Easy Pass
She stretched out her arm, resting her palm on the plastic armrest of the seat across the aisle. The train heaved into motion, lights flickering, air conditioning roaring into white noised life. The two toddlers giggled as they were gently thrown into her arm blocking their path, the smaller of the two toppling into the burbling blond one. "But I have an Easy Pass!" he squeals at his guardian/tollbooth attendant. He points to his little companion steadying himself arms outstretched, concentration in his dark eyes, in the vibrating, swaying Amtrak aisle.
"He has to pay cash." Three dollars to be exact.
She goes along with the game, raising her arm only when the little boys have signified whether or not they are EasyPassing or coming up with (pretend) scrounged change from (imaginary) soda-sticky drink holders, passenger side seat crevices, from under the (invisible) gravelly floor mat or perhaps in an unused ashtray filled with coins and chipped, stale Skittles.
The kids run down the aisle after passing through the (arm) gate until the weary-eyed minder calls them back only to repeat the tollbooth game for one or two stops down the line from Boston.
The little blond boy explains that sometimes he needs to use cash too when he's taken down and hidden the EasyPass but he definitely wants to use the device when there is a long wait of like 20 cars because in that instance he knows that Cash = Long Wait.
Probably in his car seat.
By the time we reach New York both boys are asleep, splayed out in laps or on teal green seats, covered with their tollbooth minder's sweater, her hand cupping a small dark knee here, brushing away a blond strand from fluttering eyes there.
Two little boys zooming through their dreams of the Triborough Bridge and Mass Pike while rocked to sleep on the rails of mass transit.
"He has to pay cash." Three dollars to be exact.
She goes along with the game, raising her arm only when the little boys have signified whether or not they are EasyPassing or coming up with (pretend) scrounged change from (imaginary) soda-sticky drink holders, passenger side seat crevices, from under the (invisible) gravelly floor mat or perhaps in an unused ashtray filled with coins and chipped, stale Skittles.
The kids run down the aisle after passing through the (arm) gate until the weary-eyed minder calls them back only to repeat the tollbooth game for one or two stops down the line from Boston.
The little blond boy explains that sometimes he needs to use cash too when he's taken down and hidden the EasyPass but he definitely wants to use the device when there is a long wait of like 20 cars because in that instance he knows that Cash = Long Wait.
Probably in his car seat.
By the time we reach New York both boys are asleep, splayed out in laps or on teal green seats, covered with their tollbooth minder's sweater, her hand cupping a small dark knee here, brushing away a blond strand from fluttering eyes there.
Two little boys zooming through their dreams of the Triborough Bridge and Mass Pike while rocked to sleep on the rails of mass transit.
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