Newton, KS to Ft. Madison, IA
by John Hansen
The drive at eighty-five. Alone. Like the other times to Newton. My eyes heavy as I merge onto I-35 North fishing for sleep – tungsten split shot weights clamp to eyelids that sink downward. Thoughts die in darkness yet flicker in me like heat lightning. Tires splash puddles from earlier showers to remind me the night has aged. Aware of isolation from human contact, my grip on the wheel weakens.
Turn left on W 4th St. I flash high beams onto the obscure alley because who the fuck knows what’s there at 2 a.m. Sometimes, two prostitutes sharing a cigarette. What would it be like to touch one of them, the way fine women in glossy magazines used to invite me to touch them. I parked in a poor part of town behind a cash advance payday loan full of dents and chipped paint from rusted bullet holes exposing crumbled brickwork.
The wait inside Amtrak’s station, scanning the room. Minutes flee to their respective hour. Each time the door opened, I could smell the air from across the room – the way hair smells when it hasn’t been washed for a few days – then I didn’t. In walk two girls headed straight for the counter. One of them had chicken legs with hips that would make child-bearing difficult. A C-section for sure. Her body mist cut through the air like a crow’s cry.
Boarded the Southwest Chief. The other pretty blonde took a seat next to me, though rows of empty seats were unoccupied. A charmful smile, but I couldn’t say a thing besides, “Where are you headed?” “Same place you are,” she says – as her index finger points to paper with initials FMD suspended over the aisle. Grins. Her head heavy, she presses the button that reclines the seat back, her torso plummets out of view. City lights splinter through curtains. I imagined her asleep like I slept with headlights lost dancing on my bedroom walls.
Awakened by the PA system in Missouri about breakfast. Pretended to be asleep so she stays rested on my shoulder. Light peeked through adjacent windows. The morning sun swaddling us in warmth, I glanced at her face then chest, its slow busty moves, alluring. Our breaths in sync. “Good morning train ride guy.” She tells me she grew up in a trailer park in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. I see my own existence deep in her eyes that hold me for a brief moment – only to let me go seconds later.
In the dining cart we talk Foucault and Kant until our stop: How does he distinguish among the agreeable, the beautiful, and the good? We conclude judgments of the good are based upon the subject having an interest of some kind in the object. Pleasurable conversation mixed with banter earns her full-attention. Surely, her future boyfriend won’t know how to hold such conversations about theory and philosophy. Three or four years from now, she’ll look back and relive these moments just as I do now. The Mississippi greeting us, we step onto the platform, our hearts broken like a brown bottle in the station’s parking lot.
John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, Spillwords Press, Trouvaille Review, 50-Word Stories, One Sentence Poems, The Dillydoun Review, Eunoia Review, Sparks of Calliope, Amethyst Review, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He teaches developmental, composition, and literature courses at Mohave Community College in Arizona. Read more at johnphansen.com