NJ Transit
January 31, 2004
The train pulled out of platform 16 from Hoboken and carried me along snowy tracks to the little town where I used to live—the town where the mayor is the UPS driver. No, not "used to be" the UPS driver; he is the UPS driver. Heading toward the heart of the Jersey suburbs on a weekday afternoon had me traveling against the flow of commuter traffic, and my train was empty. Empty except for the middle-aged Chinese lady who told the track worker as we boarded: "We just want to get there safely, without any bombs."
The track worker asked her not to use the B-word, "Or else you'll have the cops here in no time," he said.
The woman went on to ask him why we weren't being searched. "How come you not scan us?"
I made sure to get on a different car than she did and sat quietly as we chugged alongside the ice floes and frozen scum of a milky green canal.
I often refer to my Brooklyn neighborhood as an industrial wasteland, but it hardly compares to this part of New Jersey. It's a sprawling landscape of oil refineries, power plants, and expansive parking lots, all blanketed with brand new cars. Shipping containers in sun-bleached shades of red are piled for miles. Spidery mystery structures covered in soot intertwine in a gray, tangled mess like the burnt and scarred remains of a forest fire. Clouds spew from distant smokestacks. Low in the gray sky, planes that look like pregnant locusts lumber through the sky to and from the runways of Newark Airport. They appear to move so slowly that you can't help but marvel at the quirky laws of physics that keep them from tumbling into the Turnpike toll booth.
I had to take three different trains to get to my parents’ house: First, the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, then a PATH train from Manhattan to Hoboken, and finally, a New Jersey Transit train from Hoboken to the town my parents will be moving from in a few months.
"How many trains did you have to take?" my mother asked when she overheard me talking to my dad..
"Three."
"Oh, that's not too bad."
"I guess not," I shrugged. But it took me an hour and a half longer than it would've if I'd driven. But I didn't have my car, which is why I was heading to New Jersey. I'd taken it there to regroup and shore up its defenses after its window was smashed while parked on my street.
It felt good to be driving home to Brooklyn with a real window instead of duct tape and a plastic drop cloth. We’ll see how long it lasts. So, I'm back now. There's a huge party going on a few doors down with bands playing and drunken young hipsters spilling into the halls. I'm going to investigate.
Investigation complete: Nothing to blog about.
