Until the Bitter End

By the time you get to the end of the line, you have the whole train car to yourself. You’ve done it. You’ve stuck with this train until the bitter end. The end of the line has its secrets, its gifts; it has little rewards that it gives to people that stick with it all the way. 

And now, tales of 7 journeys to the end of the line: 

242^nd Street/Van Cortlandt Park, The Bronx: End of the 1 line

Underneath the elevated track of the number 1 train sits a little diner called Shortstop’s. I haven’t eaten anything all day. Slept through breakfast. Worked through lunch. It’s too late for the lunch crowd and too early for the dinner crowd. The waitress leans on the counter and cranes his neck to see the television. The Mets are up by two runs. I can’t recall who they were playing. The cook has a Greek accent and is missing at least two teeth. My burger cooking, and a woman in a shining blue dress, her head adorned with huge sunglasses and a gigantic blonde weave, steps into the diner. In a barely audible voice, she asks to use the washroom.

“Sorry, miss, the restroom is for customers only,” the waitress says. 

The woman buys a banana so as to qualify as a customer. My burger is half-eaten before the woman emerges from the washroom. She scurries out the diner door.

“I should probably check the bathroom,” the waitress says to the cook, “Make sure she didn’t make a mess in there.”

148^th Street/Harlem, Manhattan: End of the 3 line (source)

I’m on the wrong train, it occurs to me. But I decide to see how this plays out. I figure I can get off the number 3 train on 145^th street and walk home easily. But the train doors don’t open at 145^th street. A confused-looking man says something to me but I don’t hear him. I bury my headphones deeper into my ears. I don’t care if we’re in the same boat – we’re not friends.

It’s cold on 148^th street. It’s midnight and the streets are deserted. I feel a pang of fear and I accelerate my pace. In the park, I find the broken handle of a rake. With this weapon I can defend myself from feral dogs. From crackheads. From hypothermia. From fear.

I walk back to 148^th street in the morning just to revisit what I had felt. In the daylight, I am surprised that I was afraid of anything at all.

207^th Street/Inwood, Manhattan: End of the A line

There’s a lamppost planted in the ground in the midst of the forest. It’s antique, rusted, and the globe is shattered, wires protruding. Once, the city cared about lighting this park. Once municipal workers would have replaced light bulbs and cleared brush off of paths. It’s better now though. It’s the one spot in the city where the wilderness has reclaimed a spot. It’s an enclave of real vegetation, so unlike the manicured lawns of central park.

A group of kids emerge from the foliage. They brush themselves off and avoid my gaze. Their eyes are bloodshot and a cloud of marijuana smoke follows them.

Flushing Main Street, Queens: End of the 7 line

Chinatown, as with so many neighborhoods in Manhattan, has become a tourist destination. And as gentrification changes the demographics of the city, immigrants no longer settle in the areas historically designated for them. New Yorkers in the know recognize that the real Chinatown moved to Flushing, Queens (and, as a side note, the real Little Italy is located on Arthur Avenue, the Bronx). 

In terms of train time, Flushing is an hour away from midtown Manhattan; in cultural terms, it’s a continent away. Restaurants serve dishes with no English names. A vast mall seems only to sell odors and aromas. The streets buzz with people speaking Korean, Tagalog, and at least three distinct dialects of Chinese. 

I could live here.

Maokong, Taipei: End of the Brown Line

I can’t visit Flushing without thinking of you. Do you remember when we took the brown line all the way to the end and rode a gondola even further? It was so long ago that the details of how I felt escape me. But I still remember what we ate. We ate fried flatbread with egg and hot sauce. We ate taro and pineapple ice cream, dusted with peanut powder and adorned with cilantro, wrapped in spring roll skin. We may have eaten stinky tofu, though now I realize that my memory doesn’t keep good track of that either.

I remember that we didn’t drink tea though. Maokong is famous for its tea and for every tea house we passed one of us would say, “Would you like some tea?” and the other one of us would shake their head. I suppose we just wanted to keep walking. I suppose we didn’t want to sit. So we walked up the mountains and into the woods where is was quiet and where spiders spread their webs through the canopy – golden-abdomened orb weavers, their legs held together like the four corners of a mysterious rectangle, two and two, two and two.

Tamshui, Taipei: End of the Red Line

I went to Tamshui alone, though I wanted to go with you. This was before the city of Taipei finished construction on the green line, so you could pick up the red line in our neighborhood and relax. North of the city, it followed the river past rice paddies and temples to the northernmost point on the island. 

If this were the US, the wharfs would be crowded. Here, people seem to prefer the mountains, especially in the heat. I can feel my skin dry out and begin to burn. One brave man fishes off the end of the wharf, just as fishermen have done for centuries, braving the heat and the cold, the sun and the rain, fair weather and storms. 

Me, I buy a lemon jelly and walk back.

Linden, Chicago: End of the Purple Line (source)

Your mother said she could see my face light up when I saw the northern suburbs of Chicago. She said it was because the Midwest was a much kinder sight to me than the towers of New York. The Midwest had nothing to do with it, I’m sorry to say. Eventually, I will grow nostalgic over the recursive landscape of the “flyover” states, I’m sure. But the only kind sight for me at the end of the line was you. 

Sweetheart, let us ride trains together until the bitter end.

Read more of Vernon's enchanting work on Floodmark.