HURRYING DOWN 17TH STREET, I realize I have barely enough time to get to Union Station for my 6:35 train back to Baltimore. I speed up to a jog. As a seasoned commuter, I’ve learned how to catch the last train out of the city with as little as 15 minutes to go from the time I pass the doorman at the Mayflower Hotel. I plunge down the perpetually broken escalator at the Farragut North Metro station and discover the platform below is mobbed. “Major delays in both directions,” blares an electronic sign in bright red letters. Over the intercom, a male voice delivers the same news and thanks people for their patience.
Sighing–it’s the third time in two weeks my train has been delayed at rush hour–I wade through the crowd to the far end of the platform. I park myself against a pillar and pull out a copy of Time. A young woman dressed in schoolgirl clothes and Birkenstocks begins to belt out Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” She shuffles down the platform toting a picnic basket and swings it into me with a dirty look when she realizes I’m not going to give her any money. I turn back to my magazine.
Soon a train pulls up, packed. Three people get off and at least 100 try to shove their way on. I manage to snag standing room between a hysterical, runny-nosed toddler whose mother is hissing at him and a large man sweating profusely who asks me if I’m okay. The driver yells to stand back and closes the doors. The train doesn’t move.
A man in a suit and tie in front of me has gotten his laptop bag caught in the doors. The doors open for a split second, and as the man adjusts his bag he drops it on the platform. The doors close and the train pulls away. No one flinches, but he turns red in the face and begins to curse over the crowd at a Metro policeman at the opposite end of the car. He is put off at the next stop.
We’re well on our way to Union Station with eight minutes to spare when the subway jerks to a halt in mid-tunnel. The car is silent for a few moments before the conductor announces that the train in front of us has broken down. Its doors won’t close because the cars are too full, so everyone has to debark. A man in the back of my car begins playing a harmonica.
Against all odds, I make it to Union Station with one minute to go. I dip and weave through teenagers playing hacky sack, old ladies creeping down the platform, and commuters with rolling suitcases in tow. Throngs are waiting at Gate A. Just as I reach the train, a voice crackles over the intercom. I am braced for the worst.
It seems our train needs a new engine, which will take 35 minutes to install. I sit down to catch my breath. Just as I’m starting to relax, a man stumbles by and spills coffee in my lap. It’s not scalding, just pleasantly warm in the aggressive air conditioning, until within seconds it turns cold and forms a brown oval stain on my tan pants. I am too annoyed to acknowledge his apology with grace, but brighten when our train is ready.
Once on board, I find a window seat and settle in for my 50-minute ride, upgrading from Time to “The DaVinci Code.” We’re in southern Maryland, maybe 30 miles from Baltimore, before the train slows and stops. A conductor announces, “We are dead in the water,” adding that he hopes we brought something to do. An Amtrak train has broken down in front of us, and there’s no way around it. All rail travel between Washington and Philadelphia is delayed for at least an hour.
The “Little Engine that Could” jokes begin. “I think I can, I think I can,” the woman behind me guffaws at her own punchline. The man in front, who has been drinking from a bottle in a paper bag, turns to the woman next to him, who is reading, and loudly lectures her about how he would solve Amtrak’s problems.
I get up and move. My new seatmate’s name is Tara. I learn this when she tells me, unprovoked, as soon as I sit down, that she was named after the plantation in “Gone With the Wind.” I decide to respond with a toothless smile and say nothing. I once more seek refuge in my book. Two hours later, at 9:30, we pull into Penn Station, Baltimore. Next month I am getting a parking pass.
–Rachel DiCarlo
