"People, people, people! Just listen a minute!" is what the
young man said. He was about five-foot-eight, and his uniform hung on him, dark
blue like a sheet you use for drapes when they're out being dry-cleaned. Somewhere
in there were shoulders. He looked about eighteen and had bad hair.
"I make announcements and take tickets. I don't drive the train. I don't own the train. I have a wife and two kids. She got laid off eight months ago. Our rent is past due."
"I make announcements and take tickets. I don't drive the train. I don't own the train. I have a wife and two kids. She got laid off eight months ago. Our rent is past due."
He paused and took a
breath.
"There's a Coke machine over there and a snack bar and a Starbucks down the street. Someone will be back in an hour to update you. Have a nice day."
With that, the automatic chain-link gate slid closed and the long queue of unhappy, mumbling passengers dispersed.
Except for Fred Florid. There's always a Fred Florid in situations like this. The scheduling snafu was directed directly at him. Always is.
"There's a Coke machine over there and a snack bar and a Starbucks down the street. Someone will be back in an hour to update you. Have a nice day."
With that, the automatic chain-link gate slid closed and the long queue of unhappy, mumbling passengers dispersed.
Except for Fred Florid. There's always a Fred Florid in situations like this. The scheduling snafu was directed directly at him. Always is.
He hammered on the gray
fencing. "Wait up, young man!"
The boy didn't look back.
Young man, I'm talking to you!"
The boy didn't look back.
Young man, I'm talking to you!"
A
door opened, the boy went through it, and it closed with a loud click.
A ribbon of profanity streamed out of Fred's mouth like ticker tape. Heads turned. A mother covered her child's ears. Pigeons flew into the rafters of the ancientCentral
Valley railway
station. Fred's collar was loose; his mustard yellow tie was undone. Despite
the hot midsummer day, he had on a gray suit and drops of sweat trickled down
his neck. His face was the color of a beefsteak tomato. Would he blow like Vesuvius?
Would he shut up?
A hefty man, the size of a linebacker and wearing a T-shirt with an American eagle on it, stepped in front of Fred. So did a priest, in black and wearing his collar. They asked him politely to remember where he was and to calm down. Fred, a tall thin man with a hawk-like face -- mid-forties, thinning hair -- sputtered and tried to shove his small suitcase between the two men. The suitcase was quite small and appeared more so due to its long telescoping handle, and he only succeeded in running it over the large man's foot. The piece wasn't heavy, made of composite material, and it had been well-used. On its sides were once-colorful airline and travel destination stickers, now faded -- stickers probably put there by a previous owner's child. The contrivance was not Fred's choice, except it had been, since the price was right at the secondhand store where he bought it.
A ribbon of profanity streamed out of Fred's mouth like ticker tape. Heads turned. A mother covered her child's ears. Pigeons flew into the rafters of the ancient
A hefty man, the size of a linebacker and wearing a T-shirt with an American eagle on it, stepped in front of Fred. So did a priest, in black and wearing his collar. They asked him politely to remember where he was and to calm down. Fred, a tall thin man with a hawk-like face -- mid-forties, thinning hair -- sputtered and tried to shove his small suitcase between the two men. The suitcase was quite small and appeared more so due to its long telescoping handle, and he only succeeded in running it over the large man's foot. The piece wasn't heavy, made of composite material, and it had been well-used. On its sides were once-colorful airline and travel destination stickers, now faded -- stickers probably put there by a previous owner's child. The contrivance was not Fred's choice, except it had been, since the price was right at the secondhand store where he bought it.
The big man took offense, as anyone
might, and booted Fred's wheeled contraption away, pinwheeling it handle and
all across the floor. He gave Fred a shove, knocking him off balance.
"Get out of here, and take that
ugly breadbox of a suitcase with you!"
Father Serenity stepped between them
and tried to pour oil on the waters. "The scheduled train has been
cancelled," he said taking Fred's arm lightly, "and the next one could
arrive in an hour. All the tickets will be good."
Fred shook his arm away. "Do you know who I am?" he growled. "Do you know?" The question, though repeated, was merely rhetorical.
The aggressive fellow said, "Unless you're racing toAfrica to
save children who are starving, I don't give a flying f . . . . Oh, excuse me
Father." He said this in a barely controlled tone, inches from Fred's face.
They could have kissed.
"Get out of my way!" Fred hissed. Oblivious of the onlookers, he straightened his jacket and retrieved his mottled rollerbag. His two adversaries moved away and let him exit.
"Bread box!" You wonder if they even have them anymore, as you wheel out of the station. You haven't seen one since you were a youngster. That was where your mom kept the Wonder Bread which you'd sneak to the kitchen at night and raid. Grandma had one, too. It was large and metal, faded yellow with orange flowers on it. The risk was greater at Grandma's house because the floor squeaked and mom and dad were in the guest room just across the hall.
Off you'd go, back then -- Mom, Dad, Little Sister, and you -- to Grandma and Grandpa's house; a long, long drive down a miserably hot state highway in the middle of summer, stop-and-go traffic in every town. Couldn't they have taken the train and come to your house? Why you never took the train to see them was above your pay grade, age ten.
To pass the time, you'd play Twenty Questions. Dad'd say, "Okay, I'm thinking of something," and you'd try to guess.
Your sister, every time -- every time -- would ask, "Is it bigger than a bread box?"
What did she know about bread boxes? How to tiptoe into the hall, listen carefully to hear if your folks were asleep, stealthily enter the kitchen, slowly pull down the door to the ancient, unlovely bread box so it didn't creak. Then, the harder part: opening the Wonder Bread bag without it crinkling, and pulling out a slice without waking the dog. If you did awaken him, you'd have to share. Don't even think about asking Mom for a snack before you went to bed. Good luck with that. She was done doing "mom" for the day. That's how she was.
Fred shook his arm away. "Do you know who I am?" he growled. "Do you know?" The question, though repeated, was merely rhetorical.
The aggressive fellow said, "Unless you're racing to
"Get out of my way!" Fred hissed. Oblivious of the onlookers, he straightened his jacket and retrieved his mottled rollerbag. His two adversaries moved away and let him exit.
"Bread box!" You wonder if they even have them anymore, as you wheel out of the station. You haven't seen one since you were a youngster. That was where your mom kept the Wonder Bread which you'd sneak to the kitchen at night and raid. Grandma had one, too. It was large and metal, faded yellow with orange flowers on it. The risk was greater at Grandma's house because the floor squeaked and mom and dad were in the guest room just across the hall.
Off you'd go, back then -- Mom, Dad, Little Sister, and you -- to Grandma and Grandpa's house; a long, long drive down a miserably hot state highway in the middle of summer, stop-and-go traffic in every town. Couldn't they have taken the train and come to your house? Why you never took the train to see them was above your pay grade, age ten.
To pass the time, you'd play Twenty Questions. Dad'd say, "Okay, I'm thinking of something," and you'd try to guess.
Your sister, every time -- every time -- would ask, "Is it bigger than a bread box?"
What did she know about bread boxes? How to tiptoe into the hall, listen carefully to hear if your folks were asleep, stealthily enter the kitchen, slowly pull down the door to the ancient, unlovely bread box so it didn't creak. Then, the harder part: opening the Wonder Bread bag without it crinkling, and pulling out a slice without waking the dog. If you did awaken him, you'd have to share. Don't even think about asking Mom for a snack before you went to bed. Good luck with that. She was done doing "mom" for the day. That's how she was.
Your
sister would always win at Twenty Questions. Your little
sister. Your excuse was that you were still counting out-of-state license
plates, left over from the last game you played in the suffocating heat of a
car that had no air conditioning. But the real reason was you hated the game.
The
time you most remember losing to her was when Dad thought of a toy boat, and
your sister figured it out. A toy boat! "Not fair," you cried. Boats,
even toy ones, are bigger than bread boxes, and he'd clearly said
"smaller." So you slugged her.
Big mistake. Mom turned around, aroused from her reverie doing whatever it was she did on these trips and whacked you. Hard. She flung her arm over the front seatback and connected. She had lots of practice. "Freddie!" she yelled and you were grounded. Grounded on this trip? No way. The trip was punishment enough.
Big mistake. Mom turned around, aroused from her reverie doing whatever it was she did on these trips and whacked you. Hard. She flung her arm over the front seatback and connected. She had lots of practice. "Freddie!" she yelled and you were grounded. Grounded on this trip? No way. The trip was punishment enough.
You
shouldn't have slugged your sister. It wasn't her fault. But you couldn't very
well slug your dad. And for sure he let her win because you beat her at
everything else. But a toy boat. Come on! And it was H-O-T hot in the backseat
on those trips. Train delays and parents and little sisters and oppressive heat
-- all part of an arbitrary and unpredictable cosmos. And no one else is going
to give a shit. "Twenty Questions," a nonsensical game, a metaphor
for life. It's axiomatic: Life is unfair.
So
why not get pissed off -- like today! Take it out on an innocent railroad kid
when he's ignoring your wrath, turning his clueless ass around, and walking
away. Venting is cheaper than counseling.
Recalling Wonder Bread
stealth missions reminded Fred he was hungry. No telling when the next train
would come. Outside the station, past the cheesy food and magazine stand with
its week-old pastries and lousy coffee and past the fake Greek columns, across
the street Fred saw a small park. There were shade trees and an empty bench and
a food truck next to the curb selling Mexican food. He ordered a plate of
chicken fajitas and a Coke and sat down. He collapsed the handle of his rollerbag
and plopped it on the bench to discourage company.
Back
across the street, people from inside the train station had disappeared. The iconic old
station was silent except for a pair of pigeons strutting their stuff on a
balcony ledge. Above them, high up and framed by a row of crisscrossed
wrought-iron window bars, the black filigreed hands of a clock face were stuck
at 10:45 . The flat marble front of the building reflected heat
like a radiator. Built in the last century when railroads were a big deal, it
was identical to others up and down the line, in Santa Something, Los Nothing, Rio Whatever.
In the
middle of the park where Fred sat was an empty pond. Scarred, exposed green and
brown mosaic tiles atop a concrete border in disrepair circled the erstwhile
reservoir -- scalloped chunks missing and exposed stonework here and there. Two
unweeded paths crossed beneath tall trees whose leaves fluttered listlessly in
the semblance of a breeze. In the center of the dry pond stood an androgynous
statue that should have been spouting water from a vase perched on its
blistered granite shoulder, but wasn't, due to the drought. Next to Fred's
bench was a drinking fountain, an upright cylinder of worn cement with gravel
in its basin and a worn out-of-order sign hanging from a once-shiny chrome
bulb. There was a swing set and a teeter-totter, like one in another leafy park
years ago where Fred's grandpa would take him when his folks didn't.
At Grandpa's house, Fred recalled, excitement
consisted of watching him hose off the driveway and front walk after he was
done mowing and gardening. Grandpa always
wore coveralls that were actually pretty impressive. Shoulder to ankle, stark
white -- Clorox white -- except for a slight green hue at the knees.
Here's
how Gramps would wash the driveway: He'd attach the nozzle and twist it down.
He'd tell you to turn on the water, and the narrow stream would shoot up fifty
feet in a high arc that made a rainbow if the sun was right. Then he'd kneel
down, one knee on the pavement, and sweep across and back, across and back,
working his way to the street, blasting grass and weeds and dirt ahead of him
like a miniature tsunami. He enjoyed using the hose and water even though a
broom would have done the trick and faster.
He was a cool old guy. He'd let you help. Then it was back into the quiet, musty house to a black-and-white TV where at least they didn't need air conditioning because it wasn't nearly as hot as the drive down from home.
He was a cool old guy. He'd let you help. Then it was back into the quiet, musty house to a black-and-white TV where at least they didn't need air conditioning because it wasn't nearly as hot as the drive down from home.
And
back home is where you'd be grounded, not at Grandpa's. Which meant no swimming
in the neighbor's pool for a week. Never mind that once you'd saved a little
girl from drowning when she slipped and fell in and you were the first to jump
in and rescue her. Never mind that it was over a hundred in the summer, and
you'd lie out on the cement driveway with the neighbor kid and bake yourselves before
heading back into the pool -- but not before sneaking into his kitchen and
raiding their bread box.
Come
to think of being grounded, look at your job now. For two years you're on
commission doing repos for a collection agency and people are broke and need
their cars to get to work. Your too-small suitcase is stuffed with one change
of clothes and a laptop. You're running late already for the next town and the
poor guy whose car you'll have towed away.
You
weren't always the Fred Florid of today, were you? Like that time you rescued
the little girl at the pool. You paid attention at school. Studied. And those
times with Grandpa when you were really little; he'd lift you up to look
outside at the birds at the feeder. You'd feel his early morning stubble on
your cheek and he'd say which birds were which. He'd let you put the cream in
his coffee. After he got sick, they wouldn't let you go see him in the
hospital. Then he died.
These days your default mode is
trigger-happy. Trigger-unhappy.
A wife you drove away. Pretty much friendless. Living alone. A good job once
upon a time that you couldn't hold onto. So why try? To be engaging, cheerful? Why
change? No such thing as Heaven -- no such thing as God, for sure -- and Hell
couldn't be hotter than right now in this forsaken town.
You,
Fred Florid, are not the guy who has to remedy the world's negative karma!
Starting in on his
fajitas, Fred watched a woman and her young boy getting lunch. Cardboard food
tray in her hands, she looked around for somewhere to sit. There was only the
one bench. Fred flinched. It was the mom from the train station, the one who'd
been horrified by his tirade. She looked his way and made the same connection,
eyes narrowing. She turned away and looked again for the nonexistent bench. The
woman and her boy weren't fifteen feet away.
Now what would Fred do?
He'd made like a monster in a kid's bad dream, been the strange man parents
tell their children to run from and find help. Was there even one compassionate
gene among his thousand chromosomes? Could he summon up a modicum of contrition
-- sitting in the shade, on the only bench, as the day got hotter.
Fred moved his
suitcase. "Here ma'am. I'll make room."
The woman flashed a
narrow smile and shook her head. She turned away. Fred sighed, his tiny reserve
of goodwill on a timer. But he said, "Please, use the bench." He
motioned with his head and stood up. "Look, I'm over my tantrum. Honest."
He hooked a finger into the pull-tab of his Coca-Cola and set his paper plate
on the round top of a green metal trash can. "I was being ridiculous in
there. I'm sorry."
Apparently deciding the
risk was worth taking, hungry child in tow and in a public park in full view of
a food truck, the woman took a seat. Fred's plate was leaking half-eaten Mexican
food, a black plastic fork balanced on top. He tried to manage the Coke with
one hand and soak up taco sauce on a tortilla with the other. His paper napkins
were soaked, but he tried to be nonchalant. He wanted to sit down. The nice
woman mumbled something about it being a bad day all around. She and her son
scooted to one end of the bench and gave Fred room to sit, which he did.
Fred glanced at the
woman. She was composed -- plain, and in her thirties he guessed -- not
unattractive, with clear dark eyes. Her nose and chin were somewhat small for
her face. Her eyebrows were large and the same unremarkable brown color as her hair
which fell straight to her shoulders and curled at the end. She wore no lipstick. Despite the
heat, she had on an ankle-length gray skirt and a modest long-sleeved blouse
buttoned up the front, over which she wore a short, black vest.
On
her head was a plain white cap of thin transparent material, slightly askew; one
might suspect she was Amish or a missionary. Her boy, elementary school age,
sneaked looks at Fred between mouthfuls of enchilada.
Patting
her mouth with a small napkin and taking a sip of soda, the woman looked at
Fred. "Back in there." She nodded toward the station. "None of
my business, of course -- back in there, it wasn't the young man's fault, was
it?"
This is
what you get, Fred thought. What next? A lecture on temperance? Is she looking for
people to save? But surprising himself once again, he decided to be civil.
"No,
of course it wasn't his fault. He was just the messenger."
"And
the other people in the station?" She nodded toward her son.
"I
said I'm sorry. My temper . . . well, sometimes it gets the better of me."
Now what is this, you ask yourself! Your milk of human kindness will curdle in a matter
of seconds, but somehow it doesn't. Surely one good turn -- giving someone a
place to sit down -- does not equal a recovery program. Was there something in
the food? You've had your share of therapy, reconciliation attempts with the
long-gone spouse, anger management -- the works. You can't remember a time when
someone was more than barely civil to you. Why this détente with a nice lady on
a bench in a stifling hot park in a stifling hot town? Mexican food and soda
pop -- hardly the wafer and the wine.
Fred
waited, continued chewing, then he asked, "What's your son's name?"
"Elroy."
"It
means 'The King'," said the boy around a mouthful. He had bushy eyebrows
like his mom and clear blue eyes. In shorts, T-shirt, and sandals, he could
have stepped out of a commercial for Taco Bell, including the dribble of red
sauce on his chin.
"How
old are you?"
Mom
answered. "Eight. We're going to visit his grandparents. Actually, his
father's parents . . . even though his father and I are no longer
together." She wiped a hand on a clean napkin and reached out. "I'm
Marie."
"Fred,"
he replied, shaking her hand. "Honest, I didn't mean to pry . . . ."
"You
weren't." She stopped, "Oh my gosh," she said, pointing with her
head. "Look at that."
They
watched as a drama unfolded. A turista
grande wearing running shorts and an aloha shirt unbuttoned over his belly was
going at the vendor leaning out of his food truck. Not grande at all, more pequeño
in fact, the fellow wore the kind of sunglasses that darken with brightness and
a set of keys hung on a gold chain around his neck. A crumpled tennis hat
completed the ensemble.
As
his diminutive wife looked on with a scowl on her face, the lout railed at the tired,
sweaty entrepreneur in slowly-pronounced and overly loud English. Apparently
the five dollar tacos he'd bought weren't up to his refined culinary standards.
Marie
giggled. "He’ll now punctuate this spectacle by turning over his plate and
throwing the contents on the pavement."
The
jerk obliged by doing exactly that and Fred nearly emptied the contents of his
mouth via his nose. "Don't do that!"
And
he laughed -- actually laughed -- and looked more closely at the
unprepossessing woman on the park bench. Was he enjoying himself? Suddenly having a good time? Was this a time
warp? A dream? Did she really say, "punctuate this spectacle?"
Elroy
finished his Coke. "May I buy him another?" Fred asked, but he got no
further . . . .
The sudden flash came
out of nowhere. A woman screamed. People pointed and ducked. A flock of
starlings scattered through the park. With a loud CRRR -ACK , a
tree split and a limb fell. And then it was silent as a desert at noon .
Fred
jumped. When he came down, he missed the seat and slid to the ground, landing
with a crunch and scraping his back on the bench. His plate of food floated in
the air to the side, suspended and motionless like a flying saucer, before
landing beside him. His body was
shivering and his arms and hands were outstretched, flailing like he was trying
to grab at the large shimmering imprint on his retina. Pain started up
his back and Fred waited for his rage alarm to go off. But it didn't. Instead,
he felt a warm mist moving through his brain.
Marie hadn't bothered
with herself; she'd covered Elroy's eyes with one arm and held onto his
shoulders with the other. The boy was gripping the bench armrest, his
half-empty Coke can rattling around under the seat.
After a moment, Marie
helped Fred up and he sat back. The trembling subsided and the mist cleared, but
his head ached. Passersby and those who'd come out of the train station were
assisting one another, some people wobbling as they regained their balance.
Whatever it was -- and
there was never a satisfactory explanation -- it was recalled by those who
witnessed it as "ball lightning," some said, or "white
lightning," or "heat lightning." A sudden dazzling flare covering
the whole sky that backlit the old building across the street from one end to
the other and high above the sculpted roof. No thunder, only a blinding brightness,
like a photographer's flash -- to the eye, a white blindness that slowly faded,
then rose over the park, swirled a moment like an enormous pinwheel and finally
vanished into the clear, blue, and cloudless sky.
There hadn't been an
earthquake; nothing showed up on seismographs. After a few days of sleuthing, police
and news reporters turned up nothing unusual. No mysterious nuclear blast or
atmospheric disturbance. Not a powerful sound barrier event from the nearby Air
Force base.
"One of those quirks
of nature we don't quite understand," concluded several meteorologists. A
preacher of a curious evangelical sect downstate had a rapturous explanation citing
several Biblical references, but he was ignored.
Fred gathered himself.
He turned to Marie and asked if she and Elroy were alright. She nodded. "Let
us just breathe a minute and I'll let you know," she said. She smoothed
Elroy's hair and kissed him on the forehead.
Fred's head still ached
though it hadn't struck anything. He waited for the pain to subside. It didn't,
so he stood up and was immediately dizzy and sat back down. Marie bent to pick
up his plate and took it to the trash can. She emptied out the pop cans and
brought them back. She returned to the bench and patted Fred's knee before sitting
down herself and pulling Elroy to her. The three of them just sat. The few
other occupants of the small park and those on the train station steps and the
sidewalk returned to normal activity, but talked among themselves and shook
their heads, glancing at the sky every now and then.
Fred closed his eyes
and continued to sit still. Marie watched him, then asked about his dizziness.
He told her it was going away. But he thought to himself how strange it felt --
a warming mist, a fogginess. More like light spring rain on his forehead as a child
might feel looking skyward. Foggy was not good, he knew. Rather, clarity and
sharpness had always been his strong suit -- especially at his job: sizing
people up, reacting to what they said or how they moved, being incisive,
calculating the expenses, profit, commission on the spot.
But as he sat there, calm
began to replace his anxiety. He was about to ask Marie if she noticed anything
unusual about him but decided not to. Her head was resting on Elroy's and she
was murmuring to him.
Maybe an hour passed. Fred
dozed. By the time he blinked his eyes awake, the tree shadows had moved. The
sidewalk food vendor had moved on. Marie and Elroy were sharing an ice cream
cone -- both of them working on it to keep up with melting vanilla.
"You're back among
the living," she said. "Want a bite?"
Unsolicited random acts
of kindness occurred so rarely in his life that Fred didn't catch what she'd said
at first. She asked again, "If you feel alright, Elroy can go fetch
another. The guy's right around the corner."
Fred shook his head.
Leaves on the pavement skittered along like big brittle spiders propelled by a
breeze that'd sprung up. Across the street, nothing had changed. The white
marble of the station still looked like a Greek temple, but not so grotesque in
the slanting sunlight.
Pretending to be circus
clowns, Marie and Elroy looked at Fred, rings of ice cream around their mouths,
grinning and blinking their eyes.
Fred laughed aloud.
Laughed again, like it was the funniest thing he'd seen in days. Make that
months. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve -- tears.
They talked through the
afternoon. Fred located a hose bib and filled their Coke cans with water. After a short back-and-forth about the flash
of lightning, or whatever it was, they changed the subject. They exchanged last
names. Fred shrugged and told her "Florid." Marie's was Sawyer.
They told where each was from, where they grew up, mutual friends they
impossibly might have. Nothing more about the bizarre weather event. Neither
Marie nor Fred strayed into more personal information, though Elroy had an odd
look on his face when his father's name was mentioned.
Nor
was this a flirtation. Fred would have been astonished if it was. Women never
selected his off-putting self out of a crowd as someone to get to know better.
For her part, Marie's unpretentious grooming bespoke a woman who'd never
attracted the boys at the school dance. She was a mother, period. But they
clicked, in that common and transitory way of fellow travelers.
They saw the young ticket-taker emerge
from the train station -- same baggy blue suit, same messy hair. He walked past
the tall pillars to the steps and looked to the right and left. He motioned
with his arm. He spoke to passengers and nodded before going back inside. Other
people materialized, and Marie and
Elroy set off across the street. Fred hesitated, but Marie stopped and looked
back at him, so he followed.
That
same old feeling, anger, like magma in your gut. Maybe that big lummox that
assaulted you won't be in there. Good luck with that. Of course he will, along
with the other passengers, the audience.
Nothing's
changed. Don't be a fool and think it has. A few minutes of pleasant
conversation in a park with a pleasant lady and her son after a lifetime of
being the third horse in a two-horse race. You do have to be on that train,
however. Time to gird up. Rage is your default mode for good reason, as well it
should be because of the crap the world throws at you.
Inside, the queue was moving slowly.
Fred stood behind Marie, the boy in front of her. The line continued to move
toward the gate. No one seemed to be looking at him. Just people intent on boarding
the train, holding their tickets, scooting their belongings along with a foot.
Then, up front next to the gate, Fred
spotted the big brush-cut head of his one-time antagonist with the obnoxious T-shirt.
Across from him was the priest who was helping an elderly couple with their
luggage. Fred's fight-or-flight mode kicked in full bore. He felt his face
start to flush, his temperature rise even further in the hot, stuffy station.
A couple of precautions made sense.
He collapsed the handle of his oh-so recognizable, multicolored suitcase. He
nudged it forward with his shoe, not taking his eyes off his tormentor. He
draped his gray suit coat over his left arm in order to free up his right --
though what he intended to do against a man that outweighed him by so much he
couldn't have articulated. Confrontations were a way of life for Fred, but
violence was not. Besides, he was sticking close to Marie and her boy, protective
coloration of a sort.
Fred clenched and unclenched his fists
to keep them from shaking. The priest had disappeared but the big guy was
standing outside the line as people passed. He seemed to be scanning the crowd looking
for someone. His eyes met Fred's for an instant and stopped, then they both looked
away. The old tapes were spooling like mad, one rag end flapping around on the reel.
They moved closer to the gate. There were only two couples and a single passenger
ahead of them. Marie put her hands on Elroy's shoulders.
Fred watched as his nemesis was
joined by a woman, probably his wife, and the two of them cut back in front of
the line. They handed their tickets to the young attendant in blue who punched
them and motioned them on through the gate to the train. Marie turned and looked
back at Fred. She saw the look on his face, and rested her hand on his elbow
for a second.
"It isn't always about you,
Fred. Sometimes things just happen."
She turned back around
and ruffled Elroy's hair. Fred's hands were still wobbly, but he managed a
smile at the ticket-taker before the three of them got on the train which was
steaming and hissing beside the platform.
They
chose seats across the aisle from one other. Fred stowed his famously small
suitcase in the storage alcove in the vestibule reserved for that purpose. His
laptop, his contacts, his itinerary, his life were in it unopened. A lurch, a slow
wobble, and they were off.
The
train raced along, the
car swaying and jitterbugging over the tracks. Fred's face pressed against
the glass, they sped past fields and barns and houses and busy people in cars.
He billowed along like a
cloud. Marie sat across the way in the window seat asleep, her head resting on
a pillow. Next to the aisle, Elroy thumbed his smartphone, brow furrowed, the
tip of his tongue trapped in the corner of his mouth.
Fred
leaned across and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey Elroy. You know the game Twenty Questions?"
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