The express and local trains are neck-and-neck on the track at 42nd Street. The local has to slow down at some point, though, to accommodate the 50th Street stop, and as it does, the express seems to pick up speed as it barrels down the track en route to its next stop at 72nd Street, three beyond 50th.
“Fucking showoff,” I think. “Bully. Kicking sand in the face of the little local.”
As the trains separated, I swore I saw Charles Atlas, standing akimbo in all his line-drawing back-of-comic-book glory, smirking through the window, as if he’d actually won something.