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Just Couldn't BebyJ. Paul Peszko
You
stop at the newstand on the corner of Thirty-Third and Madison and pick up your
morning paper as usual. You're
always late, but this morning you're a little later and have to hurry a little
faster. (You cut yourself shaving.) People crowd
around. They're in a hurry just
like you. Always in a hurry. Rushing.
Darting across the street to catch a bus. Trying to outrun one another for a cab. What's
so damn important? What's the
hurry? It's a lovely morning.
A perfectly white patch of clouds hovers over the towers along Madison
Avenue. The sky around it is so
blue. You wonder why you never
noticed before. You ask yourself why you're always in a hurry, rushing around
with all the others and breathing in noxious fumes like the kind that bus at the curb is
spewing out. And how come it has never
bothered you before? You tell
yourself it's because you never stop rushing long enough to notice. They're
pushing you now as if you don't even exist.
Cramming for their morning papers. Their
magazines. Their pulp fiction.
No one says, "Excuse me."
No one says anything. Just
pushing and shoving and the ceaseless drone of morning traffic as it grinds its way along
Madison Avenue. You
can't remember whether you paid for your paper or not.
You look up at the guy behind the newstand.
"Did I pay you for this?" you ask. He doesn't look up. Maybe he didn't hear you. "Hey!
Did I pay you for this?" you shout. He
still doesn't hear you or doesn't want to.
People are shoving bills in his face left and right.
His hands move quicker than a casino card dealer, snatching a dollar
here, a five spot there, and slamming them into his register drawer and pulling
out change just as fast. You
reach in your pocket but can't feel anything.
Your hand gropes deeper searching for a bill.
You're sure you took money with you this morning.
It's not just the newspaper. You
think about the Snickers bar you always buy in the morning.
It's your only sustenance until your ten o'clock coffee break.
Then for some reason the thought of food suddenly disgusts you. You feel a sickness in your stomach as though a heavy weight
has just fallen there. You
feel the crush. People on all
sides, pushing, shoving, crowding, smothering you.
The smell of flesh pressing against flesh, the humidity, sweat, covered
over by colognes, perfumes, aftershaves. All
rushing up your nostrils and smacking against your brain.
The choking fumes from the buses and taxis suffusing your throat and
making you gag until you feel like you're going to vomit. You just want some
fresh air. You'd love to fly up to
that patch of clouds and soar over this whole damn mess.
That's
it! you decide. You're outta here!
You've gotta get out of this crowd - and get out fast.
The news dealer? "Ah,
hell!" you say to yourself and decide you'll just pay him tomorrow. Finally,
you shove your way through the crush, not wholly on your own but as though an
invisible cord has attached to your gut, pulling you out of there.
You reach the edge of the sidewalk only to find another tangle of people
crowded around something in the street. All
the traffic has stopped. Snarled
again. Gridlocked. The
lights change, but nothing moves. Then
you hear them in the distance. Sirens.
They're coming closer, screaming like
loud, impatient children. You say to hell with it and leap off the curb. But you never touch the ground. Instead you find yourself floating upward -- away from the knot of people below who are crowding over someone lying in the street. Some poor soul, crushed under a ton of steel, lies on the pavement, split open, his guts hanging out, blood-soaked. You
look closer as you feel yourself pulled away, straining to see the poor soul's
face.
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