SFserial | an online novel

On that evening in early November it was drizzling rain-mist in downtown San Francisco as Brody hurried down the stairs to MUNI. He had planned to put on his running shoes before he left the office; he’d wanted to take a couple of laps around the Kezar Stadium track before he went home. But when the N-Judah train finally arrived in the Powell Street station, Brody looked grimly at its flickering overhead lights and fogged-up windows and decided it wasn’t a night for running after all. He instead envisioned the pizza he could reheat, how quiet his roommate-free apartment would be, and all of the serial cable TV shows he’d recorded and had not yet gone back to watch.

When the train pulled out of Van Ness station and went above ground again, it was relatively quiet. The sound of swooshing cars, the rain against the windows, and the relatively new twilight seemed to communicate what most everyone dreaded: the coming of winter. Like every winter in San Francisco, it would be dark and wet.

There was a strong smell of bourbon in the steamy train, mixed with the usual scents of newsprint, cheap umbrellas, and damp wooly pea coats. Brody kept his headphones on, hoodie up, head down. He stood in the center of the train, which rotated as the train went around corners. It was quiet except for the banter of a couple of men in the back, until he heard a woman–Cherise as he soon learned–saying loudly, clearly, seriously:

“Don’t. Fuck. With. ME.” And the laughter of men, coarse and rumpled by booze: two rough looking guys in tattered clothes sitting to Brody’s left in the second car of the train. Cherise sat across from them, slumped in the center chair of a red-orange bench. She wore a faded orange t-shirt that slipped off her shoulders, a blue plaid miniskirt, ripped dark gray tights, and black boots. Despite the gloom outside the train, her eyes were hidden behind rain-specked aviator sunglasses. Her legs were lazily spread but the pleats of the miniskirt made a puddle in her lap, where her hands were primly folded.

She had a black leather motorcycle jacket and an instrument, a guitar or something, in a puffy black case in the seat by her side. Her hair was black with big swaths the color of merlot. Not really Brody’s type, but interesting to watch. He liked her color scheme.