Moira Binks

Warning: Third Rail. A little thunderbolt shot through the subway’s electric line. Lane listened to the sounds of the wire wondering whether this might strike like bolt or a fence. All things kill some people, he thought. Lane stood beyond the caution strip that prevents the changeable from jumping. It nobbled along the trench, yellow color broken, intermittently, by black lettering: Do Not Cross.

Lane’s pension broke with steps on the tile. Perfect clips reverberated around the empty platform. He looked over to see her, cigarette in hand. She was young, maybe twenty-two and holding the smoke in her lungs. He thought she might never exhale, but she saw him looking, and he turned away the way men do. Perceptibly, preferably, attractively bored. Lane fingered the cardboard corner of his own package but decided against appearing so transparent. Instead he resolved to look further at his rail.

After what he considered a reasonable amount of time, he stepped back from the tracks and sat on the EZ-wipe plastic benches along the back wall. He moved just enough. Perhaps he caught her attention. A newspaper sat alongside him, and, so, he unfurled the leaves in a flourish, turning to fashion or art or some such relatable matter, that, should she manage a step closer, would leave him with a topic by which he might pick up a conversation. “Have you heard about so-and-so doing this-and-that? Yes, it is rather? And how is it that you are so knowledgeable? Really, to be honest, I only just read about it now.” He thought himself charming. If not the looks, then the money….

“Are you really all that interested in fashion, or is it reading?”

Lane tripped after his thought. In fancying, he had forgone his surroundings. Paper open in hand, he looked upon the voice. Much to his surprise, and further to his dismay, they who had interrupted his daydreaming was not the 22-year-old sunbeam, who, incidentally, continued to smoke in the corner, but a lady far beyond retirement bundled in browns and greys of heavy winter coats. She tied herself together with two pink pieces of ribbon that added colour to her otherwise beige appearance.

Closing his paper, Lane looked about the platform and though two were now three, three hardly excused proximity. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll let you get back to your pluming Mr. Peacock.”

Lane flushed in her observation, closing and quartering the paper to a square.

“I just wanted to let you know that if you ever do wish to talk to that girl, your hoping she can read headlines from her end of the platform is neither novel nor effective. Even if she could, you are reading The Post, darling. Their fashion section is obligatory at best.” The grey-bound lady laughed at her own remark. “Mind if I sit with you?”

Lane, who only sat beside himself, moved off of his incredulity and offered a seat. “Of course, please. Here you are.”

“I’m Moira, Moira Binks, but you can call me anytime,” she winked.

Once more flushed to the ears, Lane held himself a breath. “I’ll be sure to get your number,” hoping to catch her whit, he fumbled on the station floor. “My name is Lane, Lane Carter. Where are you off to Mrs. Binks?”

“Please, call me Moira, Mrs. Binks is for my husband, God rest his soul. At worst I am Miss Binks, No! At worst I am Ma’am. Such an insufferable turn of phrase. Time is enough to age me, darling, I am in no need of your assistance.”

“Well then, Moira, it is nice to meet you.”

“Nice? Nice, is it? What do you mean by nice?” she said, pointer and middle fingers indicating her condescension of the term. “If you are going to speak at all boy, at least say something. Here I was looking to speak with a peacock and yet, too alike a peacock you turn out to be. All looks, all flare, but ask it to speak and it may as well be chicken. Bawk if you wish darling, but I haven’t time to listen to the quafflings of a bird in heat.”

Lane was dumbstruck. It was seven o’clock in the goddamn morning, what did this lady want from him? Unhappily amused that he was having to exist at such a frequency on so early a day, he once more held a breath and decided to change tact.

“If I’m such a chicken or a peacock or whichever, why speak to me at all? Even the best peacock squawks like a chicken.”

“You’re too literal darling, it’s exhausting. Peacocks are symbols, Lane, symbols! Noble, brooding, beautiful creatures. Here I am watching you not light up that cigarette, thinking to myself, ‘Now there’s a man with perception,’ but alas, I fear I have mistook you for someone else. Even peacocks in heat are just a bird chasing birds. Aim to be a human darling, women find them far more appealing.”

Lane snorted, “I’m not so sure.”

“Remember darling, you’re a chicken, a cock at best. How women react to you is not how they feel for men.”

“Well that’s hardly fair, you barely even know me.”

“Yet here you are. Offer on offer do I give you reason to leave and yet you stay. Either you think I am right, or you are too afraid to leave. In either case: bawk bawk.” Moira cackled to herself along the platform. The sunbeam looked over, apparently curious at the odd pair. Lane, obviously, was speechless.

“Lovely,” she smiled, “If you haven’t anything to say, it is far better to gawk than bawk. What is it that you do, dear boy? How does someone such as yourself pass time? Are you always sitting with people that are smarter than you?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Obviously, darling. Your notebook’s glaring: black, little or otherwise.”

“Well, I’m employed as one, God help me.”

“You’re religious?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Then hush up about God.”

“Are you religious?”

“I’d like to be.”

Visibly confused, Lane opened his mouth, but Moira continued: “People aren’t to be categorized darling. Pious or otherwise, you’ll never learn anything about a person you sum in a word.”

The air rushed to her proverb as light peaked out ahead the tunnel. She reminded him of his mother. “To Lane I leave the coffer. $20,000 makes soon a fortune.” Who talks like that? Lane looked to his shoulder.

“Shall we?” Moira glimmered. Looping her arm through his elbow, they stood to greet the train.