Written in Missouri on 4/10/2022

We stood waiting on the platform. The crew was flustered and discussing something unusual.

Ahead of the people ahead of me cuts A Kang, a towering light-skinned slouch of a reprobate, not violent but easy going and sweet taken with a women ten years his junior who he travels with. She is a statuesque neggress of 30. They are bringing flowers to Chicongo for an older female relative. He cuts in and out of line, unhooking the usher straps from the guide posts for sending us railstock of the meatchute of transit, unable to stand still without eating or smoking.

A young tweaker tried to sell us Cokes and Pepsis he had just stolen from someplace.

Behind me are the older gentle women. One says, looking at my hoody, “Teamsters of Portland?”

“Yes, local 162, which is ironically headquartered on 162nd Street.”

“Oh my, how interesting,” they soothed.

Before me is an insane cuոt with too much baggage, who I help as little as possible. The conductor stops taking our destination and begins speaking with a bitch-made conductor, both ghosts, chattering effetely about the preparations for an annual hauling of the ski train, that takes weed-smoking hipsters and richy-richers up into the Rockies a winter, and is being towed back to Chicongo, home base for all trains it seems.

Eventually, after 15 minutes of listening to this conversation, I am permitted access to the rear coach car and get past the insane cuոt who sees every man as her servant. I was giving an unmarked seat ticket and chose one that another man—part of a pair of two matted homos—had been assigned. They simpered and apologized and I walked back to the door frame among three pairs of tourists my age, from the Great Lakes Region, who had been partying in Nevada.

The Alpha Bitch said, “You couldn’t have been seated back here.”

I said, “I’ll stand out of the way and wait until the assigned seats are filled rather than squatting in some pretty thing’s berth again.”

The Alpha male, paired with the Beta Bitch, looks at me, half drunk and says, “A Teamster? What business brings you on the rails, my friend.”

“I’m a hobo—a bum. Two Teamsters in Portland adopted me and dudded my up so that the cops wouldn’t waylay me.”

The three pairs, thence avoided looking my way or speaking to me, “my friend,” no more.

20 minutes latter the frail of all ages and genders seated, I found an open seat behind Da Kang and his Quean. He was feasting from a large sack of chips and candies and sodas and teas, constantly eating and drinking.

After a full hour of loading, four times the normal time for Denver, we were told that we would be uncoupling from the sleepers and the dinning car [this being the normal split, the coach people in the back attached to the viewing car and the rich folks up front attached to the dinning car which hook together] so that the ski train may be placed in the middle and dragged to Chicongo. This will make this train of 2 engines, a baggage car, a crew car, dinning and viewing car and 2 coach cars, 6 cars longer, for 2 engines and 12 cars.

The hook up would take 2 hours, as some of the small crew seemed new to this procedure. We were locked in, so that we could not wander the platform and get squashed. But the American mind cannot stoically wait for a dangerous task to be completed by the overworked and under-manned crew.

A rebellion ensued. Hispster millenials were smoking on the train. The power was cut off so the toilets did not work and the Quean ahead of me said, “If I gots ta shit I gonna be pissed the fuck off!”

The boomers in the back were making jokes and having a good time.

Masks came off.

The Kang had never masked up, the conductors letting him on as ghosts were told to mask.

The Kang cranks up his boom box, dating himself considerably, and is listening to West Indian Pseudo-Rap. The big beta male boomer asks him politely to turn it down just a little and the Kang entertains this possibility, dials it back slightly as the boomer thanks His Majesty. His Majesty then cranks it back up as Quean says, “Oh, yo is an asshole—I ain’t neva travlin’ wit your trifling ass again.”

Easy going, he drawls, “Baby, dis is da good stuff dey don’ play on da radio.”

She smacks her lips, “I do hear da reason why dey don’ play it on da radio—what da fuck is dat shit?”

People have to pee and poo and began to moo; they yell for the conductors to attend them.

No one has seemingly ridden the train before. The conductors and all hands are outside.

I will find out latter that people who were smoking dope and ciggs down below in luggage and restrooms had chimp-like thrown feces about the tiny bathrooms and peed on the floor like angry dogs.

People were banging on the windows and then, ‘Harken, yo, order, order in da Court of da Kang!’

I become fully conscious that the Kang used to be a night crew clerk. He comes back from a scout and describes the lower level of the viewing car cafe and shows off many goodies taken from the unmanned retail set up: “Baby, I found a clean bathroom, a big one, like a boss bathroom and dun did my bidness. En down dare, dere all dis food for da microwave—wings, burger, dawgs. I’ll ‘ave ta ask to use dat lunchroom microwave, dis crew do eat good.”

[This is actually food for retail, the attendant out helping with the train doggle. The crew eats the good food from the dining car.]

“Oh, I see yo theivin’ ass be lootin’ da Markle Mile!”

“No Baby, dis straight up taxation for dis bull-shit delay—dis unacceptable shit! Here, have some a deese eats, chips, door-ee-toes, tea, sodas…”

“Baby, I gots ta pee en who knows what else—can’t risk it, don’ wanna be doin’ ma bidness down dare in da dark.”

Meatpuppets are banging on the hatches from the inside demanding to get out downstairs. The Kang disappears in anger, over his Quean’s mighty distress, and, and…

[Definitely a night clerk in retail food.]

On comes the intercom and the voice of Kangis, drawls, “Yo, train people, dis shit ain’ right! Yo caint be lockin’ our asses in like dawgs—is yo all say-dast-ic or wha’?”

The train lurches in the coupling and he hangs up, perhaps thinking he has summoned some mechanical Kracken at his Wakandan word.

He returns, sits down, belches, says, “Coose me,” and she comments, “No scoose fo yo ass—how’s a bitch saposed ta sleep up in ‘ere?”

Finally, the coach, filled with pot smoke, cigarette smoke and boom box music, the lights come on and we are off at a crawl.

Amtrak crews normally keep strict discipline. But there confidence in providing service is crumbling and they get apologetic. However, the masking threats over the intercom continue. The first conductor, a very large man, does not ask us to mask up, as if he has lost his moral authority over us. The obese black attendant ignores the unmasked.

The next day, as the new conductor takes over and the gentle redneck giant is gone, the little white bug man, threatens us on the intercom about masks. Then he comes to the back coach, looks right at the Kang, who promptly dresses him down for poor service, demanding air conditioning. The conductor then comes past the Kang and tells the ghosts to mask up. I refuse too, and decide that I will not be set to a lower standard of compliance than My Ebonic Majesty.

Throughout the train, over the next 26 hours of insanity, as unprecidented levels of freight train traffic continue to sideline this meat train, in the coach and in the viewing car, under two different conductors, the worship of Kangdom has the following interesting result:

-Young women over a 7 are not told to mask.

-Kangs and Queans are not told to mask and none of them do, being about 20% of the passengers.

-Amish are not told to mask.

The rest of us, the people who have been assigned by posterity with the lack of identity indicated by “white,” meaning the lack of color, are told to mask repeatedly. This standard holds in Union Station Chicago—whites must mask, but blacks and Amish do not have to.

To be continued, crackers and slackers.