Subway Visions

By Jnana Hodson

The commuter rails of a great city whisk millions of riders to jobs, schools, friends, family, shopping, entertainment, recreation, and home again each day. It's a great place for watching real people, the straphangers who maintain the metropolis in its manifold character. Picture the London T, the Paris Metro, or subway systems in Moscow, Tokyo, Montreal, or Toronto for an international perspective. Or New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, or San Francisco in America.
The subterranean tunnels and elevated lines overhead remain remarkable relics of Industrial Age ingenuity. They can be loud, crowded, even steamy but they are essential to the existence of arcane specialties rarely available anywhere outside except a densely populated city.
With his roots in the wide-open spaces of the American heartland, Kenzie views all this from an outsider's niche. His initial forays into the mass-transit depths are filled with foreboding alleviated only by the angelic guide briefly at his side. His return visits have him becoming a wide-eyed observer awash in wonders the habitual passengers around him blindly overlook. Unlike them, he visits Gotham once a month for pleasure and renewal, not a paycheck or obligatory itineraries. His escapades allow him to perceive the railways and trains as a vast amusement park filled with magical opportunities. He pays special attention to what appears in the corners of his eyes as he flies by. Did you see that?
His adventures occur within a window of history when you could travel almost anywhere in America or much of Europe simply by sticking out your thumb beside a thoroughfare. As Kenzie discovers, thumbing was possible even along the dank tracks between stations, at least for members of the International Order of Subway Hitchhikers. What he can't anticipate is the life-changing twist he'll encounter on his final ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jnana Hodson
• Release date: May 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463388709

Jnana Hodson

It’s been a while since I’ve been known by my Hawaiian shirts and tennis shoes, at least in summer. Winters in New England are another matter.For four decades, my career in daily journalism paid the bills while I wrote poetry and fiction on the side. More than a thousand of those works have appeared in literary journals around the globe.My name, bestowed on me when I dwelled in a yoga ashram in the early ‘70s, is usually pronounced “Jah-nah,” a Sanskrit word that becomes “gnosis” in Greek and “knowing” in English. After two decades of residing in a small coastal city near both the Atlantic shoreline and the White Mountains northeast of Boston, the time's come to downsize. These days I'm centered in a remote fishing village with an active arts scene on an island in Maine. From our window we can even watch the occasional traffic in neighboring New Brunswick or lobster boats making their rounds.My wife and two daughters have prompted more of my novels than they’d ever imagine, mostly through their questions about my past and their translations of contemporary social culture and tech advances for a geezer like me. Rest assured, they’re not like any of my fictional characters, apart from being geniuses in the kitchen.Other than that, I'm hard to pigeonhole -- and so is my writing.

Book preview

SUBWAY VISIONS

Along the tubes to nirvana

. . . . .

A novel by Jnana Hodson

. . . . .

Copyright 2019, 2016, 2014, and 1990 by the author

Dover, New Hampshire, USA

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Table of contents

. . . . .

Part one: Local

Part two: The midpoint cosmology

Part three: Express

About the author and this book

For more

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Part one: Local

. . . . .

He's living in the mountains hours to the north, but once a month he ventures forth into Gotham. Unlike the denizens who ride the commuter rails blindly as they move from their dwellings to their jobs and studies or to extended family and friends or to entertainment, recreation, and worship, Kenzie's wide-eyed and green. This is nothing like the open land of the American heartland where he grew up. No, this is the metropolis, and he's surrounded by straphangers who uphold its character and keep it running. What he finds is more like a honky-tonk amusement park that bursts out onto elevated rails or dives into darkness again as it transports millions of real people of all ages each day.

From the start, he's certain there's much, much more than he's seeing.

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His first trip, he's terrified of entering the hole. Those news reports of criminal mayhem … gangs and thugs … and timeless yet worsening rings of Dante darken his spirit, but he's accompanied by Millie, a young scientist on her way from his embrace to California, and these are their final hours together.  

It's her treat to him, taking the Metro-North train in from her parents' town to Grand Central Station as his introduction to Manhattan. She makes sure he has the window seat so he can take it all in. From the start, he senses this is nothing like Minneapolis or Denver. This is the glitz where just about everybody thought he'd be working and living, at least before everything caved in on him months ago. Now he's being swept along, tethered securely to her amid the rush of nervous motion everywhere.

She's amused, truth be told. He's so green. The fun's just beginning.

First, he has to learn about buying tokens and then how to use them at the turnstile. He'd be utterly confused if she weren't leading him step by the step. He follows her to the platform, where he's told not to stand too close to the tracks, and they watch for headlights to appear in the black cavity that envelops the rails. There's a growing rumble, a rush of air, and squealing. A row of doors opens, she picks one, and gently pulls him along as he holds his breath for the crucial skip into the passenger car. Naturally, he's nearly paralyzed with hesitation. Inside what feels like a pale avocado, a waiting room on wheels, he's startled by the whoosh of the train doors closing behind him and the first jerk of forward momentum. He's trapped, surrounded by sullen silent strangers. He's comforted by Millie's smile. The 7 Train conveys them to Times Square, where she ushers him out onto the next platform. His senses are being assaulted on all sides. As she tells him this is the busiest station in the entire subway system, he's relieved that she knows her way through the crowded passageways and staircases. Tells him they want the A, C, or D Lines that will lead to their destination. Makes sure he knows the difference between Local and Express trains, too — boarding the wrong one could cost him hours when he's on his own. Not that it matters much in the short distance they're going. Getting through the wall of people unscathed is the principal challenge at hand.

This is intense, exciting, noisy, smelly, steamy, multicolored, as well as frightening and dangerous, even though millions do it without incident daily. He's known her all of what, two weeks? They're so far from the secluded mountain lake where their paths first crossed or the farm where he lives, which she has yet to see.

He's getting the hang of this. As they share a pole in the crowded car, she tells him her life goal. I want to experience life to its fullest.

He nods agreeably. She is, after all, intelligent. Beautiful. Sensible, as far as he's seen. And oh, so passionate when she lets herself go.

He nods, agreeably, thinking he understands. So much of his own life so far has been a buzz, a series of obsessive marches toward the next goal, the next mountaintop, the next river, or now the next train. So far, any gratification or sense of attainment is all too soon overshadowed by the next challenge. The fullest, for him, always translates itself into supreme accomplishment. Maybe even, lifetime achievement. A buzz, then, though nothing like where he's right now with her. Only recently has he momentarily felt any inward experience of fullness — of great pleasure, the kind that engages his body as well as his mind, but sex or recreational drugs have accompanied these interludes.

Crucially, though, everything came crashing down. Like Humpty Dumpty, without the king's men. Yet here he is with Little Miss Riding Hood amid the wolf whistles and bag ladies jolting through pitch blackness.

She reaches for his hand, leads him back into sunlight.

He nods, still compliant, believing he's connecting with her in some optimistic possibility of a future — perhaps even theirs, together — rather than perceiving any inherent pitfalls in her goal, as she frames it. Quite simply, the broad spectrum of life contains many mutually exclusive categories — as well as too many points requiring decisive choices that will eliminate other opportunities. While he or she might imagine much — and perhaps even empathize — there's so much more they'll never experience. Life's simply too big.

Everything behind her is a blur.

Which will it be? The hot passionate expression of Italians or Greeks or the Jews? Emotional or rational, superstitious or mathematical? He looks around and adds blacks, Hispanics, Irish to the mix and he's just starting. Surrounded by a host of nationalities, races, and religions, just what, exactly, is he, other than white bread?

He's perceiving he's deficient in so much. As Millie doesn't have to say, he's so green.

He could be pulled apart here, from all directions. How is a full life to be defined, anyway? Outward activity, especially those actions that help the poor and powerless? Peace and social justice? Home, family, and job? Or inward awareness, such as meditation, reflection, and prayer? Is she dreaming of an extroverted social whirl of parties and glamour? Or quieter pursuits instead — painting or making music, reading and writing, gardening and cooking? Did she put the emphasis on herself? Or on others? Hedonism? Or altruism? Something along the lines of the cool dispassion of Zen Buddhists or Mennonites and Quakers? To say nothing of seven billion possibilities in between?

It's all right here, right around them, this moment. The honking in the crosswalk, the pigeons being fed from park benches, the shouted epithets and greetings.

They approach a sidewalk hot-dog vendor, and she shows him exactly what to order. And then it's into the American Museum of Natural History, where he's amazed by whale and dinosaur bones as well as its holy hushed quietude. In its corridors, Millie's more akin to what he saw in her at Goshen Springs — the calm, inquisitive elfin — than the expert spelunker ushering him into urbanity.

Had she restated her goal, "I want to live my life to its fullest," she would have shifted the focus to her own destiny — her place in the universe, her innate character, preferences, education, family background, social status, religious affiliation, racial outlook, and other factors that make some choices possible while precluding any consideration of others. What she might have defined it as karma or even determinist destiny.

The plethora of opportunity surrounding them could feel liberating, at one extreme, or mind-numbing into insignificance, at the other. The city is like the center of a spider web drawing its resources and influence from orb upon orb into a distance of dependence. Just consider how he's been drawn into its heart for the day.

He doubts he could survive long in this cauldron alone. He would definitely need a companion.  Just how would Millie's goal of fullness fit a soul mate sharing peak experiences — a glorious sunset or musical passage or culinary discovery? And even there, how could they be certain they're perceiving and appreciating the sensation alike? And in a setting overflowing with stimulation like this, how could they not be pulled apart over time?

He wants her, of course, but the gap between them is widening.

How much, then, is the soul mate he desires a narcissistic twin or utter self-denial?

Do you believe you can live your life to its fullest by yourself? he could ask her but doesn't. Or do you think it would be made even fuller by sharing it with another? As the Garden of Eden has it, by an appropriate opposition

Just what was meant by fully, anyway? Everything? Or a very selected focus, seen sharply? The pleasures, for instance, of a cup of coffee while still abed in the morning? A full night’s sleep? Even if it meant forgoing clubbing or partying, or a concert, movie, or theater the night before? Or a dash through the widest array possible?

He considers asking her if full awareness might not fit her goal better, then realized its own limitations: maybe full concentration would prove more fulfilling.

It’s closer, but still elusive, she might have answered.

Would living your own life fully be anything like a baby’s? he could ask.

Yes, a baby lives fully, trying to make sense of this new environment. And everything is taken so seriously; see how it examines a bug! The bug fills the universe! But is baby happy? Half of the time. And so full of upheaval, hungry one moment, in tears the next. To say nothing of its disruption of others all around — parents and siblings, for starters.

Just where are we, anyway?

But surely you don’t want to be a baby all your life, do you? he could say.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe, he thinks, it’s not a matter of fullness at all, but rather a desire of escaping the dull, inattentive stretches. No, not precisely escape — that introduces too much television, alcohol, or background distraction — but rather somehow overcoming the unease, whether it be boredom or tiredness or being overburdened or some vague aching. Maybe it means finding a balance, then. An equilibrium. Something, actually, that would limit one’s life, at least at any particular time.

He could draw some contrast between external stimulation and outright escape. The appearance of television sets and sofas in hippie households gives him an uneasy sense that their