Don't Stop Believin
It goes on and on and on and on.
Hidden Tracks is a series of stories inspired by songs that meant something when I was the right age to let them all the way in. Each one takes its title from a song and finds the fiction living inside it. You don’t need to know the songs. But if you do, I hope you feel what I felt in somebody’s basement a long time ago. Someone else understood.
See all Hidden Tracks stories →
She sat on her hands until Cadillac Center.
Not because the seat was cold. The whole car was cold. The People Mover always felt over-air-conditioned after midnight. She sat on her hands because they wanted to pick at her cuticles until they bled. They wanted to grab the door handles while the car was still moving.
The car gave its little electronic chime and rolled on.
Black window. Lit platform. Black window again. Each station gave her face back for a second, pale and flat in the glass. Brown hair tucked behind one ear. Mouth pulled into a thin, white line. Teeth grinding.
Across the aisle, a man in a Tigers cap slept openmouthed. Two teenagers got off at Broadway and laughed too loud on the platform. After that it was just her and the hum and the recording voice thanking her for riding.
She counted stations to keep herself present.
Grand Circus Park. Broadway. Greektown. Bricktown.
