Train Stop Tavern

Short Story — A mysterious inn gives a weary father a glimpse at where life could have led, had he boarded a different train.

I stepped off the train with a biting cold in my bones, and three hours to kill. A long day at work made me miss my express home, and the last train back to Arnold’s Landing required a layover in a town I’d never heard of.

The station seemed needlessly large for a destination so far out from the city: more than a dozen stretches of track snaked between half as many concrete platforms, before vanishing into the dark. Through the driving snow twinkled a handful of lights from Main Street shops within spitting distance. The silly cartoon hands on my dollar store watch — a gift from this past Father’s Day — told me the hour was relatively early.

I tread carefully down an icy staircase, walking as fast as I dared across snow-swept sidewalks toward the glowing lights of a nearby inn.

As I drew closer, I started to pick out defining features of the building. The brick structure loomed over its neighbors, sporting green-painted window frames, shutters, and awnings to match. The structure would’ve been square, had its creator not lopped off the corner to create a wall just wide enough for the weathered door.

“The Train Stop Tavern.” The image on the shingle depicted a braided rope coming unwound in the middle.

Winter’s bite crept up from the pavement through the thin soles of my shoes. Two toes already felt numb. This place seemed as good as any to take shelter.

I stepped through the door and into another century.

Stained walnut wood made up the majority of the interior, save for the blackened brick around the roaring hearth. The low, pressed tin ceiling gave the place a cozy feeling that rivaled the actual warmth of the fire.

Shaking off the cold, I crossed the room and clambered up onto one of the tall stools.

The man behind the bar looked as though he’d been at the job for quite a while. By the amount of gray hairs in his Elvis cut, I would’ve guessed his age to be somewhere between late 30’s, early 40’s. But his eyes held an inexplicable glint that made me suspect he was much, much older.

“Evening,” he said with a polite smile. “You coming in from far off?”

“I live in the next town over, but I’ve never stopped here before.” I pointed back over my shoulder, out the frosted windows. “Seems odd to have such a big station this far down the line.”

The barman shrugged. “Some people don’t realize they’re on the wrong train ‘til they’re a long ways out of the station. Lot of lines split off… then cross over again here. Gives ‘em a place to switch.”

He reached above the bar and took down a little piece of slate, hanging from a nail by a length of twine.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Topher.”

“Time’s your trip home?”

“Quarter past ten.”

Chalk clacked against the board as the barman recorded the information in angular chicken scratch. “Well Topher—” he spoke as he wrote, “—I don’t personally believe in changing trains. Suspect that’s how I got this job. Customers here, are a whole other story.”

He hung the slate above a line of liquor bottles I’d never be able to afford, and wrapped it with his knuckle.

Topher — 10:15

—>

“That’s the train I’d be getting on, if I were you. There was a good reason you punched your ticket. You’d do well to remember it. Get me?”

I didn’t. “Sure.”

He gave a wry smile. “Good lad. Get you something to drink? Eat?”

I open my thin, worn wallet and dug my fingers into the fold. Inside I found a few singles, and an IOU printed on the inside of a gum wrapper:

Needed a twenty to get pizza for the kids. I’ll make it up to you later!

—Marge, xoxo

“What will three dollars get me?”

“World’s best Rum and Coke, made with the world’s cheapest liquor.”

I laughed and slid the money across the counter. “Give me one of those.”

While he poured, my gaze wandered up the bar to a man who had been watching me with a curious gaze. He wore stained blue coveralls, with the name “Penter Painters,” stitched across the breast pocket in looping cursive. His skin was tan in spite of the deep New England winter, in sharp contrast with his pearly smile. Something about his face felt familiar, like I’d seen it a thousand times before.

The bartender set my drink on a black cocktail napkin.

“Thanks,” I said.

I raised my glass to the stranger at the end. He mirrored the gesture.

“You’re new here.” It wasn’t a question. “You a lawyer?”

“No. You need one?”

He smirked. “Only curious. What do you do for work then, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Sales.”

He whistled. “Fancy!”

“Not fancy.” I corrected. “I sell used cars.” It had been the only job short of manual labor I could find before my shotgun wedding. “How about yourself?”

“Been painting houses since high school. Keeps me outside and close to home. Boss man treats me right too. Can’t complain.”

“Good for you, man.” I meant it.

My mind wandered to my own children, already asleep in their beds. Come tomorrow morning I’d be well on my way to work before they were even awake.

I turned my body forward on the barstool. The stranger seemed to get the message, leaving me to my drink.

A distant whistle cut through the dreary night. The sound grew, along with a low rumble that shook the lamps and glasses hanging above the bar. The first of many trains thundered past the windows in a streak of light and squealing brakes.

Within a few minutes of the train’s arrival, another customer walked in. He pocketed his leather gloves, removed his charcoal gray pea coat, and hung it from a polished wooden peg beside the door.

The gentleman was pale and gaunt with piercing green eyes. Again, his complexion felt maddeningly familiar, like an old acquaintance whose name had been lost to the years.

He checked his Rolex, headed directly to the man in coveralls, and leaned over to whisper something in his ear.

The painter barked a harsh laugh in response. “No, I don’t suppose I would. Take your stub someplace else.”

The newcomer tucked something into his pocket, and shuffled over to me. He plunked himself down on the stool beside me with a huff, then snapped his fingers to summon the barman.

“I’ll take a glass of scotch. No no, not the cheap stuff. That one.” He pointed to the top shelf. “And the same for my new friend here.”

“Me?” I asked.

“Who else?”

I looked down at my drink; no more than a few drops of liquor left trapped between the ice. “I’m good, thank you. You’re pouring out of my price range.”

The barman ignored my protest, pouring a generous amount of amber liquid into two glasses.

“Put it on my tab, would you?” The stranger turned and slid one of the drinks my way. “I’m celebrating, don’t make me drink alone.”

“What are we celebrating?”

“A promotion. No—THE promotion. You’re looking at the youngest name partner in firm history.”

“Oh, that is a big deal. Congrats.” I clinked his glass, and swallowed a mouthful of the smoothest whiskey I’ve ever tasted. “I always wanted to be a lawyer,” I told the bottom of the glass.

“I know, I know right? Check it out:” he set a business card down on the bar and pushed it across to me. “Already printed off these bad boys.”

I squinted at the card, and ran my thumb over the embossed text. Christopher Woodhull, Senior Partner. “Huh. That’s a crazy coincidence.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve got the same last name.” First name too… even though I’d gone by Topher since high school.

Christopher laughed. “Buddy, we’ve got more than the same name. I’m you.” He looked me up and down. “Albeit a better dressed, higher earning version of you—ah, no offense.”

I looked down at my ratty dress shoes, whose numerous scuff marks lay hidden beneath permanent marker touch-ups. “None taken,” I mumbled. “But this is crazy. There can’t be two of me.”

“Oh, there’s a lot more than two.” Christopher leaned in, and jerked his head toward the man in coveralls. “That’s us, if we took that summer job from Chuck and never left Arnold’s Landing. And the guy behind us—no, don’t turn around, check the reflection.

I raised my eyes to the tarnished mirror behind the bar. The man slumped over his beer, clutching the stein with tattooed fingers. He sported a buzz cut, a freshly bruised cheekbone, and a nose that had been busted one time too many.

“That’s us, if we never got caught stealing from Perkins Paper back in the fourth grade. Never learned to stop. Did hard time for sticking up a liquor store.”

The familiarity finally clicked in. Every face in the bar was my own, though the years had certainly been kinder to some over others. Was I drunk? Drugged?

“How? How is this possible?”

The barman leaned in on his way to deliver a martini. “Like I said, kid: it’s a big junction. Lines that split off a long time ago, come back to cross again.”

I turned to Christopher. “So each set of tracks is what? A branching life path?”

“If it helps you to think of it that way, sure.”

I was more inclined to believe I’d passed out from sheer exhaustion, back on the train. Any minute the conductor would shake me awake. As long as the dream played out, there didn’t seem to be any harm in playing along.

“Where do you think our lines split off?” I asked.

“LSATs, if I had to guess.”

I thought back to the day the scores came in the mail, along with a stack of past-due bills. Margaret found me sitting there in the kitchen, staring a hole in that sheet of paper. She put her arms around my shoulders and pretended not to see me crying. She was already pregnant with the twins.

I started working at the car lot the following week. Just the memory had me blinking back tears.

“Finding out I failed, just broke me,” he said. “I used that hurt to double down, study hard, and pass the second time.”

“When the hell did you find the time?”

“Oh, it was a sacrifice, no denying that.” He ran his index finger around the rim of the glass. “But it got me out of debt.”

“Must be nice.”

Christopher nodded in agreement, flagged down the bartender, and bought us another round.

More trains came and went as we recounted our diverging lives. With every story he shared, envy gnawed a little harder on my heartstrings. What would it be like to sit in a comfortable office; to have plenty of money for the mortgage payment; and never have to skip a meal so there was enough food for my family?

The barman was pouring our third round when an idea came to me; a horrible, greedy, evil idea.

“I’ve been thinking about taking another run at law school, now the kids are a bit bigger,” I lied. “But I’d love to know what it’s like to actually be an attorney.”

Christian mulled this over, shifting in his stool. “Well, we could always switch for a few nights. Say—a week? You can see if the law is all its cracked up to be.”

I dug my fingernails into my palms. No fidgeting. Even tone. He couldn’t know how much I wanted this.

“What’s in it for you?” I asked.

“I get home a little earlier. See the family a bit more.” Christopher reached into his pocket and placed his ticket on the bar. “It’s as easy as taking my train home. I take yours. We get off in one another’s lives. Temporarily—of course,” he added a hasty correction. “We’ll meet back here next Friday to swap back.”

“Is that allowed? Changing trains, I mean.”

“Of course it’s allowed!” Christopher’s smooth composure slipped. I flinched at the outburst.

“No need to get excited. Hold on just a moment.”

My fingers combed past the maxed out credit cards toward my ticket, pausing at the photo I kept tucked behind my insurance card. The top had worn soft, and started to tatter, making the tops of my twin daughters’ blonde hair look even crazier.

Without thinking, I slid the picture out and clutched it by the edges like it was a crisp hundred dollar bill. My wife had taken it two summers prior, looking out the battered back door of our too-small house. Stephanie and Robbie sat beside me at the edge of our warped deck, helping shuck corn for dinner. As I traced my thumb across the crinkled paper, I swear I could smell sweet smoke coming off the charcoal grill. After dinner, the twins would chase lightning bugs through the grass. Marge and I watched, sipping powder-mix lemonade in our second-hand Adirondack chairs.

“Well?” Christopher broke the trance.

I glanced up at him, with his hand outstretched, and spotted something in him I’d learned to hide my first few years moving cars. It was the look of a salesman who knew he’d found a sucker.

“Sorry, man.” I snapped the wallet shut. “Changed my mind.”

Christopher struggled to keep his composure as his face flushed red. “Another time.” He grabbed his coat, stepped outside, and slammed the door behind him.

“Hey Maurice, one last round for me when you get the chance.”

“You got it Chris.”

It was the painter, relocating himself to the creaky stool beside me. “See the sleaze finally left.”

I scoffed. “What’s your deal with him? I saw you yelling before.”

“My deal?” Chris rolled his eyes. “He’s been coming here for damn near half a decade. There isn’t a man in here he hasn’t tried to con into taking his ticket.” He squinted at me. “Tell me you didn’t…”

“No, no.” I waived aside his concern. “Almost did. But thought better of it.

“I don’t understand what’s got him so desperate. Seems like he’s got everything figured out.”

Chris shook his head. “Few years back, he caught me at a low point. Injured on the job, couldn’t work. Thought the bank would take the house. Here he was with all that money, and none of the problems.”

“What made you say no?”

“I didn’t.” Chris raised his pint glass and took a long swig. “I feel for it. Traded. Rode all the way into his life. Then I took one look around and realized what I’d done.”

I blinked. “Wait—how did you undo it?”

“Luck.” Chris grimaced. “And a fight you wouldn’t believe. See, our trips were hours apart. I had time to buy a second round-trip ticket, come back here, and trick him into trading back.” He sipped his beer and smacked his lips. “That’s a story for another day.”

“What made you realize you made a mistake?”

“Our lives may be more different than you can imagine. But we all got one thing in common, save him.”

I remembered the note, and the woman waiting for me at home. “Margaret?”

“Bingo. There isn’t a you or me—save he, who didn’t marry her and start a family. Reliable as gravity. Ain’t that something?” He finished his beer and slid the empty glass back to Maurice. “When Christian saw that pregnancy test, he couldn’t get Marge to the clinic fast enough. Broke her heart twice.”

“Betting he regrets it, now.”

“Regret? No. He’s haunted by it.”

I thought of my ticket and picture tucked safely in my wallet. That tattered scrap of leather suddenly didn’t seem so empty.

One thing still didn’t quite click.

“Why would you come back here?” I asked. “I mean, the temptation...”

Chris held up a hand. “It’s fun to indulge and see where my life could’ve gone. But at the end of the night, it makes me grateful for what I have. Guess you could call me socially nostalgic.”

He pointed up at the slate above the bar. “You should be going. Don’t want to miss your train.”

“Thanks.” I bid Chris and the barman goodnight, and made my brisk walk back to the station.

I took shelter on a bench beneath an awning marked “platform A.” On a similar seat across the tracks, sat Christopher. A thin dusting of snow blanketed his shoulders. He balanced a cigarette on his lip, ember dancing in the gloom.

He gave me a half hearted salute.

I waived back.

Somewhere deep within the dark, a pinprick of light appeared. It grew larger by the second, flickering against the streaking snow.

“You sure I can’t tempt you?” Christian called across the gap. “Last chance for a deal!”

“Positive.”

Christian turned toward the approaching engine. “One day I’ll have it,” he said in a tone I could scarcely hear; “I’ll have something too good to turn down.” His words seemed less of a promise to me, than a justification of the Sisyphean task he shouldered.

The train clattered into the station with a blur of silver and squealing metal.

My doppelgänger was gone.

---

Thank You for Reading!

This short story is part of the Low Road collection. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss future stories and installments.

Access the full archive by upgrading to a paid subscription.

If you don’t have the money for a paid subscription, telling a friend about me is pretty cool too. Getting your words in front of eyeballs is honestly harder than doing the actual writing and editing…