—in—
That’s when he realizes he can’t remember where he came from.
And he tries, but he still can’t remember the school he’s here to attend.
And this is when it finally hits him that he doesn’t know his own name.
As he stands there, floored by this triple epiphany of nothingness, the portly guy is turning up his nose at the tumbler. “Get some real coffee while you’re here,” he says. “From a good Boricua shop, yeah? Get some home food while you’re at it. Anyway, what’s your name?”
“Oh, uh…” He rubs his neck and pretends to have a desperate need to stretch—while, quietly panicking, he looks around and tries to think of something. He can’t believe this is happening. Who the hell forgets their own name? All he can come up with as fake names go are generic ones like Bob or Jimmy. He’s about to say Jimmy, arbitrarily—but then, in his visual flailing, his eyes snag on something.
“I’m, uh… Manny,” he blurts. “You?”
“Douglas.” Portly Guy has his hands on his hips, obviously considering something. Finally he pulls out his wallet and hands over a business card. DOUGLAS ACEVEDO, PLUMBER.
“Oh, sorry, I don’t have a card, haven’t started my new job yet—”
“S’okay,” Douglas says. He still looks thoughtful. “Look, a lot of us were new here, once. You need anything, you let me know, okay? Seriously, it’s fine. Place to crash, real food, a good church, whatever.”
It’s unbelievably kind. “Manny” doesn’t bother to hide his surprise. “Whoa. I—Wow, man. You don’t know me from Adam. I could be a serial killer or something.”
Douglas chuckles. “Yeah, somehow I’m not figuring you for the violent type. You look…” He falters, and then his expression softens a little. “You look like my son. I’m just doing for you what I’d want somebody doing for him. Right?”
Somehow Manny knows: Douglas’s son is dead.
“Right,” Manny says softly. “Thanks again.”
“Está bien, mano, no te preocupes.” He waves off then, and heads in the direction of the A/C/E train.
Manny watches him go, pocketing the card and thinking about three things. The first is the belated realization that the guy thought he was Puerto Rican. The second is that he might have to take Douglas up on that offer of a place to crash, especially if he doesn’t remember the address of his apartment in the next few minutes.
The third thing makes him look up at the Arrivals/Departures board, where he found the word that just became his new name. He didn’t tell Douglas the full name because these days only white women can have given names like that without getting laughed at. But even in modified form, this word—this identity—feels more true than anything else he’s ever claimed in his life. It is what he has been, without realizing. It is who he is. It is everything he’s ever needed to be.
The full word is Manhattan.
In the bathroom, under the sodium lights, he meets himself for the first time.
It’s a good face. He pretends to be extra meticulous about washing his hands—not a bad thing to be in a smelly Penn Station public bathroom—and turns his face from side to side, checking himself out from all angles. It’s clear why the dude figured him for Puerto Rican: his skin is yellowy brown, his hair kinky but loose-coiled enough that if he let it grow out, it might dangle. He could pass for Douglas’s son, maybe. (He’s not Puerto Rican, though. He remembers that much.) He’s dressed preppy: khakis, a button-down with rolled-up sleeves, and there’s a sports jacket draped over his bag, for when the AC is too high maybe since it’s summertime and probably ninety degrees outside. He looks like he’s somewhere in that ageless yawn between “not a kid anymore” and thirty, though probably toward the latter end of it to judge by a couple of random gray threads peppered along his hairline. Brown eyes behind dark-brown-rimmed glasses. The glasses make him look professorial. Sharp cheekbones, strong even features, smile lines developing around his mouth. He’s a good-looking guy. Generic all-American boy (nonwhite version), nicely nondescript.
Convenient, he thinks. Wondering why he thinks this makes him pause in mid-hand-wash, frowning.
Okay, no. He’s got enough weirdness to deal with right now. He grabs his suitcase to leave the bathroom. An older guy at the urinal stares at him all the way out.
At the top of the next escalator—this one leading up to Seventh Avenue—it happens a third time. This episode is better in some ways and worse in others. Because Manny feels the wave of… whatever it is… coming on as he reaches the top of the escalator, he has enough time to take his suitcase and get himself over to some kind of digital information kiosk so he’ll be out of the way while he leans against it and shudders. This time he doesn’t hallucinate—not at first—but he hurts, all of a sudden. It’s an awful, sick feeling, a spreading chill starting from a point low on his left flank. The sensation is familiar. He remembers it from the last time he got stabbed.
(Wait, he got stabbed?)
Frantically he pulls up his shirttail and looks at the place where the pain is worst, but there’s no blood. There’s nothing. The wound is all in his head. Or… somewhere else.
As if this is a summons, abruptly the New York that everyone sees flickers into the New York that only he can see. Actually, they’re both present, one lightly superpositioned over the other, and they flick back and forth a little before finally settling into a peculiar dual-boot of reality. Before Manny lie two Seventh Avenues. They’re easy to distinguish because they have different palettes and moods. In one, there are hundreds of people within view and dozens of cars and at least six chain stores that he recognizes. Normal New York. In the other, there are no people, and some unfathomable disaster has taken place. He doesn’t see bodies or anything ominous; there’s just no one around. It’s not clear anyone ever existed in this place. Maybe the buildings here just appeared, sprung forth fully formed from their foundations, instead of being built. Ditto the streets, which are empty and badly cracked. A traffic light dangles loose from an overhead fixture, swinging on its cable but switching from red to green in perfect tandem with its other version. The sky is dimmer, almost as if it’s nearly sunset and not just post-noon, and the wind is faster. Clouds boil and churn across the sky like they’re late for the cloud revival meeting.
“Cool,” Manny murmurs. This whole episode probably represents some kind of psychotic break on his part, but he cannot deny that what he sees is gorgeous and terrifying. Weird New York. He likes it, regardless.
But something is wrong with it. He must go somewhere, do something, or all of the bifurcated beauty that he sees will die. He knows this, suddenly, more surely than instinct.
“I have to go,” he murmurs to himself in surprise. His voice sounds strange—tinny and sort of stretched out. Maybe he’s slurring? Maybe it’s the peculiar echo of his voice from the walls of two different Penn Station entryway walls in two different Penn Stations.
“Hey,” says a guy in a neon-green button-down nearby. Manny blinks at him; Normal New York abruptly resumes, Weird New York vanishing for the moment. (It’s still somewhere nearby, though.) The button-down is part of a uniform. The guy is carrying a sign hawking bike rentals at tourists. He faces Manny with open hostility. “Puke your drunk ass off somewhere else.”