Congratulations to Michael Thomas

The New York Times Book Review has named Michael Thomas' first novel Man Gone Down one of the Ten Best Books of 2007. This essay, "Who's Your Daddy?", appears in Issue 4 of APS.

It would seem simple for most: my brother, who still lives in Boston, has managed to get tickets to game two of the American League Championship Series between the Red Sox and the Yankees, enough for me to take my son and two friends. But after leaving work, I stop before entering the subway: I have a momentary lapse of faith, and it keeps me from going underground.

I hesitate for different reasons: The first is that I’ve always been scared of riding the New York City subway—being greeted by the turnstile arm to the genitals, and then the blast of inhuman-human odor, mixed with dead rat in the walls: like the filthy mop-head smell I remember from being a stock boy in a grocery, it reminds me of being a chump.

The second is that I have a plan, and going under symbolizes my commitment to it—that I believe, on some level, it will work. Back in my drinking days, before I had children, I would’ve stopped in a bar and thought about it over pints and shots until it was too late to do anything—a foolproof system for a fool—keeping me and mine safe from any notion that my ideas make sense, that they matter, and are good.

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