We fought the monster the night Krista arrived in Philadelphia.
 
Last August, my niece Krista met up with me in Center City, where I'd been putting in some late billable hours. She wore a tank top with flower appliques, shorts, Doc Martens, and a sheen of sweat. The airline had lost her luggage, so she had only her little leather purse. I declined her offer to push me and my wheelchair to my apartment, where she'd also be living during college.
 
We headed for the subway. I shoved at my wheels with gloved hands. Thick hot fog hid tops of buildings and haloed streetlights. Krista fanned herself as she happily babbled about exploring the city.
 
The streets were mostly empty. There was, however, one group of bros on the sidewalk in front of the Iron Hill Brewery. They called as we passed:
 
"Baby, where you going? Slow down."
 
Age and my later life in a wheelchair had freed me from the male gaze. Whenever possible, I wore shapeless sweats and tank tops, no makeup. Kept my salt-and-pepper hair short. Nobody messed with me. Wouldn’t have given a shit if they had. Too old, too tired to care.
 
But that night, I shepherded Krista, my niece; when my family had all lived in Harlem, I'd often babysat, spoiling her with sweets, scarring her with horror movies. Then my brother's family had moved out West to a small town with one bus line. Her decision to come back East for college had pleased me greatly.
 
And my job, as I saw it, was to prevent her from being fucked with.
 
A guy called, "Honey? Excuse me? I'm afraid you dropped your smile."
 
Krista tossed her long, beaded braids, which clickety-clacked. We sped up.
 
"Turn around and let us see your face, bitch!"
 
A chorus of laughter from the corner.
 
I wanted to be a wolf with long teeth and a muscular jaw. I growled, knowing that the tire iron (for the occasional wheelchair flat) in my backpack was my fiercest possession.
 
"Hey, honey?" This from an approaching pie-eyed guy in a Phillies jersey ending mid-thigh. "I like your style."
 
"She's not interested," I said through a clenched jaw.
 
"Wheelie, I wasn't talking to you."
 
I rolled my eyes into my skull. "Here's an idea," I said cheerfully. "Go play in traffic!"
 
"Oh!" he said. "Wheelchair bitch is a bad bitch." He lunged at me, laughing.
 
A dude from the pack yelled, "Yo, man, leave them alone."
 
"Shut up, you fucking pussy," Krista's admirer said, returning to his pack. Shouts rose.
 
Krista and I hastily went our way. After a few minutes, she said wearily, "Pissing them off isn't safe." As if she were my guardian.
 
"Whatever," I said, knowing she was right. "Let's get the fuck home."
 
We circled the massive stone city hall with its lit-up clock tower, atop which stood the almost forty-foot statue of William Penn, indifferently observing Center City. We passed a bus shelter where someone had posted a picture of Gritty, the orange, googly-eyed Flyers mascot. 'Bad Things Happen in Philadelphia,' text below the grinning Gritty advised.
 
On Broad Street, we arrived at the subway elevator. Its glass door displayed its slow-moving mechanical guts. I put my face to the door, watching the car rise.
 
Inside the car was an erect penis, the shaft long and pinkish white with an impressive girth, the body to which it was attached hidden (or so I thought) from view.
 
I violently wheeled backwards. My arm shot out, blocking Krista from the elevator.
 
"What?" she said.
 
"There's a guy masturbating in there," I said.
 
She laughed. "No way."
 
"I'm serious. Get—"
 
The elevator opened. The penis was there, its owner (presumably) still hidden from view.
 
"Yo, dude!" I said.
 
"One second," said a gravelly voice.
 
The elevator door shut. The car descended.
 
"Oh, for the love of sweet Christ," I said and pushed the button to call the car again. "Sorry about that."
 
Krista stood silent and open-mouthed.
 
"Krissy? You okay?"
 
She raised a trembling hand to point at the elevator. "Penis!" she whisper-screamed.
 
"Look. We scared him. He'll be gone when the elevator comes back up."
 
"No. It was a dick. A dick without a body. It—it talked!"
 
I tried to see into her big brown eyes. She liked her psychedelics from time to time. I said, "I think—no?"
 
"I know what I saw!" she shouted.
 
"Hun, how you feeling?"
 
"I'm fine. The problem is that penis."
 
The quiet grinding announced the return of the elevator.
 
We put our faces to the sticky glass of the door. The car slowly came into view.
 
And there was the penis.
 
Why? The jambroni knew people waited, and still they had their dick out.
 
"Now you'll see," Krista said triumphantly. "Move over there."
 
I didn't want to be dealing with this fuckery. But given the elevator was the only way to access the subway, the alternative was a forty-five-minute wheel/walk up Broad Street. So, I rolled to the right, sighed, and got ready to say some righteously angry shit.
 
The elevator door opened.
 
The life-sized, circumcised penis hung in the air at roughly waist level, not held up by a pelvis nor anything else. It began with a tangle of black hair; below the white, blue-veined shaft dangled a pair of wrinkled testicles. The tip of the shaft curved up slightly.
 
Krista and I shrieked.
 
"I said one second!" the penis growled. With its words, its urethral hole opened and closed, a tiny vertical mouth.
 
The doors shut, and the elevator car descended again.
 
"Did you see it?" Krista cried. "Did you see it?"
 
Dizzy, disbelieving, I pushed the button again. "It has to be a prop or something," I mumbled. "Maybe a drone?" My heart beat double-time, making the hot night hotter.
 
"Is that even legal?"
 
"Huh. I don't know."
 
She glared at me.
 
"I'm a tax lawyer, Krista."
 
I heard the returning elevator car. "Take the stairs," I said. "I'll meet you down there."
 
She made a dismissive noise. "I'm not letting you ride that thing alone," she said.
 
I opened my mouth to argue, but the elevator doors opened. We peered in.
 
"It's gone!" said Krista.
 
We hurried into the car, a sauna stinking of mildew and urine. We descended.
 
That's when I noticed the wetness on my wheels and gloves. There was a splatter of milky fluid on the floor, too.
 
Krista grabbed my arm. "There," she whispered. "Oh God, look, look!"
 
On the floor in a corner lay the penis: pinkish bulbs in a bed of black hair, a white wilted shaft. It didn't look like a robot, a prop, an art student project.
 
"Shit!" I said, yanking my tires backwards, colliding with the wall.
 
The elevator continued its leisurely pace downward.
 
With a strangled cry, Krista kicked the penis. It bounced off the elevator wall and landed with a meaty plop.
 
"Stop," I said. "We have to take this to somebody."
 
"Wait." She grabbed my arm. "Wait!"
 
The penis stirred.
 
Then, before our astounded eyes, it levitated. It rose above our heads; its drooping shaft swept the air like a little fleshy metal detector.
 
Krista and I cowered beneath it.
 
"Say," the penis drawled. "How you ladies doing tonight?"
 
Krista shook her head violently, lashing her braids about. "No," she said. "No. No."
 
"What the fuck," I said. Was I dreaming? Dead? "What the fuck."
 
"There's really nothing to get upset about," the penis said.
 
The elevator finally reached bottom and opened. I wheeled out so fast I almost flipped over. I joined Krista in a race through a hall of the cavernous train station mezzanine (the level between the street and the train tracks). Fluorescents yellowly lit green-and-white tiled walls streaked with dirt and rust. No other person was in sight.
 
We fled because we were underground and alone. Because a penis was talking. Because the men from the corner earlier had not left our minds.
 
After a sharp corner, we reached the turnstiles. The doors of the disabled entrance/exit flapped open. I wheeled through and skidded to a stop.
 
Krista jumped the turnstile just as the penis rounded the bend, about ten feet away, floating like a tiny dirigible, its rigid shaft pointing at us.
 
"Stay where you are," I roared.
 
"Why?" the penis asked innocently.
 
Krista and I backed up. "We're catching a train," Krista said.
 
"So am I! But I'm lost. Where do I go to get the northbound?"
 
"Over there," I said hastily, pointing to the stairs to the southbound platform.
 
"I should accompany you gals," it rumbled. "Dangerous to be out this late."
 
I gripped my tires and bit the inside of my cheek. The taste of blood squashed any remaining hope that I was dreaming.
 
The penis closed in. "I'm very friendly. I can show you the sights."
 
We retreated farther. "We're trying to get home," Krista squeaked.
 
"I know," said the penis. "That's where I'm going, too." Then it recited my Spring Garden address.
 
I gasped.
 
Krista stumbled and fell. I reached out to grab her as she sprawled on the concrete.
 
"Oh, no, baby, watch your step!" said the penis. It put on a burst of speed and darted, bat-like, into our faces.
 
I flailed.
 
The penis swooped away, balls swinging. "Whoa, there," it said.
 
I wrenched Krista up by her bicep, almost falling out of my chair.
 
The penis laughed. "Honey," it said between chuckles.
 
"Fuck off," spat Krista.
 
"What do you want?" I asked.
 
"Well," the penis said. "I saw the pretty lady," here the shaft nodded at Krista, "and decided to make her mine." It paused. "Forever," it added casually.
 
Krista and I exchanged a look of animal panic, turned, and took off running/wheeling. I wrenched at my wheels, bent forward to gain speed. We needed a second elevator from the mezzanine level to the tracks. "There," I said, panting, pointing the way.
 
At the elevator door, I mashed the call button. "Come on, come on, come on," I chanted, watching the elevator car slowly ascend.
 
Krista shouted. I turned. The penis was almost upon us.
 
"Oh my God," I said. "Please, please leave us alone!"
 
"Hey girl," the penis said in its deepest baritone yet. "I've got something for you."
 
"No, I've got something for you," said Krista. She pulled a small canister from her purse, aimed it, pressed a button. Pepper spray. The penis thrashed in the mist, fell to the ground, twitched.
 
We cawed in triumph between coughs and wiped our tearing eyes.
 
The elevator to the tracks opened, and I wheeled in; Krista sprang inside. I slammed buttons. The doors slid shut.
 
As we descended, we watched the penis through the dirty glass. The thing writhed on the ground a bit and then lay still.
 
But a moment or two later, it slowly drifted aloft and treaded air in a wobbly circle. The shaft seemed thicker, longer, the tip redder.
 
"How?" I whispered.
 
"It's a fucking Terminator," Krista cried.
 
I felt my pulse throbbing in my face.
 
The elevator dropped until the view of the penis disappeared.
 
"What now?" I rasped.
 
She plucked at my arm. "If it finds the stairs—"
 
We exchanged goggle-eyed glances.
 
Then, from my backpack, I fumbled out the tire iron, a foot-long steel bar.
 
The elevator reached the platform as an orange-paneled train pulled into the station. We whooped and then yelled in dismay as the end of the train passed us. The train stopped, but the last car was a few yards ahead of us, just past the stairs to the mezzanine. Krista ran. I followed, the tire iron in my hand clanking against my wheel spokes.
 
We reached the train, but its doors remained closed. I looked behind us.
 
There, at the top of the stairs, floated the penis. "Fucking bitches!" it somehow thundered. "You're dead!"
 
The train doors finally opened with the ringing of a bell. "Walnut-Locust, a wheelchair accessible station," a feminine voice announced.
 
Krista dashed inside. I did a little wheelie to get in. The only other occupant of the car was a man sleeping at the other end. I whirled around.
 
The penis had descended the stairs to the platform.
 
My blood ice, I held the tire iron as if at bat.
 
"Please stand clear of the closing doors," the train said. "Next stop—City Hall."
 
But the doors remained open.
 
The penis flew into the train, right at my eye level.
 
I intercepted it with the tire iron, a direct hit. The blow sent the penis flying out of the car and into a pillar.
 
I held my breath.
 
The penis shook itself.
 
I bared my teeth and brandished the tire iron.
 
A bell dinged.
 
The penis shot forward. It collided with the closing doors and, for a moment, hung from the glass like a giant piece of pasta. Then, it fell and disappeared.
 
"Yeah!" Krista shouted.
 
"Yeah!" I yelled. "Go to hell, you fucking piece of shit!"
 
The train pulled out of the station.
 
"Jesus. Jesus Fucking Christ." Krista, her face tear-streaked, grabbed my shoulders. "Are you all right?"
 
"No." I wanted this to be true. "You?"
 
She shook her head as she wiped at her face with the backs of her hands. She scanned the car and the single other passenger, who still, incredibly, slept. "A monster penis. Nobody will believe us."
 
"But we did kick its ass," I said.
 
"Yeah we did." She collapsed with an oof into an orange plastic seat and looked out the window to the view of receding tracks in the low-lit tunnel.
 
I parked my chair next to her. "We get off at Spring Garden." I held onto a pole, rocking with the train. "Hey, you must be starving. I don't have food."
 
"I hope you're not suggesting we go out," she said. "I want to be behind a locked door. Maybe until graduation."
 
"Delivery it is. Look. Philly's actually a great city."

Julie Ann Rea's work has been published in several places, including ellipsis . . . literature and art, Roanoke Review, and Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. She is the author of Crazybugs (Scantic Books 2021). A graduate of the C.C.N.Y. M.F.A. program, she teaches and writes in the Philadelphia area. You can find her online at https://www.juliereawriter.com/.