Nick Chiarkas is the author of thrillers Weepers and Nunzio’s Way. You can find out more about him on his website www.nickchiarkas.com, or by clicking here, read his last post here, and buy his books here.
In the late 1960s, my NYPD partner (Tom Kenney) and I responded to a killing on a subway platform. The killer was transported to the precinct by detectives. Among the witnesses were two men in their late 40s who lived in the abandoned subway tunnels under NYC. My partner and I drove the two men to our police precinct for questioning. The men sat in the back of our radio (police) car and talked to each other about their day in the tunnels.
There are three levels of tunnels. The further down you go to live, the less likely you will ever return to the surface. These two men had just moved to the second level but were still coming to the surface to panhandle or steal food and clothing. One man told the other that he went down to the third (lowest) level that morning and found the secret stairway.
He said, “I went down about thirty feet below level three and heard talking.”
“Did you see them?” the other man asked.
“No, you know what happens if you look at them.” Both guys nodded.
“What did they say?”
“They were talking over breakfast, nothing terrifying. One said he was there when God made everything; He said God just waved his hand…it was the best trick I ever saw, he said.”
My partner and I would smile occasionally, but I was jotting down notes. Finally, I asked, “So, what’s 30 feet below the third level?”
“Hell,” he said. “There’s a stairway behind a secret door; I started goin’ down but stopped when I heard them talking.
“Who were they?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It sounded like just two guys.”
“What were they talking about?” I asked.
“They were –
“Shhhh,” said the other man. “They know we’re talking about them.”
I kept the notes, wanting to write something about this. Of course, I do not believe what those guys said in the back of our car, but they believed it.
I wrote a poem about what the two guys in hell might have discussed over breakfast on that rainy morning in NYC. I hope you enjoy it.
THIRTY BELOW by Nick Chiarkas
So good to have breakfast again
with you, my friend.
Were you out there, Nathan,
walking
when the world was created?
Did you see His Swindler’s stroke?
Mountains rained upon fields,
skies flew over seas,
and the rule was pushed, as I this salt to you,
to the reverence of reason,
the gentle, impervious splendor called man,
and for their consumption, plants bore fruit.
I hold the report:
His mountains are empty of secrets,
His waters stagnate beneath green film,
His fields are drab with dust,
His skies brown and diseased,
and the reverence of reason feeds on their children.
Yes, God love you; I am overly hard.
He is not without gifts,
and though they fear it will arrive
as it began,
with a repulsive thump,
as children await Christmas,
they await death.
Were you there, Nate?
Did you wear your woolen sweater?
A great story of those two men. I can see how you would write a poem about them. I liked the poem but didn’t quite understand it. That story and that poem could inspire a book.
Thank you so much, Carl, I appreciate your kind words.
Nick, thanks for sharing your poem. How wonderful that you took that moment to compose, then kept it all those years. It can be illuminating to see our early writing compared to where we are now. Better, worse, the same, or a mix, depending on the story elements?