The Outer Loop

“Wha-. Hell,” he groaned.

A nausea inducing ache unsettled every joint. He winced as he touched the golf-ball-size knot on the back of his head; he was shivering…shivering with such intense chills he felt his heart might explode.

Why was he shivering?

It is definitely not cold in here.

No, he was likely suffering concussion. He knew—why did he know this—a concussion can cause disruption of the body’s ability to control its core temperature.

A sudden flash of heat began to dispel his chills. A small mercy…quickly becoming an unwelcomed mercy.

It’s stifling.

This heat was nearly suffocating. But this was no tightly sealed and insulated room. Gusts of hot air oppressed him from all directions—seeming to come through seams in the walls. This must be how it would feel to be trapped in a convection oven. That was how he had described Phoenix in mid-August.

Was he still in Phoenix? That one conference room where he had lectured on…something important…had been so hot. This was no conference room.

He needed to cool off soon or he might die of heat stroke. He should undress. No, he was already naked. Completely naked. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb…” What was the rest of it?

He lay on the floor wishing he had water.

What was that noise? Steady thumping like a heart; his heart pounding in his ears?

No, it came from outside.

The nausea grew worse. A sudden awareness of the feeling of the whole room rocking back and forth, back and forth, startled him.

He was queasy but not light-headed. His senses had all sharpened and intensified. This wasn’t a heat stroke; it was motion sickness.

“A train?!”

The thought was practically audible, and his relief that his sickness may not be the start of heat stroke and death from dehydration…that he might make it after all…made him a bit giddy.

He sat up…too quickly. A wobbly spinning motion complicated the regular rocking. He vomited or would have but had nothing on his stomach. The dry heaves redoubled the pounding headache and quelled his hopes. Still, he managed to roll over and get up onto his hands and knees and start crawling.

There was a door up ahead with a small window in it. That window was the sole source of light for this train car. He paused his grueling crawl so he could rest a moment but stayed on his hands and knees in-spite-of the sharp pain that his position added to his aching joints. He dared not lay down again in fear that he would never get up. The darkness, the constant thumping, the heat, his sense of desperation all worked upon his clouded imagination to call up a scrap from an old story, something from his middle school years:

"We cannot get out. We cannot get out…hope is fading now...we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep…They are coming."

“No. Keep moving. Be positive. It won’t end here and now,” he encouraged himself. The sound of his voice, faint and raspy, seemed loud in comparison to the muffled thumping sound of the train. The monotony of the thumping began to wear on his mind. He had to regain his composure; he couldn’t move any further yet.

Sickness pressed in on him again, bringing with it once more the fear that he was going to die coupled with a ridiculously and shallow thought: “This is embarrassing. I’m going to be found dead, naked, on a train like some drug addict hobo.

“Do something. Where are you?” Those thoughts pulled him from the dangerous brink of panic. He looked around; there were a few suitcases. This must be the baggage car, though it seemed more like a box car.

He looked to the left. There was a small case not too far from him that looked familiar. Was it his? It didn’t matter at this point. He inched toward the case. He couldn’t make the door in his current state. Maybe there’s a bottle of water. “What I wouldn’t give for just a drop of water on my tongue.”

The case was in reach now, but locked. Before he had time to think about not knowing the combination, he dialed in the four digits, 6-5-1-6, on the four-dial lock for each latch. It opened.

The contents of the case were mostly disappointing—three books by Dr. Tony Stevens:

Love Yourself First: A Physician’s Guide to Self-Care

Biological Facts in Fiction: A Medical Examination of Literary Classics

Unlikely Hero: Lessons in Greatness from the Devil in Blake, Goethe, and Hugo

He rolled onto his back grasping the only other thing in the case. Incapable of laughter or tears, he simply stared, contemplating the irony of finding a bottle of bourbon when what he needed was water. In his current state of dehydration, the alcohol would likely finish him off.

Defeated, he lay in a fetal position coddling the bottle and considering for a few moments whether he should drink it and die. Then, out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement of shadows outside the window. His throat and mouth were too parched to call for help. He did the only thing he could to save himself. Holding the bourbon bottle by its neck, he used all the strength he could gather to throw it towards the door. It didn’t go far, and the crash wasn’t as loud as he had hoped, but it appeared to be loud enough.

For what seemed like an eternity someone fiddled with the latch. Finally, the door opened and a squat, pale man who appeared to be in his mid-50’s stepped inside. He was wearing a uniform, a rather vintage looking Conductor’s uniform.

The Conductor looked his direction. He was smiling; it was an annoyingly inappropriate expression considering the circumstances. Was that a pasted-on smile born of habit or the instinctive reaction of sadist witnessing his suffering? For one terrifying moment he thought the latter. The Conductor disappeared back outside the door. The naked man lay motionless; he involuntarily held his breath.

He gasped with relief and almost burst into tears when the Conductor re-entered the baggage car carrying a blanket. Soon he found himself wrapped in the blanket being half carried through the door.

The passage between the cars seemed oddly precarious for a passenger train. It wasn’t enclosed. The box car had a small, railed platform outside the door. There was a gap to step across from that platform to the next. The coupling was visible as were the heavy, clinking chains that secured the connection. From here the noise of the train was louder and higher pitched. It was less of a thump, thump and more like a clack, clack…like roller skates on a sidewalk. It was incredibly hot outside, and the ground speeding beneath the train looked sandy.

“Mind the gap,” the conductor shouted as he helped him across. The rear of the next car had a small, railed platform the full width of the car and sticking out about three feet from the rear wall where one could safely stand or even sit. It was more welcoming than the smaller platform they had crossed from.

“Lucky for me you stepped out when you did.” His voice was barely a whisper. His mouth was parched. His throat was burning. He was seated in a chair in a small room across a narrow table from the Conductor.

Once they had entered the train, the Conductor had ushered him through a door to the immediate right. They were now sitting inside a rather cramped room with two seats near the wall across a small table from each other. There was a bunk overhead. To the right when facing the front of the train was a window. On the forward wall of this small cabin just left of the entry door was a small sink, and behind the rear-facing chair in which the conductor sat was a shelf and cabinet.

They hadn’t spoken upon first entering the room. The conductor had motioned him into the chair and then began to set about looking busy at his “desk.”

As for the naked man, he was thankful for the blanket, though it itched at him, because the chair was bare plastic. For a few moments he busied himself with three curiosities in the room. A narrow shelf ran around the entire perimeter of the cabin, 10 inches from the ceiling; on it ran a small toy train round and round the room without stopping. Beneath that shelf over the door ran the words, “What comes around, goes around.” He had liked trains as a child, like most children. His current situation made them less amusing to him. He turned his attention to the shelf behind the Conductor. It held a rather small library including Goethe’s Faust, Heart of Darkness, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Waiting for Godot, along with two small poetry anthologies: Selections from William Blake, and T. S. Eliot’s Poetry Prior to 1927. He had always thought Eliot’s earlier poetry better.

Finally, he noticed a piece of art in a frame to the right of the books—William Blake’s “Fall of Satan” painting with lines from a poem beneath it. He had never realized how much that work resembled the diagram of a birth canal headed towards a vaginal opening…as if Satan was being born into the world below. Or had he realized it? The accompanying text for this oddly chosen piece of art was from Hugo’s poem, “And There was Night.” He read what seemed to be familiar lines to himself:

“The fall of the damned one began once again.—Terrible,

Somber, and pierced with holes luminous as a sieve,

The sky full of suns withdrew, brightness

Trembled, and in the night the great fallen one,

Naked, sinister, and pulled by the weight of his crime,

Fell, and his head wedging the abyss apart.

Lower! Lower, and still lower!”

It was an odd decoration to say the least, like an inversion of those inspirational posters women hang up in their cubicles. Maybe the Conductor has a dark sense of humor.

He was called back into the moment by the Conductor clearing his throat. He assumed it was to get his attention, but nothing had changed. His host, or captor, still shuffled through papers. He sat longer, uncertain how long he had been here. Finally, he became uncomfortable with the fidgety silence and tried to make small talk with the claim about being lucky.

In response to the broken silence, the conductor stopped his work and pulled a cup from inside the cabinet, filled it with water from the sink and set it on the table for the presumed stow-away. “What was that?” he asked, looking attentively with that pasted-on insipid smile.

He leaned in close. “Come on, lean closer, comrade. My ears aren’t getting any younger and you still seem to be suffering from your ordeal, at least so far as it affects your voice. Drink some water, but not too fast. I don’t need you puking all over my room. Now then, not too fast. Lean closer like Mr. Eliot’s Hollow men.” He pointed with the upraising of his chin to the shelf behind him and began to recite:

“Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass”

The naked man guzzled all that was in the cup and motioned for more. Stomach be damned. After a second cup he sat up and forced his words out as if he were shouting, but it still reached little more than a whisper. “Lucky…that you happened to be out on the platform. I guess you heard me break that bottle of bourbon.”

The Conductor nearly laughed. “Heard? You were on that platform with me just a bit ago. Do you really think I heard anything from the baggage car? I happened to be making a normal check over the whole train. If there was any luck, it was bad luck. If I’d a gotten there sooner, you might would have saved your bourbon. If it was expensive bourbon, it might have come in handy. I’m assuming you have no train ticket given your current lack of, well, pockets.”

“Ticket? No. To be honest I am not sure what train this is or where we are headed or how I got here.”

“No worries,” said the conductor with his unsettling grin, “I’ve checked all the other passengers currently on board. I can check the passenger list.” He lifted a clipboard from the table. “Tell me your name; if it matches a name on the list that nobody’s claimed with a ticket, we’ll let it ride for now.”

“Great, thanks. I’m…” He paused. Panic grabbed his barely recovered gut. Who was he? He had a name. What was it? “I…I can’t remember. It’s this knock on the head,” he added rapidly. He looked pleadingly. “Can you just let me off at the next…when the train…” now he couldn’t think of the word, a very basic word. Anxiously grasping for any useful information, he asked, “What train is this?”

The conductor stood up. “Let me take a look at your head.” And shifting slightly to see it he followed with, “Ooh, that is nasty looking.” Then he continued in a very disconnected stream of consciousness, “This is the Outer Loop. You know your current predicament reminds me of my favorite play. One of the characters asks, ‘Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the faintest idea how to spell the word - "wife" - or "house" - because when you write it down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before...?’ I can’t remember which character, which was kinda the point. It’s from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Neither of the main two characters…”

He cut the Conductor short with as close to a shout as he could manage. “Stop. Stop. Oh, not you, I mean where does the train stop? I had lost the word, but that writer’s name brought it back. Sorry, I did not intend to be rude”

The Conductor went on, “As I said, this is the outer loop, and as we say, ‘What comes around, goes around.’ But, to finish my thought, Stoppard’s play is in part about memory and forgetting.”

Another random memory popped into his confused mind and he responded to the conductor in a rather dead tone, “I haven't forgotten - how I used to remember my own name…oh yes! …There was no question about it - people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them.’”

“Oh, I see you are familiar with the play,” the conductor said. “Anyway, we shall have to call you something. How about Ross? It isn’t a name on the list, so it shouldn’t affect our investigation into just who you are. Well, Ross, our next order of business is to find you clothes, and a job. ‘The clothes make the man,’ they say. So, what job can you do? I’ll not have a freeloader on my train”

After some discussion, the Conductor decided on bartender. Ross had never tended bar or mixed drinks, but as his new employer said, “that doesn’t really matter because the train hasn’t been restocked in quite a while. All we have to offer is soda water and cheap vodka…and the icemaker is broken.”

He pulled a small generic looking paper packet from the drawer behind him, tore it open, and poured a white powder which made a weak effort at fizzing into Ross’s water. “That should help get you back on your feet. Drink it all and then head across the hall to the empty bedroom and rest for a bit. I’ll send a steward by with your uniform when it is time to start work.”

Rest sounded wonderful but did not come easily. The bed was too small. He still had no clothes, there were no sheets, and only the original blanket he had been given. It had covered him only slightly better than a hospital gown would…an inadequate guardian for his dignity…for sleeping it was just big enough to be worse than useless. His sleep, if it was sleep, consisted of a series of dozings. It seemed to drag on forever but had not nearly been enough when the steward banged on his door and handed him his uniform.

Shortly thereafter he found himself dressed in ill-fitting clothes and tending bar at The Prickly Pear. This was an unusual version of a dining car. The bar ran about fifteen feet long down the center of the car. It consisted of two narrow bars to either side of a rather cramped space where Ross stood to serve customers. There was enough room to either side for passengers to walk past or stop and order. It was poorly designed, and to make it worse for Ross, there was a sign hanging from the ceiling in the center with the name and a picture of a prickly pear plant; it was the perfect height for him to keep bumping his head as he walked past. And there was nowhere in his tight space imprisoned by the two bars where he could sit comfortably. Not that he had much chance to sit.

On his walk to the bar, he'd seen very few passengers. This was a surprisingly long train. He didn’t remember much of what he passed except one familiar looking man who was on the phone, blocking the doorway. He was well dressed in what was clearly and expensive suit and had meticulously kempt grey hair and somewhat squinty eyes, perhaps the product of his present rage. From this end of the conversation, it was clear that some underpaid customer service representative was being berated and castigated in a barrage of foul language. When the call was done, he had the frustrated look of a man who wanted to slam his phone down in violent protest but had to be content with swiping the call away before moving out of the way.

Once at the bar there was never a significant enough pause between drink orders for him to take a break. Most of the orders were carried off by attendants. Those three people at the table near the front of the car kept him busy too. There was a middle-aged woman who clearly worked hard to keep up the appearance of a glamorous beauty. She kept getting up to get drinks for…yes, it was that familiar looking man from earlier in the passageway…when had he come in? The third person at the table was a younger man who seemed riveted by everything the older man said.

They were talking rather loudly. The older man was saying how the trip from Phoenix to Flagstaff was like a journey from hell to heaven. Ross turned quickly and sent the prickly pear wobbling again. Rubbing his head, he approached the party.

“Excuse me.”

“No thank you,” the older man said, “we don’t need anything at present.”

“Sorry, that isn’t why I interrupted you. I just…”

“Oh, you must be a fan too. Were you at the conference? See me later and I can get you a signed copy of my latest book. For now please leave me to enjoy the company of my friends here.”

All three postured themselves to ignore him. He went back to the bar rather dejected. Was this a train from Phoenix to Flagstaff?

He had no clue how long he'd been working or how long he was supposed to work. On the wall of each end of the car, just above the doors, were identical clocks, but they both perpetually read five o’clock.

He had harbored a certain bitterness at what he perceived as smugness in the Conductor, but now that was the one person he wanted to see. None of the other attendants paid him the least attention aside from their use of him as bar tender. By the time the Conductor came around, his feet and head ached, especially his forehead just over the right eye because of that stupid prickly pear.

“There you are. Can I get a break? Where is the restroom?”

The Conductor looked at him with that damned smile again. “Oh, sure. The staff bathroom is in the back of the train near our rooms. I’ll watch the bar for you.” Then with a slightly severe look he questioned, “You haven’t been sneaking the vodka, have you?”

“I’ve drunk nothing but your flat seltzer,” he called over his shoulder as he left.

He was in a hurry and frustrated, noticing several bathrooms that he had to walk past to get to the designated one. As he opened the next door he bumped into someone.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry,” he said.

The man made indistinguishable sounds of frustration. Ross looked at his shirt and realized he had caused him to spill his drink.

“You idiot,” the man said, “watch where you're going.”

Ross apologized once more and looked at the other man’s face. It was the older man from the party…that familiar looking man. As he sped on to the bathroom, he thought to himself, I guess he won’t be giving me that book. Then, “How did he get back here?”

He turned to look back. The man was gone.

On the walk back he stewed over what he was going to tell the Conductor. He was about to start in with a barrage of questions and expletives and demands when the party of three at the table caught his eye. He stopped short. “When did he get back?” he asked, meaning the older familiar fellow.

“They’ve all been here the whole time.”

“Then he has a twin aboard.”

“It’s possible.”

“Who is he?”

“Dr. Tony Stevens. I think that was his bourbon you ruined,” replied the conductor.

“Well, I ruined his twin’s shirt.”

The voices of the three friends rose again. It seemed that Dr. Stevens was getting tipsy. His lady friend had stood up, and he popped her on the butt. She looked a little shocked, though perhaps it was feigned, and said, “Tony! Not here,” then softened her glare to a smile and mouthed at him so the young man couldn’t see—though Ross could, “My room, half an hour.” Then she added aloud, “Well, it is getting late, boys. A lady needs her beauty rest.” She left the car. She was the consummate flirt.

“Who is that lady?” asked Ross.

The conductor maintained his usual expression and said with no emotion…neither with humor nor revulsion but as if he were merely saying I think it is going to rain today… “She’s no lady, she’s a whore.” Then as if to answer any unasked questions he added, “Stevens doesn’t know that…yet. I’ve seen it all before.”

‘Tony,’ thrilled with his apparent conquest, was bragging to his younger compatriot about that being the type of woman he liked. “None of that 'me too' crap about her.” Then he told a story of how the “me too” movement nearly ruined him but finally made him what he was today, in all his glory. He had been a gynecologist, “that’s a woman’s doctor, you know.” He seemed uncertain of his new friend’s level of initiation. “Anyway, I made one thoughtless joke to a nurse after completing an exam of rather large woman, and…”

Ross turned away and hit his head again. “Damn it! That stupid sign. Who put this thing here anyway?”

“Well, I did,” said the Conductor, “but it wasn’t my decision. This train is the life work and culmination of all the ambitions of the good doctor over there.”

“What a jerk. I’m no lost, violent soul, but I think I could kill him.”

“You’re not the only one to feel that way, but I wouldn’t advise it. It’d be suicidal to try. Anyway, can’t fantasize about it now; you're back, and I have my own job.”

“Before you go. They mentioned…is this a train from Phoenix to Flagstaff?”

The Conductor hesitated.

Dr. Stevens spilled his drink.

The Conductor pointed. “It looks like we need a clean-up. There's a mop in a closet in the next car. Grab it. I’ll wait here.”

Ross left the prickly pear to the sound of the laughter of Stevens and his friend.

The closet with the mop was at the far end of the next car. There was a man standing there with the door open. What was he staring at?

Wait, he wasn’t staring, he was urinating in the closet, evidently drunk.

“Stop, sir, that's not the toilet.”

The man looked at Ross.

Ross stopped short. It was Dr. Stevens, completely drunk and peeing in the closet, the Dr. Stevens he had left in the last car.

He ran back.

There was Stevens at his table still laughing.

Ross approached the Conductor, completely shocked. “Stevens is peeing in the closet,” he said in a near dead whisper.

“Then I guess you have two messes to clean up. Don’t keep the boss waiting.”

Ross was completely flummoxed. “What is going on? How am I seeing Stevens everywhere? Why does he look so familiar?”

He was hyperventilating. “What is this train?!”

The Conductor took his arm. “Come with me. It’s time you see the engineer.” They started the long walk to the front of the train. Every so often Ross would catch a glimpse of Stevens again, enacting his pompous self-importance.

The Conductor continued to guide him along. “We’ve nearly reached the end of the line, so you might as well see the engineer. Last time you didn’t make it nearly this far.”

They passed through another doorway, and once more the Conductor started talking. Was he gloating like one of those comic book villains?

“You know what Conrad said, ‘Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.’ Except you didn’t even manage to find the regrets in life.”

Ross stopped and pulled his arm from the Conductor’s grip. “What did you mean, ‘Last time,’ and regrets in life?”

“I forgot. You’re an academic. Your class has their own form of stupidity. You're incapable of seeing realities that conflict with your theories.”

“You are dead, and in hell. You're on the outer loop. Now we're at the end of the line.”

“So, the destination is hell?”

“No, you misunderstand. Now I prefer Goethe to Marlowe, but let me quote Marlowe’s Mephistopheles, ‘This is Hell.’ Come on,” he almost growled, “seeing the engineer will clarify things.”

They walked through a few more train cars. End of the line or not, there was no sign of the motion of the train slowing.

The Conductor began again. “You remember what Guildenstern said, ‘All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.’”

He let go of Ross’s arm several feet from the next door then walked up to it and grabbed the handle of the window shade on the door. “Get ready to be ambushed by your grotesque.”

He slid the shade to one side and revealed a mirror. Ross realized that he had not seen a mirror anywhere else in the entire train.

“Come,” beckoned his tormentor, “see the engineer.”

Ross stepped up and met the face of Dr. Tony Stephens in the mirror.

“Meet the incredible Dr. Stevens. Physician. Literary scholar. Polymath. Writer.”

He paused.

“And a narcissist.”

He opened the door and pushed the Dr. through into the original baggage car.

Stevens couldn’t take it all in. He simply stared.

It was hot.

He continued, “Your whole life you did exactly what you wanted. You were always self-serving. So, you've been given precisely what you've always asked for…the opportunity to serve yourself. It's the end of the line, and the beginning. It's a loop after all. What comes around, goes around. Better luck next time.”

He stepped in behind Stevens who was still bolted to the floor with fear.

“You know, Eliot didn’t get it exactly right. This is the way the world ends. With the sound of a thump and a whimper."

With that he raised a club and hit Stevens on the back of the head.

Stevens crumpled to the floor with a groan.

All was dark.

“Wha-. Hell,” he groaned.

A nausea inducing ache unsettled every joint. He winced as he touched the golf-ball-size knot on the back of his head; he was shivering…