When I was a kid, still living back in Bridgetown,
that's in Nova Scotia by the way, the train still
came through town. Sometime in my early teens
they yanked it out and the old railroad ties sat
around in rotting piles for years. My father salvaged
some of the spikes and painted them for me. I still
have them in the bottom of a box somewhere.
Anyway, the train would come through twice a day.
We used to live six houses up the street from the
tracks so you could hear it no problem. I used to
go down and watch occasionally as kids tended to do.
Trains always fascinate boys for some reason.
There was a guy there almost all the time. I thought
he was old, but in retrospect he was probably just in
his 40s. But he looked old in the eyes of a ten year
old. He also had the far-away stare that people get
when they got something wrong with them in the head.
Vacant. And he had a grey-peppered beard, not bushy
but medium length. I can still hear this gentle quiet
voice of his. He would ramble on about trains and how
he liked them. He would just talk and talk, not really
caring if you listened, but the way he looked at you
and talked to you, you felt as if you had to pay
attention to him because nobody else would. In the
city, there's one on almost every street corner.
He seemed to always be there. Until he wasn't. I don't
remember if he disappeared first or the trains. It made
sense that he disappeared after the trains as it seemed
to be the only important thing in his life. The only
thing that kept him going.
I was later told that he had been a mathematics professor.
I don't know where he had been though. People in small
towns, like my hometown, don't really know those kind of
things. All universities are about equal. They're all
"away". Apparently, he had been brilliant. And then
he cracked up. Cracked up and moved back to his parents,
although I don't know who they were either. He had been
one of those "smart" people that had made good, got out,
and then just lost it. Went "simple" as would have
been said in a small town. I may have been told that he
overdid it on acid, but I might be misremembering that.
Being the "smart" kid growing, that's always haunted me.
To this day, especially more so since I've started
this job, everytime work or school stresses me, pushes me
further and further, to the edge of what my mind can take,
I think about that guy. That guy watching the trains come
in, all by himself on the train platform.
And, now more than ever, I'm frightened to become that guy.
And I'm closer to it now than I have ever been. The "smart"
guy that made good, got out, and then just lost it.
Watching trains roll in, day after day, until there are no
more trains.
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2 comments:
That's a great story, very vivid and well told. 'There's one on every corner in the city' - that unexpected twist.
People end up like that for many, many reasons. Having a major head injury - and for years I was pretty out of it and had to spend hours, if not days, hiding out in the dark, with no noise, no stimulation, just so I could function normally - I've lived with that fear in one way or another for quite awhile.
That's years like that, remember - and my biggest fear was spiralling down like that, being stuck in shitty jobs forever, alcoholic, etc. At the mercy of other people - and when you're vulnerable, a certain kind of person does come out of the woodwork, no doubt about it (at least I had the experience of being homeless as a teenager to make me tough - and wary.) There have been many, many times in the last eight years that I was sure I wasn't going to make it - after my brother died, and even at times last year in London when I thought the city was just going to swallow me whole.
What seperates the survivor from your guy watching the trains can't be easily defined. You don't know what happened in his life - it could have been drugs, it could have been a woman. Sometimes, people just give up - they lose faith, or perhaps they never had much faith to begin with. Being smart is often beside the point.
Hell man, most of my friends from my 20's - very bright, very talented, very creative - ended up as drug addicts. Or dead. They lost faith. But you go on. You stay disciplined, stay focused - and know your limits - And things do get better - eventually.
yeh, you've definitely had a rough go of it. fuck, i have no idea how you've made it. tough stuff.
thanks, man. i just don't know how much longer i can go on though. i've very close to my limit, which is nowhere close to yours i'm afraid. i'm not made of stronger stuff...but i'm not.
i'm at the point of throwing away years of education and training because this job is doing stuff to me that i don't want it to do and i have no escape and no way to change the situation from within.
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