By Accident

At the corner of 8th Avenue and W 39th Street, David stands, blinking in the morning light, finally surfacing to air outside the tiled hallways of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the busiest bus terminal in the world.

Slowly, dazedly, he paces to a street corner, shifting the shoulder strap of his overnighter. He’d slept jaggedly on the pleather seat of the Trailways overnight bus, and now is confused by this hectic city he’s been ejected into. He takes a deep breath. He touches his wallet in one pocket, his cellphone in the other. So far, so good.

Hello, New York.

Throngs of people hurtle past him on either side. Horns are honking, Billie Jean is blaring from someone’s boom-box, and dozens of feet are pounding. Through the cacophony, people swipe at cellphones, sneak looks at others, and spew out pointless filler.

At the corner, the traffic light shows the orange hand Don’t Walk icon. Yet people keep crossing, most not even looking up until halfway across the street.

David frowns. Walking on the Don’t Walk? In this traffic? His earliest training makes him stay put, even though the guy beside him keeps going, barging past, straight into the intersection.

The shiny black Lexus, emitting an irritated whine, veers around the guy — but the silver Jaguar on the other side does not stop; in fact, it accelerates to overtake the Lexus.

A thud, a shout.

A figure bounces upward. A strange, flopping thing with no more muscle tone than a man-shaped bean bag.

Everything happens too fast for him to mentally process. David shrinks back. He nearly loses his balance, and grabs the nearest shoulder of a woman, who is also recoiling. She whips around and swears at him.

And now, suddenly, there’s a freshly fallen heap of clothes in the middle of an intersection. David stares at it, looks nervously around. It’s a movie scene, right? Somebody set this up, right?

The crowd noises change to gasps, to shouts, to questions. “Omigod!” “What the?” “Did you see that?” and “Anybody get footage of this?”

On the corner diagonal to David, a dark-haired woman is speaking into her cell phone. Her mouth is moving, her eyebrows are furrowed, and her gaze is drilling into David as sternly as if he has caused the accident, has somehow pushed the guy beside him into the path of the Jaguar.

The light changes to the Walk icon, the jaunty pixelated marching-man giving permission to cross the street, the avenue, the abyss, even the River Styx.

But for one person, this crumpled heap of gray windbreaker and khaki pants, there will be no further attention paid to Walk / Don’t Walk.

David swallows hard, disbelieving. Gran had a saying for times of bad outcomes; she had a whole psalm, in fact, but he can only remember the one line, so he murmurs it: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

He doesn’t know why he says this; it just seems the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, people crossing the street walk around the heap. People frown at the heap. Two motorized scooters swerve past.

The stern dark-haired woman is still talking into her cell phone. Her elbow is leaning on the handle of… what?is A pushcart, David guesses, as he ambles toward her. The cart is a small cupboard balanced on two bicycle wheels with a third, tiny wheel out front. On top is a tray jam-packed with her wares—lots of cut-up fruit in smoothie cups—and a bouquet of straws, forks, and skewers in a large jar at her elbow.

She shoves her phone in her pocket, grabs the handles, and pulls back to reposition her cart. “Fruit! Fresh fruit!” she calls.

In the distance, a siren wails, growing louder.

David claps a hand over his right ear, the same ear that caught Gran’s last whisper as she lay on her deathbed three months ago. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

The ambulance careens through the intersection, slowing, as people and motor scooters flee before it, like leaves getting blasted away by a leaf-blower. Two paramedics are fast and skillful as they scoop the heap from the busy street, deposit it on a gurney, then wrap and strap their bundle.

David sees the man’s spiky, matted hair sticking out. After the ambulance drives away, the dark wet patch on the dirty pavement is all that’s left.

He turns around, remembering suddenly—the Urban Reels Workshop! The letter of acceptance had said that someone would be outside the bus terminal, holding a placard for the group. He scans the crowd but sees no sign-holder.

“Fresh fruit. Smoothie,” the dark-haired woman calls. “Start the day right.”

As the cart inches toward him, fresh fruit strikes him as an excellent idea. He surveys the plastic cups containing sliced mango, strawberries, watermelon, and combinations thereof.

“What will you have?” she asks. She is close to David’s age—a surprise, because her quick reaction to the accident made her seem more responsible and thus older.

He studies her face, the round cheeks, the curve of her lower lip. The perfect philtrum. Classically beautiful—the type to make him lose his nerve, so he tries not to dwell on it.

She is all business, except.

Except what? He tilts his head, trying to figure out. Details are crucial and he tries to replay the past ten minutes, the shocking scene of death pouncing on a random stranger.

“You were the one,” he says to her. “You called 911.”

“Yes, I called,” she says, and her eyes glisten.

“Do you think he’ll make it?” David asks. It’s a dumb thing to say because, really, he wants to know something else, something he can’t yet put into words.

She shrugs, almost imperceptibly, and stares at his hand. It is trembling. “What will you have?” She readies a cardboard cup holder, the thing designed to fit around the cup’s girth. She waves her other hand over the yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks of her fruit tray. She names a price.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. In her last week of life, Gran had intoned that psalm every day. He got used to hearing it while the radio was jabbering away, and the birds were singing, and the old hound was barking in the background. Gran welcomed death; she did not want her family to feel sad. But he can’t help it.

He remembers also that Gran told him to settle down. He, alone of his cousins, was not married or courting someone.

The dark-haired woman interrupts his reverie. “I pray to God,” she says. “My brother—” She breaks off. She frowns, collecting herself. “What fruit you want?” she demands.

He points to a mixed cup and selects a weathered fiver from his thin wallet. He can barely afford to travel to this film workshop, but he needs something to stop the trembling, the shock of seeing. He looks around, surprised at how everyone else is pretending the accident never happened.

Her face softens as she tells David about her kid brother, and the human trafficking she suspects he’s been sucked into. She says, “In case you see someone with pineapple on arm like this, send him here. To my corner.” She shows David her one-inch tattoo on her inside wrist.

“Film School!” shouts a woman with a clipboard. “Film School! Urban Reels Workshop!”

David has to hustle off and join the filmmaking summer school. A half-dozen people gather around a minivan with URW painted on the side. Holding his fruit cup as he joins them, David feels a little foolish for looking touristy. But he’s earned this bursary for a month-long school on filmmaking, young people from all over the country who want to kickstart their college film studies course.

He glances back at Marta — assuming the fancy logo on the cup sleeve is the dark-haired woman’s name — and sizes her up, wondering how she perceives him. Not like a director-wannabe, he hopes, although he is clad in black jeans and black T-shirt just like his classmates. It seemed most practical for travel.

Another siren wails in the distance. Their eyes meet and she closes her eyes, slowly shaking her head, as if suggesting that he erase the accident scene that plays repeatedly in his mind. He tries not to think of the unmoving lump on the gurney.

Her eyes flicker between him and the group.

He raises the fruit cup in a silent toast to her. It is the first time he sees her smile. A flash of white, like the flick of a deer tail. She lifts a pineapple—a real pineapple—from her pushcart and mouths “tattoo.”

He wonders how long she has been looking for her brother. And what, exactly, human trafficking is.

The film students are dropped off outside their building, a former convent they call “Saint Hilly’s.” They are given welcome packages. They get to choose their preferred size and style of T-shirts—but are randomly assigned dorm buddies. They are invited to the quad, where they attend a welcome barbecue.

A large punch bowl has fruit set around it, including a fat, juicy pineapple and David thinks briefly about Marta. And about Gran, who swore that “a good barbecue knits a family together.”

*         *         *

Every morning a new topic is taught; every afternoon they work on assignments. David’s mind fills with the theory of composition, symbolism, Sergei Eisenstein, Foley artist skills, and a cornucopia of topics. The instructors are real film people with loads of IMDB credits. They are enthusiastic and deeply knowledgeable about their fields. Drinking from a fire hose: David can’t take it all in.

His roommate Aidan is just as blown away, but has a better working knowledge of New York than David does. For the segment on perspective, Aiden sets up their tripod near the Flatiron Building. For motion, he brings them to the Greenway Bike Path. And so on.

They wander the streets, stumbling from one eatery to the next, starving themselves until they get back to Saint Hilly’s, where they wolf down the plain, simple fare included in their bursaries.

One day the whole class goes to Battery Park and David expects to be bored by the cliché of the Statue of Liberty. But no, it stirs love and pride in him. Gran had seen it once as a girl, and David remembers how her voice slowed and softened as she said the name, “Statue of Liberty.” And then she made a very typical Gran comment. “Funny how a woman represented Liberty, considering women didn’t even have the right to vote back then.”

He prepares photos to submit for a portfolio at the end of summer school. Grandma’s Weltanschauung, he titles it. It contains black & white photos of things like the “Win Big at Bingo” billboard outside a church… toddlers playing in front of a man with a rifle.

Over the month of film school, David and Aiden roam far afield, always looking for good shots. Outside a nightclub flashes a neon sign, a pineapple. And David wonders, has Marta heard from her brother yet? Human trafficking stories pop up in the news from time to time. David wonders if Marta could lead him to a story.

*         *         *

At the end of summer school, David returns to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He is standing off to one side as the pedestrians rush pell-mell when he sees a black Lexus, speeding up for an amber light while people pour mindlessly across the street, oblivious to the Don’t Walk light.

He holds his breath. The scene is eerily similar to the first accident. Nothing has changed: the dangerous, big vehicle; the impatience of idiots.

Idiot? Speed addict?

If he’s learned anything this past month, it is this: Do not label. Go discover. This is his big takeaway, to always be open to new stories—and to get at their root.

And no accident happens. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

A plan takes shape.

He could set up a tripod over here, focused on this incredibly busy intersection, passively filming—possibly for days—until the next accident occurs. Then, he would have a record of the license plate numbers of everyone involved. And he could set up interviews in their “natural habitats.” A business executive rushing to her company’s IPO. A student hurrying to his favorite class. A wedding photographer who overslept. David yearns to understand these people who are so focused on a future time that they forget their own safety. He wonders why these things become so all-encompassing, that a person will risk life and limb.

He looks catty-corner from where he stands. Marta is there with her pushcart of fruit smoothies. He’s down to his last five bucks in change but he’d like to follow up with her. At least capture the story of her pineapple tattoo. Find out when and where her brother got separated.

He waits at the intersection to cross.

The End