Whistle Stop
February 2020
“I’ve learned to be patient,” said Mason, sitting next to me in his prison issue gray trousers and white T-shirt.
Earlier that morning, seven inmates had been released from three area Missouri correctional institutions. Guards gave them a lift to the depot. Two parolees awaited a train to Kansas City. Five were headed home to St. Louis.
Three prison guards milled around the depot, not particularly mindful of their charges. Why should they be? The parolees were free men as of nine o’clock that morning. The guards handed each parolee a one-way ticket and a box of belongings and waited around to ensure the parolees boarded their trains and left town.
Mason was going home after successfully completing substance abuse treatment at Fulton Diagnostic Center.
My grade school-aged grandsons sat beside me, not appearing to pay much attention. This was their first train trip. I had brought them here to experience a ride on a mode of transportation that dangles on life support. The younger grandson asked why we didn’t just drive to St. Louis. At seven years old he was too practical for nostalgia or history or anything rail related.
“You will love trains,” I predicted.
The interlude with newly-released inmates was a bonus experience.
“How long were you in?” I asked Mason.
“Five months.”
“Got work?”
“Yes sir. Post-Dispatch.”
“I applied there once. They rejected me,” I told him, thinking in some perverse logic that he’d feel better knowing that. He smiled.
Bad news. The train was running even later, an hour away. It didn’t faze the group of new parolees. “The air smells fresh,” Mason told me.
Six parolees still wore prison garb. The seventh wore brand new clothes. Joe looked crisp in his bright striped shirt, stuffed into blue jeans that shone, and Easter-white sneakers. “I’ve waited 12 and a half years for this day,” he beamed. His family would pick him up at Union Station in St. Louis.
Stacked near the tracks were six cardboard boxes and two brown paper bags, all hand-marked with last names and six-digit numbers. One box was marked “TV.” Those boxes and bags represented the entire belongings of seven men on their first day of freedom.
Mason said he didn’t want to cause any more trouble for his family. His father, a retired auto worker at the General Motors plant, would pick him up in downtown St. Louis. And soon he would see his two children. He was proud of his kids.
“They like jazz,” he told me. “Miles Davis. Coltrane. Learned to like it from their grandpa. I don’t know much about jazz, but they do. My daughter told me she went to a haunted house. She said it was hideous. Hideous. My eight-year-old used a word I never did. They got better schools than I had.”
As the train approached the station, I wished Mason well. We boarded separate ends of the same coach. As we waited to climb onto the car, my oldest grandson asked about the man I had been talking to. I told him.
At Kirkwood we left the parolees sitting on the train. In less than an hour, they’d be dumped onto the streets of St. Louis. I hoped they were ready.
Visit JohnDrakeRobinson.com to read more about John’s travels.