Rizzo Sprayberry-A New Day?

As her house began to fill up with the usual strangers on their way to or from work, Rizzo folded her bed back into a duffel bag. She didn't care that all these passengers were seeing her in her pajamas, that was the case every morning. Besides, a couple of years ago she was so hot in the middle of the night that she slept naked. When she woke up late the next morning, Oscar the butcher was staring down at her with wide eyes, her nude figure barely covered by a sheet. Nothing could be as embarrassing as that. This morning, he was sitting in his usual red plastic seat, the one closest to Rizzo. She understood his knees were bad so he had to sit near the door, but why did he have to sit practically on top of her? Anyway, she rethought sleeping naked.

Every morning, the train left the Washington Heights station at 5:30 and arrived at the Washington Heights Uptown station at approximately 5:34. She slipped on her second-hand snoopy slippers and trudged out of car #1 and into the Uptown station; her clothes were squished in a Manny's Grocery plastic bag and her frayed towel was slung over her shoulder. The bathroom in the station's far left corner was dank, poorly lit, and smelled vaguely of turning dairy products. She was still trying to decide if that was really the way the bathroom smelled, or if it was just Jessica- the homeless transsexual who had spent her life savings and sold her condo to be surgically transformed from Jason. It killed Rizzo to see her living like that. Even the subway car was better than a bathroom. That bathroom was absolutely disgusting, but for some reason, it had a shower. She showered off quickly, using a crumbling bar of soap as shampoo and body wash. At the same time, she skillfully held her nose to avoid the deadly stench. She dried off, quickly got dressed, and still managed to have time to hand Jessica the leftovers from last night's dinner. She did all this and ran back to the platform just in time to slip through the doors of car #1. In the 19 minutes that it took Stephan to return back to the Uptown station, Rizzo had prepared to start a new day. Since she had gotten clean six months ago, any day where she could speak in coherent sentences was a new day and a fresh beginning.

Rizzo Sprayberry, Subway Car #1

Even with her eyes closed, Rizzo could see the fluorescent lights flicker frantically through her paper-thin eyelids. She could smell the fresh, buttery crust of a croissant in her midst. Every morning at 5 AM, Stephan restarted the train's service in time for the residents of Washington Heights to make it to their minimum-wage, dead end jobs. He had clearly visited the bakery before he walked into car #1. He bent down towards Rizzo and got just close enough so she could smell that as usual, he hadn't brushed his teeth. "Do you believe in hygiene at all Stephan?" Rizzo sarcastically commented as she hesitantly opened her droopy eyes. His cracked smile was staring back at her. "Good morning darling," Stephan exuberantly said. Even though Stephan had been waking Rizzo up every morning for 4 years, he still didn't understand that she was not a morning person. He also didn't understand that in Washington Heights, if you are fortunate enough to own a toothbrush, using it would be wise.

Stephan walked to the front of car #1 and placed his coffee, newspaper, and croissant inside his conductor's booth, fully loaded with bulletproff glass of course. He turned on all the train's electricity and started the motor. This line of trains stopped running at 11 PM everynight, Rizzo's favorite part of her day. At 11, She would curl up in the back corner of the car, snuggled with lots of pillows and blankets, and read Stephan's newspaper from earlier that day. She loved learning about current events from all over the world and on Sundays, cutting cupons occupied an entire hour. When she read about places like Indonesia and Spain, Rizzo closed her eyes and using her imagination, transported herself there. She really couldn't even afford a newspaper of her own let alone a vaction, and besides, Stephan only read it for the cartoons.