Free Talk Stories by Jamaica Kincaid Page A

at all—I just look at
them and start barking like a dog. They shut up and leave the car. To myself I say, “Those two men are lucky I am not God.” The train, which is going much faster than before, seems to be the only thing alive at this early hour of the morning. I go back to my seat to try to sleep. I take a pillow from an overhead rack. The pillowcase is white, but it looks and feels exactly like Handi-Wipes. I fall asleep, and this is what wakes me up: a man going through the car saying over and over, in a singsong way, “First call for breakfast.” I like the way he says this so much that I would like to be able to push a button and have that very man appear and say those very words whenever I want. This is the first time I can actually feel myself having a good time on the train. And then I remember how much I like trains: that I like trains because they seem to be one of the more civilized ways to travel with a lot of other people; that I like to say to people, “I’m going by train,” just because of the way it sounds; and that being on a train makes me feel important, and the nice thing about this feeling of importance is that no one need ever know about it and so ruin it for me. I go off to have breakfast, and find waiting on me the two waiters who were so rude the night before. And now they are addressing me as “Ma’am” and “Miss.” For breakfast, I want to have pancakes, but when I see that they are regular-size pancakes, and not the silver-dollar size, I order French toast. The French toast arrives—three huge triangular hunks of crustless bread soaked in eggs and milk and then deep-fried. I eat it, and in a way it is the worst French toast I have ever eaten and in a way it is the best French toast I have ever eaten. It is the
worst French toast because it is just plain not good food. It is the best French toast because the time is half past seven in the morning and I am on a train that is on its way out of Buffalo and heading for New York.
    I get to New York fourteen and a half hours after boarding in Cleveland. I know that people can go to Europe and transact business and return in that span, and I think that’s very nice. But I have had a neat old time just sitting at the train window looking at snow-covered farmhouses, frozen rivers, and miles and miles of snow-covered roads as they went by. And I have enjoyed myself so much that at the end of my trip I forgive the people at Amtrak for not running the trains on time, for not having good food, for not having the nicest waiters, and for just generally not being on the ball, and the next time I go anywhere I want to go by train.
    â€” January 17, 1977

Interests
    Â 
    Â 
    We have a friend, an easily excited young woman, who from time to time likes to develop an abnormally intense interest in the most normal people and things. We have known this young woman for years now, and we have noticed that the intense-interest span is brief. We have here a list of some of the things that have interested her:
    Nu Grape soda.
    The television commercials for the Hotel Collingwood, on West Thirty-fifth Street.
    The television commercials for Lenny’s Clam Bar, a restaurant in Queens.
    Fat girls. (She said that she had heard a comedian say to an audience at the Apollo Theatre, in Harlem, “Ever notice how all fat girls think they are fine?” and that the audience, which was about seventy-five per cent fat girls, laughed and laughed.)
    Margaritas.

    Macadamia nuts.
    Ginseng Bee Secretion, a questionable tonic made in Red China.
    Circle skirts and saddle shoes.
    Tom McGuane novels.
    Ordering through the mail unusual household utensils she has seen advertised in women’s magazines (such as a set of little gadgets that are useful only when dealing with lemons).
    We got a call from this young woman the other day. She was much excited. She said, “I have just been to Macy’s. I have been