Train I Ride

by Paul Mosier

  I sit at a table to myself, one table away from Carlos. He’s reading a novel.

  “Good morning,” he says.

  I don’t smile. Instead I raise one hand from the table in what isn’t quite a wave. I don’t look at him.

  I inspect the orange in my hand. It has a bruise on it. I take the lid off my coffee and stir in three sugars and one cream, turning it the color of Dr. Lola’s skin. I blow on the surface and take a sip.

  “My three daughters wouldn’t even look at me at breakfast when they were your age,” Carlos says.

  I stare out the window. Obviously he’s telling me he knows something I don’t. Or that he’s seen it all already and he’s got me and every other kid my age figured out. “How nice for them,” I say.

  I’m not looking at him but I can tell by his voice that he’s smiling. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  I think about it for a second. I shake my head. I don’t want to look at his kind face. “My orange has a bruise,” I say, and I get up and leave my table.

  I go downstairs to where the bruised orange came from. I don’t look at Neal but I hold the orange in front of me, my arm extended. “This orange has a bruise.”

  “The stolen orange has a bruise? Maybe it happened during your getaway.”

  My arm falls to my side, and I look at the floor. “I’m sorry I took it. I was mad at you.”

  He sits on a barstool behind the counter. “Are you mad at me for smoking?”

  I nod.

  “I’m mad at myself,” he says. “I wish I’d never started. And when I try to quit, after a few hours of not smoking it feels like smoking is the only thing in my life that’s good.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That’s what addiction does to you. My boyfriend always tells me if I love him I should show it by quitting.”

  My heart sinks. I don’t know why. I guess my fantasy of him being married to my dead mom just got even more impossible. It was a stupid dream anyway. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

  “Chuck.”

  I nod. “At Gramma’s we had a gay couple for neighbors. Les and Ray. But Gramma had no clue they were gay. You could hear them playing the piano and singing ’cause everyone’s walls were thin. Gramma complained about the noise, but I liked it.”

  Neal just watches me. That’s also what shrinks do, and eventually you keep talking to fill the silence.

  “It wasn’t a trailer park,” I continue. “It was more like manufactured housing. And Les and Ray had the nicest home in the community. I used to spend a lot of time at their place. They made me salads and smoothies and taught me about healthy eating. And they had a ton of books they let me borrow. It was like living next door to a library.”

  Again, he just waits for more.

  “Gramma didn’t have any books. Except a few Reader’s Digest condensed books. And she had disgusting foods mainly. Except when she made pancakes. Hers were the best.”

  I can’t tell whether he’s bored or fascinated with what I’m saying. He has a faraway look on his face, like he’s looking at me but inside me or through me. But I can’t stop talking.

  “I miss them. Les and Ray. They were my friends.”

  I’m afraid if I keep talking I’ll say something stupid, so I turn away quickly and run up the stairs. I’m met at the top by an old lady who is on her way down. So I turn around and hurry back to Neal.

  “I forgot to pay for this orange,” I say.

  “It’s yours for a smile,” he says.

  I smile. Not on purpose, or for the orange. I just can’t help it.

  “Thank you for the orange.”

  “You are so welcome.”

  I wait for the old lady to get to the bottom of the stairs. I smile at her and rush to the top, then grab my coffee and sit across from Carlos.

  “Wanna split this orange with me?” I ask.

  “Only if you help me with these doughnut holes.”

  “Deal.” I bite the orange to get the peel started, then remember I’m sharing. “Oops,” I say, but Carlos laughs and I start peeling. “My gramma in Palm Springs had an orange tree but you couldn’t eat ’em. They were ornamental oranges. The peels were bumpy and they were really sour. But you could make marmalade out of ’em. Gramma taught me.”

  “Thank you,” Carlos says, accepting his half of the orange from me.

  “They smelled good through the peel, though. And the blossoms that came in spring were amazing. Gramma would leave the windows open to fill the house with their smell.”

  “That sounds beautiful.”

  He’s looking at me like he knows already, so I say it. “She’s dead.”

  His head tilts forward a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was living with her for the past two years. Cigarettes killed her.” I look out the window. The corn is so high, the roofs of barns look like they’re floating on it.

  “Every time you eat an orange you can remember her.”

  I look at Carlos and nod. I eat my half of the orange and wonder if that will be a happy thing or a sad thing.

  11

  AS IT’S MY third day on the train, I’m starting to stink. My deodorant doesn’t mask it. If I was alone on the train it wouldn’t bother me so much.

  I go to see Neal at the snack bar, and stand at a safe distance, out of smelling range.

  “So, how do people take showers on the train?”

  He smiles. I take that as not a good sign.

  “In coach, they take them before they get on and after they get off.”

  I nod as if it sounds reasonable, though it doesn’t. I look at my not-very-clean fingernails while I wait to hear better news from him.

  “You might do the old-fashioned cat wash.”

  “Doesn’t that end with me coughing up a fur ball?”

  He smiles again. “Ha. Hilarious, but no. It’s where you stand in the bathroom and use a series of wet paper towels and dry paper towels to strategically freshen up. It can make you feel a lot better.”

  I walk away feeling skeptical, and less than enthusiastic. I go into one of the bathrooms that has extra space where you can change a baby without worrying about dropping it into the abyss, and there’s a little place you can sit where you aren’t actually making skin contact with something that you pee into. Starting with a handful of soggy paper towels and a stack of dry paper towels, I sit on the cushiony seat and take off one shoe, wash and dry my foot, then slip my shoe back on and repeat with the other foot. I get new soggy paper towels and work my way up inside my clothes, washing and drying, until I am under my arms and behind my ears. I finish with my face, scrubbing it with hand soap and rinsing with more wet paper towels.

  I put a fresh layer of strawberry deodorant under my arms and go back to see Neal.

  He’s ringing up an old man for a cup of coffee. “Feel better?”

  “Fresh as a daisy.”

  The old man shuffles off and goes slowly up the steps. I watch him put his right foot on the first step, then join it with the left. Then his right foot on the second step, joined again with the left.

  I have an idea. I look around the snack area. I pick up a price list for the snacks. “Can I take this with me?”

  “Of course.”

  I look at Neal. He looks back.

  “Can I borrow your hat?”

  “For what?”

  “To wear, of course. Don’t worry, it’s not like I have lice.” I used to have lice all the time when I lived with my mom. She said it didn’t mean we were poor and there wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. But we were poor, and I was ashamed of that and of having lice.

  “All right.” He hands it over. “We used to have paper conductor hats that we gave to kids as souvenirs.”

  “This is better.” I put it on. “How do I look?”

  He tilts his head. “Very official. And the prettiest Amtrak employee ever.”

  I smile. “Thanks.” I see a cheap ballpoint pen on his counter and reach for it while I watch
his eyes. Then I run up the stairs.

  Making my way through the coach cars, some of the passengers are still sleeping. Some have masks over their eyes, or they’re curled up in all sorts of creative positions in their seats. Sometimes their arms or legs are sticking out in the aisle and I have to watch out for them when I walk past.

  Dorothea is sleeping too. Which is perfect. She’s sleeping in her seat with her head tilted back and her mouth open, a mask over her eyes. She looks like Zorro. She snores like a sawmill.

  Finally I’m in the last car, at the back. It’s the farthest point from the snack bar on the whole train. An older man sits alone on the right, reading a detective novel.

  “Can I get you anything from the snack bar?” I try to sound cheerful and confident.

  He looks up, smirks, then looks back to his novel.

  “What do you got to eat?” someone says.

  I look to the left, where a college-age guy wearing a backward baseball cap sits.

  “Here’s the price list.” I hand it to him.

  He looks it over. “Bro, five bucks for doughnut holes? They better be good.”

  “Bro, our doughnut holes are an exquisite culinary experience. They’ve been called ‘the gems of the snack counter.’”

  He reaches for his wallet and hands me a five. I take the cap off the pen and write doughnut holes on the palm of my hand. I smile and bow, then turn away.

  I hurry downstairs to Neal.

  “Back so soon?”

  I grab a container of doughnut holes and set them before him. Smiling, I hand him the five.

  “Enjoy,” he says.

  I hurry back to the end of the last coach, where the guy with the backward baseball cap is playing a video game on his phone.

  “Here you are, sir.” I hold them in offering.

  “Awesome. Just put ’em down there.”

  I put them on the empty seat next to him. He continues playing his video game.

  “There is no charge for my service, and tips are entirely voluntary.”

  “Great.”

  I watch him for a moment. His phone is making a disgusting noise like a video game character is eating something gloppy. “Tips are considered in good taste, but not mandatory.”

  He ignores me.

  “That means you don’t have to tip me, though of course tips are always appreciated.”

  “I’m gonna take you up on the option of not tipping.”

  He still won’t look at me. Then his video game makes a fart noise, and a stupid grin appears on his dumb face.

  I keep my chin up, and turn from him. He can’t make me cry.

  I ask the next row of seats, and the next, and within a half hour I have enough tips for a veggie burger. And long before Dorothea wakes up I have enough money to eat dinner in the dining car on the white tablecloths.

  Before we pull into the station at Kansas City we spend a long time stuck outside of town refueling. We’ve been alongside a big river for a while.

  There’s lots of rust on everything, and the landscape has been getting greener and greener.

  Finally we arrive at the station and get to jump off to stretch our legs. It’s early afternoon. It’s been raining here, and low clouds move past the tall buildings of Kansas City. Dorothea calls someone on her cell phone and asks about her dog while we walk on the platform. She’s got a French bulldog that someone watches for her while she’s away. She misses him terribly.

  An Amish man wearing suspenders and a black hat runs up and back on the platform for exercise. He lifts his knees high in the air as he runs, his beard blowing in the breeze. Dorothea and I watch him and smile at each other.

  I look for Neal but don’t see him. I think that maybe he’s found somewhere else to smoke so I won’t see him.

  After a while, the horn blows, and the passengers who have gotten off to stretch their legs turn back toward the train. Dorothea watches me as I watch them all leave the outside air, the breeze, the filtered sunlight, the Kansas City skyline, back up the yellow step to the carpeted aisle, the seats, and the windows with the view that rolls by like a travel documentary.

  I take one last deep breath of fresh air before climbing back aboard. Dorothea follows behind me, picks up and stows away the yellow step, and the train begins to pull forward, pushing the continent behind us.

  12

  IT’S STILL AFTERNOON. I’m at my seat, reading Howl. It isn’t a book for kids, but I’m not much of a kid anyway. Kids have parents. Kids don’t have to come up with crazy ways to earn money to feed themselves.

  We’re stopped somewhere in Missouri, whose farms are less orderly than the ones in Kansas. The land is less flat and more tumbled, and there are big stretches of dark woods and lots of creeks.

  I see Dorothea in the reflection of my window.

  “Carlos wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  She looks at her fingernails. “He needs some help with the crosswords.”

  “I’m reading.”

  “I see that. But you should come and help him. He’s lonely.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’ll make him happy if you do the crosswords with him. He likes your company.”

  I leave the book on my seat and follow Dorothea to the observation lounge. Carlos is sitting at a table with his back to me, and I drop into a chair across from him. The crossword is laid out on the table. He hasn’t completed much of it yet.

  “Hey,” he says, smiling. “Thanks for joining me.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  “It’s a good thing I’ve got a book of these puzzles, ’cause the Mississippi River is going to be holding us up for a while.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Here’s one I need you for: ‘Sonic artists: blank Fire.’”

  “Arcade.”

  He counts the spaces. “Yep. That works. I don’t know what the heck it means, but it works.” He glances over my shoulder. “So, the Mississippi is so high it’s lapping at the tracks in Fort Madison, Iowa. That’s where we cross it, or where we would if we could. We have to wait for the river to back away from the tracks. Maybe a day or more.”

  “Really?” I immediately wonder how I’ll manage to eat.

  “It’s like extra innings in baseball.” Then Carlos cracks a smile and at first I think he’s kidding about the river. But then the lights go dim, and I hear Dorothea and Neal singing.

  It’s my birthday, and they’re singing “Happy Birthday” to me. By the time they reach the second line, half the observation lounge is singing with them.

  They appear from behind me, Neal holding a cake with thirteen lit candles, illuminating their happy faces.

  I start crying, ’cause it’s the most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen, with pink and white frosting, and Happy Birthday, Rider written in fancy cursive.

  They’re done singing, and the candles are glowing. “Make a wish!” Dorothea says. But all I can do is cry. I’m shaking with it. I can’t even draw a breath to blow out the candles. Dorothea pats me on the back. Neal sits down next to Carlos, and they’re both smiling at me. I start pulling the candles from the frosting, dropping them into Carlos’s coffee to extinguish them. He laughs.

  “Those are happy tears, right?” Neal asks.

  “I don’t cry,” I say, my voice sounding tortured. Everyone laughs. Finally I have dropped all thirteen candles into Carlos’s coffee.

  “I hope your wish comes true,” Dorothea says.

  My wish is for Espy, my friend from the shelter in Palm Springs. Today is her birthday too, and my wish is for Espy’s mom to get clean so she can take her back. My wish is for Espy’s suitcase to get unpacked in her own home.

  Dorothea turns the lights back on, and sets down a stack of paper plates and forks. “I saw on your identification that you’d be having a birthday on the train. I mentioned it to Carlos and he ordered the cake from a bakery in Kansas City. They had it ready when we got there.”

  I look at Carlo
s, but I can’t even manage to say thanks. I can’t get the words out.

  “Already this is the best birthday party I’ve ever been to,” Carlos says. “Thank you for letting us celebrate it with you.”

  We eat the cake. It’s white cake, it’s the best cake, the best cake ever. I’ll never forget how it looks, how it tastes. I can’t say a single thing to anyone, but I’m filled with a supreme happiness, and a little bit of guilt for noticing that nobody ever threw me a birthday party that made me feel this good before.

  The people sitting at the table with me feel like a family. My family. If I could choose my family they’d be just like this. This is how families should make each other feel on birthdays. No paramedics, no drama, no disappointments.

  Only after three slices of cake and two cups of coffee can I manage the words thank you.

  I’m a teenager now. But that’s not why I feel different. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think it has something to do with this train I ride.

  I walk downstairs to one of the bathrooms and look at myself in the mirror. I stare for a while.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Hello,” the girl in the mirror replies.

  “You are my daughter,” I say. I tell her this frequently, and she always says the same to me. Dr. Lola thought it was a good exercise, and though it sounded pathetic at first, I ended up agreeing with her.

  She looks not so much sad, but like she’s been sad lots of times. But every now and then, happy. She has a little bit of cake frosting above her lip, which makes me smile to see, which makes her smile, and she licks it off.

  “I trust you,” I say to her.

  “I trust you, too,” she says.

  “Remember last year? It started out as the worst birthday ever.”

  “Yes,” the girl in the mirror answers. “Dead mom, no dad, no friends. Only a grumpy gramma with a cupcake from the grocery store and a single candle she lit with her cigarette.”

  “Then Les and Ray stole you away from Gramma’s.”

  I smile. “They got a princess cake and tiara. And they dressed like two jesters.”