Episode 120 - Commuter Friends
“I love grain alcohol”
I started taking a combination of the commuter rail and the “T”—Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s subway lines—to and from Abington as soon as I moved into the townhouse on Cleverly Street. Most days, it took about an hour each way. Commute time was also weather-dependent: snow equals slow, and it increased a few minutes each way once they started “The Big Dig” work outside of South Station. The trains had a greatly reduced speed limit through the sizable construction zone.
I had access to a free gym in the office building, so I’d always catch the first train from Abington, which departed at 6 a.m. This gave me time to work out and shower before work started around 8. This meant getting up at 4:45 a.m., and after getting dressed for work, playing the Tubes CD T.R.A.S.H. (Tubes Rarities and Smash Hits) too loudly for the neighbors until it was time to leave for the Abington train station. I have no doubt they still remember the words to at least the first two songs on the CD, “Drivin’ All Night” and “What Do You Want From Life?” Too bad “White Punks on Dope” was much later on the album. I really think they’d have found meaning in that song.
It was a dollar to park in the commuter rail lot. The 6 a.m. train was the first train from Abington. The combination of only four stops before Abington and the time of day meant there were also a lot of empty seats. Ubiquitous cell phone use was still years away, so the ride into South Station was usually very quiet. Most mornings, I’d leverage my ability to fall asleep quickly, most anywhere, and would wedge my T pass in the strap that ran along the back of every seat for the conductor to check. Then take a nap until the train terminated at South Station. Can’t miss your stop if it’s the last one! Just gotta remember to retrieve my T pass before getting off the train.
1998’s South Station was a bona fide train station. Huge boards clacking through arrivals and departures. An Au Bon Pain for coffee and French-inspired pastries, kiosks for newspapers and magazines, and huge Apple ads from the “Think Different” campaign. There was even a bar tucked away in the corner. Mostly though, I’d hustle through the space, dodging other commuters, focused on getting up the three flights of stairs to the Red Line as quickly as possible.
Other than the obvious rules, the T had two unwritten rules: don’t make eye contact unless you’re mumbling an apology for being in the way, and no loud talking or ongoing conversations. Since mobile phones with robust internet connections were almost a decade away, this meant reading a book or newspaper, or staring vacuously at anything but another person. Although it was okay to wordlessly judge someone by the newspaper they were reading. The Boston Globe meant the reader was likely more liberal and spent more time in post-secondary education. The Boston Herald meant suburban roots, a more trade-focused career, and would always pick visuals over words. Either paper, it was impressive how readers were able to wrangle the paper to still read it while fitting within the width of their bodies. It wasn’t exactly origami, but impressive nonetheless.
I would make the round-trip commute five days a week, only occasionally changing the schedule for happy hours or a stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home. And only once did I leave a full bag of groceries on the train. I hope whoever nabbed it in the train yard enjoyed my eclectic selection of coffee and bar soaps. Being on the same train every morning and every night, you start to see a lot of the same people. Most, I had a head-nodding-as-recognition relationship with. A few others I actually spoke to and had conversations with that’d run the length of my ride.
One was a married couple that worked in finance and suffered from disparate levels of ambition. The wife was a real go-getter—smart, focused, and ambitious. The husband was a slacker from way back. He made it clear on several occasions that the major motivation behind getting through work was so he could go home, smoke a lot of pot, and play video games. They were childless, except of course for the man-child the wife was trying to raise. Thankfully to break the tension, they had a very good friend who was an R.N. at an oncological OB/GYN office. Where she spent most of her workdays in rooms listening to women get the worst news of their lives. Even after a few years on the job, she never lost her outsized empathy for the patients. I’d see her on the train, looking a little shell-shocked in her scrubs as she undoubtedly replayed the day in her mind. That was until I could get her talking about what she liked to do outside of work. Early on, she’d shared that when she wasn’t at work, her favorite pastime by far was self-medicating with a wide array of booze and drugs. Sure, she had her favorites: nitrous oxide hiding inside of inflated balloons, good old-fashioned hashish, but most of all, grain alcohol. Whenever she would recount her recent after-work recreation, her face would always light up when she’d tell stories of drinking grain alcohol mixed with, well, almost anything. After the tale was told, she’d always pause for a moment of reminiscing, then smile and declare “I love grain alcohol. I really do!” in a truly earnest and sincere way that is normally reserved for children, pets, and the elderly. Love is a strong word, but she left no doubt she absolutely meant it. Which was admirable, because my exposure and consumption of grain alcohol in South Korea and college in Texas did not lead me to love it. Quite the opposite in fact. After a couple of scorpion bowls in the ville outside of Camp Humphries in South Korea and trashcan punch in college, I have little recollection of what transpired until I woke up with a raging hangover. Thank Buddha in South Korea I had a bottom bunk in camp. I remember watching for what seemed like an hour a guy from my battery who had way too many scorpion bowls trying to climb up to the top bunk. Eventually, his assault on Mount Bunk Bed ended when it was decided the danger of him really hurting himself outweighed the comedy. And he was sherpaed up to his top bunk just in time for him to pass out.
The other cautionary tale of grain alcohol also happened in South Korea in a huge tent where we were spending the night before heading out to the field the next morning. Easily a hundred of us were on the floor of the tent trying to keep warm in our fart sacks—the Army’s colorful colloquialism for sleeping bags. Dispersed throughout the tent were gas-powered field heaters glowing orange from the heat. The cumulative effect of the heaters was keeping the temperature in the tent just above freezing. Closer proximity to the heater meant a little more heat, but a lot more liability. Accidentally bump or touch one of the stoves, and it ramped up the risk of a fire, or scorched skin at the least.
About three in the morning, when everyone had finally settled down to sleep, I hear, “Parka! Parka! Parka!” The sound of someone falling, immediately followed by the unmistakable sizzle of flesh from one of the heaters, and finally screams of unimaginable pain. Once the poor guy was hustled off to the medics, the post-mortem revealed he’d been drinking scorpion bowls in the ville for hours that night. He woke up to discover he was urinating on himself, and needed to get outside stat, where it was well below zero. Trying to stand to look for his parka, he lost his balance and landed chest-first onto one of the glowing heaters. We finally saw him again about two weeks later. He had a bitchin’ scar on his chest and a story he probably didn’t want to tell. For his own safety though, his pass to the ville had been permanently revoked for the duration of our time in South Korea. Chances are good that he also no longer loved grain alcohol.
I never saw any of my commuter friends anywhere other than South Station or the train. We’d sit together most rides home, but not once did anyone ever mention getting together outside of our commute. Probably just as well. There’s no way I could hang with the nurse and still have a liver. And the other couple was married and trying to stay that way. I got the feeling any drinking outside of their home created a liability for truth bombs being dropped, and the long, awkward, reproachful pauses that would follow. It was nice, though, to always have someone to visit with outside of work—even if it was only for a few minutes Monday through Friday.
I’ll end this week’s episode with the story of scale and expectations. It’s 1998, so payphones are still ubiquitous. One summer evening, I get off the train in Abington, and there’s a U.S. Postal Service worker who’s initially agitated because his car won’t start. When he gets to the payphone to call someone for a ride, he discovers the cost has gone up from 25 cents to 35 cents. Already amped up from the situation with his car, he snaps and starts yelling at everyone on the platform. Outraged by the extra 10 cents needed to make a call, he starts asking rhetorically, “When did this happen!? When did it go from 25 to 35 cents to make a local call!? Did you all know about this!?” Feeling wronged by the phone company and unsupported by the crowd, he continues on in full rant mode: “You people! You have an absolute fit every time we raise the price of a stamp by a penny. A goddamned penny! Where is your outrage at the phone company!? Where’s your anger for this obvious money grab? Does it really take 35 cents today do the same thing it only took 25 cents to do yesterday? They’re greedy and you’re sheep!” Despite his valid point about the perception of price increases, not exactly the tack to get someone—anyone—to help you get your car started.