The train was all but desolate until it came to a screaming stop at Morristown, the central hub for minorities of all walks of life who happen to live in Morris County, N.J.
Along with the onrush of blurred, white faces in business suits and power ties came a young, brown-skinned man who couldn’t have been more than 16. His spiky, black hair was large compared to the rest of his gaunt body, and his swarthy skin seemed to look uncomfortable in the all-too-bright, green-and-white–striped Old Navy shirt that hung off his bony shoulders.
“Tickets. Have your tickets ready.”
Down the aisle strolled a white, mustached conductor. He was tall, a bit paunchy and had distressingly deep-set rings beneath his eyes like ripples in a pond. He was an old veteran to this circuit, and he certainly wasn’t the kind of conductor who haggled over ticket prices. What he said was law. He walked with his ticket puncher at his side like a sixgun in a holster.
The kid took out a punched, green ticket receipt and offered it to the conductor, who leered down at it with impatience. He wasn’t pleased.
The backs of his ears turned red. “You already used this,” he barked. More than one person jumped at the crackle of his mighty voice.
The kid shook his head vigorously, looking startled, bewildered. He wasn’t expecting this kind of trouble. He remained quiet.
“Look, kid, I don’t feel like playing games here. You got this ticket before and used it already—there are hole punches in it already.” He leaned forward with the ticket and ran his finger down the front of it, allowing it to crinkle and squirm beneath his sternly straight index finger. “See,” he growled.
There was nothing the kid could say in his defense as the conductor hovered over him and stared him down as if this were a showdown in the old West.
The kid remained stiff against his seat. The rumbling, whizzing backdrop of Chatham blurring outside the window The conductor, seeing this terrified figure, stood back up straight, his ears losing their stark red hue. The kid was certainly not a shyster; his quivering lower lip proved that. This was a kid with little to no money just trying to get somewhere, possibly even school, as his open backpack brimming with books would suggest.
The conductor snarled at him to get off at the next stop. Off he went, his hard and heavy boots resonating down the aisle. When the train stopped at Summit, the kid ran off without even checking to see if he’d left anything behind.
Rich Knight is a journalism and media studies major at Rutgers-Newark. Posted January 2006.
