Railroad Antigone

After Sophocles’ Antigone

A fly was trapped in Mr. Chang’s casket when it was closed. It had been drawn to the funeral service by the smell of the wreaths to either side of Mr. Chang, had made its way over to the dead body that didn’t smell death but like motor oil, and was trapped inside for all eternity. 

Nobody noticed. They were all paying attention to Mr. Ji, Mr. Chang’s childhood friend from Hong Kong, speak on his kindness, his hardworking nature, all his best qualities. He was like a brother, Mr. Ji said as he wiped his nose. I cannot believe he was taken so quickly from us. Most were overwhelmed by Mr. Ji’s speech and began to cry with him—their forty-year relationship had been very touching, and hearing Mr. Ji struggle through complicated English pronunciations for the sake of Mr. Chang’s memory reminded many of the audience members of their own parents.

A great many were also watching Peter, Mr. Chang’s eldest son, because in the eyes of the typical observer his behavior was very odd indeed. He shook his leg with a mad fervor, held his head in his hands not like he was crying but like he was nothing more than tired, and he checked his watch more often than anybody else. When his father’s casket was finally closed (with the fly), Peter Chang stood with a loud sigh, turned to the church pews and thanked those in attendance for coming, and disappeared, exiting through a small n door in the side of the chapel. Not a single tear rose to his bored expression, and his bow of thanks was not very deep. (Because he was tired from crying himself to sleep every night, explained his aunt to gossiping relatives. He and his father had been close, she said, and surely he had been very distraught but was now in a state of shock.) So his behavior was odd.

The smell of Peter Chang’s cigarette could be smelled by the congregation outside the chapel, but it was assumed that it was the smell of a cremation, so it was ignored. Peter watched the smoke curl gently into the sky, mixing with the dull clouds that had settled low in the sky.

“Peter.”

Peter turned around.

“Are you alright, Peter?”

“John. Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for coming.”

“Your dad was always the best to me.”

“How do you mean?”

“You know, he was like my father.”

“Ah, forget about it. He would have been happy you showed up.”

Peter examined his cigarette.

“I feel so sorry for him. 30 years on the job, and he’s rewarded by the universe with…this. Geez.”

“Ah, shit.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t some freak accident.”

“What?”

“We found a note in the jacket he was wearing.”

“You mean he…”

“Rigged some rails or something so the train headed his way. We don’t really know.”

“Geez…I…I didn’t know that.”

“We haven’t told anyone.”

“Not even his siblings?”

“No one. It would ruin things. Make things more awkward.”

They stared at the sky together.

“Can I ask what the note said?”

“Some of it was torn up. Had his blood on it and all.”

“And the rest?”

“I don’t really know. I keep thinking about it, but I feel like it’s not true. Like he wrote it because he was frustrated, but he didn’t actually plan for any of it to happen. Like it’s all a strange coincidence. It was his manifesto, basically. I can’t think of another word for it. He was just done with everything. He said he had such a bad life in America, he should have stayed in Hong Kong even though he would have been prosecuted for what he did there. Anything was better than San Francisco, he said. It was the worst mistake he ever made. We didn’t know. He always said how much he liked it here.”

“The land of the free.”

“Yeah. Well, apparently not. He said he felt trapped.”

“By what?”

“We don’t really know. It wasn’t very clear. We think he asked his boss for a higher position and was told that he wouldn’t get it because he was indistinguishable…”

“From what?”

“Other workers, I guess.”

“Meaning what?”

“I don’t really know. He took it personally. A race thing.”

“It sounds like a race thing.”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it was just that he never got better, I mean, no better or less. Just the same.”

“It’s railroad. There is no better or worse.”

“Yeah. Well, then maybe it was a racial thing.”

John and Peter looked at each other.

“Hey, I have to go to handle his reception and all, okay? Thanks for coming. I’m sure he appreciates it.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

Peter arrived at the train station drunk. Liquor was still prohibited, of course, but in Chinatown you could find some of the good stuff that they shipped across the Pacific. He didn’t need to hide the sharp smell on his clothes, either, because nobody really cared enough to snitch out the man who had drunk himself to inebriation from sadness or some other reason, and who left without greeting his father’s old friends who had flown in from Hong Kong. The patrons of the rail were regular folk, and they wouldn’t rat out another struggling compadre.

“A ticket to Sacramento.”

“The earliest train leaves at three. Gets there around four-thirty.”

“That’s alright.”

Peter would have liked to have been able to go home and sleep for a couple of hours before heading to work, but the train schedule disallowed it. He would have to sleep his drunkenness off on the train and go straight to work. He got his ticket and moved to the platform. The station was a funny place, a crossroads of sorts. You could see people from all walks of life here—raggedy old beggars, for example, the edges of their blankets darkened with that sludgy rain that clung to boots. There were the rich, too, who sauntered in with their fur coats and intoxicated attitudes and went to the front of the platforms to sit at the front of the trains, in their double-decker cars. And then there were those like Peter. The most frequent customers of the rail, the sleepwalking ones. Dressed in their suits for their morning work, weary but toiling for that promised future that glittered in front of their noses like a desert mirage. They shuffled in and out of the station like flies to a corpse.

A heartbeat. The sound of a lonely heartbeat pierced the air. Peter sat suddenly upwards and raced towards the track. It was his father’s heartbeat; he could hear it as clear as the yells of the conductors and the calls of the nighttime birds. It seemed to emanate from the center of the tracks, and indeed, it grew and grew in intensity as he reached the center of the web of rail, directly between the two platforms. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by steel and steam and the smell of oil, and around him the station’s tracks crossed and weaved like the fibers of a great tapestry. It was that tapestry that connected America from coast to coast, a fine mission to which his father had given his life. But where was his father know? He heard his father’s labored breaths in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure…he placed his hand on the rail. There, pressed against Peter’s cold palms, he could feel the warm touch of his father. He had built this rail, Peter was sure of it—but now he was trapped within. How to free him, how to free him from this steel prison? Peter began to panic. His heart raced.

“Father!”

He pressed his ear against the rail.

“Father! I feel you!”

The heartbeats grew louder, and his father’s breathing grew closer. The ground quaked beneath him, quivered and shook with a monstrous roar. There was a hiss off in the distance, of released steam, and a shrieking whistle approached his prostrate form.

“Oy! Get off the rail!”

“Please! Please! Sir, you have so much to live for!”

“Your career, mate! You look to me a hard worker! We’ll talk to your boss together!”

Peter heard the frantic voices of the crowd, calling him to stand. But he felt no desire to comply. It seemed to Peter that he had reached a kind of peace for the first time in his life, a complete calm as sure and infinite as the stoic steel bars of the rail.

“Father!”