Tuesday, 30 September 1997

On the Train – Cumberland, MD

Now on the 2nd train of my trip – the “Capitol Limited” – it’s another big “Superliner” train, but I had to sit next to someone, so less room to sleep. Cumberland looks like a nice town from the train. I’m always attracted to these old, brick, small towns where the church steeples are the tallest structures. It makes you think about how arrogant and un-Godlike it is to build skyscrapers. It’s like just coming out and saying, “Business and money is more important than God.” You would think the Christians would have put up a good fight—maybe they did—but I guess they got rolled over on that one. Now it’s to the point that when someone builds a skyscraper, Christians don’t even twinge. Hell, they’re the ones building them!

I imagine living in Cumberland—it’s easy to imagine living places you see from the train, and most likely everything you think is wrong. It looks like a place where I could get around without a car pretty well—live and work downtown. Could I find a job—maybe at a department store? Are there any department stores left? I bet there’s some good breakfast places, somewhere I could find a bearable job, and a cheap place to live, above a store or something. Not cheap enough, but with some distinguishing aspect like a good window or a large bathtub or a skylight.

I guess I could go to anywhere in the country on the Amtrak train since it stops here. Three hours to DC, 15 to Chicago—I could get anywhere in the country I wanted to go without flying or even getting in a car. I guess the first big drawback I can think of about living in a place like Cumberland is no movies. Not the ones I want to see. Jim Carrey, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford. Then start the cycle over. “We show four kinds of movies here—Jim Carrey...” That is always the big thing—movies—that decides where I can and can’t live. I’m sure other small factors—such as people—could possibly come into play, but we needn’t ever even think that far.

Somehow things like skyscrapers never bother me in New York, but I guess in general, New York is a place where very few rules hold true. It seems like it could be the one place I move back to. Plenty of reasons not to, but plenty of reasons TO. It’s the city of plenty. The fact that it’s hard to despise an enormous shrine to an automobile like the Chrysler Building is a good example of the contradictions of NYC. It’s a Godless place, but then it’s not either. Not that I care one way or another about a place being Godless or not, it’s just that New York can be so many things at once.

Chicago, however, never should try to compete with New York—they should never have built anything taller than a church, and just let it be a rambling, dense, old-fashioned brick metropolis. Skyscrapers don’t have anything to do with wise use of space and density—not when so much space on the ground goes dilapidated and unused within such a short distance to the skyscraper. Skyscrapers are about power, only, and that’s it. In Chicago they built a skyscraper church—an interesting though misguided idea. Would it be something God would approve of? And anyway, it’s still lorded over by the cheesy, ugly Sears Tower.

The train got into Chicago just around after work rush hour—especially for offices downtown—5 PM on a Monday. No worse time can you imagine to step into the hub of downtown—people leaving their offices with lifeless faces of death. They’re like zombies, but never have you seen zombies, or people, move so fast. From the elevator to the revolving door to the choice of transit—single-minded, every day, it’s the most horrible sight I’ve ever seen. And those are the good jobs! Certainly it’s better to work downtown than in some horrible office park somewhere, but I guess the commute is the thing that makes either one what they are. It looks like Chicago is putting in high-priced downtown residences like every other city, but still, this would be no place to live. I walked around looking for the old-time, slightly run-down restaurant I ate in before, but I can’t find it. I don’t know if it’s gone, but I see nothing but fast-food places and expensive restaurants—nothing in between. I’m sure if you lived or worked down here, you’d discover something—and I’ve known from visiting other times there are really good neighborhoods in Chicago. And almost every big city has a lifeless, cold downtown hub—but this has got to be the worst. By 6 PM the streets are empty. The only one left is me and a guy trying to ask me for money—for a bus back to his home—and he even shows me the note from his loved one. It’s as windy as any place I’ve ever been. People think that Chicago was named “The Windy City” because of its wind, but it was named that by some New Yorker making fun of Chicago’s constantly trying to compete with New York—and talking itself up. Part of that included trying to beat out New York in the skyscraper derby. So they cut down all the trees and built concrete wind tunnels on the edge of Lake Michigan. Anyone will tell you that’s a bad idea. Now, “Windy City” has a duel meaning, but they are connected.

The only other person on the street now, as it gets dark—besides me and another guy with a handful of dimes who needs 40 more cents for bus fare—is a woman who is leaning out of her car door—her “Club” firmly in place on the steering wheel—a white, middle-aged, middle-class woman—what’s she doing? Oh, she’s tying on roller blades, and now locks her car, and with a big smile she’s off down the street. Who would pick the downtown business district of Chicago just after dark to go roller blading? HER—I guess—and, oh, now it occurs to me what she’s doing. She rules Chicago.