The Quiet Car

America is still fresh.  Everyone is American. The one guy stared at me as I ambled up the commuter rail aisle with my three-weeks-on-the-road luggage.  Instinctively I’ve secured a riverside window seat for the ride up.  My younger one is frustrated.  I bought her a children’s ticket.  She’s twelve.  But she rightly pointed out that the adult tickets are for those twelve and over.  Technically I should have properly gotten her an adult ticket.  She is concerned that she’ll be outed as a twelve-year-old with a child’s ticket.  I tell her that this is most unlikely. 

The announcement suggests that we’re sitting in the ‘quiet car.”  You’d never know.  The lady to my left is talking ever so audibly about why she is not going back to the hairdresser she went to last time because they cut her hair too short.  She finds about seven ways to repeat this assertion.  I consider her and her hair.  It’s hard to imagine what you could do with her hair, her face to claim success.  The conversation is deafening over my music that can only play in one ear.

Another guy starts telling someone on the job site what he should do to before he arrives there.  “Make sure you have the sheet rock laid out.”  Once again, the train broadcasts the announcement about the ‘quiet car.’  I consider tapping the shoulder of the conductor and asking him precisely what the rules of engagement are here in the quiet car.  But I can tell that this person, has no interest in enforcing anything.  This is simply normal.  I’m the odd person out.  The foreigner. 

“Last stop.  Station stop is Poughkeepsie.  Final stop for this train.”  I wait for everyone to get off and pull down my big backpack and lay it on to of one of the girls’ suitcase.  I step off the train, rolling the heavy bags along.  My mom and step dad and nephew are all up at the top of the stairs waving.  There is a long queue at the elevator and I wait for the empty return of the carriage to head on up.

Tuesday, 07/11/17