They got on at Sacramento, a whole flurry of them, with white bonnets and wide brimmed straw hats. Rob had looked forward to a nice peaceful trip, taking a seat in the back of the second car like the conductor had told him to: "Couple's towards the front, single passengers towards the back," and Rob had followed the directions to a T, taking the seat on the right side of the train car that was in the second to last row, hidden away by himself. The car had been mostly empty until they pulled into Sacramento Station and the invasion began.
He watched the newcomers scurry up and down the aisle, dressed in prairie clothes and placing tightly wrapped plastic bags in the luggage slot above the seats. They were making the train car their home and it irritated Rob. He pulled his laptop bag from the floor and placed it on the seat next to him, hoping to prevent anyone from joining him and starting a conversation about their job or their kids -some sort of bullshit. He hoped all these new people would stay clear of his seat, take one look at his steely face and walk back down the aisle.
There were at least a dozen of them, all younger than Rob, and the women all wore immaculate white bonnets on their heads and simple dresses that buttoned in the front and reached all the way down to their feet. The men wore white button up shirts with short sleeves and wide brimmed straw hats which, when removed, exposed long hair cut straight and simple, like someone had placed a bowl on their heads and cut around it.
The men also had beards that went along their jaw lines, scraggely, as if they had gone through puberty and never shaved. Rob assumed that was probably true. He also assumed they were Amish, or what was the other one? Shakers? Mennonites?
“Fucking freaks,” Rob muttered to himself. To him, they looked like a high school drama class that had gotten onto the train during a musical about a riverboat.
There was an old woman sitting across the aisle from Rob with a grin on her face, watching all the Mennonites take their seats. The new passengers were speaking to each other in another language, Dutch Rob figured, and the old woman was grinning and nodding like she understood a single word the freaks were saying. It annoyed Rob that she found the jaw beards and backward ways charming.
One of the young women seemed to be leading the group, softly relaying orders in their language and making sure everyone was getting comfortable and settled in. She wore glasses, the most modern thing they seemed to possess, and she looked older than the rest, maybe Rob’s age.
She motioned towards the front of the train car and another woman made her way up the aisle. Rob didn’t see the other woman’s face right away, her bonnet was in the way, then she turned to glance towards the back of the train car and and the bonnet gave way to the sun streaming through the train windows, exposing her face. She looked at Rob and and for a moment Rob's world slowed down to a terrifying lull that allowed him to reflect on all the yearning and muffled emotions he had collected in his life and could be summoned and discharged at any moment.
She was the most beautiful girl Rob had seen in years. Her skin was darker than the other people in her group, a rich tan, and there was a shock of blond hair that was pushing it’s way out from under her bonnet. She was tall and thin with large eyes that shifted over the train car, counting hats and bonnets. The eyes shown a deep blue that Rob knew he would lose himself in if given the chance.
He caught himself staring and thought she may have noticed. The girl retreated down the aisle and Rob sat back in his seat, waiting for the train to move. He imagined looking into the girls eyes and pulling off the bonnet, the blond hair falling down on to her shoulders. In his mind he was putting his hands through the buttons of her dress, forcing the strange Mennonite underwear out of the was so he could grasp her breasts.
The train lurched to a start and he turned towards the window, watching the platform pass beside him, the station disappearing, giving way to deserted fields occupied by single shacks and old rickety fences overgrown with bushes and weeds. He thought of the Mennonite girl and was horney and depressed before that disolved into an uneasiness when he realized her large eyes and the cut of her cheekbones had reminded him of Alison Cavanichi.
He had seen Alison's picture on-line just two months before, when he had found her page and clicked a request to be friends. He kept checking the app multiple times a day to see if she had accepted him but there was never a confirmation. He had sat at his computer, not noticing that he was muttering "c'mon bitch, c’mon" under his breath. He told himself she had probably stopped using the account.
He had never slept with Alison but came close once. It was in high school, on the senior trip to France, and they had both been in the group that had gone out to explore the Paris streets and successfully got themselves into a restaurant pub. They had always been friendly, he and Alison, and after three or four beers and some clear liquor Rob could feel something come alive between them.
They had things in common and he had the ability to be funny then, making her laugh easily. She was the smartest and most beautiful girl in their class and when they were back on the streets returning to the hotel with the group the two of them stopped short on the cobbled streets and kissed for while in front of the Saint Germain L’Auxerrois. Rob remembered how dumb it was, to go that far to make out with a girl that lived two miles from his parent’s house.
When they got back to the hotel they agreed to meet up later. Rob paced in his room for half an hour, then went and knocked on the door to Alison's. Her roommates answered, bleary eyed and in their sweatpants, telling him she was in bed after getting sick. He could see her in the bed behind them, her face turned away from him towards the wall, dark hair splashed across the pillow.
Rob went back to his room and waited again until he opened his eyes and the morning sun was streaming through the room’s beige drapes. The group all flew home the next day and Rob never had a chance to search Alison out before the school year ended, it felt like nothing had occurred at all. The night on the streets of Paris was really the last night Rob could remember being young, or what it felt to be young at least, with hope and loss all mashed together into a brew within his limbs. It felt more like fading dream then something that had actually happened to him.
When he got home to the States after the senior trip he told his friend Travis that he had actually fucked Alison, and he had always felt bad about that lie but never admitted to it. Both he and Travis had gone to college together down south and soon knew other women and other experiences to where Alison Cavanichi was mostly forgotten. Rob had a girl friend for a while, Christine, who started talking about the future, and the price of real estate in Imperial Beach and Coronado, and her father’s health, and buying a dog. After three years he realized he didn’t really like all that much and just stopped calling. He had seen a few other girls here and there but nothing lasted very long.
Rob heard a baby start to cry up amongst the seats where the Mennonites were encamped. He plugged in his earbuds and tried to listen to one of his sports podcasts but could hear the kid crying in the background. Right when the child seemed to be calming down it would open its lungs up and begin to wail again. Rob got up and started down the aisle to escape to the bar car. He scanned the seats as he passed them, trying to catch a view of the beautiful girl again but all of the faces were covered by white bonnets.
When he reached the bar car he ordered two gin and tonics right in succession and watched the fruit trees pass through the window opposite. Children were such a pain in the ass, Rob thought to himself, it wasn’t worth it. All that crying and carrying on until they turned into teenagers and started to take money from your wallet when you weren’t looking. He was glad he had stayed single, keeping his freedom so he could enjoy his thirties.
His friend Travis hadn't been so lucky. After college, he and Rob had stayed close and continued to party on the weekends, staying up late at house parties and doing coke together in the booths at clubs. Rob had gotten into meth a bit during that time, doing it with guys from work and staying up for days at a time. He cut it out completely when he hit thirty. Travis's thing was pills which really got a grip on him when he started smoking OxyContin. His life quickly unraveled and he ended up in rehab where he met a woman who he continued to see when they both came out clean.
Rob didn't like her, she was a hippyish ex-raver sort of chick and said things like “hella tight” and wore hemp. He felt Travis could have done better. Rob would go to their house to watch the Chargers games, drinking beer while his two hosts stuck to soda. The afternoon seemed trapped inside the ghost of good times past, everything stuttered and awkward, with the woman just sitting on the couch not saying anything and the two men trying to talk like they used to.
Over time Rob just stopped going over at all, then he heard Travis and the girl got married and it wasn't long after that he saw a picture of their baby online. It had a fat little face, not ugly exactly, it just looked like any other baby Rob had seen. The tag on the picture said they named it Axel, a dumb name he remembered thinking, the chick had probably come up with it.
He wasn't feeling the gin like he should have so he ordered a shot of tequila, a double just to make sure the old latin woman tending bar would serve it right. He liked taking the train, not having to worry about anything while having a drink. He liked being in constant motion, shooting passed the sleepy little towns that nobody gave a shit about.
He finished the drink and ordered another, waiting for the old latin woman to give him some sort of look. She didn’t seem to care really, calmly pouring a double, and she didn’t seem to notice when he slipped awkwardly off the stool while raising the plastic cup to his mouth. Some of the liquor missed its target, ending up on his chin and down the front of his shirt. He wiped his mouth with the back of his fist and finished off the remainder before starting back towards the passenger car.
The Mennonites were settled into their seats when he got in, quietly chattering along in Dutch, some staring off out the windows. Rob had a good view of their faces as he walked up the aisle but he didn’t see the pretty one. Many of the women were plain, not unattractive exactly, just flat and dull looking.
Rob figured the women probably saw someone like himself, someone relatively young and professional looking with a good haircut, wearing jeans and blazer -they probably found themselves wondering what he could show them about the outside world they were all hiding from. He looked down at them as he made his way towards the back of the train car but none of them looked up or caught his gaze, they seemed cut off in their little bubble world and Rob found that profoundly irritating.
When he got to the back of the car the old woman who was sitting across the aisle gave him a little nod which he ignored. He collapsed into his seat and let out a long sigh, letting the liquor settle in so he could rest. As soon as he had his face propped against the glass of the window the baby began to cry again, right in the seat behind him. Rob sat up, cursing under his breath. Why the hell would they have brought the fucking kid to the back of the car? The conductor had clearly said: “"Couple's towards the front, single passengers towards the back”, that included idiot couples with screaming children.
Rob could feel the scowl dig harder into his face as the kid cried louder, it was like the little bastard could detect Rob’s anger. Stupid defenseless screaming creature, depending on ignorant hicks to raise it so it could grow up and have it’s hair cut with a bowl on it’s head or a fucking bonnet to cover it up. It was screaming at Rob, taunting him. All these religious freaks breeding out in the barns in the middle of nowhere like animals, did they think they had it all figured out? Did they think they were better than him? They were too young, too ignorant, with jaw beards and fucking bonnets.
Somebody kicked the seat, hard, to where Rob was violently pushed forward and his chain of thought was broken. He sat very still and startled in the seat. The baby was still crying, the train still moving, Rob could feel the blood and alcohol rushing into his face. If he was completely sober he might have let it go, might have written it off as careless, but in that moment the kick seemed a violent and bold assault, he was sure it was deliberate.
He stood up from his seat and swung around so that he was standing in the aisle looking down at the seat behind him. There sat a young Mennonite man, the one who must have kicked the seat, haircut and jaw beard like all the rest. Sitting next to him was the beautiful girl with the olive skin and bright blond lock dangling from underneath her bonnet. In her arms was the baby, puffy and red faced, and it was looking up at Rob like its parents were, completely silent with a cry stuck in it’s throat.
“Why were you kicking my seat?!”
Rob hadn't meant to yell but finding the beautiful girl there had caught him off guard and he lost his nerve for a brief second, flooding him with rage. He imagined the entire train car of people had turned, looking towards the back. He imagined the old woman across the aisle looking at him open mouthed.
The girl and the Mennonite man said nothing, they just stared up at him shocked and confused, like Rob was a crazy one. The only one who didn't look confused was the baby in the girl's arms. It stared up at Rob with dark little eyes.
“What’s the problem?” Rob said. “Do you have a problem? I mean, what in the fuck is this?!”
He felt frustration tightening up his legs and in his throat and as he stared down at the family he could feel the beginnings of tears welling in the corners of his eyes. It startled him and he took a step forward, into their space, looming over the girl. The man was up like a spring had shot him out of his seat, and Rob saw the fear widen in the man’s eyes, turning into terror.
Rob didn’t known what had happened, he just found himself on his back, looking up at the old woman from where his head lay in her lap. He was lost, like he had awoken suddenly from a dream, and it took a moment to remember where he was and who he was. When he felt the sting in his jaw he realized the Mennonite man had hit him.
He raised his eyes and looked up at the man, at the bowl of hair around his head and the scraggily red beard. He could see that the man was clearly trembling where he stood, the fear still wide and dumb in his eyes, like a caveman. The girl was still sitting in her seat, looking down at the baby in her arms, comforting it, the bonnet covering her face.
All Rob wanted was to escape. He got up and charged down the aisle, not looking at any of the faces but feeling their eyes peering up at him, all fear and anger. He descended the stairs to the ground level and stumbled into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. It was cramped inside but hidden, safe from all the eyes watching him. He wiped the sweat and panic from his face with a paper towel and caught his reflection in the mirror. He watched it for a moment, observing his own punched face, his own eyes, his own nose. There were wrinkles in his forehead that he had never noticed before and he hoped he could stay there in that little room until they got to his stop at the end of the line.
