Main Street Magazine Spring '23

“Can I get back to the station from here?”
A pair of high schoolers asked me, and all I could think was — I am the
master of maps. The train conductor. I have taken these trains more than I
can count on my two hands. I have taken these trains thousands of times.
Inbound, outbound, no matter which way I can get you there.
This is my city, and I will die in my city.
“Every inbound train stops there.”
I said. But I’m just gonna hope and pray that the next train comes from the
East.
“The woman is supposed to be on the inside.”
A faceless man yelled at us from behind.
The journey is a reminder of the loneliness we never want. The end is a
reward.
I am never taking that fucking train ever again.
“Do you want some?”
When I go to the city, I dress for the city. Dresses, platform boots, thrifted
European jackets.
They see it. They know when I used the wrong
hair care product. When I lost an earring. That
my pants are eight years old and my top is really
a summer dress with the skirt tucked in.
It’s the ability to taste when only being able to smell.
They know that I can’t take my coffee black. They know I had avocado toast
for breakfast, then washed it down with a matcha latte just because I’m in the
city.
They know that I’m short and scared. They know that I’m approachable, kind,
but not naive. I’ll listen to the deal, but I’ll never say yes.
I look pretty in a sweater dress, but the boy standing next to me won’t tell me
that. He thinks he’s too much of a gentleman compared to all the other men
in that city. If he were standing on the outside that night, it wouldn’t protect
me from them anyway. Their words are penetrable from miles away; it made
me shiver like a thousand micro-needles digging straight into my body. The
worst thing was, I almost became enraged that it didn’t seem like it was
affecting him at all. Or that it may have even pleased him to have someone
on the street assume we were on a date. If it did bother him, I wouldn’t have
known because I didn’t tell him how violating this man whose face I didn’t
see made me feel. As if he had objectified my womanhood and taken away
all the autonomy in my relationship in one sentence.
Perhaps that’s just the way one is forced to feel when they want to feel pretty.
I know it’s not.
Later that night I removed my makeup, laid next to the boy on the inside,
watched a movie, and quickly drifted to sleep.
I made it home safe.
Illustrations by
Ember Nevins
They know I’m great at asking questions and never leaving with a definite
answer.
“I pay so much to live here!”
A New Yorker I was walking with said, after we finished our game of hopscotch
over another fellow New Yorker.
It was a body, but it wasn’t dead. I was the only one that thought it was going
to be dead. It wasn’t dead. Somehow, after stepping over the carpet, that was
a body — I came to realize after the man peaked his head up to readjust the
trash bag he was using as a sun guard. The New Yorker I was walking with to
have a fine dining experience with was more than speechless.
My friend was right, the man could have had a weapon. But her Manhattan
heels and the New Year’s rain forecast certainly wages war against any man
laying on a sidewalk asking to be skipped over — weapon baring may have
been warranted.
Every restaurant on the street had entrees priced at $20 plus.
“Eat the rich.”
No, I ate like I was rich. I could.
New York is rich. I think the residents can’t help but step all over the poor.
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