Three rails meet in the silence of the Pines. A lone man stands ready to embark. He has been waiting for what seems to be years for his train to come in. But this ghost train is not stopping tonight in the ruins of this Freight Station.
My father was wrong.
The old train station with its turnstile and freight yard was on the other side of Station Road South of Route 530.
I found it after taking a trip to the county Historical society. Years ago,
I was looking for it on the other side near the power Transformers with my friend Dave. Dave is full of Bull, but that is because he is Sitting Bull’s Great Great something Grandson. But on that day his latent Suburban Shaman skills was no use in finding the turnstile.
So fourteen years later, I park the truck on the sand road I had used in High School to get into the back of the shopping Center the fun way. I hiked up the road along one side of the three tracks that merged at this spot. Plus the donkey cart track that went into my neighborhood to remove the clay from the pits. I found a small triangle island of brush that had an indention. In the hole I found a burned beam and many other artifacts. An old ornate iron heating vent, crockery, straight edge razor, electrical components, an old burner to a gas grill was rusted down into a abstract weathervane, and many Smirnoff Bottles.
Yes there was older bottles, including one travel size Listerine bottle amongst others. But the regular deposit of Smirnoff Bottles is what struck me. Granted they are not the ones I gathered and placed into the truck later, but they were carried within my head.
See years ago we had our token soul who lived on the tracks. He lived anywhere he could. After inheriting his father’s successful Automobile Repair Shop, he lost his spirit. Jealous siblings burned it down soon after he took the keys. But he was a damn good mechanic. In fact that is how he gained many residences for the night. He would fix anything for the price of some dry concrete in your basement and a little for a taste.
I can not tell you if he had this problem before the fire. I can not say if it was brought on by the fire’s close proximity to his father’s death. I can not reason a man’s life that was lost on himself for decades before I met him. But many did without ever introducing themselves to him. But I knew him. In fact, I drank with him a few times when I was fourteen from the same bottle. Not many times, but I spoke to him often. He was one of the few regular faces you can find in a rural town separated by more than the miles in between the houses.
So I was starring around the perimeter of the hole that was the last resting spot of the remnants of the freight house, looking at slices of the intervals of Bill’s life. The financial successful years was closer to the hole when he was drinking Smirnoff. Just letting them fall from his lap with ease. Trim years could be seen by Hiram Walker bottles thrown a little further out with disgust. Then the tough times can be ascertained by the Boomerang Bottles thrown almost into the road. Bill’s life could be determined in much the same ways one determines the age of a tree and it’s own growing history.
Maybe, he was a ring for a decade. But then again, there always been forgotten men. So it may be easily argued Bill may be a ring for our species.
He was from the other side of the tracks. But those tracks stop going anywhere years ago. Like many people with all the potential and talent do too often get lost in this elbow grease and heel ruled society. He sat in the ruins of this freight yard that was lost in the brush. Three lines going to fabulous places converged in this spot. His dreams could of taken three different courses, three different journeys, three different paths. But the only destination for this freight yard was into this hole. In the silence of the Pines, lay Bill. He was found in someones basement after repairing a car one night. He was not laid in this hole he sat in remembering a life that was waiting for the train to come at this ghost station. I can not tell with any certainty, where he is buried. But after sixteen years after his death, his presence was seen and felt around that hole.
As you went through the switch to travel from country to country, you find yourself at my station. Here a lone passenger awaits your companionship . Silently Bill has entered your thoughts. Togethor you can travel the world through this electric railway that travels to the mysterious orient with the palaces of Baghdad, lets off at the seas Sinbad sailed from, passes under Carpathian peaks, goes between the Great Divide, dips past the Dead Sea, and cuts through the Subcontinent. For he is willing to travel anywhere for a space. Then there will come a time that you will pass from each other, which is ok. For some one else will read this tale of a man and carry on with Bill through his Journey.
