Michael Conlon retired from teaching high school English in Southern California after 37 years. He is a published essayist and short story writer currently working on a novel about a father’s lengthy train trip to escape the pain of his son’s death.
Tracks
Rich swayed gently, side to side. He rested in the cushioned seat gazing out the window at silhouettes of distant dark hills drifting to the south. He continued to roll over the tracks–“click-click, click-click.” He was weightless, floating, tethered to earth by the slow sway, punctuated by “click-click.”
“Daddy?”
Click-click.
“Daddy!”
He opened his eyes and looked down at the window seat beside him, barely filled by his son, Danny, a little freckle-faced boy with wheat-shock hair shaped somewhere between a bowl cut and Bantu warrior, all strands radiating from the middle of his head. Rich recalled his own hair being that blonde as a child, yet always in a butch or crew cut of varying lengths, depending on the time of year. He never had such flowing, uniform locks, soft to the touch.
Danny continued looking up, the green cat eyes of his mother sparkling, his eyebrows and forehead squinched as always in a question mark, sorting through the playful puzzle of his life. He could be strolling up and down the aisle, at ease talking to a stranger, or skipping in his size-three red sneakers and white socks nearly reaching his bare knees beneath the oversized blue shorts and red horizontally-striped t-shirt. Instead, his tiny fingers scratched at Rich’s upturned palm lying across the gap between the seats where the armrest had long since been lifted.
“Daddy, what makes the clicking sound?”
Rich paused for a moment, then offered his best logic.
“It’s probably because when they laid down the rails for the train, they could only make them so long, so where one stops and another starts, there’s a teeny space where the wheels click.”
“But why does it go ‘click, click’ instead of just ‘click’ then?”
Rich paused. He knew his answer didn’t have to be correct, but it had to be an honest attempt.
“Maybe it’s because we’re going so fast that the back wheels of the car in front of us and the front wheels of our car go over the spot right after each other.”
Danny weighed the possibilities.
“So, if we stood in the place between the cars that we walked through when we got dinner, the clicks might go together?”
“I suppose that could happen,” said Rich.
Danny started to scrunch forward on his seat, his shoes slowly descending to the carpeted floor.
“What are you doing, Danny?”
“I wanna go hear the click, Daddy.”
Rich knew it was perfectly safe, nowhere to fall off, or get lost or kidnapped, but still he didn’t want him out of sight, not now. He felt Danny’s hand rap around his thumb for leverage down.
“Little boy, not yet. When we get up to brush our teeth in a little bit, we’ll listen for the one click together, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy, but when are we going to brush our teeth?” asked Danny.
“Not too long. When that orange sky turns to purple, then to black, and we see the first star. You let me know when you see it, okay?”
“Okay,” Danny replied. He pressed his nose to the moist window, looking up into the darkening sky.
Rich laid his head back on the cushion and closed his eyes for a moment. Slowly, the sway returned, back and forth, noticeable at first, then the rocking, click-click, rocking, click-click…
…something brushed his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see the porter walking down the aisle, rechecking destination tags above the seats. He looked down at the seat next to him. It was empty. He glanced right and thought he caught a glimpse of Danny in the window’s reflection, then he thought maybe he went between the cars without him. Then he remembered that Danny was gone, gone for nearly three months. Rich was back by himself, alone. His eyes began to sting. He turned his head and stared out into the darkness, waiting for a first star.
Click-click, click-click.