Page 1 of Leaving the Station
One
Monday, 6:45 a.m., Just outside Manhattan, New York
“You’re going all the way?”
“Excuse me?” I ask the man seated across the aisle from me.
He’s burly, with leathery white skin and sport sunglasses resting on the back of his head like some kind of off-brand Guy Fieri.
“To Seattle?” He leans over and points to the ticket on my phone. I pull it away. “You’re going all the way out there?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Ah, a long-hauler.” He grins at this, and it’s a grotesque thing that makes him look less like Guy and more like Pennywise. “I’m getting off at Chicago.”
I laugh, but it comes out forced, the way it always does when an adult man is talking to me and I don’t want him to be. I turn and heave my suitcase onto the rack above my seat, hoping this will put an end to the conversation.
“What do you have in there, bricks?” he asks, not getting the message.
“Textbooks,” I mutter.
“Same difference.”
I rummage through my bag for the book I bought at the Hudson News in Penn Station. The cover is a sepia-toned image of a woman facing backward as she runs through the war-torn streets of 1940s Berlin.
I don’t plan on reading it, but having a book in hand on the train is mysterious movie-extra behavior, and that’s the energy I’m trying to bring to this cross-country journey.
I’m happy to fade into the background, to not be perceived except vaguely in people’s peripheral vision, filling out the scene.
I hold up the book and wave. “See you around.”
“Yousurewill.”
On that ominous note, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head to the front of the car, pushing the button that opens the air-lock door to the next one with a satisfyingwhoosh. There are more rows of coach seats with people milling about in the aisles, preparing for a long day on the train.
They whip out playing cards, chess sets, coloring books, crossword puzzles—idle things to occupy their hands. Some people are on their phones, but most aren’t. Maybe it’s because train travel feels so fancy, so Victorian. No one would bat an eye at a woman in a petticoat.
It’s the Monday before Thanksgiving, so the train’s completely full, but there isn’t the frantic atmosphere of an airport during the holidays. The people on the train aren’t trying to get anywhere quickly—they’re just trying to get there.
“Excuse me,” I say brusquely to a woman who’s blocking my path forward, only to see that she’s carrying a baby so small that it must’ve been born on the train.
She gives me a dirty look but lets me pass, and I whisper, “Sorry,” no less than ten times.
“Gooood morning. This is your conductor speaking,” a voice booms from the loudspeaker. “We are at capacity. If there’s no one sitting next to you now, there will be in a stop or two. Your backpack doesn’t need its own seat. I repeat, your backpack doesn’t need—”
The loudspeaker crackles, and there’s a moment of dead air before a second voice comes on, cheerier than the last.
“Hellooooooo, folks, Snack Conductor Edward coming to you live from the café car. Come on down anytime, my lovely train people. We’ve got coffee, candy, wine, beer, and so much more. Next stop, snacks!”
The loudspeaker cuts out again and the first voice comes back on. “No, actually, the next stop is Croton-Harmon.”
The conductor reminds us again that riders will be boarding the train at each stop. After a minute of this, his voice fades into the background and everyone resumes what they were doing: puzzles, sleeping, breastfeeding, etc.
The sun hadn’t risen when we left Penn Station, and it’s only now cresting the horizon. It’s going to be another hazy late-fall morning, cloudy and gray.
I rarely saw this time of day at school. When I did, it was during the first few weeks of the semester, when I could bringmyself to care about assignments enough to try to finish them at the last minute.
Being awake at this time on the train is different. Before boarding, I was so anxious that my whole body was shaking—which isn’t unusual, though this specific instance may have been caused by chugging a giant train-station iced coffee on an empty stomach—but now that we’re on the move, I feel lighter.
