A Philadelphian Conversation - Number Four

The 10:42 pm train out of Atlantic City leaves on time, and I'm happy not to be driving back to Philly, for a change, so I can read. Reading is what I'm doing when a man perhaps fifty years breathing stumbles on at Hammonton and stops in the aisle beside my seat. I can smell the booze sweating out of him as I feel his look. My eyes remain fixed on the pages in front of them. The guy sits down and talks to himself. "You ain't gonna rob this train. You ain't gonna start a fight. Gonna get home. Finally gonna get home."

"Ticket." commands the ticket checker.

The man produces a crumpled up, skinny piece of paper anyone would know is not a ticket for this train. "Bus driver told me I could use this to transfer."

The ticket checker hands the man back the wrinkled slip of paper. "This isn't a ticket for this train. You—"

"But the bus driver—"

"I'm trying to tell you—"

"But he said—"

"Doesn't matter what he said and if you'll stop interrupting—"

"Okay."

"—I'll tell you how it is. You need to get off at the next stop."

"You ain't throwing me off now?"

"I can't stop the train now that it's moving again."

The man nods and looks down toward his feet, presumably in acceptance of his fate. "What's the next stop?"

"Atco," answers the ticket checker, and walks on.

A few minutes pass and I read on without looking around. I hear the man say "What you readin'?"

I look up at him and hold the book out so he can see its title, which I'm sure he doesn't compute. He has close cropped whitish grey hair, a gold stud earring in his left ear, and the most crooked nose I've ever seen. He wears a black Harley shirt with orange writing and sleeves cut off, revealing faded, dark green tattoos set on thin, muscular arms.

"Any good?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say, "pretty good."

I go back to reading and hear him start up talking to himself again. His head is lowered toward his lap, shaking back and forth, mumbling. "Not gonna fight. Gotta get home."

I peek over at his hands to see what they're doing. They're by his sides, but in constant motion.

"Hey," he says.

I look up at him again, but this time I think to myself if you fuck with me, I'll kill you and do my best to make him feel that vibe from me, make him hear my thoughts.

"You know if there's a Wawa near the Atco stop?"

I shake my head, still giving him my best don't-fuck-with-me look. "No, dunno."

When the train pulls up to the Atco stop, the man slowly stands and stumbles off the same way he stumbled on. He mutters something like "Gonna get home. Little closer now."

I feel sorry for him, but whatever sequence of events landed him where he is on this Thursday evening, I have a feeling he's no victim.

When the train starts moving, as we pull away from Atco, the ticket checker passes by again.

A Philadelphian Conversation - Number Two

"My boss thinks the cleaning lady takes the money, so I'm just gonna go with that for now. He came up to me and told me it's missing and said he figures it must be the cleaning lady and I just didn't say nothin'. So I'm gonna roll with that for now and see how long I can make it go."

"Honey, you got to do what you got to do."

"I can't ask my husband no more now he cleaned up. It's just twenty I need, nothin' crazy like what he'd burn through, but I still can't ask him."

"What's that like, him being clean?"

"He been with me eleven years and I been there through all of it with him, so he knows whasup. He knows he can't ask me to quit just 'cause he can't hang no more. I mean, I never done it on his level and I can go a few days between, but then I get to a certain point and it's like, yeah, I just gotta get up to the spot and get on that level."

"Yeah."

"It's just been so hard to keep up on everything. Rent, groceries, shit," she looks around, "a SEPTA pass."

"Yeah."

"But my husband's cool, he knows the game. If he could just give me the twenty, he probably would, but it wouldn't be like that for him and anyway he don't make shit just like I don't make shit."

"I got you."

"But damn, I been talking the whole time. How you? Whasup?"

"You know, same old."

She looks around again. "This our stop. Let's do this. And remember, it gets pretty real, so stay together. Get my back and I'll get yours. If we split up, remember we both gonna come down, one way or another. May as well do it our way."

Safety in Numbers (by James Parsons)

Through the window, the moon cast a ribbon of light diagonally across her body, revealing a shoulder, two ribs, and the curvature of a hip.  A path of skin like fresh snow beneath a streetlamp.  The smell of lilacs – her ever-present scent – invaded his nostrils.  This time mingling with sweat and the moist August air.  Yet the rest of her was veiled in storm cloud gray and grew more indiscernible despite his staring.  Sheldon had known Tatum for over a year but she seemed so vague to him, as if he were peering at her through a rain-splashed windshield, betrayed by broken wipers.  She was opaque lying there in the tousled bed linens and that made him anxious.  It occurred to him to quietly exit the room and leave her to her dreams, so he made his way out the door, down three floors, and into the silent streets.

The city pulsates like a switchboard of energy in the waking hours.  Yet, after midnight, within certain neighborhoods, it is a cloister.  The small streets can be like portals to a quainter era.  The atmosphere so different than in the daylight.  This is what he loved most about Philadelphia.  It rested.  And because of his inability to do the same, Sheldon walked.  West, on Locust, toward the river, he meandered past narrow, cobblestone back alleys.  The giant silhouette of a cargo train vanished northward toward the Art Museum.  Around a corner, a cat, like a sentry, slinked back and forth on the slender top of a property gate, and startled him.  Ahead, on a street perpendicular, two women in flowing skirts passed by on bikes that seemed too large for them; even at this hour, in the bright darkness, they looked purposeful yet carefree, as girls in skirts on bikes often do in the summer months.

Sheldon favored Fitler Square to the much bigger Rittenhouse.  Rittenhouse Square was a spectacle.  Fitler Square, at this hour, a sanctuary.  The brass ram in repose greeted him.  The bear in mid-stride paid him no mind.  He imagined them coming to life like in a child’s daydream.  He sat on a bench next to the tortoises conferring with one another.  The moonlight was still strong and it gleamed off the helmeted backs of the tortoises; the largest casting a fatherly figure in front of two attentive children.  Be patient, you’ll get there, don’t worry, it is who you are.  Sheldon began to feel at ease and the edges of his mouth curved upward forming a wry smile.  He sat and enjoyed the solitude for minutes which seemed longer.  Suddenly the drone of the southbound #12 bus on its final run grew closer and it roused him.  Above, some lonely stars shone in defiance of the city and its artificial light.  The warm air was sweet with alyssum.  It reminded him of lilacs.  He thought of Tatum.  Was she still sleeping?  Perhaps she too had left the house.

(James Parsons is a writer living in Philadelphia.  When he's not writing you can find him on his bike, running in the Wissahickon trails, or coaching on soccer fields throughout the area.  He has a master's degree in journalism from Temple University.)

James Commutes

An alarm sounds loudly in James’ ear, an urgent buzzing in brief spurts.  He pushes a button to halt the noise, then lays flat on his back, eyes now open and staring at the bedroom ceiling.  Same time as any other weekday, 5:00 am.  He’s more tired than usual but feels better when he remembers it’s Friday.

His 6’4” frame rises in the dark and walks to the beaten up old dresser and grabs clean socks, underwear, and undershirt.  Removal of an old, ripped tee and boxer shorts expose his muscular body before he dresses himself, kisses his wife on the left cheek and tiptoes past their infant son’s crib and the room shared by their seven and four year old daughters.

In the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of apple juice and drinks it down.  Reaching for the front door, he hesitates, thinking for a moment about the life that could have been, fingertips barely gripping a ball at the height of his jump, the plays he could have made, the roar of a crowd; a life he may have led with his family, and the life they lead today.

He opens the door, walks the hallway of their apartment building and heads down the stairs, careful with each step, mindful of his knee.  An hour on two trains this morning and the same later, in the opposite direction; eight hours on a forklift between commutes.  Thinking of tomorrow and Sunday at home, he smiles.