Saturday Night

[murakozi]

The group straggled out of the gates in little packs of 4 or 5 people and people got on their assigned buses. Once everyone was loaded up and accounted for, the police cars turned on their lights and we were off!

Sorta.

I live in the DC area and, though I try to avoid it, do go downtown a bit. One thing the police know how to do in DC is escort groups of vehicles through crowded and busy streets. Even with all the years the Derby has been running since the advent of the automobile, this skill is something the local and state police haven't quite mastered, or, it would seem, even bothered to try to learn. Pretty much everyone was leaving Churchill Downs at this point, but most of the streets around it were closed to through traffic. That meant that the majority of the people leaving were walking over to the University of Louisville campus where they'd parked. The convoy trundled to the parking lot exit and sat there. The cops leading the procession apparently had no clue that maybe they should stop the people from walking through there while the buses went through and just stopped. Maybe they were waiting and praying that the flood of pedestrians would end or something. By this time I'd gone long enough without food that I was no longer hungry and could feel the effects of low blood sugar and mild dehydration. Not a good combination. I found myself slipping into the upper-class mentality of many of the others on the bus, grumping to myself about how these common people were interfering in my progress and that we should just run the peasants down. It would serve them right, after all. Don't they know who we are?

Fortunately, we finally started moving and crept along at an excrutiatingly slow pace down the roads back to the train. At one point a local cop decided that some people shouldn't have to wait to cross the street and stepped in front of the 3rd bus to stop it. Being in bus #2, I didn't see this, but did get a view of the cop getting surrounded by state troopers and Men Wearing Black Suits and quickly yanked out of the way. Poor guy probably was gonna hear about that at his next performance review.



Back at the tracks we boarded the train. This time, for some reason, my father and his fiance decided we should sit at a table in the car that had an open area at the back and a pair of musicians/singers who immediately started up singing/playing assorted pop tunes. While they weren't awful, they weren't exactly A-list material. It was hard to bear in my underfed, dehydrated condition. Fortunately, our table was right next to a small bar, so my first act was to get some water. Then some more water. Then some soda to get some sugar into me. The train started off and we were on our way back to Frankfort even slower than we'd traveled in the morning. I'd gone long enough without eating and been so busy that I wasn't hungry at this point and I recognized this as a bad thing. The thought of food made me feel a little nauseous but I knew that if I didn't get anything into me, I'd be courting a potential migraine later. So I went over to the buffet car. Sadly, there was no light fare there, just very rich foods. Kinda the opposite of what I needed, but any port in a storm. I made myself eat some, along with more water.



I'll digress here with a question. When it comes to food, why does 'asparagus' = 'fancy'? Every meal and every buffet and every entree seemed to have asparagus associated with it. I'm not keen on asparagus. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either. I tend to avoid it and it makes me feel really wasteful when I get a plate of food with stuff I'm happy to eat alongside/under asparagus. In the end, the unwanted vegetable just ends up in the trash.



A minor swag event occurred. CSX people came around with trays full of little rose pins with blinky LED's in them. Then with trays full of big stupid looking rings with LED's in them. Only one of the LED's on my rose worked. They weren't actually pins, instead they were supposed to be held in place by a very small thin magnet. The magnets were also pretty weak so the things fell off a lot. Later, when it was darker in the train, the things'd be blinking frantically all over the floors and under tables.
After a bit of digestion I was feeling better. Right about that time some secret signal that I couldn't hear must've sounded that indicated it was time for people to start going to the various bars on the train and drinking. A lot. People started dancing in the open area around the performers and drinking lots of free booze. That was my cue to get up and wander back to the theater car again for some peace and quiet.



Unfortunately, a lot of others had gotten there first. All the seats were full, so I ambled forward again. Along the way I stopped at the end of one of the cars. The area where the steps are for boarding. The doors there open in an upper and lower segment like Dutch doors and the upper halves were open. While folk would walk by when going between cars, nobody really stopped here. It was really a nice spot. I could feel the wind as we went down the tracks, get some fresh air and admire the countryside. I couldn't resist sticking my head out and getting a couple pictures of the side of the train. It was really nice there. I'd found a little oasis. A refuge from the noise.

There are things I remember I liked to do when when I was really young that I didn't think people did anymore. One of those was to wave at trains as they went by. Back when they still had cabooses, my friends and I lived for the times that the guys in the caboose would wave back. It was one of those silly simple pleasures that made you happy for no reason. Turns out that people still do that in the South. I found myself waving back. At one crossing a guy and his son, who was maybe 5, were standing in front of their car waving. I waved back and the kid got excited as heck. That made me feel pretty good. I wasn't really one of the 'train people' but he didn't know that. He pointed and jumped and laughed, apparently very happy to have gotten a wave back.

One of the things I learned at all those receptions growing up is that you can't go away from the party for too long. I knew I had to go do the chitchat thing and socialize, lest I be considered an antisocial loser nerd. Actually, that's what I am, but there are appearances to keep up, especially when what I'm doing can reflect negatively on my father and his fiance, so back to our table I went.



Remember how I said that the dinner on Friday was like a little circle in Hell just for me? That was nothing compared to what came next. It had gotten dark outside and thus, darker inside the train. The CSX employees returned, this time with those flexible glowstick things you can put around your neck or stick on your head like a halo or something.

Imagine the scene on that car now. Mediocre lounge singer pop music and something like 20 drunk rich white Republicans with an average age of like 60 bouncing and dancing around while wearing blinky LED crap and glowstick halos, twitching about and thinking they're groovin like teenagers to that there rock and roll music. Now take that mental image you formed and make it 3 times as bad. Oh yes. This was a new, heretofore unheard of level in Pete's Personal Hell. I must have kicked kittens in a previous life to deserve this.

Still trying to make sure I was hydrated, I got a couple ginger ales at the bar. The bartender, recognizing my suffering, would lean over and offer me more ginger ale now and then while giving me a sympathetic look. After about 45 minutes of the Got-no-soul Train dancing and shouting small talk over the din with people passing by, I made a break for the refuge of the doorway at the end of the car. By now, it had been discovered by others and claimed as the spot to stand and smoke. Ugh. It was too dark to see anything out there anyway, so I went back to the theater car again.



Though it was dark out, there are a couple very powerful lights mounted on the back of the theater car which illuminated a large area behind the train. I lucked out and found an empty bench and half snoozed there for a bit, but soon gave my spot up when a couple came back and lamented having nowhere to sit. With both the seats on the bench taken, I went forward again. It was nice back there while it lasted though. Not as nifty as the view in the morning, but still relaxing. Many of the others there were alseep.

I made a brief stop at my oasis to stick my head out for some fresh air since the smokers had disappeared. They were back in a couple minutes though, so I fought my way past the sweaty masses of alcohol soaked flesh that were thrashing about to the music and back to the table. Things stayed pretty much the same til we finally pulled into Frankfort.



The train came to a gentle halt and people started gathering up their stuff. Everyone had to exit from the front of the train. That meant passing through a car I'd not been in before. It was set up to be a sort of dance club. High-topped bar tables with stools along one wall of a car that was otherwise totally empty. The walls, ceiling and floor were all painted black. On one wall, in the middle of the car, was a booth of sorts for a DJ. Some strobe lights and a couple tiny disco balls hung from the ceiling. On the walls, a couple big plasma screens were mounted that showed random graphics that pulsed and flashed with no relation to the beat of the music which still blasted from the speakers. I shuddered to think of what it must've been like in here compared to the goings-on back in my own car.

Reaching the front, I went down the stairs and left the Derby Train. Clouds had moved in and a little bit of rain spat down now and then as we walked in line through a gate to the parking area. On the way through the gate everyone was handed the last bit of swag: a black backpack with the Kentucky log and more swag inside consisting of a silver julep cup, a miniature of bourbon, a Makers Mark highball glass, and a couple other little things. Dad, his fiance and two others piled into the Durango. The extra folk were dropped at their hotel and the three of us went back to the apartment and promptly went to bed.


No rest for the wicked, though. My father and I had to be up early to drive to Indianapolis in the morning. Lil sis had earned her Master's Degree and the ceremonies were the next day.