Let's Have an Adventure

Jackson wasn’t sure this was the right one, at first. He’d followed the directions, but this run-down station couldn’t be it. He looked to the crumbling ceiling and saw hints of a faded mural. The outlines of an eagle caught his eye. No, it’s a hawk, he reminded himself.

This was the station he was looking for. The same one where he’d waited impatiently as a young boy to meet his grandfather. His mother had taken time to explain the “eagle” he had excitedly pointed out was, in fact, a hawk. Although they could hear the trains from their farm, that had been his first visit to the station.

He remembered the first words his grandfather had spoken to him. “You look like an adventurous young man. Let’s have an adventure!”

The rest of the mural filled itself out in his mind’s eye. Mountains to the west and north, hills to the south, and over it all a blue sky with few clouds. Soaring in the sky was the hawk, hunting.

Compared to the landscape outside the station, the mural was far more interesting. The station sat at the edge of what once was a small farming town. Outside that lay flat fields of corn and wheat as far as the eye could see, dotted with grain silos, bisected by the poorly maintained, two-lane state highway that ran alongside the train tracks, from horizon to horizon.

When he’d been a small boy, though, the interstate went in. It didn’t pass any closer than sixty miles to the town. The farms and homes around the new interstate were torn down and paved over, turned into mini-malls, shopping centers, gas stations, motels, restaurants, and car dealerships.

The small city there grew around the service industries, and step by gradual step, the small farming town where Jackson had first met his grandfather died. The general store, one-room schoolhouse, gas station, diner, and the few houses in town were now boarded up, silent…decaying.

The freight trains still ran twice a day and picked up grain at the loading yard a mile away, however, there used to also be twelve passenger trains every day. At least until the interstate took the riders away.

Now the passenger train came once a day, and there was no one working at the station. A single kiosk, marked with scrawled graffiti stood next to the passenger platform, where one could buy a ticket to any other stop on the line — assuming the train was going their direction that day — without any human interaction.

The train came to a stop at the platform, and as the doors opened, Jackson caught the conductor’s announcement, mid-sentence. “…a ten-minute stop. Be sure to have your ticket in hand if you exit the train in order to re-board. Smoking areas are marked at the far ends of the platform. If you are not on board at the last call, you will have to wait two days for the next west-bound train.”

A dozen bedraggled riders filed off and went to the nearest smoking area, many lighting up before they got there. Jackson watched the train, waiting. He knew it was a stupid, but it was the eightieth anniversary of meeting his grandfather, and his own eighty-sixth birthday; possibly his last.

Grandfather had moved to the farm, helping his mother out after his father’s death. The hours and hard work took on a toll on him, though. In the six years he’d lived with them, Jackson had watched him age twenty. Grandfather went to bed one evening when Jackson was twelve and never woke up.

After that, his mother sold the farm to one of the big agri-businesses and moved them out west. He thought he could still see their twin grain silos in the distance, across the tracks. Jackson banished that thought. They might be in the same location, but those were likely replaced at some point in the intervening time.

Whenever he looked at the smoking passengers, he caught some of them watching him. I probably look like a doddering old fool out here, he thought.

He wondered how things would be different if he’d had children. He could have grandchildren, great-grandchildren, by now. Larry had children, he thought, and a wife. As soon as his children were grown, though, Larry had left his wife for Jackson, turning their affair from a very private one to a semi-public one. Larry’s children had disowned him then, not showing their faces again until his funeral.

They’d never married, even when the law was passed. Jackson had asked, but Larry didn’t want the trappings of marriage, when they were already listed as next-of-kin everywhere that mattered.

Jackson smiled as remembered the funeral. Larry would’ve loved it; white lilies, blue morning glories, a few true words from friends and made-up nonsense from family, but still more bittersweet than sorrowful. It was followed by a wake — minus the estranged family — with punk music, dancing, Larry’s favorite cheap beer, and laughter.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for in this run-down station, but after the passengers boarded and the train left, he knew he wouldn’t find it. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave, at least not yet.

Back inside the station, Jackson sat on the least broken bench and looked at what was left of the mural. He closed his eyes, letting his boyhood memories fill it in for him again.

A freight train passed by outside, headed east from the loading station. The steady clack-clack of the wheels increased in tempo by small measures; the mile-long train slowly gaining speed. The sound soothed him, reminding him of his childhood on the farm.

A smile formed on his face as he lay on the bench and let the sound wash over him. For a moment, he was six again, excited almost as much to see the train as to meet his grandfather and enthralled with the mural overhead.

The colors grew bright and bold, the hawk seemed ready to swoop down at a moment’s notice, and the air around him filled with the sounds of a busy station. He felt a presence standing above him and sat up.

“Grandfather!” He was just as Jackson remembered him, except younger.

“It’s good to see you, Jackson, and the man you’ve become.”

“Jackie?” The voice caught him off-guard.

He turned to see Larry, a young man again, like when they’d first met and Larry had been living a lie. “Larry, I missed you.”

“We missed you too, you know,” his grandfather said, extending a hand. “Come on, it’s time.”

Jackson took his grandfather’s hand and stood, hugging his grandfather and then Larry. He and Larry held hands, interlacing their fingers.

Jackson turned back to look at the bench and saw himself there, grey and unmoving, a slight smile still evident on his face. He turned back to Larry and his grandfather and said, “Let’s have an adventure.”