Montauk Train # 10
8:18 out of Jamaica
EMD diesel hauling passengers
East
All the way east
To the last stop
Montauk___
Last day of autumn
December 20
Gray morning
Almost winter
34 degrees outside
Comfortable on the train
Another two hours to Montauk
Passing through the Long Island suburbs
Small houses
From the 50s and 60s
For the parents of baby boomers
Fleeing the city
The small apartments
The dirty streets
The others___
Safe clean and space to breathe
Beaches only minutes away
Living the American dream__
Still looks that way
From the 8:18 to Montauk
No one on the streets
Only cars
One deer by a pond
No other sign of life___
I know this life
Suburbs of the South Shore
In the Blue Hills
South of Boston
These houses
So familiar
Even after leaving the suburbs in 1976__
The East Village, London, Paris, Hamburg, Yucatan, LA, Bali, Thailand so many remote places
Far from the suburbs
But not today
Passing empty baseball fields
Still inlets
Strip malls
And a single man
Rummaging through the trash
Behind a convenience store
The suburbs
Just outside the window
Family house, Christmas decorations, empty Street, bare trees, more marshes now
Soon out of the suburbs
On the 8:18 to Montauk__
On the 8:18 to Montauk
Eastward bound__