CHICAGO (Union Station)

 

 

It’s a chilly Sunday evening in the windy city, in clear contrast to the hot Texas weather that I just came in from. There’s an eight-hour layover before I can catch the Lake Shore Limited train to New York. After an invigorating three-mile walk among the tourist crowd and a few failed attempts to find a decent quiet café to lounge in, I decide to head back to Union Station as night is fast approaching.

Arriving at the Great Hall where I’m supposed to wait for the track announcement of my train, was like being transported a century back. I’m always impressed by the grandeur of the place every time I come through here. Entering from the South Entrance and facing the grand staircase and the twenty-four big chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling puts me back in the spirit of what some call the romance of train travel. In its Beaux-Arts style with two sculptures sitting on opposite sides, one a rooster, representing day, the other an owl, representing night, it’s all I can do to refrain myself from uttering “Wow” loud enough for anyone to hear. Descending the staircase, I stop and look up at the impressive barrel-vaulted skylight hanging 115 feet above the floor, thinking how it was blacked out during WWII to make it less of a target for enemy aircraft.

I sit on one of the many long wooden benches and look around at my surroundings and my fellow travelers. There’s the usual murmur of conversations echoing, sometimes interrupted by the announcement on the PA system of an upcoming departure or information for those who’d like to check out bags. There’s a constant coming and going of travelers coming in or going to the restrooms and the food court area, but there’s also a few others who stay put and almost try to remain incognito among the crowd.

Two Amish couples occupy one long wooden bench while their five young children sit together on the opposite bench playing a game of interlocking fingers that I try to but ultimately cannot understand. An elderly Amish gentleman sits next to them, looking intently at their game and uttering some words to them from time to time, which stops the game momentarily before resuming again. On the other side of the kids’ bench sits a young couple, their son sitting on the marble floor at their feet, playing with a couple of Marcel superhero toys.

A bunch of university students sit next to one of the large Corinthian columns and talk amongst themselves about last week’s blowout party on campus. Their voices sometimes raised above all else and echoing throughout the soaring space but immediately lowered to a hum to distract attention from themselves and the six-pack of beer they’re drinking from. Most are wearing their University of Rochester jackets but all with a diverse and different variety of patches sawn into them. As if to indicate a clear distinction, on the opposite side, facing the big marble walls, sit a handful of businessmen and women, laptops open, typing away between bites of a sandwich or a wrap.

I begin to settle down on my bench, knowing there’s still another ninety minutes to wait before I can board my train. I open up my backpack and take a big bite off the pepperoni stromboli I bought at an Italian eatery on my way to the station. With their backs to me, on the same wooden bench as mine, sit two men which I can only identify by their voices, one seeming to be in his early 50’s and who is driving the conversation, the other a much younger man in his late 20’s/early 30’s, who from time to time offers an “Yes”, “Sure”, “Okay” to the conversation. The older man talks in a syncopated, almost stream of consciousness manner about the past, his younger days back in Wisconsin. There’s a nostalgia about the way he describes his life on the family farm back then, but his voice also carries with it a hint of regret.

I take another bite of the stromboli and save the rest for the train. I look back at the two men as I’m placing it back on my backpack. The young man listens intently, his eyes almost transfigured at the way the older man is talking. Next to him there’s a huge camping-style bag which indicates might be in the midst of a long travel through America, as I soon find out that whenever he speaks, brief as it is, he speaks with a Mediterranean European accent, probably Spanish or Italian.

The older man keeps talking almost uninterrupted, only pausing when he needs to think hard about his next sentence or to try to remember something with the exactitude to which he speaks about. He’s a scruffy skinny man with scattered uneven beard and false upper teeth. Next to him a plastic shopping bag filled with what appears to be his whole possessions in this world, some clothing, bottles of medication, a hairbrush, which seems odd since he has barely any hair to speak of. He keeps talking about Wisconsin and his siblings and how one day he decided to leave the family farm for a trucking job in Cleveland, and how that almost killed his father and drove a wedge between them. He stops and his lips tremble for a few seconds. The young man pats him gently in his shoulder and that makes the trembling stop abruptly and he offers, “That’s how life is, you just get to live with it the best way you can”.

On the PA system there’s an announcement that the New York bound train will be boarding in 15 minutes. The young man interrupts the silence by saying, “That’s me”. Without missing a beat, the older man carries on like he hasn’t stopped the conversation abruptly and now speaks of the years he spent on the road, taking trains pretty much throughout all of the Midwest searching for any jobs that would have him, after a DUI ended his tenure at the trucking company. There were jobs in steel mills in Pittsburgh, mining in Pennsylvania, track maintenance all over Ohio and Illinois, a sawmill in Minnesota. And he offers advice on what he learned from all his roaming around. “They say you can’t go home again” and pauses for a moment. He punches his heart with his fist, “This is my home”. The young man says “Yes” with vigor, almost yelling it as if trying to convince himself of it more than assure the older man of its validity.

The PA system announces the boarding of the Lake Shore Limited momentarily and asks everyone to proceed to the tracks for boarding. The Great Hall begins to clear out. Some start almost running to the tracks to be in front of the line and take a window seat. The businessmen and women, the Amish and the young couple take their place in line without any fuss while the university students wait until everyone else has left, to pack up their things and follow the crowd. I follow them along with the young man who straps his camping-style backpack to his back and extends his hands to the older man, “Well, it was nice to meet you”. The older man gets up, shakes his hand and says, “Have a nice trip back home”, and punches his heart with his fist. The young man punches his own heart with his fist and joins the line of travelers heading to the tracks.

As we’re slowly moving away and leaving the Great Hall behind, I can see the older man sitting back, all alone in the expansive space of the station, trembling lips and feeble eyes, but with chin up and clenched hands, looking in the direction of the next place he can call temporarily home.

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS (Cheatham Street Warehouse)

 

I come in through the thick metal doors and have to take a slight step back to adjust my eyes from the bright sun outside to the prevailing darkness inside. The smell of beer is the first thing my senses capture in full. I look around and linger on for a few seconds at the one-man band, strumming the guitar, harmonica hanging from its neck holder, guitar case by his feet with a few quarters and a handful of single dollar bills. He’s singing about a love gone wrong, a Country-Blues song set in Mississippi. A man and a woman and a law enforcement man who messes up their love story. A gunshot in the lyrics of the song mirrored by a strong single tap of his hands on the body of the guitar. The song ends with the sound of his harmonica imitating the sound of a prisoner train who takes the jaded lover away for killing the cop. He tips his cowboy hat to me as he finishes the song, acknowledging my effort in trying to not enter fully into the bar until the song is finished.

There’s a bunch of wooden tables adorning the place, all of them empty. A pool table on the corner being played by four young men in their 30’s, a couple of beers dangling dangerously on the tip of the red felt table. At the bar sit a few young men and women, college types drinking beer and talking loudly about finals and football. They keep going back and forth from the bar to through the back door, like a revolving cast of characters in a sitcom.

I sit at the opposite side of the bar and see the singer sipping from his beer bottle before introducing a new song that seems to be directed at no one in particular but more out of an instinctive ritual. I signal to the bartender for a Lone Star by pointing at the big neon sign hanging above the bar. I move my attention to the singer as he’s now singing in a falsetto voice about working the cotton fields in Alabama and the slaves who found a way to revolt against their master’s cruelty and take a freight train for freedom. He’s now singing only for me it seems, nobody else in the bar seemingly paying any attention to him. But I get the feeling that this is his regular spot and crowd and he’s doing it more for himself than for everyone else.

At the pool table they’re racking up the balls again and the previous game loser heads to the bar to pick up another round of drinks. The college kids keep swinging from time to time from the bar to the back door, pairs of two always heading out and in from outside. The singer is finishing his song as the slaves jump a train heading west, the strumming of his guitar giving way to his harmonica slowly gaining cadence to imitate the moaning sound of the freight train moving down the tracks. I snap my fingers and raise my beer bottle to him in appreciation and he tips his cowboy hat to me and sips from his beer bottle. I holler for the bartender for another Lone Star, now deep in conversation with the college kids about the best fishing spots around. I head to the restrooms as the singer announces a ten-minute break.

When I come back from the restrooms the back door opens up again and I finally see what’s all the commotion that’s happening outside. An animated game of corn hole is happening on the back by the railroad tracks. I sit back at the bar, new bottle in hand and notice the singer not in his place. I sip from my beer and grow an interest in the game of corn hole happening outside instead, the door left open this time for two of the kids to take about a dozen beer bottles outside. It seems there’s a bet on the line for the championship between two teams to decide between the Gulf near Galveston or Key West for their next fishing trip around spring break. There’s a debate about the benefits of one over the other from both factions. It’s all conducted in a most civilized manner over beer after beer and the game of corn hole is the decisive factor. Except the level of drunkenness has to be in accordance with the distance to the target. The drunker one is, the farther away from the target one has to be. I cannot help but laugh at some of the proceedings which draws the attention of the college kids sitting at the bar, who challenge me to try one throw. I politely excuse myself from their invitation by proclaiming that I’m still not as drunk as the game requests, which makes them laugh in return as they all head outside to take part in the final of the championship. The door closes behind them and I almost feel tempted to join them outside to watch the proceedings but refrain from doing so. I finish up my beer and leave a $10 bill on the counter and exit, the pool game still to be decided this time.

Outside the big thick metal doors it has turned dark and cold. I flip up my coat’s collar and a voice announces “You gotta be careful with the weather around here. It gets real cold all of a sudden”. I look in the direction of the voice at the singer who is standing in the dark, smoking a cigarette. I acknowledge him by saying how much I love his old-time singing and playing style. He thanks me politely by tipping his cowboy hat to me and I’m more than surprised to learn that his songs are all original compositions when I tell him they sound like some of the classic Country-Blues songs from the 20’s and 30’s. He takes that as a compliment and asks me to come back on the weekend when the place will be packed and he will be performing with a full band. I say I will, but counter that I enjoyed the place just as it is.

I cross the railroad tracks and walk north, heading home. In the distance I hear the sound of a moaning freight train. I smile and wonder if maybe the singer is back in his favorite place and singing another song about trains.

ILLINOIS (Texas Eagle)

For hours there was nothing but darkness. As the train crossed Arkansas and Missouri in the night, glimpses of faraway streetlights flickering as we sped by, were the only discerning forms of life one could see from this part of the country. Waking up as the train was departing St. Louis station, I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon. Soon we’re crossing into Illinois which was covered with a thick rolling fog. It was daybreak on the plains but it all seemed to be asleep still on that Sunday morning. The train kept pushing on, the conductor honking its horn at every railroad crossing. It didn’t seem to bother any soul except for a sudden soaring Red-tailed hawk taking flight from the top of an elm tree or the occasional dog howling in protest for disturbing the peace.  

As the fog began to slowly dissipate as if making way for the passing train, the sun was still hiding and hanging low on the horizon. A few sleepy small towns began to appear, one after another. The train passed so close to these single homes that one could almost peek inside their windows. A few houses with their porch lights on, others completely in the dark still, a few others with a kitchen light suddenly turned on, as if the passing train meant the start of day. A few cars up the road began to appear on the two-lane narrow country road, frost still on their windows. From inside the comfort of the train one could almost feel the balmy midwestern weather.  

As if watching a movie from the window of a moving train, I began to bear witness on how the locals spend their time when work has been dealt with. From their driveways and backyards, rusty old pontoon boats, RV trailers sitting on cinder blocks, inflatable swimming pools of different shapes and sizes, barbeque grills and wooden tool sheds, swings hanging from oak trees, gardening tools scattered on lawns among mini-trampolines and mini-slides, mountain bikes and ATVs. It’s as if proof were needed to demonstrate that play is as important as work around these parts. 

Plain fields began to take over the landscape after a while, the small towns more scattered and the houses farther away from the train tracks. The sun still struggling to rise up as the fog had completely rolled away. Outside Carlinville, a Walmart with a nearly empty parking lot, isolated shopping carts surpassing the cars in numbers. A billboard under two big lights advertising a big sale on Home, Furniture and Appliances. A garbage truck crossing the parking lot in the direction of the dumpsters. A John Deere dealership next to Walmart, with pristine farming equipment of all sorts, protected by electrified barbwire, all in their shinning Phthalo green. Leaving town, loads of semi-truck trailers resting on the loading docks of the big “Prairie Farms Milk Factory”. The train tracks expanded to lead to big silos that stood tall above everything else to the horizon.  

We kept pushing north, following the trail of old Route 66, passing through picture-perfect small towns, with their water towers with the town’s namesake printed on them with big letters. Life seemed to be in full bloom in these one-light towns, where it doesn’t take much to be stuck in a traffic jam but where they are welcomed as an opportunity to catch up on each other’s week and local news and gossip. Signage from old Route 66 adorns the streets of these towns, nostalgia being a big reason for people and business in trying to return to the glory days of old. 

As we left old Route 66 behind and towns began to get more scattered between them, we started following State Route 53. It didn’t take long for the corn fields to start appearing on either side of the train tracks. From time to time, a pickup could be seen only by the plum of dust that trailed behind it. Farms with small silos, red barns and rusty tractors barely seen at the end of another gravel road cutting through the fields. The sun had now risen in full, hanging high above all else. The train kept pushing on, blowing its horn at the approaching railroad crossings, only a few pickups waiting to cross. Church bells in the distance ringing their believers in, as the sun shined bright over the huge corn fields bathing them in gold colors. I was fixated by their transfigured power. It seemed they could go on forever.

MINEOLA, TEXAS (Texas Eagle)

About an hour outside Dallas, as the train keeps heading east, we begin to enter Wood County, named for an early Texas governor but that could be misconstrued for its origins as an important timber center in its inception. It´s not too long before to begin our approach to Mineola, the first stop after Dallas. The train stops just outside the station, waiting for it to get lined up to the station. From outside the window, we are face to face with the Iron Horse Square Park, a novelty train-themed kid´s attraction that includes a mini-train replica of a steam locomotive. It is packed to the to the rafters this Saturday afternoon with kids riding the mini-train and toddlers waving goodbye as the mini-train passes them by, from their parent’s safe hold.

A phone rings on the seat behind me, and a woman in her mid-30´s, who I remember boarding the train with me in Austin, answers it with an enthusiastic “Hya Pete”. She is dressed casually but impeccably tailored with just enough makeup and a professional-looking hairdo, to peg her as a typical city girl. After some quick exchanges, from which I gather that her brother is on the other side of the line, she begins to direct him to where she is sitting on the train. She has located him easily enough, waiting at the edge of the depot, and is now giving him clear directions to proceed near the mini-train ride. I see him walking towards us but unable to see inside the train. She tells him that she can see him right in front of her and counts the windows back to the end of our lounge car to indicate to him where she is sitting. She waves at him and asks: “Can you see me?... I’m waving at you”. He is still in the dark, but waves briefly in the general direction of her window.

They keep talking on the phone, the sister saying that he looks good, that he must have lost a lot of weight since they last saw each other. They probably haven’t seen each other for a long while and their sparsely phone conversations probably didn´t venture that much further into too many personal details about their lives. Nonetheless, I can sense in her voice, a kind of a nostalgic longing for othet times, which I gather were happy ones between them. The brother keeps looking intently, trying to locate her sister. He is a bulky, bald-headed man in his early 40´s, with a genuine smile on his face, that he tries to extend as long as he can while talking on the phone.

It dawns on me, by the way he moves, slowly and painfully it seems, that the weight loss must have been due to some serious health problem. The sister asks him about their parents and it’s all he can do to divert his eyes from the train, lose his smile and look down as he speaks. I can sense by the silence on this side of the line, that it must have been a serious concern in the past. She asks abruptly if he has moved out of the house again, followed by a swift reply saying, “Mom should have left him years ago... I always knew it would come to this”. I can feel the restrained anger in her voice in trying to stop saying any more of it.

The brother stops talking briefly but then offers he some advice on how to deal with their father, making her promise him to not to stir the pot too much, for their mom’s sake. I can sense a mixture of disappointment and resolve in her decisive voice as she proclaims, “Something needs to be done. He can’t just leave when he wants, leaving Mom all alone, while he’s out somewhere, on another drinking binge with his hunting pals. He’s in his seventies, for chrissake”, her voice suddenly raised and echoing through the lounge car.

The train starts finally moving into the depot and the brother can finally see his sister on the train and waves enthusiastically at her, like her outburst was something to be put firmly behind. The sister gets up, gathers her belongings and moves down the lounge car towards the exit as the brother starts walking towards the depot. The train stops and he hangs up the phone and waits anxiously, puppy-like eyes on his face, for her sister to exit the train. He hurriedly tries his best to run towards her and gives her an embrace so strong that she has to drop her two heavy bags to the floor to commit to it with the same vigor and being surprised by her own sudden emotions.

He smiles broadly as they keep the embrace, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. She smiles back at him and pats him gently on the shoulder, ending their embrace. He tries to pick up the two big bags, but she takes them from his slightly swollen fingers. He smiles innocently at her as they start walking in the direction of the parking lot. They disappear from view as the train begins its slow departure.

I look back at the Square Park and every kid stops whatever they were doing to wave goodbye to the train. As we leave the station behind, there’s a long line of cars waiting at the Railroad Crossing. A few, with kids, have their doors open to let them wave goodbye at the train. A few cars behind I spot the sister and the brother in their car, a smile as big as heaven in the brother’s face as he looks at his sister, and apprehensive but determined look in her face.

I try to see beyond her thin veil of contrasting needs and promises made to herself but see a definite resolve in her eyes to come to terms with coming back home as if she never had a choice in the matter but becomes her only possible choice. She looks at her brother, who’s now looking straight ahead at the train leaving, but still talking in his quiet manner. She smiles at him, a genuine happiness exuding from him. She diverts her eyes briefly and catches the tail end of the train as it’s leaving the town behind, tries her best to keep smiling, and seems to join everybody else in waving the train goodbye.

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS (Cafe on the Square)

The late lunch rush is finally over and it takes a while for me to adjust from the rumble of overlapping loud conversations and the constant clinking of plates and cutlery to the low hum of the waitresses’ gossip while on their smartphones. The sudden barrage of sounds coming from the mounted television seems to be the prevailing sound above all others now. Local sport commentators seem to be trying to outsmart one another and out talk each other with their best options for the local Bobcats team upcoming game this weekend. As if I need more reminders that this is a college football town, a couple of students come in wearing their best Bobcats gear and sit way on the back of the cafe. I finish my grilled cheese and onion rings, push the plate away and finally lean back in my chair, sipping the last of my coffee and look around the place. 

About a dozen Formica tables adorn the long but narrow space and it seems to make it a lot bigger than what one would expect from the outside looking in. A long service area counter with Diner style seating occupies most of one side of the cafe. The sounds coming from the kitchen contrast with the sudden quietness of the place as the TV sound is adjusted. Jet streams of water and clinking of dishes and machines whirling full blast almost drowning the sound of the commentators on TV who are soon interrupted by a commercial break. A sale of mattresses this coming weekend with promises of slashing prices up to 80%. A scintillating man wearing a Viking outfit is slashing mattresses left and right on a parking lot with a nine-foot long shinning sword, as if the spoken promises isn’t enough to entice costumers. 

I open up my notebook and look briefly at the empty page before turning my attention to what’s going on outside the window overlooking the square, as if looking for inspiration. My waitress Rose, a young woman in her early 20’s, comes by with coffee pot in hand and asks if she can take the plate away for me in her most adorable West Texas accent. She smiles as she juggles the plate in one hand, and looking at my almost empty coffee cup, fills it up with the other hand saying, “Let me top that off for you”. She looks at my empty notebook and asks what I’m writing. I say, “Nothing particular, I just like to look for interesting stories to write about whenever I’m traveling”. She asks if any of them turn out to be love stories, her favorites. I say “Sometimes but they’re hard to come by these days for me.” She ponders and offers an “Hmm” as she leaves, her voice lagging on as she says to let her know when I’m ready for the check, but offers that I’m welcome to stay and enjoy, while looking at my open notebook. 

A middle age couple comes in and sit at a corner table overlooking the square. They seem to know each other only slightly and their awkwardness is evident by the way they keep trying to avoid looking at each other’s eyes for too long. It’s safe to assume that they are probably on a first date as they soon resort to small talk about the weather to try to patch up pauses in their conversation. I sip from my coffee cup, take out my pen and sit back watching the steam off my coffee rise up and disappear. I look around for inspiration, for some sort story to present itself to me, but instead notice the big display case behind me with the biggest, most delicious-looking desserts. I call out for Rose and ask her to bring me what she thinks it’s her favorite dessert since I can’t seem to make up my mind. She smiles widely and, in her own words, accepts the challenge. 

On TV the commentators are at it again. It seems the opponent’s team quarterback is coming back from a knee injury and so the consensus among all of them is to take advantage of that in the defensive plays. That seems to have left the moderator without any other questions for the commentators and it’s the best he can do to fumble through his attempt at calling out for a quick commercial break. Even the Bobcat wearing young men, who had up until then pay little attention to the commentators, stop talking and look in disbelief at the TV and the few seconds of dead air. Rose comes back with an enormous slice of raspberry cheesecake. She places it in front of me and asks if I want her to top off my coffee cup again. I nod and she proceeds to do so and says, “Hope you’ll like our cheesecake. It’s made right here in our cafe everyday”. I smile as I take a big bite of off it and hurriedly give her a thumbs up as my mouth is filled with more cheese cake than I should have had in one bite. She laughs as she leaves saying “Enjoy it.”. 

Outside, afternoon is leading up to evening and foot traffic is picking up around the square. A group of students come running down as they cross the street, all in their game T-shirts, and go in into a sports bar. Streetlights are being turned on around the square, giving a more respectable view of the majestic Hays County Courthouse in all its glory. There’s a few Band-tailed pigeons sitting atop Jack Hays statue, that take off together when a dog on a leash stops and barks at then. Three women in their early 40’s come into the cafe, laughing hysterically at something that has happened earlier in the week in their office party. They stop laughing as they look around the cafe and pick up the mood of the place. One of them offers a silent “sorry” with her hands and nods to me as a way of apologizing and I smile my understanding back at her. The couple at the corner table are now holding hands on the table, whispering something between each other that is surely making both happy by their wide smiles. 

On TV the programming has changed to the local news and the upcoming local elections for the council. The women have finally settled down on a table to sit and are now looking at the huge menu. The woman who offered an apology in my direction looks at me and waits as I finish the last of the cheesecake to ask me if that was as good as it looked. I say “Even better”. She thanks me and calls out for Rose to bring three slices of the delicious cheesecake along with a pot of herbal tea for the table. I smile and raise my coffee cup at her and sip from it. The Viking mattress sale commercial is back on and it’s all I can do not to be lost again in such a poor executed but still engaging spectacle. I smile at the screen and the insanity of it all that ends with a group of Vikings sailing on the North Sea on the way to their land, their dragon-carved shallow and narrow boat filled with mattresses as the they celebrate another kind of victory. The women are indulging themselves on their cheesecakes and resume their earlier conversation about their office party but now use a lower, almost whisper of a voice, to detail some sordid details about some of their colleagues. 

I finish my coffee, close my notebook and just sit and relax for a moment. The sun outside is setting fast, with orange hues sprawled across the horizon. The dark of night is fast approaching but the town seems to be coming alive all of a sudden. The middle age couple are now exchanging stolen kisses from one another and giggling like a pair of teenagers. I smile as I look at Rose stealing looks at them while pretending to be on her smartphone, daydreaming of the day the love story will be hers. On TV, the local weather is predicting clear skies and sunshine for the Bobcats game day. I linger awhile longer not to disrupt Rose’s daydreaming and look at the women’s table where the cheesecake is gone but the talk and the tea keeps happily flowing. When Rose comes in to their table I finally ask her for the check. When she comes back, she places it on the table and says, “Whenever you’re ready”. I thank her and she asks me, “How was everything?” I pause and look around the cafe before my eyes land back on her looking at me. “Did you get what you needed?” she asks, with a smile on her face. When I don’t answer immediately she offers, “Hope everything was alright”. I smile and say “Everything’s perfect, just as it should be”.

Philipsburg, Montana

I park in front of an unassuming bar on Broadway, with its red brick facade and neat blue paneled window frames. I step off the car and I’m greeted by the bar watchdog, a greyhound by the name of Jessie, who looks more like a mini antelope. I punch open the swinging art deco chrome doors, under the blinking neon sign. I’m met by the noisy and bustling scene inside and by the smell of wholesome home-cooking which wafts around the spacious, fluorescent-lit joint. It’s impossible to escape the incredible potpourri of sports memorabilia scattered around the bar’s green paneled walls. I sit at the end of the long wooden bar which bends into a small formica lunch-counter. Local Duck Dynasty lookalikes, on their umpteenth drink, wear their long hair under baseball caps and sport goatee beards as tasteless as their T-shirts. At one corner, some are trying their luck in the Keno and Poker video gambling machines. Others are drowning their sorrows at the bar. These larger than life characters all look like they just walked out of a casting for a new art-house movie. I get the impression that they all might as well have spent the last month here. Stuck to a barstool with a beer in one hand and a chaser in the other. Their aim to look as neglected as possible and to say as little as possible. The waitress can hardly keep up, rushing back and forth clanking her heels on the wooden plank floor. In one poor-lit corner of the bar is the “Hall of Fame”, a collection of pictures of old timers who have passed. I hop off my chair and head to take a closer look. There must be close to one hundred pictures hanging in the wall, each one with a small inscription or saying beneath the picture. “It’s not how fast you run or how strong you are, but how well you bounce”, it reads in one of the pictures. “When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on”, reads another. “The measure of a man is when he does the right thing even if no one is watching.” I cannot smile in approval at this tribute to those who have gone. At the top of the “Hall of Fame” is the picture of a tall and lanky old man with azure blue eyes. A white shock of hair flattened beneath an Irish cloth cap and a mischievous grin on his face. I take a closer look at the inscription underneath. “The car that brought me here doesn’t run anymore”. I cannot help but laugh at the use of a line, slightly changed, from “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg” as a kind of epitaph. Looking around the bar, the atmosphere becomes contagious and the laughter is infectious. I might as well be stuck inside a Richard Hugo poem for all I care, so I linger for awhile. The car that brought me here still running for all I know. 

Dillon, Montana

I’m driving south on Interstate 15. Butte’s famous Mile-High hill slowly disappears from view. The highway cleaves across Deer Lodge National Forest. Only the tops of the black skeletal mining gallows can be made out now. The vertiginous granite walls of the Rocky Mountains suddenly retreat into the horizon. New broad valleys and a flat landscape replace the snow-capped peaks. Farmlands scattered with copper-colored prairies. Lush mountain meadows line the highway’s boundaries. Herds of Black Angus and Hereford cattle graze on yellow sagebrush. Snow-fed mountain streams flow into the main rivers. The deserted highway trails its way deeper into the open countryside. Ranches and homesteads of all shapes and hues now come into view. Time appears to have stood still for these Western prairie dwellers. The Union Pacific Railroad runs a train, transporting fattened steer down its tracks. This is the only sound of life in a landscape otherwise completely engulfed in silence. I drive into a wide valley traversed by the Beaverhead River, filled with old ranches and brimming with trout, and arrive in the authentic old train town of Dillon. I park in front of The Metlen Hotel Bar & Café and step into the bar. Charles Marion Russell reproductions and stuffed trout adorn the green walls, weathered by decades of use.  A sign at the bar reads, “Work is the curse of the drinking class!”. The place is filled with locals, cowboys and your regular part-time professional barflies. In the back of the bar a silver disco ball eerily spins round, for no one, flashing its hypnotic light over the dance floor and the dark leather furniture dating from the 60’s. With the dull green lights hanging over two blue pool tables and the walls behind the counter crammed with fierce looking wild beasts it’s difficult not to compare the bar to the décor and ambience of a David Lynch film. A cowboy dressed in a fancy blue shirt, authentic cowboy boots and beaver felt hat talks with a colorful character sporting a ZZ Top beard and tattered hat about the best time in spring to wean calves from their mothers. An old timer with twinkling blue movie star eyes, hidden under a rather worn out cowboy hat taps his dirty knuckles against the bar counter to a Bob Wills song on the jukebox. Two young cowboys flirt with a much older heavily made-up waitress, inundated with breakfast orders, before putting their goatskin work gloves on and heading out the door. An extraordinary mix of characters that seems to reflect perfectly the kind of Anytown of the modern American West. That rugged self-reliant hard working can do attitude. I get a hot coffee, served with a dash of something a little stronger, at the recommendation of the bartender. It’s what everybody drinks in these parts to start the day and get ready for another’s day work. It’s called “an eye-opener”, he tells me. On my way out the door a sign reads “As long as there’s a sunset, there will always be a West…”. I fill the car up at the local gas station and get back on the road. I drive through acre upon acre of prairie as broad as it is flat, covered with sagebrush and longhorn cattle. Further into the farmlands ranch hands are leveling the ground and seeding. As I cross the Idaho/Utah border I keep my eyes fixed on the slowly setting sun on the far horizon out west. It seems to go on forever.