Stephen James

The beat of the drum and the shaker told the people waiting for the L Train at 6th Avenue that there was another street performer asking for money in the subways. But then a different sound accosted their ears keeping time with the funky rhythms. Curiuosly and grudgingly, adults and children began to follow the strange sound to figure out what the new noise could possibly be. And Stephen just kept dancing.

He knew the people would come once he started to dance. And because he was different, because he wasn't begging and most importantly because he was good he also knew they would stay. His most expensive possessions were on his feet beating his square wood board with the weight of a grown man being thrown around. His black tap shoes, the last gift his mother gave him before he split town to go to the big city, were well-worn in and inspired a love-hate relationship within their owner. Her first gift to him was making him take those stupid dance lessons in the first place. This last one was his bread and butter.

As his feet began to move, slowly at first, he looked over at Rashad, his roommate and jamming buddy, pounding away on his drums shaking his head as if the rhythm made his head swim with music intoxication. Rashad loved to play. Every time they needed to make some more cash for rent, booze, weed, or food, only Rashad could get Stephen to get out of bed and polish up his black tap shoes.

Rashad certainly knew how to get the ladies. Speaking of ladies, Stephen's mind distracted for a minute as he watched a tall, thin brunette in a puffy golden jacket walk by without takig a second glance at him. He followed her with his eyes all the way until he couldn't see her anymore and turned back only to find Rashad looking at him with a knowing smile. Rashad's coffee and cream colored face turned to look at Stephen's never-ceasing tapping feet as if to pointedly say, "don't forget to dance, Nigga."

Stephen saw his friends's black dreads sneaking out of his ski cap and thought about his own greasy blonde and currently sweaty head of hair. He watched as two more model-thin blondes passed with white puffy jackets and almost fell over leaning towards them to gawk. "Just look at me and notice me you little sluts!" He thought to himself. His feet kept moving and he leaned back with a quick ball change to steady himself again. Rashad hadn't seen him chekcing out the girls that time, he was too involved in his music now. He was getting faster already. Stephen sighed. When Rashad started getting faster, he too, tired and sweaty as he was, would have to pick up the pace as well. Especially since the crowd waiting for the train was getting thicker.

His white shirt clung to him with sweat soaked through and through and his baggy jeans were getting uncomfortable because of the sweat. He grabbed a hold of his jeans to pull them up and felt Rashad's rhythms begin to take him over. This was the part he hated. He fought it with all his might. He tried to distract himself with the people watching, with the pretty teenagers stopping to watch or with the small boy who just put a dollar in Rashad's drum case. But he was begining to swim like Rashad, to move to feel his body take over his mind and move to the beats with funk and flare and the old ingrained classical training began to inform his body's improvisation. Lights, people, subways, women, drugs ceased to exist as his heart began to break forth from it's cage in the pure emotion that came from his body's release. He was intoxicated with the rhythm and had entered once again into the world where it was just him, Rashad and his black tap shoes.

The thumping, the shaker and the beasts within both men began to subside and the shoes began to calm down from maniacal artistry to a suave Gene Kelly-esque state. People were glued to their faces and figures still holding traces of the miracle that had just played forth before them. Many were holding their breath unawares. One person sitting two feet away in a red coat wondered if those holding their breath wondered if they realized it was because all had witnessed a mastery of craft that comes from a heart burstig forth with pain, love, joy, intense sadness and dislike and supported by the framework of years of study.

The train came in a rush and people shook off the sensation and didn't bother to meet the eyes of the two men who stood silent and panting as if having just made love. Stephen's head began to clear with the sounds of the approaching train and he looked over at Rashad who looked like he always did after coming off a good trip. He felt his heart slowly decompressing back into its hiding place and he began to feel safe again and yet as if a part of him, the part that got loose this time, was crying to be let out just one more time. Like a hungry animal that only smells the feast, he sank down to his knees to catch his breath

The train doors opened and people flooded in and out once again oblivious to the art in the middle of a rat's paradise. Rashad looked up just as a pair of green eyes approached to drop a last dollar bill into his drum case. Both men watched her silently in awe and followed the back of her head into the train just as the doors were closing. Rashad managed to croak out a "thank you" just before the doors closed. But it wasn't quick enough for Stephen to catch one more glimpse at those green eyes which had seen him. Had really seen and understood him.

"Damn. Now that's what I call nice. Meat on the body, man, that's what I need, something to hold." Rashad turned arond and got some water.

"Nah," Stephen shrugged trying not to also shrug off the haunting feeling he now felt in the pit of his stomach. "Nah, she was too chubby. I like emaciated."

"Whatever man. So how about it, one more go? Got some people coming down already. They just waitin' to empty their pockets for a little entertainment." Rashad broke into a wide grin and picked up his shaker. Stephen sighed and raised his tortured body for another round of ecstasy. And somewhere deep within, he decided he would finally call his mother, not to ask for money, pride would never let him sink so low, but only to tell her thank you. And that he missed her. A different pair of green eyes now flooded his mind, familiar this time, and loving, and as he thought about his mother, his feet began to move softly, tapping out a different rhythm, a wounded yet proud and hopeful morse code.

Sgt. Mike Johnson

"There he is," said a small woman with glasses and she pointed to a spot on the far left of the wall.

Mike took a step forward and peered a little closer. "Where?"

"Right there." His wife said and her finger underlined the name 'FF Peter Allen Nelson'.

The big man in the faded blue FDNY shirt and jeans looked away quickly, squatted down and picked up a black marker. He'd been staring at that wall for a good 30 minutes trying to locate just one name until the names started running together and the name he kept repeating to himself as he looked became numb to him. There were many names he could have found on that wall, but he needed to find just the one. And as his eyes saw the letters that formed the name he'd been searching for his chest began to tighten and the memories he'd been fighting came back unwelcome. He saw the rocks. He saw the dust. He heard the screams. He saw the eyes behind the mask that had handed the bloody man in the suit to him to care for before he rushed back into the tower seconds before it fell. He remembered screaming as the tower fell, helplessly crying for his friend to come out, and fearfully pulling his charge and himself down to the ground for cover. He had known many men who never came back to work after that day from Hell, but none hurt so badly as this one. The one he'd laughed with at the station until 5 am when they both had graveyard shift and had to keep each other awake. The one who always knew what to do to bring him out of his sour mood. The one who slept at his house at 2 am because they had gotten too drunk singing to their lonely hearts. The one who had introduced him to his wife. He looked back at Carol and saw that all the muscles in her face were rigid as she tried desperately not to cry.

A tiny girl nearby was trying to circle the names of two brothers from the second tower wtih a pen and he gruffly stood up and handed her the marker to use. The girl thanked him and circled the two names.

Mike felt torn with a need to get the marker back and circle his friend's name, but he'd waited 30 minutes, what was 2 more?

"Thank you," she told him in her Brooklyn accent and looked back at the names, put her two first fingers to her lips, touched the names and walked away.

Now the marker was in Mike's hand as he stood there calculating how he was going to do this. His wife took a step back to allow her husband his space.

With trembling hands, he knelt down beside the wall and slowly circled the name in thick black marker. 'FF Peter Allen Nelson.' The name stuck in his throat. Mike had always considered himself a strong man, a big man, a brave man, but with his pen poised and the circle drawn he felt all his strength curl into a little ball at the pit of his stomach and soar up to the tip of his nose where it began to sting.

"Don't cry, you big pansy," he told himself. "It was his job. It is your job." But that slight stinging sensation in his nose continued to grow anyway and his eyes started to get blurry as they filled with salty water.

The Sgt. let out a quick breath, not even realizing he'd been holding it and wrote his message to his friend. "b-4 -------"

Carol's soft hands were on his large shoulder as he stole a glance at the name one last time before he put his head down, gruffly pushed his large body up off his knees and turned around and walked away without looking back, Carol following close behind.

A pair of green eyes turned and follwed him until he was out of sight and looked back at the circled name, the tears sliding freely out of their green sea and down cold cheeks. And somewhere, somehow, Sgt. Mike felt the ball in his stomach loosen just a little as a pair of green eyes cried for the stranger who sacrificed his life to help save others, and his friend who wouldn't forget him.

Randy

The war veteran's foot was throbbing again as he climbed the stairs down into the subway to wait for the local train uptown towards Jamaica. With every step he toyed with the idea of using his cane to hit the pain out of his leg like he and his buddies used to do to show no signs of weakness. He smiled as he remembered biting his own finger until it bled after he'd slammed it in the car door and never once shed a tear. Well, at least until he got home and his mother's worried expression and mending hands brought forth the flood he'd been longing to release, he conceded to himself with an inner chuckle.

He looked around at the people standing near him and watched as a sea of faces looked everywhere but at anybody else. Most looked expectantly down the tracks waiting for some light to show them it wouldn't be long until they reached their final destination. But Randy didn't need to look. He wasn't in a hurry today. No, he was seldom in a hurry these days.

Green eyes caught his own dark ones for a moment and held them as they took in his tall frame, dark skin and gray hair under the hat. For an instant a mask was dropped and each felt no fear, no embarrassment, and no need to look away. A silent human understanding passed between the older gentleman and the young woman that age nor race nor upbringing could confound. He grunted a slight nod and watched the second express train stop at the platform. This time he listend a little closer to the announcement and got on.

"Is this local?" the mouth belonging to the green eyes asked.

"No. You gotta take it all the way to Continental and then hop the local. No local trains stopping at this track."

"Oh. Thank you." The green eyes came in and sat opposite him.

The subway doors closed as Randy leaned his head back against the side wall of the subway car and felt the familiar jerk as the train started. He thought about what it must be like for a white girl to find herself in an all black car headed farther into Queens than he suspected she had ever ventured. Not that she'd encounter trouble, but he remembered his first time being the only black man in a white neighborhood outside of Georgia and he suddenly felt a need to protect her. From the corner of his eyes, he observed the green eyes orientating themselves and testing for potential danger. Their eyes locked again and he smiled a true genuine smile of warmth and saw the lines in her forhead relax as she too leaned her head agains the wall of the subway.

When he got off the train, he felt the clear color of green following him up the stairs and over to the downtown local platform where they waited wordlessly for the local train to approach. Neither felt the need to speak, and as the train doors opened to let them in one more time, Randy stood back and held the door open for this young stranger just as any proper gentleman of the south was raised to do.

The green eyes looked up and saw a guardian angel holding the door open for her and she stepped inside the car unafraid and with an enormous amount of love to pour out on her strange protector.

Randy leaned his head back agains the wall and with his eyes closed and his instincts alert, he stayed near his assignment and rested his aching foot.