop is Elizabeth. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“Are you folks working me? Eighty bucks? Are you telling me you’re going to turn down one-hundred-dollars for a can of fucking yams?”
“One hundred dollars?” Wes says. “Maybe—”
“I’m sorry,” Kristin says. “We just can’t do it.”
The train stops.
“Christ. Let’s go, T. Get up. Get up. Tell me what the world is coming to. We’ve got planes flying into buildings and now canned goods are worth their weight in gold. Have a merry Christmas, folks.”
“You’re right, by the way,” Kristin says. “Becca and Albert never talked to each other. Not like we do.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. It doesn’t mean they didn’t get along.”
“At times, I guess, but not as much as you might think. She’s told me a lot over these past couple months.”
“Like what?”
“Stuff about their relationship.” Wes waits. Expecting more.
“I actually shouldn’t tell you,” Kristin says. “I promised her.”
“Why’d you bring it up then?”
“I didn’t mean to. It’s nothing. I need to keep those conversations private.”
“Are you talking about the conversations in a general sense or that there’s something specific she told you that you can’t tell me?”
“Just forget it.”
The next station is North Elizabeth. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“That’s very annoying,” Wes says.
This station stop is North Elizabeth. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“I’m not asking you to tell me what she said,” Wes says, “but is there some sort of secret that you’re keeping from me?”
“It’s not a secret. It’s just that things weren’t going well between them for a long time before he died. OK?”
“What’s not a secret?”
“There is no secret, Wes. Stop.”
“I don’t like when you get secretive. You said you didn’t mean to bring it up, meaning there was something you had been keeping from me. I don’t like that.”
“It’s between me and my sister. It’s not about you.”
“Yeah, but you should feel like you can tell me anything even if you’re keeping a promise to her.”
“I do feel like I can tell you anything,” Kristin says, “but I don’t feel like I need to tell you everything.”
“Oh, I know.”
“OK, what do you mean by that?”
“I know you feel like you can tell me anything even if you don’t feel you need to.”
“You know what?” Kristin shoves the can into Wes’s stomach. “You hold these fucking yams.”
The next station is Newark-Penn Station. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
“She told me last year that she wanted to get a divorce,” Kristin says, “and she had finally told him a couple months before—you know. He wanted to work it out. She didn’t.”
“Is it bad to say that I’m not surprised?”
Kristin massages her hands now that they’re free of the yams. “No. I don’t know. But Kelly overheard them talking one night. She was spying on them, listening in. She must have sensed something was up way before they even talked about it themselves.”
Wes nods, keeps quiet.
“She refused to go to school for a week,” Kristin says. “Becca finally agreed to counseling and things seemed to be getting better, but I knew it was only a matter of time. She always talked about how nice it would be to move back to Jersey. To be neighbors. I don’t know about that, but I never said anything.”
Wes drums a sad beat atop the can of yams.
“Poor Kelly. These past couple months all Becca has been trying to do is convince her daughter that she loved her father. She really did, you know.”
“Of course she did.”
This station stop is Newark-Penn Station. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
The doors open and new air pushes through bringing in a herd of passengers. It’s only standing room now, and Wes pulls his arms in tightly so people nearby don’t touch him.
This next station is New York-Penn Station. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
Wes says, “If Becca is willing to let us, and you still want to play a game of backgammon later, I’ll give it a whirl. Don’t gloat when you win though. I can’t stand a gloater.”
The train approaches a clearing and passengers’ heads pivot eagerly toward the New York City skyline.
“Here’s what we’ll do first,” Kristin says. “When we get off, we’ll go to the drugstore near Becca’s house and pick up a pack of marshmallows. I’ll put them in my purse. When we get to the apartment, you’ll distract Becca, since she hasn’t seen you in forever. You’ll walk with her into the kitchen, and chat with her for a bit. By the way, she’s going to tell you that if anything ever happens to her, she wants us to raise Kelly—”
“Uh, what?”
“I’ll say hello to everyone else. The family should be there already, and at the right moment, I’ll put the bag of marshmallows next to one of the fruit breads or someone else’s presents or maybe with someone’s jacket. So, later, when the timing is right—”
“What about your parents? Wouldn’t they want to take Kelly?”
“Are you listening to me? When she takes out the can opener to open the yams, I’ll gesture over to the area of the marshmallows and casually say, Looks like someone brought some marshmallows. I’ll say it barely loud enough so someone else hears it and says, Oh, yeah, you can’t have yams without marshmallows. Then of course someone else will agree, the night being young. And that should do it. That should get you what you want.”
Kristin puts her hand on the 2 lb. can of ShopRite yams. Palm up. Wes looks at it.
He takes it.
This station stop is New York-Penn Station. When leaving the train, please watch the gap.
The train comes to a complete stop.
Kristin and Wes merge into the aisle and shuffle toward the door.
“On the ride back,” Wes says, “I get the window.”
“You could have had it this whole time.”
“I didn’t want to make a thing about it.”
They step onto the underground platform and hear what sounds like a million kids dragging sticks along an infinite chain-link fence, but it’s only the trains.
TIM LOPERFIDO is a short story writer from New Jersey. As a first-gen and nontraditional student, Tim began his formal education at community college. Many years later, he earned an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University. Tim now resides in Pennsylvania, teaching writing for Penn State University. His stories can be found in Grand Journal, Puerto del Sol, and The MacGuffin.