Sunday, April 7, 2013

Fort Worth: A Public Transport Odyssey, Part III


Part three of FW:APTO

Now with a sandwich tucked in my duffle bag, I walked back to the platform from the Subway.

As I walked, there was now a gaggle of people waiting on the platform.


I set my bag down next to some teenager that was sitting on this weird benches that line the platform. He asked me, "Do you know if this is the last train to Dallas?"

Awkwardly answering, I replied, "I think so. I heard the announcement twenty minutes ago that the last train was to arrive at 9.05." Looking at my phone, and seeing that it read '9.03', I decided to take my camera out and photograph the area. When I arrived at 8.40, I knew the train wouldn't arrive until 9.40, so I decided to photograph the murals that line the walkway into the ITC building. Unfortunately, when I heard the alarm inside the bathroom, I decided to eat rather that photograph.

Artists gotta eat too, you know.

I took a few shots of the tracks, looking north-south, and then a 360° panorama. A little girl, who was dancing with her brother, said, as I started sweeping the camera, "Oh my, he's taking a picture!" After taking the photos, I quickly put up my equipment. The teen that I had stood next to came back from the other platform (by crossing the tracks) and asked, "Do you know if the train runs on Sunday?"

I replied, still packing up, "No, there's no Sunday service."

He went, "Oh."

As I was placing the camera back into its bag, I said, "Oh, my name's Eddie by the way." He quickly responded, "Oh, Shaun." I had time to kill, so I asked him, "If you don't mind me asking, what brought you to Fort Worth?"

"I came for a concert at the Bass [Performance Hall]."
"Oh, woah, the Bass? It must be really good."
"Yeah, it is. But I didn't go."
"Why not?"
"I started walking into the building, and I just went 'nah', and walked back out."
"So you walked all through downtown then?"
"Yeah."

I asked to see the program, and he pulled out of his backpack. Out came this thick program, and I quipped, "I've never seen such a thick programme before." I looked at it, and he mentioned it was a classical music performance. After handing the programme back, Shaun asked me why I was in Fort Worth.

In my way, I told him the whole story, but compressed down. "Came to see Mariachi concert. Got on wrong train; stuck in Irving for hour-and-a-half. Got to Fort Worth at 5:30, waited hour for a bus; arrived at school at 7:10, but it was the wrong school. Concert over, embarrassed, got lost, ran for bus, arrived at 8.40, now I'm here."

Provided, I met someone new, and I didn't want to scare them off, so I kept everything sweet-and-short. For some reason, he mentioned that he had lost $157 on the train ride to Fort Worth. He mentioned that they might have fallen out of his wallet after putting his day pass away in his wallet. "I'm not going to comment on other people's honest" I said, "but the chance of you getting your money back are zero." He chuckled at that, and said that he knew. I told of my own story about finding money.

When I was eight, I remember finding $85 on the ground at a flea market. I picked up the money and started to ask, "Have you seen the person that this belongs to?" My mom grabbed me and took the money from my hand and told me, "Don't say it out loud! You should just take it." She promptly grabbed it from me and I never saw it again. 

"I didn't even see a dime of that money. I've never even had that much money since!" Exaggeration because I have... once. He told me he was very upset to have lost so much money, but I assured him that accidents happen. As we talked a little more, the train arrived.

As we entered the train, I asked him, "Since we're talking, would you like to share a table?" He agreed and we sat at the same seat that I believe I sat at on my original ride into Fort Worth.

The train left the station at 9.13 and traveled to the last station (or first station looking east) on the line, T&P.

While we sat at T&P, I started asking a little more about my companion. He told me that his father was Indian and his grandmother Russian. He was born in India, and that he lived in Russia until he moved to the US at age four. He also mentioned that, at one time, he knew both Hindi and Russian, but that he had forgotten Hindi long ago, but can still speak a little Russian.

A woman, sitting a seat behind us across the aisle, overheard us and with the egging on of them and me, he spoke Hello, how are you? in Russian. The other people in the car, along with me, were amazed at his speaking in a foreign language.

After telling me his background, I told him mine. "Lived in [the D/FW area] forever, born in [...], and go to [...] High school. Not that varied, but it's a nice summary of it all!" I chuckled awkwardly.

After a while, we began to discuss music interest, and he mentioned he was a piano player. I told him about my experience playing the guitarrón and my amateur piano playing.

After twenty minutes at the T&P station, the train finally began to move, heading back to Dallas. 

On our trip back, we spoke about many things, including my explaining The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he told me about Daniel Craig in The Layer Cake, and something that he wasn't going to mention. To butter him up, I told him the story behind Fleeting Glances, written about a stop at a Subway/McDonald's/gasoline station outside of Austin in December, 2012.

When I used non-gender-specific wording, he found it comical, but asked me, "Why aren't you being specific?" with a little chuckle at the end.

After a little maundering, we talked a little more before I arrived at Centreport, where I was being picked up.

As the train arrived, I told him, "Hey look me up on Facebook..." and I gave him a little mnemonic device to remember my last name. " 'Si' as the Spanish word for 'yes' and 'gala' as a dance, or a ball." He told me that he would try (because he would have an easier time finding me than I him), and I walked off the train.

Nothing has happened since, but you never know. He might be in trouble for losing those $157. Accidents happen, but I don't know...

After the train left, and a phone with no minutes on it, I used the phone of a guy named Greg. We talked for about ten minutes, and he told me that his brother was to pick him up but that he was on a date. He said that he'd rather his brother go through with it rather than pick him up.

We ranted about phones, and why people thought it was important to buy the newest iPhone when the one you have before is slightly-less functional.

I was picked up at :20 after ten PM.

I got home and just went to bed. I had never been so exhausted before, and while in bed, I ate the sandwich I had planned to eat on the train. Thanks Shaun for not letting me eat my sandwich.

If I had to choose between talking and eat, talking beats it, but just slightly.

** END OF FW: APTO**