“A young woman got on the subway today,”
Tom tells his wife Violet and a couple named Pretty and Oscar with whom they’re
having dinner. “She was a rather hefty girl and she has this crooked little dog
with her on a leash, and she’s carrying this big white box, which obviously has
a cake in it”.
“How did you know it was a cake?” Pretty
asks.
“It was a cake,” Tom says.
“There’s a certain kind of bakery box, you know? White cardboard.”
“With bakery string,” adds Violet.
“Anyway, it’s rush hour and the subway car
is packed solid and this big burly girl is beginning to get pushed and jostled
and she seems to be growing very protective of this cake. She’s holding it as delicately as she
can, as if it’s a time bomb…”
“Or a baby”, says Violet.
“But people keep bumping into it
anyhow. At one point you can hear
this dry ‘thunk!’ sound which was probably a chunk of the icing breaking off and
falling to the bottom of the box…”
“One of those big, hard turquoise roses”,
Violet suggests.
“Yeh, that’s what it sounded like,” Tom
says.
“The kind you can break a tooth on,” adds
Oscar.
“And then, a minute or two later,”
Tom continues, “there’s another cracking sound and now the box rattles when the
girl transfers it to her other hand, and just as she thinks he’s finally got it
pretty well defended, a couple of teenage kids get on, and they shove each
other around and yell and of course they smash right into the big girl’s box,
first denting it and then knocking it completely out of her grasp and onto the
floor of the subway car. And what
do you think happens after that?” Tom asks his wife and their friends.
“She screams. Curses?” Violet suggests.
“Weeps?” asks Pretty.
“Nope, just the opposite!” says Tom, with
something like triumph in his voice.
“She stoops down and slowly picks up the box, tightens her grip on the
weird little dog’s leash, looks around at all the other subway riders—who are
staring at her now as if she’s from Mars—raises the box over her head, and hurls
it with all her might the full length of the subway car!! Just
as the box bounces to a stop at the other end, spilling out the remains of her
cake onto the feet of the rush hour passengers and showering bits of icing all
over everybody, the train pulls into a station. The girl backs towards the opening door. “Take it then!” she screams. TAKE it!!” And then backs out onto the platform, pulling the dog after
her as the doors close.”
“And that’s it?” Asks Oscar, intensely
engaged up until now with his Crème Caramel.
“Yes, that’s it”, says Tom.
“Good story”, says Oscar, spooning up the
last of the caramelized sugar in his dish.
“I wish I’d been there,” says Violet
wistfully. “Me too,” says Pretty.
“Well, I was there”, says Tom, “and it was no friggin picnic.”
