While walking my tiny laps from one end of the platform to the other, my eyes met those of a well-dressed, elderly black man wearing fedora and trench coat. He gave me a genteel nod, which I returned.

The CTA Christmas Train passed, going in the opposite direction.

Explanation:

Every Saturday and Sunday During the Christmas season, (I don’t really know when that begins and ends, these days,) the Chicago Transit Authority dresses up a select number of El trains in holiday garb. Lights are hung inside and out, a couple of Santa-hatted CTA staff in each car sing along with the Christmas carols that are piped through the sound system, windows are tinted UFO green, edelweiss and fir and sequins deck the “hall”, as it were. There’s even a live Santa actor riding in a wooden sleigh placed between two of the cars.

Poor dude. I don’t know, but I imagine he even rides in that sleigh when the train goes underground. Merry Xmas, darkness. Merry Xmas, fumes and rats.

Despite that nightmare, when the train is aboveground, the Santa waves happily to waiting passengers such as the black man in the fedora and me. The look on Santa’s faced is amused; his ridiculous, waving, red plush mittens and wry grin say, “Hell, it’s a living.”

I’ve had the privilege of catching the Christmas train twice in the two years I’ve lived in Chicago, which is more than anyone else I know. Beautifully, absurdly surreal. I know my description sounds cynical, but even if you’re grumpy and hate Christmas (which I’m not and don’t), it’s hard not to laugh when you’re on that train.

The carols are blaring and tinny, the bells are incessant, and they choose the most god-awful ugly CTA workers to play the candy cane dispensing elves, I swear to Christ. It’s a trippy Christmas funhouse. It makes you understand what it might be like to live in the holiday soundtracks that rape shopping malls and supermarkets from November through January, year after year.

A ride on the Christmas Train is one of the only times you’ll see your fellow El passengers united in universal What the Fuck. Also, you get candy.

By the time the Christmas train passed on Saturday, I had sought refuge in the little hut on the platform that provides inadequate, buzzing electric heat “From November 1 Until March 31,” as the sign reads. I stood there with a tall, white businessman with glasses and briefcase, a young beheadphoned Latina, and Mr. Fedora.

Mr. Fedora started talking to me. He expressed how glad he was that Chicago had things like the Christmas Train, “especially in these times, to remind us of the 'human condition.'”

“Especially in these times,” he said. I assumed he meant times of war. He told me he had been in Vietnam, and in other situations where “the human condition” was often forgotten for reasons of desperation or necessity.

I noticed that the lower half of his faced was almost entirely encased in an armor of marbled scar tissue, worming together into a shiny mass of brown, purple, and pink. On the left side of his jaw, right under his ear, the hardened flesh, which had probably been graphed, was raised a half-inch above his natural skin. It was a marked, ridged split-level. I wondered, but didn’t ask, if he had lost his face in Vietnam. I wondered what the scar tissue felt like.

His eyes were like those of a bulldog, but smarter: soft and deep-set with pronounced, down-turned wrinkles at the outer edges. He had a graying, well-trimmed mustache and goatee. Under his trench coat, he wore the dusky suit and pink silk tie of an Easter preacher.

We kept talking as we waited for the train, and continued our conversation until I disembarked at my stop. He briefly mentioned the transition from being called “Kid” all his life, having hung out with friends older than him as a young man, to being called “Pops,” which he can’t get used to. We found out that he volunteers at the homeless shelter a block or two east of where I intern at the Arts Therapy institute. He mentioned he was a bit of a writer and a musician, and I told him I was an actor. “Oh, so that’s the vibe I got from you,” he said.

No, he wasn’t some sketchy old man. We maintained our physical distance, talking like old friends. Any personal information that I offered, I volunteered without prompting. Just so happens we were both in a talky mood, and stumbled upon each other as compatible partners. He had an itch to eloquently impart his perspective, and I was receptive, because his experiences were much different from mine.

By the time we were boarding our train, we were discussing Chekhov and Shakespeare, libraries and Mozart, in the most elemental of ways. He told me I reminded him of Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which is a new one for me. He told me he takes pride in his appearance, trimming his beard and steaming his suits before splashing on cologne and heading out the door. His colleagues tease him about that. He told me whistfully about the beautiful parks and greenery that used to pervade Chicago’s south side, which is now notoriously populated by gangs and crackheads.

On the train, he sang me a verse of a song he’d written, years ago:

Look at me, I’m in love
Look at me, I’m in love
The preacher-man told me she’s my girl
Look at me, I’m in love

Simple lyrics, injected with gentle glissandos and incidentals reminiscent of Nat King Cole.

I asked him his name, and told him mine.

“Clint,” he said, and we shook hands.

Well, okay. I had already inexplicably named him “Grayson” in my head, but “Clint” worked, too. I was aware that our fellow passengers were glancing at us with innocent curiousity.

Right before I got to my stop, he sang me a bit of a song he loves. It sounded a lot like a folksong I hate, “I Gave My Love a Cherry.” His melody, by Johnny Mathis, was much nicer.

You ask me how much I need you, must I explain?
I need you, oh my darling, like roses need rain
You ask how long I'll love you, I'll tell you true
Until the Twelfth of Never, I'll still be loving you

I arrived at my stop, and we planned to meet again at the Dempster station on the purple line, same time next week.

In describing his feelings about the Christmas train, I’m pretty sure Clint didn’t actually mean that it reminded us of “the human condition,” all wrapped up with its broad and pompous insinuations, penned by Darwin and those who followed him. Clint probably meant something simpler than that, and I’m kind of an asshole for nit picking. Still, in its way, according to my convoluted and forgiving logic, the reference fit.

The whole exchange was so lovely. Without being at all romantic, it was the essence of romance. Two people seeing colors in the dark which they don’t think anyone else can see. That might not be a part of “the human condition,” but maybe it should be.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

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BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

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