#567 An Orange Line Train to Ballston- Edward P. Jones

#567 An Orange Line Train to Ballston- Edward P. Jones

Marvella is a single mother of three. Each morning during rush hour she has to take her children on the subway, the Orange Line to Ballston. Jones does a pretty great job of conveying the stress it must feel like as Mother trying to take care and keep and eye on three kids in a crowded train.

They meet a man riding alone with long dreadlocks. Being curious, the children began asking questions about his hair, why he doesn’t cut it, it looks like the hair of a guy we saw in a horror movie, etc. Marvella is mortified but the man is genial and answers all their questions. 

They see him again the next day, and become even friendlier. As the weeks pass, they ride the same train often, Marvella likes this man, likes how he treats her children, wishes he would talk more to her, and looks forward to their brief encounters. But, anyone who has ever ridden subways knows, many such encounters, go as quickly as they come. 

Very charming story.

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#323 Double Espresso- Sin Soracco

#323 Double Espresso- Sin Soracco

I got this story from San Francisco Noir, one of a series of City Noir collections.  The series uses local writers to “…help expose the psycho-geography of a city. Hidden and repressed memories are a focal point…”

Here Gina is a homeless woman sleeping in a park built above a filled-in waterway. Water is a big theme here, and rivers dried-up, or controlled by civilization. Gina takes a trip just outside the city to visit a friend. She learns that the world is crazy when you don’t know the lay of the land.

“She discovered a fondness for the city buried somewhere deep in her chest, most noticeably when she was leaving.”

Notable Passage: “Civilization treats pain with lectures.”

Rating: 7-6-7-6 Total= 26

#240 Bulldog- Arthur Miller

#240 Bulldog- Arthur Miller

I would imagine that someone so adapt at being a dramatist would also master the art of short story telling. Which is why I’m surprised that I’ve seen very little of Miller’s short stories.

This one, I guess, is a coming of age story. A thirteen year old Jewish boy from the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn wants to buy a puppy. What ends up happing is a rapid lesson in adulthood.

“He played feeling as though something inside him had sort of shaken loose or collapsed altogether. He was different than he had ever been, not empty and clear anymore but weighted with secrets and his lies, some told and some untold, but all of it disgusting enough to set him slightly outside his family, in a place where he could watch them now, and watch themselves with them.”

Besides the obvious dark, disturbing moment in here, a lot of this is a touching nostalgic look at Brooklyn as a child. The old rickety wooden subways, the kids playing in empty lots on hot weekend days, old baseballs hit over their fence from the amateur league games played in their neighborhood.

Rating: 9-8-9-8 Total= 34