Across the Tracks

Some stories are best told by others, and this is one of them. There was a time when the quality of housing wasn't nearly as important as the mere fact of housing, of having a place that wasn't run by somone's parents, where you could do whatever you wanted until you couldn't keep your eyes open one second longer. The house across the tracks was one of those places, a demo pre-fab hunting cabin that just happened to have running water and electricity and a refrigerator and a stove and even a kerosene heater. There were two bedrooms and a living room and even something that functioned as a dining room. What more could we ask?

We were college dropouts, my friend and I, ready to take over the world with our rock-and-roll. There were women to woo and places to go, and mattresses on the floor were plenty good enough for us. Plus the price was right, at somewhere around forty bucks per month. Even two starving musicians could manage to come up with that much. There was no phone, though, so anytime we wanted to make a call we had to head up the road, across the tracks, to the phone booth outside the department store. I had a fluffy orange cat at the time, Grounder. who liked to drape himself across my neck. He was just the right thing to wear on those cold New York mornings, all warm and soft, and the two of us would frequently startle folks on our way to the phone.

Since we were among the few in our age bracket with our own place, we had frequent visitors, guests who would just show up and who would stay until they were ejected. It wasn't uncommon to find strangers on the floor the next morning. But it was more common for friends to stop by, perhaps just to have a place to stay for a while that wasn't home. One day, one of those guests was Janice Chelton.

I don't remember why she came or how long she stayed. I just remember that she, for some reason, was patching a pair of my jeans. Patched jeans were honored clothing items in those days, and the less the patches had to do with the original fabric, the better. Janice was sitting in a chair, sewing the patch on my jeans, an absolute picture of domestic bliss. She went about her business with a slight smile on her face, and if she'd been in a rocking chair, she'd have been slowly rocking back and forth. As I think about it, she even looked quite a bit like Jane Wyman.

I, on the other hand, was practicing my electric bass in my usual frenetic fashion, playing some run faster and faster until my fingers refused to cooperate. "Wouldn't it be better if you started playing it slowly first and gradually got faster?" she asked. I was taken aback. Advice? Musical advice from a member of the audience? I don't really remember what I said to her, but I can guess that I dismissed her advice and went back to my own peculiar methods.

Janice, if you're out there somewhere, you were right. That's exactly how you learn to do things. You start out slowly, until you get the hang of it, until you're completely comfortable. That might even be how you approach life, for all I know. Back there, in that house across the tracks, you handed me the keys to wisdom and I gave them right back to you. Sorry about that.

Oh, and if you're still reading this, Janice, how's your brother Herbie?