Midnight Train to Georgia

Jon was tired. Not in the conventional sense, but in a way far beyond anything that your run-of-the-mill working-class citizen could ever truly understand. The prescription didn’t help. It made him jittery and awkward, but it was necessary to stay awake, to stay focused, and to be successful in the traditional sense of the word.

His hand shook as he lit his last cigarette on the bus stop bench under the flickering florescent light. It was always flickering, as if to add to the sleep-deprived dream state that Jon found himself if on a near-daily basis. His phone rang and made him jump. He took a long drag of the cigarette then stomped it into the ground with his secondhand pair of leather shoes.

“Jon here.”

“Jon, the test failed, the programming requires adjustments, and we need to re-test tomorrow at 5 am to be done in time for the City inspection on Friday.”

Dinner. He promised her he would see her tonight, but a 4 am wakeup call made the notion impossible.

“I’ll be there.” Jon hung up the phone and opened his messages.

He began typing and then backspacing the words as they emerged in little blue bubbles floating across the screen.

“Hey I’m really sorry, but…..”

“I got called in, I need to….”

“I can’t make it tonight, I’m really sorry, I’ll make it up to you.” A small, delivered text appeared in gray beneath the message.

Jon put his phone away and waited for the inevitable phone call. From behind the stop he heard whistling as a city employee emptied out the garbage cans and replaced them with fresh bags.

It took a moment, but the name of the song returned to him.

“Midnight Train to Georgia?”

“You got it, trouble with the missus?”

Jon turned around and found an elderly man with age spots across his cheek, white hair, and a large white beard. His back was hunched slightly, and his hands were calloused from a lifetime of manual labor.

“What gave it away?”

The man set down the bags and smiled.

“Been there a few times myself if you can believe it.” He leaned against the outside of the bus stop as if the years had suddenly caught up to him.

“You ever feel like you run yourself ragged and have nothing to show for it?”, Jon asked.

“The average price of a home is half a million dollars in this city and I’m over here emptying trash, what the hell do you think?”

“Sorry, dumb question, I guess. Why do we do it?”

“Do what?”

“Sacrifice everything and never get recognized for it?”

“I hate to break it to you son, but nobody is gonna walk up and give you a trophy for doing your damn job and making an honest living.”  

Jon shook his leg to the beat of the flickering light.

“Does she get mad you have to work late?”, he asked the old man.

“Who?”

“You said, “I’ve been there a few times”. I don’t know, the wife, your granny girlfriend?”

“Watch yourself, I ain’t too old to throw you in front of a bus. The missus passed away last winter, she fought like hell, but the infusions didn’t take.”

Jon inched the cigarette butt under the bench slowly with his foot.

He glanced down at his phone, but the battery was dead which would inevitably land him in hot water later.

“Where were you?”, “Are you kidding me?”, “You promised.”, and most likely, “I’m done”.

“Dale.” The old man held out his hand to introduce himself.

Jon reached out and shook it.

“Jon.”

“You missed the bus an hour ago, Jon.”

Jon tapped the glass face of his ancient Casio and realized by how dark it was outside that it was not 2 in the afternoon. His brain was addled, and the days had blurred together again. Sometimes he wondered if he was in some sick remake of the movie Groundhog Day, reliving the exact same sequence of events on a daily basis.

“Say you ever been to McCarthys?” the old man asked.

“The bar?”

“Yeah, it’s about two blocks over, let’s take a walk and then you can call a cab.”

Jon glanced down at his dead phone, and then his dead watch. Time had finally stopped long enough for him to breathe.

“What about the trash?” Jon glanced at the tied-up bags next to the stop.

The old man laughed.

“We’re sitting here in the dead of night with nobody around and you’re worried about the damn trash? Get up, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who needs a drink this much.”

Jon shrugged and got off the bench. As the pair walked, the hum from the streetlights overhead reminded Jon of the cicadas in the bayou he grew up next to. He promised himself he would get out of there one day, and he did. Turns out moving wasn’t the solution. Wherever he went the state of unrest seemed to follow him like the hum of the florescent insects.

A bright neon sign appeared in the oasis of darkness with an arrow ushering in the Tuesday night regulars. “Jesus is that what I am now?”, Jon thought to himself.

The pair entered the dimly lit pub and were met with the stench of stale smoke and spilled beer. Eyes from the regulars shot up suspiciously at the newcomers as if they were intruding on a sacred nightly ritual.

“One drink, I gotta be up at 4.”

“Make it a stiff one then.”

Dale held up two fingers to the bartender and said “Jameson” without hesitation.

“What’s her name?”, Dale asked.

“Carol, although after tonight I’m not sure she’ll speak to me again.” Jon shifted uncomfortably on the stool.

Dale grunted and took a sip of his drink. A song emanated from the juke box in the corner and again Dale began whistling along to the tune.

“St. James Infirmary?”

“Right again, Jon.”

“Is it ever tiring to be so obnoxiously happy Dale?”

Dale smiled and took another sip.

“If you can give me a legitimate reason to be upset right now, I’ll shut up and join you in your sulking Jon.”

“I’m overworked, and at this point most likely single, sitting in a fetid bar with an ancient garbage man who thinks he’s Socrates. Look I’m sorry you lost your wife and all, but seriously, why the whistling?”

“Listen Jon, I’m going to ask you some simple questions and then we’re going to play a game.”

“Not really in the mood for games Dale.”

Dale ignored him and started his line of questioning.

“Does she love you?”

“Yes I mean..” Jon thought for a moment and whether it was alcohol or a legitimate epiphany, he did not know.

“Yes.”

Dale continued, “Do you have a job?”

“Yes.”

“Now here’s the fun one Jon, can you afford cab fare to go see her right now?”

“Yes, but I have to be up in five hours.”

“Yet you sit here in a fetid bar with an ancient garbage man who thinks he’s Socrates?”  

“You’re pissing me off Dale.”

“Here’s the game Jon, I’m going to rip this napkin in half. On one side I’m going to write GO TO HER, and on the other I’m going to write GET SOME SLEEP. Your drink is gone, and either way you’re getting out of here, what do you say?”

Jon rolled his eyes and stared at his dead Casio out of habit more than anything.

“Fine.”

He spun around on the bar stool while Dale scribbled the notes onto a napkin.

“Ready.”

Jon spun around again with the look of an unamused teenager and reached across the bar to overturn half of the napkin.

GO TO HER.

Jon grabbed his coat and shook Dale’s hand.

“Thank you for the drink, Socrates.”

The bartender, who had been eavesdropping, walked over to the bar, and flipped over the second half of the napkin.

GO TO HER.

Dale smiled at him.

“Life is too damn short.”

Jon rested his face against the cold cab window and watched the lights of the city fly by. “Midnight Train to Georgia” came on the radio, and for a split second, despite his better judgment, he whistled along.