Jewelle Gomez The Boston Car My grandmother caught me staring at numbers etched above the wristbone of the white woman’s arm. My breath stopped in my throat when she nudged me with her elbow. Already, at ten, I am embarrassed at seeming rude. We sat in the trolley, colored and not, waiting for it to pull out of the car barn across from my house and the space became small. I looked away – at my shoes, at the cracking seat cushions, at my own hands small and unmarked. I glanced next at the sleeve of her coat: black cloth, un-frayed cuffs a bit too short but unremarkable. The buttons in her lap said nothing either – a straight march of dollops leading to her face. The shock of blue/white cotton at the neck stopped me from looking further. Our orange streetcar shook and swayed to life, downtown adventure, the type I still anticipate. At each stop, back and front doors creak as they fold open, an odd welcome in their hinges. Noisy boys, ribboned girls, brown, black, white – Saturday journey-makers – climbed on board, each a universe patched around me like clouds. They dangled loose-jointed from leather straps above the lucky seated, as if to punish us for our fortune. The car rolling on its track is usually soothing but at the sight of her wrist I remember a movie – black and white snapshots of war. Until then, on that trolley, it was all a magnificent fiction crafted to give children nightmares. Today the Boston car travels Market Street – the same clanging sway, orange lumbering beside palm trees two thousand miles from home. Whenever it passes me I see her face, younger than my grandmother’s, but not. At a stop before ours she stepped down from the car and looked back at me – thin brows and firm lips framed by limp curls that did not shine. Her eyes were as dark as an empty room.