Waking up a 4am in the only hotel I’ve seen with a bullet
proof office, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked my phone. Wouldn’t you know it, of all the times for
the train to be on time, my earliest morning had to be one of them. Slowly I stepped into the shower, praying I
wouldn’t touch too many of the surfaces around me and rinsed off, weary eyed
and waking up to the idea of the 51 hour journey ahead of me.
20 minutes later a yellow van pulled into the parking lot
and I ventured into the freezing Indy air and threw my gear in the side door. Climbing into the front seat I swore the man
seated in the driver’s seat next to me was George Carlin. As we pulled on the highway I fell into my normal cabbie routine and started asking questions about how he got into the
profession. As it turns out, driving a
cab was not George’s main occupation, rather the 3am wake-up call every weekday morning was a means to keep himself busy until his wife retired from a job
in nursing this April. It sounds like
her retirement cannot come quickly enough.
Anxiously awaiting
her April retirement so they could move back to Tennessee, I am going to guess that Indianapolis’ number
1 ranking in homicides has something to do with this. Inquiring about their plans for Tennessee, I realized that the fear of death was not the only motivator for the
move. Turns out that George and his wife
truly live the American dream.
Hard working, frugal and in love with an area that boasts
cheap land, George’s only real lament was that the house they were moving back
to was too big. Assured by his wife that
they would need the space when the kids and grandkids came to visit, I think
George took solace in the fact that he could go fishing whenever the mood struck and that he had a porch large enough to comfortably sit back on and watch as the world spins endlessly on.
Arriving at the depot I was glad I was in the hands of a
local as I am certain I would have missed the train station. A feat of engineering, or at least high
tension steel, the train station itself was on top of the Greyhound terminal. Walking in I surveyed the mass of sleepy
souls unfortunate enough to be catching an early train or bus and I was struck
with a sense of camaraderie as I walked over to pick up my ticket from the
Amtrak counter. Minutes later the interesting
folks of the Midwest caught up to me again.
Dressed in a black pea coat that I am sure was bought to
impress, David’s grey beanie, worn tennis shoes and faded jeans gave off the
sense of a man torn between two worlds.
As I walked past him he asked where I was from and rose to follow me to
my seat hell bent of chatting my ear off about anything and everything. Immediately I sensed something was off with
him but, working hard to keep my
inner elitist in check, I politely chatted with him some, but mainly sat back and listened.
Maybe it was the missing teeth, his residence next door to
the Amtrak repair grounds, the wear of his clothing or the fact that I was
pretty sure I was smarter than he was, but something about his claim that he
was a retired Mayo clinic cardiovascular surgeon just didn’t sit right. My belief was further reinforced when he began to explain that his father was an ex-director of Harvard
medical school and he himself was accepted, at 70, to go to Purdue to study
Theoretical Physics.
As much as I wanted to believe him too many things just
didn’t add up. But, then, I will admit that this one of my
biggest flaws: I have always believed that I know people, often better than
they are willing to admit to knowing themselves. Maybe he was all of these things and I was
just being an asshole again, either way I knew that his proximity to me meant I
was guaranteed to learn more than I cared to over the next five hours.
Shortly into the conversation I learned about his reason for travel. It seems his sister lived in St. Paul and was on the losing end of an unfortunate battle
with a flight of stairs. Unfortunately,
in an attempt to break her fall, she instead broke both of her arms, her wrists
and all but two of her fingers. Sadder
still was that he claimed she was a flutist for the city orchestra and, due to the
extreme nature of the break, she would not only lose her spot, but she also needed full time help just to get
through the day.
Overall David seemed like a good guy, my guess is that he is probably just a
little too lonely for his or anyone else’s good. Thankfully I wasn’t his only target for
conversation and he left to regale the woes of his sister to a few of the Amtrak
employees he seemed to know quite well.
I made up my mind at that point that he was harmless, at least
physically, and figured the worst that could happen was I would be inundated
with endless stories.
After helping him sort out the power save mode on his phone, the
rest of the ride was relatively uneventful as David’s stories seemed
to peter out once he noticed that my level of listening didn’t match his level of
telling. As we pulled into Chicago, daybreak a few hours past, I realized that, even though I myself hate mornings, I enjoy
witnessing the slow ebb of movement and sound as the world slowly wakes back up.
But maybe it is just Chicago, something about the city seems to make me smile. I guess it just gives off a good vibe.
With a five hour layover in Union Station I did my best to avoid
the barrage of chatter coming from David's mouth but had to relent when I realized he was the
only one I could trust to watch my bags while I went to the bathroom. Re-establishing that connection meant that I
would have to feign interest again, worse still we were told that, due to the
cold, the train would be two hours late turning five hours into seven.
Grabbing a newspaper I settled into looking busy as we waited for our train. Thankfully I am becoming
a bit of a professional when it comes to killing time.
After a couple of hours of mundane chatter and negative
articles I was separated from David as his senior status meant a different boarding schedule and the rest of us were moved up to the station’s Great Hall to clear space in the
downstairs waiting room. With a little pep in my step I caught up with a
crowd of wannabe hipster 20 somethings walking towards the hall. Noticing a blond trailing two large suitcases wandering around a bit lost, I stopped and helped her with directions and then found a seat on a bench next to a black lady who warily eyed me like one would eye a
tweaker around children. Not sure why my obvious Oregon attire of fleece and wool makes me stand out, but this reaction is becoming a tad
too familiar. Realizing that
nothing other than a smile would help, I shot her the pearly whites and sat
back to people watch. Again, Chicago did
not disappoint.
After the fifth tummy rumble I realized that I needed some sustenance and kindly asked the very lady who
trusted me to steal her bags to watch mine while I ran to the deli to grab a
sandwich. Met with anything but enthusiasm,
I reassured her that, if anything happened to my bags, I would blame the cute
blond behind her. Sadly, this seemed to help.
Believing that the two hour delay meant that I had a couple
of hours to kill, I meandered into the large wood heavy restaurant and bar and made my way to the deli line to patiently wait for the lunch lady to
make turkey and cheddar on a French roll. Grabbing a bag of
chips I headed to the register to pay and slowly ambled back out into what was now an almost
empty Hall.
Rushing over to the poor woman I half expected to be greeted with a tirade but was instead met with seeming disinterest and confusion. She then explained in broken English that she
thought our train was boarding and that she was waiting on a Red Cap to assist
her with her luggage. Scanning the Hall
I quickly located a conductor who looked like he never let a stationary meal
pass and I asked about both the train and her help. Awkwardly he tried to explain that he had
called it in and didn’t know when or if they would show.
Realizing that her chances of help were slim I walked back over to her and told her I would be happy to help with
her bag. Immediately her demeanor changed and she graciously
accepted. Hustling down to the exact
gate we left from earlier, we checked our tickets and walked the long cold walk
down to our cars. Making sure to get her
and her luggage aboard, I checked in with the blond from earlier and thanked
her for taking one for the team in regards to my bags. I then hustled back to my own car to settle
in for the long journey.
Oh how things change.
In a few hours I realized I had made a friend when Vickie slowly made
her way to my seat and burst into a grin as she sat down. Immediately she thanked me for all of my help
and made sure I knew I was a good man.
She then asked me if I knew Jesus.
Smiling to myself, I told her that I did indeed know the prophet and man
that was Jesus. I think I broke her
heart when I told her that I did not believe this man to be THE son of God.
For the next hour we discussed our beliefs and she promised
to write down some bible verses that would be sure to convince me of the power
of her Lord. Hopefully I did not make it
too awkward for her when I told her that I believed the bible was nothing more
than a collection of good campfire stories told and re-told in an ever growing game
of telephone. Thankfully, though it went
against all she believed, she was not opposed to listening. An hour or so later Vickie left leaving me with the words
that rattled around my brain, “God will find you”.
Shortly after Vickie left the blond came by
for the third time. Finding the seat next
to me finally empty, she sat down to talk about the experience. A 29yo on her way back to Madison from a trip to Swaziland, Allison and I talked about life and her experiences as a volunteer. It seemed almost prophetic, having this bespectacled girl sitting next to me as I have been growing increasingly curious about the whole concept of volunteering. When I asked her why her volunteer work took her to Swaziland, I regretted it almost immediately.
It turns out that rape is very prevalent in this little country, and very little is done to prosecute, much less arrest the perpetrators. In her short time there Allison learned that the men of this country do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. Allison’s volunteer work was to help the women as young as 8 readjust to society….
I have often known that many of the people in this world
disgust me. Usually though my disgust
surrounds the greed and selfishness of the world’s rich, but today my disgust took a painfully realistic turn. I have an incredibly difficult time understanding how any one person can treat any other human being so poorly or how anyone can see themselves as markedly better than anyone else.
With the greedy of this world I wonder how the sense of entitlement grows and how, instead of using their gains to help others, many instead work tirelessly to subjugate those they feel are beneath them. Allison's stories hit home that monetary greed is not the worst kind.
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