Today, on the train going home, I took out a notebook and
pen and wrote down this line: I take a
magic train home.
It’s true. I take a magic train home. It is magic in the way
that it lulls me to sleep and fills and empties of various bodies without my
knowing. Everyday, I board at Cicero, just a few blocks away from where I work.
I sit among black bodies belonging to moms and dads and babies in strollers and
high schoolers on their way home from school. I close my eyes. I let exhaustion
take over…
Some forty or fifty minutes later, I wake to the sound of my
phone alarming me of my approaching stop. I open my eyes and, like magic, the
car has transformed. Suddenly, I am sitting among white bodies clad in business
attire, straddling travel cases and bags, bound for O’Hare.
Today, I manage to stay awake for the hour-long ride and I
watch the transformation slowly unfold. Black bodies board and leave. College-aged
bodies trickle in at the Medical District and UIC-Halstad. The car is now
segregated. Black bodies mostly on one side, non-black bodies mostly on the
other. The train chugs toward the Loop. A sudden slew of white bodies push
through. Packed like sardines. Black bodies are few. Female bodies congregate.
Male bodies do, too. Young white bodies leave at Division. More leave at Damen.
At last, those bodies still left on the train stretch legs and exhale.
In the corner is a man.
I recognize him from when we both boarded at the Cicero Blue
Line station. I realize that he is the only other person to have witnessed the
magic. Only it isn’t magic.
Chicago, there is nothing magic about segregation.
Chicago, there is nothing magic about segregation.