The Young Boy on the Train

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A SHORT STORY

As I was heading to the airport on the E train last week, a young ten-year-old boy sat next to me.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"India," I told him.

"India?" he said. "What are you doing in India?"

I told him about my work there with Tibetans, helping them tell their stories. He shared stories of his recent travels as well. How he and his mom recently surprised his uncle in Dallas by knocking on his door.  

He told me he was heading to school. That he has to drop off his brothers and sisters at daycare every morning while his mom goes to work in the Bronx. I asked him about his father, and he said they are not in contact.

"My mom blames herself," he told me. "She says I wouldn't get in trouble if there was a man in the house."

I asked him about the mentors in his life, and he told me about his coaches.

Or how his grandmother saved for two years to buy them both Game 3 Finals tickets to see the Knicks.

As we got closer to my stop, I found myself thinking: this is why I love New York City.

As we approached my stop at JFK, I asked him, "What's your name?"

"Cayden," he told me.

"Well, Cayden," I said, "I'm Michael. It was really great talking to you, and you are quite a special young man."

I gave him a fist bump.

And walked off the train.

And as I write this, I'm still thinking about him. About a young boy who yearns for a father.  About a grandmother who spent two years saving for a single night with her grandson.

About all the ways we hold one another up.

A POEM

“June” by Alex Dimitrov

There will never be more of summer
than there is now. Walking alone
through Union Square I am carrying flowers
and the first rosé to a party where I’m expected.
It’s Sunday and the trains run on time
but today death feels so far, it’s impossible
to go underground. I would like to say
something to everyone I see (an entire
city) but I’m unsure what it is yet.
Each time I leave my apartment
there’s at least one person crying,
reading, or shouting after a stranger
anywhere along my commute.
It’s possible to be happy alone,
I say out loud and to no one
so it’s obvious, and now here
in the middle of this poem.
Rarely have I felt more charmed
than on Ninth Street, watching a woman
stop in the middle of the sidewalk
to pull up her hair like it’s
an emergency—and it is.
People do know they’re alive.
They hardly know what to do with themselves.
I almost want to invite her with me
but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy
like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here.
How do you continue to love New York,
my friend who left for California asks me.
It’s awful in the summer and winter,
and spring and fall last maybe two weeks.
This is true. It’s all true, of course,
like my preference for difficult men
which I had until recently
because at last, for one summer
the only difficulty I’m willing to imagine
is walking through this first humid day
with my hands full, not at all peaceful
but entirely possible and real.

Grateful,

Michael