THE SUBWAY SUICIDES

The man drove the train every day. Not just sometimes. Every single day. Sometimes in the morning when the air still felt cold and sleepy and sometimes at night when the tunnel lights blinked like stars you could almost touch. He didn’t care which time it was because he liked driving and they needed the money.

He drove all the lines. The Yonge line. The University line. His favourite was the Bloor line because it was the longest.

He could sit in his little cabin for hours, bouncing on his worn-out seat cushion that had a dent shaped just like him. He would listen for the conductor’s whistle then the doors would close and vroom, the train would go into the tunnel. The tunnel always felt like a giant mouth swallowing the train whole.

When he first learned how to drive, right out of subway school, he got nervous about the teenagers who stood too close to the edge. They leaned out like they were daring the train to touch them. He knew if one slipped there would not be time to stop.

They told him at school that you could slam on the brakes. The other drivers laughed and said a train that big would just slide on the steel and keep going over, even over… well, over anything at all.

The scariest thing he ran over back then was a suitcase that tipped off the platform. It made a horrible sound under the wheels, like something snapping in half that you couldn’t put back together.

His friend from subway school once asked him, “What’s the weirdest thing you ever heard of somebody running over?”

The man said he heard about a driver who ran over a ventriloquist dummy.

“No way!”

“It’s true,” he said. “The driver thought it was a kid at first. Scared him so bad.”

That was years ago. Now the man didn’t even blink when teenagers fooled around near the edge. He didn’t care about kids doing skateboard stunts or blind people with their white canes tapping close to the drop. He’d seen it all.

At the end of the day he took the bus home to the apartment he shared with his wife. He always thought that was funny how he worked on a train but still had to take the bus home.

The apartment was a two-bedroom job. She tried to make it nice on his salary. Curtains she sewed herself. A table with four chairs. A little shelf where she put the salt and pepper and the napkins folded into triangles.

He liked sitting with her at dinner and telling her stories about his shift. Her favourite ones were about Halloween.

“At Rosedale I saw a witch. At Dundas I saw a goblin. At St. Clair I saw Evil Knievel.”

One time he even saw a Darth Vader at the platform edge holding out his hand, trying to use the Force to stop the train. That didn’t scare him.

One night, after the Bloor line, he went into the change room and saw his friend from subway school. The friend drove the Yonge line. He asked the man if he wanted to go for a drink.

The man didn’t drink much, but sometimes his days felt the same over and over, so he said yes.

They went to a bar called The Streetcar, which the man thought was funny. No matter what, he couldn’t get away from the TTC. The place was dark wood, yellow lamps, high tables, and booths where your feet barely touched the floor.

The man ordered a beer. His friend got a scotch.

After a while, his friend leaned in and whispered, “Did you hear about the new TTC rule?”

“What rule?” The man worried it was about cutting shifts.

“It’s about suicides.”

The man blinked. “What about them?”

“If you get three jumpers - not all at once, just in your career - you get the rest of your life off. Full pay.”

“Full pay?”

“Exactly. You never have to work again.”

They talked about what they would do if they didn’t have to drive anymore. The friend said he would go to Florida and fish. The man said he would stay home and rest and maybe fix things around the apartment.

The friend got drunk and the man wanted to go home, so he said goodnight and took the bus.

When he told his wife, she said, “Do you think it’s true?”

“I guess so,” the man said. “Why would he lie about something like that?”

“Imagine what we could do with that money. You wouldn’t have to work. I wouldn’t be so lonely.”

“That would be something,” the man said.

A few weeks later, the man had his first jumper.

It was scary, but also kind of ordinary. Not a skateboard stunt gone wrong. Not a blind man with a cane getting too close.

It was late in the shift. The platform was a bit crowded, but calm. People read newspapers. Some talked quietly. A boy hugged his mother’s coat.

The man almost missed it. At subway school they told them to watch close when pulling in. He tried to. But he was thinking about the bus ride home and wondering what his wife was making for dinner.

He had a cramp in his foot and bent down for a second.

When he looked back up, a man from the crowd tumbled forward like a sack of potatoes. His arms didn’t move.

Sometimes the man thought about if someone jumped in front of his train. He thought there would be blood on the window. Maybe a leg. Maybe an arm. But it was not like that.

There was no blood. No leg. No arm. Only the brakes screaming loud. He knew someone had jumped. There was no bump. One time he drove to Barrie with his wife to see her sister. They hit a dog. That was a bump. This was not.

After the man jumped, or maybe he fell, they told everybody to get off the platform. People had to wait somewhere else. Then they closed the whole station. The man and the other train man talked to the police. The man said maybe if he had more time he could press the brakes faster. Maybe the man could roll into the crawl space. Everybody knew about the crawl space. If you fell on the tracks you went there. That is what they said at subway school. The crawl space was the only safe place if the train was coming.

A few months went by and he never liked his job the same after that day. His wife got worried all the time. She told him to quit. She said it more than once. He told her they needed the money. They really did.

One day he was riding the bus to work. He thought about what his friend said before. If he got two more jumpers then he could stop working forever. He would still get paid. He could stay home with his wife every day. They could watch TV in the afternoon or even in the morning. They could watch it whenever they wanted. Then his wife would be happy.

He went to the tavern a lot. He thought maybe he would find people there who were really sad. If they were really sad they might say goodbye cruel world and then jump. That was his plan.

It did not work. One night he talked to a man he thought was very sad. The man was not sad. He was just drunk.

After a while he did not like going to the tavern anymore. It was boring. Then he remembered something. His wife’s sister used to work at a place where people called if they were sad. The people there would talk to them and try to make them feel better.

One night he asked his wife what the place was called. She said it was the Toronto Distress Centre. The man went there the next day and they let him help. He waited for the phone to ring. It did not ring much.

One night a man called. The man on the phone said he was sad. He said he had no money. He said he lost his job. He said he wanted to end it all and goodbye cruel world.

The driver thought, this is my chance. He talked to him for almost a whole hour. He told him maybe he was right. Maybe there was no point in living. Maybe he should end it.

He told him he could help if he came to St. Clair station on Friday night at nine oclock. He said he would wave from the drivers cabin. All the man had to do was jump. It would be easy.

He talked very quiet. If anyone heard him they would tell him to go home and never come back.

When he left the house on Friday he felt happy. If it worked he would only need one more jumper. Then he could stay home with his wife all the time and never have to work.

But the man from the phone did not come. The driver thought this was going to be harder than he thought.

A few months went by and the man almost gave up his plan. Driving the train was not so bad. Maybe his wife could see her friends in the building more. Maybe they could have a baby.

She would be a good mum. She could cook nice things and take the baby everywhere.

The next day he was driving into College Station. He watched the people on the platform. Then he saw his friend from subway school. He was standing at the end. He still had his driver’s hat on. When the train got closer his friend looked at him and waved. It was the kind of wave you give when you know you arent coming back.

Suddenly he jumped in front of the train. There was no blood. There was no bump like the dog in Barrie. The man was very sad his friend was dead and he decided that this wasnt a good plan after all.

He went back to his life and drove the train until he retired.

THE END