3:AM Magazine

The following is excerpted from The Human War by Noah Cicero, published by Snowbooks in June 2007.

‘Little Flowers’

My dad brought me to the train station.
It’s a rainy night.
I’ve just graduated college with an English literature degree. I’ve never travelled in my life.
The farthest I’ve ever been from home was Virginia Beach.
I’m sitting in the train station in Youngstown Ohio reading. I look around the room and see a fat white trash woman eating Taco Bell. A Chinese girl and a white guy cuddling, and a lonely woman reading a romance novel. It’s a sad sight.
It’s two in the morning.
I’ve lived a stupid life. My college existence consisted of going to bars and sitting at Denny’s till sunrise. I’ve had several girlfriends for long periods, but I don’t know if I have loved any of them. I said I love you to them, but I probably just said it to get laid.

I’ve lived so many useless days. Days I can’t even remember.
The train arrives.
Everybody stands up.
We all march out to the train and get in.
It’s dark and everybody is sleeping.
A conductor takes my ticket, and I sit down.
I put my luggage up in the rack.
And lie down.
I’m nervous about this trip. I’m not one for adventure.
I’m not one to live his life to the extreme. I’m boring; I graduated in four years, what kind of normal person does that.
I’m alone.
No one is here to help me.
No one is here to keep me safe.
I have to do this all by myself.
I’ve never done anything all by myself.
I’m not a loner.
I’ve always wanted to be a loner though. I’ve always wanted to be one of those guys that do insane things, have insane adventures, and just live a really cool life.
I guess this is my chance.
I fall asleep.

I wake up in the morning.
The train is moving towards Chicago.
I look around the train looking for somebody to ask where the lounge is.
There’s an older man with a ponytail behind.
He has a stupid look on his face. But I ask anyway.
He answers, and then I go to the lounge.
I walk to the lounge and get a coffee.
I ask where the smoking section is.
The worker says there’s no smoking on this train.
I’m very pissed.
So I go to the bathroom and smoke a cigarette.
It sucks smoking in a bathroom.
I realized I’m not at home any more.
I’m afraid of that fact.
I walk back to my seat.
Drink my coffee and stare out the window.
There’s nothing out there.
Just ugly land.
I see a lonely cow in the distance.
The train arrives in Chicago. I get off the train into this huge train station. I don’t know where I am. I don’t
know where to go. My reality is hard to comprehend.
I walk out of the train station after looking for the way out for ten minutes.
I stumble down the street looking for a coffee shop.
There are none.

So I go to Starbucks.
It’s no smoking there.
I order a plain coffee and sit down with a book.
I read and sometimes look out the windows at passersby.
The coffee is too hot, and it tastes horrible.
The people of Chicago look pretentious.
They all look like poets and politicians.
I look homeless compared to them.
I finish my coffee and head back on the town.
I stop a taxi and take it to the library.
We ride around town for a little bit and he drops me off.
I walk up to the door.
And it’s closed.
The taxi is gone.
I get another taxi and go back to the train station.
I don’t know anything about Chicago.
I don’t know where to go.
I don’t feel safe just walking the streets aimlessly.
I’m afraid of missing my train.
Even though I have five more hours till I have to get on it.
I get back to the train station and eat.
I have a shitty cheeseburger.
Now I only have four more hours to go.
So I decide to get drunk.

I go to the bar and start drinking.
I drink rum and Cokes.
The world is slowly becoming a better place.
A young girl is sitting next to me.
She’s pretty. She has short blonde hair, a nose ring, and tight clothes on. So I start up conversation.
“Hi, what’s your name? I’m Arkady,” I said.
“Hi, my name’s Lucy,” she said.
“How come you’re at the train station?” I said.
“I’m going to New York.”
“Wow, that’s cool.”
“I don’t feel like flirting, let’s talk,” Lucy said.
“Talk about what?” I said.
“Your mother.”
“My mother, why?”
“I’m not interesting in boring conversation,” Lucy said.
“Okay, what do you want to know about her?”
“How did she treat you as a little kid?”
“She was at work most of the time, I never really saw her.”
“Is she vulgar?”
“Yes, very vulgar.”
“Does she fart in front of you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you spend time with her now?”
“Well, I smoke with her in the morning at the kitchen
table. We usually talk then.”
“Do you tell her about your sex life?” Lucy said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t have a mother.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why’d you want to hear about mine?”
“I like to try to imagine what it would be like to have a mother through other people’s mothers.”
“That’s weird.”
“I don’t care if it is weird. I do it, all right.”
We sit there for a minute in silence.
“Why are you going to New York?”
“To read poems at cafes. All I’ve ever wanted to do was read my poems at cafes. I don’t care what job I have, it could be the shittiest job in the world, I just want to read my poems.”
“That’s a beautiful dream.”
“You think, why are you travelling?”
“Because I just graduated college, and I want to see America.”
“America ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I don’t know, I just want to do it.”
“I guess you have a dream just like me.”
“I guess I do,” I said. “I’m going to just sit here and get drunk. That’s my plan. What’s yours?”
“I have to get on my train in fifteen minutes. I suppose I’ll see you later.”
She gets up and leaves.
I just sit here and drink.
A fat man with a beard sits next to me. He looks like a hick from somewhere out in the country.
“Hey kid,” he said.
“Yeah, what do you need?” I said in a drunken voice.
“Ever hunt for bear?”
“Nope.”
“I have, it’s fun as hell. I shot one too, and killed it. They make great burgers.”
“They do?”
“Yeah, they make great burgers.”
“I killed five bunny rabbits with a pellet gun once.”
“You did, how’d you do it?”
“I ran around the yard shooting them until they died. My neighbour paid me fifteen dollars to do it.”
“That’s cool. I should try killing a bear with a pellet gun.”
“I don’t think it would work.”
“Neither do I.”
“I used to kill birds too, one time I killed a rooster.”
“A rooster? Why’d you kill a rooster?”
“It pissed me off.”
“Yeah, my rooster pisses me off too.”

Eventually I get on the train.
I’m drunk as hell.
The train is slightly crowded.
There’s a fat woman talking about her well-adjusted grandkids.
I want her to shut up.
I talk to no one.
I’ve never been good at striking up small talk.
Actually I hate small talk.
I also hate people who talk small talk.
The lounge opens up.
They have two-dollar whiskey sours.
I run down there and buy one.
Then I go to the smoking section.
The smoking section is almost full.
There’s every race of the world in it.
Mexicans, Whites, Asians, and African American.
We’re all smoking for America.
A guy in his fifties wearing a beret covered with military pins is sitting in the corner of the smoking section. He keeps flirting with a Mexican girl who doesn’t understand English.
The girl just sits there smiling.
I’m drunk and I don’t care about anything.
I get up and walk around the car.
No one is paying attention to me.
I sit back down.

I start talking to an Asian woman next to me.
“Do you love yourself?” I said.
“No, I hate myself,” she said.
“Why do you think about yourself so often then.”
“Because I don’t care about other people.”
“Neither do I. I try to care, but I can’t,” I said.
“It’s not worth caring too much about other people. You have to just let them go.”
“I know, you can’t change anybody, you can’t make them happy, you can only piss them off.”
“People aren’t nice. I find them mean and ignorant,” she said.
“I know, they’re putrid animals.”
“Humans are goofy and retarded.”
“I don’t know about humans. I’m one of them, and I don’t know anything about them.”
“Fuck it.”
I stand up and go back to my seat. I sit there for a long time.
Years pass as I’m sitting there.
I eventually get up and go back to the lounge.
I wobble down the aisle.
I order another drink and sit at a table.
An old man sits near me.
He says, “Who are you?”
“I’m me.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No, it’s frustrating.”
“Do you suffer?”
“Of course.”
“Someday you’ll die.”
“I believe it,” I said.
“There’s no God.”
“Perhaps.”
The old man stops talking.
I drink my whiskey sour.
I’m exhausted.
I go to the smoking section for one last cigarette.
I sit down and look at all the putrid animals.
There’s a girl my age with orange dreads.
I reach out and hold her hand.
She looks at me and smiles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Noah Cicero is an American novelist, essayist, playwright, short-story writer, and poet. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and is the author of three books of fiction: The Human War, The Condemned and Burning Babies. He is also an editor for 3:AM Magazine and featured in its anthology, The Edgier Waters.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007.