For Mertle.
I know I said I brought up social justice (oh so subtly) during our surpassing-lovely day together so that I could claim that it made perfect sense that I'm dedicating this story to you. But the truth is strong female first-person narration is now irrevocably linked in my mind to you and Elle (though I didn't succumb to the lure of present tense). So this one's for you.
one
The train I was heading to catch was the 12.05 to Belleknowes. Last train of the day.
The air in the subway station was fetid from the exhalations of hundreds of bodies that had passed through it, not that any of those bodies were in evidence now. It was with a decided and slightly unnerving lack of company that I approached the glass ticket barrier. I stripped off a leather glove to press my right thumb to the gate's identi-panel and keyed in the number of stops I wanted on the keypad next to it with my pinky. Practise had made the manoeuvre perfect, and doing the mundane little task with efficiency and elegance gave me a little buzz. Pathetic, yes, but it had been a crappy day.
The computer chattered to itself while it decided whether or not I had enough credit to deserve a ticket. The inane graphic on the screen above the i-panel showed a coin fluttering from a bank to a train. The coin, bank, and train all wore smiley faces. I glanced up at the camera over the gate from beneath a fringe of highlighter blue. It stared blankly, its little red light dull. In a nicer part of town that would have been a beurocrat's idea of an ever so clever trap. But east of the Erstwhile River, in a subway station where the stuff scribbled on walls couldn't be confused even by the most poetic mind with words of a prophet, it just meant the camera was broken and nobody cared enough to fix it. Comforting thoughts for a girl on her own, just past midnight.
Finally the computer made up its mind with a chirpy ping and a green smiley face. It never failed to astonish me, the faith people put in the power of two dots and a curvy line. Are we really so starved for affection that inanimate objects – worse, images created by inanimate objects – are forced to smile at us.
The glass gate slid aside to let me onto the platform as the train blasted in and wrenched itself to a halt. As I got on the train, the scent of stale sweat and unwashed upholstery peculiar to the enclosed spaces of public transportation assailed me. I sat on a seat directly beside the door, with my back to the corner and my right side covered by the clear plastic sheeting that funnelled passengers in during rush hour. I chose the seat because it meant that any would-be assailants could only come from one direction. There are some things you don't let run your whole life – hence catching the last train because that's when I want to go home not hours before – but, well, you know.
I was joined by a man with crooked teeth, neatly combed hair and a bottle green blazer over a yellow shirt; he chose the seat opposite me and one to the left. We happened to catch each other's eye and did the awkward here-we-are-existing-together nod of polite people caught together in a public place. His wry grimace at the absurdity of it was a mirror of my own so we shared a moment over that too. More to redirect my gaze than out of a particular interest, I picked up a newscast that had been discarded on the seat next to me. As the doors closed, another passenger wrapped in a trench coat and brimmed hat pulled low got on and padded to the opposite end of the carriage that swayed as we left the station.
The newscast's little LCD screen flashed up the day's headlines as it loaded the page it had been left on – City Rise news, the Treasurer caught in compromising positions with a lady of the night. 'Oh me oh my', says Sarah Somerville, immanent businesswoman of charming smiles and douchebag eyes, 'guess that means I get his job'. A local paper then, though I always hoped it would be one of the internationals: the stories were all the same but sometimes there would be an exotic animal thrown in. And speaking of exotic-type mammals.
The Crime pages blinked onto the screen, dominated by a photo of a lump of dishevelled clothing, flesh, and blood made lurid by the florescent orange, white, and blue of the police station sign that hung over it. The Beast, our very own resident superhero, strikes again. I didn't bother reading the story; the Beast's modus operandi was simple and unchanging. Take one uncaught offender, apply fists the size and density of hambones, deposit in front of nearest police station, and voila, justice apparently served.
I tossed the newscast at the seat beside me, but the train jerked around a tight corner and momentum had the reader clipping the edge of the seat and clattering across the floor. Crooked Teeth glanced down at it, smiled at me, and made a move to pick it up.
The train hit a bump and the lights flickered off for a heartbeat.
Then back on.
I felt heat. That was my first impression, the almost tangible brush of heat against my skin. My next was of size, big enough to cause a fluorescent eclipse. The late passenger hadn't seemed so big when he got on. He definitely hadn't moved like a man huge enough to now be comfortably filling the carriage from floor to roof, side to side.
"David Smythe." The way he said it had all the clip of a brass-buttoned drill sergeant, but his voice – I mean, his throat had swallowed deep enough gravel to put Greg Brown to shame. It was the kind of voice I'd want purring at me between moody blues on a playlist primed to complement the rain in the dead of a stormy night. An appreciative shiver ran down my spine accordingly.
Crooked Teeth looked for a moment like he was going to try bluster his way out of the name, but the stranger stopped him. "I know who you are. I've hunted you down; tracked the scent you left on the bodies of your victims. I've come to deliver justice."
Smythe cowered a little, and I didn't blame him – we'd all heard rumours of the myriad of super powers possessed by our vigilante super hero.
If only that had been my reaction too.
At some point I'm seriously going to rethink this whole independent woman thing, because what my feet did then, without the courtesy of consulting my brain over the matter, was put me directly between David Smythe of the crooked teeth and the approaching Beast.
If you don't know Greg Brown, 'Why Do We Build the Wall' is the one you want to be youtubing - and then all the rest of Hadestown.