Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois

Author:Dan Kois
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

1993

The Emotional Megaphone

Em had begun to think of herself as an anthropologist whose research focused solely on Emily.

On the subway, Emily loved to give up her seat for the elderly. The very appearance of a gray beard or a stooped back got her to her feet. Often, Em saw, the riders to whom she offered a seat did not yet think of themselves as elderly, and resented Emily’s overtures. Emily didn’t care.

On the subway, Emily never got up for pregnant women, or people with babies. It was like she didn’t even see them. She asked her why and Emily said that once she’d given up her seat for a pregnant lady and the husband—the husband!—took her seat, leaving the wife standing next to her. She still seemed indignant, months or years later. “Breeding doesn’t make you special,” Emily said.

On the subway, Emily often took out one of her little notebooks and made notes about her fellow riders. There was nothing surreptitious about it: she would stare right at someone, squinting as if to bring them into focus, then scribble something in the book, then stare again. Sometimes she even made little sketches that Em found very acute in their choice of details. Emily was not a trained artist, but in her sketches as in conversation she was a kind of expert caricaturist with a knack for finding a person’s defining feature: a gaudy ring, legs crossed at the ankle, a scornful frown. Once, on an N train, the man across from Emily stared back, pretended to preen and pose, then said, “Okay, show’s over,” and moved farther down the car. Emily silently transferred her attention to a woman sitting nearby.

On the subway, Emily refused to give money to people who sang, or danced, or sold candy bars. She scorned the homeless who had worked up a whole patter, the ones with clever signs. But when they entered a car with a sleeping bum taking up a whole row of seats, Emily often waited until they reached their stop and then, on the way out of the train, sidled past him and slipped a dollar bill under his hand.

On the subway, Emily spread her legs like a man twice as tall, her backpack slouching on the floor between them. Next to her, Em was acutely aware of her own presence on the seat. She was proud to be with someone who so assertively demanded her fair share, and more, but nonetheless she tucked herself into the space Emily left over. Between them—a small person making herself big, and a big person trying to make herself small—they occupied about as much room as two people ought to.

On the subway, Emily bit her nails. It was a habit she pursued as assuredly as she did everything else in her life, and so even though she took care of her hair and her clothes her hands looked just awful. Often in the corners of her fingernails tiny scabs would reveal the places where Emily had picked at the cuticles until they bled.

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