In the 60's the train station in Hartford was a mess of bums,
piss smell, and hot grime that stuck to my skin like warm
honey. I took the Hartford-New Haven Railroad to Grand
Central whenever I could, because I could. Fourteen, fifteen,
years old, into the city alone, do stuff, home late at night.

There had to be a reason, so there always was. I'd go to
a museum, visit my brother, drink beer at an uptown college
bar, get horny wandering 42nd St., Eighth Avenue: porn shops,
hookers, strip bars, then meet a girl I knew, make out, even do it.
I was on my own, could do anything. That's all that mattered.

It's the train ride I remember most. Greasy, seedy cars, worn
seats, ammonia over vomit bathrooms, a grayscale movie
flashing by on a gritty, streaked screen - faded two, three
family houses gone to pot, bubbling paint, dented
cars on cracked streets, rusty tracks running through a corridor

of dying industries, never a lovely scene, now frozen in eternal,
gray February, a place I was glad I didn't come from, though it was
fine to be there, another kid from anywhere, nothing to live up to,
no one on my back, on the road with Jack and Neal. I'd buy Camels,
no filter, for the trip, read Sartre, look cool in case I met that hot

Beat woman who was never there. Six of Bud for the return ride,
drink it all, smoke and piss my way along until the train pulled
into Union Station, glide through the lobby, past alkies, addicts,
whores, and older guys who hoped to give a younger one, like me,
a ride, grab the bus under the station, walk the block home from
my stop, feeling high, knowing for sure that I was a real hot shit.

An earlier version of "Round Trip" was published in Half Tones To Jubilee