David and Iris played cards in the lounge car for an hour, then went back to their seats to find the aisle across from theirs empty. They stretched out and slept peacefully until the dawn light of Minneapolis—Iris up and out the door to smoke on the platform and David yawning an hour later downstairs with his toothbrush as the train moved along the Mississippi. They had a five-hour layover in Chicago and Iris found a pub for a decent dinner and David called Ray with a Looney Tunes gangster accent: “See heeah, Marooney! You’ll nevah guess wheah eye am!” and Iris rolled her eyes and said, “That’s the last time you do that, thank you.”

They boarded another train that would land them in New York the next day, and Iris fell asleep, but David couldn’t. He went to the service car and read nervously while a man across from him had an open bottle of Sailor Jerry on the table, to whom an exhausted Amtrak guy walked past and chuckled, “You’re having a good night!”

David gazed at them in his grey sweatshirt, his unwashed trails of dirty-blond hair, his black Dickies, his fingernails painted gunmetal blue. He went unnoticed as they moved through industrial Indiana. Outside was all dark. The train service was called the Lake Shore Limited, and it advertised brightly, See America’s Third Coast. They’d be out of the Great Lakes by sunrise.

David went back to his seat and tried to sleep. He asked a different exhausted Amtrak guy if they’d be turning the lights off anytime soon. “The lights are off,” the guy said, without emotion, looking right through him.

“Wake up! Wake up, you weasel.” Iris shook David’s legs sticking out from the love seat.

“Weasel.” He’d been more drunk-dozing than sleeping, and he was instantly awake. “Where’d weasel come from?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know. Get up. The boy’s coming back with bagels. We’re getting you a real-deal New York breakfast.” David stretched. “Thanks for putting me up.”

“Your first night in town!” Iris said briskly. “Had to show you a good time.”

“What was that bar called again?”

“Pianos.” She dug in her bag. “Don’t forget it, sweet cheeks. It’s hoppin’.”

“Sweet cheeks. Who are you?”

“A girl who can’t find her fucking cigarettes, apparently.”

“I have some.” The locks turned and Iris’s boyfriend entered with greasy sacks and a tray of coffees.

“Oh, thank heaven alive,” said Iris. “Let’s go smoke, eat, and be merry.” The boy kissed Iris and knocked on her roommate’s door; a hand emerged with money and a thank-you, and then took a sack and disappeared again.

The boy was indeed real sweet. Wore a motorbike jacket and played in a band. Said, “I like your nail polish, man,” to David when he and Iris’d straggled up the escalator from the train at Penn, gross and sweaty.

They ate on the fire escape as Iris smoked, looking over Delancey. David was still in sensory-shock overload. He’d never been east of Texas before this. Had always thought himself a city person, too. But. You know. Jeez. He ate his bagel staring at the skyline, at the endless clouds that did not part from endless glass. Last night, Iris had pointed out a view of the Chrysler Building, and David had blurted, “That’s a real thing?”