The Other Side of the Tracks

An English essay I once had to write that I thought I would share with you. Based on a true story from a real place.

There is a place, far from here in spirit only, which fills me with a sense of unimaginable joy and peace. It begins with a walk down the street I grew up on in little Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and ends in my minds eye as I walk the train tracks that cross the back side of River Street. Tracks that I have walked, that my sister has walked, that my father walked, and generations laid and traversed before me. These tracks are ancient, pitted with rust; red faced sentinels that guard a simpler time that is lost to me. And yet the freight trains rumble by on a sloppy schedule, slow and hulking, cats stretching and exuding as much energy as slow as they can.

     These train tracks cover miles, hidden by small, dilapidated colonial houses and seasonal foliage. They can be inferred on the open bridges that the train crosses, high above the general traffic, but are rarely discerned by the naked eye until one is standing on top of them. The area is easily accessible by cutting precociously through a neighbor’s yard, unkempt via laziness or senility, or by slipping carefully across what the area youth knows as “hobo alley,” although much of what else it has gained in titles and commendations are lost in translation, as many children and teens around this area barely speak English, and I have no talent in the Spanish language whatsoever.

      This aptly-named access point is a small break in the surrounding flora of the area directly across from the River/West street junction, in line of sight from the red apartment complex where my mother and sister just so happen to reside. It is relatively overgrown, a small walkway for weary and cautious laborers to easily wiggle in between the chain linked portions of the gated power grid for repairs. The fence glitters in the half light present when I usually visit this peaceful place, a beacon of serenity in the twisted world I live in. Until the dead of winter, the grass seems to be electrified by the station, bright green and soft underfoot. The area is shaded by sumac, surrounded by lilac and honeydew, and the short expanse of forest floor coated with daises in one step and poison ivy in the next. Pine needles litter the area, kept company by the countless coffee cups, condom wrappers, and carelessly discarded beer bottles of drifters and lost souls. It is difficult to make a path through the underbrush that won’t land you face first into a railroad tie, until you scope the area. Upon a first visit, it is best to stay reverently hushed and follow a guide who has been there before, though who taught them usually remains a mystery. For me, it was my little sister who first introduced me to this place, being the more daring of us who never heeded my parent’s claims of a dangerous area. Though this is definitely a true statement, one carries preparation for an altercation when living in an area like mine. It is treacherous, and not even the solitude of the tracks drowns out the ricocheting shouting voices from the next street over.

      Once one has negotiated the slippery sand through personal ingenuity and perseverance, avoiding broken glass and abhorrent, itch- inducing plant life, one breaks through to the underbelly of the world in which I conduct my most private thoughts- the actual tracks. Peaceful, quiet isolation envelopes the place behind the rotary package store, the gas station, and astride the bridge. The wood of the tracks is muffled now when compressed by the great metal beasts that fluidly glide across the Dystopian backdrop of this forsaken town. Instead of the clickity clack noise they should make, they simply sigh, like an archaic philosopher lost in thought. But the heavy, mottled steel prevails above all else, supporting the beasts above the ground and giving them premise and promise of travel.

      My parents do not know I know this place. My father knew it well when he was my age, but personal experience has led him to crop up a litany of complaints against any and all visitations, though they belie his enthralling stories about his childhood. Still I go, however, to clear my head and, quite possibly, to tempt Fate. There, amongst the delicate yellow buds of late bloom and the soft, squelching overturned dirt that many feet and wheels have scuffed across, I am not tethered to anyone’s wills or desires, bound only to the sweet earth by gravity itself. The bramble rasps against my jeans and laps around my ankles, making a tinkling noise as it dries out in Autumn, and the leaves shift from viridian to tangerine, but the nature of the area remains the same. I have no qualms, no concerns in this place, wandering down the ties like a gymnast on a balance beam, my black and white Converse stark against the sunset-colored rust and gray, billowing dust behind me.

       My personal choices are, by design, peripatetic. Flowing. I do not like to remain in one spot for long, because where my thoughts wander, my body goes. Here I remember my urban playground, dearest Manhattan, of which I rule the streets whenever I have the good fortune to hitch a ride and hijack some cash. I also pay my respects to all of the other places I’ve been and know well- Springfield, Holbrook, Connecticut, Montgomery, New York, Rhode Island, Hampton Beach, Townsend…so small a chunk of the world when there is so much left to lay claim to before I depart these grounds for good. I walk, and everywhere I look bears a story. A soundless tale that speaks only to those who stop to hear it.

      The shoulder drops off about a quarter mile past the metal bridge that supersedes the road beneath, and I must be careful, otherwise I may just meet a train face to face. But around the bend lies the massive exoskeletons of the industrial age- they mostly still stand vertically, a network of immense pipes and smokestacks that represent the anarchist in the incurable thinking man. The man who seeks power and fame through building the biggest monochrome effigy that blackens the sky and tars his lungs until he is so wrought with suffering of his own invention that he is uniquely bonded to his machinery, appearing the same as his idolatry of ideology on the inside of his own lungs. These are my thoughts as I pass, silenced, between the carelessly strewn bodies, partially submerged in the dirt, visited only by the trains and myself.

      Every so often, I’ll catch a short ride by jumping aboard a slow freighter, and I will visit the scenes of my past as they become visually juxtaposed with the present, as so much begins to look the same at speeds greater than contemplative trudging. There’s an irrefutable beat to these sorts of things, raised streets that carry more wheels than feet, but still they welcome a grimy pair of sneakers and the short legs that travel with them. I jump off up the tracks and wander back the other way, pausing on the bridge and hearing the pigeons shudder beneath as they settle into their roosts at twilight. The pastel pinks and blues of the sky infuse the tiny low-growing flowers with the same colors, and the world is doused in a golden light just as the sun begins to set. And here, watching the tracks from the sidelines as I sit with my back against a tree trunk and experience utter singularity, I am spiritually reinvigorated, because the steel gods of this forgotten time and forgotten road hear my quiet prayers as they pass me by.

Author's Note

This is rather old. I don't mind if you review it harshly, of course, but be aware that I have matured as a writer since then.