I woke at 4:30 AM and packed, having drank too much Kracken rum. We were to box in the morning, and Dan felt great. But I felt like, well, my 150 pounds had been colliding with his 220 pounds…
Coffee in the kitchen while Dan burned breakfast officiated over some good discussions on combat arts. Eventually, rescued from the befouled frying pan by Goodwife Angie on her way out the door to her job, we sat down to eat and speak over eggs and meat.
Soon, with a groan from me and a sigh, Dan said, “better get you to the train, Buddy,” and off we went.
I hiked up the interior of the rail platform where the baggage handler in the yellow rain coat assured me that I stand on the west side, as tracks graced both sides of the platform. The platform was whipped by wind, so that even though I cowered under the shelter and behind the pillar, I got wet.
The Lincoln Service 302 rolled up and a well groomed young Latino offloaded and told me he would check my ticket inside, which he never did. The cars are spacious, with open overhead storage little used, as the Karens, the Sistas, the Bruthas and the Muvas all take up both seats, one with their stuff, and one with their butts. There is not a single open double, so I sit down next to some woman’s stuff, a black woman, based on her fur lined parka. Some attractive young girls were alone and I did not want to affront them and seem like I was seeking nubile company. The Bruthas were man spreading and the trannies and homos were quaking that I might sit next to them.
I sat as the train pulled off and a light skinned black woman of 40 returned and told me I was in her seat. I obediently rose and sat next to the 18-year-old hoodrat doll across the aisle, who did not mind at all. Matron Karen Brown then broke out her computer and had a conference call with a hotel in Chicongo, berating the staff for the quality of her last stay and demanding that the Head of Housekeeping, who she named, meet her for an inspection of her room.
I am the last to offload from the train, taking my time, as I have from noon to 6:20 to wait in the crowded station.
A handful of shambling fatties stand and howl in dismay as overburdened shuttle carts pass them by and they sag over their canes. The pilots of these six-seat golf carts that tow baggage carts as the fatties and elders sag in the seats, are mostly tall, lean, young black men in red suits who stand as they drive and are very patient with their disgusting human baggage. The one ghost driver is a fat young man who slouches over his vehicle like his slovenly passengers.
The shambling emensity of many of the passengers of all races and their chortling is astounding. I was present for 2 loadings and two off loading at this station in 3 days. Like the Pittsburgh station, this is under construction. The normal waiting area near the 11 gates and 22 tracks is roped off. Passengers gather in the Great Hall and wait on wooden pews, and are then summoned in the Gilded Age echo chamber by hollering conductors, lined up and marched a ¼ of a mile?
There are not enough carts to support the ever expanding herd of entitled land whales. Many drop out and scream, “Red cap, red cap!” The conductors and red cap drivers are mostly very fit and seem a different species than most of the passengers, holding a physical resemblance in build only to the Amish men. The average land whale is 80 pounds overweight, like I was before Guru Rick fixed my diet. Only, none of these people have muscle under that blubber and waddle like seals or sea lions being herded across the Missouri Breaks. Then their are the fatties, 100 to 300 pounds overweight…
Except for the Amish, half of the people in the station are sick with coughing and sneezing and sniffling. I go up to the Lounge, a sprawling food court near the Ticket Bar.
The tables are all smeared with Chik Fillet juice, this possibly being the busiest Chik Fillet in Murkastan. I cleaned off my table with handi-wipes that goodwife Angie had packed me, in a little zipper bag that also contained: pepperoni, sausage sticks, pistachios, nut mix, fruit and nut mix and a book Dan had given me. The table clean, my right side against the wall where lateral light would not cause an eye seizure, I took off the patch, donned the bush hat and screen glasses and read: Penetration by Ingo Swann, a remote viewer and author of the Last Age. I was able to read 74 pages before the eye twitched, thanks to good spacing and simple font and close reading.
It was cold enough in this crowded building for jackets and coats and hat. A beautiful German woman with Latina hair was approached by three Jehovah Witness folk, upscale blacks, pretty women about 40 and a handsome man of 30.
One white trash beggar inhabited the place and demanding in low shrill tones food and money from various people, one black woman threatening him.
A black family to my middle left is feasting, and break into an argument that escalates to a bitch slapping of a teenager by a Mamma over the distribution of chicken nuggets favoring his little sister.
A Latino family is well behaved.
A middle class black family set the standard for decorum and discuss literature and Oprah.
Hundreds of people file in and out off commuter trains.
Janitors swoop down on abandoned tables and clean and sweep.
Two working class couples seek corner tables and huddle.
Three businessmen, one a skinny little homo who cringes every time I pass him to the trash can, and two large 30 year old land whales, once athletic, now bloated with recent distended weight gain.
Two tall, lean, ashen, black bums in big nylon coats, smelling of sour beer and cheap wine and smoked cigarette butts, beg for “Food for my children.” One asks me and I nod, “No.”
The mamma who smacked her nearly adult son answers, “Not today! You think I got money after feeding these greedy children of my own!”
The three business men give $5s. One Gen-X alpha male seeks out the more damaged looking and hunched of the two and presses a $20 into his hand.
The nerd homo businessman, actually an IT type I suppose, working on his computer furiously, simply squeals in fright, his unmanly peeps driving off the beggars whose eyes arch in fear as if they are afraid that his bitch juice will infect them and turn them into women.
The big man in the shirt and tweed who looks like he played foot ball, is panhandled a second time by the leaner bum and says in irritation, “I already gave!”
“Not to me, Sir.”
“You have to be kidding me!” the man exclaims as he digs in his pockets and cleans out the change, dumping it into the ashy palms.”
I am befriended by two people.
I leave and enter the great hall downstairs at 5.
An older black man, whose name escapes me, introduced himself in the Great Hall as a former mechanic who has, with his brother, begun a traditional pottery business in Indianapolis. He has strong hands and heavy knuckles, coppery skin and a kind demeanor. He sees me squaring away my pack in the corner and suggests that he should do the same with his luggage to make way “for the ladies” shambling, hobbling and whimpering all about like wounded rabbits. He is astonished that the 30 year old desk jockies are nowhere near as fit as we seniors.
Roberto, a Latino Jehovah Witness tries to draw me out, but I offer only my name. He is impecably groomed and very polite. They are back in the train stations with a new sales pitch: “We are not Christians. We used to be Christians. We read the Bible every day for God’s Word in order to apply His message to this world, where the government has failed us so much.”
Roberto has researched train disasters, overruns, takes the trains himself, as “a second generation JW.”
We are soon marched to the #30, as far as possible, on track 22. All of the 100 coach passengers are on the same car and seated in groups according to destination. 18 of us are bound for Pittsburgh overnight. My seat mate is a young, husky fellow with severe upper respiratory distress. We speak not a word. He does not know how the seats work, about the foot rest, the seating slip, etc. He watches me and follows my example.
It is cold and rainy in Toledo and Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where we arrive at 6:05, only 45 minutes over. Rick does not come to pick me up, his mother, Punky does.
“Hi honey, so glad you are here! If you haven’t guessed, because I know he’s too macho to discuss it, Ricky is sick again. Can you believe this weather. It is so cold, 35 degrees—I’m surprised its not snowing—so glad to see you Honey. Good God, you look like Santa Clause, but you’ve gotten thin in the face. I’ll feed you!”
Punky, another darling soul inhabiting this great soulless beast of no nation.
