Atlantic City

A woman is shepherding her child, a young girl wearing a jacket stamped with gold foil medallions, along the platform. She closes tight the girl's zippers and straightens her belt while the girl wobbles patiently with her arms outstretched and makes small, unformed sounds. “Oooh. Oh.”

She cleans the child’s nostrils one at a time. She lets the platform know that “it's a hard crust!" she's dealing with. She instructs the girl to wipe her mouth and “Lick it. Li-ick it.”

Turning her attention to herself, she exclaims with disgust that her boots are dirty again though she just got through cleaning them before they left the house. The girl bends and brushes her mother's calf-suede toes with a mittened hand.

It is Monday, around 10:30AM. We are waiting for the A Train at Utica, hoping for an express.

“Two pairs of jeans,” the woman says. "Two. A hat and some gloves. Not like these," she bats the child's woolen cap. "A scarf. Then I’ll take you to Chanel’s.” A Santa Claus list recited in April. The girl, distracted, accepts the long strand of promises with a soft "yeah."

"You got change, coins?" The child produces three quarters.

"Gone take the A to 42nd. Then we get the bus." the mother says. Her speech is a rich stew of vowels. "LanihCidee," she says.

She is wearing her wallet around her neck, on top of her coat with her ID card displayed behind a piece of clear plastic. She has a moist cough and gets up to expectorate in the garbage can.

By the time she returns, the girl has produced a cell phone. Spotting it, the mother demands the time, which the girl gives automatically in a voice I can't hear.

"What you pay for your phone," the mother asks. "Fifty dollars? You jest put twenty on it?"

"They take the phone you in school," she warns. "Teacher know you got a phone, you... better put it someplace she don't find it."

The child is busy now, punching letters into the device. Unwilling to be ignored, her mother pokes her.

"What you say to Shardea?"
"You say, 'Hey man,' say 'Hey man.'"
The child nods slightly, but continues working the phone's buttons.

"You say, 'Yo!'
"Say 'Hey, yo man.'" The girl remains silent.
The mother goes on in the singsong cantor you use to teach babies to talk, "Hey man."
"Hey, yo man."

On the train I lean way over to catch sight of the two of them sitting on the other side of the doors. The mother is reading a string of numbers from a piece of folded white paper. The girl has her head inclined toward her mother's shoulder and is looking straight ahead.