NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNALS RUGBY, NORTH DAKOTA - MARCH 11, 2006 - (3)

On Saturday, March 11, 2006, I went to downtown Rugby, North Dakota, to the depot where Amtrak stops to load and unload passengers morning and night. I wanted to see the train as it came through. You don't get to see that in every town, and Amtrak doesn't stop in every town it goes through. This is a report of what I saw.

A young lady comes into the depot. Her shirt says she belongs to Senor Frog's Surf Club. Senor Frog's surf has to be an awfully long way from this centermost point on the North American continent. The woman wanders about the station then goes back outside.

The young lady of the grey sweats calls Amtrak for "Train Status." I don't know what she is told, but she sighs deeply when she sits down after she hangs up. Even veteran train-waiters get the blues. She re-opens her book. We may be here for awhile.

I'd like to ask her where she is going, but I don't. I feel like a scientist who wants to stay out of the experiment so as not to affect the results. If I change one little thing here, now, I change everything, the whole world.

I know, I know, my mere presence here changes everything. You change the scene simply by showing up. Nothing will ever be the same. I know that. I try to factor that into my observations.

I am here to learn what a place like this smells like - the old tiles on the walls, the wood window frames, dust on the hot radiators. I'm here to see the shine of the wood on the benches in the waiting area - a shine not polished on by some cleaning person, but worn into the wood by the touch of many people. When you touch a piece of wood that has been touched and touched again and again down through the genereations, sometimes you get an electric jolt. You touch all those who have ever touched this, a spot of wood worn smooth and bright. You touch that woman waiting for her mother's body to arrive on the train. You touch the soldier going off to war. You touch the wife who will be left behind, baby in the crook of her arm, as she sits beside her man and her man sits beside his duty. If you listen carefully, you can hear the hub-bub of the busy depot, crowded with passengers waiting to get on.

The push and shove of ghosts here, that's what I hear as the train pulls into the station. It's coming from the east, from Chicago, heading west, towards Seattle. The girl with the grey sweats and yellow jacket goes outside; the conductor has come down out of the train and she gives him her ticket. The girl belonging to Senor Frog's Club shows her ticket to the conductor, too. Her black-haired, goateed boyfriend kisses her good-bye.

The train pauses for what - three minutes - no more. A family gets off, mom, dad, and three littles ones. The two girls get on.

All aboard!

STeeee - the brakes release.

It's only a block away and the engineer sounds his warming, the train whistle. Coming through!

And then it's gone. The train out of sight and only a rumble.

Then it's not even a rumble any more.

I was here. I saw it. It is gone.

It is still here in my heart.

That's why I came.

Comments

[Fred Garber]

I want to feel that bench. I know that it truly resonates with all that has touched it. Those benches are everywhere. They are like religious relics that you get at shrines. A small piece of cloth that has touched a fragment of bone from a saint and is now encased in a glass bead in the center of a silver medal.

[Tom Montag]

Thanks, Fred. I can never get over that connection, that touching everyone who ever touched it; and it is, as you say, a holy contact among us who touch there.