12:45 AM - Henry and Gillian just dropped mom and I off at the Amtrak station in Cleveland. Nice ride. Super cool of them to offer. Met them at the Happy Hound, drove home and went and picked up mom. Otis from Wet Paint Records was DJing at the Hound. For a couple of minutes there I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Karen Black who looks like Raquel Welch was on the screen being chased around her apartment by some crazy pigmy creature. No audio in the Happy Hound basement, but you didn't really need any. It was very captivating. I ask mom and she cringes, says it was apart of a series called " Trilogy of Terror" completely sick, says it along with "Night of The Living Dead" are the scariest movies she's ever seen. Said pigmy gave her nightmares. I watch some of it on her iphone. Damn technology. Amtrak station can't have been updated in more than 20 years. Henry recalls some family vacation he went on as a kid and some guy ran inside the waiting area with a portable TV screaming that a bomb had just gone off at the Olympics. Must have been 1996!
Some guy, older gentlemen comes in with a brown hat riffing on being at some bar for hours without much money but ended up spending 84 dollars. This guy says he's 73, he's very uproarously loud " Is anyone in here headed to Chicago?" Everybody's laughing "This is my first time doing this and maybe my last!" Going on about how he's asking so many people how to get to this place how "Amtrak" must not what people to find "this place". He's going to see his daughter and his # 1 Grandson. This guy, completely over the top. Telling the teller lady soon we're gonna be flying around in some tubes. Can't remember the adjective. "They say I can't have a glass of wine until 6am and I can't have breakfast until 6:30" He's asking himself why he's talking to any of us because we're all heading east instead of west like him. It's good he's got everybody laughing. All kinds of laughs "Hell, they have a vending machine." "But they don't have an atm" He's been traveling since 4:30 pm from western Pennsylvania by way of friend. His train doesn't leave until 2:50 am. His favorite Grandson is at University of Indianapolis/ He wants a glass of merlot, but he can't get one until 6am. What a shame to leave this guy behind.
The train plows out of Cleveland, over east of downtown, a sea of warehouse windows, streetlights, I don't recognize and then E.40 and then I see the uhaul stop at some Superior or St. Clair and E.55th st. Wsa just there the other day. Then over Euclid, past Woodland Cemetery in dark covered in trees. Then over rapid tracks by our old neighborhood, E. 63rd territory. It's hard to believe we used to live there sometimes. I biked westward from there a lot and now everything is a blur. We rock back and forth on the tracks past residential neighborhoods, lights and crossings, warehouses, melting snow. Probably passed by Garfield Heights by now. Mom plays games on her iphone. Most of what I can see outside of the window is black and orange light here and there. The last I sat in a seat like this was in Eugene, OR. I had dry heaves waiting in line to board looking at that wind turbine under Cleveland drizzle flashbacks of the two level train speeding away from me. Like an escaped kidnap victim seeing their captor once again. Primal things went off inside of me, and a flash of Dante's face calms me. This seat has a lot more foot room than my last seat did. I have the same bag with me. Same green jacket. Two items that without me, made their way to Seattle, Washington. Only, the jacket I washed recently. A years worth of dirt and grime down the W.45 drain. The Factory records themed Chrome bag however still touched with any dirt or traumatized spirits may have singed itself, themselves to the vinyl and Teflon Maybe a blue, maybe a little gray strip of newsprint still lingering in between the removable lining. A transfer ticket from San Francisco transit. We're sitting next to the staircase. The ice water dispenser, the trash can, the "cafe" sign that teases you at 1 am. Mom thinks she'll be starving by the time it opens. Oh guardians of transit, do you have a soul on board for me to meet this time? Will I find them in the observation cart in hiking boots eating dry cereal out of a ziploc bag? I suppose that's getting lucky. Being courageous Mr. Mick Reynolds who liked Zagnut bars. This faceless guy in a good set of navy slacks with built in suspenders grabs a water cup. I feel like I might be getting motion sickness. I'm trying to ignore it.
In lounge car, took my hair out of my tight pony tail trying to ease the train sick. Lots of people sleep. More optimum stretch space I guess. Some younger kids with gauged ears and pajama pants laugh " I have to get this novocain shit injected into my crotch" says the girl. A sporty boy wearing no shoes and sweat pants watches a movie on some portable device. Something with Cameron Diaz and the guy from "Forgetting Sara Marshall". "Why can't I smoke a cigarette at every mother-fucking stop?" says girl. Why doesn't she get off for an Herbucha? These kids. Sporty boy is plugged with earbuds and behind the alternative crew sits some veteran beatnik guy, eavesdropping with eye glasses and a nappy beard. She has on a Hello Kitty robe. She would, wouldn't she? No Mick. No liquor-drenched breath boy to laugh and make assumptions about me, now if I was a drinker, there sits a mostly full bottle of Heineken, abandoned.
I am dipped in silence now. Some guy who looks like Allen Ginsberg stares at me and later asks me for the time. Says his watch is broken.
10:06 AM - Not a good gig trying to sleep. I'm groggy and sneezey. Mom has the prime spot. The window seat. We're passing through the West Virginia Mountains right now. By river, Through woods I really enjoy the little worlds people have built for themselves out here. I'm trying to understand do people live out here? Do they just come to stay a little while? Is there somebody there in that airstream sleeping? It's really neat. Id like to just pretend there are people in there right now. Little trailers scattered along the river in the woods like Christmas lights. I wouldn't mind trying that. Either by myself of with somebody special. Maddy finally came clean in Chicago saying she doesn't think I'd like camping because I don't get into nature or something. And I came clean that anytime the idea is brought up to camp with her involved I'm freaked out because I already figured she thought those things. She was pretty annoyed and surprised but hey there's nothing like a self-fulfilling prophecy or having pre-expectations of somebody to ruin that persons time. With myself I am completely free. No parents or Maddy in San Francisco. Alone, nobody could tell me anything. I knew myself then, for some of my potential to be a guardian of my own trail and I did well. I'm not one to let someone else's bad attitude ruin my chances especially when they don't even bother to understand. More trailers in huge clusters now. Large camping grounds, tent structures with cars, so I wonder how these people get in and out of forest trailer land. Some might say dreary, but it's drizzly out. And with the scenery of leafless trees, brown sticky objects, composting plant matter on the mountains and hills along the river, the gray overcast skies are some of my favorite weather. Like a Nicolas Roeg movie. Few roads in here. So travel to and fro must be tough. I want to walk with Alex Sapetelli down these tracks wearing no socks in my keds.
I'm sipping on my little mason jar of toddy and eating really old donut holes I bought at the snack bar for 3 whole dollars. Now I see beautiful thin, tall white trees! John Hurley is upset I did not call last night when I had the urge for one of his long conversations. No better place than an Amtrak lounge booth. In here right now is optimum light. Oh just the best light!
The dining car is officially closed for the rest of the trip. No tragedy there. Perfect luck. I got disconnected from the food stamps lady on the phone, there goes my interview. A miserable sounding woman.
Harper's Ferry is pretty. I'm looking forward to a bagel at the Union Station in Washington D.C. Not even train nostalgia can hide the fact that this food is F-ing bad. 20 minutes from DC mom's mad at me because we got into an arguement about whether or not I should try and get my money back for bad old donut holes. Well of course not. That's like returning a burrito to Taco Bell telling them it's unhealthy. She storms off with her microwave teriyaki bowl from the snack bar and she concerns herself with getting sick. She says I'm mean, I don't think so but maybe I am. A moving landscape, I chose 2 songs to listen to, Grauzone's "Trauma Mit Mir" and Carmody's "The Perfect Beat".
I can play with my turtle ring. I have one now like Maddy. We were at a clothing swap a couple of weeks ago. I was rummaging through a grocery sack of jewelry and there it was. It was too big and a little broken so I bent it smaller. Now we both have turtles on our fingers. Our wedding rings. Maddy Flannigan, turtle, love of my life. Always hurt, always excited, chasing after you and chasing with you. Maybe ... my blue is you.
Past 4PM - Possum Point Power Station, Northern Virginia. WE're board a commuter train DC to Richmond. And fast we fly down the tracks across a river.. I can hear the trains horn blow. The conductor yells "Quantico, Virginia". These little town stops. The guy startles me each and every time. I remember him, the same guy from last year, rude on the DC platform. This train even tried to close the gate on us. Bastards, can you believe that? Trying to take off before scheduled time. No excuses. The train gains speed again passing a primitive looking playground like some I remember down In Alabama. Lots of tires involved, but mostly I think it is the tall skinny pine trees, with the floor covered in beds of their needles. We pass a military academy of sorts in a mass like a pile of ants, men in uniform empty off a ramp coming down from a bridge over the train. Takes you by surprise, not something I would usually l see in real time. I don't know what river this is. The James? The Potomac?
At Washington DC Union Station I lick and seal the envelope hugging a fresh letter written to Mr. Dante. Mom and I sit at a two chair table at an "Au Bon Pain". I tell her I'm going to run and find a mail box, outside is chilly. I dno't have mnore than this man sweater. It is wet and ocvercast and the streets are crawling with people. I have only my letter, Jackie's letter in my hand. Not a mail box in site. A guard answers my wustion with too many bomb - related risks with stand alone mail boxes. Odd. I undestand I guess. He motions around the corner how there is an actual post ofic.ce So I start running, hopping puddles trying to spot it. Ladies see me with letter in hand and call out to me "The post office is around the corner!" And I understand. I see the row of blue boces and I approach in the drizzle. Even once across thest reet a girl motions at the post office for me from the little bus stop. I give a nod with my hands up. Little can describe the vigor that coursed trough my veins running up and down that wet sidewalk, filled with such excitement with unmerciful and unwavering love in my heart. I could have laughed. I keep writing I say, because you'll always have that. No matter what. With the little rectangle in your hand and sweater too thin, and a smile on your face.
These woods are still the color of an indian summer. Colors that belong on a Japanese art print. I move across to have my own window with a view. There is room on the commuter train.
The sky darkens with gray and pink and I like the decaying mint green bus in the distance. Cows. Open fields. The propper landscape to a Thomas Newman soundtrack. I'm hearing the character of LEster Berman from "American Beauty"'s voice in my head. Before station I'm thinking of seeing dad again. I can feel curious blisters popping up between the pen and my middle finger and ring finger. That's unusual. I'm thinking of Jackie. These woods remind me of the front and back covers of that first double tape he gave me, photographed by his ex girlfriend. The tape that will forever smell of old coffee that composted through the bottom of a Path Cafe togo cup. I'm thinking of Patti Smith in her book I'm almost done with and how her, Maddy, myself, women, boys, artists, we're all very much alike and how every one of us has a story worth telling. We're all out to find that thing we'll do that will make us feel worthy of the life we were given. Out to understand the atmospheres we create in.
The power comes on and off in here. I like it better off. Where with the darkening sky, I cannot see my reflectino in the window. I am excited for days with dad. I am excited for my tape, Kerry is dubbing which he claims is turning into a dance party. I'm excited for going home and that kombucha will be ready, and moms will prospering. I'm excited for the new Feng Shui of our living room and that Tino might become our room mate shortly. We'll see. I want to save money again and go to Italy in the fall with Valerie. She strikes me. I think we may have a dangerous spark in us together and I'm very curious. I'd like to sit down and start writing.... "Fyodor After" maybe from the point of some outside observer. I want to drive across the country with Granger next month. What is going to happen to us?
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