In Which we Visit the Old Station

Generally, I spend my days off planning for my next days on. One Saturday evening, I looked up from my notes for the following week to find Lazarus sitting across from me, planning a trip to the old train station. Apparently, he had left a few things in the crawl space under the depot, where he had been living before he came here. This sounded more interesting my plans, so I offered to take him there. The dog needed a walk anyway.

We set out shortly before nightfall. The dog was bounding along merrily on the left and Lazarus was riding on my back, peering over my right shoulder. As we walked, Lazarus spoke quietly in my ear, telling me stories about his adventures on the Norfolk and Southern L-Line. I smiled, because it reminded me of an old Rowel Friers cartoon from Punch. 

It had been drawn with beautiful economy, and needed no captions: a sad-looking man with a small black demon on his shoulder went to see “Dr. Innermann, Psychoanalyst.” After his session, the man left with a smile on his face, while the demon, exorcised from his shoulder, rode beside him on a tiny bicycle.

The sun glowed yellow on my right and a cool breeze blew gently as we walked over the hill and out of the suburban neighborhood. Crossing the road, we turned to the left and walked alongside the old L-line track. The grass had been recently cut, and still smelled nice; rather like the hay field behind my grandparents’ old farm house. Lazarus, the black, grey, and white devil on my shoulder, told me about the P-25; about Barber, Woodleaf, Mocksville, Bixby, and Advance; and about the condemned bridge over Peters Creek.

In my younger years, when we visited my grandparents, I stayed in my father’s old room. The headboard had a shelf with a reading lamp that he had painted with a sleepy face: clearly meant for reading in bed until the small hours. Before we arrived, my grandmother would fill the shelf with books she thought I’d find interesting. Very early on, she had left The Best Cartoons from Punch (published 1952) for me, which included the Friers cartoon. That collection, along with The Best of H.T. Webster (published 1953), and Bill Mauldin’s Up Front (published 1945) left indelible marks on my young mind, and I still own all three books.

We crossed the little access road to the industrial park where the grade of the road rises to meet that of the tracks, and followed the siding that branches off the main line. The dog always barks at the birds on the power lines running behind the lumber yard here, and jerks the leash in my hand. The sun was now glowing orange over the grassy plot where the station house once stood, the dirt-and-gravel turnaround, and the shabby little building that was our destination.

I have some affection for this decrepit depot, as it reminds me of my grandparents’ chicken house. Like the chicken house, the depot no longer served its original purpose, and was filled with all manner of largely forgotten junk: crumbling equipment, old furniture, and yellowed papers. With the impetuosity of childhood, I spent hours exploring the chicken house, but with the caution of middle age, even though the sliding barn-style door is not locked, I have never climbed into the old depot.

Lazarus jumped lightly down from my back and disappeared under the crawl space as the dog’s barking roused a canine guardian in the house across the street. Soon, they were trading enthusiastic insults. When Lazarus returned, he had an old silk pocket square, several colored rocks, a spent shotgun casing full of seeds, and a battered paperback book. This last he handed to me.

“Here, boss — this might be just your thing.”

I could just make out the title in the fading light. It was Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State, by John Francis Trump (published 2017).

Lazarus looks nothing like my grandmother, but I immediately recognized the impish twinkle in his eyes.