The elevator took her to close to the turnstiles, where Viv now did need to pay. The crate didn’t fit through the turnstile, which was narrow enough for some New Yorkers not to fit. A swinging door on the side was available for wheelchairs. Viv put her credit card on the door’s reader to pay for a single ride — doing this for one second was loads better than buying a MetroCard and guessing how much money you needed to put on it. She threaded the crate onto a narrow platform, full of people and columns and people and advertising placards and people.

  Being in a warm environment brought out the smell of the blanket. People gave her a notable wide berth, like those videos of a shark swimming through a school of fish. It didn’t feel dignified, but it kept people’s fingers away from the crate and thus attached to their hands.

  A train pulled up, labeled as the 2, Brooklyn-bound. Viv did geographic math to figure that Brooklyn was the right direction, and pushed her crate on. It was a crowded train. Sure enough the crowd moved to either side like Moses parting the sea for her and Stinky. Whatever, she was warm for the moment.

  Viv held onto the center pole of the subway car as the doors closed and the subway rolled off. An awkward minute of everyone’s eyes avoiding Viv, everyone awaiting a pitch for money that would never come. The subway stopped at 66th St. People scooted around her to get out, new people scooted around her to get on. A few people got a whiff of Viv’s crate from the platform and decided to get the next train.

  Stolen story; please report.

  She took out her phone and again studied the map. This red line’s tracks were directly underneath Broadway, which slashed across Manhattan’s grid pattern like a sash. The train wouldn’t go anywhere near Rockefeller Center, which was on the eastern side of Manhattan.

  The train stopped again, doors opening at 59th St. To get to Rockefeller Center, she needed to … switch trains at 59th St.

  The doors were about to close.

  Viv pushed the crate out so quickly the animal inside emitted a squawk. The 2 train inhabitants filled in around her, but not completely, since the blanket smell lingered.

  What animal made a squawk like that? Many of them.

  Viv followed the signs and the elevators and twenty minutes of hassle to get a crate from one subway platform to another one on a different level. Not a single person offered to help, which was both useful for Viv in the moment and saddening for humanity as a species.

  Eventually she pushed the crate on a D train, two stops from Rockefeller Center. Again, the seas parted to let Stinky aboard.

  But this train had friendly New Yorkers.