The train crawled down the tracks into the prairie dark. From his window-seat, Jimmy could see little – the blur of gravel and shrubbery, fleeting and anonymous, shown in a dim light. But there was nothing out there anyhow. A lot of empty sky. Even in the daytime there was nothing; a great space for birds to fly and men to watch their dogs run, never losing sight. No place for any man, really, even a man with a dog and some money. When he looked out he saw only the ground rushing past him, while he sat still in his sleep-resistant chair. After two days on a train, a chair becomes that. Any sane person would rather sit on the floor, in dirt and abandoned footprints.
“Hi.” The voice of a young woman forced its way into his thoughts. She smiled a wide-lipped smile. He pretended not to see or hear.
“Hey there.”
Only a moment passed… “Hi.”
“I’m Fagia.”
Silence. Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a… The train stutter in the gap.
“Where are you going?”
“Saskatoon.”
“What’s in Saskatoon?” Her eyes shone obsidian, a shining he’d have thought impossible but that he saw. He still thought it impossible, and looked away.
“Same damn thing that’s in Halifax.”
After a few more moments, “What’s that?”
“Hard to say… Why so curious?”
“I like to ask people about themselves,” she blurted defensively, finally giving up. She blushed deep red and he felt a certain satisfaction.
Jimmy went back to looking out the window into the dark. He noticed his reflection staring back at him, a ghost of himself. He smiled and frowned half-heartedly, hoping to feel even vaguely animated.
“Don’t you?”
“What? Oh… Don’t I what?”
“Like to ask people about themselves, stupid.”
More interrogation. “ No.” He tried to block out the annoying voice to his left, shifting his weight. Unable to find a comfortable position, he slowly drifted back to introspection. If Galvin could find him some work in Saskatoon, he would stay there a while. He had a comfortable couch. And they got along all right; Galvin could be trouble, though. He would be trouble. No choice, really. Jimmy was a calculating man, sure, but he had a knack for getting into bad places. “Aw, shit,” he muttered under his breath, resigned. Sometimes it could be tough to live with himself.
“Why not?” the voice interjected once again.
“Look lady…” his eyes were aflame for a moment, and she subtly recoiled, hers’ still shining. They were sweet, exuding darkness. Pushing it on him. He sighed. “Well fuck, lady, why should I care?” The question was impulsive, automatic, asked to fill a void that should have been filled with harsh words but somehow wasn’t. It was a mistake. His brow knitted as he anticipated the conversation with spite, running like the train, on and on, just making noise, stuttering nonsense, and on and on, heading nowhere, departing from his mistaken utterance.
“Oh, well… people have such juicy life stories, you know. You know? That guy over there works with underprivileged children. But just the wild kids. You know the ones. The guy beside him, he thinks Edmonton cops are crooks. He’s moving to Toronto to get away from crooked cops. Can you imagine?” she whispered. Jimmy couldn’t imagine. “The old man behind us plays harmonica soooo well, and bowled sixteen strikes in a row once. He has a newspaper article to prove it. You should ask him. He’s going to visit his mother in the hospital and she’s over a hundred now. Skin cancer. The conductor is a pretty neat man too. He spends more time on the tracks than he does anywhere else. He just goes from one end of the country to the other, and then back. On the same tracks all the time. He’s kind of homeless in a way, you know. I mean, moving around like that all the time, he must never get to know anyone. No really good friends. No sex. I think that would be hard. Don’t you think? Just look around. All these people, thinking their own thoughts, with their own passions. Oh my God. It’s too much for me to even get. I’m freakin’ out. So many people. Like, there are over three hundred people on this train. And they are all going somewhere and there are so many different things that matter to each of them. You look like a thinker. God. I bet you think a lot, eh? Well, think about how much thinking is going on in this train right now. So much. Fuck. So many dreams – literally you know – so many people thinking strange things. And guess what. Everyone has a mom and dad, if not some other family too. And each one of them is thinking something too – probably something just as strange. That’s like three times the amount of people on this train, thinking. And then each one of them has a mother and father too, maybe. And then this train route runs every day. People get in and out. Oh. Too much!” She flapped her hands emphatically.
“Whoa, whoa. Jesus, girl! Where the hell are you from and what the fuck do you do there?”
“Oh, I’m from Yellowknife and I write for a newspaper. And people there say my pieces are too long, isn’t that so mean? And Grace, the editor, is always cutting my stuff down. Wait, I’m not really from Yellowknife. But pretty close. I live outside Yellowknife in a town called Fort Providence.”
“And how is that?”
“Cold, usually.”
“I bet. Sounds like hell. So I dunno about how they do things in Port Impotence, or whatever, but where I’m from people take hints. And I have been giving you hints.”
“Fffffff-or-tuh Puh-raw-vi-dence. And, you look. It’s not cold in hell. So you’re wrong about that. Asshole.” She was earnest.
The corners of Jimmy’s mouth, for just a moment, almost imperceptibly, defied gravity.
“Whoa, there Oscar. Is that a hint?”
Jimmy giggled like a little boy in spite of his sombre mood.
“Oo la la. And I thought you didn’t have a smile – and here you are with a full set of teeth, even.”
“Yeah, yeah. So I try not to make a habit of it. Is there a bar somewhere on this thing?”
“I’ll ask Charlie – um… I’ll ask the conductor. He told me that two nights ago he had to throw someone off because they were so drunk that…”
“Yeah, yeah. Drinks first. Drinks first.”
“Okay, I’m gonna go ask. Wait. I didn’t get your name yet.”
“Right. I’m Ike.”
“Ike. Ike? Short for…”
“Ichabod.”
“Wow. Your ma had some taste, eh?”
“Yeah. Some taste.”
Off in the distance, Jimmy saw a crackle of lightning in the dark sky. The long processions of cars and people, people and thoughts, thoughts and empty space, rolled indifferently into the storm, and then through it.
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