Editor’s note: This is my attempt at a short story. It came from
watching and observing different people on the train and fictionalizing their
lives. This person’s story stuck with me for some reason, probably due to its
resemblance to my own. I would love to know what you think…
He ran.
His loafers rubbed at the already thin socks on his feet,
adding to the calluses on his little toes and pushing on his heels. His suit
jacket flapped out, pants drooping under his belly a little more.
Thirty feet to go, then the 22 stairs. The whistle blew. He
had to make it, or sit and wait for another hour.
Tie slung over his shoulder, he turned the corner and took
the stairs two at a time — 2, 4, 6, 8 … 18, 20, 22. He waved to the man in the
funny little hat and shouted for him to hold the train. The conductor nodded,
silently telling him to hurry.
••••••
He started testing time a few months ago, more than anything
to add some excitement back into his life. The commute into his office held
little to no mystery, so pushed back when he left the house for the train
station.
He regretted that now.
He punched his ticket, took the steps up to the car marked
“Coach Class,” noticed theother man’s funny little tie clip on the third button
of his shirt, and started looking for a seat.
His feet throbbed. He couldn’t stand the whole way. “Please
let there be a seat,” he thought, almost aloud.
A ball of sweat rolled down his nose, even though it was
just January. His skin turned splotchy red from the desperate run.
There was a place six rows up. And remarkably, someone
wasn’t slouching in it, snoring away. He had the entire row of two all to
himself. He sat, pulling up his pants as the train pulled away. He was
exhausted.
•••••••
But he couldn’t sleep. That often happened on days like
this. Mornings that started way too early and ran deep into the evening. He was
lucky, and he knew it, because the man with the funny little hat and tie clip
had recognized him and held things up. He wondered how, in the sea of faceless
people, the man had remembered.
The train jerked slightly to the right, then straightened.
It did this every time it pulled away from the station, allowing him to tell
the veterans from the rookies. Regular train riders hardly noticed; newbies
cocked a half smile and made an offhand comment to the person sitting next to
them. He knew this from experience, plus he fancied himself to be a casual
eavesdropper.
At least the newbies spoke. They and a couple of veteran
riders who were trying to convert you in some way. Commuter converters, he
called them. They made nice for the first couple of minutes, checking out your
political leanings, whether you had a family, what your job was, occasionally
wondering if you had a church, and then they started on their agenda. The sound
and the fury varied, as did the subject matter, but the dulling effect on his
senses felt the same.
The morning talkers were the worst. The previous week he had
gotten stuck next to a newbie woman wearing too much perfume. She was heading
to a job interview for a position that she would never get because of her
smell. It didn’t compare to the strongest, fuzziest cup of coffee he had ever
consumed, but he didn’t have the heart to say anything. By the time the train
stopped at his station, he was too tired and woozy to work.
That wouldn’t happen today. He was on his way home, for one,
and no one dared to sit next to him. He looked down at his belly and thought to
himself, “Who would want to?”
••••••
He’d been on this train for 21 years, traveling up and down
an hour each way into the city. His wife had wanted to live farther out, so
they found a house that looked like every fourth house in their neighborhood
and moved in. The kids — a daughter now in college and a son, now in high
school — were bored suburbanites consumed by shopping and the Internet. His
wife, the administrative assistant to the county judge, was looking at
retirement soon.
The first stop took eight minutes, four seconds. By this
time, he had settled into his comfortable routine. Take out the laptop, open up
the reports and start to shuffle papers. By the third stop — 22 minutes and 19
seconds out, give or take — he had finished his task and started looking
around. It was better than laptop Solitaire.
Twenty-one years on this train, he thought, and what to show
for it? No major injuries. No wrecks or derailments. No robberies. He had not
been conned or converted. He had seen towns grow and decay at each stop,
wondering what was happening in the lives of those around him.
One morning, on the Amtrak, he met a woman with a scarf
wrapped around her head and headphones poking out of her ears. She shifted
occasionally in her seat, but remained still for most of the trip. He wondered
where she was going and decided to ask. It wasn’t like him, but he couldn’t
resist.
“I’m going home,” she said.
“Me, too. Where’re you headed?”
She told him of the town up north. She had been home to bury
her mother, leaving her husband and seven children behind. Her husband was
self-employed, and they couldn’t afford for everyone to go.
“They didn’t like her much anyway,” she said by way of explanation.
••••••
Usually, he didn’t talk, even though on some days he wanted
to. He had been a gregarious type on high school and college, with
acquaintances who seemed to appreciate his wit and playful nature. That’s one
reason his wife was attracted to him. Or at least had been.
He worked for a government agency, like most everyone on the
train, sitting inside a cubicle with his family’s pictures on the desk. Mostly,
he pushed paper from one stack to the next, then into the outbox. Some mornings
he daydreamed, with thoughts of playing hooky and touring the museums.
It wasn’t a bad life. Just dull, he thought, as he saw the
next group get ready to disembark. It was the fourth stop, 31 minutes and 40
seconds out. The person opposite his seat had gotten off one stop before. A
woman and her child walked down the row, holding hands, sat next to him, their
seat still warm.
The child, a girl of 3, looked nervous. She was the newest
newbie he had seen in a while. Occasionally a group of school children went
into the city on a field trip, pissing off the commuter converters who didn’t
like to be squeezed in on “their” train. A little man who rode the same route
always asked the tie clip attendant, “What the hell is this?” as the school kids got on, followed by, “I hope
you’ll make sure they stay in their
car.” It was the only time the little man, as he had been dubbed, ever spoke.
But this child looked different. She was younger than the
school children, for one, and there was something about her eyes.
“Hi,” he said to the little girl, who buried her head in the
woman’s chest. “It’ll be OK.”
The woman looked down at her child and kissed her on top of
the head. The little girl peered at him, a thousand questions hovering behind
those big, innocent eyes.
“Is this your first time on the train?” he asked.
She nodded.
“You’ll like it. Look out the window,” he said, pointing.
She lifted her head and saw the river, then said something
unintelligible to her mother.
“Lift up your feet,” she said then, a little louder.
Her mom pulled up her knees. The little girl motioned to
him, “Lift up your feet, or your toes will turn green.”
••••••
He did as he was told. The little girl’s mother looked at
him and said, “It’s a little game we play; it keeps her occupied when we are in
the car.”
He smiled, and asked the woman where they were going. One
stop beyond his, she replied. They would be on the train together for the rest
of the route.
The little girl looked out the window at the trees. “What’s
that?” she asked repeatedly.
Her mother patiently gave her an answer every time she
asked, occasionally looking over at him and rolling her eyes slightly. He was
intrigued.
After the sixth stop, 44 minutes and 31 seconds out, the
little girl started to squirm. They had had to wait much longer than usual,
because an elderly gentleman had trouble getting down the stairs. He noticed
the train attendant with the tie clip patiently helping the elderly gentleman
down.
He thought of the two extremes, the little girl and the old
man, that were on his train. And that’s the way he thought of it; after 21
years, it sort of was his train. If
he had been the manager, he would have given the attendant high marks for his
kindness. He would not permit perfume. He would add a beverage area, but with
no alcohol. He would force people to speak to each other.
A northbound train zoomed past on the other track, scaring
the little girl. She buried her face in her mother’s chest again, and started
to whimper softly. At least she didn’t scream.
“Would you like to sit over here?” he asked in a kind voice,
motioning to the two-thirds of a seat he had remaining.
The little girl looked at him with the big eyes. She looked
up at her mother, speaking to her silently, and her mother nodded her approval.
As the train left the station, she squeezed in next to him, her legs just
extending past the seat’s edge.
They rode together for two
more stops. She moved onto his knee, again with her mother’s silent approval.
She asked about the trees, the silver door with the big red lettering that
opened and shut. She pointed at a woman two rows up and asked if she was his
mother. That made him laugh. She noticed the ripples in the second river they
crossed together, and made him lift up his feet again.
His stop, 61 minutes and 34 seconds out because of the
earlier delay, came quickly, and he didn’t want to leave. But he motioned to
the girl’s mother that he had to stand up, that this was his stop, and she told
her daughter to move away.
The little girl complied, then turned and hugged him around the
leg as he stood.
“Thank you,” she said in a sweet little voice, pronouncing
“Thank” as “Tank.”
“No, thank you,” he said, smiling. “I hope to see you
again.”
She smiled back, an innocent.
It had not been a bad ride after all.
