Summertime in Union Station

As I walked here, coffee in hand, cookie balanced carefully on my journal, I passed men sitting on bus benches--men I knew not to look in the eye. For if I were to make eye contact they would try to talk to me. I draw this kind of attention wherever I go. Strange men with no boundaries like to see how far they can push me. I walked past the Greyhound station. The image of a dog, ever sprinting, made me dispair. We humans never let our fellow creatures rest. They must provide.

In the train station there are children. They are calling to each other like dogs in the night. They don't even know each other, I just realized, but one whines and then another calls back in response.

The great ceiling fans circulate. Are they whipping around to keep the air moving? Or to push the hot air down off the ceiling. Someone's feet smell. Not mine, I think. An old dot-matrix printer shrieks back and forth over a page. Tickets? Receipts for the day? A janitor comes by with a broom to brush the marble floors free of papers and dust. They miss the spaces underneath the massive wood benches. These spaces are perfect for little boys to crawl and hide away from their parents' eyes. They are small places where they can peek out on the world without being noticed. I hear little hands behind me. A boy is pulling himself up to peer over the bench at me.

Once this place was bustling, I'm sure. Many gates. Now they use just one.

It is quiet here. A man is talking on his cell phone--perhaps with someone who is right outside the station. "Why don't you come in here?" he asks. "It's probably a lot cooler in here than it is out there." He is wearing camoflauge shorts and a t-shirt with the arms cut off. He has a greying crew cut. He is absentmindedly jingling the keys in his pockets. His paunch sits on top of his thighs.

A woman hobbles by. She is wearing white platform flip-flops. Her toenails have been french manicured. It hurts her to walk, though she's not that old. Maybe 35? 40? No...she's older. 55 maybe. Her long, blond ponytail disguises her age.

The two are talking now. The train is late and they are both waiting for friends. She tells him that Union Pacific owns the tracks and Amtrak has to move out of the way if there is a UP train on the tracks. The toilets are backed up and there's a bad stench on the train. She knows this because the friend she is waiting for has called from a cellphone.

They begin talking about the recent shootings in Portland. The man is amazed that the shootings are downtown. He can guarantee they are over drugs. Innocent people can get hurt. He wants to buy a fifth wheel and move out to the desert with the coyotes. He says it "cay-oats." He also says, "shee-it."

He says he won't ride a Greyhound. I don't blame him. That damn exhausted dog on the side of every bus.

His laugh is high picthed like a maccaw. He says he quit smoking on April 12, 2002. He had to get the patch. 21 mg. 14 mg. 7 mg. He only had to take the 21 mg. patch and then he was quit. The patch stung his skin. He doesn't have the urges anymore. He hates the smell. But brags that if you buy the rolling tobacco you can save a lot of money. He went on a ten-day vacation with all his savings. Seventy-five dollars a month in a little kitty. He went to Crater Lake. He's spending this summer with his brother is Seattle. He hasn't seen his brother since his father died three years ago.

She keeps trying to butt in and say something, but he keeps piping up. Now he's talking about the Paul Allen Museum. He used to see Heart, Loverboy. Rush was the best concert he's ever seen in his whole life. He's seen REO Speedwagon and Santana in '76. He drank whisky and got loaded. Now that he's older he's amazed at what kids get in trouble for now. His trouble was getting drunk and playing chicken. Nowadays, the kids don't know how to have fun. They have fights, beatings, weapons.

A train is coming in from California. Only ticked passengers are allowed on the platform. The low rumble of the train and the bells clanging alert us all to its arrival. Everyone has gone outside to wait for it. The brakes are squealing. It takes so long for the train to fully stop.

People are flooding the station. They are wheeling bags behind them. A young girl stops to take off her sweatshirt. A blind woman is led by a golden retriever. The man in camoflauge shorts is still without his friend. He is pacing. The hobbling woman has dissapeared.

Against the side of the train the sun casts shadows of the people on the platform. The shadows move like squat, hunched versions of their other selves.