The Finite

For the return to Lafayette, my broken valise was discarded and replaced with a sort of duffel bag-looking thing, but with a solid baseplate and inline skate wheels. A duffeloid.

I had picked up the following in order of importance to me:

• office chair
• pillow
• washcloths
• winter hat
• new, lighter alarm clock
• new jacket
• misc video cables

I know what you’re thinking. How do I get an office chair onto a train? Obviously I disassemble it. I managed to get it so that the largest piece is the pentagonal wheel base and the shaft. I couldn’t figure out how to decompose it anymore than that. Of the three boxes in our garage, the largest (24x18x16) could accommodate all the chair pieces but the shaft. Solution?

John and Matt offered to help me get my stuff to Union Station. We took the Metra down, box and duffeloid in hand. The Metra was a little late. It was scheduled to get to Ogilvie at 5:23 and the Amtrak left at 5:45, so the five minute delay had me worrying more and more as I sat on the Metra surrounded by nightlife-seeking twenty-somethings and with the duffeloid crushing my femurs.

Then, at Irving Park, we started moving but stopped because, according to the loudspeaker, some guy was on the tracks. That’s just my luck. Whenever I need to get somewhere on time, people try to kill themselves to stop me. The Metra ended up late by ten minutes cumulatively. John, Matt and I were the first ones waiting in the vestibule platform of the train, ready to bolt out with my duffel and a box.

And bolt we did. We were hustling down Canal Street. When we arrived at the threshold, it was deserted and there was a strap across the door. Apparently, 5:45 is not when they start boarding, it’s when they depart. As soon as they saw me with a duffeloid and a box, they summoned a “red cap”. A guy in a red cap driving one of those white luggage train screeched to a halt in front of me. A blue cap grabbed my box from John and dropped in on the back of the cargo space. I hurried to the small seats on the front, shoving my duffeloid into the seat next to me. I released my hand from the handle to wave to John and Matt one last time. I was jolted as the redcap driver floored it onto the platform, weaving between columns and around platform attendants with more maneuverability than I expected out of a little luggage cart. I felt like I was in a Jason Statham movie.

I nabbed the last empty seat on the train. I would have tipped that redcap if I could’ve.

Unlike October’s train full of sleepy, texting 20-year-olds, this one was full of grandparents with Southern accents and sweatpants talking extra loud into their phones. (There was one octogenarian who was texting on his LG enV but he was pressing the buttons really loud.)

For the two miles back to Harrison, I looped the handle of the duffeloid into my belt, heaved the box onto my shoulders and started to shuffle back.