Walker's Wheelhouse

Click here to read the latest edition in my incredibly helpful How To column for McSweeney’s! This is How to Ride a Train. 

Wheelhouse extra: I recently moved to Los Angeles from New York. My mom lives in Hartford, CT, where I grew up, so I used to take Amtrak to Hartford at least twice a month to visit her. Bless Amtrak, I’m glad it exists, otherwise I would have had to do something stupid like buy a car. (Sidenote: I just bought a car, the EXACT make and model of my high school car. A gray 1989 Volvo 240. I also had an anxiety dream about a high school math test last night. Unrelated, I’m sure.) But my God, that train was hit or miss. The Vermonter was usually an hour late, which meant that I would have to hang out in Penn Station, which was just, what’s the word? Gross. Maybe that’s a bit unfair. It’s relatively clean, I guess, and everyone who works there is perfectly nice. And they have two, two Hudson books. Also Penn Station Sushi, which I assume is there as some sort of test, and if you buy sushi from there you are immediately arrested. I did grow to like it, or tolerate it rather, more over the years. I think that happened specifically once I realized that they serve beer in to-go cups, which I didn’t really take advantage of so much as appreciate because it seemed European, like, they (the Port Authority, I guess?) were respecting us as adults by giving us the option to drink beer out of a sippy cup if we so desired. 

Anyway, this piece is basically autobiographical, much like my How To Be A Bullfighter piece.