Chapter Thirty-one: Not the journey and not the destination.
I awoke to a steady knock I didn’t recognize. Groggy, I stumbled over to answer and yanked.
“What?” I asked.
Jack stood with a note clipped between his fingers.
“Here,” he said and flicked.
I snipped it out of the air as he walked away.
I sat in my chair and ripped the envelope. A warning from the Dean of Students stated if I caused anymore havoc I would be suspended. I spun it across the room into the trash and skimmed through my notes. Two exams were left and my plan following the weekend was simple, I would ignore everything but work.
Time died and I took my second to last test, Augustine couldn’t be simpler, and went to the cafeteria to get fruit and tea. Scattered conversations arose at the long tables. I talked to Tim a few times and rejected his offers of free study drugs.
Isolation was an easy mistress to please.
I avoided people. It was a fine thing.
The last exam was nothing. I prepared for essays but was given multiple choice. All things came to an end and the exodus for the holidays began in a fit. I left telling no one I was taking the train. The same cab driver with the Cat cap picked me up. Getting to the train station was without incident. Boarding was a breeze, I found my seat and watched people hug and say goodbye on the platform.
Exhaustion fell over me.
Sleep couldn’t be denied.
I woke up with a sore everything to a quaking train. My feet were dead asleep and I couldn’t feel the rocking ground below. Searing needles pricked my sole. Down the jostling cabins, by the throngs of drowsy passengers, I made it to the front car where they served beer. It was the smoking car. The burnt scent of scotch seeped over from a man reading a magazine at a window table. I grabbed a seat by a starboard window and lit a smoke. An announcement scrawled over the rumble of the train and the conductor said Penn station would be coming up in less than an hour.
I lost seven hours.
We got to Penn Station and the car filled up like a tsunami flowing up river.
No longer did nicotine tug at me so I fumbled back to my seat to find a child of ten years or so rummaging in my backpack.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked and grabbed my bag away from his sticky chocolate grime covered hands.
A woman with frizzled hair that tried to escape her melon head rose like a fifties B-movie monster out of the murky depths of the Amazon and opened her blistered lips from the two seats she took up.
“Don’t you fucking swear in front of my kid asshole. What the fuck gives you the damn right. Never fuck with anyone’s kid,” she yelled.
Her breath could singe a fly’s wings.
“Your kid was going through my stuff. Keep a leash on him,” I said.
“What the fuck? Do you think your punk-ass can tell me what to do? Fuck you!” she said and flew me the bird with a cocktail wiener of a finger pinned to a watermelon of a hand.
The little maniacal monster grabbed the other strap of my bag and began to cry. An elderly conductor pushed his way through the other passengers trying to get situated. He got in between me and the reason why people should not eat so much pie.
“What’s going on here?” he asked me.
“Her child was going through my bag and I stopped him. She then verbally assaulted me,” I said.
Her great girth shifted forward in what I suspect was lunge but was caught on her seat. She plummeted back and said, “You fucking liar.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Ma’am, was your child going through this man’s belongings?” he asked.
“I wasn’t watching. I don’t know. All I know is that he swore at my kid and you should kick him off for public profanity,” she said with spite, as well as goop, in her eyes.
“It is obscenity lady, not profanity,” I said.
“Fuck you, fuck you!” she said and the conductor put his hand up and told at her, “Listen you’ve obviously been drinking. Calm down or you’re off the train. This man has been on the train for hours and has done nothing. You’ve been here two minutes and there are problems. I’m taking you to another car. Get your child. Sorry about the disturbance sir.”
“It is not your fault. Some things are out of our control,” I said.
Hopping back, I let them move past. The lady looked at me like she was the witch Hecate and placing a curse, but she didn’t know that she didn’t have to do that.
This particular Amtrak train didn’t stop in my town, but it stopped in the city of Bridgeport. The late afternoon sun dripped. The wind tossed garbage into mini tornadoes leaving a pile in the parking lot.
I was vapor.
A taxi rolled up as I stepped off the platform. Got in the back seat and told the man where to go. The smell of vinegar poked me in the eyes and a handle bar moustache drove on the driver’s lip as he chewed on a butt of a cheap cigar. The air of coastal New England was sprinkled with salt and diesel. I spun my guitar string ring like a turbine.
We pulled up to my house and I tipped him. No handshake was involved. The house was deserted. The junipers were bare of white lights. No ornaments at all. The surrounding houses were in full Christmas regalia, lights along the eaves, candles in the windows, wreaths on front doors. The black scrolling street lamps would soon be on. It was a sleepy New England colonial village celebrating the holidays with Beamers and Jags on the sand blown streets. I found the key under the frog rock and went in through the side door.
After looking around, I took my shoes off and searched the cabinets for food. The cupboard had oatmeal and cans of condensed soup. I put my bags down in front of the stairs and went to make myself a drink. The liquor cabinet was jammed with green and brown bottles. Cases of German beer were stacked by the wall. It looked like a cocktail party was in the near future. I got two beers and lined up three shots and took them to the television room off of the solarium and sat down to watch some cartoons.
In a few fluid pours down my throat, I finished the drinks and went out on the screened in porch for a smoke. The onshore breeze was pulsing like an overture and a sense of serenity sunk in or it might have been the shots. I finished the smoke and wrote a note explaining why I was back so early and was not to be bothered.
My mother didn’t disturb me and later on I found her dozed off in her office still in her business suit. We ended up talking about the house and the food. She explained that William thought the decorations were a waste of energy and passé. The food was gone because of a diet they were trying, but I could go shopping and get whatever food I wanted.
Thinking of William made my skin numb.
I was grateful he was not staying there at night.
My mother got a tree against Williams wishes. A most regrettable nostalgia was invoked so I tried to be a nice boy and woke up Christmas day for brunch. Cash was a welcomed gift but the best present was that William wasn’t there, but like a parasite on a pigeon he homed in. He gave me fifty bucks, which I tried to decline. I took my mother’s car and went for a drive around snowy streets. Filled with sickening sentiment, I rolled by my old high school.
It shrunk.
Parked at Reef beach and watched kids make sandcastles out of snow but soon pulled out as parents looked at me weird. My mother had fallen asleep with the TV on in her room so I worked on a crow oil painting I put off for a year. I took out a few beers and the Diphenhydramine from the medicine cabinet, over the counter sleeping pills, and an hour later was in a state of impaired blurring. The state crushed my focus and the bird flew off the canvas. I decided to not cut my hair and do a Sampson experiment. Time dissolved and drifted away.