olbigjim

A Piedmont Porchlight Story

There are certain things a retired undertaker ought to know better than to do. One is eat leftover chicken salad that’s been sitting in the refrigerator since the previous Thursday. Another is argue theology with a Holiness preacher who’s already had three cups of coffee and half a dozen successful altar calls.

And the third, as I discovered one October morning, is go rummaging through old funeral home records without a particularly good reason.

I was guilty of the third.

I’d gone down to Magnolia Mortuary looking for a picture of the old Packard hearse. A fellow over at the Jacksonville News had asked me about it, and I remembered seeing a picture somewhere of that magnificent automobile parked in front of the mortuary with both magnolia trees in full bloom.

Naturally, I couldn’t find it. What I found instead was a railroad ticket.

And that’s where the trouble started.

⁂

The ticket was tucked inside a funeral program dated October 21, 1948. It was one of those old-fashioned cardboard tickets, about the size of a playing card, printed in faded blue ink and punched along one edge.

SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILROAD

PIEDMONT, ALABAMA

ONE WAY

DESTINATION: ATLANTA, GEORGIA

DEPARTURE: 11:47 P.M.

The passenger’s name was written across the bottom in a fine, careful hand.

Evelyn Mercer

Now, I’d been around Piedmont long enough to know most of the old families, or at least somebody who’d married into one. But Mercer didn’t ring a bell. The funeral program belonged to a woman named Ada Whitcomb, who’d died at the age of eighty-three.

There wasn’t anything remarkable about it. Scripture on the front, a list of pallbearers inside, and a picture of a woman who looked as though she’d spent most of her life being disappointed in other people’s table manners.

I turned the ticket over. On the back, in pencil, somebody had written:

If I miss the train, please tell him I waited.

Well, now. That was interesting. Not particularly alarming, mind you. Just interesting. People leave all sorts of things tucked into books and drawers. I’ve found grocery lists inside Bibles, money inside funeral programs, and once, a picture of a lady in a bathing suit concealed in the pages of a Baptist hymnal.

I never did ask whose hymnal it was. Some mysteries are best left undisturbed. But something about that ticket bothered me. For one thing, it hadn’t been punched by a conductor. For another, there was a little brown stain near the corner that looked suspiciously like dried blood.

And finally, there was the time.

Eleven forty-seven.

I’d heard that time mentioned rather recently.

⁂

I carried the ticket down to the Coffee Cup, where Hattie was standing behind the counter conducting an argument with the coffee machine. The machine appeared to be winning.

“Good mornin’, Hattie.”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether this blamed contraption decides to make coffee or elect itself governor.”

I sat down. “Got something I want you to look at.”

“If it’s another one of Curtis Pope’s jokes, I ain’t interested.”

I laid the ticket on the counter. Hattie picked it up, squinted, and reached for her glasses.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Old funeral home records.”

She turned it over. Read the writing. Then stopped. “Where’d you say you found it?”

“At the funeral home. Why?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked toward the front window. Across the street, the old railroad depot stood in the pale October sunshine.

“Hattie?”

She handed the ticket back. “You ought to show that to Mr. Dobbs.”

“Why?”

“Because he used to work at the depot. And because I ain’t the one who wants to tell you what happened that night.”

Now, I’ve always found that when somebody says they don’t want to tell you something, they’ve generally succeeded in making certain you won’t rest until you know it.

I finished my coffee. Hattie watched me leave. And just as I reached the door, she said something peculiar.

“Jim?”

“Ma’am?”

“Don’t give that ticket to anybody.”

I turned around. “Why not?”

She wiped the counter with a dishcloth that didn’t particularly need wiping. “Because somebody might try to use it.”

⁂

Mr. Dobbs was sitting on the depot bench when I arrived. He’d been retired from the railroad for more years than either of us cared to count, but he still came down most mornings, in pretty weather, to sit awhile and watch the world go by.

Some men retire from a job. Others merely stop collecting a paycheck. Mr. Dobbs belonged to the second category.

“Mornin’, Jim.”

“Mornin’.”

“Train’s late.”

I looked at the empty tracks. There hadn’t been a passenger train through that station in years.

“How late?”

“Depends which one you’re waiting for.”

I sat beside him. “Got something you might recognize.”

He took the ticket. And I watched the color drain from his face. Not all at once. Slowly. Like somebody turning down a lamp.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Found it at the funeral home.”

He stared at the name. Evelyn Mercer. Then he turned it over. Read the penciled message. And closed his eyes.

“Lord have mercy.”

“You know her?”

He nodded. “Not personally. But I remember the night.”

“What night?”

He looked toward the depot clock. The hands stood at eleven forty-seven. I hadn’t noticed that before.

“October twenty-first, nineteen forty-eight,” he said.

“What happened?”

He folded his hands over the ticket. “Train never came.”

⁂

Now, that wasn’t the answer I’d expected.

“What do you mean, never came?”

“Exactly what I said. Eleven forty-seven passenger service out of Piedmont. Supposed to take her over toward Atlanta.”

“And?”

“Train was canceled. Washout farther south. They sent word up the line, but the message didn’t reach everybody in time.”

“So, she went home?”

Mr. Dobbs shook his head. “That’s what nobody could figure out.”

He leaned forward. “Stationmaster said she arrived around eleven-thirty. Young woman, maybe twenty-five. Dark blue dress, little brown suitcase, and a hat with a feather on it.”

“Then what?”

“Sat right there.”

He pointed to the far end of the bench. “Waited.”

“For a train that wasn’t coming?”

“She didn’t know that.”

“Surely somebody told her.”

“Stationmaster said he did. Told her there wouldn’t be another train until morning.”

“And she left?”

“No.”

Mr. Dobbs looked at me. “She said she couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because somebody was meeting her.”

“Who?”

“Wouldn’t say.”

A breeze stirred the dry leaves along the platform into a slow, skittering dance. Mr. Dobbs continued.

“Stationmaster locked up a little after midnight. Said she was still sitting on the bench. He told her she couldn’t stay inside.”

“What’d she do?”

“Said she’d wait outside.”

“And in the morning?”

He looked down at the ticket. “Suitcase was still there.”

I waited. “The woman wasn’t.”

⁂

Now, people disappear for all sorts of reasons. Some leave because they’re unhappy. Some because they’re frightened. And some because they’ve discovered that the fellow they married has been keeping company with a waitress in Anniston.

I once knew a woman who disappeared for three days because her husband bought a fishing boat without asking her. She came home when he sold it.

But Evelyn Mercer hadn’t left behind a husband, so far as anybody knew. Or a forwarding address. Or any indication of where she meant to go.

“Did they search for her?” I asked.

“Everybody did. Sheriff, railroad men, half the town. Found nothing.”

“What happened to the suitcase?”

“Nobody knows. Disappeared from the station office a few days later.”

“And nobody ever heard from her again?”

Mr. Dobbs took a long breath. “Not exactly.”

I looked at him. “What does that mean?”

He pointed toward the depot clock. “Every October twenty-first, that clock stops at eleven forty-seven.”

I glanced up. “Clock’s stopped now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Been broken long?”

He shook his head. “Was running yesterday.”

⁂

I went inside the depot. The building had been cleaned up some years earlier, though it still smelled faintly of old timber, coal smoke, and the particular sort of dust that accumulates in places where people once spent a great deal of time waiting.

The ticket window was boarded over. A few old benches remained. On one wall hung a framed picture of the station staff from sometime in the 1940s. I studied it.

There were six men standing beneath the depot sign. Five wore railroad uniforms.

The sixth wore a dark gray suit.

Black tie.

Hat pulled down low.

I leaned closer.

The man’s face was partly hidden in shadow.

Now, I don’t ordinarily pay much attention to gentlemen in old pictures. Most of them look as though they’ve just been informed that the photographer charges extra for smiling.

But this fellow seemed familiar.

Not his face.

I couldn’t see enough of it.

Something about the way he stood.

One hand resting lightly on the back of a bench. The other holding what appeared to be a small folded paper. I thought about the man who’d been appearing around Piedmont lately.

At funerals.

At the depot.

In places where nobody could quite remember inviting him.

And I felt a little chill.

Not a frightening one.

More like the sensation of walking into a room and realizing somebody’s been talking about you.

⁂

I went back to Magnolia Mortuary that afternoon. The funeral program bothered me more than the ticket. Why would a railroad ticket belonging to Evelyn Mercer have been tucked inside the program for Ada Whitcomb?

I went through the old records again.

Ada Whitcomb.

Born March 2, 1865.

Died October 21, 1948.

Funeral held October 23.

Burial at Highland Cemetery.

Nothing unusual. Until I reached the handwritten notes on the back of the file.

There, in my predecessor’s careful script, was a single sentence.

Unknown young woman appeared at visitation requesting to see Mrs. Whitcomb. Had become distressed upon learning of death. Left without giving name.

I sat back.

The visitation had been held on October twenty-second.

The day after Evelyn Mercer disappeared.

Which meant somebody matching her description might have been at Magnolia Mortuary after she vanished from the depot.

I checked the next page. There was another note.

Woman returned after closing. Said Mrs. Whitcomb had promised to deliver a message.

Beneath it:

Message not found.

And below that, in different handwriting:

Ask the gentleman from the railroad.

⁂

By then, the sun had started sinking behind Dugger Mountain.

I ought to have gone home. I ought to have put the ticket back in its envelope, turned out the lights, and found something sensible to occupy my evening.

But curiosity has been responsible for more trouble in my life than whiskey, women, and poorly maintained automobiles combined.

And that’s saying something.

I took the ticket back to the depot. Mr. Dobbs had gone home. The platform was empty. The clock still read eleven forty-seven.

I sat on the bench. The same bench where Evelyn Mercer had waited seventy-eight years earlier. The evening grew quiet.

Across the street, the lights came on at the Coffee Cup. Somebody laughed inside. A car passed. Then another. And gradually, as darkness settled over Piedmont, I became aware of a sound.

Very faint.

A long way off.

A train whistle.

Now, there are few sounds in this world that can carry a man backward through the years like a railroad whistle.

It’s a lonely sound.

A hopeful sound.

The sound of somebody leaving and somebody else waiting for them to come home. But there hadn’t been a passenger train on those tracks in decades.

And this whistle was coming closer.

⁂

I stood. The platform lights flickered. The depot windows seemed to brighten. For one peculiar instant, I could have sworn I smelled coal smoke.

Then I saw her.

A young woman stood near the far end of the platform.

Dark blue dress.

Little brown suitcase.

Hat with a feather.

She was looking down the tracks.

I couldn’t see her face.

I didn’t particularly want to.

“Miss Mercer?”

She turned. And for the first time, I understood something that hadn’t occurred to me all day.

She wasn’t looking for the train.

She was looking for somebody who’d promised to meet her.

“Ma’am,” I said, holding out the ticket, “I believe this belongs to you.”

She looked at it. Then shook her head.

“No, sir.”

Her voice was soft. Almost lost beneath the approaching whistle.

“I already had my ticket.”

I stared at the one in my hand. “Then whose is this?”

She looked past me.

Toward the depot doors.

And smiled.

“His.”

⁂

I turned.

The gentleman in the dark gray suit stood beneath the depot clock.

Black tie.

Polished shoes.

Hat shading his face.

He didn’t speak.

He simply held out his hand.

I looked at the ticket.

At the name written across the bottom.

Evelyn Mercer.

Then I looked at him. “Who are you?”

He said nothing. Behind me, the train whistle sounded again. Much closer now. The young woman stepped forward.

“Please,” she whispered. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

I don’t know what possessed me to do it. Maybe it was the way she said please. Maybe it was the strange sadness in her voice. Or maybe, after spending most of my working life among the dead, I’d finally learned that some questions are better left unanswered.

I handed him the ticket.

His fingers were cold.

Not icy.

Just cold.

Like a hand that hadn’t been warmed by the sun in a very long time.

He looked at the ticket.

Then at the young woman.

And for the first time, I saw him smile.

It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

But it wasn’t cruel, either.

It was the smile of a man who’d completed a difficult errand.

He tipped his hat.

And walked toward the tracks.

The young woman followed.

⁂

The whistle sounded one last time.

Then everything went quiet.

No train.

No lights.

No coal smoke.

Just the empty depot platform and the October wind moving through the trees. I stood there for several minutes. Finally, I looked up at the clock.

The hands had moved.

Eleven forty-eight.

One minute past the pertinent hour.

I went home.

And I slept with the bedroom light on.

Something I hadn’t done since I was six years old and my cousin told me the devil lived underneath Mawmaw’s sewing machine.

⁂

The following morning, I went back to Magnolia Mortuary. The old funeral program was still on my desk. But there was something new tucked inside it.

A small piece of folded paper.

Yellowed with age.

I opened it.

In the same careful handwriting as the message on the ticket, somebody had written:

He said he’d come for me.

He never said where we were going.

I read it twice.

Then turned it over.

On the back was stamped a single word.

COLLECTED.

⁂

Now, I’ve thought about that ticket a good deal since then.

I’ve wondered who Evelyn Mercer was.

I’ve wondered why she came to Piedmont.

And I’ve wondered what sort of promise could keep a young woman waiting on a railroad platform for seventy-eight years.

But there’s one thing I’ve never been able to explain.

The following Thursday, I stopped by the depot to see Mr. Dobbs.

He was sitting on his usual bench.

“Mornin’, Jim.”

“Mornin’.”

“Train’s late.”

I sat beside him.

“Mr. Dobbs, that ticket I showed you. You said the train was canceled because of a washout.”

“Washout?” He looked at me as though I’d asked him whether the depot had ever been painted purple.

“Yes, sir. You told me yourself. Right here on this bench.”

He shook his head.

“Jim, I’ve been telling folks about that missing train for nearly eighty years. I ain’t never said a word about no washout.”

Now, I know what I heard. Mr. Dobbs had told me about that washout just the day before. I could remember every word.

But he looked so genuinely puzzled that I began to wonder which of us ought to be worried.

“Then what happened to the train?” I asked.

Mr. Dobbs was quiet for a long moment.

Finally, he said:

“Nobody knows.”

I waited.

Then he turned toward me.

“Train left Birmingham right on schedule. Forty-three passengers, six crewmen, and a conductor named Walter Bell.”

He paused.

“Never reached Piedmont.”

I looked toward the clock.

It was running.

Ticking along as though nothing in the world had ever been wrong.

“Forty-nine people,” Mr. Dobbs said softly. “And not one of ’em ever came home.”

I thought about the gentleman in the gray suit.

The folded ticket.

The young woman waiting on the platform.

And the single word written on that last piece of paper.

Collected.

“Mr. Dobbs,” I asked, “did they ever find the train?”

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he said something I’ve never forgotten.

“Jim, they found the tracks.”

He stood, brushed off his trousers, and started toward the street.

“But they never found where the train went.”

⁂

Stories from Piedmont… some of ’em even true.