Penn Station (artist's representation
hen she was seven years old, her mother took her on a train ride from Maine to Florida. She had to spend four hours in Penn Station and a friendly-looking man tried to kidnap her, or so her mother told her. She thought the man was just trying to be nice. In retrospect, the whole event did seem odd and she realized that the man absolutely tried to kidnap her.
Sixteen years later, Penn Station remained a scary place for her inner child, as well as her outer adult. Matters were not helped by the menacing military personnel that had been placed there after the World Trade Center disaster. Being army men did not make them less likely to be kidnappers, her inner child told her. It simply made them kidnappers with guns.
As she followed the crowd off the subway car, she clutched her messenger bag close to her side. She had 200 dollars tucked away in there, hidden in the change purse on her scheduler. She’d taken an extra step and stuffed it inside a small purse that fit in the bag, making the money harder to reach. If anyone stole it, she might be stuck in this damnable city forever.
She walked by a group of youths who certainly ought to have been in school at such an hour. Instead, they were dancing, one of them spinning about on his head while another jumped over him. A thin crowd of people watched but she looked away. Such a spectacle was typical of a subway station, she assumed. Watching made her look like a tourist, an easy target. Anybody in the crowd might be a lurking pick-pocket.
She began to hyperventilate as she entered the main level of the Station. She didn’t recognize the place--it had been so long ago, it had changed so much--but she knew she’d been there before. How silly it was, a grown woman panicking over something that happened practically a lifetime ago. So she attempted to smile, to hide the dread on her face. And she smiled brightly; she was good at that. Back home, normal people did that all the time, no matter the day they had. They said ‘hello’ to strangers as they walked by and there was something good about every day.
A police officer scowled at her.
She scolded herself. Not only did she look like a tourist, she looked like a clueless one. She screwed up her face to emulate the calculated blend of rage and apathy she kept seeing, but could only imagine a unique mélange of happy and afraid. That would have to do.
She eyed the exit cautiously. She knew the escalator took her to 7th Street and daylight, but she'd never actually left Penn Station before. She'd simply gotten onto another train. She didn't particularly care for Manhattan either. In fact, upon closer examination of her memory, she didn't like Manhattan one bit.
She took a deep breath as she road the escalator. Her senses were assaulted by foreign odors, odors she could only describe as sewage and exhaust fumes, with just a hint of falafel. She liked falafel but now realized that in New York, she would abstain.
"Do you like comedy?"
Her heart slammed into her throat as the kid jumped into her face, waving about an ad for some local club. She wanted to cry out or slap him, but instead she murmured, "no. No, sorry." As she walked by, she shook her head. She would not blend in at all if she apologized for her actions.
The kid said, "that's not the right answer!" but she ignored him. That was an appropriate response.
She headed downtown, toward Times Square and her destination. She crossed the roads confidently--that was something she did back home, of course--and nearly got hit by a bicycle of all things. She held her tongue but the man next to her chucked an empty can at the cyclist’s head.
She sighed and worked her way past Times Square, then walked two blocks down both directions of 54th. Sure enough, her destination did not exist. Twenty blocks for nothing. Sure turned around and made her way back to Penn Station.
As she walked through Times Square the second time, she glanced over and saw a man in nothing but his britches, his boots and his cowboy hat. At least she could say she saw the Naked Cowboy, whoever that was.
