Train Hopping

I ride the train half-expecting to be ejected at the next station, half-expecting to be left alone because I do not look like I belong, the only white man in a sea of brown people who smile and stare, an exchange of nods and the few who manage to speak whom  I—the dumb American—do not understand them.

The young girl across from me carries a backpack and reads from a book that looks twice her age. She only looks at me in passing, never looking directly, unlike the older women who analyze my place. When the train fills to standing-room only I am uncertain if I should offer my seat but my stop is four hours away and I paid for this seat, a row and a number. The further we get away from the city, the more people fill the train.

I hear people walking on the roof of the car and I recall pictures of people riding on top of trains here in India. I suspect there are no tickets for the people above me, braving injury or death to simply get from one place to the next, likely a job that requires such a trip daily. When I get off at my stop, I turn around and am shocked that there are no handles, no fencing on top of the train to prevent a slip or fall. While mostly young, there are people of all ages riding on top. No one is reading, they are staring off to a distant fixed point or talking to someone next to them now that they can get in a few words while the train loads and unloads passengers and packages.

Back at his house, my host explains that riding on top of the train is technically illegal. If you get hurt you cannot sue for damages. He says it is tolerated because it serves a purpose: how the poor get to and from work, visit family, attend funerals. He tells me this while walking around the house closing the windows despite the heat. He explains that a cremation is scheduled for the hour, and that the smoke from down the hill will fill the house if he doesn't close it up.

He says many of the people who got off the train at my stop are probably there to attend, as the deceased was a beloved headmaster and also his father. I ask if he means actual father or is that a term of reverence. My actual father, he says. The man my grandmother raised.

Mickie Kennedy (he/him) is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland with his family and a shy cat that lives under his son's bed. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work has appeared in The Bangalore Review, The Pinch, Plainsongs, Portland Review, Wisconsin Review, and elsewhere. He earned an MFA from George Mason University.