Rail Time II
I missed my train today and therefore spent nearly an hour in the Richmond train station chatting with other disorganized people. When I sat down the blind guy on the other side of my bench bellowed "Who's there!?" in evident alarm. I revealed myself and we began to chat. His name was Tony, and he was on a day trip to Oakland with his brother. It was his first train trip, though he might have been thirty or forty. He asked me where the train went, so I described it for him, and as I was thinking about the sun setting over the Bay I was sorry that Tony was missing it. He asked me if he was allowed to smoke on the platform and I didn't have the chutzpah to lie and say there was a No Smoking sign. I did ask him when the last time he tried to quit was, and he explained that he thinks about it all the time, but that as soon as he tries to quit somebody pisses him off.
As we were kibbitzing another guy came and sat next to me, promptly whipping out a cigarette of his own. We three got to talking about the earthquake this morning, and it came out that this was my first, being an east coaster. The new guy, whose name was later revealed to be Walter, had once lived in New York and worked in an Italian restaurant on Mulberry St. When I explained where I grew up he wanted to know if that was Harlem. We discussed the gentrification of Harlem and he said, "Yeah, it's a happening place now. I guess they just move all the drug dealers out."
"Do they ever really go away?" I asked.
"I guess not. I've got a drug dealer on my block and I live in East Sac." The significance of this last was lost on me but I nodded sympathetically. "I've got an old lady in a wheelchair dealing crack in my neighborhood," he continued. "She offered me some the other day. I told her, 'Everybody else thinks I look like a cop. What makes you think I look like a crackhead?' She said, 'That Vicodin I just took's making you a little blurry.' Shit."
I assumed incorrectly that Walter was in Richmond to collect some type of drug, but it turned out he was on his way home from court in San Francisco. He had appeared before a judge to plead for his license back and explain why he had an outstanding ticket from the '70s. Walter had an open beer in his non-smoking hand and was, if not three sheets, at least one. "I don't drink and drive," he said, reading my mind, "I only drink and ride." He was much less genial than Tony when I asked him when he had last tried to quit smoking.
Walter now works at a Spaghetti restaurant that I was evidently supposed to have heard of, but he complains that the quality of their pasta is inferior. He himself is not Italian, which was apparently a problem for his mafioso ex-boss in the Village, but I was treated to a Forrest Gump-style catalogue of Walter's chefery --"I crimp my own tortellini by hand, I...". He eventually got around to asking what I did for a living, and was not at all pleased with my answer. "Berkeley, huh?" he said dubiously. "My brother went there. Now he can say he went to Berkeley but he's working the same job he had before he went." I gave him my standard schpiel about the value of education. "I should have taken classes in restaurant management," he said. "Then I wouldn't have lost my bar. Or done a year in Federal Prison. You've really gotta pay taxes."
"Do you think that's the kind of thing they teach in restaurant management?" I asked.
"Probably not," he conceded. "Some of this stuff you're either born with or you're not."
When the train came Walter and I got separated. Tony's brother came back and assisted him to the train, helpfully explaining "That's a train whistle Tony, not a boat." When I got on board I sat next to a dainty blonde who looked really pissed off when I asked to sit next to her, seeming to say, "How dare you put your ass on my footrest?" I'd have probably had a better time riding with Walter and Tony, but I already smelled like an ashtray.
As we were kibbitzing another guy came and sat next to me, promptly whipping out a cigarette of his own. We three got to talking about the earthquake this morning, and it came out that this was my first, being an east coaster. The new guy, whose name was later revealed to be Walter, had once lived in New York and worked in an Italian restaurant on Mulberry St. When I explained where I grew up he wanted to know if that was Harlem. We discussed the gentrification of Harlem and he said, "Yeah, it's a happening place now. I guess they just move all the drug dealers out."
"Do they ever really go away?" I asked.
"I guess not. I've got a drug dealer on my block and I live in East Sac." The significance of this last was lost on me but I nodded sympathetically. "I've got an old lady in a wheelchair dealing crack in my neighborhood," he continued. "She offered me some the other day. I told her, 'Everybody else thinks I look like a cop. What makes you think I look like a crackhead?' She said, 'That Vicodin I just took's making you a little blurry.' Shit."
I assumed incorrectly that Walter was in Richmond to collect some type of drug, but it turned out he was on his way home from court in San Francisco. He had appeared before a judge to plead for his license back and explain why he had an outstanding ticket from the '70s. Walter had an open beer in his non-smoking hand and was, if not three sheets, at least one. "I don't drink and drive," he said, reading my mind, "I only drink and ride." He was much less genial than Tony when I asked him when he had last tried to quit smoking.
Walter now works at a Spaghetti restaurant that I was evidently supposed to have heard of, but he complains that the quality of their pasta is inferior. He himself is not Italian, which was apparently a problem for his mafioso ex-boss in the Village, but I was treated to a Forrest Gump-style catalogue of Walter's chefery --"I crimp my own tortellini by hand, I...". He eventually got around to asking what I did for a living, and was not at all pleased with my answer. "Berkeley, huh?" he said dubiously. "My brother went there. Now he can say he went to Berkeley but he's working the same job he had before he went." I gave him my standard schpiel about the value of education. "I should have taken classes in restaurant management," he said. "Then I wouldn't have lost my bar. Or done a year in Federal Prison. You've really gotta pay taxes."
"Do you think that's the kind of thing they teach in restaurant management?" I asked.
"Probably not," he conceded. "Some of this stuff you're either born with or you're not."
When the train came Walter and I got separated. Tony's brother came back and assisted him to the train, helpfully explaining "That's a train whistle Tony, not a boat." When I got on board I sat next to a dainty blonde who looked really pissed off when I asked to sit next to her, seeming to say, "How dare you put your ass on my footrest?" I'd have probably had a better time riding with Walter and Tony, but I already smelled like an ashtray.
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