make that old man WHIMPER!!!

This was why he made it a point, no matter what to always take the subway. You could meet anyone and everyone in the city by taking a ride through the city's veins.

Now, only two days out from the close of the NYC mayoral election, it was even more important that he show up for his people.

"Mr. Sliwa, look!"

Curtis turned. It was a young man. Barely more than a kid. He was pointing to a poster on the wall. The same one he’d noticed earlier and chosen to ignore. The kid’s hand held a small can of spray paint.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" Curtis barked. "Who are you– Cuomo?"

He stormed forward, his voice rising over the clatter of the train. "This is exactly why we need more police in the subways! You think this is your personal art gallery?"

Applause rippled through the car as one of his campaign aides and a current Guardian Angel, grabbed the kid by the arm. When the train pulled into the station, Curtis made sure to strike a tough-on-crime look for the cameras as the vandal was escorted out.

Then he froze.

Across the platform, in the train pulling in from the opposite direction, another man stood shaking hands with passengers.

Curtis glanced back to the poster that the vandal had tried to deface. It was a mayoral ad and the man on that poster wore the same winsome smile as the one across the platform. He hated that damn smile.

But he wasn’t about to let anyone vandalize it. Not on his watch. He might despise everything the man stood for. Socialism, softness and self-destructive idealism. But as much as he hated to lose the race and watch crime rise in the city. What he hated even more was outside interference in his city.

Billionaires, outsiders, agitators… they’d already sunk their claws deep enough. This was New York City, dammit! Let New Yorkers decide for themselves. That was why he couldn’t stand Cuomo, the sex pest sellout.

Now he found himself looking across the platform. Across the aisle. Zohran, the naive charismatic fool was in the middle of shaking another hand, when as if by magnetism, he looked up and made eye contact. The man's smile froze as he tilted his head, thoughtfully.

Curtis scowled. The strange bolt of electricity suddenly running down his spine– He ignored it. And stepped onto the platform.

"Mr. Sliwa! Wait!"

Rusat, his campaign aide, rushed forward, having clocked what was happening on the other side of the platform. Curtis paused as his aide leaned forward to murmur hurriedly in his ear.

"This isn’t smart. We’re too close to the polls to risk a scene."

Curtis turned to give his aide an incredulous look before scoffing and shaking his head. But still, when he saw Zohran stepping forward out of his own train, he hesitated.

Why did he feel this strange rush? You'd think he was getting shot at in a Yellow Cab by the Gambino's and Gotti's the way his chest was suddenly pulsing.

It wasn’t a good idea. One wrong move now could crack everything open. Rusat was right. 

And yet.

He was no damn coward. He hadn’t backed down from mobsters, billionaires, or the city elites. He sure as hell wouldn’t back down now. Not from this pull that dragged him forward, not from the rush of heat that made him wonder if he'd taken his medication today.

Let New York decide for itself.

Let him decide for himself.