The Bag Man

THE BAG MAN

By Andrew Paul Grell

You stand there in front of 30^th Street Station in Philly holding on to your Zero Halliburton suitcase. You have some time before the Acela comes in and you want to make the best of civilization while you’re there. You try to remember how it goes: Market, Walnut, Chestnut, Spruce, Vine, or maybe Pine? and Locust? You seem to recall a Baobob or an Ash, but you decide they must be from other cities. Shouldn’t the list rhyme? Eventually, you pull out the skateboard attachment from the suitcase, start kicking along the sidewalk, and let genetic memory RNA lead you to Steve’s Prince of Cheese Steaks. You order yours “with,” of course, and decide that the meal would last until Fredericksburg. You start kicking your way back to the station but stop at the WaWa for some real pretzels. It might be a long time before you had civilized food again.

Amtrak was definitely the way to go; nobody x-rays your luggage and no one is going to question the smaller Zero inside the bigger suitcase any more than they would question your choice of outfits or their fitness for the season in Miami. Trains are refined, you think, unlike whatever’s happening in the sky. You head to the ladies’ room for final stationary ablutions, relieved to see that the stalls still had room for luggage, a mirror, and a sink. Washed, brushed and unwrinkled, you leave the momentary sanctuary as your train is called and you wheel the big Zero to the platform. A smart young man inspects your ticket and a smart young woman helps you to the roomette you booked. You decide that the accommodation is more “poch-issimo” than “ette.” You’re glad that you’re working and not available, as per orders, for whatever the rail version of the nautical “friggin’ in the riggin’” might be. You decide to work out your nervousness by climbing up to the observation bubble and checking out the pastoral scenery moving past you at eighty miles per hour. You see a storm heading in from the Northeast and your previous worry turns into worry that you will be late for the job. The pretty flakes of snow have become icy daggers pointed at your heart. You feel the train decelerate and hear the shrieking of the brakes. You hear the conductor’s announcement that local power in Fredericksburg is off, the signal lights are dim, but the train should be moving shortly, that Amtrak has backup plans for this eventuality. You see that the backup plan has to have the crew debark into the snow with walkie talkies and handheld lamps, red and green glass, just like the movies. You see the crew of a local station joining the train crew. You are relieved that between the two gangs, the train made it safely to Baltimore and out of the path of the storm. You are less relieved that you are one station closer to having to do your job. You take advantage of the brief layover to get an Orioles cap and some she-crab stew. You eat the snack in your roomette and curl up until you clear D.C. and are safely, more or less, in Virginia. You make an appearance in the first-class lounge and accept an invitation to a gin game as well as a gin and tonic from a classic “good-looking-man” type. You remember to dial down your memory a notch for what appears to be a friendly game. Matriarch opens the conversation with you.

“Do you make this trip frequently, my dear? I’ve been doing it for the longest time; my first trip down had a steam locomotive.”

“I don’t travel much, but when I do, I prefer going by train. It’s much more refined than flying these days,” you say. You decide to continue. “Here’s a video of my last trip.” You show your fellow players the Go-Pro of yourself paddling a canoe down a watercourse and into the lake fed by the stream. “I own that stream. Sort of. And the lake. Also sort of.” You got the attention of your fellow players. Not a good thing while you’re also spreading way too much information. Accountant discards a seven of hearts and asks you about the own it / don’t own it conundrum. You give him the Readers’ Digest version. 

“My family’s land grant in the 17^th Century was six hundred acres, which includes the lake, the land around it, and the land the stream flows through. The Constitution gives authority over navigable waters to the Federal Government. Usually, the Feds let the states and municipalities control the small stuff.  The homeowners who bought on my land want to waterski on the lake, and so do I, for business and because I like waterskiing. Now I’ve demonstrated that my stream is navigable. I’ve tried the local zoning board for years and never got anywhere. Now I can appeal to the feds.” You decide not to mention land grants in Crown versus Charter colonies with respect to riparian rights. You especially avoid discussing the portion of your land on the New Jersey Claim Line. You discard the eight you know Matriarch needs to win and start neatening up your territory on the table.

 Surprisingly, it’s Math Teacher who put the move on you, brushing his knee against yours, accidentally, of course. You see he’s wearing an analog watch You ask him what the first time is, after four O’clock, that the hands of his watch will be perpendicular. You see he’s unprepared, not in his comfort zone of being the one to ask the questions in his classroom. You jump when you hear Good Looking Man start to answer. 

“Let’s see,” you hear him say as he looks at his Apple watch, no help there, you think. You see him take another look before he gives his answer.

“Four oh five and a half, or thereabouts, a hair over that. Four oh five and five elevenths,” you hear him answer correctly, and watch him, figuratively, sieze the device from the lance of the loser.

“You know,” you hear him start, “I always go first-class, but I never saw the inside of one of the sleeping rooms.”

“Here’s your chance, Buddy,” you tease. “I’m this way…”

You let him enter first so he can’t trap and pin you to the wall. You show him the features, and remark on the geometric improbability of doing anything but sleep in the tiny space.

“You can stay, you know. For five and five elevenths minutes.” You ask Google for an alarm. You ask him how he figured it out so quickly. You realize you’re slowing down from the gin, that you should have known. He confirms your suspicion.

“I told Siri to calculate it while I was studying my watch.” You throw a thin pillow at him, taking the opportunity for a brief, tension-relieving, grade school feel-copping make-out session. You make sure you leave together and promenade, not holding hands, through the first-class lounge. He graces you with a “Thanks for the tour, but I think I’ll stick to the wide, comfy seat.”

You avail yourself of the facilities and head back to the lounge for quick Jameson’s to help you sleep. Somehow, you find yourself with Math Teacher on his side of some invisible wall that keeps the other card players distant.

“I know who you are and what you’re doing,” you hear, and remember not to freeze. A closer look at Math Teacher reveals to you a pensioner, likely a double-dipper, maybe a second prize lottery winner.

You answer, “Who am I, and what am I doing?”

“You’re a poseur,” you are tagged; you lighten up when you realize he has no idea why you’re on the train. He must have been bad-mouthing you while Good Looking was in your roomette.

“You’re trying to snare one of us, saved your pennies to buy a first-class ticket, coming up with that phony land grant story, hoping one of us will be enticed.” You realize Math Teacher is projecting, that he knows himself to be the fake. You think that if emotions were projected musically, His accusation would be the discordant second chord from the opening of the Flying Dutchman. You note that Matriarch and the others realize it as well and break through the invisible wall. You riposte flawlessly.

“Are you available to become ensnared? Would you care to audition for the role of wide-mouth bass? You'll have the same time I gave your friend.” You head towards your roomette without looking back, you never want to turn into a pillar of salt, but you hear footsteps behind you. You enter the room and Math Teacher comes in behind you and closes the door.

“Google, set timer for five and five elevenths minutes,” you say and hear the confirmation. You wriggle out of your Gucci dress, cross your arms over the lower half of your bra, and start staring at your not-so-welcome guest. You watch him fumble with buttons, zippers, shoelaces, one inelegance after another. You detect no signs of tumescence and you keep staring. Google informs you that it is now time for your companion to leave, which he does, shirt buttons out of synch, one shoe untied. You’ve had more fun that that from time to time, but this trip is up there on the list. You welcome the Sandman with open arms and enjoy the sleep of the still just.

A happier and more confident woman you wake the morrow morn. You join Accountant, Good Looking, and Matriarch for breakfast, Math Teacher either AWOL or MIA. You order a tall stack, scrambled eggs on top, and cranberry juice. You realize you love to keep people guessing. Once again, you thank the universe that you are not eating airline food. You briefly return to the roomette to check the GPS tracker/alarm hidden in a wheel of the suitcase. You make sure you remember the combinations for the two Zeros. You have nothing left to do except sprawl in the big, white, wide, comfy chair. Hopefully, the Spanish Inquisition would be on a different train. Or better yet, on Jet Blue.

 Accountant waves to you on the Miami Station platform, asks where you’re headed, if you need help with the suitcase, do you need a lift. You answer that you’re headed to South Beach to get a Cuban sandwich and dip your toes in the Atlantic. You wish each other safe travels and catch a cab. As per instructions, you put the SIM card in your phone and turn it on in silent mode. You politely ask to borrow the driver’s phone since yours is out of power and place an order with Sanguich de Miami for a Media Noche and chicharrons. You pick it up and have the driver head to Castle By the Sea. Before crossing the Miami City Line you take the SIM card back out. You tip the driver and allow him to take your suitcase to the room you reserved. So far so good. You finally open the little Zero and take inventory. One of the $60 Central Park Surprise Banksy’s, now worth five figures easy. A photo collection of SAMO graffiti, all completely wiped from their sites, including “SAMO as an Alternative to Dialectical Existentialism,” a section of vinyl siding Keith Haring tagged, two Peter Max’s, and the grand prize: An original woodcut print from McAuley’s Leys of Ancient Rome, Horatius emerging from the Tiber under the remains of Pons Sublicius, a watery Phoenix rising from icy ashes, both Roman and Clusium troops cheering him on.  You think to yourself that he had a mission, and you have a mission. His was to save Rome, yours, not so much. For a moment you consider the value of your mission; words like “turpitude” and “paucity” knock on the door of your brain. You look again at Horatius and realize that the point is the ability to carry out a mission against overwhelming odds. You’re not defending temples of your gods, but you are certainly defending the ashes of your fathers. Tomorrow will be a busy day. You put the art in the room safe, grab a couple of Jameson’s from the mini-bar, sit out on the deck, and take in the night air and the salt smell. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” you hear from the south portion of the deck. What is Accountant doing in a low-rent, glorified beach shack like this?

“I’m here for the art fair tomorrow in the fancy place up the street. I felt like being in a beachcomber scene, hoi poloi as opposed to hoity toity,” you tell your interlocutor. He replies that the Plunge Beach Resort was already booked solid, but personally, he, himself, preferred the upper crust. You engage in reminiscence of the Amtrak first-class lounge, make up stories about Math Teacher and Matriarch, engage in light ribaldry and flirtation, and go to your separate rooms. You do what you’re good at, calculating the odds of Accountant shadowing you, and how that probability changes the overall odds of mission success. You put out of your mind the fact that you are a woman alone traveling with a $250,00 worth of art and a few Spy Store gadgets plus your ju-jitsu black belt for protection. You put yourself to sleep counting Bayesian sheep jumping through hyper-geometric hoops.

Having a real bed and bathtub set you up for an extended sleep. You wake to the smell of smoke but recall that Tuesday was cookout day at the Castle. You put on your suit, go for a quick dip, shower again, and break your fast with two hot dogs, mustard, kraut, and relish. Accountant is nowhere to be found. Perhaps, you think, hot dogs are too hoi poloi for him. On your way back to your room to prep, you pass the newspaper rack and see Math Teacher on the front page of the Herald with “Creep” as the lede. The WWWW first graph declared that the man followed a woman into her roomette while the train was readying for the turn-around back to New York, and sexually assaulted her. You find it telling, based on your experience, that rape or forcible sodomy was not mentioned. You eliminate Math Teacher as an impediment to the mission. You decline to feel guilty about not mentioning the incident to anyone; there are no laws against two consenting adults standing around in their underwear. The odds of successful completion go up. You change into your art fair outfit and enjoy a nice walk to the Plunge Beach location, stopping from time to time to see oranges or coconuts, maybe dates, you can’t really tell, just hanging there from trees, literally ripe for picking, so unlike your Morton Williams Supermarket back in Chelsea.

The Plunge Beach doors open at your approach, and you and the little Zero make your way to the Grand Salon. The room could easily compete with the Fountain Bleu in terms of glitz, rococo, and kitsch. As per instructions, you stop at booth 72, which announces itself as an on-site appraisal service. A mild-looking man in a tan Hagar summer-weight suit makes you smile remembering your boyfriend Carter, who wore only Hagar suits. Without either of you uttering a word, you present your Power of Attorney, raised seal and courthouse filing information, enabling you to trade in art on behalf of the tenBraltz Foundation for the Arts. Hagar sniffs the merchandise and writes you out a check for $219 thousand dollars. Then you hear accountant’s now-familiar odd footstep cadence. You decide he suffers from Plantar Fasciitis. You realize that Accountant was the guy eight years ago at your cousin Felicity’s wedding who had to be carried out on a stretcher since his tendons might as well have been capellini.

“You work for my Uncle Leon, don’t you? How’s your foot?” you ask.

“Yes, much better after the stretching exercises and CBD. I’m along for the ride in case something happens. Are you ready for the next step? Trade phones with me. Anyone calling you will be patched through.”

You have a simple 1-2-3-4 to complete the mission. You walk over to Bougainvillea and stop at the Cote D’ivoire schlock store and pick out a hijab and put it on. Then across the street to the Fifth Third bank where you deposit the check into the tenBraltz account. Then up a few blocks to the offices of Liphchitz & McGuillicuddy P.L.C., where the receptionist is waiting for you with a tall glass of sweet tea. This is it, you think. Your Rubicon. You present your second power of attorney and write out checks from three different banks totaling $175,000 and sign three retainer agreements for legal representation, one of which being your own Lake Utrecht issue. You realize the retainers are far above ordinary legal work. You may or may not have done some combination of committing, aiding, or abetting a crime.

Accountant is waiting outside in a rental. Your big Zero has wound up in the trunk. You and Accountant split the driving, slowly making your way up the coast. Once you get home, you’ll have nothing to do except worry about getting caught. You connect the dots. You took a trip to Miami. You were seen on video on the platform, a restaurant, a beach. You attended an art show. You met a man and decided to go back to New York with him. You throttle down the worrying, yet you read the Albany papers every day.

After three months of worrying, you open the Times Union and note two front page stories: A fifteen-year-old zoning case has been resolved in favor of the property owner, and State Senator Abernathy was busted on a DUI driving a $300,000 Lamborghini. On a government salary of $105,000 per year. Only you, Uncle Leon, and Accountant could connect those dots…