Canada to Montpelier (2019)
I took a break from trains to enter the states legally and left Canada a few days ago on a bus, crossing the border into VT. Border Patrol always asks me the most cynical questions just because there's a little dirt under my fingernails and smudges of grease on my winter jacket, where holes and patches are fairly noticeable.
He asked me if I had been to jail in about five different ways like my answer would magically change or what I did for a career. I smirked because this always reminds me of how boring life can be when I step back into those black shoes, shimmy into dress pants and a collared shirt, tape a fake smile on my face and smooze over rich people with entertaining stories where I leave out the words "under a bridge" or "bum stuff" to get a decent tip. I had to clarify what working in the "front of house" meant since Mr. Policeman did not know.
Once he rolled around in enough of the same questions, realized I had no drugs despite my hippy hair or usage of the word "dude" and kept to the same story, he let me back into America. I wandered back onto the bus full of agitated travelers and after much time Border Patrol finally let all of us pass back over that imaginary line.
I rode onto Montpelier where I disembarked and slipped between the shadows of streetlights until I followed the steel to the solar panels and the Dog River by the train yard.
When I watch the train, I imagine all the walks of life hidden in a mosaic of faces behind that wax and paint rollin' by, car-after-car, through all those cities each day and night. That writing on the wall ties us all together out there wherever we may be and keeps the spirit rollin' nowhere. Under that noise of her working in the yard that night, I fell asleep.
Rain held out until the morning, which I had only realized until recently followed me for more than half my trip across Canada and back.
Much of the next day I watched the river in its calmness twinkle from the sun until a rush of rain poured from the ominous cauldron above. I sat under a bridge content with doing not much of anything but watching raindrops ricochet off the surface blurring the landscape in front of my eyes. It stopped eventually giving me enough time to wander to Charlie O's for a beer. But I never just indulge in one, it always ends up being two, three, four, and so on, which is why I rarely enter those walls, where it smells of cigarettes, spilt beer, and the essence of marijuana with pool balls clacking in the background under miscellaneous chatter. The small town characters tend to bleed through in these ends of town and that liquid courage stirs up random conversation, which for no other reason passes the time.
But I was there to meet someone, a local artist and standup guy about my age and build sporting overalls, glasses and a newsboy cap. Otherwise I'd have been in the woods somewhere stoking a fire. It's not often I bump into fellow riders, writers or people who just wanna grab a beer, talk trains, wander the yard, mark cars and just appreciate graffiti and moniker art. It's always a treat.
The scenery fades with each new passing day and train, no sooner she blazes down that sinuous track, which is why I keep riding to see more, to maintain that feeling of freedom and solitude. But it's always the encounters with good people that make me look back and smile, just as I did on this occasion.
That night after a storm melted from the clouds I found myself wedged between the spine of a loaded lumber rack, riding a night train from Montpelier to Bellows Falls on the NECR.
Just a few days later I would take a bus from Bennington to Delaware to visit family and friends before work starts back up. It's funny how the world can be so small at times though. That same old tramp hunched over with his big brown backpack whom I saw on the coldest of days last winter in Bellows Falls surfaced off a local bus in Bennington that morning.
I started the day off smoking weed from a crushed Redbull can, exchanging travel stories with a man more than twice my age, enjoying those two hours of conversation more than most before he drifted onto another bus for another place, goin' nowhere. Maybe we'll meet again down that road that's much smaller than you think.
