Waiting for the subway to come
He decides to leave the city. He packs a small backpack with his toiletries and a bottle of water. He waters the plants. He locks the door. At Grand Central he boards the next train leaving the station. It is a Harlem line train bound for Poughkeepsie. The conductor reads off the names of the stations. A bell rings and the train begins to crawl north.

At 125th, it pauses. He looks out the window at the empty streets, the brick towers. A gentleman's club passes beneath them. He sees trains tagged with graffiti, and the start of chain restaurants that line hte tracks. Soon the train comes alongside the river, and he spends his time staring out over the water. He remembers a story of how the stones quarried from the cliffs now support brownstones throughout the city. Spring is a week old, but the trees are still bare. Brown leaves cover the ground.