The Southwest Chief Line

 The train flew through the desert darkness and the whiskey was working. 

“Let me just tell you a story” he continued as he fumbled for a cigarette.

The student and the middle-aged man had met outside on the back of the last car of the train. The younger one took another sip and carried on, now with more momentum.

“So I heard it in boy scouts.  There’s two wolves, a love wolf and a hate wolf, and they are battling inside us—it’s like an Indian story or something.  Anyways, the young Indian says ‘Which wolf will win?’ and the grandfather chief says ‘Which ever one you feed’.”  He paused to drain the rest of the plastic cup and the ice clanked on his teeth.  “But I’m like, how do you really feed wolves? I dunno I liked the story though.”

He lit the cigarette and pulled and the red ember glowed and more inspiration filled him, and then the strong wind seemed to whip a disappointingly small trail of smoke out of his mouth. He was about to start talking about a business idea he had, or maybe a trip he wanted to plan, or why people actually tend to be racist, or possibly what the really important thing would be if he were to become a father.

And the rattling train that held him and a couple hundred other passengers hove through the night at breakneck velocity. 

As the young man waited a moment his thoughts congealed into annoyance and he flicked his cigarette off the end of the car and it burst into pieces of color on the tracks like so many drunken epiphanies and disappeared into the desert.

He went back inside, maybe to watch a movie.

The older man remained and poured some more whiskey.  He was a mechanic for Amtrak and was returning from a job at the Phoenix station.  Checking the time on his phone, he paused for a moment at the background image of his wife and dog.   His eyes were heavy and the hot blowing night air filled his lungs thickly and he imagined that he would be back in time to bring hot bagels and fresh orange juice for her before she got up for work. He let out a surprising burst of laughter when the young man quickly passed through his mind again.  Nice kid though, he thought to himself, and he enjoyed his whiskey in the warm night. 

He liked to travel on trains through the desert because he knows that there are few things to be disturbed.  No trees would sway with its passing and not many critters would turn a watchful head. No one would walk to the lighted windows of their homes to see something pass. The wake of the train would quickly settle.

The image of the dark worn-toothed mountains on the horizon and the pale and neatly swept sand and the carefully branching shrubs remained in his mind as he walked into the home where his family slept. He noticed the some unopened junk mail on the counter and then he filled a much-needed glass of water.  

The Café

The Café never closes and he likes to be the first to arrive before the breakfast crowd because he enjoys the early morning stillness and his coffee and the music from the aging speakers.

Earlier, he had stirred in the predawn black because he heard snoring in the adjacent apartment. It must have been very loud, but through the dampening walls it sounded like the softness of one man’s true and indecipherable and earnest claim and it steeled him to rise and comb his thinning grey hair before leaving. 

Eggs and toast, he said to the waitress. And, will you sit and join me again?

No I have to stay working today.

I think everyone is set now, he said looking around at the empty room.  Let me buy you breakfast.

Smiling, she said, I’ll join you for a cup of coffee. She poured another and the eggs came out, and she brought them to the small cracked leather booth where he sat.

It is really good to see you.

Always.

They both sipped their coffee and looked out the window at the dark fog that made her think of even darker mornings more fondly than she thought she would.  His inadvertently good company seemed to bring a steady glow.

He took another sip and began, I don’t remember where I learned this, but did you know that great white sharks generally live near the coast where they have enough food?

That’s what I always thought, scary.

But then, sometimes, and scientists don’t know why, but they’ve tracked their patterns and the noticed that a large portion of these sharks will make a long journey to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and will dive hundreds of feet down and then return back to the coast to live out the rest of their lives. This is a mystery to them and they call this area in the middle of the ocean The Café.

She smiled.  Really?

Yes, why do you think they do this?

Well, there must be something really important out there for the sharks I suppose. 

Yes. Do you know what I think? I think some of them don’t make it back. I think some must swim too far or dive too deep, and I wonder what it might be like for a sinking shark trying to make it back.

We might have to go out to the Café to find out. 

And dive down deep to find them?

And dive down deep to find them. But there might not be anything there, I don’t want you to get your hopes up.

That might be just as well.

The bell above the door jangled and a young family with an overstuffed van outside poured in.  She turned her head and looked back at the family and then straightened upright towards him with a heaving smile and squeezed his bent fingers as she got up.

The Pavement

Actually, that very morning I had resigned myself only to meet everyman for the rest of my life, and began to apply the appropriate measured steps toward this reality.  But I was at the corner of 14th and Bismark in the drowning light of a rainy day when I was approached by a man.  He wore a long damp dark cloak with collar turned up and a hat with a downward brim.  I saw an unlighted cigarette in his mouth and as he closed the distance between us he began "Can I-", I was already drawing my lighter from my pocket, shielding it from the rain.  As he continued his lips did not move but the cigarette wagged up and down like an imploring puppet and when I could almost feel his breath I heard: "Can I crack my skull against yours?"  When everything stopped I looked into his eyes and saw a gaze as sure and steady as if there had been nothing in their sockets.  Then there was a strong thunk and bright white and that was all.

Revivified by the same gray rain of dawn, I was surprised to find myself in the same place. I thought I was lying on the ground, and as the first passerby walked on without question or surprise I quickly tried to rise up and then brush myself off and then attend to all those people I was thinking about. But I lifted my arm, it would not move.  I tried to shift my leg but it did not budge.  And then I felt another passerby.  He stepped on my face, and I felt no pain. The sole of his shoe was as flush with the contours of my head as if it were the same as the flat pavement of the sidewalk. And then a woman stepped on my ribs, but again, it was as hard as concrete. I looked up at the people walking on and around me, I can see them, and I found that I was in the firm ground of 14^th and Bismarck where I had met the man last night.  As the sun rose, so came the wave of people skittering over my body on their way to everywhere. Sometimes they stop for conversations near me and I can hear everything and what a pleasure it is. But nothing like the pleasure of this stillness—the strength of this unflappable inertia.