Semester’s end, Paul had driven home for winter break a few days ago after his last final. The campus had slowly dwindled as students finished, but due to my psych final on the last day of exams, I remained with the stragglers. Dorms close at noon, unplug appliances, towel under the fridge, train ticket for ten thirty, printed two copies at the library last night. I packed my bags and spread the last of some peanut butter and jelly onto a tortilla and rolled it up for breakfast.

I walked a dozen blocks down the hill and curved with the river into the 19th-century downtown. Rows of brick homes with wooden porches, shortcut down a scraggly side alley with a couple homes foreclosed, and back around towards Main Street past a few stately houses with ivy and paint peeling in feathery flakes certified by the National Registry of Historical Places dating back before the Civil War, but the churches well maintained and recently renovated on every other block, skyline of steeples. College, prison, and hospital keeping this town stabilized, but neighbors and outskirts need grease. Mind my step over uneven paving stones, clover and grass growing between herringbone bricks, continue down to the shops and peer in to Mary’s Knickknacks and Bric-a-brac through dusty windows at empty shelves, Yesterday’s Best Book Store, Twice Upon a Time Thrift, Sherwin-Williams Paint, defunct RadioShack, all struggling since MallWart set up down the highway. Boxer’s bar next to the Outfitters with kayaks and bikes for sale or rent and hire a guide down the river, then turn on the corner with sweet scent of holiday wax cloying from the kitschy candle company: peppermint, pumpkin, gingerbread, and arrive at the old train station turned into antique shop next to the railroad in front of the riverside.

A group of a half-dozen bundled in winter jackets waiting for the train. Three foreign exchange students starting their transcontinental journey, come back in a month. Chuggachugga rumble began to vibrate through the pavement, hoo-OOT! gaining volume as it rounds the corner into sight, Ding! Ding! the boom barrier dropped to stop traffic across the bridge, train agent peeking out of the side of the car as it slowed screeching, stopping with a gasp, he dropped metal steps from below his feet, and hopped down onto the pavement. “Passengers only, all aboard!” He helped one of the exchange students with her large luggage, lifting it up to her after she had climbed the metal steps. I walked down the aisle between blue cushioned seats, two by two, found an empty pair on the north side, less sunlight, so I could sprawl and have a nap after staying up late last night. I stowed my duffel bag in the overhead and looked out the windows across the aisle as we began to roll along next to the river, running high after the rains, separated by levee from the bare forest that thickened as we left town, white birch trees without their leaves, skeletons grasping toward a stone-grey sky. We followed the river’s path down around the mountain curves and passes, sparse marks of humanity: the factory-village and the railway, abandoned brickyards, ghost towns strewn around, nature’s reclamation.

A ticket collector came down the aisle in dark blue with a silvery gleam from the metal buttons of his jacket. He scanned my ticket, “New York, that’s our last stop,” and placed a blue trip slip above my seat, “You’re all set. Bathrooms right ahead of you, café car’s the last one up,” and continued down the aisle. The river swerved underneath as we crossed a bridge, and continued past houses, farms, and fields. I closed the blue blinds and opened to the first poem in Turtle Island, borrowed from the EcoHouse bookshelf, Max saw me checking it out and told me to take it since it would remind me of nature when I was home in the city. Opened at random: The edge of the cancer Swells against the hill… Not sure if I can concentrate right now, didn’t sleep much last night. Eyes slipping from the page, I folded my ticket into a bookmark. Diesel drumming down the line while I rocked to the gentle beat and the rhythm of the rail, cradled to sleep. – – – 

I awoke a couple hours later to a tap on my leg and the muffled voice of a man, “Sit up, we got a crowd getting on at the next stop, train’s gonna be full.” I nodded not yet awake, uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards. I straightened up, yawned, and drew back the blind to look out the window with sun shining through trees and telephone poles in pinstripes across my face, strobing my eyes. I picked up my book and reopened it, but as I tried to read ventral voices murmured in my awaking stomach. Up to the bathroom at the front of the car, clean enough, more space than a bus or airplane, minimal turbulence. Hover squat, suction flush, foam soap, weak faucet. Back down the blue carpet, faces gazing out the window, some dozing, mom fussing at her wriggling son who looked up at me with frustration, only eye contact. Before getting back into my seat I stood straight, let my arms hang then touched toes, and sat back down, legs loosened. Mournful Susquehanna out of my window, Lackawanna valley somewhere to the north, three-mile isle to the south, clouds collecting cover above, out on the river a small scale, white Statue of Liberty, what’s that doing there?

We rolled into Harrisburg station, more than placard and canopy like other stops. Large hangar, beige with red accent ironwork, light through the rafters pouring over a haggard young man sleeping on a bench. A middle-aged businessman smelling of tobacco stopped at my seat and asked, “Anyone sitting here?”

“All yours.”

“Great, nice to meet ya, name’s George,” firm handshake, “you headed to Philly?”

“New York, actually.”

“Oh yeah? Is that where you’re from?”

“Yep, I’m on my way home from college for winter break.”

“Good to hear, good to hear, going away to college, that’s the American dream right there, bring your college degree back to the city and become a big man, then you could buy your whole college town if you wanted. My son’s a junior in High School right now, and you know what he told me the other day, doggone it, he told me he wants to go off to China and teach English while taking online courses and getting a degree, and I hate to admit it, but the Chinese have really stepped up their business acumen and they have us by the balls right now because they hold so much of our Treasury Bills that they could crash the dollar if they want to, but I told my son the real value of college the privilege to associate with the finest gentlemen from your own background, that’s the way you make those key connections that will open doors for you for the rest of your life, set yourself up for the long haul. Anyway, I’m relieved to pass the future of this country down to good kids like yourself.  So where in New York are ya from?”

“Brooklyn, just across the bridge.”
“Ah, I bet you watch that skyline just like Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever! If you’ve seen that one? I suppose it’s a bit before your time. I’m on my way to look at some property, potential investments, housing market is booming. New York real estate reliable as gold. I used to stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania, but last time I stayed there the place was pretty run down, can’t believe they’re letting that prime location go to waste, anyway, I booked a midtown Marriott for this one, oughta be fine. ‘Course I woulda driven up if it weren’t for this snow we’re s’posed to get…”    Bee doo dee doo

“Ah sorry, I gotta take this… Hi Gordon, how are ya? Yep. I’ll be getting in around five, say, have you gone over those thoughts I emailed ya?” I reopened my book, A chainsaw growls in the gorge. “…so we can push that over to next January…” Ten wet days and the log trucks stop… “Well now, look here, I’ve been in business with Sherman for twenty years now and he hasn’t ever made any compromises on…” Disturbing the peace, no cell phones in waiting rooms, should extend to train cars. Patiently passing time easier in your own mind. “Why it’s s’pose to be that anything with a triple-A rating… oh, is that so?” Can’t read. Need to drown him out. Opened my bag and grabbed laptop and headphones, do not disturb. I looked over the pirated movies that I had not watched yet, on an 80’s binge: Witness, Blade Runner, Brazil… Wings of Desire. Drag and open.

Pen on paper: Als das kind kind war, ging es mit hangenden armen …  

Didn’t realize it was in German, need to download subtitles. We pulled into the next station and a new group of passengers filled the remaining seats. An Amish mother and her little boy sat down in front of me, she pointed out the windows at their waving family and the boy waved back to his chin-curtained relatives on the platform, horse-drawn carriages in the parking lot behind them, wonder if any of them have a cell phone. Moving window more scenes than a stationary one, clicking on the rails is getting faster, tracking shot, like a movie instead of a play, so I closed my laptop and looked out as snow began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows as the landscape slowly shrank: less space, shorter trees, eventually giving way to industry and parking lots. Electric trolley wires running over the train, sharing track with local transit, back on the grid. Roofs of scattered Main Line McMansions inflated above wrought iron fences penning curated lawns, separated from the train tracks by a thin treeline. Further ahead the dwellings get denser, row houses without room between, close to the city, remember asking my dad where’s space for new buildings when I was young, thinking of the few empty lots I knew around Brooklyn. Modest skyline ahead of us, through a tunnel under a bridge, momentary reprieve from the window taps of rain sleet hail snow. Onward among ruinous houses, graffiti mural welcome signs, hard to read on quick pass… “PHILTHY.” Conductor came over the PA system, “We’ll take a short break in Philadelphia to change our engine from diesel to electric. You’re welcome to stretch your legs and have a smoke on the platform, but be sure to be back on the train in fifteen minutes,” lights off, movie over, I closed my laptop and transferred headphones to iPod, Loaded. Who loves the sun, who cares that it makes plants grow… George took a fat cigar out of a gold case, got up and walked out. Wonder if he can smoke that in fifteen minutes, might miss this train at the station. 

Train restarted backwards, path pivoting north, gritty city giving way to sprawling suburbs as we glided between a highway and industrial junkyards with machines stuck in the mud, sorry litter of the past: cranes, broken buses, tractor trailers, electric poles with dangling wires. Precisionism, train fits naturally through the extensive quagmire of swampy meadowlands, slough of despond, banks of toxicity, glad we can’t smell as we chugged through the fallen garden, Mordor’s smoke pluming through the snowy clouds above celestial city skyline rising before us. Wonder who’s where, and what they’re up to, will I see you tonight? Sister getting out of school, Mom dismissing her class of four-year-olds, Dad visiting a construction site, Tom and Josh getting stoned and playing FIFA. Dinner at home, what will mom make? Potato salad and a steak? Won’t take home cooking for granted anymore. Warm and doughy everything bagel for breakfast tomorrow. Dropping sun darkened by snowclouds as we entered underneath the Hudson, back in the boroughs. Stepping off the train and up the escalator, enter among these faces in the crowd, poses and poshtures, checking arrival and departure boards, milimen with sniff dogs, probably for bombs, intimidate the terrorists. Knicks upstairs, trains relegated to the basement, lost to planes and automobiles, too old fashioned, too bad because they’re the most energy efficient. Swipe my metrocard and shuffle through while swinging my duffle over the turning style. Hari Krishnas chanting over a street performer playing sax, rush hour, jam myself and two bags onto the crowded downtown car, back to Brooklyn.

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