Some mornings there just aint a whole lot to do. The train don’t come till late and so after we has swept up and cleaned the windows inside and out and polished all the brass handles on the doors till they is like to burnished gold, well then we just kick back and take it easy. ‘Course we could always paint the wood at the front of the station, it sure needs a lick, but there aint no money for that. Or we could fix the lock on the restroom door, but it’s been broke for so long and aint nobody complained in all that time. And a hundred other small nails needing tapped home or some-such. But we just stop all we’re doing and we take five.
Cole reckons as more people should do the same these days and maybe everything’d run a little easier if they did.
Me and Cole, we just sits out front drinking coffee from paper cups – not shit coffee, mind. Cole makes some good stuff, coffee with deep complex flavours, but all we got is paper cups. And we read, mostly, staying quiet and in our own space. Or we talk sometimes.
Cole, he’s a little different, you know. He don’t think that he is, but he is. He sees the world different, too. Like one day we was sitting and just looking out at the day, and the moon was in the sky, all pale as burning-off clouds and like a ghost of itself. And Cole ups and says how he didn’t get it.
I don’t always know what he’s meaning, but I know when he says it like that, well, he expects me to ask.
‘I don’t get all that flying to the moon and the stars and back. Like that shit costs a buck and a billion to do, and not everyone makes it home, and there’s plenty of good could be done with that money right here on the ground. And people in front of their tvs getting fatter and slower, and they is all buzzed on account of what someone else is doing, which is just walking – ok, walking on the moon, but walking just the same.’
He’s got something like that in his head most days and when’s put his thought into words, well then he leaves it like that and moves onto something else. The price of milk or what they done to Coke these days or why their aint no butchers shops with half a cow hanging on a rack, or half a pig or a sheep, and sawdust under your feet and the air smelling of dead animal.
I just nods and makes a sound in back of my mouth, like maybe I’m agreeing or listening at least. And I sips at the good coffee and think my own thoughts, which is mostly thinking ‘bout Kimmy. She’s the prettiest part of my day, of any day, and she comes by just to say hi and to show off her dresses and the way she’s wearing her hair and the shoes she’s just bought. And sometimes, when Cole’s not by, well, me and Kimmy, we sit and hold hands and we say nothing.
And some mornings when me and Cole is sitting out front and taking the day as it comes, Cole asks me what’s on my mind, like he’s suddenly tired of hearing his own voice – which aint often, but it happens. And I don’t say nothing, and I shrugs to show that I aint got nothing to say, cos there’s only ever Kimmy in my head, and I don’t want Cole with all his thoughts ‘bout the moon and the stars and what is right or wrong in this world or meaningful, to think less of me with my one thought.
Then, ‘bout twenty-three minutes past ten, Cole sighs and he looks at his watch and gets to his feet, making noises like a old man does when he rises. And he says, ‘Well then,’ and we both of us get back to the work cos there’s a train due soon enough and there’s plenty to do then.
Patricia Ann McNair 
Some mornings there just aint a whole lot to do. The train don’t come till late and so after we has swept up and cleaned the windows inside and out and polished all the brass handles on the doors till they is like to burnished gold, well then we just kick back and take it easy. ‘Course we could always paint the wood at the front of the station, it sure needs a lick, but there aint no money for that. Or we could fix the lock on the restroom door, but it’s been broke for so long and aint nobody complained in all that time. And a hundred other small nails needing tapped home or some-such. But we just stop all we’re doing and we take five.
Cole reckons as more people should do the same these days and maybe everything’d run a little easier if they did.
Me and Cole, we just sits out front drinking coffee from paper cups – not shit coffee, mind. Cole makes some good stuff, coffee with deep complex flavours, but all we got is paper cups. And we read, mostly, staying quiet and in our own space. Or we talk sometimes.
Cole, he’s a little different, you know. He don’t think that he is, but he is. He sees the world different, too. Like one day we was sitting and just looking out at the day, and the moon was in the sky, all pale as burning-off clouds and like a ghost of itself. And Cole ups and says how he didn’t get it.
I don’t always know what he’s meaning, but I know when he says it like that, well, he expects me to ask.
‘I don’t get all that flying to the moon and the stars and back. Like that shit costs a buck and a billion to do, and not everyone makes it home, and there’s plenty of good could be done with that money right here on the ground. And people in front of their tvs getting fatter and slower, and they is all buzzed on account of what someone else is doing, which is just walking – ok, walking on the moon, but walking just the same.’
He’s got something like that in his head most days and when’s put his thought into words, well then he leaves it like that and moves onto something else. The price of milk or what they done to Coke these days or why their aint no butchers shops with half a cow hanging on a rack, or half a pig or a sheep, and sawdust under your feet and the air smelling of dead animal.
I just nods and makes a sound in back of my mouth, like maybe I’m agreeing or listening at least. And I sips at the good coffee and think my own thoughts, which is mostly thinking ‘bout Kimmy. She’s the prettiest part of my day, of any day, and she comes by just to say hi and to show off her dresses and the way she’s wearing her hair and the shoes she’s just bought. And sometimes, when Cole’s not by, well, me and Kimmy, we sit and hold hands and we say nothing.
And some mornings when me and Cole is sitting out front and taking the day as it comes, Cole asks me what’s on my mind, like he’s suddenly tired of hearing his own voice – which aint often, but it happens. And I don’t say nothing, and I shrugs to show that I aint got nothing to say, cos there’s only ever Kimmy in my head, and I don’t want Cole with all his thoughts ‘bout the moon and the stars and what is right or wrong in this world or meaningful, to think less of me with my one thought.
Then, ‘bout twenty-three minutes past ten, Cole sighs and he looks at his watch and gets to his feet, making noises like a old man does when he rises. And he says, ‘Well then,’ and we both of us get back to the work cos there’s a train due soon enough and there’s plenty to do then.