empty car
by mikeymike
Some time in the early 1980s, a sweltering June day, at 96th St. waiting for a No. 2 or 3 express to get me downtown.
It's about 105 degrees on the platform, easily. After a while the train pulls in, and every car is packed to the gills except one, the car that stops right in front of me. I figure, hell, this is the car without air conditioning; so what? I'm already sweaty, and I have the whole car to myself. Besides, squeezing into a packed car is tantamount to the same thing, and I don't even get to sit down.
The doors pop open and I happily jump aboard, springing into the nearest seat. Then it hits me, as the doors close--a sunami of overpowering stench, a wall of smell crashing into me, over me, through me, on top of me, winding me up in thick green coils of putrescence. I eyeballed the space and immediately zeroed in on a small unmoving bundle of rags stuffed in a corner at the opposite end.
Dead, stinking in impenetrable waves. I was in the death car.
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