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Pain fled about his body, first localizing in his stomach, then in his head, but always coming back sharply into his arm.
    The train slowed down and stopped at the next station. Vince felt the blood collecting in his palm. If it didn’t stop it would start to drip on the floor of the train. No, it mustn’t. He had to get to 18th Street first. He looked out of the window. They were in the 80s. He closed his eyes again.
    The doors closed and the train started. Vince drew in a ragged breath of the stale air. He opened his eyes and saw that a young Negro couple had come into the train. He looked blankly at them, sitting on the other side of the train and down a little ways. They weren’t talking to each other. Vince’s eyes moved to the girl’s sweater she wore underneath a sport jacket. He swallowed and closed his eyes again.
    A rattling sound filled his throat and he shivered violently.
It hurts!
Suddenly he thought of his playing. Would his left hand be ruined?
    What’s the difference?
he told himself.
I’ve only got one thing to do that matters and that’s to free Ruth
.
    He started to remember about her. He remembered the party at Stan’s where he’d met her. He remembered how they’d sat on a couch all evening and talked about music. She’d been so lovely and clean with her red knit dress and her shiny blonde hair with the ribbon in it. He had loved her from the start. Then later they had gone into the study and he had played for her. Then—he tightened at the remembrance—Jane had come in and spoiled it all, dragged them back into the noise and the smoke.
    Clean, clean, clean. The wheels seemed to say the word as the train rushed through the black tunnel. Not like
her
. He closed his eyes. It was better she died when she did. If the car hadn’t gone over the embankment someone would have killed her sooner or later, the way she carried on.
    Your mother was a bitch, pure and simple.
    He stared at the floor dizzily. The noise of the train wavered in his ears and he had to keep blinking to keep the view before him from blurring. He swallowed. The air seemed hard to breathe.
    His eyes fled across the train. He saw the Negro girl looking down at the floor beside him with a look of revulsion on her face. Quickly he looked down.
    A small pool of blood was collecting near his left foot. He almost cried out.
    He looked up and gasped as a man got up and started over. Vince shoved up and backed against the door. He drove his right hand into his pocket and gripped the gun. The man stopped and looked at him curiously, then his eyes moved down to the bulge in the coat and he backed away nervously. He bumped into the seat he had just vacated and fell down awkwardly.
    Time seemed to stand still. Vince thought he’d scream. The train went on and on, and all the people kept staring at him. He wanted to kick his way through the door. He didn’t care if he was flung into the blackness, but he couldn’t stand to have all these people looking at him.
    The train started to slow down. A station, he’d have to get off here. He had to have help. His teeth chattered and he felt a chill run through him. The train stopped and he almost fell out as the door slid open. He bumped into a young couple.
    “Say, watch it, Mac,” said the young man irritably.
    Vince shoved past them with a sob. The young man said something he didn’t hear and then the door closed. Vince staggered across the platform and was afraid he was going to fall. He heard the train start and saw that no one had followed him out of the car, although several of them were glued to the window looking at him with wide-eyed curiosity.
    “Pigs!” he screamed, and was drowned out by the train.
    He staggered further and collided with the tile wall. He leaned against it gasping for breath.
    Then he saw a sign that read
Men
, and he pushed away from the wall and made his way to the doorway. He tried to push through the door. It was locked. He stood there staring at it. But he