The rattle-clack of metal wheels rolling in succession, rolling over connected sections of resounding metal track. Dopplering, the waves of noise become more insistent even as the approaching train decelerates. A sudden scream of brakes resonates, reverberating deeply upon expectant nerves. Then momentary relative quiet as the inert train exchanges passengers with the wooden platform. A reluctant click resumes motion and as the brakes screeching release, the El train rattle-clacks south towards the Loop-trailing electric sparks that live and die in instantaneous crisp-hiss-pops. It all begins to happen again-it’s as if the trains are really just a series of itinerant echoes. This time from the other direction; the train emerges from the Loop, northbound. When it stops I step aboard and become a passenger. I choose a bench seat along a window, sit facing inward, settle my head back against the glass, close my eyes, and let out a deep, long sigh. Eyes open slowly and an image of delicate charm resolves. She might be the most tranquil beauty I have ever seen.
Directly adjacent to the iron skeleton of the Elevated tracks sits the home of my sister and her husband. It is an expensive home in an expensive neighborhood. There used to be the Cabrini-Green projects nearby but they’re moving those people somewhere else, laying tracks for progress. My sister and her husband invite me to dinner often. When they first moved in, our conversations’ volume would rise and fall in response to the thunder of the passing trains. Now we just stop talking when the El rumbles and resume interaction in the intervals of quiet. It is bothersome that there is no way to silence the trains.
Aboard the El I typically become obsessed with this idea, this idea that trains can be quieted. My observation of other passengers’ blank faces or of the passing city is easily diverted and I’ll begin ruminating upon theoretical acoustics. It runs through my mind like a mantra: sound-waves traveling to an observer by two different paths can cancel one another if those two path’s sound-waves are out of phase. Principle of destructive interference. It is possible for sound to cancel itself from human perception. Passing my sister’s home, I imagine conversations inside being silenced. My imagination tracks this possibility, devises systems by which noise from the El can be canceled. There must be some constructive use for the principle of destructive interference.
But there is always a counter-current. I also knew that sound-waves could be amplified if the two paths by which they traveled to an observer arrived at the ear in phase, fusing, each reinforcing the other. Aurally, this is a horrific experience. A slight insignificant sound can resound. It is the soft “ting” of flatware upon crystal that somehow becomes an explosion that rents your nerves and causes you to recoil with involuntary shivers. The visual equivalent of this intensified effect is not so unpleasant, however. On the train, beholding the tranquil beauty of the girl sleeping across the aisle, I know this to be true. She is the source of reflection for light-waves that enter me through the two paths of my eyes. The two visual paths are precisely in phase. Her beauty is magnified by this effect. I am transfixed. She sleeps, head drooping towards right shoulder. Her lightly downed arms are wrapped about an attaché on the seat to her right. Her delicate fingers intertwine in peaceful repose. Her knees are together and form the top of a triangle of firm, tanned lower legs and floor. Just her toes touch the train car’s floor. She smiles. Her sleeping face radiates a natural smile. She has no consciousness of my appreciation for her insistent beauty. I imagine she is dreaming vividly of confusing emotions the way I do when I doze off during lulls in exhausting days. One of those daydreams whose content is forgotten but whose comfort remains. I want her to sleep forever in my presence; I want her to awake so we can meet. The train of my thought is driven by desire. I want this train to never cease its resonance upon my soul.
I possess no technical expertise for engineering a system that has the capability of silencing light locomotives. But I do cultivate speculative ideas for how such a system could function. My best idea for silencing the trains is this. Devices are set up all along the underbelly of the El’s iron skeleton. These devices process the sound-waves of the traveling trains and then simultaneously re-broadcast new sound-waves that are completely out of phase with the original sound of the passing trains. With this system, the trains’ sound would travel to observers by two different and out of phase paths. If the silencing devices are placed all along the track, almost all noise produced by the trains can be processed, re-broadcast and observed, in theory, observed as a murmur as opposed to a roar. Of course there are serious obstacles confronting this project-not the least of which being exorbitant expense. A primary problem is propagation. It is difficult to gauge the motion of sound-waves in an environment with varying atmospheric conditions and shifting obstacles. And there is no way of determining the independent motion of pedestrian observers. Without conditional certainty, sound-waves cannot be processed properly-sounding silent at any given location at any given time. That, and the near-impossibility involved in denying phenomena altogether; sublimation simply diverts from perception, it doesn’t eradicate occurrence. But I try not listening to these objections; I like the elegance of the idea of silencing trains. * * *
In a few years my sister and her husband will divorce. They will attempt to annul the marriage officially through the authority of the Catholic Church that married them. They will want the train of their marriage forever silenced. Their attempt at denial will be denied.
* * *
The northbound Ravenswood train I am riding has passed Wrightwood and approaches my stop: Diversey. The train of resonant desire that I am riding tells me to remain aboard. The trains advance, nearing Diversey. I sit admiring the beauty of a sleeping girl, waiting for something to happen. A sudden scream of brakes resonates, reverberating deeply upon anxious nerves. It’s like I’m apprehending some elusive truth for the first time: she awakes. It takes eons. Her body shutters; it’s as if she is trying to stretch without moving. Her eyes blink, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. They finally adjust to the light filtering through the window behind me and remain open. Her shoulder length, sun-faded red hair now tumbles forward over her shoulders, set into action by her shifting head that rises, rising ever so delicate-slowly off of her shoulder. I’m mesmerized. Then momentary relative quiet as the inert train exchanges passengers with the wooden platform. The beauty of her sleep is not diminished by her waking. She looks confusedly right, left, remembering her locality. And then she fixes me within her soft gaze. She watches me watch her. All in our world seems static; even time hesitates. I am speechless, hypnotized by her comfort within this time and space. A reluctant click resumes motion and the brakes screechingly release. Ever so slightly I involuntarily gravitate towards her. I expect a look of disgust to resolve in place of her beautiful face. But instead she smiles an even more radiant smile. In a casual gesture that silently screams sensuality she tucks her hair with right hand behind left ear, reclines again, and drifts back into sleep. I want to say something, but the moment-like all moments once realized-has already passed. I slump back in my seat-suddenly feeling its hard discomfort, its actuality. The sensation of reality is repressed by a swelling emotion. Intangible passion, approaching love, dizzies me. For two more stops I sit and wait for it to happen again, for her to awake so that I can initiate conversation. My intentions are indescribably honorable; I possess a rapidly deepening belief that, given the opportunity, it would be possible for the two of us to understand one another completely. I do not know her name but I have experienced the warmth of her soul through that smile. Finally, at Addison I give up. I step onto the platform and turn to watch her recede. Through the window I glimpse her in profile. Her red hair caresses the curved line of her neck. The last I see of her is the upward turn of half of that remarkable smile.
I descend the stairs and turn out of the station-unable for the first time to admire the timeless charms of the old ballpark across the street with its trains of ivy unremittingly weaving tracks up the brick wall. Instead, the train of her image, her smiling visage, runs endlessly across my mind. I turn left onto Clark for the stroll home. For weeks, I will cultivate the memory of her, hoping to recognize her in my aimless ambles through city streets. Eventually, her image will dissolve from memory and all I will remember is the pleasant abstraction of her beauty. And her smile. Moments are like sparks, and Time, like trains, cannot be silenced. Somewhere off behind me a resonating El train rattle-clacks north, away from the Loop, trailing electric sparks that live and die in instantaneous crisp-hiss-pops.