Cherries, Cigarettes, Change

When she sat down across from him, he watched how her blue-sky dress wrinkled and twisted, but he never saw the finger that she was missing.

He sat with a book in his hands, peering at the girl with sunglasses and long, dirty blond hair. She’s beautiful, he thought.

The train began moving from the Sacramento train station and they sat, the guy watching the girl playing some touchscreen game on her cell phone with her right hand and her five long, slender fingers.

She’s beautiful, he thought. He looked at her nose, long with a slight hook. She had large, puckered lips that made the space between her cheeks seem hollow. He noticed her ear-rings, green rhinestones, her pronounced shoulder bones and her wan, creamy skin.

He wondered how he should talk to her. He looked into his bag and saw the fresh cherries he had bought earlier in the day at a farmers market in Sacramento. I could give her one, he thought but he he looked up at her and thought it would be strange to give someone a cherry without knowing them.

He took out a notepad and while watching to make sure she didn’t see, began writing. He wrote a note with every intention for elaboration and theatrics. He wrote telling her how those games that make us think are the most unique of things. That those games that put us out of our comfort bubble are those that are the most useful and stimulating. But, he wrote, those games that are shared are the best for that unique human ability to reason, to learn, to understand. He drew a tic-tac-toe diagram and X-ed one of the squares. He put on his sunglasses and then his headphones and pushed the notepad towards the girl, pushed so hard that the girl was startled. He looking away as she received it.

He heard a laugh that was cut as soon as it was let out. The paper and the pen were slid back. One box had been O-ed and he smiled at her but she was looking out the window.

They passed the notepad back and forth for little over an hour before breaking the sound barrier. They wrote, drew, played mad libs games.

They drew a short comic strip about a man that could not get the cheese that he wanted, so he robbed the grocery store with a gun. They wrote a poem about a woman that couldn’t stop looking at a cat and was unable to see the gangsters that surrounded her. But, the cat was the pet of one of the gangsters and they call became friends.

He would look at her when she wrote. He liked the precision her hands wrote with. Like a dentist, she cut, crossed and swiveled the pen. He’d watch her and forget that he was watching until she looked up and he remembered that the game they created had rules against watching directly. But, he would watch anyway.

It was not until he wrote the directions for their speech that they talked. He wrote:

Read until you get to the underlined portion. Then look at me and wait for the answer. P.S. turn off the music on your phone.

He passed her the notepad and didn’t look away. He took off his sunglasses and his headphones and she did the same.

She read, “Hi, my name is-”

“-Matt.”

She read, “hi, I am an avid fan of-”

“-Woody Allen.”

She laughed and read, “hi, I like to-”

“-Find beauty in the world.”

She laughed again and read, “It is nice-”

“-To meet you.”

“Was this a scene out of a movie?” she said while smiling. “Is this real?”

“I don’t know, what is real?” he said sarcastically. “What’s your name?”

“Anne,” she said and he stuck out his hand to shake hers. “Annie Hall.”

“No-”

“I’m just kidding. But what if.”

They began to talk. The train rolled on shaking and towns and cities passed by while they talked. They talked about the colleges that they went to. Matt, a film major from San Jose state. Anne, a theater major from San Francisco Academy of the Arts. Then Woody Allen.

The train came to a stop before Fremont. There was no train station about. Only the dry-grassed, junk-filled backyards of withered homes and graffitied fences separating the homes from the railroad. The telecom explained that there was going to be a short delay and that the train would be back on its way once the problem was sorted out.

“Dammit,” said Matt. “Of course this would happen.”

“What do you think is wrong?”

“Probably a cow.”

“Maybe a government conspiracy?”

“That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Are we doomed?”

“Definitely.”

She told him that she was going to a job interview in the city today. It was a job for a high-end fashion department in San Fran square. If she got the job she would be able to move to the city from Oakland.

“It’d be so great living in the city,” she said. “There is always something going on. Always. It’s exactly the place I want to be. I can’t stand quiet places. Not that Oakland is quiet, but it’s just not the same.”

She told him that she moved to Oakland because she could not afford San Francisco. The commute was fast and easy, but she did not like Oakland or the neighborhood she lived in.

“What time is the interview?” he asked.

“It’s at four.”

“So, you have three hours. That’s plenty of time, isn’t it? Even with this hold up.”

“I hope so.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Why were you in Sacramento the day of your interview if you are living in Oakland? asked Matt.

“Just family stuff,” she said and she gave a half-grin like she was disappointed.

“What kind of stuff? Family reunion? Bowling tournament?”

“No,” she said and gave a tight laugh. “No, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I just hope this train picks up.”

“I’m sure it will pick up soon.”

“I really hate trains,” she said. Matt was taken back by the tone of her comment as if she spat at him.

“I really hate trains, why are they never on time? They are terrible.”

“Yeah,” said Matt. “They are.”

“I mean, what kind of service is this? We bought tickets to get to our destinations at a certain time and what’s the point if of even going if we aren’t going to make it on time?” Her voice was rising and could not help but look away from her. He looked at the man sitting across the aisle and the man looked back at him from his magazine and raised his eyebrows and went back to reading.

“It’s okay, Anne, I’m sure you’ll get there on time.”

She looked at him and eased up and put her head against her seat. She breathed and looked out the window and then back at Matt. “Yeah, you are probably right, right?”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll make it,” said Matt.

The telecom comes on again and speaks. It says that all passengers are going to have to evacuate the train. That there is a bus waiting that will take them to the next train station in Fremont where another train is waiting. That everyone is to walk to the food cart in the back of the train and wait to be let out.

Matt and Anne look at each other and then at the others around them, all getting up and grabbing a hold of their baggage. They get up and grab their bags and begin walking to the back of the train, single-file. A woman walks in front of them and speaks on her cell phone.

“Yeah, we’re stuck for god-knows-what. Probably something with the engine, I don’t know. I’ll probably be a little late. I swear, this is not what I need before seeing your sisters.”

They walk to the end of the train and descend down the stairs onto the bottom floor. They walk to the open door where the passengers are being helped down from the train to the ground. The train was not built for evacuations onto the ground so there is a three foot drop. There is a train worker that stands on the ground, giving a hand to steady and hold each passenger that steps down.

“Easy there,” he says. “Here’s a hand,” he says. “Be careful,” he says. To each passenger he speaks, a short, sharp statement. Each time his voice is soft, assuring. As if each word is more than just a word. As if each word is another hand. As if each word is a reminder that there is someone there to lend a hand, that there is always someone there to lend a hand.

They wait in line for the bus. Matt helps Anne slide her luggage into one of the open compartments on the side of the bus. They push the baggage together and Matt concentrates on the dark pit of the storage area while Anne puts her left hand out of his vision.

They walk onto the bus. They wait in line as each person ahead stows any carry-on luggage in the overhead compartments. The process is slow and those who wait, wait with their luggage on the ground.

Matt gives Anne the window seat and they sit with the window to their right. They are still unsure why they were taken off of the train so they look around at all the others on the bus and listen to whatever conversations they can. They hear one man ask a woman if she saw all the cops cars circling outside the train. A child asks its mother if she has any snacks. Another asks why they had to wait so long to be let off, why engine troubles would take so long to figure out before they realized they had to take a bus.

Once all of the passengers of the train have sat down, the train conductor comes aboard. He walks up and down the bus aisle as he addresses the passengers. He tells them that a man decided to jump in front of the train. That it is a very sad thing. But it happens, it happens occasionally. It’s a rare thing, but it happens. He tells them that he is sorry for the inconvenience and apologizes if anyone had important plans that were ruined.

He leaves and the bus starts moving, kicking up dust as it drives away from the train. But, there is a pervading silence on the bus as all those who sit watch the train as they pull away. The same continuing silence that existed when the train conductor apologized.

Matt and Anne sit in silence as the bus passes from city roads to the highway. Voices creep up around them as people begin talking about the incident.

Matt looks at Anne and she is looking out the window with her sunglasses on.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

She looks at him and looks back out the window. “Yeah, it is.”

“It doesn’t seem real, does it? That entire time we were on the train waiting. The entire time it was because a man killed himself. It doesn’t seem to connect, does it? It’s like there is some sort of disconnect between what happened and what is happening now.”

“Let’s just not talk about it. I don’t want to think about it.”

He looks at her and she is still looking out the window with her right hand supporting her head. Then at her left hand and he sees the finger that she is missing. He looks at it with one eye on her hand and one on her sunglasses to make sure she doesn’t see. The finger is just missing the top third, the part without the nail. It’s just a little stub, he thinks.

He looks at it and wonders what happened, but he decides to not say anything about it. She probably wouldn’t want to talk about it, he thinks. It wouldn’t be a good thing to bring up. It must had been a bad experience, whatever it was.

The bus drives along the highway and neither Anne nor Matt talk. Anne looks out the window and Matt pulls out a book and tries to read. But, he can’t steady his mind. He feels odd. Like something is separate from him. Like he left something on the train and he can’t remember what he left but he can’t forget that he left it. But not something like a book or a phone or a picture. Maybe like a finger, he thinks. But, no not a finger. The feeling of the finger, that feeling that it is there, that it is there to touch something else. The lack of feeling is what it is, he thinks. It’s on the train, whatever feeling the lack of feeling feels like, it is on the train. It’s still there.

He stows his book back in his backpack and remembers the cherries he bought earlier that day. He bends over to the backpack that sits between his legs and looks inside at the cherries. He opens up the bag and places one in his mouth. Before he chews it, he flicks it around in his mouth with his tongue. He feels the rough stem and the smooth surface and he bites into it till his teeth sink into the pit and the juices of the cherry pop in his mouth. He eats another and savors it.

He places one hand on Anne’s leg and then holds the other with three cherries towards her. She looks at his hand and hesitates, unsure if she is hungry. He says that they are the best cherries that he has ever had.

She takes a cherry and rolls it inside her mouth and chews. She chews and stares out the window and thinks about the man that decided to end his life. She thinks about his family, if he had family, if he had children. If they are going to have a funeral for him. She thinks about the coffin and the flowers and the invitations that would be sent out. And what type of coffin, flowers, invitations would be chosen. How many people would show up. What they would say before the funeral. After the funeral. What was the last thing each and every one of them remembered of him. If their last memory of him would be a good one or a bad one. Or if they would forget the bad ones forever and only the best things about him would be remembered and that’s how he would live on in the eyes of his friends, family, and children.

She wonders why he wanted to go. If he had a good reason too. Maybe, it was an accident, she thinks. Maybe, he tripped or was snagged crossing the railroad and none of it was his fault. That way there would no hard feelings or anger from his family. Only remorse. It would be terrible to hate someone for having killed themselves, she thinks.

She stares out the window at the cars passing the bus on the highway. She’s still thinking about the man and she can feel the heavyness of the world and life pushing at her from all sides like she is suffocating and every pore on her body is being clogged, preventing every pore from being able to open, to breath.

She sees Matt chewing his cherries beside her through her tinted vision. She wonders what he’s thinking.

He

It was past midnight and he was in downtown San Jose. Matt was walking down the city street, passing bar after bar and all those who came or went. He was walking, thinking, and smoking a cigarette. It was of the first pack he had ever bought. He bought it after he got off the train in San Jose. Beyond the clerk, he saw the packs of cigarettes when he was buying a bottle of water. He thought how they were like trains waiting to be told when to leave.

A man was sitting on the ground and he looked up and asked him for some change. He looked and smelled homeless. He had a backpack and bicycle beside him.

Matt looked down at him and puffed and told him he didn’t have any change. He told him sorry.

“No, it’s okay,” the homeless man said. He spoke slow, holding the syllables long so that his words blended into one another like dilapidated memories. Like the normal speed of utterance was painful. Like being afraid to rip off a bandage.

“It’s okay,” he continued. “I could really just use some change. Anything really. I just want some food.”

“Sorry, I don’t have anything. Do you want a cigarette?”

The man looked up from, under a head of curly, hanging black hair and beard of the same color. His eyes were light blue and reflected the streetlights like abalone shells in the sun and his skin looked like sand. Tan, rough, flaky.

“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be great.”

He lit the cigarette and handed it to the man and both puffed and breathed and the tobacco crackled together in unison.

“You see,” said the man, “I’m facing a very big decision right now. I have cancer, you see. It’s underneath my jaw. Right below the bone.”

Matt paused. “Are you sure you should be smoking?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said and puffed. “It doesn’t matter. The cancer is already there. You see, I can either get the operation done, use all of my social security money, and sit in a hospital for months and pray it all goes okay. I had a friend, though, you see, who did the same thing. Cancer in his jaw too. From too much chew. But he died. Died nine months later after the operation. He spent nine months sitting in a home, doing nothing, fucking nothing, and then he died. He fucking died.”

The man started crying while he talked. His words didn’t break, his crying didn’t interrupt. His words became stronger, clearer like he was pushing the words out as if each were his last. His eyes glazed with tears so that the bags underneath his light-blue pupils glimmered underneath the lights like an oasis.

“So what do I do? Do I do the same thing and sit in a hospital and a home and use all of my money and still possibly die? Use it all and just die? Or do I use the money to go travel? To go somewhere I’ve never been and then die? I’ve always wanted to see the Colosseum of Rome. The one where the gladiators fought. But, if I do, I’ll die no matter what. What do I do?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“There’s not really anything you can do.”

“There isn’t anything I can do,” said Matt, nodding to himself. He lit another cigarette for him and the man while thinking about trains.”

“It’s just a decision I have to make.”

“I know,” said Matt and he breathed deeply into his cigarette. “And there isn’t anything I can do about it. There’s nothing I can do about it, can I?”

The man looked up at him. He didn’t say anything, he only stared while Matt kept talking and breathing deep drags like he was gasping for air.

“I can give you cigarettes, right? I can give you all my cigarettes. That’s all I have. But there isn’t anything I can do for you can I? There is not one fucking thing I can do for you?”

“It’s ok,” said the man, “you don’t-”

“-There’s nothing. If you die, there will have been nothing I could have done. If you live, it wouldn’t be because of me. No. You could die tomorrow and I could be the last person you ever see and there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it. You could jump in front of a train right now and I would never know.” Matt’s head was racing. He could feel his heart beating in his neck He could feel his lungs tired from all the smoke and he lit another cigarette. He couldn’t feel his feet or his legs. He felt foreign. The world beneath him felt distant. He didn’t even realize that the man had grabbed his arm and was telling him it was ok, that he’d be fine. That he wouldn’t die tonight or tomorrow and he wouldn’t jump in front of a train.

“What’s your name,” the man said once, but Matt was still standing in front of him smoking.

“I said what’s your name,” the man said louder, almost yelling.

“Matt.”

“Matt, I’m Nicki. Don’t worry about me.”

“I have to go, Nicki.”

“Do you have any money?

“No Nicki, all I have are cigarettes. Do you want them? Here you can have all of them.”

“I don’t need them.”

Matt was holding the pack of cigarettes in front of him, shaking it.

“Here, take them.”

“No.”

“It’s all I have to give you. Just take them.”

The man looked up at him, shaking his head.

“It’s ok, Matt. I’ll be ok. I just am looking for food. I don’t need your cigarettes.”

Matt’s breathing evened out. He put the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Nicki. I don’t have any money.”

“That’s alright.”

“I’m sorry about all of that. You’ll figure it out.”

“It’s alright.”

“I need to go, Nicki.”

“You should get going, Matt. You’ve done all that you could.”

“Yeah,” said Matt and he nodded his head and walked away. He lit another cigarette a block away.

She

She was sitting in her bed with her laptop open in front of her going through old family photos when her phone rang.

“Hey Mom.”

“The ride was alright.”

“It took, about four hours.”

“Yeah, it was long. There was a delay.”

“Just engine troubles. We had to sit for a long time.”

“I made it to my interview. It went well.”

“Yeah, the train was frustrating at first. This guy sat next to me though and we talked for a long time.”

He

Matt is three blocks from Nicki when a man comes up to him and asks him if he has a lighter. He says he’ll buy it for five dollars. Matt looks at the man and before he wonders why the man needs the lighter so badly that he cannot go to a liquor store for it, he thinks of Nicki. He thinks of the food that Nicki will be able to buy. The food he will be able to stuff himself with. He imagines Nicki surrounded by food. Tables of food. Rib-eyes, smoked salmon, bread and butter, salads with tomatoes and avocado and nuts and feta cheese, ale, champagne, spring water all surrounding Nicki, glowing in front of Nicki like a feast for Zeus.

He walks back to Nicki and gives him the five dollars.

“Go get some food,” says Matt and he walks away.

Nicki looks at the five ones in his hand and gets up and heads to Taco Bell. He walks, feeling his stomach burn, and thinks of Matt and the five dollars of food that he is about to buy.

“I’ll have some food now, he thinks. I’ll have some food now and I’ll worry about everything later, tomorrow. I’ll think about all of it tomorrow. I’m just going to eat some food now. A burrito and a taco. No, maybe a couple of tacos and a burrito. No, I’ll see when I get there. It’s going to be good food, really good. I’m so hungry.”

He walks into the Taco Bell and feels the money in his pocket and smiles at the menu.

She

“He was funny. Really sweet. We talked without speaking for an hour on a note pad of his.” She pauses. “We ate cherries together. They were delicious. They were so delicious.”

“Yeah, I’ll see him again.”

“I’m glad I could make it home too. How were you today?”

“It’s hard. I miss him too. I miss him a lot.”

“I’m okay, mom.”

“It’s okay, mom.”

“He was a great father, mom.”

She pauses and thinks about her grandfather and how peacefully soulless he looked at the funeral. How different he had looked compared to what she remembered of him from years past. She thinks of the man that jumped in front of the train and feels like the two are linked, but for reasons that she cannot explain.

“Mom. Tomorrow morning you should go buy some fruit. Just buy as much as you can. It will make you feel better.”

“Buy whatever, but just make sure you buy cherries.”