Lines from Tracks
It takes a strong line of track to keep a locomotive moving.
Along the same lines, it takes some strong lines of narrative to keep a story moving
With that in mind, here are some lines from Tracks.
The Conductor
The train has a way of transforming a person. Sometimes
passengers become aware of things they didn’t know before
boarding. Something about the stillness on a moving train, being
around people and alone at the same time. They’re neither here nor
there—in transition. That frees them up to do things or say things
they might not ordinarily do or say.
Prewitt’s Plans
Prewitt looked out the window at the boulders and trees
decorating a distant mountain. He never questioned the big rocks,
the most important things in life. Yet he realized, looking back
through the years, that he’d given far too much time to work, and
not enough to those he cared about. In the big picture, family
always came first. Day-to-day, family was at the bottom of the list.
Reset
Gene Silverman eased back into his seat to enjoy the ride. He rode
the rails so often, sometimes he felt as though his heartbeat had
reset to the rhythm of the train. The cars were different, the
destinations varied, but the similarities were stronger than the
differences.
Futures
Walking on a train isn’t free and open, like walking on a sidewalk
or in a building. Nor is it stiff and uncomfortable, like walking on
an airplane. There’s a steady, rhythmic comfort to strolling
leisurely down the aisle, balancing hands on the heads of seats as
you go. Christi’s direction was clear, but her destination was not.
She was in no hurry to get there, wherever “there” was.
Live Cargo
Helen’s childhood was so mingled with misery, she hadn’t known
there was any other kind. Arriving in America did not eliminate the
ache, but it tempered past sufferings with new contentment. Over
the decades, she’d grown accustomed to her tender husband, their
cozy home and quiet neighborhood, their yard and friends to tend.
She’d come to know a peaceful life. Now, at seventy-nine, she’d met
up with misery again.
The Silences
They were young, this couple seated on the train. Too young, their
friends back home had teased them, to be riding an old-fashioned
locomotive. But they’d boarded anyway, and here they sat, side by
side, caught in the quiet of the passenger car during one of those
rare moments when no one was speaking. The sound of the train’s
movement met their ears like a lullaby, a soothing soundtrack to
the window’s serene scenery.
Freedom
Even with all the people around him on the train, Joe was alone.
Memories of Wu, McMurphey, Manning, and Bi’nh echoed in his
mind the way the train echoed when it passed through a dark tunnel.
There had been the good parts to the visit: holding her, loving her,
her face nestled against his chest, his lips on the warm part in her
silky black hair. Still, something had died between them during this
visit as surely as his friends had died at his side in Afghanistan.
One Last Hit
Charlie wasn’t born into organized crime; he’d sought it out. As the
only child of a family living in a Little Italy rowhouse, he wasn’t poor,
but he’d had relatively humble beginnings that pointed to him
becoming the manager of an ethnic grocery store or dry cleaner. His
father was Italian and his mother was an immigrant from the Soviet
Union. Some weeks they went to the Catholic church in town, other
times they ventured out to the Ukrainian Orthodox church on Eastern
Avenue. They were pretty much the same, as Charlie saw it. Some of
the saints were different, but they taught him the same core values: it
didn’t matter who you were or what you did; one church or another,
one line of work or another, one ethnicity or another, life was all pretty
much what you made of it. He decided early on to make it big.
Reunion
The ride to Baltimore had been one that Joan wished would
go faster and take longer at the same time, like a commute to a
business meeting she wanted to both avoid and be done with.
A Good Beer Needs a Good Stein
Mary pried the stein from his hands. They both admired it. The
handle resembled intertwined branches, wide and easy on the
hand. Around the stein were textured scenes of joy and
decadence: a group of men sat at a table, one of them with a
woman on his lap, another playing a guitar. In another scene a
man and woman danced while men played cards and maids
served beer. The scenes jumped right off the stein and touched
the real world. But Fritz’s world wasn’t as carefree. He longed to
touch theirs.
Mountain of Sand
Colin looked at the woman beside him, then back to his tattered
notebook. Perhaps the peak of a sand mountain wasn’t the best
place to balance a life. It’s more important to touch a person with
poetry than to make a career out of it.
Cold Bars
Murdock knew there were worse things than selling people stuff
they didn’t need or want. There was the frigidness of metal against
skin and the callousness of the less comfortable sorts of bars. Like
his lessons in love and consumption, this more traumatic lesson
had come fast, in the dark moments of a winter night some thirteen
years ago.
The Deed’s Doorstep
Becoming the assassin was essential. Outside this role, he was
just another man: a lover, a father, a fisherman, a friend. These
quick jobs had to be easily discarded. Assuming the role, forgetting
himself, was the only way to cope, the only way to be successful in
this business and still have a place outside it.
Seconds
The train chugged alongside the mighty Ohio River. Demi watched
the rushing water outside and wished she could be out in it, allowing
the cool force to wash her clean. But the rushing water couldn’t wash
away the past. Some filth remained a part of a person forever.
Idle Chatter
Franklin had written a love poem or two in his time, but it had
been a chore. He could talk, but talk was alive and in the air around
him. Writing was different. With writing, he was confronted by the
words on the page, challenged to make them more meaningful.
Small talk, cliche´s, idle chatter—it was all meaningful when part of
a living conversation, part of something bigger than himself.
Without the interplay of others, his words fell flat.
She’s Gone
His reflection surrounded the houses on the hill, coming back to
him in the window like a ghost in a movie with bad special effects.
Hubert didn’t know where Dad was now, but he remembered what
Dad had looked like then, like the reflection in the window: shiny,
bald head rimmed with a crown of reddish hair, drooping eyes, a
plump nose, chubby cheeks, and a chin that hung beneath his head
like the ball from the bottom of a train’s bell.
New Course
Gene had learned early in life how to wipe a computer clean;
then he’d learned how to wipe his own slate clean. He’d restarted so
many times, he couldn’t keep track. Resetting a life can be as easy as
resetting a computer.
Late Lunch
He’d learned long ago that surface relationships were the best
kind. People put their best foot forward, in many cases, because the
other foot had something wrong with it. A person put up a good front,
presented the better side for a photograph. That’s why everyone was a
pleasure to know when you were just getting to know them.
The train has a way of transforming a person. Sometimes
passengers become aware of things they didn’t know before
boarding. Something about the stillness on a moving train, being
around people and alone at the same time. They’re neither here nor
there—in transition. That frees them up to do things or say things
they might not ordinarily do or say.
Prewitt’s Plans
Prewitt looked out the window at the boulders and trees
decorating a distant mountain. He never questioned the big rocks,
the most important things in life. Yet he realized, looking back
through the years, that he’d given far too much time to work, and
not enough to those he cared about. In the big picture, family
always came first. Day-to-day, family was at the bottom of the list.
Reset
Gene Silverman eased back into his seat to enjoy the ride. He rode
the rails so often, sometimes he felt as though his heartbeat had
reset to the rhythm of the train. The cars were different, the
destinations varied, but the similarities were stronger than the
differences.
Futures
Walking on a train isn’t free and open, like walking on a sidewalk
or in a building. Nor is it stiff and uncomfortable, like walking on
an airplane. There’s a steady, rhythmic comfort to strolling
leisurely down the aisle, balancing hands on the heads of seats as
you go. Christi’s direction was clear, but her destination was not.
She was in no hurry to get there, wherever “there” was.
Live Cargo
Helen’s childhood was so mingled with misery, she hadn’t known
there was any other kind. Arriving in America did not eliminate the
ache, but it tempered past sufferings with new contentment. Over
the decades, she’d grown accustomed to her tender husband, their
cozy home and quiet neighborhood, their yard and friends to tend.
She’d come to know a peaceful life. Now, at seventy-nine, she’d met
up with misery again.
The Silences
They were young, this couple seated on the train. Too young, their
friends back home had teased them, to be riding an old-fashioned
locomotive. But they’d boarded anyway, and here they sat, side by
side, caught in the quiet of the passenger car during one of those
rare moments when no one was speaking. The sound of the train’s
movement met their ears like a lullaby, a soothing soundtrack to
the window’s serene scenery.
Freedom
Even with all the people around him on the train, Joe was alone.
Memories of Wu, McMurphey, Manning, and Bi’nh echoed in his
mind the way the train echoed when it passed through a dark tunnel.
There had been the good parts to the visit: holding her, loving her,
her face nestled against his chest, his lips on the warm part in her
silky black hair. Still, something had died between them during this
visit as surely as his friends had died at his side in Afghanistan.
One Last Hit
Charlie wasn’t born into organized crime; he’d sought it out. As the
only child of a family living in a Little Italy rowhouse, he wasn’t poor,
but he’d had relatively humble beginnings that pointed to him
becoming the manager of an ethnic grocery store or dry cleaner. His
father was Italian and his mother was an immigrant from the Soviet
Union. Some weeks they went to the Catholic church in town, other
times they ventured out to the Ukrainian Orthodox church on Eastern
Avenue. They were pretty much the same, as Charlie saw it. Some of
the saints were different, but they taught him the same core values: it
didn’t matter who you were or what you did; one church or another,
one line of work or another, one ethnicity or another, life was all pretty
much what you made of it. He decided early on to make it big.
Reunion
The ride to Baltimore had been one that Joan wished would
go faster and take longer at the same time, like a commute to a
business meeting she wanted to both avoid and be done with.
A Good Beer Needs a Good Stein
Mary pried the stein from his hands. They both admired it. The
handle resembled intertwined branches, wide and easy on the
hand. Around the stein were textured scenes of joy and
decadence: a group of men sat at a table, one of them with a
woman on his lap, another playing a guitar. In another scene a
man and woman danced while men played cards and maids
served beer. The scenes jumped right off the stein and touched
the real world. But Fritz’s world wasn’t as carefree. He longed to
touch theirs.
Mountain of Sand
Colin looked at the woman beside him, then back to his tattered
notebook. Perhaps the peak of a sand mountain wasn’t the best
place to balance a life. It’s more important to touch a person with
poetry than to make a career out of it.
Cold Bars
Murdock knew there were worse things than selling people stuff
they didn’t need or want. There was the frigidness of metal against
skin and the callousness of the less comfortable sorts of bars. Like
his lessons in love and consumption, this more traumatic lesson
had come fast, in the dark moments of a winter night some thirteen
years ago.
The Deed’s Doorstep
Becoming the assassin was essential. Outside this role, he was
just another man: a lover, a father, a fisherman, a friend. These
quick jobs had to be easily discarded. Assuming the role, forgetting
himself, was the only way to cope, the only way to be successful in
this business and still have a place outside it.
Seconds
The train chugged alongside the mighty Ohio River. Demi watched
the rushing water outside and wished she could be out in it, allowing
the cool force to wash her clean. But the rushing water couldn’t wash
away the past. Some filth remained a part of a person forever.
Idle Chatter
Franklin had written a love poem or two in his time, but it had
been a chore. He could talk, but talk was alive and in the air around
him. Writing was different. With writing, he was confronted by the
words on the page, challenged to make them more meaningful.
Small talk, cliche´s, idle chatter—it was all meaningful when part of
a living conversation, part of something bigger than himself.
Without the interplay of others, his words fell flat.
She’s Gone
His reflection surrounded the houses on the hill, coming back to
him in the window like a ghost in a movie with bad special effects.
Hubert didn’t know where Dad was now, but he remembered what
Dad had looked like then, like the reflection in the window: shiny,
bald head rimmed with a crown of reddish hair, drooping eyes, a
plump nose, chubby cheeks, and a chin that hung beneath his head
like the ball from the bottom of a train’s bell.
New Course
Gene had learned early in life how to wipe a computer clean;
then he’d learned how to wipe his own slate clean. He’d restarted so
many times, he couldn’t keep track. Resetting a life can be as easy as
resetting a computer.
Late Lunch
He’d learned long ago that surface relationships were the best
kind. People put their best foot forward, in many cases, because the
other foot had something wrong with it. A person put up a good front,
presented the better side for a photograph. That’s why everyone was a
pleasure to know when you were just getting to know them.