J.I.

This is the third and final essay I had to do for my class.
We were supposed to "Jump Into" one of the stories
we've read over the course of the semester.
That means we can re-write the story,
but from a different characters perspective,
or in another place, or another time etc.
What a terrible idea.
I did mine on "Optimists" by Richard Ford.
It's an alright story.
I wrote it from the perspective of a homeless man,
and in the original he gets cut in half by a train.
How fun!

And just so you know,
I used The Mountain Goats album "Get Lonely" as a jumping off point,
because I really didn't want to write this.
Also, I like this essay a lot more without the last paragraph.



Little Argument with Myself

I steal down the highway like a ghost. Cars whip by, blowing my hair in my eyes, and I brush it away. I stop and pull a cigarette out of my pants pocket, my last one, and fish a pack of matches out of my backpack. As I strike the match and hold it up to my face a sharp wind picks up, and I cup my hands to shield the flame, but the wind is faster and it goes out. I dig up my matchbook again, open it up, and I realize that had been my last match, so I take the empty matchbook, the burnt match and the unlit cigarette and throw them all into the weeds.

I pull my map from my pack and look at it, in search of my location. I rarely use it, but it gives me a sort of comfort to have an idea of where I am. I search for the highway I’ve been following, and just as I think I’ve found myself, the wind picks up again and this time snatches the map from my hands and carries it away from the highway, so I follow it. It flies fast and I pick up my pace to match it, but every time I get close enough to make a grab, it takes off again, like it wants me to follow.

The map drifts up and over a hill, and I start to climb upwards in pursuit, trying to choose my steps wisely. As I near the top, the dirt shifts under my feet. I lose my footing and start to fall down, and I scrape my hand bracing my fall. I climb over the top and stare at the heel of my hand until the blood dries, and it doesn’t sting so much. The map landed a few yards away, but I don’t pick it up. It seems more at home on the ground than it did deteriorating in my bag.

From the top of the hill, I can see for a mile or two, and in the distance, made wavy by the heat, I can see some buildings, and I began walking toward them. By the time I get there, the sun is nearing the horizon and I’m tired from walking all day, so I look for a nice place to sleep. There’s a gas station nearby, and next to it is an empty lot with a short fence and the grass overgrown, and it looks like a fine enough place to spend the night. I climb over the four-foot fence and drop into the cool grass, lying there until the sun sets, and I fall asleep.
I slept in the lot until the gas station’s overnight attendant switched on the floodlights. I got up and walked further into the lot and laid back down once I was far enough away that the lights wouldn’t bother me anymore, and I fell back asleep.

I woke up with a start, engulfed by a deafening sound like a tornado bearing down on me. What had shaken me from my sleep was the rumbling of a train roaring past. I had been lying only fifteen feet away from the track, and I could feel the wind whipping by me. I looked around, and noticed the sun was already high in the sky; I had apparently slept until at least noon, so I decided to leave my home among the weeds.

I hopped back over the fence around the empty lot and crossed the parking lot of the gas station. When I was nearing the road, something caught my eye; at the edge of the parking lot, there was a parked convertible with the top left down and nobody in it. I approached it cautiously, waiting to be accosted by the owner of the car, wherever he might be, but he never came. I looked into the front seat of the car, but nothing caught my interest. But I then looked into the back seat I saw an open case of vodka. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, but I couldn’t see anybody, so I snatched a bottle and made my way out onto the road.

With the bottle in one hand and the other with its thumb stuck out in search for a ride, I start down the highway. It isn’t long before a car stops to pick me up, and I step inside silently, without even looking at the driver. We take off, and the person behind the wheel starts talking to me.

“So where are you headed?” a man’s voice asks warmly.

“I don’t know.” I reply.

I turned to look at the driver, and I see an expression on his face that was a mix of bewilderment and disgust. I can’t find anything wrong with my reply, but obviously he did. He pulled over on the edge of the highway and I got out without a word and resumed my travelling. Up ahead of me was an endless highway that led out to who-knows-where, and running parallel to it was a railroad, maybe the same one that carried the train which awoke me. I couldn’t see a better way to go, so I began following it.

~

After a couple of hours following the tracks, and about half of the bottle of vodka later, I could see a train station a few miles off, and a rail yard not much further. There were crowds of people on the station’s platform, some arriving, some departing, and some just waiting. Every time a train would arrive, the crowds would lurch and shift, and every time a train would leave, the crowd would move again. There was something spectacular about seeing people all moving like one monstrous, but human creature, but it also made me feel alone, standing by myself next to tracks.

When I reached the station, I haphazardly climbed up onto the platform and watched the throng of people for a while more. Even just a few feet away the people still blended together, moving back and forth like the rhythm of the tides. I did my best to clean myself up, brushing any debris left over from my night in the grass and put the alcohol in my backpack, and I stepped into the crowd. I was overtaken by its mass, like a wave washing over me, and I moved deeper and deeper with every undulation. After only a few moments in the crowd, I reached what I felt was the center of the sea, and I closed my eyes; trying to find a little comfort in it.

But then I could hear the people talking; every person in the mass of people had a voice, and every voice had a pair of ears, and all the ears had voices of their own. People knew people, and they loved people, and they had friends and family, and all sorts of things that I didn’t. So then I got lonely, and gasped for air. Someone called my name out, and I looked for them, but I realized they weren’t asking for me. So I stared down at the palms of my hands. Gazing at the dried blood and the dirt from my fall the day before was all I could do to stop from breaking down in the middle of the crowd. I could hear a voice in my ear, but it wasn’t talking to me, so I did my best to ignore it.

The voice said, “Are you okay?”

Although I didn’t think this question was aimed at me, it was so close I had to look up to see the face from which it came. In front of me was an old man with a thick grey beard, and he was looking directly at me. He motions towards my hands and asks again; “Are you okay?”, but I don’t know what to say, so I looked into his eyes, and I think he understood. After a few moments of silence I turned around, and I started weaving my way out of the crowd.

Just as I make it to the edge of the crowd, and the edge of the platform, a train blows by and I’m whipped with wind, just as had happened earlier in the day. It was a cargo train, and I watched as it rumbled down the tracks to the rail yard where it finally came to a stop. I skirted around the crowd and hopped off of the platform, trailing the train, and looking for a new place to rest.

After just a minute of walking, I reach the train, and I climb into the first open car I find. I sit on the bare floor of the car and reach into my bag for a cigarette, but remember that I had run out the day before, so I open up the vodka, take a deep swig, and fall asleep.

~

The ground beneath me is shaking, and I get up as fast as I can, grabbing my pack and standing up in the railroad car. I can see the sun is going down outside, but I don’t know what is happening to the car I’m in, so I stumble to the open door and try to climb out. As I lean out of the door to climb down, the car buckles beneath me and shakes me off. I fall onto the ground and land on my feet, but I lose my balance and start to fall backwards. My right foot goes out behind me to catch myself, and I feel the empty car roll onto my foot. As I try to get away, I see a man, and he sees me as well. I didn’t yell out to him, but I looked him in the eyes, and I think he understood.