text: Derrick Martin’s shoes clicked rhythmically down the stairs of the Park Street subway entrance in downtown Boston. He knew every step, every brick out of place in every wall, he viewed the imperfections as checkpoints; this place was an extension of the office that had become his true home. He was later than usual. Hours earlier he had discreetly glanced at his watch as his clients mulled over details that didn’t need to be mulled over. He would have stopped them if he wasn’t being paid so handsomely in six-minute increments. He usually left the office around eight-thirty. Today, he reached his subway stop at ten-fifteen. He was starving, but the Dunkin Donuts that was usually bustling with customers had pulled its gates shut. In fact, the whole station seemed incredibly quiet. There were only two or three other people in sight at the other end of the underground terminal. The footsteps of his Italian Faragamo shoes echoed through the underground terminal. The grit on the tile floor sounded like sandpaper as his feet swept to a stop. His train wasn’t due for four minute so he decided to sit on the worn wooden bench facing the tracks. The streets and subways of Boston were much neater than those of New York, Chicago, and definitely LA. This was one of the reasons Derrick had decided on Boston when he uprooted his family from the home they had loved in rural North Carolina. It was simple, the money was better in the bigger city. He felt he was wasting his Ivy League law degree on the petty cases he’d been working on at his father’s firm. He felt out of place at his Yale reunions. “But, we’re happy here, the kids are happy here,” she had said. He checked his watch. He loved checking his watch because it reminded him how much he had paid for it, which in turn reminded him how successful he was. Ten-seventeen, two more minutes. He wondered if the racket coming down the stairwell only seemed loud because the subway stop was so quiet. The old shoes coming down the stairs squeaked with every other step. A ragged looking man appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Don’t come this way. Don’t come this way. Derrick thought. The homeless man looked left, towards the long, dark tunnel where the train would soon appear, and right, towards Derrick. He began to shuffle towards Derrick. Derrick pulled out his iPhone and began to scroll through emails he knew he had already read. Fires he had already put out. He pulled his briefcase closer. He could feel the man looking at him. Giving in, he looked up and found the man standing directly in front of him. “Look, I don’t have any money, okay? I’m sorry. Move along.” Derrick attempted to sweep the man’s existence away with the brushing motion of his right hand. He looked back down at his emails. “Well how’s a man with no money got his ass sitting in an Armani suit?” The homeless man countered, showing a victorious grin with only a spattering of teeth. Derrick had to forfeit a smirk, it was kind of clever. “What makes you think this suit is Armani?” It was, but Derrick was curious. “What makes you think I didn’t used to own one, son?” The man quickly countered, and Derrick felt his heartbeat quicken. “I’m sorry, it’s not that...never mind. I didn’t mean to assume. Here, I think I have some change.” The man wasn’t moving. “Now Why’d you go and do that?” He asked. His patchy beard moved with the contours of his face. Bits of dried food were visible. Derrick was annoyed now. He stopped digging for change. “Why did I do what?” “Y’Got all tense when I was just tryin’na make a joke.” He began to move towards the bench, he was going to sit down. He smelled like the sewer. Derrick quickly thought of the day in the gun shop when he decided he didn’t really need a gun in Boston and walked out empty handed. “I didn’t mean to get tense. Don’t sit. I’m just trying to get home, alright?” Derrick tried to hide the nervousness in his voice and thought he had done a pretty good job. He pulled his briefcase against his side. The man laughed. “Boy, you must not be from around here.” He continued to laugh as he pushed up from the bench. He walked closely alongside the tracks away from Derrick. He was singing now. A song Derrick had never heard. Why was he so fucking happy? Derrick felt at ease as the man’s singing became more and more distant. Just then, more noise came from the long staircase the first man had come from. These footsteps were lighter, softer. “Julian! Where in the hell’d you get off to now?” It was a woman’s voice. Raspy. She was smiling as she turned the corner, as if life was some kind of joke. Her teeth were yellow, rotting. She looked much like the first man, who Derrick now realized was the Julian she was after. She was filthy, her hair was matted. The lining was falling out of the bottom corner of her stained winter coat. As she approached Derrick, he once again wrapped his arm over his briefcase. She didn’t even look in his direction. Julian was what she was after. Derrick wished the train would hurry. “Baby, come back!” She yelled after him. Julian was still singing, happy as ever. She caught up with him, wrapped her arm around his waist and began to sing along with him. Their song filled the terminal. The lights of the train began to illuminate the tunnel. Derrick checked his watch, ten-nineteen, right on time. His hair fluttered as the train pushed a wall of air into the open expanse of the terminal, he fixed it right away. The brakes screeched loudly as the long train came to a stop. Derrick got on and chose a window seat. He sat down making sure he didn’t touch the railings or the handles on the seats, no need to waste Purel. He put his briefcase on the chair next to him so that no one would sit there, even though the car was practically empty. As the train began to pull away from the Park Street stop, Derrick looked back at Julian and the woman. There they were, still singing, blissful ignorance Derrick thought. Derrick walked up to his house, his black Lexus was just where he had left it in the driveway, such a beautiful car, he thought. He wouldn’t dare drive it into the city and risk having it stolen or vandalized. He punched his randomly generated six-digit code into the panel on the door. He always scoffed at people who used their kids’ birthdays for passwords and codes. Derrick walked into the quiet, breathtaking complex he called home. He left his shoes neatly by the door. The kitchen was immaculate, almost untouched. The state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances were more for decoration now than anything. He grabbed the cold styrofoam take-out container from the top shelf of the fridge and walked upstairs. He passed his son’s room on the right, and then his daughter’s on the left, their bed frames sat in the darkness. He entered his room, and turned on his mounted plasma television. He didn’t care what was on, he needed the company. He sat at the foot of his bed and put the takeout on the floor in front of him. He sunk slowly into the custom-made, specialty fit, king-size bed he had ordered when they moved in. As he began unbuttoning his tailored dress shirt, he smirked at the idea that Julian and his filthy girlfriend would never know such luxuries.