The Girl on the Train Page #6

I still wanted to believe her.

Homo creditus.

Man the believer.

Pretty f***ing stupid?

Just overmatched.

They're smarter than us.

You know that.

At least you're not one of

the dead guys on the floor.

Does that make me

a suspect?

I don't think you killed

Carl Pruitt.

And I don't really think that she

ever expected you to take the rap.

My guess is her plan was to get rid of

Pruitt and Spider at the same time.

So why use me?

What Spider lacked

in moral clarity,

he made up for

in street smarts.

He knew somebody would have

to take the fall for Pruitt.

Well, she convinced him

it was you...

so he wouldn't know

it was him all along.

But why kill Spider?

I guess she had a short fuse

on this kind of thing.

Tell you

she likes it rough?

She was never

married to Carl.

He didn't seem to know her.

He knew her.

But I decided then and there

I would never be a victim.

The mother

was married to him.

He killed her.

D.A. went for manslaughter.

Carl claimed she came at him

with a kitchen knife.

He was acquitted.

She never said

she was married to him.

What?

Or that he was the one

who beat her. She just...

You look in the mirror

one morning and realize...

it's not only your mother's eyes you've

got, it's the bruises around them.

She just...

She just let me

fill in the blanks.

Turns out the mother insisted that

Carl set up a blind trust for Lexi...

before she'd marry him.

Carl stipulated the trust

wouldn't go into effect...

until he

and the mother died.

She always wanted me

to be provided for,

so he agreed to put

something aside for me.

She cleaned out the trust

three days ago.

I imagine she hooked up with

Spider as a way to get to Pruitt.

He'd represented him

on a couple of drug beefs.

Once Spider laid a hand

on her, his fate was set.

You knew all along.

Be nice if we could see

the rest of the room.

Well, I'll be more careful

next time I drop my camera.

You will get me the footage

that you've been collecting?

So I'm free to go?

I am curious though.

Earlier you mentioned something

about that couple, the Herzmans.

Something you

never told her.

I didn't want him

to do this. Never.

I was in the camps,

just as I said.

And I saw many trains

pass by with prisoners.

But I never

even saw Morris.

That day on Coney Island

was the first time we met.

We fell in love

and were married.

The important parts

are true.

But the story of the girl

with the cross? Your angel?

That I made up.

It was just a trinket

he was selling.

I thought it was so funny, you know,

a Jewish boy selling crosses.

I've worn it ever since.

But it's not even real.

Of course it's real.

It's just not real gold.

When the book publishers

did their fact checking,

they found that the dates

and places didn't match.

Morris came clean, but of course

he lost the book and movie deal.

Why'd he do it?

For the money?

Not exactly.

It was a wonderful story.

It made people happy.

But it's not true.

Agh! It made them feel good.

Do you care when you read a novel

that it didn't really happen?

Are you angry at Shakespeare because

Juliet never said those words?

Our love is real.

Fifty years.

That part is real.

So what's more important?

I gave them something beautiful,

and now it's gone.

Is there too much beauty

in the world?

Believe me, where I was

there wasn't so much beauty.

A story like this would've

given those poor souls...

more hope

than a hundred gold crosses.

That's why I was on the train

when I saw Lexi the second time.

I was on my way up to do the follow-up

interview with the Herzmans.

You will get me

that footage.

You're welcome to it.

She never let me shoot her.

Maybe she was right

after all.

About it capturing

your soul.

She asked me if I'd choose the

great love or the great story.

But is there a difference

really?

In the end, you aren't

who you think you are.

You're who

I perceive you to be.

In the world of matter, you are

uncontrollable, unpredictable,

a babble of random motion.

I capture you in a net of words, and

you are known, if only for a moment.

We imagine we create words.

But what if they create us?

This is the secret poets know.

Words are incantations

weaving magic spells.

If the word initiated

the universe into existence,

what will close it?

Why didn't I tell

Detective Martin?

I guess I was never purely

victim or suspect.

You could say I was

an accomplice of sorts.

Check my heart.

Why did I give her the memory

card, let her keep her soul?

Why did I go back there,

knowing?

Sometimes you just have to

find out how the story ends.

Of course, I did back it up

to my hard drive.

I really do miss

our conversations, Danny.

But this time I'm just going

to have to imagine your side.

In a way,

it's just as well...

since we can't ever

really know each other, can we?

Men and women,

people and people,

we're all alone

in the end.

But maybe that's okay.

It's what makes us hope and fear

and sometimes love each other.

It's what keeps us awake

at night...

and makes us pull the blankets over our

head against the glare of morning.

It's the throbbing in your brain at 4:00

a.m. as you look for the bathroom...

in some stranger's apartment to piss out

the chemicals from the night before.

It's fingers

scratching across tiles,

my knees pointed at the ceiling,

my back arched like a cat's.

Love is a religion,

a denial of death,

a descent into fiction

and improbability,

a lighting of candles,

a bridge to the impossible,

a lunatic babbling

on the uptown I.R.T.

It is this tenement basement with

its stink of cockroach and death.

It is Jesus above Rio.

...denial of death.

It is sex and it's withering.

It is blood on the floor.

You will kill for it

and die for it.

It is hope

and the death of hope.

You'll open its shroud and see your

face etched in dirt and sweat.

It fills you and empties you

in the same heartbeat.

A bridge to the impossible.

It is hope

and the death of hope.

Love without sex

is life without death.

Sex without danger

is God without the devil.

If you can't risk being damned,

don't imagine you can ever love.

Love straps your arms

to the cross,

drives nails

through your hands and feet.

Love is the spear

that pierces your side...

and the blood and the gall

that splashes to the ground.

It is a rag of vinegar

pressed to your lips...

and the thorn

pushed into your scalp.

It is a desert mirage,

an echo in a cave,

your own words

returning to mock you.

It's every great painting

you'll ever see...

and the way we know art from the scratchings

an elephant can make with his trunk.

Hard center or soft?

Soft.

Never much cared

for the hard center.

Nor I.

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