I Didn’t Catch Your Name
A story told to me by my husband
I was sitting on a platform bench at the Edison, New Jersey train station waiting for the train to New Brunswick, enjoying a few minutes of rest on a warm, sunny spring day. With a loud whoosh a long-distance Amtrak train barreled through the station on its way to somewhere more interesting, I am sure, than Edison, New Jersey.
It was then I noticed a young man standing near the edge of the platform a few yards away. He was about 5'7", maybe 20-years-old, although his face had an innocence that belonged to someone much younger. He had a look of astonishment and confusion as he watched the end of the Amtrak train disappear in the distance. He froze in place for a few seconds then started pacing and muttering, “I screwed up! I screwed up!”
I could almost taste the young man’s distress and fear. Slowly I rose and approached him. “Is something wrong?” I asked gently. A childlike face looked up at me.
“I was supposed to get the next train. That was the next train. I missed it. I screwed up. I screwed up,” he said in a rush.
From his speech and his naiveté, I knew he was someone with special needs, perhaps mentally challenged.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“My, my group home. My group home in, in New Brunswick,” he stammered. “I was supposed to get the next train. Next train. I missed it. I screwed up. My counselor said the next train when she brought me here. Next train. I, I screwed up.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “She meant the next commuter train. The train that went by is going far away, and it doesn’t stop here. The next train that stops on the platform goes to New Brunswick.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, “Really sure? She said next train. The next train went by. Really fast. Too fast.”
I chuckled, “You can’t get on a train that doesn’t stop, can you?”
The boy thought for a few seconds. “You’re right!” he declared with relief, “Where, where are you going?”
“I am going to New Brunswick, too,” I replied.
The boy’s grin dominated his face as he reached for my hand and said, “Then we can go together.”
As the young man and I stood hand-in-hand on the platform of the Edison train station waiting for the New Brunswick commuter, he told me his name was Jeffrey. When the train arrived, we climbed aboard and sat in facing seats on the short ride to New Brunswick. Along the way, Jeffrey and I talked.
“I, I, I’m not like other kids. Don’t know why. Just different, mom says. I lived with her until the group home. She, she was scared and didn’t let me go, go anywhere. She was always worried. Doctor said I needed to be more, ah, more, more independent. That I could do it if, if she would let me try. So, she let me move to the group home,” Jeffrey told me.
“How long have you been living there?” I asked.
“Maybe two months? Not sure. I’m not too good with time,” he said shrugging his shoulders, “I like it. I get to work. I was coming from work when I met, met you.”
“Oh, where do you work?”
“Grocery store in Edison. The people are nice. Everyone in the home works. But, I am the only one at the grocery store,” he replied with great pride. I noticed that his tendency to stammer and repeat was lessening. Maybe he was comfortable with me.
“Do you take the train to work?”
“Miss Annie takes us to the station in the morning to go to work. No one comes to Edison with me. I go alone, just me. The others go other places. I don’t know where. One guy works in a bakery. I don’t know where it is. Some others work in a place that makes envelopes. I like where I work. I think it’s the best!”
“So how do you get to the train station after work?”
“Miss Ernestine picks me up. Today was the first time I, I took the train back by myself. I thought I screwed up, but I didn’t!” Jeffrey said with relief, “Thanks for helping me.”
The train pulled into the New Brunswick station, and Jeffrey and I said our good-byes on the platform as he pointed to a woman at the far end by the stairs and exclaimed, “That’s Miss Annie! I gotta go. She’s waiting for me. Thank you!”
I watched him run to Miss Annie.
Two weeks later, I was eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in New Brunswick when Jeffrey, three female counselors, and nine other people like Jeffrey walked in the door. My train companion immediately noticed me and started waving frantically, “That’s him! That’s him! That’s my friend!”
Everyone paused and looked in my direction as Jeffrey weaved between tables to get to me. “See, see,” he yelled to his housemates, “This is my friend!”
Then, very surreptitiously, Jeffrey leaned over me and whispered, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Ben,” I replied in a quiet voice.
“Hey, everyone!” Jeffrey yelled across the room, “This is my friend Ben!”
The counselors called Jeffrey back to the group so their breakfast orders could be placed. As I was cleaning off my table, preparing to leave, Miss Annie walked over to me and said, “Thank you for helping Jeffrey. He told us what you did.”
“My pleasure,” I replied, “I enjoyed our conversation.”
She smiled, “That is what he liked the best about you — your conversation with him. He said you didn’t talk down to him like most people do. You talked to him man-to-man.”
I felt tears forming in my eyes, “Well, that’s what it was — two men having a conversation on a train.”
I passed Jeffrey’s table as I walked to the door. He looked up from his Egg McMuffin and said proudly, “Good-bye, old buddy!”
I was inspired to write this after reading a piece by Pierre O’Rourke:
