A 33-hour long train journey from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. February 7th to February 9th 2025.
There’s something strangely romantic about being on a train at night. Like we’re the only ones awake. Moving in the world. Piercing the night air. A noise only made by us. Disturbing the dust. Whisking the trees and the weeds. Settling back to sleep again once we pass. Lying here on the train, awake at 4.23am, my body clock 3.23am. We jumped up an hour as we crossed into Arizona. Walking through the corridor. Hearing everyone softly breathe in and out as they sleep the best way they can. Straddled across two seats, their coats acting as blankets, their bare feet sticking out into the corridor, their bodies squashed and twisted. I see some with pillows and I thought ‘that’s a good idea, if ever I do this trip again I will bring a pillow, or better yet I will get a sleeper’. At least I have my neck travel cushion that I bought at the airport in Dublin. I push it against the window-side of my seat and I straddle myself across the two seats like everyone else.
The train stops in a small station called Yuma. A double decker goods train is passing. I get up to go to the loo. I stick my head out the door. The train conductor says I can step out “we’re stopped for 15 minutes”. So I step out into the night Arizona air, the first time I’m breathing this air. It is cool but not cold like it was in Grass Valley. You know when you’ve entered a warm climate, when the nights are cool and fresh yet you could easily sit out all night and not get cold. It will be a warm day and it’s not even summer. The sand-like dust at the edges of the tracks. We’ve entered the desert States. I walk the length of the platform, which is level with the ground.
The Amtrak train that I am travelling on looks like an apocalyptic monster, a double decker lump of tin. It makes me think of that series I loved so much, ‘Snowpiercer’, about a post apocalyptic world where the earth has frozen over and the only survivors are on this train that circles the globe over and over again and if it stops, everyone freezes. The plot twists, the characters and their relationships and feuds and the political over arching drama of it all makes me feel like I am living this series although the earth is not frozen over, there are no feuds (yet) and I am not in a political drama. However, all the conversations I’ve had with people I’ve met about the politics of America makes me feel like I am in a political drama. That aside it is just me and the night air going in and out of my lungs, freshening them up as I walk in my solitary zone, up and down the platform, admiring the nightly sensation of my first introduction to Arizona.
I look at the sign Yuma and the moon above it. It is on its way to becoming full. The last full moon I was in Hawaii. The one before that I was in Australia. The one before that I was at home in Cloughjordan and the one before that I was working in Crossogue, a horse farm in Tipperary. Amazing how much I have moved around and how time goes on. The moon is majestic. Silently and powerfully sitting up in the sky in complete control of our planet unbeknownst to everyone as they sleep soundly, curled up on their seats. The waves, my cycle and probably a lot more are in sync with this magnificent moon, a moon dedicated just to planet earth alone. She gets her very own moon and we are lucky enough to see it. Anyhow, these are my thoughts at 4.35am while looking at the waxing moon and breathing in the Arizonian air.
The train conductor is waiting for a passenger. I walk towards the door I came out of. She tells me her dilemma. “We are waiting for one more person and they have 3 minutes to arrive. I want to wait as long as I can but we need to move off. I feel bad because this person is going to Texas”.
I get back into the train and the conductor said to me “can I ask you a favour? If I close this door can you lock it from the inside by pulling this leaver so that I don’t have to leave the step in this carriage. Unfortunately we have to leave without the passenger, they never turned up”. I return to my seat. I am starting to feel hungry. I have snacks but they said over the intercom on our departure that there will be a full breakfast available at 6.30am for 20 dollars.
The man sitting opposite me has no teeth. He smiles at me and asks how I’m doing. A twisted jaw, shaggy clothes, eyes of somebody who is possibly mad and a stink of smoke. I try to discourage him from talking to me by not looking at him, not responding, putting in my head phones, looking out the window, pretending to be asleep.
I wake up and it is 7am. The sun is starting to rise. I go to the dining car for breakfast. The yellow-brown colour of the desert, tinged with a spill of red from the sunrise. Something you would only hear described in the old books. The waiter sits me opposite an old man. We give a nod of acknowledgement to each other. My back is to the sunrise. I ask the waiter if I can move to a different seat where I can get a better view. The old man looks at me. I give him a nod and a smile. I hope he doesn’t think I am moving because of him. I was thinking of explaining that to him but I thought I would probably only sound silly so I just moved without saying anything. I look at the menu and I’m surprised to see how many options there are with potatoes. I order an omelette with fried potatoes and bacon and apple juice. I glue my eyes to the window as I watch the deep red sun peer over the rocky desert land. My insides start to turn and tumble as I pinch myself. My breakfast arrives. It is nicely presented but it doesn’t taste any better than aeroplane food but it is edible. I chew as I take in the glowing redness of the burnt umber landscape. It is a painting that I am moving through.
I discover the panoramic car. It is a carriage full of windows that curve half way across the ceiling. It is bright and open. The seats are spacious and face the windows, allowing the best view as the train thunders through the desert. This is so exotic for me. Anita and Bruce asked if I was mad, getting a train from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. I said I wanted to experience being on a train for that long. 33 hours. I had to get three transfers from Sacremento train station to Los Angeles. The first transfer was a bus, the second was a train and the third was another bus and then in Los Angeles I got on the 33-hour Amtrak train to Austin, Texas. Bruce said to me “but it’s just a whole load of nothing” and I said yes but I’ve never seen anything like it before.
Watching the land go in and out of its crevices, up and down its bulging rocks, imagining John Wayne jumping off an edge on his overly brave horse. I’m not bored at all watching this landscape go by. We cross the border into New Mexico and the houses and human life become more and more sparse.
The toothless man smiles at me. He offers me to sit beside him in the panoramic car and I say “no I’m going to another car”. After a while I go back to my seat and he is there with a drink in his hand from the cafe. I put my music in my ear and attempt to go to sleep. I hear him saying something. I take the music out of my ears and say “what did you say”. “I said I love looking at old airports”. We had just passed one. “I jumped out of a plane that exploded in the air”. He says he was in the military and fought in Iraq. He shows me a big scar on his collar bone where he got a ‘blow’ as he calls it. I remembered having a conversation with a woman called Heather at the ranch in California where Anita keeps her horse. She works in the field of equine assisted therapy. She spoke about the veterans who fought in the wars for America and said they suffer from trauma immensely. Most of them become addicts. What they had to witness and the night terrors they have to live with, anything just to get a night’s sleep. Ex veterans are dumped when they’re not needed anymore and support for them is minimal. Heather said she works a lot with these veterans recovering from severe trauma. He offers me a drink. I say “no thank you”. “I was gunna buy you one”. He has a deep southern drawl. “Thank you all the same” I reply.
I get up to go to the panoramic car again and I watch the desert go by. A burnt car in the middle of the desert in New Mexico. Were people trying to get rid of something or someone? There are enough movies in a landscape like this to make me think of possibilities like these. An abandoned house, disheveled timber walls, white paint almost fully faded. I think of movies that have a past and a present, this house being in the present, the ghosts of its past lingering in this empty desert. A caravan with an awning. A pickup truck. Two horses. A few chickens. What do they do with the horses this far away from anyone and anything? I didn’t see a horse truck so I guess they don’t bring them to shows. Maybe they go for rides in the desert and come home and eat chicken and eggs but I am guessing a life far deeper exists there.
I think about my bag. I think about Diane whom I met on the bus yesterday and Carol from Hawaii warning me to never leave my stuff out of sight, even on the trains. I go to my seat and I ask the toothless veteran if he can keep an eye on my bag. “Of course I will honey”. I go back to the panoramic car. The toothless veteran comes through the panoramic car to go to the dining car and says to me “don’t worry honey your bag is fine, I’ll be back there in a little while”. He passes me again and says “imma gunna go back there huney and check on yer bag”. I smile at him “thank you, you are very kind”.
I watch the desert go by, hour after after, endless red. The toothless veteran sits in the seat next to mine and says “I got talking to a couple in the cafe and when I said to them I was in the military they gave me a hundred dollars”. He laughs and smiles and he says “I bought a friend food when they were stuck. Now the lord is paying me back. You see, when you are good, good comes back to you”. I smile at him. And then I start to ask him questions.
“When did you finish in the military”.
“In ’05 mam”.
“Was it hard afterwards?”
“Oh yes mam very hard”.
“In what way?”
“It was difficult to reintegrate back into normal life”.
“In what way?”
“All the night terrors I have”.
“That must be hard”.
“I have nightmares. The thing that hurts me the most isn’t what I saw but who I couldn’t save”.
Tears begin to form in his eyes. He tells me he turned into an addict. He says “I already was one but I became more of one. I’ve been trying to get clean the last 5 years”. And then he tells me more stories.
“My life was hard the last few years. My grandmother died two years ago and a few months after that my grandfather died and then my best friend got killed right in front of me. There were people after me and my friend got on the motorbike to help me but a pickup truck ran him over to purposefully kill him. I didn’t go to his funeral or nuthin, everyone else did but I didn’t”
He tries his hardest to hold back the tears. “That must be so hard”. He looks at me and more tears form in his eyes. “It is. It is really hard”. His facial expression quickly changes and his body perks up. “But I keep on smilin. I think that’s the important thing, to just keep on smilin”. He tells me he’s off the heroine 5 years and it was because of the methadone but he’s still addicted to that stuff but “it’s not as bad as the heroine. It’s my goal now to get off that stuff too. And to get off cigarettes. I’ve gone from 8 boxes a day to 2 boxes a day”. I say “well done that’s not easy”. He says it’s hard but he wants to get clean “but you just gotta keep smiling and when you’re good, good will come back to you”. We both look pensively at the passing desert. He pulls up the zip on this trousers. “Sorry it keeps getting undone, it’s all the weight I’ve put on. I lost a lot of weight but I’m putting some back on now. I weigh 110 pounds but most of that is muscle”. He pokes his abs with a firm finger. “I do a lot of push ups and sit ups when I start to feel angry at people. I ain’t lettin that energy out of me so I put it all into exercise instead. You just gotta keep smilin no matter what.” He nods and smiles at me with his toothless grin and then lowers his head in a weakness. “I’m gunna go for a lie down. Nice meetin ya honey”. “Nice meeting you too.”
A train conductor waves at a little girl, probably aged 8. She lifts her hand and waves back at him in awe. This makes me think about when I was a child. When a train conductor waved at me it wasn’t a man, it wasn’t a human being it was the train conductor and there is a difference.
Watching the land go by. Going for a nap. Waking up. Still moving through the desert. I notice people becoming friends on this train. When I said goodbye to Anita and Bruce I nearly cried. It was like saying goodbye to my own parents. I sat on one of the benches in Sacremento train station. An older lady said to me “I like your coat, it looks very cosy and warm”. It was a long black coat with fake fur around the collar. “I should have brought my own long jacket, it might be cold where I’m going. Do they call out on the intercom when the train and bus is leaving?” I pretended to know what I was talking about. “They should do ya, but they give out the bus port number at the ticket office, for example I’m on bus number one and it’s just outside and to the left”. She said she’s on bus one and I asked “are you going to Los Angeles?” “Yes”. “Are you doing the three different transfers?” “Yes”. “Ah cool. I haven’t done this trip before”. “Well you can just follow me”. She said she grew up near Sacremento and lived her adult life close by. I said as a joke “oh cool you can be my tour guide so!” Her name was Diane.
We sat on the seats in the bus opposite each other and the whole way to Stockton, the end of the first transfer, she told me what’s what and the history of Sacremento and California. She told me to take note of the houses and observe what type of lives they live and the background they have by looking at how small the house is, the rubbish thrown around and the amount of cars there are “and there isn’t a party and that’s not a garage, that’s how many people live in that one house”. She said between Sacremento and the mountains is mostly agricultural land. “There used to be a lot of fruit trees but the labour required was huge. Since Trump got rid of the immigrants in his first presidency there weren’t enough workers so farmers started to grow nut trees instead, almonds mostly and fig trees. A machine goes around the trunk of each tree and shakes it and that’s how they get the nuts. Look, the blossom on the almond trees is starting to come out because the weather is getting warmer the more south we are going so the blossom is coming out earlier on those trees.”
She told me she was a teacher. She’s 80 years old and she now teaches trainee teachers how to be teachers. We arrived in Stockton and got on the San Joaquins train to Bakersfield, the end of the second transfer. We sat opposite each other. She told me a lot of stories about her life, her children, her failed marriage, her friends and experiences with students. She said she worked in migrant kids education camps. This is where migrants would come for the harvest season and they would bring their kids and these kids would be gathered for the day and taught while their parents worked on the harvest.
I asked her what does she think about the new presidency. She said she is very scared about what’s going to happen to the country but mostly how long it will take to recover after these 4 years. She is mostly worried for the education sector because of her interest in teaching. She said all theatre, dance and art programmes are going to be removed, there will be no teachings about diversity.
On the last stretch of our journey to Los Angeles we were on a bus. We sat at a 4-seater table like in a train. A young man was working on his laptop on the seats opposite us and had notes in front of him. Diane said “did anyone ever tell you you look like someone famous?” He laughed and said “no who do you think I look like?” She said “Bad Bunny” and he laughed and said “probably all the jewellery.” He looked in his early 20s and had shoulder length black hair with a very finely kept and trimmed balbo beard. He had gold earrings, gold rings and a gold necklace. He wore a leather jacket with an ethnic patterned waistcoat underneath, predominantly red. Diane asked him what he was studying. I listened to him as he spoke. He spoke so softly and so gently in a Californian accent with a twinge of Mexican. He was studying environmental science and he wants to work in that industry but he said he doesn’t know what the future lies for him because he’s Mexican and he wants to get employment in the environmental sector, the sector trump wants to abolish let alone the ban he wants to create on hiring hispanics. This man, Diane and I had a heated discussion about the current politics of America. He said he is frightened and so did Diane. “Because of the firing of immigrants in the industry there aren’t enough workers in the airforce and there are more crashes happening now, 4 plane crashes in the last week. A lot of the skilled workforce have been fired because they are immigrants. Immigrants will be arrested and put into prison camps. The Children and parents will be separated, in fact this already happened during Trump’s first term of presidency. Every empire meets its downfall and America is meeting its downfall now”. Diane said about the education that “Trump is going to get rid of funds to put children through schools and there are a lot of poor families who won’t be able to afford it on their own. The poorer states won’t be able to support the schools. The young will just go out and work as soon as possible like the olden days of leaving school at 12 or 16”. “In the campaign, Trump used certain tactics to get the votes. Trump preached to farmers ‘don’t vote for Kamala Harris she will turn all your sons gay or worse; transgender’. A lot of farmers and their sons came out and voted for Trump. Trump used the threat of everyone in America becoming gay and transgender and he riled up people’s hatred for the gay and trans community. Trump also targeted the Christians and said he has been chosen by God, that he is the new prophet and that he will get rid of anyone impure from America. He targeted the white supremists and the middle class and convinced them that he will make them richer. Elon Musk paid Trump 250 million dollars to run for presidency”. “We have a history of revolutions so it stands to reason we’ll have another one”. Anita and Bruce and some of their friends said to me if they could, they would leave the country. This young man mentioned about Americans becoming refugees. Terry, from Anita’s ranch, said to me in a joking voice yet serious “we’ll all be fleeing out of America soon, fleeing to Ireland although you guys probably don’t want us and other countries don’t want us either and I don’t blame them!”. The bus pulled into Union Station in Los Angeles. Diane and I said goodbye to this young man and we both went into the station. Diane picked up her checked bag and I waited for my train to Austin, Texas which would arrive in three hours. We said goodbye and thanked each other for being each other’s travel buddy. I recognised Union Station from the movies.
It’s interesting being on this train. Watching people. I can tell the difference between who has a sleeper and who’s on coach. They don’t look sleep deprived. Their clothes aren’t wrinkled. Their hair is clean because they have access to a shower. I watch the solo travellers become friends. The kids with their blankets and pillows asleep and then running around and playing as they wake. The two ladies speaking Spanish as they come and go from the panoramic car. The crazy guy who is annoying everyone and talking too much. He took up 5 seats in the panoramic car with all his stuff, mostly food. One of the conductors said “are you selling something or what? Or are you setting up a campsite? You can’t do that. Move it away”. So he did. A group of Amish people board the train. I’ve never seen a group of Amish people in real life. They look just like what I saw in photos. The women are wearing long black dresses with black bonnets. The men are wearing white shirts, black waistcoats and black suit trousers. They have long beards without a moustache. There is a boy who looks in his late teens. He acts like he has never ventured beyond his home. He looks around him and seems somewhat overwhelmed. The older men and women look like they have done this before. One of the men walks past my seat. I get bombarded with the stink of underarm. There is guy asleep in the front of the next carriage. Every time I pass him he is asleep. I passed that way a lot during the day going back and forth from the panoramic car to my seat. He must have slept this whole time. Although I did see him come up from the bathroom once and I saw him take a run on the platform at one of the stops but every other time I saw him, he was asleep, straddled across the seat. The strange man three seats back who stares at me every time I get up from my seat. I stare back at him but then decide that’s probably not a good idea. The lovely man behind the cafe whom I saw three times today. I get some food. He asks me where I am from and he asks if there are trains in Ireland. He has all sorts of questions about the popularity of trains in Ireland and “are they priority on the tracks over goods trains?” I ask him all about this train and other amtrak trains. There is a woman with a bulldog who has been on the same journey as me since Sacremento. She’s tall and slim but her body seems a lot older than what it should be. Battered by life perhaps. The dog seems to be very tame and not overwhelmed at all, maybe he’s used to travelling with her, maybe he’s done these trips many times. The old gentleman whom I originally sat opposite for breakfast. I pass him many times as I go to the panoramic car and back. He is sitting in his seat with, I presume, his wife. He has an oxygen tube attached to his nose. Anytime I pass him I nod at him and smile and he nods back at me. A couple of times he was standing in the corridor. He saw that I wanted to pass so he pulled in and I said thank you and he bowed his head and said “Yes Mam”. The old, bald man who seems to always be in his seat, constantly looking around him. Sometimes I smile at him. The woman with a baseball cap and straight blond hair that comes down to her collar bone. She steps out at every stop and pulls out a cigarette. She always seems to be talking on the phone. I haven’t seen her talking to anyone else. The girl who sat across from me at breakfast. She is on the train for 90 hours. She said she didn’t want to fly because of all the weird things happening with the plane crashes. She said it’s a four and a half day journey but she has a sleeper and she said it’s really comfortable. She has become friends with Darren, the toothless veteran. I asked him his name at one of the stops. He shook my hand and asked “would you like a hug?” I said no thank you and he said with a big smile “no worries honey I totally understand” and he bumped my elbow instead. He said “you didn’t run away from me, thanks for that. Most people do. And hey, people are so quick to judge but they don’t know what’s underneath and what the person has been through. They assume things about me but if they get to know me they’ll see I am an honest person. I’m a good person. Oh your smile is so beautiful. It makes me feel good to see that smile of yours”. I take a walk down the platform to stretch my legs. It’s amazing how warm it is and it’s still winter here. It’s the second week in February. This stop is El Paso. We are very close to the Mexican border. It is as warm as a hot summer day in Ireland. I wouldn’t like to be here in the summer. I would die of the heat.
I see the toothless veteran befriend another woman. They come into the panoramic car and sit two seats down from me. They start talking quietly and deeply and then he starts to cry. He asks to borrow her phone and he makes a call. He cries and mumbles on the phone. His twisted jaw goes from side to side and his lips suck into his mouth with no teeth to keep their shape as he sobs. I over hear him say he started to think of Lola. He told me on the platform at one of the stops that he was married to a woman called Lola and one day she left him. I am eating some lunch and a big lump of snot comes from his nose as he cries. I focus so much on not feeling sick and the girl beside him, who lent him her phone, turns around and looks at the ground and then at me. We give each other the minute signal that we were both ‘ew-ing’ over the same thing but trying not to be too harsh as he is upset. Darren gives her back the phone and she tells him she is going to go for a nap and he says he will go for one too.
On the platform I meet a man from New York. He is travelling around America by train. He retired early and is just living life now. He’s going to stop for a few days in each city. I walk to the top of the train. The engine is over the level crossing and the rail lights are flashing and the bells are ringing. There is a car waiting to cross the road. They’ll be waiting for a while because we’re stopped for another 20 minutes. She begins to turn around and I shouted ‘we’re not leaving for another while’. Her car window is down but I don’t think she heard me or understood me because she gives that nod and smile tactic when you don’t know what someone said. There is an old man waiting near the engine. I ask him “are you on the train” and he says “no he just wants a video of the train passing” and he asks “when are they going to move off?” “In about 15 minutes” I say. I run to the other end of the train. I catch up with the New York man again and I ask him more questions about the different train journeys he has taken so far. He tells me all the different lines that amtrak provides and now there’s a new line opened up from Florida to Chicago. They all have different names. The one from San Francisco to Chicago is called the Californian zephyr and this one is called the Texas Eagle. He tells me to look at the different routes on the website. His name is Bob. I ask the closest conductor how many minutes do we have left. He is very polite. He looks in his thirties and has a big black beard, short black hair and a big bull nose ring. He seems to be very efficient at his job.
The person on the intercom who gives updates always sounds so cheerful and upbeat. A young couple wave at an army team in training as we thunder by. They get really excited as the army men and women wave back. I laugh along with their enthusiasm. The sunset is magical, spilling its ruby rays over the desert land of Texas. The panoramic car fills up. People want to see the sunset. I see some people I haven’t seen yet. Maybe they are new arrivals. Maybe they stayed in their private rooms or in their carriage this whole time. As the sun disappears behind the horizon it shoots red reflectors into the whiffs of clouds. One of the clouds looks like a sparrow, the other looks like a dancer. I imagine doing a painting inspired by this.
I am woken up by the coughing of the toothless veteran. He coughs so much his lungs nearly came out. He eventually stops and goes back to sleep. I am woken up again by the guy who is annoying everyone. He banged into my feet. Not on purpose I don’t think. My feet are a little over the arm rest. The lights of the Texas towns flash by and then into the darkness of the desert abyss.
We stop in San Antonio. The sun is rising. They separate the carriages. They attach the last two carriages to another engine that will go up to Chicago and stop in Austin on the way. The other carriages are heading to New Orleans. We are stopped for about an hour. Austin is two hours away. The air feels cool but not too cold.
I stroll around the platform. I see Darren, the toothless veteran. “How are you doing” I ask. “I’ve made a decision”. “What’s that?” “I’m going to Canada to get the lethal injection. It’s allowed up there”. “Why?” I say, alarmed. “Because I’m tired I can’t go on anymore. I’ve been blown up so many times with the military and the psychological damage I have, the nightmares and why go on when I’ve lost so many people in the last 5 years, both my grandparents, my best friend, and my wife left me. I love my wife so much but her mom put a restraining order on me so I can’t get in touch with her. My heart is broken and I have cancer, cancer in my lungs, cancer in my abdomen and in my right testicle. I had heart failure a year ago and I checked out of hospital three days after the heart attack, the doctors wanted me to stay there longer but I checked out. I don’t go to doctors no more. I don’t like em. After the military I wasn’t mentally fit to take care of my own affairs so my mon became my advocate. When I met Lola my mom said she didn’t want me to be with her and Lola’s mom didn’t want her to be with me neither and my mom said ‘you’re gonna have to choose me or her’ and I chose Lola. I wanted to take care of my own affairs and make my own way with Lola. Lola’s mom hates me because she said I took Lola away from her. We were together since 2012. And then in 2020 she left me and it broke my heart. I think her mom took her away from me. She’s all I think about. These five years have been so hard, loosing her, loosing my grandparents and loosing my best friend and with cancer and all, what’s the point in staying alive? I’m tired, emotionally and mentally tired. If she came back to me I would keep on going”. He says that he has a house and he has money but “I choose to be homeless”. “Why?” “When I’m on the streets I put my focus on where I’m going to get my next meal from, where I’m going sleep that night.” “so you’re in survival mode and when you’re in that mode you don’t think about your emotions too much”. “Exactly”. “So, because you’re on the train you’re not in survival mode and you are thinking about your emotions and about her”. And he starts to cry again and says “yeah” is his deep southern drawl. He has a slightly high pitched voice that has been made hoarse from years of smoking. “All I want is for her to be back in my arms. I don’t have a phone because then I can’t call her”. He says he had made the decision to go to Canada on the 3rd of March and he prays that she comes to look for him before then. He says he believes she still loves him and it’s her mother that made her leave him. He said “it’s either that or she never really loved me. It hurts. Nobody knows how hard it is to have your heart broken. I would leave my friends if I had to for her”. He says he’s on his way to Oklahoma to visit his friend Jodi who is going to go to chemo in 2 weeks. She reached out to him and asked him to help her so he got the train to go to her. I ask “have you spoken to Jodi about getting the injection?” “Yes and she said ‘we’ll talk when you get here’ but I said ‘no I’ve made my decision and I’m doing it unless Lola finds me before then’”. “How will she find you if you don’t have a phone?” “All she has to do is to call my mom and she’ll tell her where I am, she knows that”. “Have you spoken to your mum about getting the injection?” “Yeah and she don’t care”. “Why? What did she say?” “She said ‘as long as you’re happy’”. “Did she try to talk you out of it?” “Nope”. “Did she give you any words of compassion?” “Nope. She said if that’s what you want and if that makes you happy. I tried to kill myself before but failed. People have pulled guns to my head to threaten me and I begged them to pull the trigger but they didn’t. I should have stayed in EL Paso. I would have crossed the boarder right there so that they would shoot me at the boarder and then it would all be over with”. “Well maybe you’ll have a good chat with your friend Jodi?”. “I’ll just tell her that I tried my best but I can’t do it anymore. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up”. “Where do you think you’ll go after you get the injection?” “I don’t care. Anywhere is better than here without her. I just can’t live without her. My heart is broken. I was sleeping on the train and if God decided to take me there and then I wouldn’t have minded”. He said that he got talking to another girl on the train and he told her this story too. “What did she say?” I ask. “She had a partner for 2 years who hit her. I never hit Lola. She beat me and pointed knives at me but I never hit her”. “Why did she hit you and point knives at you?” “To stop me from hurting other people. A fellow tapped her on the bum and I was on my way out the door to kill him. I would have buried him under the floor boards but she stopped me and she had to hit me and point the knives at me to stop me from killing him. She’s all I think about and I want her back. I’ve been blown up. I’ve lost lots of people. My heart is broken”. “I’m sorry. That must be hard”. He cried again and says “nobody knows how hard it is”. I say again “I’m sorry”. He thanks me for listening. He tells me he paid for a woman’s lunch on the train because she was short on money and then the conductor came and gave him a warning and told him to stay away from her, she reported him for buying her a drink and “I was only trying to do something nice. I am tired of people treating me this way. I’m a good person”. Bob joins our conversation. From listening to the toothless veteran about ending his life and then meeting Bob with his friendly and enthusiastic demeanour. Bob doesn’t know what we are talking about. I don’t want to be overly bubbly towards Bob because it might look like I’m ignoring Darren and wanting to leave the conversation and I don’t want to seem too dead beat to Bob because he might think I don’t want to talk or that he isn’t invited to join our conversation. Bob and Darren shake hands. “Hi I’m Bob”. “Hi I’m Conrad”. I think to myself ‘he told me his name was Darren, does he tell a different name to each person?’ “That’s my last name. That’s what people usually call me. Darren Conrad is my full name”. We nod heads for a few minutes and then bounce around some small talk. I respond to Bob while throwing a compassionate eye to Darren. Then Darren says “I’m gunna head back to the carriage, I’ll see you there”.
Bob tells me more about his life. He says he was let go two years ago when he was 60 and was given redundancy. He thought about going back to work until he was 62, the age he can collect the old age pension but he didn’t want to go back to work. He married young and had three children by the age of 25 and divorced soon after that. He worked hard to raise the kids. He married again and had three more children. He worked all his adult life. So, he decided to go off travelling around America and enjoy his life. His eldest is 37 and his youngest is 19. He looks very fit and healthy. He did a lot of cycling and had a cycling accident from mountain biking. The bike got out of control. If he didn’t have a helmet on he probably would have been killed. He had to stay off work until he was mobile again. I tell him what Darren and I were talking about. I tell him Darren is going up to Canada to get the lethal injection. Bob’s jaw drops. He says he doesn’t understand that because there is so much to live for. I tell Bob how much difficulty Darren has faced in his life. “And he’s got cancer. You never know really what’s going on with someone”. I tell him I like to hear people’s stories. It probably wasn’t the right thing to do to tell Bob about Darren’s story without his permission but it was too big for me to hold on my own and I feel that if more people know his story then maybe it could help, how I don’t know but somehow it feels like it will. I didn’t ask Darren’s permission to write his story down and share it but if he does get the injection in Canada then at least he would be remembered through my stories and at least whoever would be reading my stories will be thinking about him and hopefully they will say a prayer for him. Somehow that makes it feel OK. I told him “I hope your soul will be set free”. He said thank you.
I start to get worried about my bag because the doors of the carriages are open. People are walking in and out of the train and my passport is in my smaller bag. If they take all the other stuff it would be inconvenient but not the end of the world but if they take my bag with my passport in it then that would be a disaster. I tell Bob I’ll be back in a minute. I get my bag and Darren gives me a nod and a smile and opens his emotional eyes to me, looking to continue the conversation. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I’m Just going back outside”. He smiles and says “OK honey”.
I speak to Bob again and he says “if you like to hear people’s stories, here’s mine. I come from a line of alcoholics and I went heavily on the drink myself for years, when my marriage broke up and again when I had my cycling accident. I am 5 years off the drink now and I wanted to get myself better. My father died recently at the age of 85 and he drank and smoked all his life. He was limited in what he could do with his body and always so unhealthy. My brother is an alcoholic and is very far down that path. I wanted to clean myself up and get myself fit and healthy because there is so much to live for and you can’t enjoy it if your body is not functioning properly. I took up cycling and got fit. It was hard having three kids so young and the responsibility at such a young age and then the heartbreak of my marriage ending. But I have so much to live for and I want to see and do so many things and I want to keep my body well and fit and healthy so I can do it all”. The ‘all aboard’ call is made. I go to my seat. I nod at Darren. “I hope she’ll find me. If she doesn’t I’m going to Canada. I can’t keep living in misery, it’s too hard”. It’s really hard to know what to say. I could beg him not to do it. I could say you have so much to live for and that life is great but I have to remember that I’m saying that from my perspective and not his. So I try to understand his perspective. I say “I hope you’ll be happy whatever you choose”. I tell him I’ll pray for him and he thanks me with a tear in his eye and curls up and goes to sleep. I reflect upon the two men I have had conversations with. One wants to end his life because everything is too difficult and the other fought to pull himself out of alcoholism because he believes there is so much to live for. I don’t really know what to say about this. All the different walks of life that are out there. It makes me think and it makes me grateful but it makes me revisit my values and ask myself what is important. It makes me take the focus off myself and makes me think about all the stories that are walking around the world, all the different circumstances that are out there. It makes me feel extremely grateful for my story.
At the next stop I get out. Bob is on the platform. He says he listened to my poems on Instagram after we added each other. These poems were about mental health and emotional turmoil. He says he could relate to them and tells me more about his journey through mental health. I like how people feel comfortable telling me things like this. Sometimes, I feel people just need someone to hear them, to hear their story because when people feel heard they feel like they matter and I learned from my own experience that people don’t need a lecture about life, they don’t need to be told what to do what not not do and what makes life better and how they can overcome their despair, they just need someone to listen. The ‘all aboard’ call is made again and I say a final goodbye to Bob as Austin is the next stop. It is another hour and a half to Austin.
I hear Darren talking to another man. “They should give us food after the delay”. Our train was delayed an extra two hours because the engine broke down. He goes down to the cafe and comes back with a cup of ice. He has a conversation with his friend Jodie on the phone, someone lent him a phone. He says “when I arrive I’m gunna be hungry”. I change back into my jeans from the slacks I wore for the train ride. I organise my bag. I have a banana, an apple, some oat bars and nuts. I pull the apple out of my bag and start to eat it. Darren looks at my apple, almost drooling. I put it all together; ‘they should give us free food after the delay’, ‘when I arrive I’ll be hungry’ and almost drooling over my apple. He’s hungry. So I give him one of my oat bars. I open the banana and took a little bit off the top and gave him the rest. He is breaking up the oats. “I’ve not teeth so I gotta break it up”. I eat my own oat bar and finish the apple. I put my things together and finally we arrive in Austin. Darren gets off straight away. He takes any opportunity to go out for a smoke. I gather my things and go outside. I collect my suitcase that I checked-in in Los Angeles 33 hours ago which nearly feels like a week ago. I say another goodbye to Bob when I see him and wish him well. I say goodbye to Darren. He is talking and smoking. He looks more bubbly now and he is laughing. He says to me “can I get a hug goodbye” and I say “sure”. So I give him a hug and one more oat bar. He says “thank you darlin’” and I walk away. I ask someone at the station how to get to the city centre.
I pass all the faces I got to recognise and give them another wave goodbye. I feel like I’ve shared something with all of these people. I feel like I spent part of my life with these people. I feel like we shared something with one another that we didn’t share with anyone else. It’s like the train became its own world and we existed within that world together. And now, in a blink of an eye, it’s over. I’m back out in the big bag world again. I take a step forward and prepare for my next adventure. Goodbye train.
Below are some drawings I did based on my time on the Texas Eagle
