Nocturnal

Aggie Gets Out!

Aggie James wasn’t sure how long he’d been following Hillary.

She had led him out of the bassinet room and back into the dark arena maze. Many twists and turns later, she’d started up a narrow set of rough steps cut into the wall. Carrying the baby, Aggie had moved so carefully, keeping his left shoulder against the wall as he made sure his right foot didn’t slip off the uneven edges.

Those steps rose forty feet to the spectator ledge. She had led him into a narrow tunnel at the back of the ledge, just a few feet away from the last step. Aggie had turned for a last look down below before going in. The ship was off to his right, back end buried in the cavern wall, front end pointing across the oblong cavern. There had been activity on the ship’s deck — Hillary’s people preparing for some kind of an event, maybe?

They’d been following the tunnel for fifteen minutes, maybe thirty, he wasn’t sure. This time, at least, she had a battery-powered Coleman lantern to light the way. She seemed to know the location of every rock, every turn, every jagged outcropping of rusted metal or moldy wood. He knew this because those things caught him, poked him, snagged him while she avoided them all with a subtle turn, a simple twist.

He cradled the knit bag in his right arm. Inside, the baby boy slept. Aggie felt the child’s faint warmth through the fabric. The boy weighed almost nothing. Aggie could carry him forever if he had to.

Finally, Hillary stopped and turned.

“Move carefully here,” she said. “Step only where I step.”

She set the lantern down and stepped aside so Aggie could see a small stone forest; fifteen or so piles of stacked rocks rose from floor to ceiling. No, not piles, columns. The columns supported big slabs of concrete, chunks of old brick wall and blackened squares of timber. This strange ceiling ran the final fifteen feet of tunnel, right up to where it dead-ended at a giant, dirty sheet of plywood. It didn’t take a genius to see the plan — make any column fall and the whole kit-and-caboodle would collapse, filling the tunnel with tons of dirt and rock.

Hillary gestured to the ceiling. “You understand?”

Aggie nodded.

She slid around the first column. Aggie watched her. She looked like an old lady, but didn’t move like one. Her agility and balance complemented the ridiculous strength Aggie already knew she possessed.

With each step, she wiggled her shoe in the dirt, leaving a clear footprint to show the safe path.

She slid around the second column, then waved him on.

Holding the baby-filled bag to his chest, Aggie followed in Hillary’s footsteps. He took his time. She didn’t seem to mind.

As he passed the third column, he felt something … some kind of trembling beneath his feet. An earthquake? The rumbling increased. With it came an echoing, grinding roar. How could there be an earthquake now, when he’d almost made it out? Aggie held the baby close, looked up, and waited for death.

The rumbling subsided. The roar faded away.

Hillary was laughing silently, again waving him on.

Two minutes later, they’d passed all the columns save for one. The final column was less than two feet from the piece of plywood. Hillary grabbed the plywood by a pair of metal handles screwed into it, then slowly slid it aside, revealing a hole perhaps three feet wide. The hole led into a deep blackness.

Aggie felt the tender kiss of something he hadn’t known for days … a breeze. Fresh air. Well, not fresh, it smelled of metal and grease, but it was far fresher than the still air he’d breathed since he woke up in the white dungeon. He again felt the rumbling — something big, something mechanical, something getting closer.

Hillary held up a hand, palm out. The gesture said stay there, don’t move. Aggie waited. She turned off the Coleman, leaving a blackness that made the walls close in.

The sound grew louder. The tunnel rumbled. Suddenly there was a flash of light, the roar of metal wheels on metal tracks.

A Muni train.

He was in the San Francisco subway.

Aggie tried to calm his breathing. He couldn’t allow himself to believe this was it, that he was really getting out.

The Muni train passed, its roar a fading echo.

Hillary turned the lantern back on. The columns hadn’t collapsed. “Now you go,” she said. “Do you remember what I told you?”

Aggie nodded. She was giving him life. He would honor his promise to her. No way he was going to wind up as a groom. No way.

He turned to hand her the baby so he could duck out of the hole, then paused. A sudden, all-powerful twang of anxiety ripped through him: What if Hillary took the baby and ran?

She waited.

“I’m going to set the baby down,” he said. “Can you step back?”

She smiled, nodded, then backed away. Aggie gently rested the bag on the ground, then stepped through the small hole and out of the death-trap tunnel. He stood on a narrow ledge that ran perpendicular to the tracks. He bent, reached back, and was again holding the boy.

Aggie clutched the bag tightly; the anxiety faded away.

Far down the tunnel to his right, he saw the light of a station.

Hillary worked the plywood shut behind him. Aggie’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. The hole he had crawled from was gone — all he could see were the hexagonal tiles of the subway’s walls. The plywood was a tile-covered plug that perfectly fit the hole, sliding home as sure as a puzzle piece. If he hadn’t just come through there, he would have never known it existed.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

He had survived.

Aggie kept his right hand on the tile wall as he walked. He didn’t know which rail was the “third rail,” the one that might electrocute him and the boy. It was probably the one in the middle, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

He drew closer to the opening into the station. The tracks led out of the tunnel’s darkness and alongside the station platform. He saw a few people up on that platform — the trains were still running, so it wasn’t early in the morning.

Aggie carefully stepped off the ledge and over the tracks, moving to the platform side of the tunnel. He slid along with his back to the wall. He felt a hint of a rumble — another train was coming. He had to move fast. The people on the platform would see him, but he didn’t have a choice.

He was still draped in the stinking blanket. That’s how he would get past those people, by just looking, acting and smelling like the homeless bums who wandered down to the Muni stations all the time.

He reached the end of the tunnel. The platform came up to his chest. He lifted the knit purse containing the boy and gently set it on the platform’s warning stripe of yellow. Aggie crawled up. People turned to look, saw what he was, then immediately turned away. Aggie picked up the bag. He held the baby with one arm, and with the other pulled the blanket around them both. His heart hammered in his chest.

So close so close …

Aggie saw the brown sign in the white ceiling, the white letters that spelled out CIVIC CENTER. He looked at the digital sign that told of the next train and saw that it was 11:15 P.M.

He forced himself to walk — not run — toward the escalator that led to the surface. Homeless people didn’t run. All he had to do was keep up the illusion and everyone would ignore him. Illusion? How odd to think of it that way. Wasn’t he a homeless person after all?

No.

Not anymore.

Aggie had done his time in the gutter. He’d lost years mourning, feeling sorry for himself, feeling sorry for his losses. He’d given up and tuned out. That time was over.

He was alive. His wife and daughter were gone. Nothing could bring them back. He should have died down in the tunnels, in the white room, but he had a second chance and he wasn’t going to screw it up. He had a responsibility now, a responsibility to protect the child he held in his arms. He had sworn to find this child a home.

Why don’t I just raise the kid?

He realized that hidden thought had been lurking at the edge of his mind ever since he looked in the bag and saw the tiny baby. You were a parent once. A good parent. That robbery wasn’t your fault, there was nothing you could do.

A second chance … a second chance to get things right.

Aggie felt full of hope, full of a sudden and overpowering love for life. He moved toward the escalator that would lead him to the surface.

And then, the baby cried.

Not a soft cry, not a muffled I just woke up cry, but rather a full-blown I am not at ALL happy cry. Loud. Piercing. The dozen or so people on the platform who had gone out of their way to not look at him now turned to stare.

The baby screamed again.

The kid was probably hungry. This was just a baby being a baby, but Aggie knew what it looked like — a shabby, smelly bum with a screaming child hidden somewhere beneath a filthy blanket.

Aggie saw hands reach into pockets and purses, then come out holding cell phones.

He turned back to the escalator.

A woman stepped toward him. “Stop!”

Aggie took off, his newish boots thumping out a staccato drumbeat on the escalator’s metal steps. He heard and felt similar pounding behind him — the heavy steps of men.

The first escalator took him up to the station’s main floor. One more escalator and he’d be out on the streets. There were more people up here, heading home from bars or from late nights at work.

“Get out of my way!” Aggie ran, carrying the baby-bag in both arms. His legs felt weak. He was already exhausted.

“Stop him!” the men behind him screamed. Most of the people in front of him quickly got out of the way, but one man, a kid of no more than twenty, stepped in front of him.

Aggie slowed, then tried to cut left.

His foot landed on his blanket — the blanket slid across the polished floor, and his foot flew out from under him. In the split second it took him to reach the ground, his only thought was to protect the baby.

The back of Aggie’s head cracked against the marble, and everything went black.