Walkin� them tracks till that train come a-choo-choo-chooin� along�Part II
August 11, 2003 ~ 11:32 p.m.
BOSTON, U.S.A.�It�s OK. I can laugh now. I wasn�t laughing nearly three hours ago.
I went into Acton this afternoon to see my friend Bernice. It had been two-and-a-half years since I last saw her, so it was good to see her in the flesh (so to speak) again. We ate dinner, joked, talked and watched a repeat of last night�s �Conan O�Brien Show� on the Comedy Channel. I was also hoping she could score me some weed, but no such luck. Oh well.
I left her house at 7:00 and walked back to the South Acton train station, and a train arrived almost as soon as I got there. I went up to the ticket collector as he helped shepherd commuters off the train and asked, �Are you going into Boston?� He told me that it was an outbound train, so I looked at the schedule and found the inbound train would come at 7:35. Coolies. I waited. And waited. A downpour came and went and it was now 7:45 and still no sign of the train. Now anyone who knows me well, including myself, knows that I am a very impatient man. Even though my senses told me it was probably the heavy squall that held up the train service, the much stronger, much more influential and far more irrational side of me said, hell with it, start walking! So I just started walking the tracks. I was about several hundred yards away when I noticed the flash of lights behind me and saw the train parked at the platform. Of course! So I got off the tracks, waited as the train passed and knew that I was now committed to walking. The alternative was to go back to the South Acton station and wait 70 minutes for the next train. Naturally, I decided that I would get some exercise instead.
I did not realize just how far it was between South Acton and West Concord. It was a real hike�it took me nearly an hour to walk. I fiddled about with my wireless radio headset and the music was crap and the talk shows boring. The only really interesting thing on the radio was Michael Savage�s �Savage Nation.� I don�t like Mssr. Savage�he clearly has some serious sexuality issues�and so, for an hour, I listened to this homophobe ranting about how �gay, gay, gay� our society has become, but, still, it was the best (and I use that term ever so loosely) thing on the radio and at least it kept me company for what surely must have been a four- or five-mile trudge in the dark along gravelly railroad.
I reached West Concord, where I used to work way back during the summer of �95, at 8:40. I rushed into the White Hen Pantry, bought a bottle of Gatorade and decided that I would keep walking on to Concord. I knew the next train would arrive back at South Acton at 8:57 and that meant it wouldn�t arrive at West Concord until a minute or two past nine o�clock. I also knew, from past experience, that Concord station was only a mile-and-a-half away. But I still had roughly only twenty minutes at my disposal and I could run a mile-and-a-half in nine minutes, but how long would it take me to walk it? I had just gambled with my time and bodily resources, even though the Gatorade was refreshing. I couldn�t even wait twenty minutes; I had to keep my feet moving. I was �in the zone,� as the sportscasters say.
It had been a hot and humid day which was playing havoc with the atmosphere. There was heat lightening occurring now and every time a sheet of lightning lit up the area, my headphones crackled loudly. It scared the CRAP out of me the first time it happened; I thought I�d been electrocuted.
I was about 1/3rd of a mile from the Concord station when a sixth sense told me that the train would arrive any minute, so I started running. I ran along the tracks, hoping that I would not trip up in the gravel and end up landing on my face. At the street just up ahead, the railroad signs started flashing and the barriers coming down: DING! DING! DING �! I was about five hundred feet from the station, and I could hear the rumble of the train and see its beacon just behind me.
�Oh, Mother of God, HAVE MERCY!� I screamed aloud and really started booking it. I cleared a batch of shrubbery on the far side of the tracks, ran along the asphalt of a parking lot, sprinted across the street, passed the side of the tracks where the train was bearing down on me, and made the platform just as it rolled into the Concord station. I wouldn�t be the least bit surprised if someone told me that I�d left a trail of smoke in my wake; I was burning the rubber on the soles of my sneakers. My legs must have appeared as a blur to anyone watching the spectacle.
I boarded the train, took the first seat I saw, and thought, �Great, I made the train, but excuse me now while I drop dead in my seat.� I was a sweaty, gritty mess. The train conductor came along and I managed to croak �Waltham!�
I recognized him from South Acton and he recognized me. �I thought you wanted to go into Boston?� he said.
�No, no. I wanted to know if you were going into Boston so I could get off at Waltham,� I explained as best I could. I was completely winded.
Thank God for that sixth sense. If I had not started running when I did, I would not have made that train, no two ways about it. There is no way I could�ve walked anymore; I was still 15 miles from home and it was 9 o�clock. I may be 33 years of age, but that�s still no excuse for worrying my mother, whom I told I�d be back by nine o�clock.
But now I�m cracking up thinking about it. I may not have any pot, but I�ve got a big jug of red wine and quite a nice buzz going right now, thank you very much. Oh, how I need it.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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