TRAIN IN VAIN.(recalling riding freight trains)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 14-JUN-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

My father's agoraphobia made leaving the house a spooky and ritualistic process, ruled by mysterious tempers, but with enough drugs it sometimes happened, and we were off, the whole family, on vacation! The very drugs that loosened his nerves and made the big bad outside world navigable also made him a sloppy driver, weaving lackadaisically around the highway, and wherever we were going--California, Vancouver--would seem very far away. Invariably, our crappy car would catch fire on steep grades (my sister's job was to douse the transmission hump with water when she saw the carpet fibres smoldering), plus with the seven of us kids all piled on top of one another somebody was always carsick and ralphing in the back seat. We kept an old...

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