Alphabet City, Alphabet Soup

Infatuation inscribed in pillars.

Illustration by Chelsey Pettyjohn

My sneakers peep and grind as I run down to the bottom of the smallest steps in the world at the 2nd Avenue F stop. Why are these steps so tiny? Some town planner must have forgotten that the city is not just made for kids. The hot August air clouts me straight on the nose, and then coats the rest of my body as I journey further into the bowels.

Backpack on and endowed with headphones, I have made a conscious effort to always stay stationary near train tracks. “Mr. Clumsy,” I say to myself with what I’m told is my signature eyebrow tilt. I halt and find a pillar to lean on. A heart with two sets of initials is wounded through the paint—D.S. and J.T.—one of them matching my own.

He is definitely staring. No doubt that’s a stare. But at me? Really? Just me, silly, rough-and-tumble me? Yes, definitely. He is jabbing my eyes with his darker-than-Heath-Ledger-as-Joker peepers as he leans too deeply back against the platform wall across the tracks. Moisture ru…