“The Station” I Remember

The Station

Chase stood alone on the empty platform.

It was late at night and the fog was rolling in from the surrounding forest, making the already slick grime that coated the old cobblestones even more slippery.  The stars and the moon couldn’t shine through the haze, leaving the lone lamppost to illuminate the small space from where it stood at the corner of the platform.  The frogs croaked in the depths of the woods and the crickets chirped in the grass.  It wouldn’t be long and cicadas would join the chorus.

That would be something he would miss up north; the cicadas.  As loud and harsh as it was, it had been part of his summers since early childhood.  Surely there were cicadas up north?  Perhaps not as plentiful, but such a robust and large bug must be able to survive in the more wintery climbs of America.

As distracting a query as it was to think about the cicadas, it still couldn’t distract him from the decision he was making.  His heart pounded, his stomach knotted, his hands shook and he thought a sweat would break out on his brow any second.  In the back of his mind he wondered at the consequences he was incurring just by standing on the station platform.  What was he to encounter should he reach his destination?  How was he to survive, only sixteen-years-old in a big city?  And even so, what if he lost his nerve and decided to return home; what beatings would befall him there if his plan to run away was found out?

Surely it could be no worse than the ones he had already endured, particularly the one involving Susan.

Susan.  The thought alone brought tears to his eyes.  His partner in crime, his best friend since sweet, unmolested youth.  She had been only thirteen-years-old when she died, swept away in the floodwaters of a storm while they were on their way back from school.  He had tried to hold onto her hand so tight, he had been afraid he would crush her fingers….

His parents told him he should have held on tighter, that it was his fault she died.  They had always charged him with taking care of her, being her big brother.  It should have seemed like a lot of weight placed on his shoulders, but he had never shirked the responsibility.  Susan had been with him since he could remember and had always felt like she was in his care.  Never had he harbored regret or angst about helping Sue out of trouble or taking care of her if she got hurt.  She was his little sister and he had loved her more than anyone else in his family.

Particularly during the times when their parents were being irresponsible, drunk, violent and the like.  Sometimes he felt like the two of them were the only sane ones in the house.  They had banded together like superhero and sidekick, like horse and rider, and they had been sure all the people in the world couldn’t stop them from living life to the fullest.

But Mother Nature rules over all.  No matter how grand the human race seems to get, there is always a moment when Mother Nature throws something into the mix that reminds the creatures of the Earth who truly runs the world.

Now, with Susan gone, he found himself to be utterly alone.  His parents supported him in no other way then basic necessities; food, shelter, and clothing.  His friends were good ones, but were no help at home or with schoolwork.  His teachers were of the not-so-friendly sort, except for his math teacher.  He was the only adult left in Chase’s life that he could rely on for help, but Mr. Baudlevant was still little more than kind.

“Going somewhere, Chase?”

Mr. Baudlevant was walking up behind him.

“Sir?”

“You’re at the train station,” said the math teacher.  “You must be going somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” Chase said dejectedly.  “I… I just can’t handle my life anymore.  I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Why not?”

Chase brought a hand to his side where his most recent bruise still ached.  “I hate… I hate living with them.  They don’t care about me at all.  I know you think I’m being over-dramatic, that I’m just another child who thinks his life’s more unfair than everyone else’s but I’m not.  I’m not overreacting.  I know what they’re doing is wrong, when they hit me, when they beat me.  I know that other children get support from their parents, that they say “It looks great!” when they see their art project even when it’s ugly and ‘You did your best!’ after they watch their kid’s game even when theirs was the worst player out there.  You know what my parents told me after my first soccer match?  ‘Man, you’re worthless.’  Man, you’re worthless.  It might not have been true, but it certainly made me feel like it was.  I tell you what, though, I was sure lucky they turned up in the first place.  Never came to another one, though.  Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Baudlevant?”

“I completely understand, Chase,” said Mr. Baudlevant.  “I’m so very sorry.”

“Of course, that’s what you’d say,” Chase replied.  “Because that’s what I want you to say.  That’s all I ever wanted anyone to say.  And what you want will always happen in your imagination.  Susan was the only one who understood in reality, who sympathized with me.  Who empathized.  I’ve missed that as much as I’ve missed my sister herself.  So why wouldn’t you, Mr. Baudlevant, say you understand me?”

So many times over had Chase gone through this conversation in his mind and wished that it had actually occurred.  Here again, on the empty platform, he ran through it repeatedly.  Most of the time he imagined it with Mr. Baudlevant, sometimes with other people such as his friends.  Once he dared try with his parents, but before he could even explain why he was having so much trouble he imagined them beating him for his unflattering words.  Even his recreation of them would not sit and listen.

Once he ran it with Lauralee.

Oh, Lauralee!  That beautiful young woman!  His heart ached at the very thought of her.  All dark, long hair and bright, friendly smile she was, and for the moments when she did deign to cast a glance at him, he was consumed by her hazel eyes.  And her voice; it was angelic in laughter and sorrow and anger and hope, though he had never heard it direct towards him.  In his imagination, however, it was even sweeter when she spoke to him.

“Chase?” as clear as flicked crystal, her gentle tone rang out.

Chase turned to lay his eyes upon beauty incarnate.  “Lauralee.”

Her eyes were large and liquidy as their gaze was cast towards him in sadness, “I’d heard rumors you’d be here.  They said you were planning to leave home.  To run away.”

He played it perfectly cool.  “Rumors are rumors, Lauralee.  There’s as much truth in them as there is lie.”

“Then there’s plenty of lie in them, because here you are,” she replied.

He tried not to look at her, facing out over the tracks.  He tried not to move – or sweat – as he heard her ballet-flat-clad feet pad gently closer up behind him.  A chill ran through him like an electric shock when she laid her hand on his shoulder.  Her pull was barely sensible, so light was her touch, but he turned nonetheless as she coaxed him around to face her.  She had come so close, he could smell her airy scent wafting up, a feminine musk he could not name.

“Don’t go,” and innocence was in her voice.  “No one wants you to go.”

“Everyone wants me to go.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she stood in silence a moment afterward.  “Is that enough?”

Chase swallowed hard, tears coming to his eyes.  “I’m… I’m finding it hard to believe you.  I’m trying, but it’s so hard.”

“Chase, have you not seen?” she begged of him.  “I can’t be that good of an actress!  I try so hard not to look at you, to give myself away… let loose how much I care about you.”

They locked eyes for a long moment.  Then, carefully, she brought her hands up around his neck, holding the base of his head with gentle fingers, caressing his jaw with soft palms.  He shivered.  She sighed.

“Chase….  Stay.”

But why would he?  He protested her claim in their conversation; it held even less validity in reality, his cold, damp reality there on the empty platform.  Because, of course, she would never come.  He had not planned to leave until a few hours ago.  No rumors were circulating as school because there were no rumors to circulate.  And even if they had existed and flown about as rumors do, why would anyone come to see if he would leave, especially Lauralee?  He wasn’t sure if she’d know who ‘Chase’ was had she heard his name whispered in the halls.

I remember how it ends.

I wrote this just after freshman year of college—twelve years ago—and I still remember how it ends.

What I don’t remember is why I didn’t write it all the way through to that ending.  Was it too late at night?  Did I get called away or distracted?  Did I hit a writer’s glitch?  One of those minor story details that we of the creative community get way too hung up on, hyper-focused until our brains short out, so we quit writing to let the problem sit and ferment and self-rectify, thinking I would come back later… and then never did?

I truly don’t remember.  But I remember how this story ends.  That resolution—that imagery—clung to me so strongly that I was shocked when I opened this story a decade later and didn’t find that ending on the page.  I remember exactly what would have happened, to the point I thought I had written it down.

But I hadn’t.

And in recent days I’ve been revisiting it.  Look it over: cringe at certain sections, swoon at those few particularly well-crafted phrases amidst the drivel.  And just as I would think this could become something, I’d get to other parts that were just… so lackluster.

I’d been looking for an old story to bring here to Vocal for a while.  Some forgotten idea I could tweak, polish, snazz up and share.  Maybe dust off some little story ball and keep it rolling to turn it into a serial.  I have lots of random writings I could probably repurpose in this way.  I’ve been fiddling with stories and ideas since I understood what a story was.  Some are a couple paragraphs; some are over twenty pages.

But the more I would look at my previous inventions, the more I came to realize I work best with the blank page.  So I developed a motto of just letting go and letting the fresh thoughts in, like an ancient tree falling in the forest, turning itself to fertilizer and letting the sunlight through the canopy so that the new saplings might spring up, healthy and strong.  So the world turns, the cycle goes without end; nothing a loss, merely a continuance….

Yet some stories held on.  Some ideas stood out.  Some darlings I couldn’t kill.  This story was one of them.

But I now knew I worked best from the blank page.  So I figured I might as well do a complete rewrite.  Because the language in the original I simply couldn’t stand at times, and the thought of editing it to within an inch of its life felt chaotic and daunting and practically impossible.  It seemed like the difference between me organizing my disused bookshelf, then going to help clean out a hoarder’s house.

Then, somehow, the rewrite came out worse than the original.

I’ve had that happen before.  I’ve tried to rewrite something I liked and it simply doesn’t work.  I knew better.

It’s not really the blank page that I work well with.  It’s not the words that need to be brand new.  It’s the idea.  I can’t make what I have already made all over again.  The vivaciousness of the idea gets lost, turns stale.  The color changes, the effectiveness dwindles, like sticky tack used too many times for the same poster in different houses.

So if I want to write this, I won’t be starting over.  I have to work with what it was.  Because it was wrong to devalue this work based on some odd word choices and disingenuous dialogue.  It was wrong to think what I created had to be thrown out and completely remade just because I was barely nineteen years old and far from my English degree.

If it were that worthless, I wouldn’t remember how it ends.

So if I want to finally write that ending, I’ll have to simply pick up where I left off and pretend twelve years haven’t elapsed… without forgetting all the things I’ve learned about both writing and the human experience.

And when I’ve finally finished, then I’ll go back and do the hard work.  Carve it up into pieces, rearrange chunks, twist little bits of sentences around, write entirely new clots of dialogue without losing what was well said before.

My skill as a wordsmith has certainly increased since first I jotted down The Station.  But what this story wants from what I’ve learned isn’t writing; it’s editing.  Because this time I can’t do it better.  I did it well to begin with.  I’ve been a decent writer for a long time.  It’s only now, twelve years later, I’ve finally figured out how to be a good editor.  All this story wants from me is a little shine, a little polish, and to finally have its ending.

If you think this story needs to be completed, give it a like.  Because a writer who now knows how to edit, but still doesn’t wholeheartedly enjoy editing, will always benefit from a little encouragement!  Thank you in advance for your support!