First is getting fired; then the divorce; then the new job.
Suddenly, I am no longer the guy who grabs the toasted bagel from his wife’s hands, drives to the suburban office park, works with people I like, then comes home to a family dinner (most nights; many nights; some nights).
Suddenly I am a commuter. From the new suburban apartment with the fold-out futon for the kids if they ever came to see me. From there to the parking lot, to the train, to the desk that holds a computer with numerical flashes needing constant tending, to the train, to the parking lot, and back again. And again, And again.
At first the train is soothing: new sounds, changing perspectives. And it’s punctual, an admirable trait: 6:37; 8:17. Until the incident.
The Incident
I’m working late. Want to get home. Check my watch. Run out of the office. Get a taxi. Urge the driver. The taxi stops. Slam. Then I’m running, sure I can make it, pounding down the street, have wind, have legs, make it work, corner, inside, stairs, into the main waiting room. The departure board light blinks, blinking is good, the light blinks next to the number four, track four, is where the train is, will be. I am pumped, and I am, suddenly, very angry.
I turn. I can do this, I move, someone looks at me, I stop, I turn, the light is off, dead, the train has been erased. Some passenger who doesn’t know shit, doesn’t give a shit, says, oh that train left. Yeah, I think at him, and your mother. Fuck you.
I know I will make that train, get on that train, if I have to I will throw myself at the train, scream, cry, or pound the windows, they will let me on the train. So stairs, the Track Four entrance, turn, down more stairs, trench coat flies, belt drags, briefcase pounds against left knee, heart thumps, breath burns, rips my lungs with every step.
There’s the train. Silver, sleek, waiting, warm, lit. Inside people read and sleep, calmly inside, where I am not.
The train doors are firmly closed and I am standing, breathing, looking at my watch, which clearly shows I have one minute before the train will leave, yet I am standing there, watching, as the train, on its own time, punctual to the second, slowly moves down the platform, on its way. Then stops. The train is waiting for a signal. The conductor inside, stands by his patch of automatic buttons, looks at his watch, stands in the stopped train, behind the closed door.
I knock on the glass.
He will not open the door. He will not look at me.
He stands two feet from my face, behind the glass, pretends I am not there, forces me to say out loud, in his face, behind the glass You son of a bitch.
I bang the door with the flat of my hand. The conductor jumps. His eyes catch-dart mine before he looks away. His ohsocool ponytail swings, his rimless glasses glint. Then he moves into a car, and I hear “Tickets, please.”
I am now past anger. I am mad. Mad with lateness, mad with the folly of the train’s deceit. Mad with knowing that another hour looms in the Upstairs Waiting Room, where the homeless perch and mutter, crinkling their plastic bags, smoking dry cigarettes, drinking beer from bottles wrapped in paper bags, roving madly through their dreams. And I am drained and sad and can’t believe that I have missed the train and that I have been been swallowed by my rage.