On the platform between the subway tracks, a young woman was playing the violin. A few dollar bills and coins were scattered over the inside of her case. She played semiclassical versions of pop tunes that Maria couldn’t quite recognize. The music was nice, and the young woman had a sweet, pleasant face, but as soon as she got onto the crowded subway car Maria knew that she had made a mistake. It was a simple procedure, they had said, but not that simple . . .
I was born in 1962 in Stuyvesant Town, a middle-class housing development located on the East Side of Manhattan. When I was young, I used to see an older kid who rode his ten-speed bicycle through the neighborhood. He always wore a Superman costume, and he steered the bicycle with his feet, with his hands always high over his head and his red Superman cape flapping in the wind behind him . . .
