The Silver Path through an Ivory Blanket (2020)
I took the bus from Manchester to Rutland for $2.00 so I could finally ride the train to Bennington. I've ridden every other direction out of the VRS yard except this line south and wanted to go through the Green Mountains. I no longer have work so what else was I gonna do?
Public transit for some reason always attracts the people that want to talk to strangers. I'm not quite sure what it is, but the elderly women, lonely types, misfits, low income workers, and bums alike, in any city I've been to, utilize the service; probably because it's cheap and they don't have a car, like myself. It's usually not reliable, but when you're going nowhere does it really matter?
When I'm on the bus, I tend to keep to myself and just listen, but hearing three women bicker the whole ride really aggravated me especially this early in the morning without much sleep or coffee; but such is the reason why I don't really like public transit or hitchhiking and why I ride trains.
I prefer the silence, not answering the same redundant questions about my life choices or what I'm doing, not talking about politics, who I voted for or didn't vote for, what my goals are, what I do for work. I can't really complain about something when it's free, but at least with cheap public transit, I'm not the entertainer, I'm just on there like everyone else looking to go some place by some time. If it's late, early or on-time I don't even care.
With age I have become quite good at disregarding the English language. Sometimes this skill has gotten me into trouble with the wife, but most of the time, I just tune out the negativity at work and in the world around me. People like to bitch and after awhile it becomes contagious and spreads like wildfire, listening to the same pessimism that festers inside of you subconsciously, without even realizing it.
This was one of those conversations that drug on for the whole duration of the bus ride. I was not amused especially seeing my train creep by just past Mt. Tabor, the southbound train to Bennington, the only daily train in that direction. Whatever. This wasn't the first time I had to sit in the weeds for hours waiting on my train and it definitely wasn't the last either.
I stepped off the bus and walked straight to the woods, past Engrem, past Jackson, and tromped right past the Stewart's Shop heading towards the tracks across from the yard, where they dropped blocks and built trains. It felt brisk, slightly cool, not too cold, but not warm either.
When I reached the woods, I tussled with the tangled limbs and vines that twisted along the perimeter of steel in a maze of dead forest. I pushed through it and slipped among the dead leaves, leaving muddy footprints in the loose ground beneath my boots. The woodland didn't give much cover, but it was January; it was cold out; Vermont was not a hub for train riders, especially in winter, so I didn't care. I flung my bedroll out under a pine tree and indulged in "Lord of the Flies" as I sunk deeper into a moist bed of dead leaves.
For the first time since I could remember my attention span made it past the first few chapters. Normally anxiety, racing thoughts, and wanting to go, go, go interfered with my reading, writing, and everyday life. But this time, laying there all bundled up, immersing myself in a novel I had read times over as a kid, felt refreshing with the undertone of freight horns bellowing, the thunderous slamming of cars, and the idling of engines. I just smiled.
I lay there for hours reading and watching the ominous clouds above, tasting the thick air, ready for a blanket of ivory to color the landscape as I ruminated about building a fire; then drifted off to sleep for a quick nap.
It took much work to build a fire, the gathering of tinder, wood, constructing a log cabin around kindling ever so intricately that the oxygen let it breathe into the blazing roar of a dragon. Sometimes it lit quickly with the flick of a Bic, the sparks igniting the dried leaves, the cardboard, the toilet paper, combusting to bits of smoke and a small flame before engorging the sticks and logs in monstrous heat.
Other times it didn't. This was one of those times; but, after much effort I sat there pleasantly in a graveyard of trees atop moist earth watching the fire glisten, shooting up sparks of bright fireflies to the swarms of rolling clouds. The fiercely vibrant beard of fire curled at the stoke of wood, releasing tendrils of smoke to the nightly sky. In that moment I craved warmth, comfort, my eyes hypnotized by the deep red embers glowing amidst the flames.
Something about sitting in the woods huddled around a fire mesmerized me with gratification, exuberance. Maybe it was the solitudinal aspect of brief freedom from work, the man, society, obligation, responsibility, the lust to roam freely about at my discretion and to camp where I chose. Or maybe it was deeper, stemming from the roots of my ancestors' nomadic ways—surging through my gypsy veins—just like many a man before us.
Hardships, triumphs of my own free will, trouble maintaining employment, and choice put me here gazing at cherries blossoming into flames, completely content with my life. The ebullience of silence and tranquility made me lay back on the stiff earth. I curled into my sleeping bag, drifting off to sleep, as clouds rolled around like swirls of grays painted across the night sky.
I didn't know where I'd end up tomorrow and didn't much care. It didn't matter. Anywhere was better than working behind the line, cooking custom orders of breakfast and lunch at a cafe, with my miserable coworker Eyore mumbling obscenities before erupting like a volcano. I knew all too well about the 'Jekyll and Hyde.' It consumed you. I wish him the best. As for me, I just know it's time to ride.
I didn't sleep much if at all. At 4 AM I woke to the dissonance of wagon wheels jingling along the steel, clanking and clunking, creaking and shrieking, until they picked up speed to a smooth roll and I popped up immediately out of my stupor. A thin sheet of snow covered the ground as I watched the blinking red light fade away through the blurry lens of my glasses and its subtle beeping sound slowly dissipated.
I stood up, my shoulders drooping low in disappointment and I swung my arms in a breast stroke, charging through the thick bristles of branches as snowflakes touched my face, melting upon impact. I climbed a Canadian Grainer poking my head out between the cars as I clung both hands to a cold, rusty rung, watching in the shadows of freight as a worker detached the FRED from the string just south of me. The string that just rolled past me. The string that WAS not the Bennington train. I sighed in relief as I stepped down from the rung of a completely oxidized grainer, an empty salt car, which I had distinguished from the loud ping of a rock instead of a thud. This was going southbound.
As they chopped a block, I hustled to pack up my gear and shimmied back through the dead forest to sleep inside a Canadian Grainer. The string didn't have a FRED on it yet, but I needed sleep; I needed cover from the snow and most of all, I didn't want to catch on the fly in these conditions. I knew empty salt cars went southbound and this string was full of empties, so I unpacked my sleeping bag and unraveled my mat. I lay sideways with my knees bent and my head all cattywampus against the slanted steel wall, uncomfortably squished inside that metal freezer, before drifting off to sleep in what felt like the most lucid of hallucinations.
She aired. She rolled backwards. She shrieked. She gave off a thunderous clap of steel thrashing car-to-car like life-size dominoes clashing against each other. She stopped. She cut power. This continued on and off as I trickled in and out of my dreamlike state until she finally aired up and rolled forward, past the yard, past the dead strings, and kept pumping her wheels south, slowly, gingerly, through the faces of snowflakes dropping from the sky.
These fluffy poofs fell in droves as she thrummed onward through the endless white horizon. She snaked around bends cruising at a rolling speed until Manchester. As I poked my head out around each curve the falling white sky brushed my face with the coldest touch. Water droplets dribbled down my face like tributaries splashing against my clothes, slowly soaking them as the landscape hypnotized me, much like the other snow rides the train gods have gifted me over the years. I loved it. The frozen lakes, thick, white coat of snow blanketing the earth before my eyes, the old rustic barns, the horses, the mountains, the forests, all painted by the magical touch of God's hand, a higher power.
Her roll switched to a stampede and then suddenly I heard a loud WHOOOOOSH. The air broke just outside of Shaftsbury; she stopped immediately and my heart never sank so low in my chest, pounding fiercely until she aired back up and continued southbound on the sinuous track.
She zipped through Bennington veering northwest towards Hoosic Junction, and as we reached the wye, I noticed the heavy snow faltered to measly specks of falling salt, evaporating on contact to rain. I hopped off.
She cut power and interchanged quickly with NS right before I sauntered off down the wet, muddy, dirt road for the Stewart's shop.
Now I lay here and wait by the Hoosic River, listening to its calming flow while I wait on my train to ED.
