Fantods1
06-10-2014, 06:42 PM
I was confused where to put my bags. My father booked a sleeper cabin for me but the finer points of long train rides were still lost to me. A strange glow, maybe one of comfort, rises in me at the thought of trains. The warm, canned air seeping from vents and the white noise ducking under the rolling clack of motion. I could pass through bombed-out London and enjoy the cinematic sweep of crumbling arches and dead-eyed and grim bodies divorced from spirit lining the gray streets. The sweep of trains.
I sat in between a brown suitcase and my backpack as we rolled through the rushing trees; my grandfather’s house was forty miles behind me, my weekend stay fading fast. A hollowness tore through my visit and filled in my mouth causing a state of submerged nausea just below my skin. We felt the absence of my grandmother palpably. We did not speak of it. We did not eat her homemade cookies or drink her special tea instead opting for Oreos. Milk’s favorite cookie.
As I absentmindedly peaked through my backpack in search of my phone, a glint of red caught my eye. I looked out the window without turning my head. I saw nothing. I hadn’t noticed our passage from forest to a residential area, spread out rows of houses with the faces, hands, and cars of television sets playing phantasmagoric blue on windows. Parking lots separated small neighborhoods. I decided we must have passed an intersection where a red car sat waiting.
The continuous spectrum of sunlight was slowly replaced by the dim glow of two incandescents. The moon hung fat in the air like the decorative plate in my grandparent’s kitchen. My grandfather, Joseph, liked to say his father had helped build the house they lived in and fifteen years after finishing the job, fifteen years of scrimping and saving while working in the developing room at the Nikon factory and nights as a punch card operator for Delmont Motor, he bought the house he had put an A-frame on that summer when he met my great-grandmother Nucci at a local dance. When the back entrance’s wooden stairs creaked he would say thousands of steps from loved ones and friends did the trick. He was reminded of his whole life. He was thankful for the roof over his hand.
Similar bulbs as in my car lighted the hallways of the train but these were behind thin plastic covers and were set in recesses in the walls. The carpeting was old but not dirty, with a green center and black stripes on either side. I felt like I was heading to an esteemed private school tucked away in the countryside where boys wear pressed white shirts and always have blazers draped over arm. I had walked past two sets of closed sleepers when the hallways opened up to a seating area. An attendant sat to my right and briefly cracked a cherry smile in my direction before returning to her People magazine. The spell was broken. She shouldn’t be reading that drivel. This was my fantasy train ride out to the new school and she had ruined it. No matter: I continued walking until I arrived at the end of the car. There was a bar area and a man in a green vest, darker than that of the carpeting, was tending like out of an old western. I tipped my hat. I asked for a Coca Cola if he had it and he served me in a glass cup with three square ice cubes. Thank you, I said and he nodded. I took a seat across from the barman.
After maybe fifteen minutes of aimless sipping my drink, my line of sight perpendicular to the barman’s similarly idle gaze, the night was pierced by the bright white light of a fenced-in warehouse loading bay with flatbeds sitting in formation as a man in a bowler entered the car. He came from the opposite direction as me and asked for a Caucasian with just one cube. He sat down across from me and furrowed his bushy brow in a look of intent discernment. Hello Daniel, he said looking right at me after taking off his hat. This was a face I knew. He was holding my grandfather on his knee next to a Christmas tree in a photo on my grandfather’s mantle. Hello Samuel, I replied. No, no. Call me Sam. He smiled a wide smile with very little teeth. From across the aisle he smelled of stale cigarettes -like my Mother after she smokes out the bathroom window- and of moisture like from a damp sheet that has been lying in a basement waiting to be washed.
-Why are you here?
-Just to talk I suppose.
-We’ve never talked before.
-I haven’t quite had the time.
¬The barman called Sam’s attention and handed him his drink in a glass the same as mine.
-Well what do you want to talk about?
-You called me here.
-I did?
-You did. I saw you at Joseph’s house and I saw your face cut through the silence that was left.
He reached into his pocket dragging out a slim carton of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches.
-I don’t understand.
-There’s nothing to understand.
His cigarette burnt like a diamond in-between his lips.
-You shouldn’t smoke those Sam.
-The kid’s right mister you can’t really smoke in here, interjected the barman.
-Fine, fine, I can’t stand the things anyways. He threw back his Caucasian and dropped the glow in with a hiss. You know my wife, Nucci, I think she met you just before she passed, says you look a lot like me.
-Really?
-She does. I don’t know though, Daniel, you got a chin, weak as wire if you ask me. Anyways I should be going.
His bowler back on Sam stood up and tipped the Barman.
---
The train pulled into the Central Eaton station at 2:05 am. I had not slept and after returning to my room from the bar I took off my jacket and let if lay behind me on the bench. My father was waiting in his car and I carried my two bags close to legs.
Citgo. 4.19 Unleaded. California Gold Fruit. M704 ROB. Sterile lighting as a man drags a wiper wet across his windshield.
It’s a different feeling than a train’s cab: the train is unstoppable. A car bumps along. Your head buzzes on the fragile glass. The road leaves an impression on your feet as it hums underneath.
My father went straight to bed. All the games were long over so he had no reason to haunt the living room. I put my bags in front of the couch and took off my jacket and pants. Inside my backpack there is a pink flier telling me to be there in block lettering. There is a TI84 scientific calculator. The manager of the broken-lights Office Max went out back to get the last unit. They went off the shelves like hotcakes. A vaguely Latinate girl of age near to mine looked me in the eyes for two long after my father told me to wait while he went to look with the manager.
I turned on the television and went straight to the DVR where I found an episode of Seinfeld and pressed play. It was all commercial at the beginning so I went to the kitchen as the TV told me to tune in for a prizefight. The wan light of the refrigerator limpidly spread about the room as I zeroed in on a bottle of Omega B3 fish oil gel capsules, which are recommended for cooled storage. I grabbed the water filter and, moving to the cabinets to the left of the fridge, I pulled out my doxycycline, general multivitamin, and iron supplement, which I take for hereditary anemia. I wash them down in big gulps. Some water darkens the outside of the glass and drips onto the ground. The room is dark now and has the reassuring hum of kitchens in the middle of the night.
My eyes peeled open and fluttered lazily about the room. A lady on the TV talks to me softly but she is laughing and her jacket is light coffee color with a blue shirt underneath. A nice haircut, too. CNBC. Seinfeld must have turned off after playing out. After I push my eyes shut for a moment I saw the digital red clock on the cable box switch to 4:09 am. The TV continued to speak and I listened hard:
I sat in between a brown suitcase and my backpack as we rolled through the rushing trees; my grandfather’s house was forty miles behind me, my weekend stay fading fast. A hollowness tore through my visit and filled in my mouth causing a state of submerged nausea just below my skin. We felt the absence of my grandmother palpably. We did not speak of it. We did not eat her homemade cookies or drink her special tea instead opting for Oreos. Milk’s favorite cookie.
As I absentmindedly peaked through my backpack in search of my phone, a glint of red caught my eye. I looked out the window without turning my head. I saw nothing. I hadn’t noticed our passage from forest to a residential area, spread out rows of houses with the faces, hands, and cars of television sets playing phantasmagoric blue on windows. Parking lots separated small neighborhoods. I decided we must have passed an intersection where a red car sat waiting.
The continuous spectrum of sunlight was slowly replaced by the dim glow of two incandescents. The moon hung fat in the air like the decorative plate in my grandparent’s kitchen. My grandfather, Joseph, liked to say his father had helped build the house they lived in and fifteen years after finishing the job, fifteen years of scrimping and saving while working in the developing room at the Nikon factory and nights as a punch card operator for Delmont Motor, he bought the house he had put an A-frame on that summer when he met my great-grandmother Nucci at a local dance. When the back entrance’s wooden stairs creaked he would say thousands of steps from loved ones and friends did the trick. He was reminded of his whole life. He was thankful for the roof over his hand.
Similar bulbs as in my car lighted the hallways of the train but these were behind thin plastic covers and were set in recesses in the walls. The carpeting was old but not dirty, with a green center and black stripes on either side. I felt like I was heading to an esteemed private school tucked away in the countryside where boys wear pressed white shirts and always have blazers draped over arm. I had walked past two sets of closed sleepers when the hallways opened up to a seating area. An attendant sat to my right and briefly cracked a cherry smile in my direction before returning to her People magazine. The spell was broken. She shouldn’t be reading that drivel. This was my fantasy train ride out to the new school and she had ruined it. No matter: I continued walking until I arrived at the end of the car. There was a bar area and a man in a green vest, darker than that of the carpeting, was tending like out of an old western. I tipped my hat. I asked for a Coca Cola if he had it and he served me in a glass cup with three square ice cubes. Thank you, I said and he nodded. I took a seat across from the barman.
After maybe fifteen minutes of aimless sipping my drink, my line of sight perpendicular to the barman’s similarly idle gaze, the night was pierced by the bright white light of a fenced-in warehouse loading bay with flatbeds sitting in formation as a man in a bowler entered the car. He came from the opposite direction as me and asked for a Caucasian with just one cube. He sat down across from me and furrowed his bushy brow in a look of intent discernment. Hello Daniel, he said looking right at me after taking off his hat. This was a face I knew. He was holding my grandfather on his knee next to a Christmas tree in a photo on my grandfather’s mantle. Hello Samuel, I replied. No, no. Call me Sam. He smiled a wide smile with very little teeth. From across the aisle he smelled of stale cigarettes -like my Mother after she smokes out the bathroom window- and of moisture like from a damp sheet that has been lying in a basement waiting to be washed.
-Why are you here?
-Just to talk I suppose.
-We’ve never talked before.
-I haven’t quite had the time.
¬The barman called Sam’s attention and handed him his drink in a glass the same as mine.
-Well what do you want to talk about?
-You called me here.
-I did?
-You did. I saw you at Joseph’s house and I saw your face cut through the silence that was left.
He reached into his pocket dragging out a slim carton of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches.
-I don’t understand.
-There’s nothing to understand.
His cigarette burnt like a diamond in-between his lips.
-You shouldn’t smoke those Sam.
-The kid’s right mister you can’t really smoke in here, interjected the barman.
-Fine, fine, I can’t stand the things anyways. He threw back his Caucasian and dropped the glow in with a hiss. You know my wife, Nucci, I think she met you just before she passed, says you look a lot like me.
-Really?
-She does. I don’t know though, Daniel, you got a chin, weak as wire if you ask me. Anyways I should be going.
His bowler back on Sam stood up and tipped the Barman.
---
The train pulled into the Central Eaton station at 2:05 am. I had not slept and after returning to my room from the bar I took off my jacket and let if lay behind me on the bench. My father was waiting in his car and I carried my two bags close to legs.
Citgo. 4.19 Unleaded. California Gold Fruit. M704 ROB. Sterile lighting as a man drags a wiper wet across his windshield.
It’s a different feeling than a train’s cab: the train is unstoppable. A car bumps along. Your head buzzes on the fragile glass. The road leaves an impression on your feet as it hums underneath.
My father went straight to bed. All the games were long over so he had no reason to haunt the living room. I put my bags in front of the couch and took off my jacket and pants. Inside my backpack there is a pink flier telling me to be there in block lettering. There is a TI84 scientific calculator. The manager of the broken-lights Office Max went out back to get the last unit. They went off the shelves like hotcakes. A vaguely Latinate girl of age near to mine looked me in the eyes for two long after my father told me to wait while he went to look with the manager.
I turned on the television and went straight to the DVR where I found an episode of Seinfeld and pressed play. It was all commercial at the beginning so I went to the kitchen as the TV told me to tune in for a prizefight. The wan light of the refrigerator limpidly spread about the room as I zeroed in on a bottle of Omega B3 fish oil gel capsules, which are recommended for cooled storage. I grabbed the water filter and, moving to the cabinets to the left of the fridge, I pulled out my doxycycline, general multivitamin, and iron supplement, which I take for hereditary anemia. I wash them down in big gulps. Some water darkens the outside of the glass and drips onto the ground. The room is dark now and has the reassuring hum of kitchens in the middle of the night.
My eyes peeled open and fluttered lazily about the room. A lady on the TV talks to me softly but she is laughing and her jacket is light coffee color with a blue shirt underneath. A nice haircut, too. CNBC. Seinfeld must have turned off after playing out. After I push my eyes shut for a moment I saw the digital red clock on the cable box switch to 4:09 am. The TV continued to speak and I listened hard: