No AC to DC

It’s that time. I’m off to Penn Station. I’m taking the B line to what is, kindly, the B list of train terminals.

And then my subway mysteriously skips my exit point, Herald Square.

It doesn’t really even skip it.

It just chugs, almost apologetically, except with no apologies forthcoming.

The train stops, jolts, then hits number 42, Bryant Park. Mixing mathematics and geography I try to way find.

Taxi, Lyft, risk the reserve subway journey, walk?

Why not make the best of it? A brisk walk through the park will still get me to the church on time. It’s 2:36pm. Plenty.

However, 9 blocks and 2 avenues in 85 degrees with 2 bags is not wise.

The route is thick with foot traffic and the huge growls of New Jersey trucks slumping around corners like punchdrunk old heavyweights rolling into the 11th round.

The heat starts to close in, the famous New York late summer humidity taking me under its all-encompassing cloak. The only consolation to the inevitable is my black attire.

Hitting 35th and the air around Penn Station shifts from New York’s usual mix of trash, heat, and grilled food with a side of oxygen to a majority percentage of pungent nostril-flaring skunk weed. The crowd gets more renegade, the intensity levels crank.

Gasping into the station’s greasy bowels with 3 minutes until departure, I’ve in fact timed it just perfectly. Straight on…