Pavonia

Pasta primavera, that's the words we used, laughingly, to describe it. The station stretched away for several hundred feet, in pastel shades of green, of tan, of brownish pink. It was curved; although the tiles joined straight and true as far as one could see, the station nevertheless curved to the right slightly over its span. It was a slightly disturbing sight, like watching dots of red and blue recede to make purple. The eye protested slightly.

We had come in the steps at one end of one of the two platforms. The tracks swept past our point at the end of the station and vanished into slightly more curved tunnels. The result was that the tracks went around a bend within fifty feet or so of the station, and vanished from sight. The tunnels were lit with flourescents- not enough to be called well lit, but not darkened.

There were five people in the station. Three of them were us. It was very, very late. It was the hour when the mind switched partially off, and strange things happen to one's sense of reality. There was a large man sitting on a bench facing the track to our right about fifty feet down the platform, and another man in a dark suit pacing twenty feet or so beyond that in front of the blank wall of a stairway blind side. We joked, and talked of inconsequential things that helped us hang on to ourselves, our consciousness. There was a noise.

That's the noise, N---- said. He laughed, and D---- laughed with him, veterans of the PATH system. It's always there. I have no idea what it is. I stepped to the side of the tracks and peered down one of the tunnels. There was water running down the depression between the tracks; I could tell it was running from some disturbances and standing ripples which gave me direction. It was flowing into the tunnel, towards the river. The flourescents lit the tunnel stolidly, without even a hint of flicker. Unusual. The noise, of course, seemed to be coming from just around the bend. The all-encompassing silence that permeated the rest of the station made it all the more uncanny. Usually there are continuous noises of some sort in a subway; cars rushing by above, a train in the distance. At the very least, a hum from the PA system or a fan. Not here. Pavonia/Newport and silent as hell. But for the noise, which was at first a sort of double clank.

It sounded like metal on metal, at regular intervals a pair of clanks. Almost like mechanical hammering. Footsteps, said N---- with a serious expression on his face. He widened his eyes. Ooooo. D---- looked up from where he sat on the steps and said, Beastie. Maybe a Leg. We all laughed a bit hysterically. I peered down the tunnel again. Nothing new. I went over to the other track, away from the wall, and peered down in the same direction. Although I couldn't see a join in the tunnels, the same noise was quite audible in the proximate distance. Well, I said seriously, trying to sound Knowledgeable About Subway Mechanisms and like an Authority on Strange Noises From Tunnels, it could be a half mile away; the tunnel would carry sound well. There was solemn agreement, and I hid a slight embarrassment at having Pontificated. I do it too often, really. My friends are quite tolerant of it. Bless them.

Damn it, I have to know. Grinning nervously, I craned out over the edge of the platform and began to inch down the ledge towards the corner. I got about ten feet. This is A Bad Idea, my brain said, desperately trying to reassert its control over my actions. You're right. I edged back. The noise continued.

The joking went on for a couple of minutes, before the urge gripped me again. I got maybe fifteen feet this time, before realizing that this was not the best place to be when very tired. It was around 1:15 in the morning, Saturday, August 25, and the PATH train was not in evidence.

Talk fell off, perhaps due to exhaustion. I stared at the pillars for a while, thinking of vegetables, and then turned my gaze back to the tunnel. I listened intently for a moment. Ah. There was a hiss between the two paired clanks, almost undetectable unless one knew what one was looking...er, listening for. A pump, then. Something hydraulic.

After a bit, there was a sudden wind. We commented on the neato factor of fluid dynamics, of the hydraulic principle, of the train ramming the air from the tunnel even while still out of sight. I watched it appear around the bend on the wall-side track. First the light on the wall, with the parallax changing, and then first one headlight, the route sign, and the other headlight, and finally, the train, distressingly real and solid. SLAM and it was past, screeching in pain as it stripped a minute bit of metal from its wheels in sacrifice to the lord god of inertia, and opened itself to us. It was going the wrong way.

There was a swift debate. Should we get on? Likely it is the only train running this time of night, someone said. We ruminated that this led to the conclusion that if we were to wait, we would only end up on the same train going in a different direction, albeit after a wait. Pros: more interesting, less of the Noise, fewer primavera colors, train had air conditioning while station did not. Cons...the cons were drowned out in the rush for the door. Seated, we awaited our destiny.

As the train shuddered back to life and pulled from the station, despair! Another train visible through the windows, going in the other direction, slowing to a stop to embark passengers. There was a three-way groan from the New Yorkers in the car (us) now doomed to spend unnecessary time in New Jersey while exhausted to the point of physical nausea. Pavonia receded down an arrow-straight tunnel, seeming to fall away from us linked by an ever-lengthening chain of bluish flourescent tubes, a chain of them, hanging from the top of the train. The order of the hour? Resignation! Cheer, and acceptance of our fate. More jokes.

Eventually, our train stopped in a high-ceilinged enclosed station, opened its doors to the night, which did not deign to enter, and sighed. We waited. Where are we? I asked. D---- poked his head out the door, leaning forward with his arms outstretched and his hands on the doorframe. Ah, he said, Journal Square. I always wondered what Journal Square looked like. I joined him in the door, and remarked that I didn't see anything worth the wait. He grinned, agreed, and we swung back into the car. N---- sprawled out over a couple of seats. The car was now empty, save for us. After several minutes, a cipher of a man walked in, glanced in our direction, and moved to the end of the car. We looked at each other, bemused. He opened the compartment there and seated himself. Engineer, ah, yes, the train is reversing! I realized a nagging doubt at that moment, and said to the air I have to know, and walked to the front of the train to stand before the open door to the driver's compartment. Sir? He nodded. Does this train go to thirty-third street? He nodded. Hoboken, he said. Excuse me? Hoboken and then thirty-third street. I nodded my thanks (it seemed the thing to do) and returned to my seat to reassure my comrades.

N----, then, got up. I have to ask, he said, and walked towards the front despite my feeble attempts to dissuade him. The old engineer's visage had been so overpoweringly closed that the very thought of his being asked another question by our group brought embarrassment. N---- paused outside the door. Sir? The engineer must have nodded, for he continued. Do you know what that noise is in the tunnels?

What noise?

A sort of, well...to my mortification (I don't know why) he attempted to imitate it for the PATH employee, who said, Yah, yah, them fans. Fans. The second time with assertiveness. It was plain that he didn't know what N---- was talking about, so the latter returned towards our end of the car. He doesn't know, N---- reported in a stage whisper above the noise of the train's air conditioner.

Eventually, we left Journal Square, and I watched the tunnel unfold itself in front of the front window. I marveled to D---- and N---- how close the train could get to the walls, since of course it could be carefully calculated how far the cars would travel off center. D---- was in a semidoze; N---- agreed and concurred on the neato factor. On the way, lights above the doors blinked. I shifted my eyes to look, and saw that there were two of maybe five dark rectangles lit up. One said HOB and the other read 33. I wondered aloud what the hell that meant in PATHese.

D---- and N---- laughed, and I laughed with them. There was silence for a time, and then I remarked that I still hadn't figured it out whereupon they informed me they thought I had been joking. N---- read it for me: HOBoken and 33rd street, which was what the destination panels above the outside of the doors undoubtedly read.

We reached Hoboken, and the train stopped again. Since out the front window there was a quite obvious end to the track, it became apparent that the train was going to reverse again. We waited resignedly. The station, of course was empty; save for a few voices. Four women swung into the train and seated themselves at the other end, towards the door to the next car.

They were black, their skins a creamy rich coffee color, heritage and dignity in the shade. Images of African royalty shattered by the sharp harpy voice of one of them as she spat forth a string of nasal syllables: Na, Na, waitaminit...here we go, 'kay? I went to his house, and I was hungry so I had...some corn, some wheat, an apple, a pie, some ostrich feathers.

Another one jumped in, waving what I realized was a tall golden beer can sheathed in a paper bag. Na, na, na, what? Ostrich feathers? You can't eat that, bitch.

Yeah, you can, and it don't say you gotta be able to eat it, do it?

I turned my attention away. Their voices were of the precise tone to shatter the bones just behind the forehead, and all three of us were wincing.

The women were only a few decibels short of a shriek. I looked out of the car, at the station and the exits at the end of the platform. There was a sign there, which read, Hoboken Exit. It was chained by one side to the exit turnstile, and was large. I looked at it, and grinned at my comrades. If T--- was here, I said, if T--- was here, that sign'd be history. I looked at it again. Maybe... I looked again, then dismissed the idea. T---'s infecting me, I said. The others grinned. D---- appeared to be snoozing.

Na, na, Ostrich feathers, not goose feathers, you dumb bitch. Laughter.

I closed my eyes, but was unable to bring sleep; I was so tired they sprang back open. Hey, ask them. I glanced at the quartet. Hey, you guys mind if we smoke? Signs posted, large ones, promised the full weight of bureaucratic hell and damnation if one smoked. I shook my head; the car was nearly empty. No, N---- said. You mind our game?

What were we to say? We shook our heads again, resigned to listening all the way through the tunnel to Manhattan. I debated asking them to keep it a little quieter, decided against it, wary of opening any conversational link. A beer can popped at the end of the car. Saturday night, after all, why rain on their processional?

Another train pulled into the station across the platform. Fifty or sixty people rushed from the cars towards the exit. A couple got on our train further down; one older lady got on our car. She waggled her finger at us admonishingly in a distracted fashion, then sat down. We looked at each other. Crazy. The doors shut and the train spun to life. At last, transit! It jerked out of the station, bound for its rendezvous with another platform across a river, city lines, state lines, and cultural lines. We sighed in relief.

The game continued all the way across. I listened for the Noise as we re-entered the tunnel, but the train drowned it out. The game drowned out the train. Ostrich feathers, a pumpkin, a sandwich, some corn....Na, you dumb bitch, that's earlier! Shrieks of laughter. I envied D----, who appeared to be asleep. The older lady got up from her seat and shuffled to stand in front of me, looking at me and N----. For one moment, it appeared that she was going to lecture us, then she thought better of it and moved down the car mumbling to herself to sit closer to the quartet.

The train slowed to a stop. Light came in the windows for the first time in ten minutes. I glanced out: Christopher street, the sign read. The doors opened, and a couple of people got on. One, a black or hispanic man, sat diagonally across from me in the seat next to the motorman's compartment. The doors closed. N---- shuffled his bags. After a bit, the train slowed again; Astor place/Ninth street. N---- raised his eyebrows at us, and as we geared up to say goodnight, the quartet broke off. Shit, our stop. N---- got up to stand before the doors, and the quartet unsteadily rose to do likewise.

He looked at us, his face hidden from them, and made as if to cry. D---- and I looked at each other, then grinned back. Night N----, we said. He raised a hand, then vanished into the station. The train continued on its way, much quieter now, past Fourteenth street, on to Twenty-third. D---- and I debarked.

As we were going up the stairs, he half turned to speak. That was as close to Purgatory as I've ever come, he remarked with a half smile.

No, that was Hell, I said. If the four useless bitches hadn't been there, and we hadn't had to go to the bathroom since Pavonia, then, with the exhaustion nausea forever, then it would have been Purgatory. With them, and the bathroom, it was hell.

D---- nodded, and we rose from the plane of Hell to the upper station of Purgatory and so ascended into the humid night of Twenty-third and Sixth, thence to wander home.

 A narrative of a true and late and slightly extranormal night.

-The Custodian