The ever encroaching suburbs flooding
out to the West from Washington D.C. washed cow pastures clean and
left behind huge McMansions that lined streets with names reminiscent
of what they had just replaced...“West Pasture Way or Dark Horse
Drive”. Teams of undocumented house framers ran shirtless along
high beams unencumbered by safety harnesses, driven by cash at the
end of the day to put up houses for the feeding frenzy riding the
incoming wave. Houses appeared as if by magic, so close together
that owners could reach from a side window to give each other a high
five at their cleverness for buying almost identical homes with which
to impress each other.
Carla and I tried to stay ahead of the
Tsunami moving from Alexandria to Reston on to Ashburn and finally to
Lovettesville. I worked on “K” Street in downtown D.C. Commuting
all that way by car was insanity, and that intensified as we moved
farther out, but the train made all the difference. I caught it in
Point of Rocks. Maryland, four miles from our house, and rode it down
to Union Station where I could jump on the Metro and ride the two
miles more to my “K” street office. That was great.
Catch a nap, read the paper, plant your
face in a palm and catch some Zzz, or maybe just sit back and watch
the world shoot by at 55 miles per hour, enjoying that lull in
between home and work. A peaceful respite with no agenda and no
demands on your time.
I especially enjoyed watching the
conductor do his thing, punching tickets up and down the isles,
answering questions, calling everyone “Sir” or “Mam”. A heavy
man in his mid 50”s, a good old boy from West Virginia where the
train originated. Born and bred, a country boy. And as indicated by
the medals and pins that competed for space on his left lapel, he was
a train lifer. His worn dark blue uniform, black shoes, white cotton
socks, those pins and that essential round cap with a brim, clearly
identified him as such.
Over time, I heard him speak of the
buck he shot, its head now adorning his rec room wall at home. His
vegetable garden, tomatoes, the wife, his grown kids, Donny Jr and
Constance June, now producing “grand-babies” for him to watch on
Thursday afternoons. His church and Pastor and chicken dinner
Sundays. Damn communists and hippies. Often speaking as if in
soliloquy, his volume had been cranked up after competing with 40
years of train noise.
As I sat in my suit and tie among a
train full of suits and ties, I admired his Independence, his direct
approach, his inability to sugar coat or be politically correct. And
there was no question that he put his train full of yuppie passengers
on the same scale of importance as pond scum. He could see no value
in people who worked in an office all day “pushing papers around”.
He herded us every day and seemed to think that we weren't even on
the same level as his chickens, just as stupid but unable to lay
eggs.
The morning train usually stopped for
the early crowd on the fourth car from the rear. That's where the
conductor would dismount, put the stairs down and yell “All
Aboard!”. He stood inside the car as the line of suits and ties
came on board and turned left, toward the front of the train. These
kinds of things puzzle me. Why does the engineer stop so that the
crowd boards at the fourth car? Why does everyone turn left when they
board? It was always the same dance, the window seats went first,
isle seats second. Some riders tried to suppress their rising panic,
looking wildly up and down the isle rather than confront the fact
that they may have to sit in a center seat. But throughout this
process, as the seats began to fill, the Conductor repeated his
mantra, calling out in a loud voice over and over: “Plenty of seats
in the rear folks, plenty of seats in the rear”
One morning I couldn’t suppress my
curiosity any longer, wondering why everyone turned left when there
were “plenty of seats in the rear” so I stepped back into an
empty seat across from the conductor to ask. Of course I was thinking
of traffic flow patterns and more efficient ways to direct it. Maybe
stop the train at the last car so everyone had no choice but to head
toward the front? Maybe send every other person in opposite
directions from the fourth car? But why was that necessary? I had to
ask.
Standing directly across from him, I
looked the conductor straight in the eye as he finished calling out:
“Plenty of seats in the rear folks,
plenty of seats in the rear” Yelling back at him, “Why is that?”
Looking puzzled, unhappy for one of the
chickens to ask a non-chicken question, he sputtered back: “What?”
I continued: “Why are there plenty of seats in the rear? A look of
total amazement came over him, his eyes widened at the sight of the
stupidest coat and tie chicken he had ever seen. Wishing he was back
home, away from this carload of idiots, he managed to yell back at me
the obvious: “CAUSE AIN'T NOBODY SET IN THEM YET!”
I could see that it had taken the last
of his strength to get that out, wondering how a guy like me could
even dress himself or take a bath... much less draw breath while
doing it. He was disgusted that it was his job to take train loads of
us idiot chickens into town to run things from air conditioned
offices filled with Fluorescent lighting. He knew it was a sure sign
of the decline of civilization as he had know it.
He was just glad that his fifty years
were almost up so he could go home forever with his pension under his
arm and herd nothing more than his his own chickens, happy in knowing
that at least they lay eggs and none of them wear a suit and tie.
