Last Train to Tomorrow

Steel on steel, screeching and careless and so attuned to its own power and might, there was no room left for the fear now held within its walls.

I knew it would come to an end. It had to, eventually. But not like this. Not with sweat soaking through my clothes, or the bladder failing in disapproval as the outside world passed before me in blurred sections like some demented carnival ride. I deserved better than this. I had expected more.

I was James T. Colson. Corporate raider. A financial warrior who fought for and earned every dollar. Every accolade. Who thought the end would come far from now in a warm bed. Perhaps with a woman lying next to me.

But not on a fucking train. And not alone.

“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, thy name. . . shit I can’t remember.

I can’t remember. . .”

Two hours earlier

The meeting had gone long. Had been loud and volatile and everything I had wanted it to be. You could feel the fear in the room. The smell of sweat and failure on the rise as the numbers were rattled off. As the voices rose and subsided – desperate to find the right words to make it stop. But it wouldn’t. Not until it was over. Not until the prize was mine.

But it was exhausting. And the drinks too many afterward. I was tired. And disappointed. They gave up too quickly. Old men, heads down, the best years behind them. Hunters and warriors, all of them. But they knew. Had to. Numbers don’t lie. They needed me. Not wanted, never wanted. And in the end, I gave them what they hoped for – a way out. A gentle descent into retirement.

I did my job. I did what I was trained to do. What I had to do. I . . .

Felt my head slap against something hard and unforgiving. A dull ache then rose up as my eyes opened. As the dream I had been engaged in transferred uneasily to the real world. I expected to see my office. The book-lined shelves, the awards, the prints of Van Gogh and Dali staring down at me.

Not the face of a little boy, looking anxious and afraid. Not the blurring lines of scenery moving quickly passed me out a train window.

A train. I had to laugh. To push that first impression out of my head. Couldn’t be a fucking train. I was in New York City, the fortieth floor. My office. My world. Not some …

“You were shouting,” he said softly.

“What!?”

The boy was seated across from me, not three feet away. Eight, maybe ten years old. Dark brown hair and blue eyes. Eyes that now seemed more interested than concerned.

“Shouting? What?” I asked.

He shrugged his small shoulders.

At that moment, a uniformed conductor came walking down the aisle calling out for tickets. I knew him. Jennings or Jenkins or …

He stopped a few feet from where I was sitting and stared down at me. Then looked quickly behind him, like the answer to his questioning look would be found there.

“Mr. Colson, why are you here in coach and not first class? You bought a ticket, for here?”

I patted my jacket involuntarily, looking for a ticket I knew I wouldn’t find.

“No. I mean, I didn’t. I don’t actually know.”

The train then shook hard into a turn. A familiar bend on its way up the Hudson. But something different happened. Something that caught the conductor’s attention as he gripped the metal handrails, steadying himself – the speed of the train had increased suddenly. Too suddenly.

Using the handles again to balance himself, he walked to the far end of the car and reached for the internal phone. Holding it close he called out someone’s name, once, twice then banged the lever to clear the line and tried one more time. He turned slowly back to me concern lining his face. He hung up.

A few other passengers had now noticed the increased speed. The usual comfortable ride had grown less so. People were beginning to worry.

“Why are we going so fast, we’re almost at my stop,” a small man in a baseball hat said, to no one in particular.

Another echoed his concern and tried to get up, but the swaying motion of the car pushed her back into her seat.

As I watched the handful of passengers gradually push themselves into a panic, I had to smile. Not at what I saw, but at what I knew to be happening.

I had had bad dreams before. Violent dreams of being chased by the dispossessed. Those on the losing end of my negotiations. But every time I awoke. Heart beating, fear in full force – but I awoke. So, I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing, and waited once again for me to awaken. For everything to be alright.

But it wasn’t.

The train blew through the next scheduled stop – leaving waiting passengers and station personnel alike puzzled and confused.

Whatever pretense we may have had that what was happening was normal disappeared quickly as the train’s speed picked up and each of us in turn felt our grip on the moment beginning to slip away.

Jennings or Jenkins hurried over and sat in the seat next to me.

Whispering, “the phone line is dead. I don’t understand. Need to check the other cars and find out what’s happening.”

He paused as if inviting me to approve or disapprove of his plan.

“And,” I offered.

“Nothing. I was just … Right, I should get going.”

“Would you like me to come with you?”

He nodded. “If you don’t mind.”

I did. Hell, why wouldn’t I? I worked hard on that deal. Months preparing and planning and I should be at home, enjoying the moment. Talking to Isabel. Kissing her. Finding what satisfaction, I could in the soft contours of her neck and back. Making love in the only way I knew how. In the only way that made me feel alive.

“Coming?” The conductor asked, already moving down the car.

We swayed our way through the first car. Opening and closing doors. Entering the next one where we were met with anxious looks. Faces alternating between anger and uncertainty.

“Why didn’t we stop?” One woman in a gray coat and scarf shouted at the conductor.

Joined in by two others and then two more, the chorus of concern rose as Jennings or Jenkins tried to reassure them.

I simply tried to ignore them. Still hoping, in a detached mental patient sort of way, that the dream would return and this little nightmare would go back to where it came from.

But it didn’t as things went from bad to worse.

The train disappeared with a shudder into darkness. A tunnel where every sound, every screech of the steel wheels grew louder and more frightening.

The passengers cried out. Hell, I cried out and reached for Jennings or Jenkins who was still standing next to me.

He shouted, “There’s no tunnel on this route.”

“What?!”

“There’s no damn tunnel. Not this route, not anymore.”

And just as suddenly we were back in the sunlight. With everyone stuck in freezeframe as their movements slowed and they waited painfully for the next surprise.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He looked around at the worried faces and motioned for me to follow. But first, he shouted, “I’m trying to find out what’s happening. I’m sure it’s just a technical glitch. Something the engineer is sorting out. I’ll come back and let you know. I promise.”

We moved quickly through the car. Stopping once more to try the phone, still dead, then on into First Class. Where I normally sat. In my own compartment. With my own thoughts and much smaller world to contend with.

Jennings or Jenkins pulled me aside once we were through the doors and looked even more anxious than he had before.

“Something is wrong,” he said.

“You have no fucking idea,” I replied.

“Right. The tunnel is on the freight line only. The old line that hasn’t been used for years. The commuter trains don’t go through it.”

“Well, it just did.”

He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his white hair. “I know.”

“And where does it lead?”

“It doesn’t.”

I stared. He put his hat back on. “The line was decommissioned years ago. Most of it removed and salvaged. What’s left of the tracks just ends.”

“Ends how? Ends where?”

“Nowhere. That’s the problem. It just stops.”

I closed my eyes and wished myself far away. In the city. On Montauk Point. Anywhere, any place that wasn’t moving or filling me with dread. The Café on 65th Street. Coffee back, two sugars, and a cruller. Freshly baked, a little cinnamon. Watching the people hurrying this way and that.

Anxious and in need. To find a way in or if they’re old enough, a way out. A plan that for once had a beginning middle and end to it. Something they could carry out and when done, declare victory. Close shop, sell the house, move to the country and count the leaves turning red and yellow in Autumn.

“Mr. Colson. Mr. Colson, where the hell are you?”

“I don’t know” I yelled back. “I don’t know.”

This time I led the way. I moved past the heads sticking out of the compartments. The worried faces seeing the uniform and thinking salvation had arrived.

Jennings or Jenkins tried and failed to reassure them, then quickly caught up with me as I tried to open the door to the next car.

“It’s locked,” I said, pulling on it several times.

“Always is now, since 9/11. Here, wait.”

He pulled on his key chain and flipped through a dozen or so keys until her came to a long sturdy one and inserted it into the lock. It opened and we were through.

I had always enjoyed the chase. Playing people like chess pieces was an art, despised by most perhaps, but an art nonetheless. And I had been a master at it. Reveled in seeing men or women move when they shouldn’t or pass when they needed to risk it all.

But the game had lost something. The edges of it, worn smooth over time and offering little satisfaction now to someone that needed to be in danger, on the cusp at all times. I had wondered what I would do. How I would wake up and approach a new day – if some conquest was no longer at hand.

The irony that my little nightmare was now providing, was not lost on me.

The air outside was cool and getting colder. The sky above now overcast. It had been dark when I last remembered seeing it; the stars out in greater number than usual. The moon almost non-existent as the last of the adrenaline from the meeting passed through my system.

Jennings or Jenkins pointed to the door and took the lead once again. Pulling out the same sturdy key he inserted it into the engine’s door, waited a moment then turned and unlocked it.

He opened the door and went inside. I followed.

What I expected to see, I wasn’t sure. Like it would be in some movie I suppose. All metal and harsh sounds. The engine pulsing and feeling alive as it made its way along steel tracks.

What I did expect to see but didn’t – was the engineer.

There was no one inside. No note: Gone to lunch, be back soon. No clue as to how the engine was driving the train and where it was taking us.

The look on Jennings or Jenkins’ face said it all. Said it all too clearly. What he was seeing wasn’t meant to be. What was missing couldn’t happen. Whoever he said hello to that morning as the train left the station should still be there – but wasn’t. No explanation that ran through his mind was making sense. I could see him regarding one after another and rejecting them all. Finally, he said, “I don’t understand.”

“He was here?” I asked hesitantly.

He moved away from me and went up to the front console and seat where the engineer should be sitting. Focusing on it, as if he might be hiding under the fucking cushions.

“I saw Eric this morning,” he shouted over the noise. “He was fine. We were talking about the weekend, what we would be doing. He said, he said he was looking forward to it.”

“And then what, he jumped?”

“No! He’d never do that.”

I moved closer, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Jennings …”

“Jenkins.”

“Right. Well, he’s not here now. Let’s just stop it.”

“Can’t.” Jenkins just pointed to a lever on the front console. The handle was broken and a piece of metal was wedged into the slot. “I already tried it. It won’t budge”

I started to argue that he was wrong. That engineers don’t just disappear. That trains don’t just drive themselves with all of us watching, helpless. There must be something we could do to . . .

But the train began to shutter violently, lurching to the left as we swung into another sharp curve, going too fast. Much too fast. The wheels screeched in protest as we were both thrown to the floor.

“Fuck!” I yelled out. More to shake loose the fear that was gripping me and get the blood back into the brain. I pulled myself up, my left leg pushed against a side console for support, and gave Jenkins a hand up as well.

He stared at me in a panic, mouth closed and waiting. Like I was supposed to know what to do next. Like my years on Wall Street had somehow prepared me for this very moment.

I pulled myself back to the front console and looked out the window. The scenery was changing. More rugged, less scenic.

Jenkins moved up beside me.

“We’re on an old mining line – freight only for years.”

“Mining?”

“Gold, early last century, then timber.”

“And this line ends. Into nothing, right?”

He nodded.

“When? I asked.

He thought about it for a long moment then said, “five minutes, not longer.”

The thought struck me as I saw the internal phone pegged to the wall of the engine. I reached for my cellphone – but it wasn’t where I kept it. I patted each pocket in my suit - nothing.

“Do you …?”

But Jenkins was already shaking his head before I finished. “No cell service up here anyway. Too remote.”

I stared out the front windows again and had to admit, it was beautiful up here. Long vistas, mountains, and trees everywhere. If I wasn’t heading into the hereafter, it would be a great place to come to.

That’s when the second thought came to me. And I instantly rejected it.

“Fuck that.”

Jenkins started out of his reverie and stared at me.

“Shit. There’s a brake in here, right?” I asked.

“Of course. But the throttle is full-on and …”

“Does it work?” I interrupted.

He moved over to the braking system, looked back at me, and put it slowly into gear. We lurched forward, the wheels squealing beneath us, the engine shuttering from the conflicting forces. Jenkins pulled back on it and then tried again. The same result.

I could see the speedometer being pushed down – but not by much.

“We’re going too fast,” he shouted against the rising noise.

This is what I had actually lived for. The adrenaline rush, the stakes dangerous with everything to win or lose on the line. The mergers. The late-night takeovers and board room submissions. I had lived for moments like this.

But who was I kidding? In the past, if I had lost, it would have been a few bucks. I was always hedged against a major loss. Only fools believed we won all the time. But this, there was no money here. There was no pride involved.

I woke up in a place I shouldn’t be and had no fucking idea how I arrived. All I knew for sure was that we were heading toward an end, a final result I had never planned for. I was out of my element, not in it.

But still, I had learned a few things.

“Show me how that thing works?”

“What?”

“Christ Jenkins, the ejection seat. The braking system. How does it work?”

He pulled me over to it. “It’s simple. Downward pressure, then pull the lever back. Not all the way. A little at a time. You’ll feel it.”

I moved him out of the way and tried it. The sharp vibrations ran up my arm and into my chest. I let go and did it again. The idea wasn’t fully formed. Hell, it was half-baked at best. But not like anyone else was off camera giving me suggestions.

“Can you uncouple the engine from the rest of the train?”

Jenkins looked hard at me. Understanding. He nodded.

“Then go there and do it.”

“But what happens when …”

“Look. I have to slow us down. Give the train a chance to slow enough so when we uncouple the rest of it, we don’t follow the engine over the edge. Understand?”

He nodded.

“But wait for my signal.”

He nodded again.

I grabbed hold of the braking lever and pulled it back. Then again and again until the engine began to slow. A little at first then a little more and I was beginning to think – hell what if I …

But then I saw the clearing ahead. About a mile away. The trees cleared to lay the tracks and for some now derelict buildings to be built along the sides.

I tried the brake again and looked back. Whatever Jenkins was doing it seemed like he had done it before. I watched and pulled until he finally gave me the thumbs up.

I did one long pull and was about to run toward Jenkins when the engine hit something underneath. Something on the tracks. The sound was sickening. The resulting shutter intense. I was thrown hard against the wall. Turning I saw Jenkins as the car he was standing on began to fall back.

The look on his face was priceless. He was an honest man. He felt terrible that I hadn’t made it but thankful that he had.

The distance grew as he went to work braking the cars themselves.

I calculated, using the math I had learned in business school that I was shit out of luck. The clearing was right ahead and the train wasn’t stopping. Short of a miracle, the life of James T. Colson was coming to an end.

Not in the board room. Not in a woman’s bed, but on a fucking commuter train in upstate New York.

“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, thy name. . . shit I can’t remember.

I can’t remember. . .”

“Like hell, you can’t remember. You swooped in like a goddamn vulture. You took my company. You laid off 300 employees and stole their pensions. Their dreams. Their lives. For what? Another car? Another fucking penthouse.

“You’re a piece of shit, James T. Colson.”

The words sounded familiar. The voice was one I knew. The company was family-owned. Great products and reputation but too much debt. And debt was my friend. It provided opportunity. I hadn’t missed it.

I bought the debt. Started to squeeze to get concessions made. To please my investors. Tapped the retirement plan. Bled it dry and sent everyone home – permanently. A win-win situation.

The pain was fleeting now but intense. Consciousness came and went. In the ambulance, the ER, in the elevator moving up toward surgery.

“Might not make it, “I heard a calm voice say in reply to another.

“Might not matter,” a woman’s voice added. “The swelling on his brain. The bleeding. He may never be whole again if he did.”

The lights were bright. The smell, antiseptic. The activity was quick and efficient, but without emotion. Without feelings getting in the way. My kind of place, I thought. Then thought better of it. What if …

“Mr. Colson, if you can hear me, I’m going to put you under anesthetic now. We need to operate. Seems the man who attacked you was very mad. And very motivated. The damage is quite extensive. But we have a good team here tonight. You’re in good hands. See you on the other side, Mr. Colson,” he said, as I began to fade out for the second time that night.

I hope so, I thought, as the sound of that goddamn train whistle began all over again.