Trouble by Patrick Somerville

Author:Patrick Somerville [Somerville, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-49840-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Train

It was around midnight when they left the party and went to the granary. Seth didn’t know if that’s what it was, if someone who knew would call it a granary. It was built around train tracks, built so a train could pull in underneath it and grain could be dumped into a car. A shell, hollow on the bottom. That’s where they went in; they just followed the tracks.

It was a frightening place, but Seth could see that his friends weren’t frightened. It was the type of place where a horror movie would end, and somebody would be killed; it was a skeleton of a warehouse, with dark metal ladders and pipes wrapping themselves around the building, twisting and rising around dark graffiti on the sides of abandoned boxcars. Adam and L tried to talk about the stars in the abstract. Patrick never said anything.

They climbed a ladder, maybe forty feet, into the underbelly of the building. There was a platform there at the top, and then another ladder. They climbed that, too. At the top there was another platform, with a pipe running just below it. The platform and the pipe were a perfect place to sit. They could all rest their feet on the pipe.

They talked about a movie they had watched.

“I thought it was funny,” said Adam.

“I didn’t really get it,” said Seth. He didn’t.

“There’s not much to get,” said Adam.

They all nodded.

“You know what’s funny?” asked L. “I mean if we’re talking about funny.”

“What?”

“It’s funny that we’re in Minnesota.”

It was Halloween, and the air had begun to cool at night. They could all feel winter coming, but it hadn’t taken hold yet, and they sat in the cold air, happy they could still sit outside at night without too many clothes.

“Minnesota,” said L.

“It’s a long way down,” said Adam.

He dangled his feet back and forth and looked down to the tracks. One of his sandals slid off his foot.

“Damn,” he said, and they all watched it drop.

“I’ll get it,” said Seth.

“No, man, that’s okay.”

“No, I wanna climb the ladder again,” he said. He stood.

“You can rotate around on the ladder,” said Patrick adamantly. “Go around to the other side halfway down.”

“I’ll do that,” said Seth. He began climbing down. “See you guys later,” he said.

They didn’t say anything. As he climbed down, he could hear dry leaves skittering across the concrete floor. The air was clear. He could hear just about everything. It was incredible.

He jumped off with two rungs to go, and his body fell silently through the darkness. He walked over to the sandal. Adam kicked off the other sandal, and it sailed down, end over end. Seth tried to catch it. It hit his hand, but he dropped it.

He picked up the sandal, and then the other sandal. He looked up at them, and they looked down. He couldn’t believe how high up they were. He hadn’t remembered climbing so much.

“Am I supposed to do something now that I’m down here?”

“Yes,” said someone.

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