Dave Goes for a Train Ride Sunday, March 25, 2001
About a half dozen summers ago, one of my last as a carefree teenager, I was in love – or so I thought at the time. It was a brief affair, lasting only a few weeks, but it was passionate and irrational and complete with butterflies in the stomach and long meaningful gazes and everything else that, when combined, created something that neither of us had ever experienced before; exhilaration. Today after running a few errands, I was alone and in no hurry to get home so I took the long cut. I was stopped by a slow moving train, and as I waited for it to pass a memory of my summertime romance surfaced. He and I were driving aimlessly through the middle of nowhere one hot summer afternoon, bored but content with each other’s company. A train crossed the road a short distance ahead of us and slowed to a crawl. I looked over at my companion to see a mischievous smile forming on his face, and somehow I knew what he was thinking. I returned his smile with a small nod, silently approving of his unspoken idea. We parked off to the side of the road and got out of the car. I looked around to see that we were completely alone. From the trunk I pulled out a small backpack with a light picnic lunch inside and slung it over my shoulder. My summertime beaux took me by the hand, and we walked along side the barely moving train and climbed onto an empty flatbed car. We had no idea where we were going, or how we would get back, but we didn’t care. We were young and irresponsible as was our right to be before being thrust unwillingly and much too soon into adulthood. The train sped up slightly to a lazy clip. The steady clicking of the wheels was a hypnotic sound, like a slow mechanical gallop. We sat there at the back of the car, wrapped in each other’s arms and entranced by the steady rhythm. We kissed gently at first, then more and more intensely. I could feel his hands everywhere on me. We passed through a wooded area, over a few creeks, through fields, and after who knows how far (Ten miles? Twenty? Fifty?) the train slowed again. We hopped down from the train and found ourselves in an apple orchard. Hand in hand we wandered through the rows of trees, leaving a trail of apple cores behind us. He leaned in to kiss me, but instead just teased me by licking a drop of apple juice off my chin. At the far edge of the orchard was a welcoming grove of willow trees. Through the curtain of drooping willow braches we discovered a secluded place to set down a blanket and eat our lunch. I was so content that afternoon. Somehow that train had taken us away from the whirlwind of confusion that defines adolescence. For those few short hours we were nowhere. We had evaded reality and all the burdens that it brings. We were impervious to the harsh judgments of an uncaring world that would never understand what we felt for each other. They didn’t know where we were. We didn’t know where we were. And so there in our hidden grove we were free of everything. We ate our lunch. We lay in the shade. We held each other close. We fell asleep. Guessing by the sun, we woke about an hour later and slowly wandered out of our hiding place. It was a magical place, created as much by my own state of mind as by its remote location. As I left I knew that no one, not even ourselves, would ever find this place again. A few minutes later, a farmhand found us walking through the orchard. He was an attractive middle-aged man with a well-built body frame and he was graying just slightly on his temples. He had spotted me and my ‘friend’ from behind, and had probably seen us holding hands. We weren’t supposed to be there, and for a moment I thought he might confront us about this, but instead I saw a smirk and a tiny bit of envy on his face. My friend and I were two young boys, handsome and muscular. In just an instant I sensed that he had a harmless attraction for both of us. The smirk on the man’s face became a smile and he asked us what we were doing. We told him we were trying to get lost, and he told us we had succeeded. He was getting ready to make a delivery into town and offered us a ride. We accepted, and a disappointingly short twenty minutes later we were back at our car. I thought for sure we had gotten farther than that. As we were getting into our car, I waved good-bye to the man and flashed a smile and a slightly flirtatious wink at him. He grinned bashfully and waved it off as he drove away. And our adventure was over. Our romance ended a short while later. My friend wasn’t as comfortable with his sexuality as I was, and the passion we felt eventually terrified him. I have thought of him occasionally over the years. I have wondered if his memories of that day are as fond as mine. For me, the memory of our entire relationship falls into a strange area of nostalgia - somewhere between bittersweet and melancholy, after sexual discovery but before awareness of complex adult relationships. I have kept him in that place in my mind where the details don’t matter anymore, because it’s all in the past so there’s no reason to remember anything except the good parts. I thought of him today as I waited for the train to pass. I thought of the freedom I felt with him that afternoon, and how liberating it felt to leave everything behind for the sake of enjoying a moment. I thought of his strong arms and his soft lips and how they tasted of salt from sweating in the hot summer sun. I thought of his hands in my back pockets and his breath in my ear and how peaceful he looked when he was asleep next to me. For one afternoon we had escaped from the world, but we didn’t get to stay. At least I got to keep the memory.
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