Read Online City Living by Will McIntosh - Free Book Online Page A

something that was moving. People were standing, brushing off their behinds, and going back to heading wherever they were heading. The only difference was that instead of wearing their hats everyone was carrying them, on account of the stiff breeze. New York City was on the move, and I was on it. I let out a whoop of pure pleasure.
    Willard looked at me like I was nuts. “How are we gonna get back home if New York is leaving?” he asked. He looked downright scared.
    “Relax. We’ll hitch back. Give us a chance to see more of the country.” I started walking, not sure where I was going but liking the feel of city pavement under my country shoes. Even if Chicago had attacked Boston (which they hadn’t) there was nothing for me to do about it, so why not do a little sightseeing?
    Willard huffed. “That’s easy for you to say. All you’ll miss is a few medical classes.”
    “If I end up being your doctor you might wish I hadn’t missed those classes,” I joked.
    “I don’t show up for work, I don’t get paid.” Willard stopped. “Where are we headed, anyway? I thought we was going to see the Yankee game.”
    What I really wanted to see was the engine under the city. They didn’t give tours, but I figured there must be some way down there.
    A fetching young woman hurried by. “Excuse me.” I trotted to catch up with her.
    “ Now where are you going?” Willard shouted at my back.
    The woman glanced at the steel bracelet on my wrist, which they put on you at the entry gate when you pay your two dollars. She kept walking.
    “Pardon me, but can you tell me how a curious country boy might get down to see the glorious engine that runs this fair city?”
    “He can’t,” she said. She was walking darned fast. Her high heels clicking on the sidewalk made it sound like a tiny horse was running alongside me.
    “Not for just a minute or two?”
    “ I’ve never seen the navigation center. No one gets down there.”
    “Oh.” I tried not to sound disappointed.
    “If they let people see it, the design secrets could get out. The designers don’t want that.”
    “The designers,” I said.
    “Yes. The dream team.”
    “Tesla, Crowley, Gurdjieff, Bohr, and Jung.” I ticked them off on my fingers.
    She gave me a puzzled look, like she’d just heard a steer sing opera.
    “So is it true that y’all give blood to keep the city moving? It said so in Life magazine.”
    The woman smiled her city smile. “Did it?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” When the war ended, everyone thought they’d just put the cities back where they’d been, the residents who’d been temporarily kicked off would climb back on, and that would be that. Then the mayor of Chicago got his city moving, and of course everyone else had to follow.
    Willard’s cheap old pocket watch was suddenly six inches in front of my nose, blocking my view of the street. It was quarter till one. “Joe DiMaggio is taking batting practice right now. If I’m gonna get stranded in Texas or California or wherever we’re headed, I want to see the New York Yankees while I’m taken there.”
    I sighed through my nose. “Fine. We’ll see the Yankees.”
      
    The subway was lit bright, but smelled cool and damp like a cave. We waited by the tracks until we heard a whistling sound, then wind rushed through the tunnel, bringing a whiff of something dead with it.
    I couldn’t see anything through the train’s windows, which was disappointing. I once read that there were all kinds of tunnels under New York, dug for sewers and electricity and trains, and that people lived in them and ate rats and never came out of them. I would’ve liked to see one of those people.
    When we got aboveground again, Willard rushed us along toward the gates of the stadium. “Come on, I don’t want to miss Joe Di’s first at-bat!”
    “Game’s been canceled!” a newspaper seller shouted at us. He was a fat man, with hair poking out at the neck of his collar.
    “Oh, no,” Willard moaned.