A young, long-haired conductor sidled up the aisle, smirking. His uniform was ill-fitting and unkempt. He tapped a more senior conductor on the shoulder.
“Get a load of this, old-timer,” said the younger man. “It’s a train schedule from 1931!”
The older conductor, his uniform neatly pressed and immaculate, turned around, annoyed; the rookie was continually pestering him with observations on the peculiarities of passenger rail travel. With a ticket puncher in one hand, he unfolded the brittle, yellowed brochure.
“Where’d you get this? I haven’t seen one of these since I was your age.”
The younger conductor thumbed toward the front of the car. “See that Midwestern rube in the green suit? The one taking up two seats? He says he wants off at someplace called ‘Manhattan Transfer,’ and wants to make sure we don’t forget. I told him I’ve been working this part of New Jersey for over a year, an’ I ain’t never heard of no ‘Manhattan Transfer.’ So he pulls out this relic as proof! Can you believe it?”
“Manhattan Transfer?” said the old-timer, handing back the brochure. “They tore those platforms down ages ago! Ever since the whole line went electric, passengers don’t need to switch trains anymore, or swap engines. There’s nothing there now but a big rail yard in the middle of Harrison, New Jersey.”
“That’s what I told him,” said the long-haired conductor. “But he’s quite insistent! Says his ‘Ma’ told him to be sure not to miss it—to ‘cross under at Manhattan Transfer’! Serve him right if we dropped him off right where he wanted, in the middle of nowhere.”
Suddenly the young man felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and looked up at Trent, who towered over him and filled the aisle.
“May I have my train schedule back?” said Trent politely. “It belonged to my Pa, and it has a certain sentimental value for me.”
The old-timer stared wide-eyed at the giant passenger filling the aisle. The younger long-haired conductor handed the timetable back to Trent.
“Y-you say you want off at Manhattan Transfer, mister?” said the old-timer, trembling.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” said Trent.
“N-no trouble,” said the old-timer. “No trouble at all!”
The train stopped in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Harrison, New Jersey, a half-dozen or more tracks running parallel on either side. Once marshland, the expanse was fringed with forest along the horizon; no building of any kind stood there, as far as the eye could see.
The door of the car slid open.
“This is where Manhattan Transfer used to be, sir!” said the old-time conductor. “Harrison, New Jersey … that’s the stop you asked for.”
Trent leaned out of the open door, looking around and down. The ground lay several feet below the floor of the car where he stood.
“Well, this is where Ma and Pa Phloog said I absolutely needed to make my connection,” said Trent. “Cross under at Manhattan Transfer, they said.” He lifted his suitcase and took a step out of the car. “Thanks a lot, guys!”
To the amazement of the long-haired young man and the older conductor, Trent did not immediately plummet to the ground. Instead, he just stood there, hovering in space, level with the floor of the car—supported by some invisible platform.
The old-timer had a terrified look in his eyes “Well, happy landings,” he said, abruptly slamming shut the door of the car. The train quickly rumbled off.
Trent Phloog set down his suitcase down at his feet—it also hovered several feet above the ground—and looked around.
“Pa was right,” said Trent. “Architecturally, it sure ain’t much to look at.”
Trent adjusted his Megaton Man goggles. Suddenly, a utilitarian, covered platform came into view, stretching alongside the track several hundred feet in either direction. Iron girders every thirty or forty feet supported the center of the canopy overhead. A hand-painted sign hanging from the roof read, “Manhattan Transfer,” with the word “Pennsylvania,” and an arrow pointing west, below it—the direction Trent’s train had just come.
The platform was completely uninhabited; the only waiting traveler was Trent.
Across two sets of tracks was another covered platform of equal length, also uninhabited. It also had a sign that read “Manhattan Transfer,” but under it was the word, “Megatropolis” and an arrow pointing east, the direction Trent wished to continue his journey.
Trent looked at the foreboding canyon of tracks with their lethal, electrified third rails which lay between the two platforms. “Woo!” he said. “How’s a person supposed to get over there? There’s no bridge or anything. Maybe I’d have been better off staying on the same train.”
But the train that had brought Trent had already vanished in the distance.
After a while, Trent heard another train’s whistle; it was coming from the west, the direction he had come. As it neared, it became clear the approaching train was on the second track, the one that ran in front of the opposite platform.
“Oh, great!” said Trent. “I’m on the wrong platform to make my connection!” There wasn’t time to shed his civilian clothes. “I can’t fly across in a suit; somebody on the train is liable to see me—revealing my carefully guarded secret identity as Megaton Lad—I mean, Megaton Man!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Trent caught a glimmer of something racing past. It seem like a floating white ball of some kind, trailing ephemeral, many-colored shapes behind it. He turned his head to follow it just as it disappeared down a stairs in the middle of the platform.
The last words of Ma Phloog rang in his ears. “Cross under at Manhattan Transfer!”
Then Trent remembered. “The passenger tunnel under the tracks—I almost forgot! Pa said, ‘Cross under at Manhattan Transfer!’” The last words of Ma Phloog rang in his ears. “Cross under at Manhattan Transfer!”
Then Trent remembered. “The passenger tunnel under the tracks—I almost forgot!” He looked around and spotted the stairs on the platform leading down to the tunnel. “Ma said, ‘Cross under at Manhattan Transfer!’”
Trent grabbed his suitcase; if he hurried, he might have just enough time to make it to the opposite platform to catch the fast-approaching train.
Quickly descending the steps, Trent found himself in a dim passageway. Halfway down the corridor, the strange orb hovered near the ceiling, illuminating the path; it was a pure, white sphere about the size of a billiard ball, emitting weird, ephemeral shapes and abstract symbols that swirled and disappeared.
“They sure made some odd lighting fixtures back in the old days,” said Trent as he hurried under the incandescent globe, luggage in hand, toward the set of stairs that ascended again toward daylight on the opposite end of the tunnel.
Trent soon found himself on a platform identical to the one he had started from, on the other side of the separating tracks. Looking west, Trent expected to see the approaching train. By his reckoning, it should have just been slowing down to a stop in front of the platform. Instead, much to his surprise, there was no longer any train to be seen in either direction, on either track. Nor was there any sound; only silence.
“That’s weird,” said Trent. “The train couldn’t have already gone by in the few it took me to get over here.”
He checked the platform’s sign; from the opposite platform, he could have sworn it had read “Megatropolis,” with an arrow pointing east toward the city. Now, inexplicably, it read “New York.”
“That’s a funny way to spell ‘Newark,’” mused Trent. “Must be Dutch or something. Not to mention, the arrow is pointing in the wrong direction—we’ve already passed Newark. Probably some young hoodlums playing a prank.”
Once more, Trent checked the schedule his Pa had given him; Megatropolis should be the next stop. Even from the platform, Trent could already see the towering spires of the city on the horizon.
Trent fiddled again with his goggles. Suddenly, both platforms disappeared, and Trent once again was standing in mid-air, several feet above a dozen sets of railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere.
“Woo!” said Trent. “Public transportation around the Big Apple sure has deteriorated since 1931.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I’ve already been here more than nine and a half minutes,” he said. “How long am I supposed to wait for the next train?” He looked around, behind, and beyond the stranded platform. “Nothing but railroad tracks and marshland as far as the eye can see! You can’t even grab a taxi. What a tourist trap! I’m going to give Baedeker’s a piece of my mind …. I guess I have no choice but to fly the rest of the way to Megatropolis myself.”
In his Robert Mitchum suit and with suitcase in hand, Trent Phloog flew off toward the city.
Unnoticed, the strange orb emitting ephemeral shapes emerged from the passenger tunnel behind him. Briefly, it hovered over the platform. After a moment of indecision, it too fluttered off toward the city.
They had to change at Manhattan Transfer. … “It’s funny, this waiting in the wilds of New Jersey this way.”—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer (1925).Next: The Manhattan Project [Link available Friday, November 5, 2021, 10:00 AM, EDT]
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| Trent Phloog catches a train in Ann Arbor in an unused page for Megaton Man #8 (Kitchen Sink Press, February 1986). Published in Return of Megaton Man#3 (Kitchen Sink Press, September 1988). |
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