Trains

I get the train going East. It’s the only one that’ll take me the whole way home. The station’s got that early morning feel to it, people smoking in corners and wrapped up in sweaters they know’ll be too warm by noon. We used to get so hot, building railways. Even in the middle of winter, even when it reached minus 50.

I been here five years. I ain’t been home since. Not that I’m complaining, weren’t much work where I grew up. I’d just turned seventeen when I heard about opportunities out West. So I packed a change of clothes and made my way over. A couple of the boys from the local town came with me.

We weren’t expecting special treatment or nothing. We all know high standards never did the likes of us any good. Seven of us would share a room, with no bed and no carpet. We ate a lot of beans during these five years. None of it mattered. Mostly we were so tired we woulda slept anywhere, eaten anything.

I wired through the rest of my wages to my family. Made me feel good, putting food on Ma’s table.

I hear the train rattle. If trains were people, this one’s a rickety old man. I pat my pockets, squeeze my ticket. I find a seat by a window, near an old man snoring, his jaw hangs open. I look back at the station. For the first time it doesn’t just look like a dusty pile of wood. It looks like a memory. I’m fonder of it now that I’m finally going home.

There weren’t many white folks working where I was. Some of them talked about how beautiful countryside can be. I didn’t say nothing, it wasn’t the kind of thing I ever noticed. I ain’t ever got much sightseeing done. Sightseeing’s for rich people. If I wanted to stop along the way, I’d have to buy two tickets instead of one.

The train eases out the station, past a meat market. People walking around. There’s a man on a stage, kids playing hopscotch, just minding they’s business. I never ridden through town before. I never really looked at it. When I walk, see, it’s to get somewhere. Work home food sleep. East to West, West to East, eyes on the floor, my hands in my pockets.

I wonder what Ma will say when I get back. She don’t know I’m coming home. Even if I could write letters, she couldn’t read them. She’ll want me to start working on the farm with my older brothers, regardless.

The train rides past a river. It’s a big mass of blue and grey water, and it shines in the spring sunshine. If the train stopped, I coulda jumped out and swam in it.

Work and going back East was the reason I never made no friends here. No one to swim with, at least. Friends complicate things. They want you to stay places, go places. Me, I just get the job done.

I know what my future looks like, what it’s got to be. Earn some money, take my ma to church, meet a girl, settle down. It’s just what I’m supposed to do, before I die.

I hope this old train breaks down. I ain’t done much, I realise, ain’t seen much. Ain’t even heard much except the sound of hammers and metal for the past five years. There’s hills out in the distance, but they’re framed by the window. Like they’re not real. They rush past, I ain’t got time to look.

I listen to the whirr of the engine and start praying for it to purr like a broken whistle. That’s how you know it’s broke. If it broke down in the middle of nowhere, I’d get out, walk into what I never seen. It’s green here, greener than home. Maybe there’s valleys and forests and fields I could explore. I wonder what there’d be to see.

I want this old train to break down. Not to inconvenience no one. But life’s got too fast, and I ain’t in no rush to get home. I’d have to pick up where I left off, pretend I’m the man they want me to be, and let life pass me by. Eat sleep work, work eat sleep, and then all over again. I’m struck by all the people I’ll never get to meet, and the things I’ll never see. If the train broke down, time must stop for me, let me see the journey with my held high, instead of my eyes always being on my feet. But I got no time to get to where I don’t need to be.

The train slows down only for the stops along the way. The old man wakes up, waddles off into a town I ain’t never heard of. A lady with three kids gets on. The kids are screaming and then crying and then laughing. If the train broke I’d play hopscotch with them.

We reach my hometown in the evening. Town’s quiet, most respectable people are inside their homes, eating or sleeping. I take the shortcut through the forest. When I see my ma’s house, I drop my bag and turn to look out. I grew up here, and yet I don’t think I ever noticed how big the sky is here. The fields are shining now under the light of a cold sunset. I breathe the crisp air in and listen to the world fall asleep. Birds and the like are quietening down, an owl flies silent across.

I stand there a long time, just staring. It’s like I’m seeing it all for the first time.