I think I need a second crappy job.
Two part-time jobs and a lousy motel room is not exactly the star reporter gig and dudes in distress rescues I was imagining – okay glamorizing – in my head as I rode here on train cars like a hobo. If the superpower part of me would just fully kick in – tell me what to do – where to do it – maybe then I wouldn’t mind so much that I’m making coffees and taking out the trash while my co-workers plan backpacking trips around Europe for when their classes end.
But I know no secret password, and so I go to sleep every night hoping that something will change, or that my body will evolve, or that I’ll just figure something out.
And then, all of a sudden, it does and I do.
On a Sunday that’s full of gloom instead of sun, I go out walking and eventually take a train out to Montauk. I’ve never been, and for some reason it seems like a good idea. Mostly, I like the way the word looks on the sign and sounds in my mouth.
It’s kind of deserted and surprisingly cold when I get there, despite the time of year. Only a few souls wander around aimlessly in the sand and clouds, lost, like me. It seems lonely, which seems right. At dusk, I start back unsure when the last train is.
There are other people on the platform waiting, but they’re scattered. We’re all like puzzle pieces that belong in different boxes; pieces that will always remain separate and ill-fitting. I keep my distance. But out of nowhere I feel a slight burn in my chest. I don’t know what it is, where it’s coming from, or why, and it’s followed only by the sound of running, the far away rhythm of shoes slapping pavement, and fast. I close my eyes and concentrate. It’s getting closer and louder. There’s yelling too. I can’t make out the words, not because they are faint but because they are layered in with so many other sounds. I feel him far behind me – the shift of the air, the slight vibration of the concrete below me as he gets closer.
I turn away and close my eyes as the sound and feel comes nearer, imagining him in my mind, getting the picture of him without actually seeing him. He’s big and moving too fast. Something is clutched to his chest. I realize suddenly that underneath the burning in my chest, I’m afraid. My hand is shaking and so I clench it to make it stop. It does, but the rattle moves into my teeth and then spreads throughout my body, fear infecting me like a disease. I almost walk away, but the warmth in my chest roots me to the ground as the pounding of the feet thunders closer and closer to me.
I step just slightly to the side, out of his path, away from the trench of the train tracks. The feet get so close and still pay no attention to me. I cock my arm back and as the feet start to pass me I throw my fist toward their space, connecting with the back and side of the jaw that belongs to the feet, sending all of him flying forward at incredible speed. When he finally hits the ground, some twenty feet away, he actually slides across the pavement on his stomach a little bit, like a penguin skimming across the ice after catapulting out of ocean depths. He’s still breathing when I step away into the slowly darkening shadows, and then away from the scene entirely.
I circle back around later to find a handful of cops and a crowd of bystanders being kept at bay. A woman is wailing that he is the man that robbed her and attacked her friend. The cops are doing the things that cops do. I slink away like a criminal and wait for the train where it’s less crowded. I feel both desperate and euphoric, both insane and completely lucid, afraid and yet more fearless than ever.
I wonder when I’ll feel the burning in my chest again. I wonder how long I’ll have to wait for it to tell me what to do.
Not long.
The following Tuesday, when I’m walking home from the coffee shop, I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. The burning is happening in my chest again, like what I felt before but a hundred times more intense. It reminds me a little bit of what happened at Joan’s, but it’s different. A million New Yorkers try to run me over, oblivious to my stopping, but I stand strong. A woman hits the pavement hard when she bumps into my shoulder and it doesn’t give. I reach down to help her up as a stream of cuss words come out of her pretty mouth. She seems to soften a little when she notices my hand held out to her. She takes it, but we both stumble and fall as I am suddenly hit with a new wave of fire rushing across my chest. I lay my open palm against my heart in shock and surprise as the woman and I both go down together. She gets back up, cussing even more than the first time, but softens for a second time when she sees me on my hands and knees breathing so hard it must look like my bones are trying to shed my skin. She crawls over toward me, shouting occasional obscenities up at the people that continue to trample us unaware. She puts a hand on my shoulder.