a poem based on a real life experience. |
We boarded the train that day two strangers bound for Dallas; alone we were, unknowingly alone in differing shades of sorrow that actually reflected each other in silence. He seemed nothing special a man of medium height, thin, pale but his eyes bled secrets and pain begging to be told, begging to be shared. Over he came, questioning me about dinner tickets, what time? where was the dining car? how did it work? and a last surprise, could he join me for dinner? I am kind in answer and accept his company, because his silent weeping was my own. So we talk a shy, uncertain sonata of two strangers on a train bound for divergent destinations. He has a black bag, wrinkled worn leather he tells me it holds all he owns and it holds his insulin, all he has left of it; the insurance had run out and he had no money for more. I listenly politely, eyes following the Illinois farms and dying small towns outside the eyes of the train. (eyes and eyes, revealing so much) No money, all spent on the ticket to board him here, next to me Destination? Dallas and nothing; lost his job wife had left him, the sad stories of all of us, the ones we tell with silent weeping eyes. I puzzled over this, saying, "You can't go there to nothing! Where will you stay?" A shake of his head, lank hair falling over his eyes, those eyes with their silent pleading. I had no answer, for I didn't know the question, though I did know-- a dark denial there. We ate dinner then, the Amtrak song of doors and wheels repeating endlessly as we flowed down the tracks through the long night, talking now and then, dozing on and off, even a few scraps of laughter coming like shining manna from above. Before we entered Union Station I gave him a stern lecture on the dangers of sleeping out on the streets of the city stern, yet warm in compassion; he was so able to bring that flame out of my own darkness. His kind regard watched me close, from those eyes those eyes, and in a moment of impulse I wrote down my name and number for him on a scrap of paper should he not find a place to stay, a place to go to. So, arrive we do then a quick farewell a close hug for luck and hope and we diverge into the moiling currents of the station. I am home for several days when the phone rings it is for me, but I do not know the voice but it is HIS sister and I smile, inquire as to his well-being believing he had come to good fortune hoping he had not been homeless on the streets. It was not to be-- fortune passed by unheeding hope fled to a distant shore of sorrow; she tells me: he had killed himself there at the nowhere station death instant in the men's bathroon. I listened-- horror rising, shock screaming, tears dimming, swimming in my eyes oh those eyes and their bleeding! I stammer and wail questions, comments --I didn't know he had a gun --Why did he do it? --How did she know my phone number? --I'm so sorry --I should have known --I should have done something! (I am screaming guilt at my own inaction!) It was a note, she said, his final words to the world, where he had mentioned my kindness to him, said I'd made his last moments pleasurable, worthwhile. She thanked me then for that gift I had given, given without even knowing it had been a gift. and I broke then flooded by tears and remorse because after all! after all! because my pain had recognized his but I had not spoken out, not spoken out, nor taken action left to silence, that damned dark denial. She thanked me once again and we ended the call. I do not even know what I said there, at the end. It was a sorrow to me then and is still one to this day. I cannot even recall his name, to my bitter shame but I remember him, remember the train ride to nowhere remember those eyes and the gentle shyness lostness of his manner. I pray he found his peace in a bullet. The living, we go on riding the tracks of our lives (how many of us are riding in silence to nowhere? how many bleeding eyes are being denied in darkness?) and now and then we look back to where we have been, where we have journeyed, and honor, once more, in compassion's heart those who touched us ever so deeply-- as did the kind nameless man, riding a train bound for nowhere on the day he ended the final bleeding of his eyes. ~Cail 3/12/04 ...this honoring long overdue to him |