The Train

 I saw this video on a an unedited video tape once, and have never been able to forget it.  Later, I stuck it in this essay.  It’s a tiny bit disturbing, but not too bad.  I found a longer version.  Puts things in context a little.  The essay follows

THE TRAIN

The only thing between our ground-floor apartment (garden-level, they call them—there actually was patch of dirt outside the window) and the railroad tracks was fifteen feet of lawn and a wire fence.  It was low-income housing; it seems only right that we should live beside the tracks.  Our apartment was partly underground, so that when I looked through the living room window, the empty garden and the lawn were level with my nose, and the rest of me, below ground.  Back in Jackson I had colorful petunias and zinnias around our patio.  I might grow flowers here if I had time, if David were still with us.  Directly on the other side of the fence, and down a tiny steep embankment, were the train tracks.           

  The railroad tracks separate the east from the west side of town, and I was back in my home town.  We could always hear the train coming, whistling though intersections in the distance, crossing Preston Street, then Bellows, then High.  My young daughters would yell: “Train!” and run out the door and up the stairs and out the back of the building.  They’d link their fingers around the wire fencing, and listen and wait.  The sound of the train thundering down the tracks would grow louder, closer, and when it finally appeared they’d wave silently through the deafening roar of the engine, to the man sitting high up in the front.  With his arm hanging out the side of a slid-open window, he’d toot his whistle twice short, wave, and pass on by, the rest of the long train following, whizzing past their noses.  Box car after grey-metal box car, clackety-clacked quick, into and out of view.           

 Sometimes, when I was in my bed at night, the train going by would wake me, and I would remember I was alone and back home.  After a while, I did not hear the train at night anymore.  Still, I rather liked it; I liked watching the girls run out to wave.  The train gave us routine, and its vibration filled our chests, filled the void in our empty hearts, and shook the ground.  In the distance it sounded sad and lonely.  When it was upon us, it was, somehow, soothing.        

    One day I looked out the window as the train was passing by.  Emily, my littlest one, had climbed the fence.   The long train’s rusty wheels screeched and clanked rhythmically, the identical box cars racing by dizzily right in front of her.  There she stood, the middle of her thighs level with the top of the fence.  She held on with both hands and leaned forward.          

  I slid the window open and yelled over the sound of the train: “EMILY!  Get down from there!”                       

  One day, not long ago, I rented a videotape about trains.   I had to see it.  One scene shows a woman, a moment someone caught on film, running across two sets of tracks to catch a train.  On the first set of tracks a train is stopped, filling with passengers.  Same for the third, the one she is presumably running to catch.  The sound of an approaching train is heard, from somewhere, and at the same moment, the woman runs across.  As she does, the train, apparently passing through, hidden from view by the train on the first tracks, suddenly appears.  It does not slow down.  Instead, the front-side corner of the enormous engine hits her, square on the side of the head.   Her head is smacked sideways, and she is pitched instantly from view.          

  I rewind and watch again.  Same thing.  Her head and the train engine approach from right angles and meet—Thwack!  I can’t quite make out the sound of it.  And I can’t quite see it—it happens too fast.  I rewind it and watch it again.  There she is, running, alive, wearing a long woolen winter coat and carrying a purse—Smack!   And  again—I want to catch the moment of death, or the sound of train hitting skull, smashing it sideways instantly.  So instantly.  I can’t stop it, and there is no slow motion.  Maybe it’s more like—Thunk!   The rest is blurry—too fast.  Even with the remote control, I can do nothing.           

They say a mother would risk her own life and jump in front of a moving train to save her child.  All I did was tell her to get off the fence.  She turned to look back at me and jumped back down onto the ground, landing on all fours like a little monkey and getting up to brush dirt of her hands, and I walked into the kitchen.   I opened the refrigerator to pull out chicken legs for dinner.    Oh my God!  I let my head fall against the top freezer door.  Images of Emily teetering, then pitching over the fence and falling down the tiny embankment, rolling beneath the grooved metal wheels.  Emily—mutilated by the passing train.  I hung on to the refrigerator door and tried to shake the image from my head.  I would have to quick jump up, climb onto the top of the television and push out the screen.  Even then, I’d have to get over the fence.   If I tried to go around, out the apartment door, up the stairs, and out the back of the building, I would have no time.  I wouldn’t make it.   And David’s not here either, it’s just me.  It’d be one thing to jump in front of a moving train to save your child, it’d be another to pull her, or part of her, out from under one that’s rolling on top of her.  And why did no one save this woman?  Where was her husband?  There were crowds of people around the station and no one did a thing.  I’d have to do something.  A cold feeling rushed from the top of my head and into my stomach.  It went all the way down to my toes, and I hung on to the refrigerator door, shuddering.           

 I would never make it.  I could come up with no scenario where I could make it in time.  I was staring into the refrigerator when Emily casually walked inside.  I got down on my knees, eye-level with her, and held her arms gently.    

     “Emily,” I said “Please don’t climb the fence again, okay?”        

    “Okay,” she said.          

     “Promise me.”         

    “Okay,” she said, and then began to cry, right there in front of me.   

pain in the ass

Still not feeling great, but maybe a little better, though still a little bit nausious and headachy.  The pain has moved into my left lower abdomen, right around my hip bone.  At first, I thought it was gas, then just some kind of muscle cramp, then gas, until it moved around to my back and my ass was sore, and finally I decided it must be an ectopic pregnancy and it will burst my fallopian tubes. 

I need a hobby. 

illness

So, today, my head feels better, but my stomach feels sour, and in general, I feel sick.  This illness, whatever it is, seems to change shape from day to day:  starting with the wiggies and sandpapery head, and settling into what feels like a sinus headache.  Along with that I feel chilled and feverish, like I’m sick, but I’m still moving around, running errands, etc.  Then real bastard headaches, but now those are gone, and I feel nausiated and kind of thick headed.   I’m wanting a diangosis and I can never seem to find one. 

Dad suggested I might be pregnant.  Ha ha.  Not funny, because I thought maybe I was, though it seems, for the most part, impossible.  I’m not.  Imagine, a little red-neck bastard AH in the house. (Esther declared:  ”I could never love that baby!).   The nausiousness is certainly familiar.  I have bad memories associated with Guns N Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” (1989 when Esther was born) and raspberry tea (the tea was supposed to help with morning sickness, which for me lasted all day long).  Even now, when I hear that song, or smell that tea, I feel sick again.   I rode the subway to work from Reston to DC through my 9th month.  It was tough standing up on the train, but if I stuck my belly out, I could get a seat.  Unfortunately I didn’t really show until the 8th and 9th month.   It was fun being pregnant, but I wouldn’t want to go back to it.  Less fun with Emily, since my brother died in my 5th month.  I’d gotten over the morning sickness by then, but started puking again for a few weeks. 

I wonder about these women who choose to wait until mid 30s or even 40s.  According to a bit of research, my chances of conceiving are slim (at 44), and chances of miscarriage 50%!    The highest incidence of abortion, after teens, occurs in women in their 40s.  Sometimes the idea of a baby is appealing, but I suppose it would only be to fill some emptiness.  I wonder how many woman feel that way after their kids grow up. I wonder how many single women feel that way. 

Not a good idea.  I’m worried sick about Emily and Esther finding their own way.  That’s enough. 

Weather nice today, cool and breezy. 

weather fronts

Whenever the weather goes from hot and muggy to suddenly cool, I start to feel sick.  I can feel it before a front goes through:  starts with my temper, which gets shorter, and I snap at the girls or the dog.  Then I might notice that I’m feeling a bit dizzy, then full-out anxious/nervous:  I call it the wiggies.  After reading some other blogs that describe something similar, I ran accross the term “wonky.”  So, I can feel wonky or wiggy for a day or two, and then when it turns cooler (it almost always seems  to happen when it goes from hot/muggy to breezy and cooler), my head gets sandpapery or kind of gritty.  I still feel irritated and anxious, and sometimes shaky, like I’m having an anxiety attack.  In fact, I can never tell if I’m coming down with a sinus headache or suffering anxiety:  they go hand in hand.   The grit in my head finally settles into what feels like tons of pressure and a few rocks, right in my forehead, and just want to drive a nail into my skull to let the air out.  That’s when I start feeling sick.  Sometimes I get an upset stomach, the runs, the whole bit and I just want to lay down and be ill.  As time goes by the stomach ache goes away, but then I get thudding headaches that don’t go away even when I sleep.  I wake up with them the next morning.  It’s gone back to being hot again, but I still feel terrible:  hot and cold at night, every night, and no amount of rest, Tylenol, or ibuprofen seems to do anything for my head.  I take Sudafed like crazy too (not at night).  Today, I have the thudding headaches after feeling miserable for more than a week.  I still feel shaky and nervous. 

I’ve been researching this online and finding that some studies have shown that people who think they have sinus headaches brought on by barometric pressure changes are really having migraines.  Should I see a doc about migraines?  I’m puzzled about migraines, and it doesn’t always seem like I fit the profile of a migraine sufferer, who speak of having “attacks.”  (Is that what I have?).  Maybe I’ll talk to the doc next time. 

 I go through this 4 or 5 times a year, often in the fall and spring.  Now, it is the middle of summer.  Last Tuesday a storm blew through and I started feeling it.  Its gotten steadily worse since then, though its warmed back up hot and muggy and more fronts are coming through (or have gone through).  I keep thinking I’m going to buy a barometer and keep track.  Maybe I will. 

 In the meantime, I can’t function:  can’t read, can’t really sleep, can’t relax, don’t feel like bike riding or walking, start sweating, feel cold, etc.  It’s horrible  I wondered it part of this was Xanax withdrawal (I ate a bit more than my prescribed amount just before I ran out when this stuff hit), and it could be.  But I go through this with and without Xanax, and I’ve noticed that If I take Xanax in the midst of it, i can relax a little, but the headaches settle in anyway.  I really shouldn’t take that shit anyway.   Can’t help. 

Maybe I’ll try some Head-On. 

National Buffoon’s umpteenth annual dysfunctional family vacation

Back from Up North, and, as always, as much fun as it was stressful.  Emily brought with her two of her goth bi-sexual emo girlfriends (all of them dressed in black swimsuits, with black t-shirts, and black chipped nail polish with black wrist bands, floating on a big black inner tube).  Esther came up on Friday with three guy friends, all around 18, who decided it’d be fun to play dodge-ball in the lake with bowling ball size rocks, and then swim accross the bay. 

“Aren’t those guys out a bit far?”

“Where?”

“Way out?”

I look, and see two dots in the water, somewhere in the middle of the bay.   Not much we could do but worry ourselves into stomach aches.   

The next day, I somehow thought it would be a great idea if Esther could take her 3 guy friends to my brother’s house up the road, where Esther’s cousin Lee brought a roomful of instruments (drums, bass guitar, lead, keyboards, amps, recording equipment).   My brother was worried, afraid things might go wrong, that things might get broken.

“I suppose that’s because I told him about the rock dodgeball game and swimming across the bay. . .” said my sister.

“Oh.” 

The next morning on Sunday, two of them insisted on pulling out the rubber raft–if they could not swim accross the bay, then they would rubber raft it accross.  Esther put her cell phone in a plastic baggy for the journey.

“They are kidding right?”

“No,” said Esther

“Your kidding right?”  I yelled to them

“No, if we can’t swim accross, we’ll take this boat accross!”

Stomach aches again.  I went out to the swing on the cliff overlooking the bay, where the two (ordinarily good boys) sat, making plans, next to the defunct satelite dish.

“If you guys attempt to go accross, I will first call the Coast Gaurd, then your mothers, and you won’t be invited to come back here again.”

I even said “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” they both said.  Then they marched around the cottage, got into their van and stormed off to buy cigarettes.   

Of course, none of them thanked me for the lovely weekend (in fairness, Kotie may have mentioned it before the rafting incident).

 I guess I’m not the cool mom anymore.  Needless to say, we won’t have that many friends up north again.  We may never have any friends up north again.  We may never go up north again. 

It reminds me of the time my mother told my then 3 or 4 17-year-old girlfriends that, because the weather had gone sour, and they had stayed long enough, perhaps they should pack up and go home.  Instead of thanking my mother for a lovely vacation, my friend Kim Leppo gave my mom the finger as she drove off.

 Mankers down the road were there, stoned and drunk.  Roger was there with an asshole friend who was too loud from from NYC, who passed out on the beach while the goth girls had a small fire on the beach.  We watched him get up and try to stumble his way off the beach.  Very intertaining. 

There was fireworks, swimming.   There was as much fun as madness, as always. 

4th of July

I’m home alone while the girls have a social life, out to watch fireworks.  Tomorrow we go up north, without Esther I think.  She’s having another Kotie crisis.  This is driving me crazy.

Yesterday, went to Mt. P, and my mother’s bather (my mother has dementia or alzheimers, or both, approaching later stages we think), took my mother to the adult day care in town for her first visit.  My dad couldn’t have done it because most likely would not have had the courage to leave her there, so having her bather do it worked great.   This worked pretty well, but Dad was briefly a wreck (should have slipped him one of my Xanax).  Still, Dad and I had a nice lunch without her at Robaires and I think Dad was somewhat relieved to have her off her chair in front of the TV, where she now spends much of her day, in and out of dozing.  We picked her up at the day care after lunch, and she had just finished her apple crisp desert or something and liked it.  She did not complain about where “Daddy” was until shortly before we came to get her, and did not get terribly upset about having been left there, though she said “that woman just left me here for hours and hours.”  But then that was the end of it.   She did grab hold of my hand for fear of being left again, but this was brief too.  No panic, just minor complaining.

Later in the afternoon, we had to take her to the gynecologist for a possible infection.  No problems, but the whole routine is entirely unfamiliar to her now.  She followed along with what the doc and nurse said and seemed fine with it.   Mom sitting on the end of the exam table with her feet dangling for nearly half an hour pissed me off though, so I stuck my head out and finally someone came into put her feet up and put the back of the table up and gave her a pillow.   Much better.  I was afraid she’d just teater off the edge at some point.  Doesn’t seem right to leave an old demented lady sitting half naked at the edge of an exam table for so long.  So, I’m glad I was in there with her. 

We decided it was a successful day, and Dad said she was much more energetic and lively that day than she had been on previous days.  I think he was ready for the break.  Looks like Tuesdays will be daycare days, about a half day to get her out of the house for some company, lunch and maybe a little exercise.  Good!

 She doesn’t say alot, but does still share a few pearls of wisdom.  At Big Boy later for pancakes, she said, “I am a lucky man.” (meaning she’s got me and she’s got Dad and she likes her bather/respite person)

“Woman,” I corrected.

“What?”

“You’re a lucky women, you mean.”

“Well, what difference does that make?”

Indeed. 

Birthdays

Bethy’s birthday today.  Mom’s on the 29th.  Yesterday was Brandy’s b-day, so I thought I’d stick a pic of him in here. 

He died in 1992, from an aortic aneurysm.  But what the hell.  I like this pic.  I think his shirt actually says Kluck, not Kuck or anything like that.

Cola

road kill

I seem to be losing readers (all four of you) now that the cancer stories are over. 

Beautiful weather yesterday and today.  Drove to the AH’s place on the lake; we ate cherries and chocolate fudge swirl ice-cream.  Very nice.  This morning on the way home, I was particularly struck by so many dead animals on the road, mostly deer, but lots of others (do I still feeling guilty for killing that animal last week when I was pissed at the AH?).  I think I saw four or five dead deer, a couple of them babies.  Lots of smaller animals, too, and one cat.  It seems there’s more and more dead animals on the road each summer.  The deer were bothering me, with their rigor-mortised legs sticking in the air.  Poor things.  I don’t know why its bothering me, but it is.

Even on Kent Trail today, which by the way, was packed full of bike riders, walkers, runners and bladers to the point of jam ups:  you gotta watch out for the little kids, especially.  But still, I can’t believe how many chipmunks I’ve had to dodge, and how many dead chipmunks with bright blood leaking out of their little skulls there are on the trail.  I slammed the brakes for two of them in one bike ride once.  Lots of baby bunnies on the trail too, but no one’s killed one with a bike or blades. 

Seems bad enough we’re killing animals on the road, but on a bike trail?  Just seems like a lot of killed animals.  Too many.  And I’m not usually that soft-hearted, but gee whiz.