Peter
watched the smoke furl, blending seamlessly with the rich, white clouds that
filled the blue sky, the train disappearing into the tunnel, almost as quickly
as it had come. It was always the same;
he’d see the train, far off in the distance, a simple haze in the heat of the
summer afternoon. He’d hear its warning
whistle as it slowly approached, the ground trembling in anticipation, his
heart beginning to quicken at the sight of the lumbering giant hovering
ominously in the distance. Time would go
on forever as he’d wait, watching the metal giant slowly grow—bigger and
louder, more threatening still—until at last it would speed past him, leaving
him behind, as a tiny dot in the distance, slowly disappearing. This strange love of trains had begun when he
was quite young, and being that he was only twelve, he quite honestly had loved
trains ever since he could remember.
They were comforting with their rhythmic bumps as they ran over the old,
metal tracks, yet altogether frightening with their speed and inertia. Perhaps what was most comforting to Peter
about these large, metal creatures, was their inability to alter their own courses;
they were—unlike cars, which tend to be subject to their master’s every will
and whim—set on tracks; tracks which they had to follow and from which they could
never deviate. And with the uncertainty
of Peter’s life, a life that consisted of tracks and predestined turns was
quite appealing to the twelve-year-old.
Peter
was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan, though he does not really fit any
preconceived ideas you may already have about orphans; nor did he reside in an
old, badly kept orphanage with creaking floorboards and rusty pipes. Peter lived as he deemed fit and had acquired
over the years, a family for every day of the week—or at least most days of
the week, because he would spend the weekends in his Weekend Home, a small,
forgotten corner beneath the train tracks, next to a tiny little stream. He tended to spend a great deal more of his time
here, alone, thinking about things that most twelve year olds rarely have time
to think about as they usually spend any spare time talking with friends,
playing sports, getting into trouble, watching T.V., or playing a video game. Yet Peter was a solitary boy, who preferred
spending his time at the railroad, watching the trains.
His
Monday Family were the Günter’s. They
were a practical family, who lived in a suburban neighborhood and drove
American cars and bought everything in their home from the large supercenter
around the block. Mr. Günter was an
electrician and Mrs. Günter stayed home with her two children—Emily, five, and
Richard, eight. Mrs. Günter spent her
days gardening and shopping at the supercenter, hauling around the children in
her American mini-van, and on Sundays the family would go to church and cookout
in the evenings. The Günters worked like
clockwork, just like the metal trains that Peter loved so much, never changing,
never altering from their course, repeating and repeating, day in and day out.
The
children, Emily and Richard, seemed to have mixed feelings about the boy that
Mr. and Mrs. Günter had taken in to their home.
Richard, in particular, did not like Peter, as they were complete and
total opposites. The freedom which Peter
had, Richard sought, and the stability that Richard had, Peter longed for. The two very rarely saw eye to eye, and would
spend Monday meals eating in silence, with Richard asking the same old
questions he asked every Monday night at dinner: “Why is he here?” “Why do you guys let him stay with us?”
“Where does he come from?” All the questions they’d answered hundreds of times
before, and whose answers would never change.
“Peter
will be with us for a while, son. He is
lonely, and needs a place to stay.”
Yet the
simple fact that Richard continued to ask these questions suggested that he
hoped one day the answers would
change, or that he was, in fact, the product of an unchanging home, and no
matter how much he longed for change, he would always lead a life of
consistency.
Little
Emily would spend most of the meal staring at Peter in silence, her eyes wide,
her mouth full of one vegetable or another.
She had not spoken to Peter since he’d adopted the Günters as his Monday
Family. And as dull as it all may sound,
Peter enjoyed the routine dinners, he liked helping Mrs. Günter clean up the
dishes, and he especially liked going to sleep in his own bed—though it was
technically Richard’s old bed, and
quite a bit too short for Peter’s long, lean legs. He liked how Mrs. Günter would tuck him in
every Monday night and gently kiss him on the cheek—a soft, almost intangible
kiss that seemed hardly real to Peter, but was enough to make him smile, as she
wished him pleasant dreams. He liked how
Mr. Günter patted him on the back and promised to play ball with him one
day. And while it was an empty
promise—one that Mr. Günter never truly planned on honoring—the promise was all
that Peter really wanted, and he would go to sleep, pretending he was a Günter
and that this was his home, the home he’d been born into, the home in which
he’d always belonged— not the cold, lonely corner beneath the train tracks.
Peter’s
Tuesday Family was the Beardsleys. They
lived on the opposite side of town in a small, historical home that had seen
much better days. It had not suffered
many of the updates that most historical homes had seen, as the Beardsleys
wandered about by candlelight at night, and drew their water from an old well for cooking and
for their baths—which were rare occasions, as the Beardsley family only bathed
on Sundays. Peter was quite glad that the Beardsleys were his Tuesday Family,
as opposed to his Sunday Family, as he’d heard they all took turns holding a
large bucket over each other’s heads and scrubbing madly at themselves, rubbing
off the built-up grime and dirt that covered their skin. Mr. Beardsley was a professor at the local
university and taught physics. Mrs.
Beardsley was an animal activist, and spent her mornings cutting coupons out of
the local newspaper. They had three
children; Marigold, seven, Benjamin, six, and Lucy, three. The children paid very little attention to
Peter altogether, and really, the only person who seemed to notice Peter at all
was Mrs. Beardsley, who would offer Peter organic cookies and freshly squeezed
prune juice every Tuesday morning. Mr.
Beardsley would work well into the evening, and never came to kiss Peter
goodnight at the end of his busy day.
Rather, he’d spend long hours in his study, listening to an old record
and grading students’ papers.
Peter
recalled the very first time he’d met Mrs. Beardsley. It was actually in her garden, where she was
busy meditating. It was fall then and
the leaves had already turned golden, and whisked around the sidewalk in small,
insignificant whirlwinds, rising off the ground as if by magic to fall again in
new, undetermined places, making their way across the town as the wind deemed
fit to carry them. He’d been watching her for a while, he supposed, as he’d
never seen anyone meditate before, and quite suddenly, when Mrs. Beardsley
opened her eyes, she noticed Peter through the frizzy tendrils of bangs that
hung down into her eyes.
She’d
taught him a great deal about meditation since then, and had talked to him
about the universe and cosmic things that Peter didn’t really understand. But she’d always said that she felt she had
been meant for something grand, and she thought that Peter was perhaps a part
of that cosmic feeling that she had; that fate was in fact responsible for
bringing him to her that day—a fate that was something like the wind that
carried the leaves from one place to the next in what appeared to be an
unplanned manner, but, according to Mrs. Beardsley, was in actuality, part of
fate’s grand plan.
His
Wednesday Family was an old couple on Welks Street named the Sorentinos. They lived in a very old apartment above
their Laundromat business, with an even older cat, named Muffins. Muffins did not particularly like Peter. He would hiss and growl at him every time
he’d show up at the Sorentinos’ door, which he did like clockwork every morning
at nine a.m. The condo smelled like
mothballs and garlic, but it was a homey smell that Peter had grown accustomed
to, and he would spend a great deal of his time at the Sorentinos’, rustling
around in their attic. Mrs. Sorentino
had found him there one day, and had shown him all of her husband’s old war
pictures, love letters, and military paraphernalia. Peter even saw his old rifle, but was not
allowed to touch it or so Mrs. Sorentino had said.
“Guns
are dangerous,” she warned him, “We wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”
Then she
would look at Peter and her old eyes would suddenly grow very sad, like there
was something weighing on her mind.
Peter had thought that perhaps she was thinking of her son—or the son
that he assumed she had, because of all the pictures around the attic of a little
boy with chubby cheeks and dirty blond hair.
Sometimes he wanted to ask her about him, when she looked at him that
way, but never managed to form the proper words to say.
Often times
he would become so preoccupied with exploring the Sorentinos’ attic, that he
would fall asleep on an old, leather trunk, with cracks along the edges, dreaming
of wars and medals and intangible love that he had never felt—for a girl whom
he had yet to meet.
On
Thursdays, Peter would visit the Alabaster family on Euclid. They lived in a huge, old mansion, that had
been updated with every luxury man could possibly imagine, including granite
counter tops, a marble floor in the foyer, and beautiful crystal chandeliers
that illuminated the hallways with an eerie, glowing light, as if the sun
itself were trapped within long, translucent icicles.
Mr.
Alabaster worked at a bank, and his two daughters were on the soccer team at
Bellevue High. His wife, Mrs. Alabaster,
was a caterer, and spent most of her days in the kitchen, preparing pastries
for local businesses and weddings. Yet
no matter how often Peter would appear at the Alabaster’s home, it seemed as if
they had yet to truly accept
him. They would look at him at times in
an off kilter way, as if they were looking through
him, and not truly acknowledging his presence; their expressions would grow
blank, and more often than not, they would simply pretend he wasn’t there. Yet no matter how often Peter would tell
himself that he should stop visiting the Alabasters on Thursdays, he would
always find himself there, staring up at the large, imposing doors on Thursday
morning, ringing the loud, menacing bell that announced his arrival as if he
were someone great; a king, a knight, or even the mayor of the small,
insignificant town—anyone but poor Peter, who really wasn’t anyone so special
at all.
His
Friday family was the Woodleys, which happened to be a very large family
indeed. There was Mrs. Woodley and Mr.
Woodley; Mable, the oldest daughter and her husband, Frank; Benji, who was
fifteen, Felix who was twelve, Rosie who was ten, and Uncle Will and Aunt Susie.
Grandma and Grandpa Woodley would visit every weekend, along with their three
old collies. They lived in a dilapidated
farm house in the middle of nowhere, and spent their days taking care of the
animals and tending the corn fields which lined the old farm house in a giant,
imposing maze. Peter had been staying
there since he’d first arrived several Fridays before, and had gotten lost in
their chicken coup. He had been discovered
by little Rosie, who had told her father, Mr. Woodley, that there was a
“strange little boy messing with the chickens.”
Ever since, Rosie had been Peter’s best friend, and they often spent
long summer nights laying in the corn fields, gazing up at the bright summer
stars, imagining that one day they would grow up and get married, buy a small
lot of land, and build their own farm.
Now it
was Sunday, and Peter was walking the tracks, kicking the pebbles and thinking
about his many families, which really were like one big family to him. Maybe it was because of the darkness of the
night, or perhaps it was because his thoughts were elsewhere; whatever the
reason, that particular Sunday a train happened to be passing along the tracks
that Peter so often walked. Why a train
should be on those tracks that particular Sunday was unfathomable to him. Peter had lived beneath the tracks for as
long as he could remember; and he couldn’t remember there ever being a train on
Sunday. Yet why things happen as they do
is a question that very rarely offers any solutions or practical reasons. To Peter, fate was much more like that little
gust of wind that carried the leaves across the city in an undetermined path,
that had no particular plan and sought to punish no particular leaf. So when the train hit Peter, he didn’t really
notice it at first because he didn’t feel much of anything at all; just the
strange sensation of being pulled apart momentarily and then put back together
again.
That’s
when he remembered what had happened.
How he’d been walking those very train tracks on a Somewhat Similar Sunday,
not noticing the train as it approached, not noticing the warning whistle, not
feeling the ground rumble as it encroached upon him. It had felt different then, when the metal
giant met his yielding flesh, yet the pain was only momentary. And when he woke up again, he was in his home,
beneath the tracks, the bright summer sun warming his pale skin and he thought
that he felt much better than he’d ever felt before; quite well rested and
ready for a new day. He now realized how
very much like those leaves he really was, being carried by the wind from place
to place, having forgotten where he’d come from and which place he had once
called home.
But all
that didn’t matter now, as he kicked another pebble, looking up at the dark,
starlit sky, and watching the train disappear through the tunnel. Soon he would forget again about what he was and go about his week as
usual, the train leaving him behind, as if he’d never been there at all, a
small, indiscernible wave of smoke, curling and bending, furling into the
distance, disappearing now into the night.
© 2010
Rebecca Huggins. All rights reserved.
