Faulkner and Cocaine
Storytelling, my negligent parents, trains, sugar and the South.
When I was eight years old I realized that I wanted to be a writer. But not just any kind. I wanted to be able to tell the kind of stories that seemingly went nowhere but but kept people interested and paid off in bizarre, unexpected ways.
That summer I took the train from New York City to New Orleans, Louisiana, my mother’s ancestral homeland. My dad stayed home to paint the house so it was just my mom, my little brother, Teddy (five), and little sister, Lizzy (three).
We caught our first train in upstate New York, where we lived, to Penn Station, where we randomly ran into one of my mom’s students from her job at the local college.
He was a cool city kid who warned us about New York. It was full of criminals apparently, which had me worried because we still had to go to Grand Central to catch the next train. He told us when we got out of the cab that we would be swarmed by “bad guys” who would say they wanted to help with our luggage and then turn around and demand all our cash for it. The journey was starting off a little bit scary, but we just had to get out of New York, I told myself, and we’d be on our way.
We grabbed all 18 of our bags and hopped into a cab driven by a nice Asian man, who sat on one of those wooden bead seat cover things. They must have had their moment, because I haven’t seen one since. He wore a pageboy cap and chatted pleasantly with my mom about our plans.
I tried to take in the city passing by out the window, but I was concerned the cab driver was about to pull out a gun and murder us all in cold blood. My guard was up. Then he went into the same warning about the bag thieves and I relaxed. Why would a murderer warn you about anything, I reasoned. The cab driver was alright. But we still had to get on that train. A train that would take us to the land of Spanish moss, flying beads and grandparents we barely knew.
The warnings from the cab driver and my mom’s student proved to be quite helpful. When we finally walked into Grand Central we were swarmed by shady characters, grabbing at our bags, shouting and chasing us. My mom held Teddy and Lizzy close. Since I was the oldest, I was carrying a lot of our stuff and pushed on ahead into the real madness.
The inside was much, much worse. Grand Central Station in 1988 was like another layer of hell. It smelled like pee, there was a fire in one corner and a man beating a woman with a stick in another. The whole place was full of homeless people sleeping on benches and unamused commuters running to and fro.
We stuck together and hovered over our luggage in the middle of all this for a few minutes, too shocked to do much else. I could not stop staring at everything and everyone. It was all so terrifying but electric! My mom meanwhile was freaking out about the train schedule. Never one for logical systems, it looked like hieroglyphics to her. I wasn’t much help. Though I did find it intriguing, I had other things vying for my attention and the train schedule sure was no old man wiping himself with The Post.
I’m not exactly positive that my mom left me alone in what looked like a New Yorky Hieronymus Bosch painting, with our bags and my younger siblings, but I feel like that’s what happened. It was the 80s and back then people cared a whole hell of a lot less about their children. Or something like that. In fairness she really did need to figure out the train schedule situation and went looking for help.
Next thing I knew, a nice man, the station master as it turned out, ushered us into his safe, clean office to wait until our train came. That didn’t stop a toothless lady from trying to steal Lizzy at one point, but it was much better than before. It was there, with the station master of Grand Central Station, that I learned how to read a train schedule. I kept an eye on the time and made a mental note to never return to New York City.
Once we boarded the train to New Orleans it truly felt like the beginning of a great adventure. Two nights and three days in the same seats, sleeping — get this — sitting up! Cold at night and hot during the day, except in the dining car. We were finally on our way to the South.
To keep us entertained my mom brought a bunch of little 25 cent toys from those machines in front of the laundromat to dole out to us for “being good.” I got all kinds of junk we normally passed by in the store; coloring books, a little perfume with a golden bird on it, Hello Kitty notepads, bouncy balls, jelly bracelets, even sticky hands. Getting several worthless pieces of bright plastic to play with per day with was like walking on a cloud. Since my brother and sister were so young, my mom really had to watch them constantly, but not me. I was allowed to run up and down the whole train to my heart’s content, but I always kept checking back in for those little toys.
I also got my very own six pack of Hi-C juice boxes — Ecto Cooler flavor. It was a Ghostbuster’s thing, but I didn’t care about that. I cared about sugar. That was something especially rare in my lunch box. I always had to drink natural crap. My parents had no problem introducing me to filthy foreign movies but they were radically strict when it came to normal things, like neon colored juice. This, however, was vacation, and I was the oldest so I got my own stash of drinks which I kept a secret from Teddy and Lizzy. It was really the least my mom could do considering all of my help schlepping our bags and fending off kidnappers.
As much as the New York City part of the journey was terrifying, the train ride was magical. We were instant friends with the similar young families sitting around us. Everyone was chill, poor and going down south to visit their relatives the only way they could afford, by riding the train. Most of the other white families had sleeper cars and stayed in there for the most part. The black mothers with us in coach wouldn’t let their daughters run wild on the train, just their sons. But I was a hyper tomboy and my mom was happy to get me out of her hair. That meant I got to run up and down the train with cool little black boys from the city all day long. They were fearless and highly imaginative, and got into and out of even more trouble than I did. That train was our moving playground, a perfect place to run wild because it kept going. The motion and the sugar combined into one big thrill ride. It turned out one of my playmates was an Ecto Cooler fan as well.
My supply was supposed to last all three days but by the morning of day two I was almost out. I shared my last juice box with my new friend as we sat outside on some part of the train we weren’t supposed to be, looking out at the ground racing past.
Since the trip was several days, the train stopped some places for a break. People would get off to take a walk or pick up a magazine at the local station. We weren’t supposed to leave but one time I snuck off with that same little boy, looking for Ecto Cooler. We had a few bucks and went looking for a bodega. Really, it was just an excuse to explore a random southern town. This was well before most people had cell phones and there were no “ If found, please call…” tags on us. My mom’s only insurance that I’d keep coming back to her from my endless racing were those little plastic toys.
Once we walked a few blocks away from the station it was clear. There were no bodegas here. There wasn’t much of anything or anyone. I remember looking out in the middle of this hot, desolate street and feeling like it was haunted. We could even possibly be left behind. I started to worry. It was beautiful and decaying. Like many railroad towns, a land that time forgot.
Thirsty, and with at least some sense of self preservation, we turned back. Then the train bell rang and we ran as fast as we ever had to get back on. Just as we boarded, the train took off. No harm done, except our conductor friend was kind of pissed at us. Most importantly our moms never found out.
Everyday we would say goodbye to our pals and watch them reunite on the platform with their families that they loved dearly and never got to see. Back before the world was full of free long distance and Facebook updates people really couldn’t stay in touch as easily. It was super emotional at every stop.
As the train made it’s way further south, I had to part ways with my little boy friends. There was a hilarious set of brothers who got off in Charlotte. I say goodbye to my main partner in crime in Atlanta. When all of my buddies were gone I hung out with my family for the last leg of the ride.
That year, The Traveling Wilburys (80s supergroup consisting of George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne) released their masterpiece album, Volume One, that concluded with the song “End of The Line.” We had a copy of the tape, a Walkman and some headphones for speakers. That song was about train travel and we were in fact going to the end of the line. My mom, always an educator, loved the lesson and we listened to the tape on repeat. Though that particular song was about train travel, the rest of the album touched on various subjects ranging from cross-dressing to hard drugs. We knew every word and sang along as each song blasted out of the those scratchy headphones.
When we finally got to New Orleans we split the time between our bitterly divorced grandparents, but on the sly. At night we stayed with my grandmother but swam in my grandfather’s pool on the other side of the city while she was at work.
We ate donuts for breakfast, red beans and rice for lunch and turtle soup or fried alligator for novelty. It was hot as hell so we swam all day while the city rained and flooded every afternoon. My little sister got an ear infection. All rules were pretty much suspended except being polite. We even had snowcones for dinner.
One morning my mom took only me into the French Quarter where we had café au lait and beignets. In so many ways that city felt like were I was supposed to be from. The past seemed so present there. I loved all the colorful buildings and old world details. Towards the end of the trip we came across a man with a cart pulled by a mule that sold what I recall was exceptionally good taffy, the Roman Candy Man. My mom considered this a very good sign.
One day we went to Laurel, Mississippi to visit my great-grandmother, the sweetest old southern woman, who ironically called everyone “sugar.” There we got to swim in yet another pool. This one had a waterfall that we jumped off of with our distant cousins. She told us fascinating stories about our family and growing up in the South. It was all quite special.
On the way back, the train ride was much more subdued. Sunburned and tired, we all just snuggled together. The Walkman was out of batteries so we were quiet. My mom asked me what my favorite memories of the trip were. I thought about it and listed them off. My friends from the train, my juice boxes, the little toys, the donuts, all the pools, snowcones, I went on and on.
However, my favorite memories of the trip by far were my great-grandmother’s stories. At the time I remember regretting not writing them down. They kind of went all over the place and seemingly had no point, but I never wanted her to stop telling them. The two that I remember are one story about William Faulkner and another about cocaine.
To our delight our southern relatives offered us soda constantly. That day in Laurel my great-grandmother put everything into historical context by explaining how when she was our age Coke used to have real cocaine in it. Apparently it cured a headache in no time and was easy to blow your allowance on. Back then they called sodas “dopes” she told us.
“It’s illegal now” she said, “which is a shame but probably for the best.” There was more to the story that I don’t remember but I do remember really enjoying it despite the lack of plot or likeable characters. She ended by remarking in her sweet old southern lady drawl, “But it made you feel so goooood!” Then my mom changed the subject.
The Faulkner story took place in Oxford, Mississippi during prohibition when my great-grandparents were one of the young married couples at the college and William Faulkner worked at the post office. My great-grandfather had a poker game that Faulkner sat in on. Apparently much bootleg whiskey was involved.
One rainy night on their way home, my great-grandparents saw Faulkner stopped next to his car on the side of the road. They pulled over. My great-grandmother rolled down the window and asked him, “Bill, would you like a ride?” He said, “No, I’ll just wait here.” Pretty anticlimactic but true, that mattered to me.
When we got home from New Orleans we told my dad the Faulkner story, to which he replied, “I think the point is that she got to call him Bill.” My mom thinks it’s supposed to make you consider the nature of genius since it shows a man more content to sit and stare into space instead of getting someplace he had to be.
I ended up spending my 20s in New York City. This meant a lot of trains, as well as many wild nights inhaling Faulkner, reading up on cocaine. All kinds of adventures that make for amusing anecdotes.
On my way to get places I would often pass by the station master’s office at Grand Central and think back to that day, standing in the chaos and how quickly things can change.
Where there once was pee and fires, there was now a fancy seafood shop, which came in handy when I left the city to visit my mom who lived a quick commute away. I could pick up a few dozen oysters for her to make Oysters Rockefeller, and then simply get back on the train.
