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A Train Trip
Luke Finsaas
Luke Finsaas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and grew up there.
He is currently a sophomore at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota pursuing a double major
in writing and philosophy. His work has been published multiple times in the Coeval,
Bethel's biannual literary magazine.
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When I opened my eyes,
there were two old men sitting opposite of me. The lively one saw my eyes opening and said,
"Look Bernie, the young gentleman is waking!"
Bernie did not hear him. He was wearing a brown hat and coat
that had collected a fair amount of dust. The lively old man, on the other hand, seemed to
have taken all of Bernie's energy and combined it with his own. His eyes were constantly
scanning the subway car's interior and his fingers were tapping on the plastic seat.
As I was looking at the peculiar old men, I began to feel cold.
There was no breeze in the subway car. I looked down my chest and realized that I was
completely nude with a cane leaning in my right hand. Someone had signed their name in
cursive on the inside of my thigh.
While he shook his head, the old man said, "Those thieves, those
thieves, can't trust anyone anymore."
His leisure suit hung over him like a large drape and his pants
were pulled up to his chest. I asked him,
"What happened to my clothes?"
"Those thieves, those thieves."
"Thieves stole my clothes?"
"They always do."
"Did they steal my clothes?"
"What?"
"Did they steal my clothes?"
"Oh yes, of course they did."
"What?"
"Yes, of course they stole your clothes."
"Did you see them?"
"Yes."
"What did they look like?"
"Like thieves."
"What? How many were there?"
"I don't know. I was sleeping."
"Then you didn't see them?"
"Well, no, I fell asleep before they were finished. They said
it was an art to steal from a sleeping person and took a long time. It was quite the ordeal.
They told me not to worry about them stealing from me because they liked me and also they don't
like to steal from old people, there was no art in that they said. They seemed like quite nice
young men. They said it was very nice that you were a heavy sleeper, and asked me to thank you.
Awful nice fellows," he paused. "They didn't steal your shoes, said they had philosophical
reasons against it."
I looked down to find the results of their reasoning tied firmly
to my feet, although the socks were absent. The old man's eyes sparkled as he pulled a green
apple out of a brown paper bag. He bit off a chunk of it and then said, "A
nice-chewchew--magician gave you the hat."
I touched the top of my hair and found a hat resting there. It
was an exquisite black top hat, starched and crisp. I looked at it a second, and then
remembering my nakedness, placed it over my crotch, artist thieves' writing almost covered.
The old man whispered to Bernie, and then said to me,
"Bernie-chomp- says that you needn't thank him for the cane."
"He gave me the cane?"
"He said it went well with the hat."
I wasn't sure why I needed a cane but Bernie didn't look like he
was up for questions. I looked about the subway car; it was in decent disrepair, the seats were
orderly tore and uniformly dishevelled. The old man with the green apple said presently,
"The magician's gone you know."
"Really? Are you certain?" I said sarcastically.
"Oh, I'm quite sure! I saw him leave and he gave me his card to
give to you so you could thank him."
I didn't want to thank the mysterious magician but I took the
card. It was bendable and made me think of a very insecure man; it stated plainly, Laughter,
thrills and chills by Marty O. Myers. He did not have a phone number.
"Did he give you his phone number?"
"It was the strangest thing. I asked the same thing and said he
didn't have the money to afford a telephone. Mostly because of his passion for hats; I guess
they just took up all his money."
The subway doors opened and a woman came in. Her hair was like
a rhinoceros, thick and wild. She was dressed in royal colours, looking like the pauper queen.
The fraying purple dress dragged on the ground as she came to join the old men and me.
"My goodness! What has happened to you?"
"He was robbed while he was sleeping," the old man interjected
before me.
"Oh my, the poor young man. Are you poor?"
"He's a heavy sleeper," the old man quickly said.
"That's awful! We must help this poor gentleman."
"A magician gave him the hat and Bernie gave him that cane."
"Well, I must help. You know, I devote my life to the poor."
The woman began to unashamedly take off her clothing. She was
not a thin woman but rather soft and white as porcelain. The milky whiteness of her rolls of
flesh was like a medieval princess.
She handed me the royal blue cloak and purple dress to put on.
It was embarrassing. When she finished, she was wearing nothing but her undergarments.
The old man exclaimed, "What a saint! What a saint, I have
never seen a better action. You are an inspiration to us all."
I put on the queen's theatrical garments and felt much better
about my previous robbery. The nearly naked woman sat down next to me on the plastic seat; her
voluptuous stomach completely covering her underwear. Uncomfortably I asked,
"What is your name?
"I'm a liberal."
"No, what's your name?"
"Oh! Ha! My name is Mary K," she said while biting her
pale nails.
"So… What do you do?"
"This."
"You give out clothes to strangers?"
"Yes, and food and money."
"That's commendable," I said.
"That's the greatest thing I've ever heard," the old man said.
Mary K's cheeks turned red like war banners, "You know I've
devoted my life to the poor, you silly old man."
The subway quickly pulled to a stop and I got off, leaving the
cane there for Bernie, escaping the excited old man and his dusty companion. The platform was
sparsely populated. Mary K. got off as well but we departed in separate ways with waves; her
thighs jiggled as she strutted across the platform.
I was walking up the littered stairs. After a while, I was out
of the subway and into the city. It was about noon and I took off my top hat to look about the
vibrant street. A pack of men with tall bikes leaned against the entrance of subway smoking
cigarettes. Down in the subway I heard yelling,
"Ma'am I'm gonna have to take you in."
"You don't understand, I was helping the poor!"
"We all want to help the poor, but exposing yourself in public
doesn't help them at all."
"No! I gave my clothes away to a very poor man who didn't have a
thing."
"Ma'am you have to understand it's against the law not to wear
clothing."
"I know! I'm going to go put some clothes on right now!"
"You can put some clothes on in the police station. Let's
go!"
I heard this conversation and immediately went running back down
the stairs tripping on the purple
| "'You can't toss out the past.'
'Yes you can, that's what the revolution needs to do.' 'We'll use modern inventions to do it.'
'No, we'll get rid of modern invention.' 'The revolution is not just about getting
rid of the past, it's about, like, building on the past, adding layers onto humanity, you
know. Doing our part'." |
dress, which was too long for me and fell flat on my nose,
causing it to possibly break; my top hat flopped off my head and rolled down the stairs. I
grabbed my hat and ran to the policeman catching the blood in my cupped hand. He was thin
like a pencil with sharp features, his nose was like an eagles' claw and his fingers like
antenna wire. His name tag on his uniform read Sharpe.
"Oh my! What happened to you?" said Mary K.
"Looks like a fight. Were you in a fight?" said the pointy
policeman.
"Were you fighting for bread?" Mary K asked.
"You know, fighting is illegal and a chargeable offence."
"I tripped," I said.
"Sure you did. Where did you get those clothes? And that fancy
hat?"
"She gave them to me," I returned pointing to the nearly nude
woman.
"She gave you that hat?"
"Well she didn't give me the hat."
"Oh? The story changes! Who gave you the hat?"
"A magician."
"So a magician? Where is he?"
"I was helping the poor!" Mary K. exclaimed.
"The poor don't need your nudist help," the policeman said as he
pointed his wiry finger at her and then turning it at me, and said, his words layered with spit,
"and I think you're a complete liar."
"Both of you turn around," he said, as he pulled out two pairs of
handcuffs.
I resigned myself to a day in prison. The wiry policeman had one
of the cuffs on Mary K when one man from the band of men at the top of the stairs humped the
officer on the head from behind with a wooden club. They all began chanting and shouting at
the fallen man, until it was quite obvious that he couldn't hear any of them and their voices
were hoarse.
"Freedom!" the men shouted.
"Freedom, man, freedom that's what it's all about!"
I noticed large red A's on all the men's handmade clothing.
Their hair was either matted and clumping or gone completely. I looked up the stairs and saw
one member watching the tall bikes. They were mostly yellow and red. The blood was almost dry
under my nose.
"You guys can do whatever you like, man, the government has no
place telling you what to do. No place."
"Thanks for the help," I said.
"Hey man, did the police bash your face in?" the now apparent
leader said.
"I tripped," I said.
"You sure man, it happens everyday, police brutality it happens
man. Hey, do you guys want to join us?"
"Do you help the poor?" Mary K asked while fidgeting with her
cuffed wrist.
"We help humanity, we help people see the mind traps that the
government has put people in. We set people free, man."
"What about the people that work for the government?"
"Man, we're helping those people by destroying the construct that
is holding them from truly being themselves."
"Interesting," I said.
"Are the poor helped?" Mary K. still wanted to know.
"Yeah man, everyone is helped."
"Well in that case, I suppose I'll join. You know, I've devoted
my life to the poor."
"I need a place to stay for a night," I said.
"You can stay with us and maybe you'll want to join."
We walked up the stairs towards the shambles of tall bikes. Two
of the men grabbed the arms of the wiry policeman and dragged him into the shadow next to the
stairs. When we got to the mess of bikes, one of the bigger members grabbed the almost-naked
Mary K and threw her on his lap and another one grabbed me. I had to hold the end of my dress
up so that it didn't get caught in the sprocket as we rode.
"Where are we going?"
"To a revolutionary café," my big companion told me.
I wasn't quite sure if that meant that the café was revolutionary
or the revolutionaries congregated there. The café was under the City View Apartments, they
said, which didn't mean much to me. When we arrived, the apparent leader of the group led us
into the 'café', which turned out to neither be revolutionary nor a café, more like a rundown
bar where the revolutionaries met. There was Jamaican music playing in the background and a
leaning pool table in the corner. Another pack of men sat at the bar, and rejoiced to see our
group arriving. The ceiling was hazy white; it looked like it used to be glass. The bartender
saw me looking at it and said,
"That's where I keep my water supply, always have. Don't fix it
if it ain't need fixin, that's what I always say."
"Sounds like good advice to me."
There was a large shadow that ominously moved across the hazy
white glass, and I looked at the bartender puzzled, and said,
"What was that?"
"Why that," he paused uncomfortably, "that just be my boy up
their puttin in more water."
"Alright," I said unconvinced, "I'll just take a beer."
"Why I'll give it to you on the house! You could even stay and
have dinner! It's just my boy up there."
"All right," I said comforting the bartender.
I declined and sat at a small table with two men, one part
of the tall bike group and the other part of the bar group.
"The revolution, man, its happening," said the bar man.
"I know, I know."
"This world has got to change, its gotta go, like, forward, man."
"Yeah, through us. We're the foundation, the shifters."
"The worlds gonna be a different place when we're done with it!"
They clinked beer mugs in celebration to this comment.
"I can't wait to see people's lives just turn around and flipped
sideways. I can't wait to see people progressing," the bar man said.
"I can't wait for people to stop driving cars and using computers.
To return to pen and paper and open files," the tall bike man said.
"No computers? No man, the revolution has computers, it has to,
why wouldn't it?" said the bar man.
"I want to see people getting rid of things that they haven't
built themselves, I can't wait to see people begin to create things themselves again, to be
self-sufficient."
"But with computers."
"People don't build computers, man. They're just addictions for
the masses."
"No they're not. They're an example of the progression of man,
they just show, like, what kind of progress we've made, you know."
"No, they're not. They are everything that is wrong with
society today, they're everything that we're fighting."
"You can't toss out the past."
"Yes you can, that's what the revolution needs to do."
"We'll use modern inventions to do it."
"No, we'll get rid of modern invention."
"The revolution is not just about getting rid of the past, it's
about, like, building on the past, adding layers onto humanity, you know. Doing our part,"
motioning the layers by placing one of his hands on the other and then moved the bottom
one on top.
"The revolution is about destroying the past's false gods of
wealth and fame and replacing them with a new frame of ideals."
"Maybe we don't need a revolution," I said. Both of them looked
at me with perplexed eyes. There was an awkward moment while they tried to think of something
to say.
I sipped my beer and then said, “Been nice listening,” as I left.
* * *
It was late afternoon
and cool outside. I pulled my royal blue cloak tight around me and walked
down the sidewalk. The tall apartment buildings with multicolored panels were imposing like an
ancient monument. I walked near them and felt my crooked nose; it was giving me a fierce
headache.
A crowd of black men shouting in a foreign language came
running around the corner quite suddenly. They were pointing and yelling at the center of the
apartment buildings. One of the younger men went running after something and then all of them
followed in hot pursuit. My top hat and I seemed to be right in the middle of them and they ran
around me like the air stream around a car. They were almost all wearing long white t-shirts that
hung to their knees. I realized, after about half of them had swarmed past me, that they were all
carrying guns. Big gun or a little gun always tucked in to the right side of their pants. It made
me uncomfortable.
The group of men disappeared into the centre of the City View
Apartments. It was like Chichen Itza with its large steps and dark stone. The building in the
middle was by far the largest, reminding me of the centre of that ancient skyscraper. The men
might have been running to the center building to perform a human sacrifice to a tiger for all I
know; their shouting signifying to the people that the ceremony was about to begin.
I walked away from the dark apartment buildings and across the
street, my dress dragged on the street. The blood under my nose was dry and I tried to rub it off.
A blustery man with ecstatic white hair ran by me shouting,
“I must act! I must act!”
“Slow down old man,” I said.
He turned his prophetic face towards me and said,
“Can’t. Can’t do that, gotta act. Gotta act.”
“Why? What’s the rush?”
“Gotta prove my existence.”
“Why?”
“Have to, so do you.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Then you’re not living.”
“Sure I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re not truly living then.”
“What’s truly living?”
“Acting out the full manifestation of Jesus Christ as if He were
actually living inside you and you were merely the tool that He is using to further His glory
and His Kingdom.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to this and stood dumbfounded
for a minute or so, rubbing at the dried blood. The stormy man finally said,
“Do you feel the sweet presence of Jesus?”
“No.”
“Are you acting on your belief system?”
“No but I was robbed this morning.”
“Jesus works through all things. Everything is connected.
Everything is connected, remember that, everything is connected.”
“Alright, thanks for the advice.”
“It’s not advice. Its solid, foundational truth.”
“Well, thanks anyways.”
“That’s it. I have to leave. I have to act. I have to act. Let your Prism
be lit!”
With that the man with the white lion mane stormed down the damp
street shouting and stamping his feet. He turned into an alley and that was the last I saw of that
strange man.
I stood for a second and then deciding I would go across the street,
began walking across the street.
| "'Don’t you see?' His white hair was like a lightening storm.
'See what?' I said. 'Has the Prism become illuminated? Don’t you see the gorgeous structure of it all?'
'No.' 'Can’t you feel the connectedness of it all?' 'I don’t feel anything,' I said." |
A light blue station wagon slammed on its brakes a little too late
and hit me, my top hat flying over the car and landing in the middle of the road. The woman with
blue veins sticking out of her arms and legs like ropes ran out of the car and grabbed my hat. It
didn’t hurt too much; the car had slowed down enough to make it comical.
“Oh my Lord! Are you ok? You gotta talk to me. Come on now,
speak!”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I returned slowly, prying myself from the street.
“Can I help you? Do you want any money? Don’t sue me, please,
please oh Lordy don’t sue me,” she said her voice quivering like a starving deer.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine and I’m not going to sue you.”
“Oh thank you, thank you! I just be havin all these expenses and
things that I gots to take care of and it’s tight. You know, it’s tight every month. I’m ain’t gonna
lie to you. I do things I don’t want to do, you know, its tough, and, and a lawsuit wouldn’t be
much help,” she said while I was standing up and brushing the gravel off my purple dress.
“Oh Lord! Did I do that to your nose?”
“No, I tripped earlier.”
“You need to get that fixed up quick! That is one ugly lookin
nose.”
“Yeah, I can feel it.”
There was a pause as she calmed herself down and then said,
“Can I buy you dinner?”
“That would be nice, what’s your name?” I said readjusting my
top hat.
“I’m Stacy Sharpe.”
I got into her station wagon. There was a large black sheet over
some box in the back seat. It was making a bit of noise so I asked her,
“What’s in the box?”
“Just some stuff from the attic, you know, like lamps and newspapers
that I’m bringing over to that Salvation Army,” she paused, “Um, I kind of got to be somewhere,
if you’d like to come your plenty welcome…”
“I’ve got nothing else to do.”
Her wound arms turned the wheel and we ended up near the river
near some white warehouse. The river was like an engine, pulsing and exploding, and I stood on
the edge for a second looking at it. The woman had opened the black box, and had taken a chain
leash out of the back seat and put it on her bear. It was not a small bear or a large one, but yet still
a bear. She motioned for me to come over to her saying,
“Hey, you come on over and help me bring Billy inside.”
My purple dress dragged as I walked over to her, the bear was
friendly looking enough, smiling as well as bears smile. So I took the other end of the chain
and helped the blue-veined woman lead the smiling bear inside.
The white warehouse, although dead outside, was like a red stomach
inside, constantly churning and violent. All the walls seem to pulse outwards with hot blood;
people were shouting and handing green money to each other, men roared with laughter like
gorillas and pounded their chests in jest. The acid of the warehouse seemed to move in waves
as loud music chugged in the corners of my eyes and the smell of vivid blood and thick sweat
eked into my mouth and the men in the middle arena shovelled off the used hay and others put
new hay on top.
Men in black suits and dark glasses met us at the door and helped
us bring in the black bear. The dark men from Chichen Itza were there, shouting and jumping in
a circle. On the other end of the arena, I saw one of their men holding an orange tiger at bay. I
realized that our smiling bear was going to be fighting, for cash, against their Bengal tiger.
The loudspeaker’s mouth opened and told the trainers to ready
their animals. Stacy’s face looked like a squeezed lemon. She said,
“I told you I did things I didn’t like to do. I don’t want to put
Billy in that there rink, but things is tight and there ain’t no other way.”
The bell rang and Billy waddled into the rink. The tiger’s men
hooted and hollered at him and men in black suits collecting money for bets weaved through
the crowd like fish through a reef. Stacy sat crying, her eyes in her hands. A man handed her
a thick wad of money. Through her tears, her hands counted the wad quickly and then waved
him away. The tiger was slowly circling Billy, darting at him at times. The crowd was begging
for action. Billy just stood there with his black hair bristled, staring at the orange tiger. All in
one motion, the tiger pounced at Billy and put a claw through his throat, his blood splashed
everywhere. The warehouse erupted into a fit of cheers and the whole thing shook the world
for a second or two.
We still sat next to the arena until it cleared out while Stacy
moped about Billy and I felt my bent nose.
“I raised him from birth to be nice, didn’t want it to turn out like
this. It’s just that things are so darn tight and there ain’t nothin no one can do.”
“I’m sorry about Billy, but at least he didn’t run.”
“No, Billy ain’t never been a coward, he be the bravest animal
on this whole stupid planet. He ain’t even complain when I told him about the fight, he just
smile at me and say ‘it be alright, if that’s what you gotta do then it’s what you gotta do.’"
"What about we go get some dinner?”
“That sounds just about right to me.”
When we arrived at Stacy’s car we discovered that the same
thieves that had taken my clothing had also taken Stacy’s wheels. The same name was written
in cursive on the side of the car. We left the car and walked back to the revolutionary café with
the hazy white ceiling and I took the bartender up on his offer for free food. The tall bikers were
there, with Mary K. still almost completely naked. The celebrating men from Chichen Itza had
taken over the leaning pool table in the back, their tiger hidden in the hallway. Stacy and I got
a table in the back and I proposed a toast to our smiling friend, Billy, the bear. We order our
food and sat down. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a troop of police officers marching up
to the door. They broke through the door and my wiry officer screamed,
“NO ONE MOVE!”
The revolutionaries, the Chichen Itzan men, and Mary K. all
immediately stopped what they were doing. The old man and Bernie were there, standing in
the middle of the bar and the old man stepped forward and said,
“That’s him right there, that ungrateful little tarp. A nice man
would have thanked that generous magician and not hit an officer.”
“Yep that’ him. Get em,” the wiry policeman said. “You shouldn’t
have stolen from that poor magician and you shouldn’t have hit me.”
“I didn’t steal or hit you.”
“Sure, just arrest him.”
But before the officers could arrest me, one of the revolutionaries
drew their gun and shot into the hazy white ceiling. The shouts of 'freedom' and ‘reprimand them’
were immediately drowned out by a couple thousand gallons of water pouring out of the ceiling.
The hazy white glass began to crack and more water started to seep through until the whole thing
came falling down. A six-foot great white shark tumbled out of the ceiling and landed directly on
Bernie, crushing him. It flopped on the floor until the Bengal tiger pounced on it. The bartender
screamed with terror,
“Someone kill that lion! Someone kill that lion!”
The men from Chichen Itza were equally emphatic shouting in their
own language. The police and the revolutionaries were both completely stunned by the battle that is
taking place on top of Bernie’s crushed body until the wiry policeman aimed and killed both animals.
The bartender ran over to the shark’s body and hugged its dying form. He was crying and mumbling.
The wiry police officer proclaimed over him,
“I’ve never seen those boys in my life, but they will be spending
sometime in the prison tonight for firing their most likely unlicensed guns indoors; and that nudist
is back!” he said looking at Mary K., “there’s a law against that you know. But you, you abusive
thief, oh you will be getting an extended stay in our finest facilitates.”
He noticed Stacy sitting at a booth and looked absolutely perplexed,
more so than when the shark had fallen out of the ceiling. He said,
“Is that you Stacy?”
“Yes it just as well may be. And I presume that you are my husband
who is so indecently attacking this defenceless young gentleman, killed that poor bartender’s pet
and is threatening all these nice people?”
“He hit me on the head and stole this hat from a poor magician!
The pets were fighting, and those “nice” men shot at me!!”
“They didn’t shoot at you, and the pets would have figured it out.
Didn’t need to kill em, I’ve seen enough death today. The young man watched poor ole’ Billy die
with me and that’s a whole lot more than I’ve seen out of you in the past couple weeks.”
“Stacy, don’t bring our business into this.”
“Why wouldn’t I? Seems like we ain’t got any business to
discuss!”
The rest of the police force and the revolutionaries’ muffled
laughs were slightly heard between statements.
“Now what I say you do right now, in this instant, is that you
march yourself down to the station, you take off that darn uniform and you go make me some
dinner cause mine was ruined by you!”
“Alright, alright. Fine!” he irritably paused and then said,
“Alright, you heard her, we’re out of here.”
The police silently filed out of the revolutionary café, the
revolutionaries were snickering amongst themselves. The old man was pleading the case
of the flimsy magician to the wiry policeman. I thanked Stacy and stepped over the dead
Bengal tiger and then over the shark and finally over Bernie as I left. As I was dragging my
purple dress out of the bar, I noticed the old blustery man shoving his way through the
crowd of officers. He yelled to me,
“Don’t you see?” His white hair was like a lightening storm.
“See what?” I said.
“Has the Prism become illuminated? Don’t you see the
gorgeous structure of it all?”
“No.”
“Can’t you feel the connectedness of it all?”
“I don’t feel anything,” I said.
The stormy old man walked away disappointed and nearly-naked
Mary K. came out of the bar. I took her soft arm in mine and walked back to the subway station,
my purple dress dragging behind me.
* * *
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