Friday, August 27, 2004, 4:51pm
Friday, August 27, 2004, 4:51pm
I’ve boarded the 4:58pm Worcester Express, confirmed by a woman I remember from her days running the 6:05pm train who would heave her lungs like bloody murder at would-be passengers at Back Bay Station — yelling “Worcester Express!’ Perhaps this afternoon we’ll hear if she still yells. In theory, she is trying to prevent local riders from boarding our express train. If the usual patterns hold, somebody will ignore her only to discover too late how the train will not stop in Newton or Wellesley.
These double-deckers offer single seats in the common areas at each end. This is where I sit this afternoon. An overhead air vent howls. My consumer grade noise-canceling headphones can do little about it. They filter the low rumbling and growling roar of the train, but the higher pitched content of turbulent air switches phase much too quickly for the speed of the headphone electronics, and without added sound-absorbing material found in the professional versions, my ears are already ringing tonight. Perhaps I should have settled for a three-seater somewhere quieter.
The Hancock Tower drifts beyond view to my right as we disappear into the Copley Square/Prudential Center ‘Back Bay’ tunnel. Our conductor does not heave her lungs this time, yet I can hear her voice echoing loudly throughout the artificial cavern of Back Bay Station. Already full with early weekend escapees boarding at South Station the train is now overfilling with extra commuters seeking an early exodus from the city. Several people stand in the common area leaning against the walls. Others anchor themselves to a smattering of vertical handrails.
Nobody speaks.
The sun flashes though nearby window as I contemplate how I’ve tried all summer to avoid the north side of these evening trains. Here the late afternoon sunlight can stream into my face. Maybe I wouldn’t care so much except for a laptop computer screen that’s already hard enough to see without my eyes blinded or the screen itself bleached. With summer fading the blinding sunlight is lost in the shadows of taller buildings. Farther west the trees will do the same until they shed their leaves before falling into a winter’s nap, and by then it won’t matter at all; the sun will be gone altogether to create summertime for those living far to the south; gone from the late afternoons of the north until the first Sunday in April when the clocks are again changed for Daylight Savings Time a full month before the new leaves arrive.
After Newton we diverge from the Mass Pike to make our long lazy sweep into Wellesley. Sunlight flashes through still-green leaves beyond Route 128. For the moment we travel due south. Soon we will turn westward again and head more directly home.
