An elderly friend of mine died recently. This happens like clockwork, but it’s never easy. In lieu of an obituary, I thought I’d send a short story. The point is true, but the setting doesn’t exist.
99th Street
My name’s Harry, see. Harry Reading. I work the platform at the 99th street station. I keep the station clean and the benches shiny. The express train leaves from here. There's something funny about this train – I've never seen it come back. The boys said that once, a man bought a round trip ticket, but that was ages ago, and the whitebeards love to argue about if it really happened or not.
It’s mostly old ladies that I see in this part of the station. They often sit like grumpy pigeons on the polished benches, but once in a while, a kindly one comes along and cheers up the others. Theirs is a peculiar kind of conversation, and you might mistake it to be ordinary if you didn’t listen closely. I was collecting old newspapers one evening when I heard a few of them talking about lunch and former neighbors. There was a chill about the station at dusk, and I kept myself warm by thinking of how to impress that girl Agnes, and other matters important to a young man.
The old ladies were stuck on their topic, and my daydream was over, their words having worn it down. They seemed to be talking about club sandwiches like they’d never have another once the train arrived, and yet, as if they’d eaten every one in the world.
Francis, one of the other attendants, was always reading books with big words, and had tried to sound fancy one day talking about Plato or something. I had laughed at him, but did remember something about an ultimate tree, an ultimate chair, a form in another realm. These old birds sitting on my bench reminded me of this with their club sandwich talk. Maybe they had found the form.
The train rolled in about that time, the woosh of warm air welcome in the chilly dusk. The sandwich club hobbled on board, and away they rolled, off into that mysterious tunnel.
The station clock pointed to nine, and it was off into the autumn bluster. I stopped at Mario’s restaurant on the way home. Agnes barely knew of my existence, so a small table for one by the window did the trick. For some reason, I ordered a club sandwich. The moon peeped in at the grimy window. I thought of those ladies. I don’t know why. They sure talked about ordinary things a lot.
Many trains rolled by with the years, faces and calendars blurred like the express leaving the station.
Lately, the old ladies have been talking to me. For some reason, I’ve been listening. One said her name was Dorothy. She had two cats - “her boys”, no kids, and a pleasant Minnesota laugh.
“Young man, you can’t believe anything I say - I’m a crazy old lady.”
“Oh, I’m not so young, ma’am. But I’m crazy, too. Call me a…a…Crazy Middle Man.”
She caught my gaze with her good eye. “Gotta keep ‘em guessing, right?”
“Right”, I smiled, shifting my lean on the broom.
“Young man…should I say, middle man - might as well laugh a little before the train rolls in. Here's a good story.”
She told me a few tales of relations - a carriage maker who was a fine craftsman, a tabletop made out of a weeping willow, a young friend who started a coffee shop. “You've got to go try a cup!”
Stories on a platform while waiting for the train are like seeing a bird up close. Perched suddenly before you in an instant, the delicate brown feathers, a gleaming eye, not particularly noteworthy except you know that it’s all of the birds at once, and also you’ll never see this one again in about four seconds. Time is paused, frozen, and a sparrow becomes...I don’t know. Sacred. So to does the ordinary when you know it will change in a whistle of the express, lurking right down the line.
Old Garon, the station manager, broke in, and called me from the mezzanine. I bid Dorothy a casual goodbye, and ran upstairs. A passenger had knocked a sign over, and while I was fixing it, an express train rumbled below. Outbound, always outbound.
When I returned, Dorothy was gone. I had missed her. All that was left was a drawing of a butterfly on the shiny bench. Picking it up, I gazed at the bright colors, then down the tracks into the yawning tunnel, empty. I wonder where they go. Something on the drawing caught my eye. “C.O.L.”
I winked at nothing in particular up by the exit sign. Thanks, Crazy Old Lady.
The station clock pointed to nine. Tucking the drawing into my pocket, I went out into the hushed street. A crescent moon smiled sadly down. It was time to walk – and ponder.