susanstinson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
susanstinson) wrote2008-05-18 02:38 pm
susanstinson) wrote2008-05-18 02:38 pm
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Austin Amtrak Station
Two women, both very young. One fat and Latina, getting on the train; one skinny, butchish and white, with a hoop in her lip, bringing all the luggage. As we waited by the tracks in the dark after the train was announced five minutes away (two hours late). The thin woman was all over her friend, whispering and hugging, while the other one, much more reserved, tried not to give anything away. I heard the thin woman say, "I couldn't have peed faster if I were a boy." There was a palpable thrill in her voice as she said "boy," and she grinned at me after she said it.
Before they came, I was waiting outside on a bench in warm wind. Local cabdrivers seemed to hang out there having their supper inside the station with Jared from the ticket counter, watching tapes of old roasts of Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan on a tv high on the wall. I saw three people wait for the last minute to run across the tracks in front of a freight train. When I got up and walked around a little, I could see, down an abrupt hill, a lit window view from the backside of a building of people doing martial arts. In another window, a man piled up long foam tubes in a pool while a woman and a little girl swam in the water around him. I called my brother in Colorado, who was driving, and told him about what I could see in the windows, and he said, "Edward Hopper for the twenty first century."
I told him that the train had been due in at seven pm (it was almost nine), and that I wouldn't be to Alpine until 1:30 the next afternoon. He said, "Remember, this is the very same train that newlywed Elizabeth Taylor was on in Giant when she said to Rock Hudson, 'We've been traveling so long, when are we going to get to your ranch?' and he says, 'Honey, we've been on my ranch for the last two days!'" My brother said that every train ride was a narrative, and he wanted to hear the middle and the end of this one.
Before they came, I was waiting outside on a bench in warm wind. Local cabdrivers seemed to hang out there having their supper inside the station with Jared from the ticket counter, watching tapes of old roasts of Bob Hope and Ronald Reagan on a tv high on the wall. I saw three people wait for the last minute to run across the tracks in front of a freight train. When I got up and walked around a little, I could see, down an abrupt hill, a lit window view from the backside of a building of people doing martial arts. In another window, a man piled up long foam tubes in a pool while a woman and a little girl swam in the water around him. I called my brother in Colorado, who was driving, and told him about what I could see in the windows, and he said, "Edward Hopper for the twenty first century."
I told him that the train had been due in at seven pm (it was almost nine), and that I wouldn't be to Alpine until 1:30 the next afternoon. He said, "Remember, this is the very same train that newlywed Elizabeth Taylor was on in Giant when she said to Rock Hudson, 'We've been traveling so long, when are we going to get to your ranch?' and he says, 'Honey, we've been on my ranch for the last two days!'" My brother said that every train ride was a narrative, and he wanted to hear the middle and the end of this one.