I can’t tell you what she was doing there, in fact I can’t even tell you what I was doing there. All I really can say is that I was there, and so was she. But then what difference did that make?
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That’s how I first noticed her. Those lamps only stay on for like fifteen seconds and then you have to hit that rubber button to get them going again. Many times I have waited for trains at that stop, freezing my ass off, doing that dance where you peek over the edge down the rail for those round orange headlights until the lamps go off so you hop over to the post to get them going and then back to the edge to crane your neck to see if in the time it took you to go and turn on the heat lamps the train didn’t come; and those fucking trains never come. At least not at that time of the night, not at the time of night she was up there.
Not someone, though–her. She was it.
It was almost peaceful to see him at this moment. To think he had spent 17 years underground in a coma to prepare for that moment was mind-boggling. I was excited for him, for all of his new possibilities. I wanted to see him find a babe but all he did was sit and flap his wings. Maybe he was waiting for all of his cicada friends who were still brown and buggy. Still, watching such a natural display lifted my spirits. I had been kind of depressed since I had graduated from college.
I finally settled on the No Exit. I hoped there would be a girl there who would also be sitting alone who would maybe be impressed with a guy who had just gotten his degree in liberal education.
