Hear That Lonesome Whistle

When I was in college, my friend Lesley lived in some random falling-down bungalow, the kind of house so crappy that if actual poor people lived in it, there'd be a stink, so they rent it out to college kids instead. It had the added attraction of being right across the street from some train tracks, which were actively used at the time. (The line has since been torn out, and there's talk of a bike trail.) I asked her how she endured the noise, and she told me the same thing everyone tells you when they live near train tracks -- that the first night you think you're going to die or something, but that you quickly get used to it.

I'm in a small northeast Ohio town right now, one that seems to have been stuck on the map like a push-pin for the sole purpose of holding down freight tracks. Trains roll through on a regular basis all night long, a block or so away, horns wailing, bells clanging, wheels squealing on the metal tracks. You can sometimes hear the shouted voices of workers over the din. I soak it in, here in the middle of the night, although it's not why I'm awake. It doesn't bother me, but it doesn't let my mind rest, either.

I've always been a night owl. I've had a fascination my whole life with the nighttime world -- not ghosts-and-goblins bullshit, but the real work that goes on when everyone else is asleep. I used to sneak out of my house at night and walk around the streets of my hometown, or ride my beat-up three-speed bike from one end of town to the other. Once, when I had a crush on a girl I met at someone's graduation party, I rode out to the highway exit, then onto the divided state route, five or ten miles down to Uhrichsville, then cruised the streets there, forlornly wondering if this mystery girl would just happen to be looking out a random window when my stupid ass pedaled by. I may have seen one car the entire time.

I was always in and out of the few convenience stores and diners we had that were open all night. It's a wonder no one ever called the cops on me. (Actually, one night when I persuaded my friend Matt to ride bikes with me in the middle of the night, we did get "pulled over" in the Bag-n-Save parking lot; we ended up with three squad cars and a thorough third degree because someone a mile away had broken someone else's window with a rock. One cop tailed us all the way back to Matt's, driving his squad car at our speed, a block behind us, with his headlights off.)

Rock throwing wasn't my thing, though. Other than a few juvenile ad-sign-letter-alterings and the occasional changing of an old school metal gasoline price sign, I crept around and observed. I liked seeing the newspaper trucks tossing bundles onto sidewalks, and see the Wonder Bread truck pull up and make its deliveries. I liked riding down the main street in town, on a long flat straightaway, and not seeing a single pair of headlights. It was like the city was on autopilot, ticking and whirring like a cooling engine in the driveway, and that its mechanical workings in the dark were a secret for me and a select few others.

When I stayed home, I'd get up and put my headphones on, and creep through the AM dial on my little Emerson portable radio, listening to these all-night DJ's talking to people on the phone, arguing about politics or exhorting the nonbelievers. I could get one or two New York stations, including WCBS, and I remember being astonished by that fact. In the heady, pre-internet days of modems and BBS's, I'd rack up horrific long distance bills logging on to bulletin boards around the country, posting messages, seeing if anyone anywhere was awake like me, marveling at how these systems whirred and clicked and ran even when no one was paying attention but me.

It's not as fun now, of course. Mainly because I'm old now and I know why everyone else is asleep at this time of night. But it's also because staying up is almost...well... kinda passe. You can go to Wal-Mart or McDonald's at four in the morning. At least a few of your Facebook friends are always gonna be awake, or you'll know someone in Australia or Germany that you can chat with. Cable stations may go to real estate scam infomercials, but they don't play the National Anthem at a sensible hour and then sign off and leave you to your own devices.

I had a unique time and place to explore insomnia. I got to grow up in a town where they rolled up the proverbial sidewalks at nine, but it was a place where a kid stupid enough to ride his bike around alone at 3am (with Walkman blaring, likely as not) wasn't as likely to be beaten and robbed. I kinda had the run of the place, me and the delivery guys and and AM radio jocks, and the bleary-eyed lady in the blue smock at Lawson's flipping through Penthouse Forum and drinking stale coffee. Whatever arcane mysteries of the small hours there were, we had to ourselves.

The junkman thing requires me to get up early - specifically, in about three hours. A lot of times, just HAVING a set wake-up call is enough to keep me from getting to sleep. I'll worry myself right into a self-fulfilling prophecy of oversleep and/or an ass-dragging day. But no one seems willing to start a yard sale or a flea market at noon. And while my daughter got my good sleepin'-in genes and will snooze till lunchtime if you let her, my son is invariably up by 7:30, ready for anything, be it cereal and cartoons or a long morning of sales.

So when I'm out later this morning, full of coffee and home fries and ill humor, trying to get in the zone and pick some good stuff, being dragged around by an eight-year-old and wondering if a nap can be squeezed in after lunch, I'll be pissed off that I sat here woolgathering and listening to train whistles. But I gotta confess, right now, I kinda enjoy it. It's gotta just be the small-town setting, but I'm feeling some of that old vibe, like I'm in on the inner workings while everyone else is oblivious, in tune with the graveyard shift delivering the goods and adjusting the machinery for the sleeping civilians. I got used to the train whistle - you have to, eventually - but at this particular moment it feels good to howl with it into the gloom.