THE WAVE

It moved through the crowd on the F train like a ripple.

It was 8:44 a.m. and we all wanted to get to work. The train had been slow, stopping between stations repeatedly because of congestion and we were stuck beneath the East River in our approach to Lexington Ave.

We were crowded together in our usual bunches, hip to hip and front to back between the doors and around the poles. I was reading Ghenkis by Connoldon, who wrote The Dangerous Lives of Boys, which I did not read). It was a real rip-snorter historical adventure novel and I was pretty involved, secure in my commuter cocoon, when I noticed the upturned wave of heads approach me from the center of the car.

Something had happened and everyone, like good rubbernecking New Yorkers, wanted to see what it was. So, naturally I looked up and tried to see too.

I heard someone say something like, “He’s hurt,” but it could have been , “He’s Burt,” so I waited a moment to see which it was.

When others around me went back to reading their papers I figured it was the green light to go back to reading my book – Burt or hurt, the show seemed to be over. Onward, Ghenkis, across the frozen plains of Mongolia.

Then a wave of moving heads came my way again. A woman sitting down next to me could see what was going on and she said to the person sitting next to her, “He’s down again. He looks sick.” Some people moved away from the site of the drama, allowing me a view of the unfolding events.

At the same time a woman standing near to the scene said, “Somebody pull the red handle and stop the train. We got a sick man over here.”

The passengers around me looked up at the red handle about five feet from my head then back down at their papers. I wondered if I should pull the red handle when a little voice inside me said, “Wait until you get to the station. If you pull the red handle now you’ll never get to the station and the train will shut down and you’ll be stuck on this slow-moving train for another hour.”

I looked away from the red handle. I told myself I was only postponing a pull on the emergency brake–waiting to see what would happen next.

“Does anybody have some water or something for him to eat?” the woman who told us to pull the handle asked around her. She tried to make eye contact with others nearby but couldn’t find eyes to hold.

She was holding up a young man who seemed to have lost the ability to stand. He took hold of a pole, but he was swaying as if he was ready to go down what I guessed would be a second time. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk, high, sick, or exhausted. They all seemed possible.

A woman sitting beneath him got up and moved away. Everybody seemed to take a small step or two away from him as he swayed a little more. Then, using the pole for leverage, he swung himself around and took the woman’s seat. An orange appeared like magic from over his shoulder. He focused on the brightly colored fruit and took a hold of it, lowering it to his lap. His dazed expression seemed to clear up a little as he pulled off the skin and ate.

We inched into the station at Lexington but the doors didn’t open yet.

“Somebody tell the conductor,” the woman who had been holding him up said again. People looked away. I could tell. Nobody wanted the train stopped so we’d have to offload while we waited for the EMTs to arrive. Besides, h had an orange. He was conscious again. What was the problem?

Finally the doors opened. I hesitated a few moments, shifting from one foot to another, then, making my decision, got off. I walked over to the conductor’s window and told her there was a sick passenger in her car. “You ought to take a look,” I said.

She nodded, concern on her face and got up to see. I watched from the platform as she found, then checked in with the young man, kneeling by his side. I couldn’t hear the questions or the answers, but he seemed visibly better–more color in his cheeks.

I didn’t get back on the car. If the folks inside found out it was me who told the conductor and stopped the train from running, I figured I might not make it out alive.

I waited outside. The conductor called a halt to the train with the dreaded announcement: “We’ve got a passenger in need of medical assistance. We’ll be moving as soon as he’s been taken care of.” I could hear the collective groan of a sea of passengers while I walked across the platform to the other track, trying to look nonchalant.

I took the first train that pulled in to the station. Just as I got on board, the other train’s doors closed and the train pulled out of the station–ahead of mine. I guessed the guy was all right after all.

I ended up late to work anyway. Go figure.

–Joe Lunievicz