Under the El

The names of the people in this story have not been changed because they are all innocent.

* * * * *

I'm standing on the corner of Bay parkway and 86th street in Brooklyn. It's been seventeen years since I stood here. Tears are rolling down my face. Most people ignore me: a few stare and one older man asks me if I'm all right. Of course I tell him I'm fine and of course I'm not.

Maybe it's the sounds: the cars bouncing and honking on the uneven streets echoing off the canopy of the El above, crowds of shoppers trying to be heard over the din, and always the great rumble of the rocking trains that seeks to fill every open space.

The smells are probably what did it. They're the same as they were: Pizza, Steel and a bit of salt brine from the bay. The steel smell is from the massive elevated train tracks that run along 86th street. The neighborhood is still Italian and the waft of sauce and zeppole from Angelo's hits me square.

I walk toward 2022 and I hear my heart as the building comes into view. The outside hasn't changed at all: dark red brick, heavy wooden door and the four pained windows that vibrated when the trains went by. I half expect to see the name Fiore and Bella over the buzzer buttons. I half expect to see Michael come out the door and say "hello Emma dear". After we grew up I never heard him call me anything but "Emma dear". God, my face is soaked, my nose is running; why am I doing this? Why do we do anything?"

I look up to the second floor, to the room we played in at his parent's apartment: the 'big' one with the extra room.

There are a few things that we know at a level that defies description. I call mine the Great Unshakable Truths. Some of them are simple and some of them are troubled. I know them because I don't think them, they're not in me, they are me.

One of my truths is that Michael was the kindest soul that ever lived and would have done anything for me. He was two years older and a lifetime wiser. He read everything and wouldn't stop until his eyes would tear. He talked about it all and always made me feel that he enjoyed being with me. My smile made him smile even when I teased him mercilessly.

I could tell him everything and talk him into anything. One spring morning as we got on the train to take us to Lafayette, I announced to him, "We're gonna 'play the hook' today". Michael was a serious student and for the two years before I got to the high school, he had certificates for perfect attendance. He saw how excited I was to do it, so he smiled, shook his head and we stayed on the train to the end of the line - Coney Island.

I don't have to go to Coney to remember those smells. Before you were out of the station it was on you: cotton candy, watermelon and the fine sand in the air from the beach, Nathan's hot dogs, mustard and fried potatoes. It smelled like…fun. Coney was the great amusement park in the sky and I'm still enjoying that day.

There was also a mid-winter 17 degrees f. day on which I just didn't feel like going to school. We spent the day going from apartment house lobbies to candy stores to alleys to keep warm until three o'clock when we could go home. I still love him for doing that with me.

I take out my compact and attempt to fix my face. Inevitably I see the small scar on my right cheek: the scar I got when I fell off the green Schwinn in front of Hy Tulip's Deli across the street. All I kept saying to Michael was "it hurts, it hurts" and I can still see the serious look on his face as he held my hand and said, "Don't worry Em it's ok; it means you're ok if it hurts. It's supposed to hurt."

I see there's a new Japanese restaurant. He would have loved that. He made me try some of the wildest food. I'd put it in my mouth: it would get as far as my throat and I'd think "I can't swallow this horrible thing". He always knew and gave me that look. "Swallowing it is lots better than leaving it there."

I think Michael would never have touched me if didn't 'seduce' him. I was graduating and he was about to move out. He was sitting by the window reading in 'our' room and I was already feeling his absence. I sat on his lap and pouted and cooed to him. "Michael I'm going to miss you. Who am I going to have any fun with?"

"You can visit me; I won't be that far away."

"I don't want you to go" I said as I kissed his forehead and then his face and then his lips and then we were married. Those were different times.

The wedding was something like the festival of San Genero, with about as much noise and people. I was delirious. Did everyone feel like this after they got married? I hoped so. We lived in our new place together for eighteen months.

Michael died. I won't recount the scenes to wring tears: he died, he just died. The only thing I'll say is that one of the last things he told me was, "when I get up there and they ask me what I liked best, I'll tell them about you".

People use the word 'void'. For me it was just the opposite. There was no void; I wasn't empty. I was filled. I was filled with Michael, with anger, with despair. I was filled with loss.

Michael's death brought me to the second Great Unshakable Truth. I would never be loved like that again. Nobody could and nobody would. I never thought that thought but it was always with me.

I've lived across the bridge for all these years and I've never come back until today. Ben thought I should and I know now that he was right. I'm living with Ben David, a structural engineer who's brought calm to my life. The strange thing is that the calm comes in a year when I'm changing jobs and we're moving to England for Ben's work.

It's Wednesday and it makes me smile to remember how many times I'd heard Michael say "It's Wednesday". Wednesday was the day the Loews had a two for one special and we went no matter what was playing. Wednesday was the day I got my hand stuck in the jar.

I was trying to get a handful of candy out of small mouthed jar and the more I tried the tighter it wedged. After a while I couldn't even open my fist to let go of the candy and Michael was saying "come on Emma it's Wednesday. It seemed like ages before he was able to push my hand back in the jar so I could open it and get it out.

I look around now at some familiar sights and at those that have changed. It's no longer the place I had frozen in my memory. I imagine what Michael would have been like today and I enjoy it.

I'm glad I came because I think now I can let him grow and change with me: I can let the past become what it will and not want to go back.

Michael loved well and I see now that the way he loved brings me to another great unshakable truth: It's Wednesday and it's time to go. There's someone waiting to shake unshakable truths.