Free Painted Cities by Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski Page B

follow each tunnel, see where it was going, all this in advance, as if they were viewing it from above.
    They initiated new members with a turn at the lead, telling them to simply calm down if they felt lost, because a true spelunker has this “sixth” sense. “Remember,” they said, “you always know where you are, always.” And they were always right.
    From time to time a spelunker would pop up out of nowhere, through a basement door, coal hatchway, chimney flue, or in the subbasement of an L station or tavern. “Excuse me,” he would ask of anyone in sight. “Do you happen to know the time?” And the spelunker would wait, patiently, sweaty, his face covered in grime. Behind him, the flashing yellow lights of companions could be seen, small talk could be heard: “The best way is under Ogden Avenue, by far. Maybe Pershing as an alternate.”
    “What about Archer?”
    “Ends at Western.”
    “Aaaah.”
    The stunned civilian would check his watch and reply and the spelunker would always ask, “A.m. or p.m.?”
    “Thanks,” the spelunker would say, when he had his answer.
    “Eleven o’clock, boys,” he would say as he was turning. “ A.m.! ” And a small cheer would go up as the spelunker would shut whatever grate or door or wooden trap he’d come from, and disappear.
    I remember these characters as if they still run through my life. I remember these characters like I saw them just yesterday, scurrying across the L tracks or down into a deep gangway. They were all soshy, so secretive, but when you saw them they’d salute, smile, just a little happy that they’d been seen.
    DISTANCE
     
    C hano says he’s never seen the wall open, but I know it’s a lie. It’s one of those things you never pay attention to, it happens so many times, like the sunrise, or a freight train running across your neighborhood. I pay attention when I see the wall open. You see things out there, the horizon, tiny stone islands like miniature castles. “Water-pumping stations,” the professor says. “Not castles. We don’t have castles where we live.”
    The professor tells me the wall was first built to keep the Indians out, then the Russians. He throws up his hands. “It’s a relic,” he says. “A piece of machinery left over from an age of fear, fright. Things are different now.” Still, the wall stays closed, except to let the ships in. Those we sit and watch.
    We walk along the piers with the professor. He is old and decrepit, so he has to hold on to my shoulder. The others walk ahead. Chano, Sylvia, Suzie. I can hear them talk, sometimes about girls, boys, sometimes about movies. Sometimes they make fun of me, call me an old man. They turn around and giggle. Mostly, though, I pay attention to the professor.
    “All the time we used to go up there,” he says, looking to where the pedways used to span over our heads. “We used to fish and swim down here on the docks, then walk up the ramps just to sit. We’d watch the sun travel across the sky. We’d see birds, peregrinefalcons, hawks. Sometimes they’d swoop down and pluck a fish from the lake with those huge talons. Ah,” the professor says. “It’s great to see birds in the distance.”
    I look to the abutments, the ramps leading to nothing, and try to imagine bridges, pedways, crisscrossing over my head, the view that must have been afforded. All that’s left now are the rebar innards of the reinforced concrete, which bristle from the ends of the abutments like things to hold on to when you’re falling over a cliff. Layers of multi-colored graffiti cover the walls, and from one abutment a lone metal handrail just out of scavengers’ reach dangles and reflects the sun.
    I seem to have a memory of looking over the wall. I seem to have a memory of watching the sunrise, seeing the pastel pink-and-blue shades of the horizon. I have a memory of fins in water, dolphins or sharks. And I have a memory of birds gliding, sometimes diving steep, bombing dives, and