Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

“You’re a riot,” said Tim, smiling as his heart pounded. He retrieved the glasses and put them back on and saw that the man was looking at him with a gaze that could only be called appraising. He wanted to give this god a playful shove, and thought he could probably get away with making it look like only that, rather than his desperate desire to touch this person whose name he didn’t even know. The streetcar stopped in front of them. “I’m Timothy Laughlin, by the way.” “I’m pleased to meet you, Timothy Laughlin.” Tim had time enough to see that the man was pleased, but then the doors of the streetcar opened and the most terrible thing imaginable happened. As the two of them boarded, three other people, two women and a child, got between them. Standing in the aisle of the crowded car as it went down Pennsylvania, struggling to see past those three other souls, Tim only briefly recaptured his acquaintance’s attention. The young man gave him a helpless shrug and a relaxed smile that seemed to say: Oh well, sorry about this little turn of fate. Tim got off—there was nothing else to do—when the car stopped in front of the Star. He waved goodbye from the sidewalk, unsure whether the man could even see him. Standing in the doorway of the newspaper’s office, he watched the streetcar continue on its eastward way, and he knew that if he lived to be a hundred, he would never be more in love than he was now.