Chance and Cheesesteaks

I stood, frozen, amid rush-hour afternoon traffic in midtown Manhattan, staring at the wad of cash a few feet away from me on the sidewalk. The sun was low, hidden behind the New York skyline, and men and women in suits zipped around me on foot while cars skidded toward the nearby stoplight. I, too, had been rushing here and there to make train times and keep appointments. This was the first moment of stillness. My body stood in the eye of a hurricane of movement and sound. My eyes focused on the abandoned money near the drain. What were the chances that I was the only one who’d seen it out of the millions scurrying around in this vertical anthill? This must be my lucky day.

Earlier that morning, resting comfortably on a train to Philadelphia, I’d mused at the luck of the draw. My college writing class had been sent on an all-expenses-paid daytrip to the city of Brotherly Love, randomly receiving a mode of transportation. My name was the last called, and I’d somehow stumbled onto the most luxurious, time-efficient vehicle: an hour-and-a-half ride on Amtrak. With two of my other fortunate classmates, I gazed out the window as states flew by. I wondered at all the steps that had led to this point, reflecting on the choices I’d made and those that had been made for me. I chuckled at the strange phenomenon of life – wandering blindly toward a distant light, banking on the chance it would all work out in the end.

I’d never been to Philadelphia, and luckily my fellow travelers, Lida and Bryan were regulars of the city. Surfacing from the underground tracks, my eyes widened at the breathtaking sight of the 30th Street Station. The high slope of the ceiling, grandiose light fixtures and extravagant molding arched overhead. I breathed in the soft air. It was early still, only about 9:30, and we decided to walk the streets of Center City. The sun warmed my skin as I soaked up the scenery. Bryan led us down aged streets, lined with restored 19th century homes and window boxes overflowing with springtime blossoms. The pace was slower here than in my familiar metropolis of New York. Fewer faces filled the walkways and those present seemed less hurried, languidly plugging forward.

I trailed behind my tour guides, ignorant of street signs or directions of the compass. I liked not knowing where I was and appreciating the view. There was a freedom in it. Soon we met up with another classmate, Alyssa, and began toward the Mutter Museum on 22nd Street. They’d wanted to go, and I’d agreed. I’d never heard of the place, but I liked museums. It wasn’t until I entered the gallery that I realized what was on display. Body parts. Skeletons. The disfigured and the diseased. It was a freak show of medical oddities and malformations.

I looked into the glass cases with awe and horror. There were backlit jars of fetuses with two heads or three arms. Babies were displayed with noses protruding from their foreheads, engorged limbs and missing jaws. Their tiny figures were contorted at unnatural angles and distorted to monstrous proportions. At 21, I’m only five years younger than my mother when she had me. What if I stood there, gaping at the terrifying possibility of what could have been? What if I cringed at the child I might bring to life with my own body? The hair stood up straight on my perfectly formed arm. I wrapped my sweater tighter around my young, normal midsection, thankful that it remained intact.

I went from exhibit to exhibit in no logical order. When something caught my eye, I gravitated toward it. There was a great emphasis on conjoined twins. I spent a long time near the body molds of the first recorded conjoined twins, Chang and Eng, from what once was Siam. The men were connected by the torso near their rib cages, and spent a lifetime bathing, eating, sleeping and working together. Surprisingly, they led full lives. Each was married, and together they had a total of 11 children. They’d spend a week at Eng’s estate with his wife and then alternate, spending a week at Chang’s home with his wife and kids.

I’d learned about Siamese twins in a high school anatomy class. I remember being fascinated by the simplicity of the occurrence. In the zygote phase of normal babies, cells fuse together with their compliments and begin building the tissues and organs of the developing infant. Sometimes, in the case of twins, a cell becomes confused by its sibling’s cells and begins fusing with the other zygote. One in a billion of the body’s cells becomes confused and two beings grow together. Chang and Eng lived attached to each other in the 1800s, joined mostly by cartilage and tissue. If they’d been born just one century later, it would have been a fairly easy surgery to separate them.

I began feeling queasy by the abnormalities. We left. I followed Bryan and the group to northern Philadelphia, where we’d planned to meet the remainder of our class and our professor. At the Foodery in Spring Gardens, we ate sandwiches and told of the day’s adventures. I looked at the youthful, healthy faces of my peers and the others eating and serving food. I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew how lucky they were.

I tried to sleep on the train ride back to New York, but I’d gotten the aisle seat and passengers kept bumping into me on their way to the bathroom. Enviously, I looked at Lida nuzzled against the window, snoring quietly. Later, we shouted goodbye to each other through mobs of rushing travelers in Penn Station. On the street, it was chaos. Friday yanked at people to begin the weekend. I also had plans. I was getting on another train to join my boyfriend in Westchester County for an outdoor weekend music festival. I’d promised to be there in time to see the first band.

I played the lights, crossing down or over whenever I had the right-of-way. I wove through children and tourists, dodging bikers and speeding to my destination. I was dying to grab a shower, and I didn’t have much time. Rounding the corner of 26th Street and 3rd Ave, I was only a block away from my apartment. I’d been keeping pace with a twenty-something man in a stylish red-velvet blazer. I didn’t look at him directly, but kept track of him in my peripheral vision. My purse weighed heavy on my shoulder while I made a mental list of items I needed to pack for the weekend. That’s when I noticed the bundle of bills just up ahead on the sidewalk.

I stopped suddenly. The woman walking behind me ran right into my arm, cursing as she passed. My eyes focused on the abandoned money near the drain. What were the chances that I was the only person who’d caught sight of it? It didn’t seem to belong to anyone. I approached it slowly, waiting for someone to realize they’d dropped it. I bent at the legs and scooped up the mass of dollars. Looking around, I anticipated some sort of repercussion. I caught the eye of the man in the red blazer. He’d stopped, too, and had been watching me.

Smiling, he said, “This must be your lucky day.”

I returned his smile, shoving the found treasure in my pocket. “It must be,” I said. “It really must be.”