The
platform was crowded with the evening rush, commuters clustered at the
optimal spots for their eventual exit or trying to get there before
their train arrived, some winding prudently through the crowd, others
braving the studded yellow surface at the margins.
There
was a commotion on the Queens side. A few men leaned over the edge all
in a row, waving their arms as a train emerged from the far tunnel and
proceeded unusually slowly into the station. I walked over to the
tracks. I knew what I was about to see. But I looked anyway.
A
young black man lay on the near rail, about twenty feet to my left. A
little crowd had gathered above him, appealing to him, reaching out
their hands. He was not bleeding as far as I could tell but he moved
very slowly, feebly, as though he were suspended in another world, or
just now emerging from a month of slumber. He lifted his head and gazed
nowhere. Then he lay back down on the rail. I noted that his limbs were
moving—they didn’t seem broken, he wasn’t paralyzed.
The
incoming train came to a stop fifty feet or so away. Inside I saw the
conductor on a radio handset, making the requisite call. People still
peered down at the man, imploring him, mostly without words. He did not
stir. But he was alive.