A Woman’s Eye

GHOST STATION by Carolyn Wheat

A Brooklyn-based attorney, CAROLYN WHEAT naturally has a criminal lawyer, Cass Jameson, as her series detective, Cass has solved cases in at least two wonderful books, Where Nobody Dies and Dead Man’s Thoughts. The latter novel was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk. The words burned my memory the way Irish whiskey used to burn my throat, only there was no pleasant haze of alcohol to follow. Just bitter heartburn pain.

It was my first night back on the job, back to being Sergeant Maureen Gallagher instead of “the patient.” Wasn’t it hard enough being a transit cop, hurtling beneath the streets of Manhattan on a subway train that should have been in the Transit Museum? Wasn’t it enough that after four weeks of detox I felt empty instead of clean and sober? Did I have to have some rookie’s casually cruel words ricocheting in my brain like a wild-card bullet?

Why couldn’t I remember the good stuff? Why couldn’t I think about O’Hara’s beefy handshake, Greenspan’s “Glad to see ya, Mo,” Ianuzzo’s smiling welcome? Why did I have to run the tape in my head of Manny Delgado asking Captain Lomax for a different partner?

“Hey, I got nothing against a lady sarge, Cap,” he’d said. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that if there’s one thing I can’t stand…” Et cetera.

Lomax had done what any standup captain would-kicked Delgado’s ass and told him the assignment stood. What he hadn’t known was that I’d heard the words and couldn’t erase them from my mind.

Even without Delgado, the night hadn’t gotten off to a great start. Swinging in at midnight for a twelve-to-eight, I’d been greeted with the news that I was on Graffiti Patrol, the dirtiest, most mind-numbing assignment in the whole transit police duty roster. I was a sergeant, damn it, on my way to a gold shield, and I wasn’t going to earn it dodging rats in tunnels or going after twelve-year-olds armed with spray paint.

Especially when the rest of the cop world, both under- and aboveground, was working overtime on the torch murders of homeless people. There’d been four human bonfires in the past six weeks, and the cops were determined there wouldn’t be a fifth.

Was Lomax punishing me, or was this assignment his subtle way of easing my entry back into the world? Either way, I resented it. I wanted to be a real cop again, back with Sal Minucci, my old partner. He was assigned to the big one, in the thick of the action, where both of us belonged. I should have been with him. I was Anti-Crime, for God’s sake. I should have been assigned-

Or should I? Did I really want to spend my work nights prowling New York’s underground skid row, trying to get information from men and women too zonked out to take care of legs gone gangrenous, whose lives stretched from one bottle of Cool Breeze to another?

Hell, yes. If it would bring me one step closer to that gold shield, I’d interview all the devils in hell. On my day off.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.

What did Lomax think-that mingling with winos would topple me off the wagon? That I’d ask for a hit from some guy’s short dog and pass out in the Bleecker Street station? Was that why he’d kept me off the big one and had me walking a rookie through routine Graffiti Patrol?

Was I getting paranoid, or was lack of alcohol rotting my brain?

Manny and I had gone to our respective locker rooms to suit up. Plain clothes-and I do mean plain. Long Johns first; damp winter had a way of seeping down into the tunnels and into your very blood. Then a pair of denims the Goodwill would have turned down. Thick wool socks, fisherman’s duck boots, a black turtleneck, and a photographer’s vest with lots of pockets. A black knit hat pulled tight over my red hair.

Then the gear: flashlight, more important than a gun on this assignment, handcuffs, ticket book, radio, gun, knife. A slapper, an oversize blackjack, hidden in the rear pouch of the vest. They were against regulations; I’d get at least a command discipline if caught with it, but experience told me I’d rather have it than a gun going against a pack of kids.

I’d forgotten how heavy the stuff was; I felt like a telephone lineman.

I looked like a cat burglar.

Delgado and I met at the door. It was obvious he’d never done vandal duty before. His tan chinos were immaculate, and his hiking boots didn’t look waterproof. His red plaid flannel shirt was neither warm enough nor the right dark color. With his Latin good looks, he would have been stunning in an L.L. Bean catalogue, but after ten minutes in a subway tunnel, he’d pass for a chimney sweep.

“Where are we going?” he asked, his tone a shade short of sullen. And there was no respectful “Sergeant” at the end of the question, either. This boy needed a lesson in manners.

I took a malicious delight in describing our destination. “The Black Hole of Calcutta,” I replied cheerfully, explaining that I meant the unused lower platform of the City Hall station downtown. The oldest, darkest, dankest spot in all Manhattan. If there were any subway alligators, they definitely lurked in the Black Hole.

The expression on Probationary Transit Police Officer Manuel Delgado’s face was all I could have hoped for. I almost-but not quite-took pity on the kid when I added, “And after that, we’ll try one or two of the ghost stations.”

“Ghost stations?” Now he looked really worried. “What are those?”

This kid wasn’t just a rookie; he was a suburbanite. Every New Yorker knew about ghost stations, abandoned platforms where trains no longer stopped. They were still lit, though, and showed up in the windows of passing trains like ghost towns on the prairie. They were ideal canvases for the aspiring artists of the underground city.

I explained on the subway, heading downtown. The car, which rattled under the city streets like a tin lizzie, was nearly riderless at 1:00 A.M. A typical Monday late tour.

The passengers were one Orthodox Jewish man falling asleep over his Hebrew Bible, two black women, both reading thick paperback romances, the obligatory pair of teenagers making out in the last seat, and an old Chinese woman.

I didn’t want to look at Delgado. More than once I’d seen a fleeting smirk on his face when I glanced his way. It wasn’t enough for insubordination; the best policy was to ignore it.

I let the rhythm of the subway car lull me into a litany of the AA slogans I was trying to work into my life: EASY DOESIT. KEEP IT SIMPLE, SWEETHEART. ONE DAY AT A TIME. I saw them in my mind the way they appeared on the walls at meetings, illuminated, like old Celtic manuscripts.

This night I had to take one hour at a time. Maybe even one minute at a time, My legs felt wobbly. I was a sailor too long from the sea. I’d lost my subway legs. I felt white and thin, as though I’d had several major organs removed.

Then the drunk got on. One of the black women got off, the other one looked up at the station sign and went back to her book, and the drunk got on.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.

ONE DAY AT A TIME. EASY DOES FT.

I stiffened. The last thing I wanted was to react in front of Delgado, but I couldn’t help it. The sight of an obviously intoxicated man stumbling into our subway car brought the knowing smirk back to his face.

There was one at every AA meeting. No matter how nice the neighborhood, how well dressed most people attending the meeting were, there was always a drunk. A real drunk, still reeling, still reeking of cheap booze. My sponsor Margie said they were there for a reason, to let us middle-class, recovery-oriented types remember that “there but for the grace of God…”

I cringed whenever I saw them, especially if the object lesson for the day was a woman.

“Hey, kid,” the drunk called out to Delgado, in a voice as inappropriately loud as a deaf man’s, “how old are you?” The doors closed and the car lurched forward; the drunk all but fell into his seat.

“Old enough,” Manny replied, flashing the polite smile a well-brought-up kid saves for his maiden aunt.

The undertone wasn’t so pretty. Little sidelong glances at me that said, See how nice I am to this old fart See what a good boy I am. I like drunks, Sergeant Gallagher.

To avoid my partner’s sly face, I concentrated on the subway ads as though they contained all the wisdom of the Big Book. “Here’s to birth defects,” proclaimed a pregnant woman about to down a glass of beer. Two monks looked to heaven, thanking God in Spanish for the fine quality of their brandy.

Weren’t there any signs on this damn train that didn’t involve booze? Finally an ad I could smile at: the moon in black space; on it, someone had scrawled, “Alice Kramden was here, 1959.”

My smile faded as I remembered Sal Minucci’s raised fist, his Jackie Gleason growl. “One a these days, Gallagher, you’re goin’ to the moon. To the moon!”

It wasn’t just the murder case I missed. It was Sal. The easy partnership of the man who’d put up with my hangovers, my depressions, my wild nights out with the boys.

“Y’know how old I am?” the drunk shouted, almost falling over in his seat. He righted himself. “Fifty-four in September,” he announced, an expectant look on his face.

After a quick smirk in my direction, Manny gave the guy what he wanted. “You don’t look it,” he said. No trace of irony appeared on his Spanish altar boy’s face. It was as though he’d never said the words that were eating into me like battery-acid AA coffee.

The sudden jab of anger that stabbed through me took me by surprise, especially since it wasn’t directed at Delgado. No, you don’t look it, I thought. You look more like seventy. White wisps of hair over a bright pink scalp. The face more than pink; a slab of raw calves’ liver. Road maps of broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. Thin white arms and matchstick legs under too-big trousers. When he lifted his hand, ropy with bulging blue veins, it fluttered like a pennant in the breeze.

Like Uncle Paul’s hands.

I turned away sharply. I couldn’t look at the old guy anymore. The constant visual digs Delgado kept throwing in my direction were nothing compared to the pain of looking at a man dying before my eyes. I didn’t want to see blue eyes in that near-dead face. As blue as the lakes of Killarney, Uncle Paul used to say in his mock-Irish brogue.

I focused on the teenagers making out in the rear of the car. A couple of Spanish kids, wearing identical pink T-shirts and black leather jackets. If I stared at them long enough, would they stop groping and kissing, or would an audience spur their passion?

Uncle Paul. After Daddy left us, he was my special friend, and I was his best girl.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the memories came anyway. The red bike Uncle Paul gave me for my tenth birthday. The first really big new thing, bought just for me, that I’d ever had. The best part was showing it off to cousin Tommy. For once I didn’t need his hand-me-downs, or Aunt Bridget’s clucking over me for being poor. God bless the child who’s got her own.

I opened my eyes just as the Lex passed through the ghost station at Worth Street. Closed off to the public for maybe fifteen years, it seemed a mirage, dimly seen through the dirty windows of the subway car. Bright color on the white tile walls told me graffiti bombers had been there. A good place to check, but not until after City Hall. I owed Manny Delgado a trip to the Black Hole.

“Uh, Sergeant?”

I turned; a patronizing smile played on Delgado’s lips. He’d apparently been trying to get my attention. “Sony,” I said, feigning a yawn. “Just a little tired.”

Yeah, sure, his look remarked. “We’re coming to Brooklyn Bridge. Shouldn’t we get off the train?”

“Right.” Leave Uncle Paul where he belongs.

At the Brooklyn Bridge stop, we climbed up the steps to the upper platform, showed our ID to the woman token clerk, and told her we were going into the tunnel toward City Hall. Then we went back downstairs, heading for the south end of the downtown platform.

As we were about to go past the gate marked NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT, I looked back at the lighted platform, which made a crescent-shaped curve behind us. Almost in a mirror image, the old drunk was about to pass the forbidden gate and descend into the tunnel heading uptown.

He stepped carefully, holding on to the white, bathroom-tile walls, edging himself around the waist-high gate. He lowered himself down the stone steps the exact replica of the ones Manny and I were about to descend, then disappeared into the blackness.

I couldn’t let him go. There were too many dangers in the subway, dangers beyond the torch killer everyone was on the hunt for. How many frozen bodies had I stumbled over on the catwalks between tunnels? How many huddled victims had been hit by trains as they lay in sodden sleep? And yet, I had to be careful. My friend Kathy Denzer had gone after a bum sleeping on the catwalk, only to have the man stab her in the arm for trying to save his life.

I couldn’t let him go. Turning to Delgado, I said, “Let’s save City Hall for later. I saw some graffiti at Worth Street on the way here. Let’s check that out first.”

He shrugged. At least he was being spared the Black Hole, his expression said.

Entering the tunnel’s blackness, leaving behind the brightly lit world of sleepy riders, a tiny rush of adrenaline, like MSG after a Chinese dinner, coursed through my bloodstream. Part of it was pure reversion to childhood’s fears. Hansel and Gretel. Snow White. Lost in dark woods, with enemies all around. In this case, rats. Their scuffling sent shivers up my spine as we balanced our way along the catwalk above the tracks.

The other part was elation. This was my job. I was good at it. I could put aside my fears and step boldly down into murky depths where few New Yorkers ever went.

Our flashlights shone dim as fireflies. I surveyed the gloomy underground world I’d spent my professional life in.

My imagination often took over in the tunnels. They became caves of doom. Or an evil wood, out of Lord of the Rings, The square columns holding up the tunnel roof were leafless trees, the constant trickle of foul water between the tracks a poisonous stream from which no one drank and lived,

Jones Beach, Uncle Paul’s huge hand cradling my foot, then lifting me high in the air and flinging me backward, laughing with delight, into the cool water, Droplets clinging to his red beard, and Uncle Paul shaking them off into the sunlight like a wet Irish setter.

Me and Mo, we’re the only true Gallaghers, The only redheads, I got straight A’s in English; nobody’s grammar was safe from me-except Uncle Paul’s.

I thought all men smelled like him: whiskey and tobacco.

As Manny and I plodded along the four-block tunnel between the live station and the dead one, we exchanged no words, The acrid stench of an old track fire filled my nostrils the way memories flooded my mind. Trying to push Uncle Paul away, I bent all my concentration on stepping carefully around the foul-smelling water, the burned debris I didn’t want to identify.

I suspected Delgado’s silence was due to fear; he wouldn’t want a shaking voice to betray his tension. I knew how he felt. The first nighttime tunnel trek was a landmark in a young transit cop’s life.

When the downtown express thundered past, we ducked into the coffin-sized alcoves set aside for transit workers. My heart pounded as the wind wake of the train pulled at my clothes; the fear of falling forward, landing under those relentless steel wheels, never left me, no matter how many times I stood in the well. I always thought of Anna Karenina; once in a while, in my drinking days, I’d wondered how it would feel to edge forward, to let the train’s undertow pull me toward death.

I could never do it. I’d seen too much blood on the tracks.

Light at the end of the tunnel. The Worth Street station sent rays of hope into the spidery blackness. My step quickened; Delgado’s pace matched mine. Soon we were almost running toward the light, like cavemen coming from the hunt to sit by the fire of safety.

We were almost at the edge of the platform when I motioned Delgado to stop. My hunger to bathe in the light was as great as his, but our post was in the shadows, watching.

A moment of panic. I’d lost the drunk. Had he fallen on the tracks, the electrified third rail roasting him like a pig at a barbecue? Not possible; we’d have heard, and smelted.

I had to admit, the graffiti painting wasn’t a mindless scrawl. It was a picture, full of color and life. Humanlike figures in bright primary shades, grass-green, royal-blue, orange, sun-yellow, and carnation-pink-colors unknown in the black-and-gray tunnels-stood in a line, waiting to go through a subway turnstile. Sexless, they were cookie-cutter replicas of one another, the only difference among them the color inside the black edges.

A rhythmic clicking sound made Delgado jump. “What the hell-”

“Relax, Manny,” I whispered. “It’s the ball bearing in the spray-paint can. The vandals are here. As soon as the paint hits the tiles, we jump out and bust them.”

Four rowdy teenagers, ranging in color from light brown to ebony, laughed raucously and punched one another with a theatrical style that said We bad. We real bad. They bounded up the steps from the other side of the platform and surveyed their artwork, playful as puppies, pointing out choice bits they had added to their mural.

It should have been simple. Two armed cops, with the advantage of surprise, against four kids armed with Day-Glo spray paint. Two tilings kept it from being simple: the drank, wherever the hell he was, and the fact that one of the kids said, “Hey, bro, when Cool and Jo-Jo gettin’ here?”

A very black kid with a nylon stocking on his head answered, “Jo-Jo be comin’ with Pinto, Cool say he might be hringin’ Slasher and T.P.”

Great. Instead of two against four, it sounded like all the graffiti artists in New York City were planning a convention in the Worth Street ghost station,

“Sarge?” Delgado’s voice was urgent. “We’ve gotta-”

“I know,” I whispered back, “Get on the radio and call for backup.”

Then I remembered. Worth Street was a dead spot. Lead in the ceiling above our heads turned our radios into worthless toys.

“Stop,” I said wearily as Manny pulled the antenna up on his hand-held radio. “It won’t work. You’ll have to go back to Brooklyn Bridge. Alert Booth Robert two twenty-one. Have them call Operations. Just ask for backup, don’t make it a ten-thirteen.” A 10-13 meant “officer in trouble,” and I didn’t want to be the sergeant who cried wolf.

“Try the radio along the way,” I went on. “You never know when it will come to life. I’m not sure where the lead ends.”

Watching Delgado trudge back along the catwalk, I felt lonely, helpless, and stupid. No one knew we’d gone to Worth Street instead of the Black Hole, and that was my fault.

“Hey,” one of the kids called, pointing to a pile of old clothes in the corner of the platform, “what this dude be doin’ in our crib?”

Dude? What dude? Then the old clothes began to rise; it was the drunk from the train. He was huddled into a fetal ball, hoping not to be noticed by the graffiti gang.

Nylon Stocking boogied over to the old drunk, sticking a finger in his ribs. “What you be doin’ here, ol’ man? Huh? Answer me.”

A fat kid with a flat top walked over, sat down next to the drunk, reached into the old man’s jacket pocket, and pulled out a half-empty pint bottle.

A lighter-skinned, thinner boy slapped the drunk around, first lifting him by the scruff of the neck, then laughing as he flopped back to the floor. The old guy tried to rise, only to be kicked in the ribs by Nylon Stocking.

The old guy was bleeding at the mouth. Fat Boy held the pint of booze aloft, teasing the drunk the way you tease a dog with a bone. The worst part was that the drunk was reaching for it, hands flapping wildly, begging. He’d have barked if they’d asked him to.

I was shaking, my stomach starting to heave. God, where was Manny? Where was my backup? I had to stop the kids before their friends got there, but I felt too sick to move. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk. It was as though every taunt, every kick, was aimed at me, not just at the old man.

I reached into my belt for my gun, then opened my vest’s back pouch and pulled out the slapper. Ready to charge, I stopped cold when Nylon Stocking said, “Yo, y’all want to do him like we done the others?”

Fat Boy’s face lit up. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Feel like a cold night. We needs a little fire.”

“You right, bro,” the light-skinned kid chimed in. “I got the kerosene. Done took it from my momma heater.”

“What he deserve, man,” the fourth member of the gang said, his voice a low growl. “Comin’ into our crib, pissin’ on the art, smellin’ up the place. This here our turf, dig?” He prodded the old man in the chest.

“I-I didn’t mean nothing,” the old man whimpered. “I just wanted a place to sleep.”

Uncle Paul, sleeping on our couch when he was too drunk for Aunt Rose to put up with him. He was never too drunk for Mom to take him in. Never too drunk to give me one of his sweet Irish smiles and call me his best girl.

The light-skinned kid opened the bottle-ironically, it looked as if it once contained whiskey-and sprinkled the old man the way my mother sprinkled clothes before ironing them. Nylon Stocking pulled out a book of matches.

By the time Delgado came back, with or without backup, there’d be one more bonfire if I didn’t do something. Fast.

Surprise was my only hope. Four of them, young and strong. One of me, out of shape and shaky.

I shot out a light. I cracked the bulb on the first shot. Target shooting was my best asset as a cop, and I used it to give the kids the impression they were surrounded.

The kids jumped away from the drunk, moving in all directions. “Shit,” one said, “who shootin’?”

I shot out the second and last bulb. In the dark, I had the advantage. They wouldn’t know, at least at first, that only one cop was coming after them.

“Let’s book,” another cried. “Ain’t worth stayin’ here to get shot.”

I ran up the steps, onto the platform lit only by the moonlike rays from the other side of the tracks. Yelling “Stop, police,” I waded into the kids, swinging my illegal slapper.

Thump into the ribs of the kid holding the kerosene bottle. He dropped it, clutching his chest and howling. I felt the breath whoosh out of him, heard the snap of rib cracking. I wheeled and slapped Nylon Stocking across the knee, earning another satisfying howl.

My breath came in gasps, curses pouring out of me. Blood pounding in my temples, a thumping noise that sounded louder than the express train.

The advantage of surprise was over. The other two kids jumped me, one riding my back, the other going for my stomach with hard little fists. All I could see was a maddened teenage tornado circling me with blows. My arm felt light as I thrust my gun deep into the kid’s stomach. He doubled, groaning.

It was like chugging beer at a cop racket. Every hit, every satisfying whack of blackjack against flesh made me hungry for the next. I whirled and socked. The kids kept coming, and I kept knocking them down like bowling pins.

The adrenaline rush was stupendous, filling me with elation. I was a real cop again. There was life after detox.

At last they stopped. Panting, I stood among the fallen, exhausted. My hair had escaped from my knit hat and hung in matted tangles over a face red-hot as a griddle.

I pulled out my cuffs and chained the kids together, wrist to wrist, wishing I had enough sets to do each individually. Together, even cuffed, they could overpower me. Especially since they were beginning to realize I was alone.

I felt weak, spent. As though I’d just made love.

I sat down on the platform, panting, my gun pointed at Nylon Stocking. “You have the right to remain silent,” I began.

As I finished the last Miranda warning on the last kid, I heard the cavalry coming over the hill. Manny Delgado, with four reinforcements.

As the new officers took the collars, I motioned Manny aside, taking him to where the drunk lay sprawled in the corner, still shaking and whimpering.

“Do you smell anything?” I asked.

Manny wrinkled his nose. I looked down at the drunk.

A trickle of water seeped from underneath him; his crotch was soaked.

Uncle Paul, weaving his way home, singing off-key, stopping to take a piss under the lamppost Nothing unusual in that, except that this time Julie Ann Mackinnon, my eighth-grade rival, watched from across the street. My cheeks burned as I recalled how she’d told the other kids what she’d seen, her hand cupped over her giggling mouth.

“Not that,” I said, my tone sharp, my face reddening. “The kerosene. These kids are the torch killers. They were going to roast this guy. That’s why I had to take them on alone.”

Delgado’s face registered the skepticism I’d seen lurking in his eyes all night. Could he trust me? He’d been suitably impressed at my chain gang of prisoners, but now I was talking about solving the crime that had every cop in the city on overtime.

“Look, just go back to Brooklyn Bridge and radio-” I was going to say Captain Lomax, when I thought better. “No, call Sal Minucci in Anti-Crime. He’ll want to have the guy’s coat analyzed. And make sure somebody takes good care of that bottle.” I pointed to the now-empty whiskey bottle the light-skinned boy had poured kerosene from.

“Isn’t that his?” Manny indicated the drunk.

“No, his is a short dog,” I said, then turned away as I realized the term was not widely known in nondrunk circles.

Just go, kid, I prayed. Get the hell out of here before-

He turned, following the backup officers with their chain gang. “And send for Emergency Medical for this guy,” I added. “I’ll stay here till they come.”

I looked down at the drunk. His eyes were blue, a watery, no-color blue with all the life washed out of them. Uncle Paul’s eyes.

Uncle Paul, blurry-faced and maudlin, too blitzed to care that I’d come home from school with a medal for the best English composition, I’d put my masterpiece by his chair, so he could read it after dinner. He spilled whiskey on it; the blue-black ink ran like tears and blotted out my carefully chosen words.

Uncle Paul, old, sick, and dying, just like this one. Living by that time more on the street than at home, though there were people who would take him in. His eyes more red than blue, his big frame wasted. I felt a sob rising, like death squeezing my lungs, I heaved, grabbing for air. My face was wet with tears I didn’t recall shedding.

/ hate you, Uncle Paul. I’ll never be like you. Never.

I walked over to the drunk, still sprawled on the platform. I was a sleepwalker; my arm lifted itself. I jabbed the butt of my gun into old, thin ribs, feeling it bump against bone. It would be a baseball-size bruise. First a raw red-purple, then blue-violet, finally a sickly yellow-gray.

I lifted my foot, just high enough to land with a thud near the kidneys. The old drunk grunted, his mouth falling open. A drizzle of saliva fell to the ground. He put shaking hands to his face and squeezed his eyes shut. I lifted my foot again. I wanted to kick and kick and kick.

Uncle Paul, a frozen lump of meat found by some transit cop on the aboveground platform at 161st Street The Yankee Stadium stop, where he took me when the Yanks played home games. We’d eat at the Yankee Tavern, me wolfing down a corned beef on rye and a cream soda, Uncle Paul putting away draft beer after draft beer.

Before he died, Uncle Paul had taken all the coins out of his pocket, stacking them in neat little piles beside him. Quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. An inventory of his worldly goods.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, looked down at the sad old man I’d brutalized. A hot rush of shame washed over me. I knelt down, gently moving the frail, blue-white hands away from the near-transparent face. The fear I saw in the liquid blue eyes sent a piercing ray of self-hatred through me.

If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk. Me too, Manny, I can’t stand women drunks either.

The old man’s lips trembled; tears filled his eyes and rolled down his thin cheeks. He shook his head from side to side, as though trying to wake himself from a bad dream.

“Why?” he asked, his voice a raven’s croak,

“Because I loved you so much,” The words weren’t in my head anymore, they were slipping out into the silent, empty world of the ghost station, As though Uncle Paul weren’t buried in Calvary Cemetery, but could hear me with the ears of this old man who looked too damn much like him, “Because I wanted to be just like you. And I am.” My voice broke. “I’m just like you, Uncle Paul I’m a drunk.” I put my head on my knee and sobbed like a child- All the shame of my drinking days welled up in my chest. The stupid things I’d said and done, the times I’d had to be taken home and put to bed, the times I’d thrown up in the street outside the bar. If there’s one thing I can’t stand…

“Oh, God, I wish I were dead.”

The bony hand on mine felt like a talon. I started, then looked into the old man’s watery eyes. I sat in the ghost station and saw in this stranger the ghost that had been my dying uncle.

“Why should you wish a thing like that?” the old man asked. His voice was clear, no booze-blurred slurring, no groping for words burned out of the brain by alcohol. “You’re a young girl. You’ve got your whole life ahead a you.”

My whole life, To be continued…

One day at a time. One night at a time.

When I got back to the District, changed out of my work clothes, showered, would there be a meeting waiting for me? Damn right; in the city that never sleeps, AA never sleeps either.

I reached over to the old man. My fingers brushed his silver stubble.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Paul,” I said, “I’m sorry.”