On a train to Montreal this Friday, I sat across the aisle from a man and a woman who seemed like good-time folks. They chatted and laughed. They ordered beer when the food cart came at noon. The woman – short, thin, blonde, and, at fifty, a little aunt-like – began an encomium to her beer, because, for her, beer was a way of life. By “way of life” I mean she was permanently drunk, because she only had two beers the entire ride but they did the work of twelve.
Just outside of Belleville, the train stopped. After a few minutes, an ambulance pulled up beside it, followed by a forensics team. I know this because the woman announced it all from her window seat. I thought it was nice of her to keep us all in the loop, but it didn’t change the fact that we weren’t going anywhere for a really long time. The man next to her, who seemed very rational, stood up and explained what had probably happened (someone had been hit) and fielded questions (yes, we’d be here for a while). She interrupted to howl about the loss of life. Together, they were like heart and mind. I realized that, like heart and mind, they didn’t actually know each other.
Two hours later, she was still yowling about the loss of life. The loss of life and the fact that she wanted a cigarette. Another thing she wanted was sex. “You better put down the arm bar if we’re going to sleep together,” she told the rational man. “Oh, you have a wedding ring. I don’t.”
A tall man passed by on his way to the bathroom.
“Almost bumped your head on the ceiling there, bud,” she said. “You’re cute.”
After three hours of sitting still, and knowing that the vehicle in which I was sitting still had just killed a human being, I was beginning to get a little edgy. Her yowling about the loss of life wasn’t helping. Neither was her yowling about how badly she needed a cigarette. By then, the man next to her had booked it for another car.
A voice told us it’d be an hour more. After two hours, they told us it would be five minutes. After thirty minutes, they told us we’d be continuing by bus. This was good and bad news for the woman, she explained piecemeal. She’d miss her connecting ride to Halifax, where she was going to rekindle things with her ex-fiance. They’d been together for seventeen years, and what no one understands is that she was the one who ended things. But she’d be put up in a hotel room that night, and we were all invited.
Forty-five minutes later, we were chugging very slowly past Belleville toward Kingston. The train was a little worse for the wear. “Jesus,” she said, “it’s like riding a vibrator here.” She got up to use the bathroom. A man in his twenties entered her stall by mistake. The door slid shut behind him before he realized his error.
From the bathroom, we heard: “HOLD ON!”
At Brockville, the rational man was kicked out of his adopted car. She seemed happy to see him, and spent a few minutes rehashing all the things she’d told us in his absence. Her voice got louder and louder. She leaned in closer and closer. The rational man seemed testy. He said something I couldn’t hear. “I’m sorry, but you picked your seat,” she replied. “I picked – I was gonna say I pick my nose, but I don’t. Well, not in public.” I admired her honesty. I also admired the way she spoke for my id, although she was much funnier than my id, and probably less evil.
Her mutterings became inaudible as she drifted in and out of sleep. When she woke up, she saw that the rational man was drifting in and out of sleep, too. Technically, this meant they had slept together. “Since we’re sleeping together,” she said, “you might as well tell me your name.” He told her it was Greg, but it was the wrong choice, because Greg was the name of the fiance she was going to see. When “Greg” got sick of hearing about Greg, he admitted that Greg wasn’t his real name. She wasn’t angry. “That’s what we do on trains. We make fantaseehhhh.”
Greg offered her $100 to be quiet, but there is more to life than money.
“ANYBODY SINGLE?”
We had stopped at Dorval. Nobody volunteered a yes. But a few polished young women told her she looked like a sitcom character whose name they couldn’t recall.
“Roseanne?” Greg volunteered. No one replied.
“I COULD BE A LESBIAN. IS ANYONE GAY?”
The girls up front assured her they were not gay. The train pushed forward .
“ALRIGHT, WE’RE MOVIN’! LET’S GET THE MEN!”
And she spoke for the car, give or take a detail, so we all applauded.
When we got to Montreal, I asked to take her picture as a memento. “You should have talked to me more,” she said, and she was right, but let me take several. She was in a good mood: she’d spend the night partying in Montreal, and leave for Halifax the next day. “Twenty-four hours before I get to sleep with my baby,” she said. “Best part of life.”
Congratulations, Greg. And my condolences to the family of the deceased.
Alexandra Molotkow writes Toronto Standard’s Minutiae column. Follow her on Twitter at @alexmolotkow.
