Stay

I was taught in training to hold the railing from below, an upward reaching grip. They had us practice this going up and down stairs. He was looking at me and described the way it seemed to him. The rest of the room was quiet for some time then and the room was cold with air condition that makes all people refrigerated and moreable to last the day in highly preserved condition. That was necessary because, other than excursions to the front of the building to walk the stairs while holding the metal railing tightly and safely, we were all sitting together through the entire day. We were decaying most days. When he told me the setting there was moisture in the air, the damp of a Portland type day that could be anytime between dawn and evening because the light can not force through the cloud cover. There is brick and green metal and there is water collected on the glass window int eh front where the engineer sits and watches for an emergency or a highball. There was no real humidity with the air conditioning and this is one way to understand that the moment I'm describing did not actually happen. It is good to recognize when your imagination has carried you away.

We agreed then that the person waiting for the train was not completely hidden away, just slightly aside wtihin the metal sliding door. The latches on those doors have handles only on one side and barely even there, more like butterfly nuts and on the outside the head of a bolt. The manner for opening the latch is to press your palm flat and tight against that rounded curved metal and turn it while pushing to the side. The first time you try this, you will feel sure that here is some mistake, there is something more complicated at work, a latch not clearly visibly attached. The truth is less complex and you are not acting strong enough. Push.

We assumed that the train would be arriving and she was standing there watching and waiting, not out front as through to give warning but taking the chance to be visible. People on a train can't really see far out the windows, so she'd be waiting for the orange stepping stool to hit the pavement and for them to step down.

That's as far as we went together and the people she would have been waiting for wouldn't h ave too much reason to step off then even if they were supposed to. Sitting in the cafe car having their fine dining together, all pressed and leaning into each other, already negotiating as must happen always and forever constantly for the arrangement of sleeping later. At the top of the railing a boy might stop you, the sort who knows his place, a lot lik the kind who smiles a lot and calls less pleasant names at people who look less standard- not out of meanness but because that is what he understands them to be asking for in that presentation and he likes to be helpful. Only this boy is at the top of the steps going down into a space with no door to outside and he's something of an opposite of Mr. Boy Nice. What are you, he'll ask, am I bothering you, should I not sit so close? You are fine where you are, you could say to him for example, though any response is alright. He's a balancing creature, moving closer and further and adjusting to be nicer int he way that he defines it, when that is possible. You can ignore him but he might go away and without guards the air dissapates.

The twist, in the end, would be in expectation he said. Expecting. And I curled my hands on the chair till my knuckles were white and forearms beginning to jerky up and that is absolutely it. Every time.

You're a punk, he might say then, a little angry as though he's caught you lying, why don't you look like one? Or are you an artist, are you too drunk? No, you're ok. And then you can slide into that space and it doesn't change, it remains what it can be and do what you have to do while she argues unhampered that she owes nothing for another piece of food because she was the one who figured out the distance. Are you a starving artist, the boy asks, a nice cue to wander away hungry.