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.