Post No. 3 | UKRAINE TRAIN

Blast his candy-loving hide. It looks as though I have lost my traveling companion at the last stop.

“Excuse me,” I ask the salt and pepper gargoyle in the ticket inspector uniform, “Did a man in khaki get off at the last stop? The look returned by the rotund inspector communicates something between, you are obviously lost, I don't care that you're lost, and I must have eaten some bad borscht on my break.

A direct thermal blast of noxious gastro-emissions ruptures into my face from so deep within the official it forces me to reconsider, he must have eaten the bad borscht yesterday. His gaze drifts to the featureless horizon so I change tactics and mime to the train man that I am looking for my companion. Tall, thin, khaki, mustache, last stop, he go? Train man shrugs and I see a second depth charge detonate deep in his innards. A little quicker on my feet this time, I manage to sidestep the tracer belch emitted (and possibly blown) towards my face. “Da” he replies as he unsuccessfully attempts to slide by me in the corridor, his tarnished brass buttons receiving their first polish in decades as they drag across my middle.

Blast you Jerry, and your sweet tooth.

Oh well, I half despise the man, and rather than keep the decent half of him on the train to Crimea with me, I'd just as soon have both halves back on the platform of po-dunk Ukraine. Undoubtedly, Jerry is currently licking the Cyrillic letters of a Soviet Snickers wrapper and speaking with great diction and volume to some poor ticket agent about getting to Cry-Me-Ugh. Jackass.

One thing is for sure, I am hard-pressed to tote his trunk around when I arrive. And so, to sate any uneasiness amongst other passengers or employees regarding an unattended trunk, I opt to shove it out the window. If you’ve never had the opportunity to see a trunk of khaki explode in a Ukrainian cow pasture, I would definitely recommend you add it to your schedule. It's quite the spectacle. I refasten the window clasps and assure the mother and small boy who share my cabin that my companion no longer requires his belongings and reassume my post on my bunk.

At this time, I should probably take a moment to explain Jerry’s presence on my journey. Some time ago I became the self-appointed Senior Minister of an organization known as The Preservation Society. Widely known amongst a thin slice of the residents in a small middle-western town in the United States. Our mission was simply to inform the public of The Society’s actions and to act according to our mission. Jerry is the residual build-up from having once been an important person. On my travels, he is responsible for carrying my bags and minting my pillow. Manservant is not the correct word but communicates much of the sentiment implied in his job description.

Since The Preservation Society’s dissolution in 2008 Jerry has remained the only active member of The Preservation Society, myself included, due to a clerical error in a blood contract he inadvertently signed when joining our ranks. The error itself was a simple mix up at the local Kinkos whereby The Preservation Society Form 2(b)5002 was garbled with a form entitled “What To Do Now That You Have Indentured Yourself To Us Forever” belonging to a different organization known as Preserve our Nation’s Sovereignty (PNS).

It turns out that PNS, a Super Pac working in support of, but not in collusion with, the re-election campaign of presiding comptroller Kenny P. Snatt. For some reason, the form dictated that it be signed in blood, and Jerry, being a gullible sack of excrement, signed the miserable thing! He is convinced that if he were to break his contract; regardless of who it’s with, the fact that it was invalid because of the clerical error, or even the fact that both organizations cease to exist, he will be struck with a condition outlined in the form he signed known as blood-rot. Jerry does not want blood-rot. And so he persists in his duties to both organizations.

According to his contract, Jerry’s Preservation Society duties state that he is responsible for ensuring the Senior Minister is accompanied and cared for on all business-related to his person. As far as his obligations to the PNS camp, the duties are far more sinister. Do not repeat that you heard it from me, but it’s rumored that he spends numerous evenings each week naked and chained in a dungeon, soliciting campaign donations from retirees over the telephone.

There are definitely moments that I’d prefer he broke his contract and left me alone, but I rather enjoy having my bags carried and I wouldn’t wish blood-rot on even the lowliest of lifeforms. And so, I acquiesce to his presence.

We approach the third village this hour where the train will stop, let off Dasha or Nastya, and pick up Yuri and his box of cats or someone to that effect. At each stop, we patiently wait for twenty minutes or so and then amble into motion for fifteen more, and consecutive, minutes. Onward to another village, another lonely platform, another box of cats.

It must be incredibly clear to you at this point in the story that I do not speak Ukrainian, and as a result of my linguistic deficiency, I have a serious problem. I have no clue when to get off this blasted train. At each grinding halt of my vessel, the cracked speaker in the corridor sizzles to life and mutters the name of the mystery town we have paused in. At each stop, I descend from my bunk, bags at the ready, and watch for Sasha to depart.

Sasha is a very capable boy of ten, —I say capable here, but what I mean is, able to understand his native tongue, which makes him a thousand times more capable than myself, occupies the carriage two down from my own. I find myself at the mercy of Sasha after eight hours which I question whether I am supposed to disembark at each stop on the lines Convinced I was going to miss my stop, I humbled myself and engaged my young hero in the corridor and ask to compare my ticket to his own. Happily, I deduced that we are headed for the same destination. And so, I watch him like a hawk at each stop to see if he departs.

Every fifteen minutes for the remaking ten hours of the train ride, the train shudders to a halt, and I slump from my loft and peek down the corridor for my signalman. There is no telling what my carriage-mate and her son think I am up to, but they keep a wary eye on me as I repeatedly trek between my bunk and the corridor.

If you've never had the opportunity to endure an eighteen-hour train ride across a country with fewer geological features than an air hockey table, I only recommend it for the purpose of strengthening one’s mental endurance. After all, boredom will only keep one’s mind entertained for so long. When boredom runs out, the mind has to resort to conjuring more adventurous means of entertainment. Nearly a full day of lying perched on an eighteen-inch wide stuffed pleather shelf provides the mind with ample time to create such adventurous and magical entertainment. Wonderful, terrible, magical entertainment.

It’s common knowledge that Salvador Dhali’s otherworldly paintings were not inspired by drug use, alcohol consumption, or any other use of vice. Rather, the famed painter would keep himself awake for days at a time until the icy tongue of inspiration would reach out of the recesses of his exhaustion and tell him, yeah Sal, the clocks should all drip’n stuff. By hour twelve I felt myself slide into a state of mind sympathetic to Sal’s condition.

Sacred messages appear in the grain of the wood-paneled walls. I peruse them like a discarded newspaper in a coffee shop until a tiny golden Winston Churchill flutters by and sneezes a tiny puff of rainbow glitter onto the back of my hand. I utter a “Gesundheit,” and Mr. Churchill gives me a long sideways glance. “German?” He inquires. “No, American,” I reply. Tiny shiny Churchill nods and clears his throat, which sounds like a knife squeaking against fine china. “An American song then,” he replies. Apparently satisfied with the fact that I am not the enemy. His tiny falsetto eases into Gershwin’s Summertime and my mind folds into the warmth of his voice. I politely applaud as he concludes, his translucent wings flutter in appreciation. With a second nod, Churchill does an about-face, bows, grabs his buttocks, emits a cloud of glitter, and disappears.

As I calmly brush the glitter from my shirt I become sure that the train is frozen in space and rather than it moving the earth’s rotation has become powered by the trains rotating wheels.  My heartbeat has synchronized to the tunk-thunk of the joints in the railroad ties.

Heart

...rate

…..plummeting

…….as the

……...train

………...crawls

…………….into another

…………………...desolate depot.

The visions are not terrifying, they are the warm embrace of old friends who never drop by often enough.

The truth is, I don’t want Sasha to get off the train. The decision to step out of my carriage with the world spinning beneath its wheels, and onto a platform hurtling around the sun would bring me back to the life of concrete decisions and consequences. My anticipation replaced by expectations. A life dictated by whether or not those expectations are met.  Getting off the train means letting go of the magic my brain is conjuring in my cabin and I fear that my ethereal friends might never return.

Sasha steps off the train in Simferopol’s main station. He has adopted one of Yuri’s cats, a surprise I’m sure his father will be thrilled by. Before departing, my young hero rattles the door to my cell open, smiles, and waves for me to follow. The kindness of strangers can never be underestimated. Stepping off the train is like transitioning from a treadmill onto stationary ground. The world has become unsettlingly still and as the last tendrils of the magic are ripped away. The ordinary world settles like a granite fist in my stomach. I am alone and my magic is gone. Each step down the corridor is like the first one after jumping on a trampoline for an extended period of time. The ground is hard and cold and any sense of comfort drifts away like smoke into fog.

Sasha and his cat are greeted by his babusya and they scuttle off to get out of the cold. I drop my bag on a metal bench and wait. My contacts are nowhere to be seen. After an eternal thirty minutes, I am beginning to entertain the thought of wishing that Jeremy was back with me, but regain control of my wits when a gentleman and his teenage companion emerge from the depot with a handwritten sign bearing my name.

Gregor, dressed in a neon orange parka that can be seen from space, and Slice, as I am requested to call my fashionable teenage translator, are apologetic and turn out to be outrageously hospitable hosts for my short stay in Crimea. I spend the next few hours photographing and interviewing the good people here. And then, it was time to go.

*

Gregor and Slice are all smiles as they drive me back to the train station. Me, not so much smiles. The decision to climb back onto the train to Keiv is made in full recognition of the mental tax which I am now required to pay the balance. I know that soon the wheels will start to turn, the Earth will once again stand still as I totter north. The strength of the train pushing the world behind it. I know down these parallel rails the magic will start again and I will have to face the prospect of losing it, again.

As I quite nearly have one foot on the carriage steps, I come face to khaki knees and sand boots standing on the steps above me. “You treasonous snake!” is all I hear before I feel a burst of warmth spreads from the top of my head and I collapse on the platform.

Some hours later, I wake up and become aware that I am indeed on the train, in my cabin, and I have a spitting pain radiating from the top of my head. Jerry is sitting opposite me and cradling what's left of what looks to be a thirteen-dollar Balalaika. “I was going to learn to play it” he huffs.

“Well, you shouldn't have used it as a bludgeon then,” I reply rubbing the affected area.

“You left me in Dee-pop-o-towel-ski.”

“I highly doubt that’s the correct pronunciation, and I did no such thing. I'll bet you a new Balalaika you popped off the train to find candy.” Exasperated, Jerry turns towards the window and checks the corners of his mouth for evidence of the truth. My head feels as though it's been tossed from a moving train into a Ukrainian cow pasture as I shift to sit upright.

“I saw my trunk in a cow pasture.”

“Now, that I will admit, is my fault. It slipped as I was providing it with some fresh air.”

“Fresh air, humpf, I'll be compensated for my loss?”

“The value of a trunk of khaki undies will be added to your fee. Which, I might add, will be docked as you didn’t perform your duties on the trip.” Jerry scoffs and closes his eyes. He is visibly peeved but resigned to the reality of the situation.  

Jerry and I sit in silence for the next two hours. I nurse my wound, which has turned into a gumball-sized knot at the peak of my skull. Jerry loves gumballs. Meanwhile, Jerrald busies himself with cleaning out the contents of his hip pouch. While “hip pouch” is what I prefer to call it. Jerry, in full knowledge of its outdated stigma, still refers to it as his “fannys pack.”

I will say here, that the one major advantage to having a traveling companion on an extended train commute is the ability to leave one’s bags in the attendance of a known individual so they are not rummaged by an unknown individual while you grab a bite to eat. Though it can best be described as a fourth-rate cafeteria on wheels, the dining car is a necessary evil when train traveling.

Jerry is fumbling with his Balalaika. He has pulled a six-inch metal ruler, scotch tape, and a spool of wire from the depths of his fannys pack, sigh, and has taken made a valiant effort to fix his instrument. Besides being distraught over his balalaika, I can tell the man is hungry. He periodically holds a chocolate wrapper to his nose and sighs with delight. Each time he does this his stomach mutters loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engine. He is a pitiful creature. “Why don't you go get something to eat?” I say, handing him a fistful of Hryvnia. Jeremy graciously accepts the money and makes his way to the dining car.

As soon as the cell door to our carriage slides closed, the magic surrounds me. I am caught completely unaware by the force of the apparitions. It’s as if the visions had been dangling over me like a duffle bag of doorknobs, only to be dropped as soon as my mind was unoccupied.

All this business with Jerry, not to mention the six-hour blitz of work prior to boarding the train, has left me exhausted. I ascend the short ladder to my bunk brushing aside the branches of a Christmas tree blocking my way. Just as I am about to fall asleep tiny pinpricks on my chest prompt me to open one eye and I am greeted by a small shimmering choir of fairies. Winston gives me a wink and gestures to his friends. Down the line, I spot Teddy Roosevelt, Mitch Hedberg, Angela Lansbury (who really ought to be wearing more fairy-clothes), Karl Marx, and a host of others.

A very giggly individual, who I presume is Bashar al-Assad or Walt Disney blows a pitch pipe and leads the ensemble in a hypnotic rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I fall asleep with visions of lemon drops and bluebirds dancing in my head.

Sometime later awoken by the deafening silence of stoppage. A peek out the curtains reveals the night sky is as black as the dome of a crow's eye in every direction. With a glance, I know that Jerry is not in our cabin. Crawling down from my bunk I briefly poke my head out into the corridor to see if he is standing in the vicinity and don't see Jerry —until I do. He's huddled under a 25-watt bulb on the platform outside. Rapture on his face and a grip of chrome candy wrappers clutched to his chest.

The hydraulic doors abruptly hiss shut and I know what is about to happen. As we jolt forward, Jerry awakes from his reverie, and a glittering display of silver foil bursts from his hands into a swarm of fairies. Tiny blue and gold world leaders and celebrities grab Jerry by the khaki and drag him after the train. His eyes fixed on mine. Jerry chases the carriage as far as the platform will allow and then, much to my disbelief, leaps into the air and becomes a crow. As we gather speed the crow glides next to my window and I lock eyes with the beast. For the next few hours Jerry the crow sails just outside my cabin.

Two things are painfully clear to me at this point: #1, I am hallucinating, and in direct contradiction to #1, #2, I know that this crow is Jerry. Why else would a crow fly next to a train and caw uncontrollably when a hip pouch is held up on display?

It turns out that crow Jerry is a far more entertaining travel buddy than man Jerry. For the next ten minutes, I toss bread crusts out the window and he snatches them in midair and I laugh uncontrollably at his skill.

A landing attempt is made on the window frame resulting in a near-catastrophic crash against the glass as the widow had been closed by my old friend the ticket inspector. Train man had just been through my cabin to punch my ticket for the seventeenth time. He barges into my cabin, drops the pane of glass into place uttering “No weendow,” as he punches my ticket. On his way out he ekes a rancid flatulation, grinning deviously through my cabin door window as he leaves. The bad borscht obviously still sorting out the tenuous details of its stay within the inspector. When crow Jerry reappears I'd like to believe the look we exchange is a hearty chuckle over the mishap.

I can't say for sure at what point Jerry gave up flying next to the train. Sometime during the night, I glanced up and he was gone.

Irrational as it may sound, I missed him terribly.

I tenderly tuck jerry’s hip pouch in my own luggage and hope for the chance to return it to him someday.

I toss the mangled balalaika out the open window and wink at the ticket inspector as he glances in my cabin, the wind blowing through my hair.

Some hours later, a glittering Pippy Longstockings appears and taps me on the nose with her wand holding her tiny wand aloft. With the dexterity of a child, she draws her wand through the air and it leaves behind three glittering letters TPS. She points to me, squeezes her nose, and pressurizes her ears. I reach to intervene when her head explodes and a tiny golden pin drops onto my chest. I gingerly lift the object and inspect it closely. The Preservation Society crest embossed in brass lies in my hand.