"We headed uptown one night with a distinct lack of festivity. The subway car was an oven, an older red one with patchy linoleum flooring that sank down when we stepped on board. We took a seat just inside the door. A dozen New Yorkers were sitting in bubbled spaces on long benches that stretched the length of the ancient car, not looking at each other.

"But it was hard not to notice the one person standing by the middle doors, holding on to a pole with one hand, and an egg salad sandwich with the other. He must have been four hundred pounds. Shaped like Humpty Dumpty, his bulk topped with a blue baseball cap, pasty face darkened with new beard growth. With each bite, his brown eyes rolled upwards, as if in ecstasy."