TooMuchInformation

Labor Day weekend and I was standing on the platform of the train station in Ronkonkoma, a box of cinnabons in my hand as I looked up and down the tracks.   Halfway between Brooklyn and Greenport, I was heading to the vacation home of friends Kelly and Kevin.  A group of seven were already there, me and two unknown others taking the train from NYC. 

The day before I compared the schedules of the Long Island Rail Road and the Hampton Jitney buslines.  The bus looked complicated.  It had multiple points of departure in Manhattan and multiple drop points on Long Island.  The train, with one departure in the morning and one in the afternoon, seemed the easier choice: Go to Penn Station, buy ticket, get on train, read magazine, transfer trains in Ronkonkoma, arrive in Greenport.  A simple series of steps for a relaxing weekend.

And so, in Ronkonkoma, I waited for my next train.  And waited.  The station was not large.  Two tracks, one heading into the city, the other out to the North Fork.  A train sat on the westbound track under a sign announcing it’s departure for Manhattan in 20 minutes.  The eastbound track was empty.  I climbed the stairs to the walkway straddling the tracks and went into the staion house.  The schedule hanging on the wall informed me that the train for Greenport had left (without me) and I would have to wait 5 hours for the next one. 

Cursed weekend schedules.

A quick phone call to Luswin that was passed off to Kelly, I had to answer the damning question ‘how?’  “I don’t know,” I said. ”I got off the train and then I didn’t see another one.”  Her other friends, brothers visiting from Indiana, managed to find the train.   

I sat down on a bench and contemplated the train heading back into the city and the taxi dispatcher sitting in his office, stubbing out a cigarette as he gleefully eyed me.  I was his prey, the fool who couldn’t maneuver through a two tracked train station.

I opened the box of cinnabons and ate one.  ‘If I head back home I can get my laundry done, move the shelves, help Marcos organize his comic books, catch up with Turtle, go shoe shopping.’   I picked up another cinnabon (they were minis).  ‘Or,’ I thought, ‘if I pay for a cab the rest of the way I can endure being teased for the rest of the weekend, eat and drink too much, play with the dogs, and sleep in the next day.’

Two weekends prior, I had been in Ohio for my niece’s baptism.  It was a quick trip, into Columbus on Friday, meet my niece, borrow a friend’s car to drive up to the island, catch up with family, drive back to Columbus, baptize the baby, play with my nephews, fly back to New York. 

Going home only once a year, you see the toll of the seasons.  My father has a new cell phone he doesn’t know how to use.  “Can you send text messages?” I asked him. “Huh?” he responded, cocking his head to a degree, his mouth open and eyes squinted behind dark glasses. “Well, I don’t know.”  My mother sat in a recliner, her broken leg elevated.  She’d been in a car accident travelling with a cousin between the wedding and reception of another cousin.  “Are you guys talking about me?” she asked, her pitch hurt.  “No!” my impatient sister called across the room.  She’d been taking care of Mom for almost a month and had had her fill. “We were discussing an episode of the Jeffersons!”  “Well, I think you’re talking about me,” Mom muttered as she fidgeted in her seat and prison. 

A week before that I had decided that I would no longer call home while walking down 8th Avenue.   Traffic noises,  my hesitation to be one of those people who yell into cell phones, and my mom’s aging eardrums made the conversations experiments in repetition.

On Sunday, after the baptism, my sister asked me a question that I didn’t fully hear.  “Huh?” I asked, cocking my head to a degree and my mouth open, eyes squinted.  She burst into laughter.  “You look just like Dad!”   “Are you talking about me?!” I was horrified.  In the matter of a weekend I’d become not one, but both of my parents.

Back in Ronkonkoma, I contemplated the cinnabons.  ‘If I go home,’ I reasoned, ‘I’ll have to eat the whole box anyway.’  I started a third.  And decided to shell out the money for the cab to Riverhead, where hopefully someone would be willing to drive the hour each way to retrieve me.

Sunday morning I woke up with the sun, but lay in bed reading a comic book and playing with the cat I’m watching this summer (Kingdom Come with artwork by Alex Ross; my friend Alan’s grey Persian Akeru while he’s in Vermont performing in The King and I). 

Around 9:30 my phone rang, caller ID clearly showing it was my friends in New Jersey, Luswin and Fritz.  For whatever reason, Fritz had acquired a faux-English accent and claimed to be Mayor Bloomberg.  I played along and we agreed that the city was in a fine state, but the nation could use a late entry independent candidate into the presidential race.  And then he asked me what my plans were for the day. “I’ll probably go to Target and buy a cookie jar,” I said.  “Well,” he said, “what would you think about slapping on some sun screen, grabbing your Yankees cap, and meeting us downstairs in two hours?”

True to his word, two hours later Fritz, Luswin, and Kathy pulled up.  Forgoing the Yankees cap (I don’t own one), we headed to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium.  Not being sports fans, Luswin and I passed the day discussing which players filled out their jerseys the best and who near us in the stands could do without the extra Michelob.  Being sports fans, Fritz and Kathy spent the day discussing the line up and the infield’s batting average. 

Luswin, a transplant from Colombia, single handedly setback immigration reform by talking through the Star Spangled Banner.  “Do I have to stand if I’m not American?” “Who’s singing?” “Look at that guy over there.” “Did I show you my new cell phone?” ”I like how the pin stripes cling to their curves.” “We went to the beach last weekend and there was a family of sea lions down a ways and when I said we should get closer to them Fritz said that we should leave them alone and I convinced him that we should get close enough to take some pictures, but they were further away than they looked and so we got ice cream instead.”

As we settled into out seats, Kathy had the misguided notion that she could make me understand the nuances of the game.  She explained to me how batting averages are calculated and who was who on both teams.  Fritz knew better and brought hot dogs and beer without the expectation that I’d leave the day a greater man.  I was happy to be with friends out in the sun. 

After the 7th inning stretch, with our sunscreen wearing thin and the Jerseyites facing a long journey through four boroughs and a length of the turnpike, we dusted off the peanut shells and headed back to the car.   Where we sat waiting our turn to exit the parking garage.  Luswin fell asleep, Fritz theorized on what the new stadium’s parking will be like, Kathy littered the car, and I tried to figure out exactly where we were in the Bronx. 

Arriving back at 250, I said good-bye and thank you to my friends, and they drove off, leaving Brooklyn and heading for the bridge and tunnel that would take them home.