The Train

SNAP!

He jolted in his seat, head rattling the window where he had been leaning as he slept. Where am I? He rubbed his eyes, helping them focus on his surroundings. He could hear the hum of an engine, the clack, clack, clack of wheels on a rail, the distorted sound as the train he was on hurried through the tunnels. Train. Ok. I’m on a train.

He sat up and looked around. The train was empty. At least his car was. He looked back towards the door and surmised that he was in the last car. He felt his pockets. No wallet. No keys. Not even a useless dime in the deepest recess of his pocket. Definitely no phone. Mugged.

He leaned forward, grabbing the back of the seat in front of him, but thought better of it and sat back down. Think! He rubbed his eyes again for clarity.

He remembered the bar. He couldn’t remember which one; they were all the same. Same people, too. He was on his umpteenth shot of tequila. He couldn’t remember which; they are all the same, too. He was buying rounds. He knew that because people were clapping him on the back and thanking him, and he vaguely remembered opening a tab, handing his credit card to the bartender. He had run out of cash hours earlier. He remembered a woman. Blonde, perhaps. They also were all the same. He and the woman had gone into a stall in the women’s bathroom. He remembered the sour smell of her sweat, her unsteady gait, and the sound as she spewed onto the stall floor, missing the toilet by a good margin. He recalled lifting her skirt after she straightened up and hooking her knee under his left arm. With his right arm he ran a line of coke on her upper thigh. “Quit moving, you’ll spill it.” The last thing he remembered was bending down to snort the line up from her thigh. Sexy, am I right?

SNAP!

He was on the train. He could remember nothing after the bump.

He rubbed his face and stood up. He didn’t feel hungover, just groggy. The train lurched as he stepped into the center aisle, and he staggered, catching himself on the seat across the aisle from his own. His hands ran across the upholstery. Cloth. The seats were a thick, brocade type material, a deep burgundy. The walls were paneled wood. Where was he? Trains in New York did not have cloth seats, much less wood paneling. How long had he been out? The subways in New York had plastic candy corn orange or Exorcist split pea soup green seats. The walls are stark metal. He leaned over and looked out the window. They were most definitely in a tunnel, but it didn’t look like any subway tunnel he had ever seen. The sides of the train were disturbingly close to the walls of the tunnel, which were simply dirt, without shoring of any kind. How?

Must have been roofied. The coke hadn’t been his. It had belonged to the girl. Misty? Maryann? Something with an M. Or not. It didn’t really matter. He’d probably never see her again, anyway, unless they met up in another dive bar’s toilet stall. Many of his relationships were in toilet stalls. Nice graffiti.

He steadied himself as he walked up the aisle towards the next car. His footsteps were soft, and he realized he was walking on carpeting. Definitely not New York.

He approached the train doors that separated his car from the next one in line and reached for the handles. On the subways at home, the doors were always wide open. He had taken an Amtrak cross country once as a kid, and those doors opened with a kick plate at the bottom to open the doors, as well as one higher up. His mom told him it was so people carrying food or drinks back from the dining car could use their feet to open the door. He had spent the better part of a day running up and down the length of the Amtrak, kicking the door in perfect timing, until a frazzled train steward finally caught him by the shoulder and walked him back to his mom. She was drunk, like usual, so he didn’t get into any trouble, but it had been the best part of the trip for him. The rest – visiting his dad, whom he had never met, and that side of the family – had been nothing more than another chapter of being seen and not heard in his childhood.

This train car wasn’t open like the NYC subways and didn’t have a kick plate like the Amtrak had had. It took him a moment to realize the door had an actual handle on it, like any other door in his house. He turned the knob, pushed open the wooden door, and stepped into the next train car.

The second train car was identical to the first. He looked back through the open door and saw where he had come from. The two cars were the same: same high-end upholstery, same stained wood wall paneling, same brass details. Both cars were as equally empty, as well. He stood on a seat, pulling himself up to peer over into the overhead luggage compartment, and that empty, as well. He dropped down and checked the other side. Empty.

The train hadn’t slowed for any stops. In fact, he hadn’t noticed any platforms out the window as they traveled on to parts unknown, and it felt like the train was going faster. There was no digital map showing the train’s progress, either.

Some kind of vintage train ride. He sat on a seat, thinking. He’d woken up from a drunken stupor in some pretty unusual places in his long, illustrious career as an alcoholic, but nothing like this. Once he woke up naked in a fountain in Central Park. It was a wonder he hadn’t drowned. He never did find his clothes. Despite being nude, he managed to hail a cab and ride home in the buff. There had been another faceless woman with him in the fountain. No surprise there. He had left without waking her. He couldn’t remember her name to save his life. He probably never knew it in the first place.

He got up again and worked his way to the third train car. Again, it was identical to the previous two. His footsteps hurried, at first taking long, purposeful strides down the train aisle, then eventually running, stopping only to turn the doorknob to the next car. He didn’t stop to look. All the cars were empty, and all the cars were identically built. The exterior wasn’t changing, either.

He had lost count of how many cars he had flown through. Exhausted, he stopped before opening the next doorway. Hands on knees, bent over to catch his breath, he turned the knob and threw open the door. He was halfway down the aisle before he realized this car was different.

SNAP!

This train car had the same deep burgundy color scheme. The seats were like couches, facing in towards the aisle. A small table was placed in front of each, bolted to the floor. The carpet was a burgundy and gold floral pattern. Small, dimly lit lamps were alight alongside each couch, casting the entire car in deep shadows. At the far end of the car stood a bar made of beautifully carved mahogany. On the bar top sat a shot glass of what he knew was tequila. He looked around. No bartender. No other passengers. Nothing. He was alone. He couldn’t even spot a security camera. He approached the bar, slowing his pace and checking the shadows. He rested his right foot on the brass foot railing, reached for the shot glass. “Don’t mind if I do.” Without hesitation, he tipped the glass to his lips and tossed back the drink. Top shelf. It burned on the way down, but smoothly. He hadn’t bothered with the top shelf brands for a long time. Quantity over quality was his policy with alcohol and women. Hell, with everything in his life. He lived for excess. Cheap excess, at that.

He slammed the empty shot glass on the bar top and pushed open the next train car door. More seating, more overhead luggage racks, more of the same.

The tequila warmed his stomach and calmed his nerves. He noticed his stomach wasn’t burning in that familiar ulcer pain like it usually did when he drank. Shit. Should have stuck with the good stuff all along.

He walked through 3, 5, 12 more cars before things changed again.

SNAP!

This time the car he entered was a dining car. For the first time he noticed he was hungry. Halfway down the club car a table was set for a party of one. Obviously, it was his. Next to the table stood a man; the first person he’d seen the entire time he was there.

The man stood patiently by the table, the stereotypical server’s towel draped over his arm, which was folded against is torso. His head was tilted slightly back, making his large ears appear to stick out. The server looked down his long nose at the man, face as nonjudgmental as stone.

As the man approached, he noticed the server’s black clothing was well worn, though not yet tattered. The seams were pulling slightly, and a few wayward threads hung limply by the seams. He noticed a missing button by the collar. The elbows of the shirt appeared discolored, slightly worn. His shoes were dusty, in need of a good polish. The server’s eyes were rheumy, a pale blue.

The man approached slowly.

The server gestured to the bench on one side of the table, the side with the single place serving. “Please have a seat. My name is Charon, and I’ll be your server today.”

“Ha!” The man plopped onto the bench. It’s a prank! Must be friends messing with me. He stopped laughing when he realized he didn’t have any real friends, none that would take the time to plan such an elaborate hoax, anyway. He just wasn’t worth anyone’s trouble. “As in boatman on the river Styx?” He half-heartedly chuckled again.

“Indeed, Sir.” Charon grabbed the linen napkin and opened it with a flick of his wrist. He carefully placed the napkin on the man’s lap.

“This isn’t exactly a boat, am I right?”

“No, sir. You are correct. But times change, don’t they? A train can hold many more souls than a boat.”

“You trying to tell me you’re the grim reaper?” This isn’t funny anymore. The man slid to the edge of the bench and tried to stand.

“Now, Sir. You know very well I’m not the grim reaper. That’s mere legend.” Charon put his wrinkled hand on the man’s shoulder, and with surprising strength, lowered him back to the bench. “You were a professor of the literary arts at one time.”

“A lifetime ago.”

“Indeed, Sir!” A smile of delight brightened Charon’s face. His dry chuckle made the man’s skin crawl.

“Charon is a legend, too.”

“Am I, Sir?” Charon placed a menu in front of the man and stood waiting. “I’ll take your order when you’re ready, Sir.”

“I order you to let me off this train. How about that?” The tequila he had downed earlier was threatening a curtain call, burning in his throat. He swallowed hard.

“You know I can’t do that, Sir. You haven’t paid your fare.”

Fare? The man remembered. He needed to pay the boatman, or in this case, the trainman.

The man stood and dug through his pockets, “I’ll pay. How much is the fare?”

“You don’t have the fare, Sir.”

“Let me off the train, and I’ll get you the money.” He turned his pockets inside out, looking for any stray coins. “I have friends. They’ll help.”

“Do you, though? Do you have any friends?”

“Jesus, guy. I’m not even dead. I’m right here.”

Charon smiled.

SNAP!

The man was in the bathroom stall, snorting a line of coke from the blonde’s thigh. He inhaled quickly and deeply, pinching his nose afterwards. He felt the calm numbing that told him the shit was good. Seconds later, though, he felt dizziness and confusion. His breathing slowed as the world closed in around him. His perspective changed, and he saw himself slumped over in the stall, wedged between the toilet and the wall. He could faintly hear, “Jeez, mister. You’re a lightweight!” The dyed blonde next to him scooted as far back as she could. She reached over and shook him. He could feel his body move in a bizarre simulcast of sensations. She screeched when his arm fell into the toilet, pushed past him long enough to open the stall door, then bolted from the bathroom. He wondered how long it would take for them to find his body.

SNAP!

“I’ll pay.” Sweat was beading across his forehead, flowing down his face. He couldn’t breathe. “I can pay. Really.”

SNAP!

The man was watching himself at the fountain in Central Park. He watched as he stood up, dripping water, and climbed out. He watched himself look over at the woman in the fountain with him. She was face-down. He watched himself walk away and disappear down the pathway.

SNAP!

He was on the train as a child, the Amtrak. He watched himself run up and down the aisles, watched his mother look on in defeat. He heard himself say no when asked to stop running. He watched his mother reach into her purse, pull out a flask, and liberally dose her coffee. He watched the haunted look in her eyes as he ignored her.

SNAP!

He watched a 20-year-old version of himself walk away from his girlfriend. She had something in her hand. She was showing it to him, crying. He heard himself say, “It’s probably not mine, anyway.” He saw the pained look on her face as he walked out the door. He remembered not going back.

SNAP!

Drunk now, in a restaurant. He saw himself slap a server on the rump as she walked by. She jumped and dropped her tray of food. He laughed. He remembered not leaving a tip because she had been so clumsy.

SNAP!

He watched himself hang up the phone after telling his aunt that he was not going to pay for his mother’s funeral. In fact, he wasn’t even going to attend.

SNAP!

Lying in bed, another anonymous woman lying beside him. “Get out. I’m done,” He heard himself say before turning his back and falling asleep. At the time he didn’t see the hurt in her eyes as she gathered her stuff and ran out the door. He saw it now, though.

SNAP!

The images flew past. He remembered them all. There were so many. No one. There’s no one who’ll pay the fare for me.

SNAP!

“Sir? You really should order. You have a very long wait ahead. You’ll need your strength.” Charon opened the menu helpfully, inching it towards him.

The man wiped the tears flooding out of his eyes with his sleeve. He reached for the menu, and resolutely looked down and ordered.